I move—That the Bill be now read a third time.

This Part Appropriation is one of the occasions when hon. members on both sides of the house can bring the problems of the people to the attention of the Government and to the attention of the public. We have done that in the debates we have had so far but we have not had any satisfactory answers. We have had a strange reaction from the Government. The hon. the Minister made a major point of the fact that my hon. friend, the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) had made a mistake in one of the figures which he quoted. The hon. member for Constantia has told me that he checked these figures and he admits that he made a mistake. He quoted from the S.A. Digest of 16 October, summarizing a statement in the Quarterly Economic Review issued by the South African Reserve Bank and in error, in good faith, my hon. friend quoted the statement that the reserves held by the South African Reserve Bank, the commercial banks and the Government had declined, etc. He gave the wrong figure there because he included the reserves held by the commercial banks; he should have limited it to the Reserve Bank only. He asked me to tell the hon. Minister this and to express his appreciation of the fact that the hon. the Minister spotted this error and corrected it; he certainly does not want it to remain uncorrected on the record. But, Sir, what we resent is that the hon. the Minister made a major issue, a tremendous debating point of this, and then used that as an excuse to forget to answer the valid and relevant question put by the hon. member for Constantia. The hon. member for Constantia had referred to the fact that these reserves were declining. The Minister does not deny that they are declining. The hon. member for Constantia referred to the fact that in the economic development programme it is suggested that a fair and wise reserve to maintain would be equal to the value of five months of merchandize imports into South Africa. My hon. friend wanted to have the Minister’s reaction to that; does the hon. the Minister accept that? Can we in future regard that as being the Government’s opinion of what a fair and reasonable reserve would be in the Reserve Bank of South Africa? The Minister avoided it. He made a major debating issue of a minor point and avoided the real issue. I am sorry to say that that was typical of the answers we got from hon. members opposite. See what happened to the hon. member for Pretoria-Central (Mr. Van den Heever) who, I am sorry, is not here at the moment. The hon. member is a supporter of the Government. He represents a working man’s constituency, a salaried man’s constituency. He represents a great many workers in the industries of Pretoria and a great many public servants. The hon. member raised the evil of excessive interest rates charged by certain institutions, which charge interest on the full capital sum in a contract of loan or hire-purchase where the capital sum is reduced by regular payments, and he showed that in certain instances towards the end of the contract the borrower was paying 20% and 30% on a small short-term loan, a rate which we as a society have condemned for generations, a rate which we have prohibited in our Usury Act; but these people have found a way around it. The hon. the Minister, giving us an example of the expeditious and efficient planning of the Government, told us that he had noted this point and that he may give attention to it over the next two or three years. Sir, what an amazing statement! He may give attention in years to come to what is an evil; he may give attention to it as some vague time in the future, but he added—I must be fair—that certain restrictions to be placed upon the rate of interest which these deposit-receiving companies may pay, may lead to a reduction of the money available to these institutions advancing these usurious loans and that may reduce the evil. But, Sir, it remains an evil. Whether a thousand people are exploited or whether 2,000 people are exploited, it remains an evil and the Minister does not answer the plea and the criticism of his own member, the member for Pretoria-Central, by reducing the opportunities for people to exploit those in need. He should end the exploitation completely.

That was one example. The Minister, when he was criticized for being some 12,000% wrong in his bookkeeping last year, made an issue of the fact that that had also happened under the United Party Government, and he gave certain percentages of miscalculation by Ministers of Finance in those days, which he claimed, were more or less the same as the percentage by which he had erred. But, of course, he took an average, and that average included the years immediately after the end of the war, when the United Party produced exceptional surpluses because we had budgeted for war-time expenditure and peace overtook us in the course of the financial year.

However, I am not objecting to that; what I am objecting to is that the hon. the Minister did not take his analogy to its logical conclusion. If it were true that the United Party budgeted as badly as far as its surpluses were concerned as this Government, then he should also compare what the United Party Government did with those surpluses. Sir, it is on record that every time the United Party administration—Mr. Hofmeyr and afterwards Mr. Sturrock, and Mr. Havenga in 1948 when he admitted that he was introducing a Budget prepared by the United Party Government—had large surpluses, it gave spectacular reductions of taxation, and laid down the principle that the Government was not entitled to take from the people in any fiscal year more than it required for the due administration of the country. Why did the hon. Minister remain silent about that? Why did he not compare what he did with his gigantic surplus last year to what Mr. Hofmeyr and Mr. Sturrock and Mr. Havenga did with surpluses under a United Party Government under similar circumstances? Then the analogy would have been complete; then he would have been fairer, then he would have had a more honest argument.

The hon. the Minister has had a great deal to say about planning. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth-South (Mr. Plewman) was taken to task because he had referred to the planning by previous governments with the assistance of the Social and Economic Planning Council of those days. The Minister told us that there had never been anything like the economic development programme, anything like the planning which is now being undertaken by this Government. He said it was something new in economics. Has he never heard of the communist five-year plans? They have been doing it for generations—not very successfully. I hope the hon. the Minister will be more successful than some of the communist countries. But it has been done before; I think it has been done twice now by Nasser of Egypt, but we are asked to accept it as something new in the world. I think if the Minister had known the economic history of South Africa, he would also have recalled the planning, perhaps not such a general plan, but planning of specific aspects of our economy, undertaken by South African Governments in the past.

Not on this scale.

There was the Social and Economic Planning Council under a previous Government, a brilliant body that did magnificent work in South Africa, and I am quite sure that members of the Cabinet, even to-day, 20 years afterwards, can still derive great benefit from a study of those reports. I think the hon. the Minister of Pensions, for example, could derive a great deal of benefit from a study and specific examination of the social security services planned by the Social and Economic Planning Council in the days of the previous Government. For example, they laid down on a planned, justified basis that the means test for social pensioners in South Africa could disappear once our national income had reached—1,000,000,000 a year. Today our national income is approaching or has exceeded—I am not quite sure—about R4,000,000,000 a year, but the Cabinet has forgotten to refresh their memories on the planning undertaken by the United Party Government and the Social and Economic Planning Council and the Minister still refused to do justice to the social pensioners of South Africa and to carry out a plan to which previous governments were committed. Shortly after this Government came into power there was published in South Africa the report of a commission appointed by, I think, the late Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr, a commission which sat under the chairmanship of Dr. Francois De Villiers, a man for whom the Government apparently has as great regard as we had when we were in power. That commission inquired into the question of education and its report was published in 1948. If the Government had taken the trouble to study that report and to implement the recommendations contained in the report, they would not have had the shortage of trained and skilled technical manpower that they have to-day because this shortage was foreseen in that report and the Government was advised as to what steps to take to prevent the situation that has now arisen under this Government.

But the main argument we had from the hon. the Minister was a remarkable one, one which, if one took it to its logical conclusion, would lead to most interesting conclusions. The Minister told us that as far as the Government was concerned, they had not only foreseen the present boom—I think the words used by the Minister were “the present expansion …”

They had created it.

Yes, they had planned it. They had not only foreseen it but they had planned it. Sir, I am a credulous sort of creature; I believe the hon. the Minister, but then I ask this question: How did they plan? How is it that they planned so badly? The hon. the Minister said that the Government had planned this. If he had said that he alone had planned it, we would immediately have forgiven him a lot, but he said that the Government had planned the present expansion, from which one must conclude that he consulted other Ministers and that he got their opinions and their advice; I must assume, for example, that he consulted the Minister of Labour. He accused the hon. member for Constantia of hindsight, but surely in their foresight that planning must have included the present shortage of manpower. Or had they not foreseen it, or did they just forget about it? Surely the hon. the Minister or the Government must have consulted the Minister of Transport. Surely the Minister of Transport should have told the Government, with this tremendous foresight and ability to plan, that he would have a railway bottleneck in South Africa. While the hon. the Minister was telling us about this planning yesterday, a senior official of the Railways in the Free State was telling us about the cancellation of trains. They have planned so well for this boom that they do not have enough trains to convey the goods of the people. Planning, brilliant planning, Sir! Surely he must have consulted with the hon. the Minister, the intellectual colossus in charge of the post office in South Africa, and surely he should have been warned. They should have foreseen that our postal communications would be severely strained and reach the verge of breakdown? What sort of planning is this? Surely the hon. the Minister of Housing must have been consulted; surely he must have warned them that he did not have the homes to cope with the expansion and the increased desires, if I may quote the hon. the Prime Minister, of a prosperous people. Surely they know that there would be this rent crisis and this housing shortage. Surely they must have foreseen the utter failure of the legislation introduced by the hon. the Minister of Housing to control rents. While we all know that rents are soaring, especially for new properties, but also for older properties—we were told on Friday in reply to a question put by the hon. member for Parktown that only about 50 tenants had so far availed themselves of their right to appeal against increased rentals under that Act. The Minister has draconian powers under that Act. Why does he not do something? Surely these increased rentals must have been foreseen? If they planned these things and if they foresaw them because of the Government’s foresight, why then did they only foresee the prosperity and not the difficulties that would arise as a result of that prosperity? But, Sir, I am a credulous person; I believe that the Government did plan. I cannot disbelieve the hon. the Minister. Surely the hon. the Minister had a few discussions with the hon. the Minister of the Interior. Perhaps the hon. the Minister even had a session with himself about this foresight and this planning of the book and, Sir, he would have thought about the danger of inflation, which means a higher cost of living for people with fixed incomes. Did he not plan for that? Why do they come along now with hindsight indeed and tell people with fixed incomes that they must not be greedy, that they must not demand their share of the prosperity in South Africa.

Their wages and salaries must remain pegged.

Sir, the hon. the Minister who has recently given us a decimal coinage system and can be called the Father of the Rand must surely have some pride in that monetary unit. Surely when he planned the boom he also planned to maintain the value of the rand, his own creature, in South Africa. Did he not foresee that this type of prosperity they were planning, this sudden, unexpected economic frolic, would also lead to a gradual erosion in the value of the rand to the detriment of the ordinary people of South Africa? Was that not planned? Did the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Minister of the Interior, who is responsible for the position of the public servants and other State officials, not foresee the problems that would arise for those officials as a result of this prosperity, this inflation? Was this not planned? Was it a plan that was deliberately and reasonably embarked upon, with all the consequences foreseen, or was it something like the impulsive act of a lot of students on inter-varsity night who do something and when they wake up the next morning rue the fact that they were ever so impetuous? Where was the planning? On the Minister’s own admission where was the planning if these concomitant factors to prosperity were not foreseen by the brilliant planners? Of course, now we hear of all sorts of new plans. Having planned for prosperity they now wish to plan for stability. Is this stability that we have in South Africa to-day, with inflation becoming a real immediate danger and affecting the lives and the standards of living of hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa? Is this stability, is this what they are planning for? And look at the plans. We have been told in recent days by members of the Government that inflation will now be curbed. Sir, the horses are running all over the veld and now hundreds of stable doors suddenly have to be shut. There are three great things which the Government now proposes to do. The first is to introduce interest control. We say, “Yes. let us have this control, if it is necessary”. The other is price control, to which we say, “Yes, if it is absolutely necessary let us have price control”, and the third is income control, to which we say, “Yes, provided it is fairly and justly done and affects all the people who are having inflated incomes to-day; provided it is not directed only to people with fixed incomes, the salaried man and the wage-earner and particularly the employees for whom the State is directly responsible”. Why should they be penalized? We had the interesting spectacle of the hon. the Prime Minister a week or two ago mounting a white charger, assume the role of a knight defending the economy of South Africa against the greed, the unreasoning greed, of the salaried man and the wage-earner, when he warned us that these people must not expect their share of the prosperity which they had planned; I am paraphrasing what he said. He told them that they were better off than they had ever been before, but they had made the mistake of becoming accustomed to a higher standard of living and they wanted to maintain the higher standard of living. He ended by saying that these people did not need more, they only desired more. Very interesting, Sir! Perhaps something could have been said for the hon. the Prime Minister, if he had directed the same warning, if he had read the same homily to other sectors of the economy where tremendous profits are being made. The Prime Minister, for example, could have looked at the companies of which he is chairman, in a representative position—I am not being personal—and he would have seen that they had not done so badly in the last two years when their profits shot up by something like 30 per cent over the two years. Why did he not read the homily to the printing industry and to himself and tell them to curb their own income? Sir, what is happening in South Africa is interesting if we remember that this Government is asking the salaried man and the wage-earner to exercise restraint. What about employers?

Not only those.

There is no suggestions of a curb on the income of people other than wage-earners and salaried people. I listened with great care to the speeches made by the Ministers opposite and by the hon. the Prime Minister a few days ago. Everything they said was calculated to create the impression that the wage-earners and the salaried people of South Africa were greedy and were demanding more than their just due; that they do not want what is their just desserts, they want their desires and their desires are unreasonable. The hon. the Minister spoke at great length yesterday and said that they would not do anything to stop what he called reasonable increases, that only unreasonable increases would be stopped.

So what?

It is suggested that the wage-earners and the salaried people are the unreasonable ones, not these people whom I want to tell you about now: Sir, in the issue of 5 February 1965, of the Financial Mail, which should be compulsory reading for every member of the Cabinet, there was an interesting analysis of company profits, which we should all look at and we should look at it from the point of view of the wage-earner and of the salaried man who are being so severely criticized and warned by the Government. Sir, out of 263 companies whose June reports had appeared by the time this issue was published the profit increases over the past year had been 32.4 per cent and the previous year, in 1962-3, it had been 30 per cent, almost 70 per cent in two years. Sir, has any wage-earner, any salaried man in South Africa, made demands comparable to that advance? Have these gentlemen making this money been warned that their increased incomes are inflationary and that they are asking too much as their share of the prosperity of South Africa? No, but the wage-earner is warned, the salaried man is warned. The reports of all 345 companies which were analyzed by the Financial Mail, showed an increase of 27.8 per cent in profit for the previous year and of 30 per cent the year before. It is when you look at particular sectors of enterprise that you see how quite remarkable this boom is, but not for the salaried man and not for the wage-earner. They are told that they should not ask their share of this prosperity. Let me give a few examples, Sir. The building and allied industries increased their profits in 1963 by 34.4 per cent and in 1964 by 51 per cent odd. Let me give you another interesting example, Sir: The furniture and household appliances industries, the industries which make their money out of the salaried man and the wage-earner, out of people who are not entitled to ask for their fair share in our prosperity, increased their profits in 1964 by 72.6 per cent, and by 267 per cent in the previous year. What will the hon. the Prime Minister say to the salaried man, to the wage-earner and to the civil servant if they were to ask for an increase of 267 per cent? The hon. the Prime Minister is very much aware of the demands of the wage-earner and the salaried man but he is ignorant of the profits made by the companies of South Africa. Why is there not equality of sacrifice? Why no equal plea to other sectors of enterprise and business? Why pick on the salaried man? why pick on the wage-earner? Why pick on the civil servant? Why pick on the Post Office man? Why pick on the railway worker? Why does the hon. the Minister of Transport refuse the railwaymen who come to him and say: For Heaven’s sake pay us a basic salary which will enable us to maintain a decent standard of living without having to rely on overtime to the extent of dozens of hours per month. Days extra in the form of overtime have to be worked by these people in a week in order to keep our trains going. We heard to-day about the shortage of shunters. There are hundreds of shunters short. That means that those who are there have to work twice as hard—three times as hard. I saw engine drivers sitting outside Apex yard in Johannesburg who had been in their train for 20 hours without a break. They are paid overtime but they say: We do not want to be dependent on overtime for a decent income; we are willing to sacrifice that overtime if you would at least give us a decent basic income; give us our share of the prosperity in South Africa. And they are turned down; their request is refused.

I have a list here of sectors of enterprise and their profits but time does not permit me to read it out. Everyone shows tremendous advances. That money goes into the hands of the shareholders. It goes into the hands of thousands of people with the same income as the railwayman or the post office man; they can get the advantage of this prosperity but the people for whom the Government is directly responsible are denied what is their just due. I want to refer to something which was said so aptly and truthfully by the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) only yesterday. In many parts of the world machinery is now being created to plan an income policy for the State, to make regular adjustments in the incomes of all people according to the growth in the real national income. When you have a policy like that then you can appeal to particular sections of the community not to ask more than their fair share. But to pick upon particular sections who hardly get any share at all and then to accuse them of being greedy, of desiring more not needing it, as the Prime Minister has done, is a shame, Sir and something of which any Government in days like these should be thoroughly ashamed of itself.

The hon. the Minister tells us they have planned this prosperity. If they did, Sir, I can only say that, as far as many people are concerned, we are to-day facing a brood of folly without father bred. It has given the people an opportunity of seeing how utterly callous this Government is to the interests of the ordinary man; it has given the people an opportunity of realizing once more that we have a Government in power which believes that it will remain in power as long as it can exploit colour and that it does not matter one iota how they neglect the interests of the people. Why did we have this sudden Luxu-rama crisis about mixed audiences? Why has it happened at this moment? I shall tell you why, Sir: Because a provincial election is in the offing. The Government want to go to the voters and say: Look at us, we are keeping those people in their place—“ons hou die nie-blanke op sy plek”—we are a strong Government. They want to say that in the hope that, by creating a diversionary argument among the people on this issue, the people will forget the real issue which is that we have a Government in power which is not capable of governing South Africa in a time of prosperity.

I have just listened to the election speech of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn). It is a good thing that in a debate like this the parties are given an opportunity of comparing their policies. It is a good thing that we do that just before an election. The United Party has told us little, however, about their policy because when we discuss these matters they adopt the attitude that it is the Government’s policy which is subject to criticism and not theirs. If they would only accept that if they could submit an acceptable policy to the electorate the latter would listen to them, but what have they been doing so far? They have been submitting something to the electorate which they do not want to accept. I shall return to that in a moment. They are concerned about the extent of the prosperity we find in South Africa to-day. They would like the Government to allow large-scale inflation in South Africa. That is why they are trying to tell the wage and salary-earner that his wage or salary should be even higher.

The Government is responsible in this connection. The Government must see to it that there is no inflation. The Government is also responsible for the period of prosperity we are to-day experiencing because of the large governmental schemes it has undertaken. It is true that we are faced with the problem of a man-power shortage but we have had immigration on a large scale. The United Party cannot accuse the Government of not having made provision for more labour in the country. The truth of the matter is that the United Party is concerned about the fact that South Africa is experiencing such prosperity so shortly before an election. That was why we had to listen to such an election speech as the one the hon. member for Yeoville had just made. The United Party has developed into a grievance party. Every minor grievance anybody has, no matter who he is, is seized upon by them and they then make a mountain out of a molehill, as the hon. member for Yeoville has again done in his speech to-day. The United Party says the cost of foodstuffs is rising and they promise the consumer that he will pay less for food under the United Party regime. On the other hand they say to the farmer: The price you get is too low; we shall pay you a higher price for your products. To the salary and wage-earner they say: Your salary or wage is too low; you must get an increase. But the price of foodstuffs. which include the products of the farmer, is too high, according to them. That is how they contradict themselves, Sir. Mr. Speaker, who will take notice of the United Party? To judge from this reckless and irresponsible attitude of theirs I think they are grossly under-estimating the intelligence of the voter in the Republic of South Africa.

During the no-confidence debate the hon. the Leader of the Opposition devoted much time to drawing our attention to the communist danger in South Africa. He tried to couple that danger to the policy of the National Party, a policy which envisages the development of Bantu homelands. He alleged that it would constitute a great danger and that it would provide Communism with a breeding ground in which to flourish. They started to exploit this story of independent homelands being a danger to South Africa at a provincial election in 1959. That is not a new story; it is an old story. We know every policy of the United Party. Now they come forward with a policy of White leadership over the entire South Africa, but that too is nothing new. They have so many policies, Sir, that one cannot keep pace with them and they change those policies every day. They are very frivolous and change their policy every day. The electorate will therefore not take any notice of them. We know this leadership of the United Party only means control or supervision. And we also know that we do not think much of control or supervision in the lands of the Leader of the Opposition. We know it must ultimately lead to the supremacy of the Bantu, who is in the majority, over the entire South Africa, not only over a section of South Africa. As against that the policy of the National Party is that White supremacy will continue to be maintained in the White area. Why is the United Party afraid to get clarity on this matter? They try to create the impression that they stand for something which they do not really stand for. Before a Provincial Council election they are trying to get the electorate to believe that the United Party has undergone a change of policy, that they want to apply a policy of supremacy (baasskap) and that they are the guardians of White civilization in South Africa. In actual fact they still stand by their policy of race federation.

Mr. Speaker when we think of the way in which the United Party has acted during the past few years it is clear that they are the last people to talk about a communist danger to South Africa to-day. Reference has already been made in this debate to the support they gave Sam Kahn so that he would not be put out of this House. We need only refer to 1961 when the General Laws Amendment Bill was introduced. They were so opposed to that legislation that we had night sittings. When legislation to combat sabotage and subversive activities was introduced they were the people who opposed it under the pretence that they wanted to protect the freedom of the individual. It was none other than the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl), who is not here at the moment, who said, when reference was made to Patrick Duncan and that he was communistically inclined, that Patrick Duncan was not a communist because he grew up on his knee. Mr. Speaker, that is how the United Party fondle communism; they fondle it on their knee. Then they are the people who want to draw attention to communism in this country. They are the last people who should talk about it. It is this Government which has to shoulder the responsibility of ensuring the safety of every racial group in this country.

The United Party has claimed that they will will be able to satisfy world opinion and at a later date they said they would at least be able to satisfy the Western nations. Only they know how they are going to do that with eight Bantu representatives for the urban Bantu in this House and Black representation for the Bantu in the Bantu homelands. It is very clear that they will not satisfy world opinion unless they hand over the control to the racial group which is in the majority in this country. They rely a great deal on the support they hope to get from the West. I want to quote from an article which appeared in Die Burger of 18 March 1964. Their old London friend, Southern Africa, wrote as follows—

He is referring to the policies applied in the northern countries—

It is clear that the United Party will no longer get the support they thought they would get from overseas. What is more, the electorate of South Africa reject their policy. The United Party devotes considerable time to discussing racial issues. It is also right that we discuss them because they are very important in this country. But I want to refute the allegation they make from time to time that it is the policy of this Government which has given rise to racial tension, and which has led to countries taking action against us and being hostile towards us at UNO. The question is this: Where does this opposition to the policy of South Africa on the part of the world outside come from, particularly over the past 20 years? Why has the fight against South Africa become so violent? I want to deal briefly with the development of the Pan African movement, or Bantu nationalism, in Africa. That is really the matter I wanted to talk about. How is it that the Pan African movement, with its policy of good government is no substitute for self-government, came into existence? During the last century there was competition to colonize Africa. The countries of Europe competed with one another to acquire riches and to that end they built up large colonial riches for themselves and colonized the entire Africa. In 1885, at the Berlin conference, Africa was divided amongst these nations. In the meantime, from 1800 to 1847, no fewer than 4,500,000 Blacks from Africa, mainly from Nigeria an the Gold Coast, were sold as slaves—most of them to America. Those Negroes came in contact with the Western nations and Western civilization and developed until they constitute a race of 20,000,000 in number to-day. They came in contact with the political philosophies of America and to-day they have a great influence on the politics of the United States of America. The American Negro, therefore, has a sentimental link with the Bantu, or the Negro, here in Africa. The attitude of the United States of America towards the smaller nations of the world is largely determined by their so-called Declaration of Independence in the year 1776 in which they stated that all people were equal. It is not surprising there, in view of the Negro’s relationship with Africa, that it was a West Indian Negro lawyer, Henry Williams, who founded the Pan African movement in the year 1900 at a conference he had called at London. The main object of that conference was to get the Black people together and to get them to protest against the aggressive attitude of the White colonists in Africa. At that time the National Party was not even in existence yet but it was already at that stage they pooled their resources in protest against the aggressive attitude of the Whites in the colonies of Africa. After Williams’ death he was succeeded by a certain William du Bois who was an American Negro. In the year 1919, when our own freedom deputation, under the leadership of the late General Hertzog, went over to London in connection with the so-called right of self-determination of smaller nations, none other than du Bois himself called a Pan African conference in Paris. He pleaded for educational facilities for the Bantu of Africa. He pleaded for the Bantu to have a share in the government of the colonies with the specific object in view that those colonies would eventually become independent, that they would get self-government, under the protection of other nations, in other words, that they would enjoy international protection. After that numbers of Pan African conferences were held. During the period 1929—the depression years—up to the war they were comparatively quiet. World War II, however, created just the right atmosphere for the Pan African movement to flourish. In 1945 they again held a conference and most of to-day’s leaders were present, inter alia, Kenyatta, Banda, Dr. Nkrumah and Peter Abrahams from South Africa. They drew up a programme of action at that conference which envisaged four things, amongst others. Firstly, the political emancipation of all countries in Africa under colonial government, secondly, one-man-one-vote; thirdly, the abolition of all race discrimination; fourthly, the unification of Africa under one Black Government, on a regional basis to start with and on a federal basis later on. Since World War II the tempo of development of the Pan African movement has increased rapidly. The reason for this was, firstly, that hundreds of thousands of Black soldiers fought on the side of the West and came into contact with the Western way of life. As in the case of World War I there was great sympathy for the smaller nations and these Black States exploited that as much as they could. Thousands of Bantu were granted bursaries to attend overseas universities. Such bursaries were granted to attend universities in London, Moscow, Washington, Paris and others. There they were trained in the technique of propaganda and of handling masses. They came into contact with labour organizations and trade unions. Mr. Speaker, when they finish their studies they returned possessed by a spirit of political domination. They return, and because most over avenues are closed to them, they concentrate on politics. They believe that politics hold the key to all other things. In this connection we are reminded of Dr. Nkrumah who had a statue erected to himself at Accra on which the blasphemous words appear: Seek first the kingdom of politics and all other things will be granted unto you. All the Black states of Africa belong to the Pan-African movement. In the meantime as many of them as possible have joined the United Nations Organization because they find that a useful platform from which to advocate their objective and promote their cause. They have also concentrated on South Africa. It has become clear from court cases what an important role they have played here in South Africa, how they have tried to enlist the aid of our Bantu as well and how they have tried to incite them to take part in the struggle they were waging. They were also inspired by the communists to overthrow the Government in South Africa by force. Had the Government not taken active steps in 1961 we know there would long since have been chaos in this country. But it was precisely in 1961, when they were beginning to take very active steps, that the United Party opposed that legislation in this House with all means at their disposal. The Pan-African movement is opposed to multi-racialism; they advocate unequivocally a relentless policy of Black domination. They are not in favour of granting minority groups a share in the government; they believe in Black domination. In other words, it is far-fetched to say that this Government is responsible for the outside world encouraging hostility against South Africa. No, under the old colonial policy the position was such that Europe could solve her problems in Africa as she thought fit and handle them as she thought fit. But Europe has lost that power to-day because of circumstances created at UNO. She has had to adapt herself to those circumstances. Where every small little country makes demands, and asks for a division of the races as to who is for or against the Whites or non-Whites, the great nations are forced to split up into groups and take sides. The unique position the Black African states occupy in the ideological struggle between the West and the Communist bloc has given them extraordinary powers to-day. After World War II the African leaders started to take the initiative in world politics and the balance of power was shifted from Europe to America and Russia. The contacts Black soldiers made during the war and the experience they gained were to a large extent responsible for their developing new aspirations and for their agitating to make the countries to which they returned independent. The aim of the Pan-African movement is that the whole of South Africa should be handed over to the Bantu. Nothing will satisfy them but that they should occupy a position of supremacy in the whole of Africa. Dr. Nkrumah said recently that non-White supremacy over South Africa was a foregone conclusion; it would come about, that it was only a question of how and when. The only just policy—we believe the West will realize this in time to come; the signs are already there—is that of the National Party, the policy under which the two national groups will live alongside each other, develop along parallel lines, and under which there will also be a homeland for the Bantu in which he can satisfy his aspirations. Fortunately there are good signs that the Western countries are beginning to appreciate the advantage of this policy of the Republic of separate development. Idle words are of no use, Sir; actions count. In this connection it has been the deeds of this Government which have counted over the past years and which have also resulted in the electorate returning them to power every time and will again return them to power at the next election.

I do not think that anyone can find fault with the historical and ethnological survey of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Niemand). What he has said about the development of the races in Africa, is historical, it is accepted. But I should like to assure him that it is not a threat of inflation we have; we have inflation now. What the hon. Minister of Finance and the hon. Minister of Economic Affairs have had to do was to curb inflation; inflation we have already. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) has made it perfectly clear that the toad under the harrow, the worker, the man who has to depend on his salary, on a fixed amount per annum, is the man who suffers. He is the toad beneath the harrow. Sir, when the hon. member for Pietersburg discusses Communism, as so many hon. members in the House are wont to do, it would be a very good thing if we would define our terms. People are inclined to-day to say that anyone who has a liberal outlook in life, even the European liberal outlook, the outlook of Europe, are communists, although in fact they may be the greatest enemies of Communism. I think terms are so loosely used that very often we do not quite know what we are saying ourselves. The hon. member referred to our suggested eight representatives of the Bantu in Parliament. What is wrong with that? General Hertzog, and all the political parties of his day, said there should be three in this House and four in the Senate. This is a development, this is going back to the road that South Africa left when we lost our way under this Government, when they said that the Coloured people should be taken off the common roll, that they should be treated as outcasts in this country. What we are suggesting now is a return to the sound “pad van Suid-Afrika”, the road on which we were going forward, instead of following this new road, this road of fragmentation of our country.

I should like to discuss the fragmentation of our country, the Bantustan policy, especially with the hon. Minister of Defence. I am sorry he has just left the Chamber. What I am anxious to do to-day particularly is to have a word with the hon. Minister of Finance on a matter that concerns him intimately in his own department, a matter that we discussed here last year and the preceding year. I refer to the blocked Rand scheme and the way the blocked Rand account is being operated. I am very dissatisfied with the manner in which the hon. Minister is conducting it. What is the story of the blocked Rand account? What are blocked Rands? Hon. members will remember that some three or four years ago we introduced currency control in South Africa. It was impossible to have money transferred from South Africa without the consent of the Government. For generations it had been possible to transfer moneys from South Africa to any other part of the sterling group. It was our system, we lived that way. Then South Africa in straitened financial circumstances introduced control, with the result that the overseas investor who had realized assets in this country, whether shares or property, or savings, found that he could not transfer his money overseas—back to the United Kingdom if he came from the United Kingdom. I use “the United Kingdom” because throughout the history of South Africa our financial associations have been with the United Kingdom principally, although in more recent years, of course, we have had financial associations with the United States of America, and to some extent, with Germany. Now the hon. Minister of Finance came forward with a scheme which, I think, was quite a good scheme. We analyzed the scheme and pointed out one serious deficiency, but it was a scheme, it was an attempt, and his attempt was this: He said that any investor who had realized assets could convert those assets into nonresident bonds, five-year bonds, on these conditions: that the bonds would be for five years, that they would earn 5 per cent interest per annum, and one-fifth of the amount of the bonds could be withdrawn with interest every year. It was a good scheme. The hon. Minister said that in order to make the scheme a success, he would make R50,000,000 available to carry out the scheme, and for the first year R20,000,000. Well, that was an effort. We were anxious to support him. We said that there was one serious deficiency in this scheme. We did not press our objection unnecessarily, but it was that the non-resident bonds should have been made transferable between non-residents, that is to say, that a bond-holder in Britain who had any of these bonds should be able to sell them there. The hon. Minister was not prepared to accept that.

What happened the first year? I was referring to his Budget Speech in 1962. What did he tell us in his Budget Speech in 1963? The hon. Minister came to us and said: The amount of money that has been drawn in this way is R13½ million. I think that was very good; it was less than the R20,000,000. And of course the hon. Minister said the obvious thing: “We will carry on with the mixture as before”. That was in 1963. After it had gone on for another five months, the Minister found that the amount that had then been repatriated was only R4½ million in five months. Nothing to complain about in that! The scheme was working well. Then the hon. Minister said that he was going to change the whole scheme. I have never found out why, but he introduced a new scheme. The new scheme was to allow conversion into three-year bonds drawing 3¼ per cent. No annual payments in that case: Three-year bonds, drawing 3¼ per cent. There were two features in regard to these bonds, the one was the time factor and the other the interest factor. The interest factor is the important one. People naturally prefer a good bond if they want to invest in South Africa. When they do not have sufficient confidence in South Africa, they like a bond running for a short time. Well, what happened in regard to those bonds? Seven months after it had been introduced, R25½ million was invested in the new scheme, making with the R4½ million for the first five months a total amount of R30,000,000. That was the position when the Minister delivered his Budget Speech last year. The Minister then got the jitters, he panicked. He said something had to be done. Well, we suggested to him that if he had to do something, he should go back to the old scheme, or introduce a scheme similar to the old scheme. But he did not do so. He announced in his Budget Speech, last year, that he was going to suspend the plan altogether. There would be no further withdrawals, but he was working on a new scheme, where investors would be asked to tender. Sir, I don’t know why that should have been done. The hon. Minister made his Budget Speech in March. Nothing would be done till August, he said,—the scheme would be introduced in August. What about the investor who sat with his money for five months and could do nothing about it? His money was frozen.

He could have bought listed shares.

We told the Minister at the time that that was a weakness in his scheme. The investor could not do anything for five months after the Budget Speech last year, when the Minister announced that he was going to introduce the tender scheme.

Surely he could have bought listed shares.

I am not talking about shares necessarily. The hon. Minister is obsessed with the idea of Stock Exchange dealings. I am speaking of any investor who had invested his money in this country in any way. He could buy listed shares, but what would he be able to do then? He could not sell them in this country and take out the money, because the money was blocked.

He could have invested in ordinary three-year government bonds.

But then he had to wait till the scheme was introduced in August.

No.

The hon. Minister told us that nothing would be done until August. August came along and we were given a new system of investment, which may be suitable for the banks and financial houses, but for the ordinary small investor it was inapplicable. He could not use the scheme. We have had experience of it. Anybody who is associated with this kind of investment has had experience of this. Now what is the position? Firstly, a tender has to be made. The hon. Minister said: You may tender for these loans. There will be five-year bonds. This five-year bond which you will tender for will mature in five years, and you will say how much you will offer to get that R100 bond. (I take the amount of a hundred Rands to fix our ideas.) The question the ordinary investor has to decide is what he must offer to-day to receive R100 in five years’ time. That is his problem. Now how is he going to set about it? I should like the hon. Minister to tell me how he would advise a client, how he would advise any investor on this side. The hon. Minister had a five-year plan giving 5 per cent. Then he had a three-year plan giving 3¼ per cent. On that I am going to work out my tender. Let us take a 5 per cent tender first, and to simplify matters let us take simple interest and not compound interest. If a man says “I am going to tender for a five-year bond to get R100 in five years’ time”, obviously he is going to tender R80. R80 in five years time at 5 per cent becomes R100. Well, perhaps the hon. Minister was rather parsimonious in introducing this scheme. Let us make it 4 per cent. What should he tender if it is going to be a 4 per cent investment? He would tender in that case R83. Well, he may feel that the Minister may not be satisfied with that. The Minister may want to have a 3¼ per cent scheme. What would he tender at 3 per cent? He would tender R87. I don’t know whether the hon. Minister wants him to go below 3 per cent. If he were to advise a client, what would he advise him to do? Three per cent would be R87. Well, the hon. the Minister if he wishes could go to 2 per cent. But what would 2 per cent mean? It would mean R91. Well, the innocents in South Africa, people from overseas who had confidence in this Government—if they did not have confidence in the country they would not be investing here—these innocents tendered R80 to R90. They wanted to get their money out. What was the first announcement? The hon. Minister used memorable words. He said that he wanted “realistic conditions”. He said “a floor price will be announced every month as a guide to prospective investors”. Did the hon. Minister announce a floor price under his realistic scheme? Did he announce a floor price after he gave that assurance? There was no floor price. The ordinary man had to come forward and say what he would offer. What was the first offer made?

But there was a floor rate.

What was the first acceptance? The first acceptance, without any announcement in advance, was that tenders of R95 would be paid in full. That is less than 1 per cent.

Are you taking into account the discount, the difference between prices?

I am coming to that. I want to ask the hon. Minister: What does this reveal? It reveals that in South Africa to-day we have two rates of exchange with overseas. We have the ordinary rate of exchange at par with London and we have the hon. Minister’s second one which differs by about 15 per cent—according to the figures I have given in respect of his own bonds. And when you have that situation in a country, as we had in 1932, what is inevitable? I will tell him. Certain people can transfer their money easily, and the honest, straightforward investor cannot. It is all very well for the big institutions, it is all very well for the importer, it is all very well for the shipping company—we know how it is done. But I say to the hon. Minister to-day that he must get back to where we were, to inspire confidence. To inspire confidence he should revert to one of the original schemes, the first or the second. Why have I mentioned these details? What is the essential quality, the essential prerequisite in any financial deal? Creating confidence. We want to create confidence in this country. Ours is a remarkable country. We have a country where South Africans have confidence in the economic situation, and the outside world has no confidence in our political policies. That is our situation to-day and we have to face that. The hon. Minister’s duty is to create that confidence. He is not doing so. Therefore I would say to the hon. Minister: Go back, get some inspiration from the first National Party Budget which was a United Party Budget, introduced in 1948 by Mr. Havenga. I am going to read to the hon. Minister two short extracts from Mr. Havenga’s Budget Speech—

It is not a magnet now. We do not attract capital now. We repel it. Here is another extract from Mr. Havenga’s first Budget Speech—

I think it could be a source again, but not with a scheme of this kind. The hon. Minister must make it possible to give us a more flexible scheme so that people will be able to withdraw their capital when it has been used in this country.

In the few minutes left at my disposal I should like to come back to the argument of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth-South (Mr. Plewman). We have heard a great deal in this Part Appropriation debate about the Bantustan policy. I want to say a word about this Bantustan policy as it affects our defence. We had a speech from the hon. Minister of Defence. I do not want to say very much about that, because he is not here. He replied to suggestions that all was not well in the Force by saying that he thought he had made a full statement in the press. His reply reminded me of a statement by a famous Judge in South Africa in a divorce case. He said: “Where there is desire, and where there is opportunity, there is adultery”. I should say in respect of defence that where there are arms contracts and where there is secrecy, there is corruption. The whole world has had that experience, I will leave it at that.

I should like to discuss another matter with the hon. Minister. The hon. Minister has told us of the tactical preparations in this country for carrying on war. I want to discuss the strategic plan for South Africa. What will our strategic plan be? I should like to follow the old formula, familiar to our staff men, the I.I.M.A.C., our attention, our information, our method, our administration, our communications. What is our attention in South Africa? We differ on the two sides of the House. We in South Africa say “Ons vir jou Suid-Afrika”. We will defend South Africa. But hon. members on the other side do not have that policy. They have a new version of the National Anthem: “Ons sal lewe, ons sal sterwe, ons vir jou ons blanke gebied”. That is their new policy. The hon. the Prime Minister gave it to us the other day. But what did he say? He said: We will defend our white area, and if asked, if requested, we will help defend the neighbouring states which we are going to create.

What about it?

Well, Sir, our intention is to defend. What information have we? I am speaking now of our strategic position. If the policy of this Government is developed, what is the situation going to be in this country? On our Eastern border we shall have a Native state, Swaziland; we shall have a Native state, Zululand, with a long coastline; we shall have a Vendastan, a Tsongastan in the North; in the West we shall have Bechuanaland, Tswanastan, and right here at the very centre, at the vitals of South Africa, two independent states, Basutoland and the Transkei, perhaps a larger Transkei. That is the information we have. How do we defend this? Where will the heart of the country be? Where will our industrial centre be? It will be in that triangle in the north, Pretoria-Johannesburg, Vereeniging, where our industry is connected. And what are our communications to-day? Our communications will come from Durban, our chief port. We shall not have the Natal we have to-day, we shall have a Natal corridor and our life-blood, our pipeline, will come through that corridor to the north. And our coastline? In the papers this week-end we learnt that there are to be two strategic ports north of Durban, Richard’s Bay, that will be in Zulustan and possibly Sordwana Bay. That is the situation we face. It is fantastic to think of the enemy at our door? He was at our door in the Second World War. South African ships were sunk off the coast. We went to meet the enemy at Madagascar. That was the situation with which we were faced and that is the situation that this Bantustan policy will give South Africa. These new states we are creating may be friendly, they may be allies, they may be neutral, but they may be hostile. We do not know. And on the coastline of the Transkei and the coastline of Zululand—what is there to prevent other nations landing? We know of the modern infiltration system of the Communist nations: Infiltration, first of ideas, infiltration afterwards on a military basis, and we go into the ring with our defence wide open. We are destroying the South Africa we have inherited and we are exposing ourselves to the world. And then the greatest hazard of all, on our western border the enigma, South-West Africa. How are we going to face the future under the policy of the hon. the Prime Minister?

If ever I was disappointed at the remarks of an ex-teacher, I was disappointed at those passed by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore). Let us imagine for a moment that the picture which he painted in connection with South Africa is the correct one. We have no say over the Protectorates. In other words, we would have that development in any case as far as the Protectorates are concerned. The picture which he painted of South Africa would hold good for the Protectorates in any case, notwithstanding the policy advocated by the United Party. The hon. member stated that our policy does not satisfy the outside world—that the policy of this Government does not satisfy the outside world. Let us for a moment consider the policy of federation of the United Party, a federation of the various peoples of South Africa. Where will we find ourselves if we follow such a policy? We will then not merely have the question of the Protectorates or the Bantu homelands but we will then be faced with a bloodless victory on the part of our opponents. The only way in which we can satisfy the outside world is to allow the Bantu to be represented by their own people in this House. The general view of the outside world is that a minority may not govern a majority. That is the outspoken policy of the outside world. America repeats it every day. The hon. member for Kensington spoke about the “road of South Africa”.I take it that the road which the hon. member has in mind as the road of South Africa is not the road of South Africa which I have in mind. I take it that we differ completely from one another in this regard. When he speaks about returning to the old roads of South Africa I wonder perhaps whether he means the road of the old South African Party. That is probably the road to which he wants to return.

The hon. member spoke about foreign investors. Let me tell him that if ever we have had proof of our strong financial position and sound economic state, we have it in the confidence which foreign investors have in South Africa. What was the position after we became a Republic? The first thing was that certain bodies in South Africa gave the world to believe that there would be a bloodbath in this country when we became a Republic and that money would be withdrawn from our country on a large scale. Just think of the share position in England, the position in regard to shares held by people in England who had invested their money here. Our Government had to take steps to control that money in order to limit its withdrawal from South Africa.

I want to refer to a few opinions which have been expressed during the course of this debate. In the first place I want to refer to what has been said in connection with the South African Agricultural Union. I am sorry, very sorry, that the name of the South African Agricultural Union has been mentioned in this House and particularly, in a political connection. We all know that the South African Agricultural Union is a body to which members of both parties belong, and it is a pity that hon. members have had to drag politics into what they have had to say in this regard. I do not think that they have in any way facilitated the task of the South African Agricultural Union which is to act on behalf of the farmers. On the contrary, they have made that task far more difficult. There is the advisory committee which is in close contact with and makes recommendations to the Government and its position has actually now become impossible.

I want to refer to a matter which has been mentioned repeatedly in this House—that so many farmers are leaving their farms. The figure in this regard is given as being from 2,800 to 28,000. Nowhere have I been able to find proof that there is any truth in this statement. I have here the latest agricultural census for 1959-60 which was tabled last year. This report gives the following figures: In 1958-9 there were 106,220 farmers on farming units. This means that two or more farms can be regarded as a unit. In 1959-60 there were 105,859 farmers, that is to say, a decrease of 361. It is said that things are going so badly with the farmers and this Government and particularly the two hon. Ministers of Agriculture are blamed in this regard. But one figure is never mentioned.

Two and I a quarter.

This figure is not mentioned. In 1958-9 the land owned by farmers amounted to 108.400,000 morgen. In 1959-60 this had decreased to 107,100,000 morgen which means a withdrawal from the agricultural sector of nearly 1,250,000 morgen. The following reasons for this are given by the Director. He says, firstly, that the surveys are contradictory and, secondly, that there are certain units which are unoccupied. The most important reason in his opinion is that there is a continual withdrawal of land from the agricultural sector for mining, industrial, commercial and residential purposes.

And the Bantustans?

No, that has nothing to do with it. The United Party purchased more land than anybody else for the Bantu in terms of the 1936 Act. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. members for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) and Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) must please not talk so much.

The other figure which I want to mention is this. We admit that certain farmers are in difficulties, particularly in the drought-stricken areas, although the Opposition conveniently omit to mention the assistance which the Government has given these farmers since 1960. I do not want to weary the House with figures but in 1960 when the trouble started with foot-and-mouth disease in the Northern Transvaal, the Government came to the assistance of these farmers. There have also been droughts during which the Government has assisted the farmers. I am prepared at any time to compare the assistance which this Government has given to farmers with that which the United Party gave the farmers during their term of office.

I want to refer to the figure which is mentioned repeatedly—the amount of R134,000,000 owed by farmers to the Land Bank. This figure is mentioned as a proof of how badly things are going with the farmers. I want to refer to the latest report of the South African Agricultural Union. The figures in the report of the South African Agricultural Union, the same report which has been referred to during this discussion, give no indication of whether the position of the farmers has improved or deteriorated because in most cases these amounts merely represent a transfer of debt from other bodies to the Land Bank. The report states that the farming debt with the Land Bank has increased. It goes on to say that in 1963 an amount of R4,819,000,000 was invested in agriculture and that the total debts of the farmers amount to 13 per cent of this investment. The comparative figure for the U.S.A. was 16 per cent in 1962. The total farming debt is the equivalent, more or less, of one year’s gross income. Furthermore, we have the value of capital investments and, viewed in this light, the general position of agriculture still remains sound. I want to refer to one figure regarding the position of the Land Bank; this is in regard to the debt of R134,000,000. I want to say that the arrear debts have now risen by 3.7 per cent but if one excludes the drought-stricken areas from this estimate, the actual arrear debt has decreased by 2.5 per cent. In other words, the whole position of the Land Bank has improved over the past year.

I want to say something about another matter which is continually being mentioned here—the Marketing Act. We have often said that the Marketing Act is an enabling Act which gives the Minister certain powers. The United Party like to read into that Act certain things which it does not contain, apart from the fact that they too made use of the powers provided by the Marketing Act. During their period of office they used the powers provided by the Act in order to force down prices. This Act gives the hon. the Minister the power to enable farmers to control the marketing of their products themselves. There are 18 different control boards to-day only a few of which have complete control over the marketing of their products. It is said that the hon. the Minister uses his power with the various boards in order to force down prices. I have here the report of the South African Agricultural Union for the past year and in this report they express their gratitude for the negotiations which have taken place not only between the hon. the Minister and the boards but also between the Agricultural Union and the boards. Let us take meat prices for last year. In this regard they say (translation)—

I should like to conclude on this note (translation)—

That is what they say in connection with almost all of these boards. The Opposition must tell us when the hon. the Minister has not been in agreement with the recommendations of the boards. Hon. members opposite like to make quotations but they do not tell us precisely what the true position is.

What is the position to-day as far as our overall position is concerned? We in South Africa are dependent upon two markets today. One of these is the foreign market. It is true that for a period of about ten years the foreign market remained static but over the past two years the unit value on the foreign market has risen by an average of 8 per cent. The other market that we have is the local market. For a long period after the Korean period of prosperity prices on this market showed only a very gradual rise and this increase was absorbed by a gradual increase in production costs. This increase was about 12 per cent over a period of seven years. In other words, the increase in the price of foodstuffs was almost completely absorbed by the increased production costs. But a very great change has occurred in this regard since 1962 and these figures have almost reversed themselves since then. There has been an increase in the price of many foodstuffs of between 5.5 per cent to 16.4 per cent. In other words, the position has changed to such an extent that we find in the first place that we now have a greatly improved foreign market and secondly, that consumption in South Africa has increased considerably. There has been an increase in the population. We now have about 17,000,000 people in this country, an increase of 2.3. I say that that increase was absorbed by the increase in production costs but now this increase is only 2.1 per cent. But secondly, there was a higher consumption per unit. It is said that the increased salaries of factory workers led to a 40 per cent increase in the consumption of foodstuffs, and the figure is even higher in the lower income groups. But let us ask the United Party what steps it would like us to take in the event of the economic position of the farmer not keeping pace with the general standard of living. Do they want the Marketing Act to make provision in this regard?

The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) told us previously that the State should make subsidies available. The State can subsidize agriculture in three ways. Firstly, it can subsidize the industry; secondly, it can subsidize the consumer and thirdly, it can subsidize the producer. Let me say immediately that for years now the Government has been subsidizing the production costs of the largest industries in the country. The production costs in regard to maize and wheat are subsidized by the State to the full amount. Storage and handling costs are fully subsidized and the farmer receives his money immediately. The State is also responsible for this. One cannot do any more than this.

The second point is that the consumer may be subsidized. For many years now the consumer has also been subsidized on this basis to a very large extent, which fact is also to the advantage of the producer. We would like to know from the Opposition whether they expect the State to go any further, whether the producer himself should be subsidized, bearing in mind the consequences that will flow from this. If this is what they want, to what extent should the State subsidize the producer? The United Party have realized over the course of the last few years that things have not gone too well with them. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) told us the other day that the day of reckoning had come. They have been wandering in the desert for 16 years. In two years’ time the children who were born when the National Party came into power will become entitled to the vote. They know nothing about the old political disputes of the past and yet we have not seen the smallest cloud on the political horizon over the past while to indicate to us that there has been a change of heart on the part of the public. With the old South African Party it was Wakkerstroom,

In 1923 General Smuts said that if he lost Wakkerstroom he would resign and he did resign when he lost Wakkerstroom. In 1932 the Pact Government lost Germiston. Just after the 1938 election the United Party under General Hertzog lost Marico and retained Lichtenburg with a small majority. All the signs pointed to the fact that things were not going well with the United Party. But let them tell me which seat the United Party has won from the National Party during the past 16 years. They have tried seldom enough over the past years and Windhoek where the National Party majority was increased. They did not try in Mossel Bay but they did in Edenvale. There is not the slightest sign of progress on their part. In other words, one must ask oneself at this stage: What is wrong with the United Party? It is quite clear that the policy which has brought the United Party to where it is to-day is not acceptable to the White voters of South Africa. That party is already convinced that it will not be successful at the coming provincial elections. They have not even appointed a sufficient number of candidates in the provinces to enable them to obtain the balance of power in those provinces should their candidates be successful.

Mr. Speaker, I have only a few moments at my disposal. The hon. member who has just sat down will forgive me if I do not follow him in the political history of South Africa he has given us. The other day I read a statement by a very wise man who said this: It is wonderful to have the strength of a giant, but it is the act of a tyrant to use it as such. That is what I say about this Government. It has the political strength of a giant, but in regard to the incident of the Luxurama they use it as tyrants. We, who made an appeal through the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg), a very excellent and reasoned appeal, for the Government to observe the tradition which has prevailed in the Cape for hundreds of years received the reply that the Government believes in “kragdadigheid”. Instead of the Minister acceding to this excellent, moderate but very just appeal, we were given just the opposite to what we asked. I say that it has had a very profound effect on the Coloured people. We who have pleaded in the past for the narrowing of the gap between the Whites and the Coloureds find that on every conceivable occasion this Government does something to widen the gap and to further alienate the Coloureds from the Whites. The hon. member for Peninsula dealt very fully with this matter. I do not wish to deal with it at length, but merely wish to say that the Government has done a disservice not only to South Africa but to a wonderful group of people in South Africa, loyal South Africans. It has added a further opportunity for the world to point its finger at us. We decry with all the emphasis at our command this further humiliation and degradation of the decent Coloured people of South Africa and the unwarranted interference in a tradition which must be one dear to the hon. the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Coloured Affairs, who are both Cape men and who know in their heart of hearts what the position is here, and what the Coloured people mean to the White people. How much more do you want to hurt the Coloured people and humiliate them? I said to the Coloured people one day: You have the power to break this Government, but in breaking the Government you will also hurt South Africa because you have in your hands the economic power to break South Africa. But they are loyal citizens of this country and they will not hurt South Africa. They will rather suffer humiliation than to hurt South Africa. But their loyalty is not rewarded by this Government.

I want to deal with this point, namely that a new system of government has crept into our public life within the last few months, where a statement made by the Prime Minister should become the law of the country and be acted upon by other Departments. The Minister of the Interior told us that he acted on a statement made by the Prime Minister, which he regarded as the law of the country. I say that when the Government accepted that state-men as the law, it was by-passing Parliament, and it was in complete contempt of Parliament I say it is a new departure from democratic government in this country that Parliament cannot be consulted or has no opportunity of discussing policy affecting, as it does, the Coloured people of the country. The Government ignored our right to discuss that statement; it ignored the rights of Parliament to discuss it.

But you are discussing it now.

But you made it law before we had the opportunity of discussing it. I want to protect the right of Parliament and the democratic rights of members of Parliament. [Interjections.]

You are ungrateful.

In which way are we being ungrateful when we find that a statement is made at a congress or in the Press and it becomes the law of the country.

The decision in regard to the Luxu-rama is in accordance with the owner’s request.

The Minister is now drawing a red herring across the trail. He is referring to the subsequent decision. I have no reason to doubt the Minister’s statement in that regard, and I accept it, but the original action in taking people out of the cinema was done by the Minister of the Interior because he said he was acting on the statement made by the hon. the Prime Minister. I do not intend to proceed any further with this matter, Sir. In the few minutes at my disposal I merely want to say that I have many appeals to make to the hon. the Minister of Finance on behalf of the Coloured people of South Africa.

Now, we have seen the hon. the Minister of Finance appearing before us on Budget day in many guises, if I may put it that way. He has been a fisherman and a sailor and all sorts of things. May I ask him this year to come in the role of Santa Claus and to bring presents to the poor people of South Africa, and to disgorge some of his millions of surpluses which he will have. He has every opportunity in his next budget to assist the lowly-paid people of South Africa to increase their status economically. I intend to discuss this question because the Minister says that increased wages and salaries must be pegged because it will lead to inflation.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 30 (2) and debate adjourned.

The House proceeded to the consideration of private members’ business.

I move—

That this House expresses its thanks to the Minister of Defence and the Government for vigorously building up the striking power of the Republic’s Defence Force and requests the Government to consider the advisability of taking further steps towards this end by, inter alia—

1. (a) establishing a military engineering gymnasium; and
2. (b) training and incorporating women in the defence of the country.

We are experiencing interesting times although they are dangerous and full of tension. Since the Second World War we have had ostensibly 20 years’ of peace. But during this 20-year period we have seen the greatest buildup of weapons of destruction in the history of the world. The atomic bombs which were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were toys in comparison with the weapons of destruction of to-day. When Mr. Harold Wilson addressed a meeting at Bridgeport in the United States on 3 March 1964, he said—

Russia’s feet are planted firmly in the heartlands of Europe and in the East we have the Chinese colossus which, like a gigantic cooking pot, it starting to boil over. One after the other the countries in the Far East are finding themselves within the vortex of its sphere of influence. These waves are washing the shores of the Continent of Africa and we see considerably more than merely surface ripples in Africa when we think of Tanzania and when we consider that this influence holds sway within the borders of the Republic of South Africa right up to Basutoland. In the Middle East, that traditional hotbed of intrigue, there is no lack of setbacks for the West. What is of particular importance to us is the pincer of the Suez Canal, the control over which is now in hands which are unfriendly to the West. Besides this, the Western powers are also becoming paralyzed by mutual tensions and setbacks. On 5 August 1963, an agreement was signed in Moscow that all nuclear tests would cease except those carried out underground. Russia, the U.S.A. and Britain were co-signatories but France, Cuba and China refused to sign that agreement. Mr. Chen Yi, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, had this to say (translation)—

Since that time we have learnt that they have already manufactured and exploded an atomic bomb. In contrast to this there is a noticeable deterioration in the British armed forces. When an agreement was concluded between the late President Kennedy and Mr. Macmillan in December 1962 to replace the air-launched ballistic Skybolt missiles with Polaris missiles, it upset the whole approach of the Western powers to the question of air defence. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s close association in regard to air defence was disrupted. The V-bomber force of Britain is gradually being disbanded. The American Air Force has discovered that when its B-52’s become obsolete, its strategic air force will be down to the minimum. In spite of opposition in the British House of Commons the Polaris agreement was approved in February 1963. There is a great difference of opinion at the moment between the various Treaty countries in regard to the composition of the crews to man the various naval units.

Mr. Speaker when we consider Western defence generally all these things focus the spotlight more and more intensely upon the southern point of Africa. History is repeating itself in respect of South Africa and we are beginning to experience the position which prevailed from the 15th century in regard to the importance of the Cape as a sea route. Militarily speaking the Indian Ocean has become an extension of the Atlantic Ocean. An example of this is that during the Suez crisis up to 400 ships per day sailed round the Cape. Unfortunately, the weakening of the British naval forces also has its effect upon the southern point of Africa because this in its turn weakens their South Atlantic station here. We read in the Sunday Telegraph that their frigate Puma will not be coming to South Africa this year. It was to have visited Simonstown in April of this year. They have thought fit to send that ship on a recruiting campaign. The sister ship of Puma, Leopard, is being sent to the shipyards for a refit. Two other frigates which would normally have been serving in South Atlantic waters have been sent to the Far East.

Against this background of world happenings in the military sphere, which, unfortunately, cannot be discussed in detail during the limited time at our disposal, my motion expresses gratitude to the hon. the Minister of Defence and to the Government which in the midst of international unreliability has built up our Defence Force to the unbelievable level which it has already reached. Here we must not forget the share of the Commandant-General, the officers and men of all branches of the South African Armed Forces in South Africa and the contributions which they have made to this process. Few people may perhaps know the difficult circumstances and the great personal sacrifices that have been made by the men of our Defence Force in order to bring us to the stage of preparedness that we have reached. I want here to mention a few examples of the military development which has taken place in South Africa. The number of Citizen Force ballotees, gymnasium students and Commando members who in 1960 numbered 3,000, had increased to 18,000 in 1964. The number of men in the Permanent Force had increased from 10,000 to 15,000 in 1964. The number of men in the Citizen Force and Commandos has been trebled over the past few years. Seventy new Permanent Force units have been brought into being over the past four years. We possess the latest and most modern weapons; we have thousands of automatic rifles, other weapons and radio sets which have been purchased recently. The Air Force too has the most modern equipment available. We have some of the world’s best bombers, fighters, transport aircraft, maritime aircraft and helicopters, all of which have been acquired with their accompanying equipment and armament. In our country we have, inter alia, Canberras, C—130’s, some of the most modern transport aircraft, large numbers of which Britain who is herself a producer, is to purchase. We have Westland and Alouette Helicopters; we have Mirages and I have reason to believe that the first Buccaneers have already been handed over to the South African pilots who are receiving training in Britain. Large quantities of military engineering equipment have been purchased, so much so that the Defence Force is able to build its own airfields. From time to time we read about new airfields which are put into operation. The South African Navy has been expanded and transformed in order to increase its operational efficiency. Our naval equipment includes three of the most modern anti-submarine and anti-aircraft frigates to be found anywhere in the world to-day. Torpedo boats have even been rebuilt in South African shipyards. These have been equipped with helicopters which in their turn are also equipped with the most modern anti-submarine armament. In 1964 the 35 ships of the South African Navy were manned by 270 officers and 2,730 other ranks. Nor have we been idle in regard to the manufacture of our own weapons. Weapons, ammunition and equipment are being manufactured locally on a large scale. South Africa will shortly be a producing her own two-seater jet training aircraft, an aircraft which will be able to achieve a speed in excess of 500 miles per hour and a maximum height of 44,000 feet. These will be equipped with the latest radar and inertial navigation systems which are standard equipment to-day in aircraft of this nature. We are particularly pleased that the large amount of raw material which is to be used is of South African origin. But the participation of our Defence Force in nonmilitary operations is also something which merits the gratitude of the country. We think particularly of the years 1959-60 when over a period of ten months, 7,000,000 gallons of water were transported over a total distance of 270,000 miles to relieve the position in the drought-stricken area of Gordonia. We think of the state of emergency in 1960 when tens of thousands of members of the Permanent Force, the Citizen Force and the Commandos were on active service.

Mr. Speaker, the primary reason for the building up of South Africa’s defensibility is to protect our country and to ensure our survival, and this is in complete conformity with the present-day world methods of arming in order to preserve peace. During a previous debate the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that it has become the world method to preserve peace by means of an arms build-up and I think that we should emphasize the fact that if South Africa were to be weak in the military sphere, it would be an invitation to those countries inimically disposed towards us to make an attack upon South Africa. But precisely because South Africa has increased her defensibility we are essentially in a better position to preserve world peace here. We must emphasize the fact that the build-up of our Defence Force, which I have mentioned, has not been resorted to with any aggressive intentions at all and that with the world position as it is, it is our intention, if we are attacked, to defend South Africa by every possible means and as fiercely as we can. But more than this, Mr. Speaker, in spite of the opposition of those to whom we have given our support South Africa has declared unequivocally that she stands as a bulwark against Communism and an advance post of Western security. Notwithstanding this fact, the West has thought fit to continue to insult South Africa and I think that the time has come for us to make it very clear to the West that if they take for granted the fact that South Africa has placed herself on the side of the West and continue to adopt the attitude that South Africa can go on being kicked and beaten and insulted in the international sphere (she is still on the side of the West and she is going to stay there), as far as the question of the supplying of weapons to this country is concerned, South Africa will not tolerate these repeated and continued insults, notwithstanding the fact that it has already been announced at the highest level that we are unequivocally on the side of the West as has been proved by our actions in Korea. I believe that the time has come for us to tell the West that when the security of South Africa is at stake, South Africa will do everything in her power to ensure her safety and to defend herself against any form of attack, no matter from what quarter, with every means at her disposal.

I should like on behalf of the House to pay tribute to the hon. the Prime Minister for his handling of the question of the delivery of Buccaneer aircraft to South Africa. The hon. the Minister proved undoubtedly on behalf of South Africa that we do have bargaining power in the world to-day and that, without becoming arrogant about it in any way, South Africa can also dictate conditions if the occasion warrants it. If then it is Britain’s policy to reduce her own armed forces, particularly to reduce her naval defence in respect of South Africa by the withdrawal of certain units, and to refuse to supply weapons to South Africa, then South Africa will be compelled to place the security of her maritime defence upon the highest possible plane.

I come now to the second portion of my motion, the request to the hon. the Minister to investigate the possibility of the establishment of an engineering gymnasium in South Africa. Five of the eight residential universities are training engineers. According to the year-book of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, 1964, about 300 or 400 engineers graduate each year. But over the past 30 years the percentage, expressed as a percentage of a whole, has fallen from 10.5 per cent to 9.4 per cent. In 1957, South Africa awarded Bachelor’s degrees in engineering to ten out of every 100,000 of the White population, or, expressed in another way to two out of every 100,000 of the total population of South Africa. I should like to mention the comparative figures for other countries. We find that Russia awarded degrees in engineering to 28 out of every 100,000 people; the U.S.A.,18 and Canada 12. If we use those countries as an example, it ought not to be impossible to raise the figure of ten per 100,000 in South Africa to 16 or 20 per 100,000 of the White population. It would appear that the engineering group at our universities has increased in number, particularly since 1960, while there was a decrease from 1949 to 1957. Without increasing its share—I have already pointed out that the figure dropped by about 1 per cent—the actual number has increased slightly. According to Professor Dr. H. L. de Waal who has done research in this connection, it appears that fewer than half of the engineering students who enroll as first-year students at the universities eventually finish their courses and obtain degrees. He found that the figure was 47.9 per cent. Accordingly, we may conclude that between about 700 and 1,000 first-year students enrol in the engineering faculties at our universities. Even half of this number would be adequate to fill a gymnasium in South Africa. There is undoubtedly a great need for engineers at the moment. The number of vacancies in 1958 was estimated by the National Bureau for Educational and Social Research to be 686. At that stage they expected the shortfall in 1965 to be in excess of 600. The actual need, however, appears to be considerably greater at the moment. We have reason to believe that the interruption in study, particularly of mathematics, has a very detrimental effect upon those who have to receive military training for nine months before they are admitted to university as first-year students. It is obviously not possible to determine how many matriculants wish to enrol as engineering students but change their minds after a year’s military training. It is true that there are cases in which deferment is granted to students in deserving cases in order to enable them to pursue their university studies. I am advocating an engineering gymnasium to which the matriculant who intends making engineering his profession can be admitted. Instead then of receiving nine months training in the Citizen Force, he can be given 12 months’ training at the gymnasium. Every officer-engineer is of course needed in the Defence Force in time of war but there are those who do not go on active service and their services are needed just as urgently on the home front. I am therefore advocating some method whereby we can canalize our prospective students from their matriculation year, with military training, to the universities where they can continue an engineering career. I am aware of the fact that there are a considerable number of engineers who are receiving military training at the moment in the Defence Force; there are various Citizen Force units which provide engineering training. Furthermore, it appears to me that the immediate needs of the Defence Force are adequately provided by these ballotees who receive training through the medium of these units. What I have in mind is a military engineering gymnasium which we can use to develop a full-fledged South African Military Engineering Corps at a later stage, a corps which can take over various tasks in the country which are at the moment being performed by, for example the Mobile Watch and other units of the Defence Force.

Lastly, I want to deal with the question of the training and use of women in the South African Defence Force. You will agree with me, Mr. Speaker, that in the times in which we live the training of women in their own self-defence is becoming increasingly more important, and not only in their own defence but also in the defence of their families and eventually, the country and its people. I believe that the women of South Africa will perform a task of this nature zealously and I am further convinced that they have the character required to do so. I do not accept the pessimism expressed in regard to the so-called decadence of our youth about which we hear so much. I feel that we must create an opportunity for our youth and particularly for the young women of South Africa to equip themselves to work in various spheres and to do their share in the defence of the country, and I feel that they will accept this task readily and with zeal. I think particularly of a possible role which they can play in a national survival plan in which nursing and first-aid will be very important, and for which these women can be trained, and I think too of related tasks in the medical profession which these women can perform. I think further of their role in the handling of radar and other electronic equipment in the Defence Force. I think of the role they can play in the military transport sphere. During the Second World War there were various branches of the Defence Force whose transport was chiefly in the hands of women. There were those who flew some of the most modern aircraft from one place to the other and so released manpower for active service in the various air forces. I think too of the servicing of certain weapons. This work can well be undertaken by women. They can of course teach themselves how to use certain of those weapons. During the Second World War it appeared that we needed about 13 men for every one man on active service at the front; we needed 13 men on the home front to supply the requirements of one fighting man. I have reason to believe that that figure has increased because of the development which armed forces have undergone, and that we may to-day need in the vicinity of 20 men to keep one man on active service in the front line. I feel that there is a great opportunity for women in this regard. It will relieve our manpower position—we hear from time to time of the acute manpower shortage in our Defence Force in certain specific spheres. I am convinced of the fact that if we give them the opportunity, the women of South Africa will play their part in the defence of our country and I am further convinced that the country will not be disappointed in the way in which they perform that task.

I want to conclude by encouraging our Defence Force and giving them the assurance that what they are doing for the safety of South Africa is not passing unnoticed. I want to wish them success in the many and varied tasks which a member of our armed forces has to perform in keeping South Africa safe for himself, for all of us and for future generations.

The hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg (Mr. J. W. Rall) has made a very interesting and a very instructive speech in dealing with the motion which he has placed on the Order Paper. Judging by the information which he has placed before us, I think one can congratulate him on the fact that he has quite evidently made a very close study of the problems which face us in regard to defence, and on having put forward certain concrete proposals which he claims—and with some justification in the case of some of them—will assist us to cope with the problem with which we are faced in the manning and building-up of our defences.

The hon. member referred in the early part of his address to the subject which was recently reported in the Sunday Times—the third occasion on which it has published incorrect information—namely the withdrawal of British ships from the Simonstown station. This report was promptly followed the following day by an official denial from the Royal Naval authorities in South Africa.

Sir, I think one must accept to-day that through force of circumstances all navies—except probably that of the United States—are deployed very thinly over the millions of miles of sea routes around the globe. Naval powers have concentrated the major portion of their forces in the trouble spots which are scattered around the world, thousands of miles away from our shores. Not only is the Royal Navy itself spread thinly as regards numbers over many millions of miles of sea routes, but its force stationed at Simonstown is concerned not only with the areas around our own coastline, but in addition is responsible for a large portion of the South Atlantic right over to the South American coast and down into the Antartic as well as round to the Indian Ocean. One can realize then how very few people, how very few ships, have to cover a very large area, and one must accept that in times of stress they will be used where they are most needed.

As a matter of fact, I myself regard it as a form of compliment to the development of our own Navy that Britain can contemplate leaving this area without one of its own vessels to guard its particular interests in these waters, even those interests which fall outside the scope of the Simonstown Agreement. Our own Navy is being built up to a pitch and standard where, despite the shortcomings which we have faced with regard to manpower and in other fields, Britain is confident that we are able to look after things while their own ships are temporarily operating somewhere else. I do not think therefore that this talk of withdrawal should be placed entirely to the debit side of Britain.

The hon. member referred to a number of other matters which I do not propose to touch on now, but I do want to deal with his reference to the role played by the Prime Minister in the difficulty which arose with regard to the Buccaneers.I just want to say that I do not believe in playing the new game of “chicken” when it comes to this sort of thing. As a nation we are not big or powerful enough to take risks. Whilst our rights are well entrenched in the Simonstown Agreement, I think our tactics should be to show other people that they are wrong and not give them an opportunity to get at us and claim that we forced their hand. As it happened, the gamble came off, but I think if there is one thing we should not gamble with it is the security of our country and our Defence. I regard the Prime Minister’s intervention at that time—particularly in view of the circumstances in which he made his statement, at a party political meeting and not through this House or acting in his position as Prime Minister—as a gamble with the security of the country at that time.

What did Wilson do?

The hon. member referred to the gymnasiums to which I will come back later, and he also referred to the greater use of women in Defence matters. Here I can assure him and the House that as far as we on this side are concerned we have long advocated—and you will find it in Hansard, Sir; there have been a number of speeches over the last five or six years—that in the conditions which are developing, much greater and more effective use should be made of woman power in Defence. This would relieve the drain on manpower and enable the men released to be employed in those occupations and callings where only a man can operate. I agree with the hon. member that there are many spheres in Defence—we all agree with him—where women could be far more beneficially used than they are being used to-day. Much more encouragement should be given by the Government to the employment of women in Defence, particularly in view of the manpower conditions which exist in the country to-day, manpower conditions which are handicapping Defence as well as all other spheres of activity in the country. I know that the Minister may say in reply, as he has done before, that the Defence Force is using women in clerical and various other capacities, but even there they are not giving enough encouragement and making enough use of them.

Let me quote the instance of the girls employed at Simonstown in the South African Navy. There are quite a number of them employed there, doing a very good job of work. Those girls felt so keenly about their jobs and had so much pride in their jobs that, not being able to get uniforms out of the Defence Department, they paid out of their own pockets to equip themselves with a standard uniform so that they would present a more workmanlike appearance, more in keeping with their activities as part of the South African Naval Service. They paid for these uniforms out of their own pockets and accepted a design which was settled upon after consultation between themselves and Pretoria. Since those girls, at their own cost, have dressed themselves in that uniform, I notice that the Government itself, through its Information Service, has been quick to take advantage of their generosity and their loyalty to the service, by taking photographs of them as an example of the smart type of woman employed by the South African Navy. And yet the girls have to pay out of their own pockets for the very uniform cloth that they wore. I think these are things that should be investigated by the Government so that provision can be made for these young women who take a pride in their appearance. Uniforms, as you know, Sir, mean a lot to a great many people and I do not think sufficient is being done to meet the real pride on the part of these girls in the uniform worn by them. I believe that this spirit is not sufficiently used. The hon. member dealt with he question of the setting up of a gymnasium which would largely deal with, what you might call, the civil engineering side of defence. That is a very important activity with regard to defence. But I think that is playing very largely with only one of the many facets in the problems of defence and leaving many others, equally important, aside. Other facets which should also be tackled. We believe that the motion, as it stands, whilst it is a move in the right direction, does not go far enough. I shall move an amendment to the motion at a later stage in order to give it more body and a chance of more effective development in the interests of defence. My amendment embraces all phases of training. I would remind the hon. member who himself referred to the activities of our engineering corps during the last war. I would remind him that we have in this country to-day engineering resources probably without parallel for a nation of our size in any other country in the world. Those resources which developed from our great undertakings, the Railways and the Mining industry, were used in the last war. We set up an engineering brigade in the Middle East and elsewhere in Europe which won the admiration of the whole world for continually doing the impossible. They did the impossible when it came to engineering feats which even the great United States was unable to tackle. We have those resources and it is a case of getting them into line with Defence needs.

We approach the other portion of the motion dealing with thanks to the Minister with a somewhat different feeling. It is not a question of not appreciating what this Minister has done but I think this practice of thanking a Minister is so much overdone in this House, if I may say so, that an expression of thanks, which should be a special occasion, has been robbed of much of is original value. It has become merely a jingle of words which has been fluttered around so often over the years that it means nothing at all. I should imagine that from the point of view of the Minister concerned it has become quite uncomfortable to hear the constant repetition of thanking the Minister, I say we undoubtedly appreciate the work this Minister and those associated with him have done in the rebuilding of our defence organization, in the re-building of some think which was so grievously wrecked by his predecessor, and reduced to a demoralized muddle. I know when the hon. the Minister had to start re-building he must have had many a headache to share with his staff and officials responsible for the rebuilding. In the circumstances and under the conditions which are created by the Government of which he is a member, a Government which is making it more and more difficult for the Minister and his Department to function with all the success one hoped for it, one can certainly express appreciation of the manner in which he has managed up to now to forge along and re-build. We do not forget these things. But we cannot forget the shocking state of unpreparedness and muddle which he inherited from his predecessor. I think that is one thing we must always remember. That fact by itself has largely contributed to the tremendous price in manpower and finances the country has had to pay in recreating that which that particular former Minister destroyed. We see little reason, therefore, why the Government should be thanked in the form contained in this motion in which thanks to the Minister is also expressed. We on this side of the House see little reason for that thanks.

We feel there can be no doubt that we have arrived at a stage where the expansion of defence of the country calls for a very comprehensive examination so that we can get the best out of the resources available to us, resources which again are very thinly spread out, resources which have to be shared between so many different aspects of our national life, all of them being essential to the welfare and security of the country. In dealing with that aspect we cannot only consider he actual uniform striking strength of defence. The hon. member himself, when introducing the motion, referred to the vast changes which have taken place between the last world war and the previous one. I would refer to the vast changes which have taken place even since this hon. Minister took office. There have been vast changes in scientific warfare, in the weapons and the techniques of warfare. Those changes have been so vast in that short period of time that the whole aspect of warfare has been materially altered, and many new problems have been imposed on us. As I say, Sir, we cannot only consider the actual uniform fighting strength. That to-day only forms a portion of our defences. Vitally important to South Africa to-day is our position of isolation, isolation when it comes to finances as well as to our physical, scientific and material resources, all of which have been so greatly changed by the techniques of warfare but all of which have to be harnessed to form one composite whole which makes up that defence. There is no longer to-day that tremendously wide difference between the man in uniform in the front lines and the man in civilian clothes or overalls or the white-collared man in his laboratory on the home front. They have to maintain the fighting forces during periods of hostilities. To-day those home-front people constitute just as an important a part of our defence as the man who actually has to use the weapons, the man they have to keep supplied. When we balance our manpower position and our other resources we have to see that the one does not outstrip the other. We must see to it that not only these two legs of defence but also the rest of the country, which has to continue to expand and develop, is also able to function to the requirements of the rest of the community of the country. Due to modern war techniques we have a position to-day where practically the entire population of the country, each in its own particular pocket, forms an essential part of the war effort. Those are the demands we have to coordinate in our training scheme. With all the evidence that is forthcoming we feel that, as a result of these changes, the training scheme, which could possibly have met the situation at its inception, requires certain major adjustments to-day in order to be able to fulfil that need. The various branches it serves are so inter-linked and so inter-dependent that not one will be able to function satisfactorily independently, firstly, if we are to put up an adequate defence either in the case of our being attacked or, secondly, to survive in any major war for any length of time.

We have to face the unpalatable fact that as far as we in South Africa are concerned, the orange we have to squeeze in order to give juice to all these particular needs has not got sufficient juice to go round the lot. We therefore have to see to it that each one gets a fair share of what is available. We cannot afford for any of our resources to be wasted. When the hon. member suggested the establishment of a military engineering gymnasium he must have had something like that in mind. He referred to the educational side vis-à-vis the military training side and the impact of the one on the other. These are also things we cannot afford to neglect. The military training scheme is one which affects the Permanent Fore just as much as it affects the Citizen Force regiments themselves, because the one feeds the other. The training scheme itself depends on the effectiveness of the Permanent Force to provide the training staff and the Permanent Force expects to get certain results from that training to back them up in times of hostilities. The two have therefore to be co-ordinated. I therefore move as an amendment—

To omit all the words after “That” and to substitute “this House, whilst appreciating the support given to the Citizen Force continuous training scheme by the taxpayers and young men of the Republic, is of the opinion that a thorough examination of this scheme in all its aspects is necessary in order to obtain the fullest possible benefit therefrom having regard, inter alia, to—

1. (a) the cost incurred in money and man power;
2. (b) the necessity to make more extensive use of women in the defence organization;
3. (c) the far reaching changes which have taken place in military weapons equipment and techniques; and
4. (d) the Republic’s increasing isolation since the scheme was first instituted;

and accordingly recommends that a Select Committee composed of members of the Senate and the House of Assembly be appointed to examine all aspects of the present training scheme, the Committee to have power to take evidence and call for papers.”

This amendment has been deliberately framed in order to bring about a comprehensive and useful examination of the situation with a view to assisting, as far as humanly possible, the Government in the build-up of something in which we all have to assist namely, a secure defence for our country in the conditions under which we live. We think that the young men and the taxpayers of the country deserve a pat on the back for the loyal manner in which they have accepted, generally without any quibbling, the burden Defence has piled on them, because it is a burden, and also the disorganization these young men face at the beginning of their careers. We stand in support of the training scheme. Apart from the defence aspect, it is good grounding for young men starting off on a career to be subject to discipline. With the exception of a few—you will always have a few who will look for a loophole—they have given very loyal service. We feel that we in Parliament should, for our part, do all we can to make it possible for them to get the best they can out of that training.

The Minister as Minister of Defence has the responsibility of putting the best face possible on our defences. We accept that. He would be quite right to ask for some justification for the request we make for an examination of the position. I accept that progress has and is being made. There is no question about that. Only a fool would maintain that our defence has not made substantial progress. But that is no reason for us to shirk unpalatable realities in regard to defence. The hon. the Minister knows as well as I do, as well as many other members of this House do, that taken as a whole group under training, there is a substantial waste of the time of the trainees particularly over the third period of the first continuous nine months of training. That undoubtedly takes place. There may be very good reasons for it but it still takes place. And we cannot afford to waste the time of the country or the time of those trainees for any reason at all. They have either to be trained or they have to get back to their civilian occupations. We say they should be trained. The hon. Minister also knows as well as I do that much improvement is needed in directing the trainees to their correct regiments. I dealt with that the other day in another debate. They should be drafted to regiments where defence will derive benefit from the vocations those trainees intend to follow in their later life. We are acquiring, at a price, modern military equipment and weapons demanding high standards of training and efficiency in their use plus a high standard of continuous association with these weapons as well. I wonder what the hon. the Minister would tell the House if he were able to be frank—I accept he is not in a position to give all the information he would perhaps like to give—if I were to ask him whether we have the trained personnel available to get the maximum security value from the squadron of Mirage planes we bought—not in the sense of public display for a few hours, but to sustain them under operational duties for a long period. As compared with a peace-time display the demand on manpower, spares, equipment, servicing, ground staff and all the other necessary resources, is trebled and quadrupled in a time of war. Is the Minister in a position to maintain them in operational efficiency, in bulk, not just the one or two which are put on exhibition? I wonder if the Minister, had he been able to do so, would tell us, with the desperate shortage of trained and experienced personnel whether he has the staff to effectively man the powerful modern weapons that we have and that we are getting at a price. These are weapons which demand the constant service and attention of the people who have to use them—is not a part-time soldier’s job any more. We have got beyond that stage in modern warfare. I wonder whether he would tell us whether he had sufficient trained personnel to man the warships which cost us ± R10,000,000 apiece, ships which have had to go to sea under emergency conditions, emergency conditions which have developed several times recently, manned with about 25 per cent permanent force personnel and the rest made up largely of trainees many of whom have only just come in under this year’s draft. Men who, with the best will in the world, are quite inexperienced in the handling of ships of that type or in the handling of weapons of that type, in the handling of the type of navy we want to build up, a navy we can be proud of. These are facts we have to face, Sir. Would he tell us of his inability to build up his Permanent Force to the strength imperative in order to provide the experience necessary to get the value out of his trainees, at the same time keeping a hard core of Permanent Force for operational purposes in emergencies as he has to do with the different arms of the Service? If he were able to tell us frankly, would he tell us about the dangerously high percentage of trained and experienced officers and men in all branches of the Service who are being wasted out, practically every month, due to their dissatisfaction with the conditions under which they have to serve? That is something which we brought to his notice over a year ago and very little has yet been done in that regard. It has been tampered with, it is true, but improvement is hampered by Public Service regulations which apply to the Defence Force as they apply to the clerk who serves behind the stamp counter in the post office. They are two entirely different bodies of men working under entirely different conditions. We are losing men who are no longer prepared to put up with the way in which they are being messed about in the Defence Force. Due to the shortage of staff they have to do this job to-day and that job to-morrow. Men are drafted to go to sea for some two years with very little home leave. They are drafted to do that because they have the experience needed to get the ships to sea. They see the other chaps who have not got that experience spending their week-ends at home. Having their normal home-life ashore because they are not sufficiently trained to be of full value. These are factors which are driving men out of the service, the factors of unsuitable conditions of service and the inadequate pay for the modern type of defence man. These are some of the things in respect of which an investigation might help us to find a solution. Every one of these features is having its bad affect on our training scheme.

The hon. the Minister told us about the ammunition that was being manufactured in the country. Good luck to that. We can take pride in the fact that we are able gradually to meet our own demands when other people refuse to supply us. Even if they can supply us, if we can supply ourselves all the better. I know the hon. the Minister cannot, but if he could, I wonder what he would tell us as to how far we have progressed in manufacturing munitions and replacements for the major armaments they carry and required to get full defence value from these new ships and new aircraft we possess. With the best will in the world that is something which takes time. I am not criticizing the steps we are taking but these are the facts we have to face up to. It is no good blinking at these facts. It is no good acting like an ostrich and keeping our heads in the sand. These things are indeed hampering the standard of defence we are all aiming to see built up. That is why I urge on the Minister and the Government to accept our proposal for the appointment of a Select Committee in order that the House, the combined two Houses, can give the best we can in association with these people who really know and are personally concerned who by means of their evidence and information, can assist in the building up of our defences and the remedying of the weakness which do exist. It is no good our trying to bluff ourselves and living in a fool’s paradise and telling ourselves that those weaknesses do not exist.

I rise to associate myself wholeheartedly with the appreciation expressed to the hon. the Minister and to his officers’ corps in the Defence Force and the members of that force for the work they have done in the last few years to prepare our Defence Force for the task we have entrusted to them. I am sorry that the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) cannot be equally wholehearted in his appreciation. He said certain things in regard to which I should like to say something. I think that when one bears in mind that any expansion in the Defence Force, which had to take place so rapidly, was of necessity accompanied by the training of people who could cope with that expansion, then it was rather a tremendous undertaking of which our Defence Force so honourably acquitted itself during the last few years. I think one can speak with the greatest praise and appreciation of the work our Defence Force has done in this regard.

I also find it a pity that the hon. member preferred to approve of Britain’s actions, instead of standing by South Africa in its attempts to build up its defence forces. It is a pity that members of the Opposition still adopt this attitude. I want to come back to the question of the Select Committee. Hon. members opposite are very vague in their request for a Select Committee of this House and of the Other Place. They have not told us yet what the modus operandi of such a Select Committee should be. I must honestly say that I do not know what other information hon. members of the Opposition can obtain by serving on such a committee. I do not know what additional knowledge they will obtain.Secondly, I want to point out that a Select Committee cannot discuss any principles or matters of policy. It can only discuss the matters submitted to it. Now it is not quite clear to me from which side they want to have those matters submitted to them. Is it to be from the side of the Controller and Auditor-General, or from the Department; must it be an annual report submitted to them which they can discuss? The Opposition has not informed us as to how they want such a Committee to function so that it can be an asset to this House and to the Other Place. I therefore think that they are going to create a hindrance for themselves because everything discussed in such a Select Committee must be kept secret, apart from what is published in the report of such a committee. I therefore cannot see what purpose could be served by such a Select Committee.

I should also like to express my appreciation for the progress which has been made. I think the whole of South Africa is grateful for the great progress made in the sphere of our defence. In the past we have had threats from certain countries in Africa. To-day we receive fewer such threats because we have strengthened our Defence Force. People are more cautious to-day in what they say about South Africa. I really want to devote the time at my disposal to exchanging a few thoughts about the reason why we are arming ourselves in South Africa.

What is the object of our arming ourselves? South Africa is spending large sums on defence, it is true, but it is spending that money firstly in order to be able to take its place on the side of the West if a world war should again break out between the democratic Western countries and the communist countries of Europe or in the East. I think it is correct to say that South Africa cannot remain neutral in such a struggle, if it should arise. South Africa cannot remain uncommitted. We will always stand by the West in such a struggle. South Africa will have to be prepared to defend its Western Christian form of life against communist attacks. Now the real question I want to ask is this: Has South Africa any strategic value to the West in this struggle? The question is whether it is worth while spending the money we are spending to-day. In this atomic age in which we are living, with its long-range projectiles and long-range aircraft and its atomic submarines, there are people to-day who belittle the strategic value of South Africa. I realize that if such an atomic war breaks out between the U.S.A. on the one hand and Russia or China on the other, South Africa will not be of much value to the West, because it will be a battle which will perhaps be decided in a matter of hours or days, and it is not only South Africa which will hardly have any strategic value in such a world war, but any other country which has no atomic weapons to use will not be of much value. But there is the possibility that such a world war will not be decided in a short period of a few hours or even a few days. The great countries of the world are to-day developing all kinds of counter measures and techniques against the atom bomb. All kinds of plans for the mobility and for the sheltering and the spreading out of the population are being applied in order to try to combat such a short war. During the past fortnight we saw that the American congress was warned of the fact that Russia is developing a very effective anti-rocket projectile, and concern was expressed in that regard. There is also the possibility that when such a war takes place the other countries of the West will have to continue the war, even though Russia or China or the U.S.A. are knocked out. It is my opinion that in order to safeguard the Western way of life the other countries will perhaps have to continue carrying on such a war. We know that there is such a thing as the balance of power, a well-known concept in world history. To-day people do not talk about the balance of power but about the balance of terror, with reference to the fear created by the atomic weapons of the large countries, and if that balance of power is disturbed by such great slaughter and the large countries of the world are destroyed or paralyzed, one can understand that there may possibly be other countries which will try to achieve their own objectives, and it may be that after such slaughter, a different type of war will be waged. I want to point out that in the last World War Germany was in fact beaten, but it allowed Russia to come to the fore and to become strong, and also China. Therefore if the two large countries are destroyed in a world war, new sources of trouble may again arise in the world.

There are also experts who say that no atomic war will be waged. They say that the building up of atomic power by the United States and Russia will prevent those countries from waging an atomic war. Therefore the great countries of the world, particularly the United States, are busy preparing themselves to cope with what they call the “brush war” or the cold war. I think that in such a struggle South Africa will have her strategic importance, and I think that to-day there is a change of mind going on in the world in regard to the idea that South Africa perhaps has little strategic value to the West. The fact that increasingly more countries in Africa are becoming capricious, that more countries are turning towards the communist countries, the fact that the Western countries have to abandon increasingly more of their bases, and also the growing importance of China, have brought the strategic value of South Africa increasingly to the fore.

Now I say that Communism makes use of various measures in this cold war. It exploits political unrest, subversion so as to create political unrest, sabotage and revolt, and even limited local war, and the West is fighting a bitter struggle to try to combat the cold war and even to retaliate if possible. In this struggle a stable and strong South Africa is of great value to the West. If one considers that the U.S.A. to-day has more than a million soldiers in 30 countries beyond its borders in order to try to preserve peace in the world, one realizes what a great task it has in combating the cold war and in preventing the cold war from becoming a hot war. In this respect, therefore, a strong and stable South Africa, governed by a strong Government, and which can prevent communist infiltration in South Africa, is of great importance to the West. Any person who contends that South Africa has no strategic value in this struggle has only to prove that the following is not true: If South Africa had to fall into the hands of Russia or China or any communist country, everybody would admit that South Africa would have great strategic value to Communism. Therefore, if it has strategic value for Communism, it must also be of strategic value to those countries which are opposed to Communism. Therefore I say that fortunately there are signs of a change of mind and a greater recognition of the strategic value of South Africa in the present world defence setup. We are glad to have the admission that South Africa also has a task to perform in this regard. Therefore we are grateful to the Government for building up our Defence Forces to enable South Africa to assume that position in the world.

Now I want to add immediately that I admit that the building up of our Defence Force is not merely an altruistic action on our part so as to be able to play a role on the side of the West. It is in the interest of the West, but it is also in South Africa’s interest to have a strong Defence Force. South Africa has developed into a young and prosperous country. Her prosperity, stability and peacefulness are of importance to all the people in South Africa and it is essential that this stability and prosperity and peacefulness should be maintained because it is an essential condition for the development of a form of co-existence where every nation can retain its identity and every one can develop and achieve its national aspirations. If we were to allow South Africa to become another spot of unrest in the world, it would not be in the interest either of the West or of South Africa. Therefore one is grateful to the Government for having done so much to make South Africa strong.

I should now like to say something about the military strength of a nation and at the same time I want to deal with the training of women in our Defence Force. The military strength of a nation does not consist of its Defence Force alone, but it also embraces other factors which contribute towards the strengthening of that military power. In the first place I want to mention our economic strength. In that regard I also wish to express my thanks for what this Government has done to make South Africa prosperous during the course of the years, because if one wants to have a strong Defence Force one must have a strong economy to carry it, and the planning towards making South Africa economically prosperous has contributed tremendously towards making it possible for South Africa to become strong. But the military strength of a nation also depends on its political strength. Fortunately we can say that as a small country we have always been blessed with strong leaders and Governments, Governments of great integrity, and we can proudly say that we have a Public Service which, taken as a whole, is of high-standing quality. We are thankful for that, too, because it strengthens our ability to defend ourselves. Then I also want to say that the military strength of a nation lies in the physical and moral strength of its population. Fortunately we are an energetic young nation which stems from the best which Western Europe could give us. The South African has always given a good account of himself on the battlefield. I also want to say that by the moral strength of a nation one understands in the first place the standard of its family life, the viability of its social, religious, educational and scientific institutions, and I must say that in this respect I really feel a little concern sometimes; I hope that I am just being a little bit too pessimistic. We are living in a time of change, in a period when ideas in regard to colour have changed in the world; we are living in a time of ideological and of scientific change. Now my question is whether our people always realize what a challenge these changes in the world are to them. One is really concerned because nowadays there is so much apathy among our people that one feels that they are too complacent, in spite of the challenges represented by all these changes. I feel that there is a lack of dedication, as I might call it, on the part of our people, the realization that they are called upon to keep South Africa safe and strong. One is thankful to the boys who come to the fore to be trained, but one also regrets that there are so many who continually ask to be exempted from military training—that seems to me to reflect a lack of dedication. One is glad that a large number of our youth are receiving disciplinary training, and recently the hon. the Minister said that he hoped to be able to train all our boys in the not too distant future. One will be grateful for that because I think it is in the interest of the nation for our youth to be disciplined.

I want to conclude by saying something more about our women. In connection with defence, one must set priorities, and I think it would be fatal to begin training women before all the young men had been trained. But in a time where there is a shortage of manpower and in which South Africa might perhaps be called upon to defend herself, we shall also have to utilize the services of our women. In the last World War a large number of women served. In the U.S.A. there were 200,000 who did military service, and in Britain there were 600,000 who served in the forces, and there were more than 1,000,000 women in their civilian defence, and in South Africa we recruited 25,000 women. Therefore I say that for the sake of the moral strength of our nation I hope that we will eventually get so far as to train our daughters. I know that we have the Noodhulpliga and we have the Red Cross and the Voortrekkers and the Girl Guides, and we have the Land Service Movement, but that embraces only a small proportion of our girls, and I hope that we will be able to train a larger proportion of our girls.

This party and this side of the House have supported the defence efforts of the Government and of the country and have supported the Commandant-General and every man in the Defence Force from the very inception when the present Government took over, and I would have thought that we could have been spared the remarks of the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. van der Walt) in commenting on some things the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) said, particularly remembering history in this matter.

But I pass over that very happily and rapidly, to deal with another matter that he touched upon. The hon. member for Pretoria (West) is of the opinion that the expenditure that we are making on defence here is primarily to take our position on the side of the West. Well, I am in full agreement with him that that is a most important aspect of our defence expenditure, and indeed we have in the past taken that position; but I would have thought that even more important was action by our Defence Forces to ensure the integrity of our country. I think that the hon. member on reflection will be likely to agree with that. It was largely for that reason that, speaking for myself, we felt that the action of the present British Government in refusing certain weapons to us, recently, was an unfriendly act, an act unfriendly particularly bearing in mind the association we have had with that country in past wars.

The hon. member also said that he was unable to see the virtue that this side of the House saw in a Select Committee, or Select Committees in regard to various matters. We have proposed joint consultation of this type in regard to more subjects than one so far as defence is concerned. The hon. member for Simonstown has now proposed on behalf of this side of the House a Joint Select Committee for the particular purpose set out in our motion, and more particularly for a thorough examination of the Defence Citizen Force’s continuous training scheme. I am not as well qualified as some to advance all the various advantages which would flow from accepting this motion, but surely the hon. member for Pretoria (West) shows little faith in the virtues of a Select Committee, when he so lightly dismisses its advantages. After all, so many Bills in this House get referred to a Select Committee in the hope that they will be greatly improved there. Now while that is not a perfect analogy, the suggestion we make does derive validity from it. There is the additional fact that there has been this great measure of support from the Opposition in regard to defence matters, and this would be some recognition of it. There is the fact that some of these matters are rightly held to be of a secret nature, and certainly of a confidential nature, and this gives an opportunity where such matters can be exchanged and those aspects considered. Where one considers the advantage of a Select Committee in the present situation, I think, it certainly can be supported in many ways

This side of the House has supported the nine-months’ training scheme and the subsequent periods to follow it, and we still do support that. We believe that it has a most important role in our preparedness. One might perhaps diverge here to say that this preparedness is to enable us to give effect to our claim that we should be allowed to solve our own domestic problems in our own way. We say that, notwithstanding the fact that we differ with the Government on how it should be done. We support this scheme also for its value as character-training. All of us, I think, are aware of parents who have been very pleased indeed with the effect upon their young by a period of training under this scheme. Partly for that reason, we would like it to apply to everybody.

But, Mr. Speaker, surely no one would deny that there are many respects in which this scheme could be improved. And who better to attempt to do it than people of goodwill and enlightenment on this aspect collected together in this way? I am not saying that improvements cannot be introduced by the existing machinery, but I do suggest that this would be a further important method by which improvements could be brought about.

Mr. Speaker, I think there is a feeling in the country that while this is an excellent scheme, which everyone supports, particularly in the later stages of the nine-months’ training, time is wasted. Very often the scheme gets away to a very good start and everything is satisfactory, but in the later period of the training this occurs. Possibly there are not enough instructors to carry out the programme which has been laid down. It may be that although the instructors are sufficient there is not enough of a programme for these people. That is a fact upon which we are not fully informed and we would be glad to have information if the hon. Minister can find the time perhaps to reply to it in this debate.

There is another aspect. It is quite widely thought, also by certain instructors, that the initial period, while very excellent is perhaps slightly too full. Perhaps more of the time could be spent over certain of the basic training which might perhaps eat into that last period when time is considered to be wasted.

I should like to quote one small instance which perhaps does not go very far upon the point I am making, but it is perhaps evidence that we are shorter of instructors than we should be, and that that is perhaps the cause for the waste of time in that last period. On 5 January of this year, a train left Cape Town, in the morning, I believe, with trainees for Pretoria, and I am informed on the authority of people whose evidence I would accept, that there were either no officers there or no officers who were supervising the embarkation of these trainees onto this train. As a result a bad impression was created on all concerned and an operation which should have been an enlightening introduction to army life, was squandered.

I would be indebted to the hon. the Minister, if he has the time, if he would give an explanation and justification to this House of the time that is spent and the periods of training that are spent, and if he would justify the division of time which is being maintained.

I should like to touch upon other smaller matters which could usefully be discussed in such a Select Committee—the sort of hardships that occur in this matter and which could be ironed out a bit. After the last war, periods spent with the Forces counted for seniority in the Public Service. As far as I know no credit is given at present for any service during this period of nine months. It might be said that it is unnecessary as all people go through this process, but I do not think that that is the case, because a lot still do not, and I cannot see any reason for the one being better placed than another.

I think there are also various financial hardships that could be examined by such a Select Committee. The payment is 50 cents per day. If my memory serves me right the pay of privates at the beginning of the last war, in 1939, or 1940, was 3s. 6d. per day. When one considers the great rise in the cost of living and the depreciation in the value of money, one would think that there would be a case for examination as to whether 50 cents per day is a fair amount. Where people go back to do their three weeks training, having perhaps married in the interval, and having responsibilities, that amount certainly seems insufficient and often leads to hardship. This is the sort of point, and there are countless others, which could be advanced, which could be brought forward in such a Committee and which perhaps are not sufficiently brought to the notice of the authorities otherwise.

Finally, we on this side of the House strongly endorse the plea of the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg (Mr. J. W. Rall) that more extensive use could be made of our womenfolk in the services. In the last war South Africa employed womenfolk in many branches of the service and they gave outstanding service and did very fine work. I am not one of those who believe that this generation is not what their fathers were, or what their mothers were. We certainly support that, and believe that such a plea will have very, very favourable consideration from the hon. Minister, if and when it is possible. I would say in this regard that presumably he would not need to think of a period of nine months for the women of the country. They could serve in peacetime for far shorter periods and yet undergo useful training in various branches. So I hope he will not wait until there is an organization to cope with the young women on the scale that he has to cope with young men before making a move in this regard.

May I say quite finally that it certainly is a pleasure to associate ourselves with the fact of our growing strength militarily and to convey our best wishes to the Commandant-General and the Forces under his command in all their doings.

This has been a very pleasant afternoon for me as Minister of Defence. To me as Minister the constructive speeches which have been made here are worth a great deal, of course.

I want to refer in the first place to what has been said here by the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg (Mr. J. W. Rall) in connection with the sacrifices made by the men in our Defence Force and I want to express my appreciation of what the hon. member said in this connection. There is no doubt that the men of the Defence Force, the Permanent Force and the Citizen Force, have made enormous sacrifices in recent years. The members of our Permanent Force have done such good work and worked so much overtime that one can have nothing but admiration for their efforts to serve South Africa in this field. I want to express my appreciation of what the hon. member said in that connection.

The hon. member was perfectly correct, of course, in saying that if South Africa is weak, then it is an invitation to other countries to attack us. He also referred to the value of South Africa to the West. I agree that South Africa’s value to the West has in no way diminished. It is perfectly true that the military threats have shifted to a very large extent from Europe to east of the Suez Canal and since that is so it is perfectly clear that the access of the West to that danger area at the Suez Canal or even at the Panama Canal might very easily be cut off. If large-scale military operations have to be undertaken east of Suez, then the hospitality of South Africa is indispensable to the West and not only the hospitality of Simonstown. If the danger point is east of the Suez Canal, then our northern harbours will be of even greater value to the West than Simonstown. I fully agree with the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg (Mr. J. W. Rall) therefore as to our value to the West from the strategic point of view. As somebody pointed out the other day, the position throughout modern history has been that it has been the country which has controlled the seas which eventually always won the war, and the position will not be much different in the future. The country which controls the seas will win the next war, and no country, in these circumstances, which does not control the Indian Ocean, will be able to win the next war. That is why we are of very great value to the West.

The hon. member made out a very strong case for the establishment of a gymnasium for the training of engineers. Sir, none of us would dispute the value of engineers in modem warfare, and it is because we recognize that fact that we are already training engineers at the University of Stellenbosch. But I am afraid that at this stage I cannot agree with the idea of establishing a gymnasium for the training of engineers. Mr. Speaker, it is not altogether a new idea to provide this training in our gymnasiums. An attempt was made years ago—I think it was in the early ’fifties—to teach the subjects which form part of the first-year courses for Bachelor’s degrees, but it was a complete failure, for various reasons. I think we are all agreed that military training is exacting. We already hear complaints to-day that we are making no use of trainees in the latter portion of their nine months’ training. The whole theme of the speeches made here is that we should make more intensive use of their services during the last three months. I think that is right, but in that case they will have very little time left for studies. The question that we must ask ourselves is this: What do we want in South Africa? Do we want a Defence Force which has been properly trained as a defence force? I think that is what we need. In point of fact we are doing a great deal to-day to give the young men who come to us for military training for nine months a training which will stand them in good stead in the future. In our engineering corps the men receive instruction in bridge building, the repair of roads and aerodromes, in basic engineering; they are given training in instruments theory, cartography and surveying instruments. In our signaling corps they receive training in radio and electrical equipment, test instruments, switchboards, radio transmissions and other forms of communication. In our technical services corps the trainees receive a reasonable amount of training in vehicle and machine mechanics, the components of various metals, the use of equipment, welding, drawing office procedure, etc. It is quite true therefore that our present-day training is of great advantage to young men who subsequently pursue their studies in the subjects which they are taught during their training period The period of nine months’ compulsory military training is the absolute minimum period we can have. We cannot make provision for academic training during this short period without detracting very seriously from our military efficiency. I want to give hon. members the assurance that we attach very great value to the training of our engineers, but I do not think we can promote this matter by establishing a gymnasium for this purpose. I think the way in which we are tackling it at the present time is the best way.

I come now to the plea put forward by the hon. member—the hon. members for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) and Pretoria (West) (Mr. van der Walt) also spoke on this subject—in connection with the training or the employment of women in our Defence Force. My hon. friends did not draw a very clear distinction between the appointment of women in our Permanent Force and the training of women in our Citizen Force. I want to say perfectly candidly that I do not think we can make a start with the training of women in our Citizen Force until such time as we have women in our Permanent Force. I gave instructions to a committee which I appointed some time ago to go into the matter to give very serious attention to this question of employing women in our Permanent Force. The committee has made a good deal of progress already, and their finding is that at the present moment there is room for at least 2,000 women in our Permanent Force of 15,000. They say there is room for 269 women in Defence Headquarters, for 700 in the Army, for 707 in the Air Force and for 266 in the Navy. There is a large variety of posts that they could occupy, and I want to mention just a few: They could be employed as clerks, parachute packers, librarians, teleprinter operators, signallers, telegraphists, ground radio and radar attendants, machine operators, radio mechanicians, instrument repairers, etc. There is clearly an important role which can be played by women in our Permanent Force. The idea, of course, is to train women at first only for posts which do not require lengthy and complicated training, and at the same time posts which are not beyond their physical ability. Another very important consideration is not to place women in posts which will entail service in the field. The committee, however, is still investigating this matter. I regularly make inquiries to find out when the committee will complete its investigations, and it has been reported to me that their report will be ready within the next two or three months. This question of employing women in our Permanent Force is one which I take seriously and I believe that we will soon be making good progress in that connection. Naturally, as hon. members will realize themselves, there are a good many problems connected with it but we ought to be able to overcome them.

I want to thank the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg for the lively interest that he takes in our defence. I am convinced that the interest which he takes in defence will not only be in his interests but particularly in the interests of defence as such.

The hon. member for Simonstown said that he did not agree with the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg when he expressed his regret that the British Navy seems to be absent for such long periods from our coasts as at present. I do not think there are any political reasons for that, but I am sorry, too, that it should happen because we never know what can happen and when it will be necessary for us to protect these shores. But I hope, and I am sure, that there are no political reasons for it. Now, the hon. member said that the Prime Minister’s timing with his Buccaneer speech was wrong, although the effects were correct. Sir, I cannot agree with that. I think it is high time that the Prime Minister should tell the world that there is also a 1961 agreement between our two Governments. The proof that he was correct is the result achieved. It was said in a very friendly way and I am sure it was accepted as such, but I think the time was ripe to mention the fact that there is not only a 1955 Simonstown Agreement but also a 1961 agreement.

Tell us about that.

Why? It is already so late in the afternoon. All I can say is that I was very pleased. The hon. member said that there should be a balance between the uniform power and the home manpower. The argument he was putting forward was that we must be sure that we are not using too many men in uniform who will be vital on the homefront. But another hon. member hoped that the time would come when we would train every young man. Now, if we to-day train about 50 per cent of our annual crop of young men and there is this idea that we should train the bulk of them, how can we be training too many at present? It just does not make sense. You might say, Sir, that the training we are giving these young men is not up to standard, but no point was made of that. It was said that during the last three months of training these men were not kept busy enough, but I want to make this point to-day. We must remember that these are not only young men who are undergoing training; they are there also for a second reason, and that is to help protect South Africa. They are there as soldiers, too, and that is why we are bringing them in quarterly, to have them there right around the calendar. They are there for the protection of South Africa and at the same time we are giving them training, and the last three months is of particular value because it is during the last three months that these young ballotees who are being trained as officers get the opportunity to move into those full-time camps and serve the purpose for which they are being trained. But it is just impossible to think that you can shorten the period; nine months is the very shortest period we can train these men in.

The hon. member also asked me several questions about whether we can man our Mirages, can we man this and can we man that. By the smile on his face I can see that he does not think I will be able to answer those questions. All I can say is that if the call comes to-morrow our Mirages will be in the air. We are finding it difficult to get enough men for all purposes, but we are managing and we are training many men, and there is a vast number of men in our country who are partially trained and who will be able to do the job after some special training. I am not speaking now about the Mirages only, but also of the other branches. There are several fields in which there are severe shortages, but we are doing everything humanly possible to carry on. I can tell the House that where certain shortages are of a type where we cannot get the men in South Africa, we have men under contract from outside to do the work, but we are carrying on.

The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) said that while some ballotees were on the train there were no officers with them when they embarked. I do not know under what conditions they embarked. Were they embarked as a group?

They were marched from the Castle to the station and then embarked as a group.

Well, if there were no officers present, it was a severe shortcoming and I shall go into it. The hon. member also spoke about the nine months’ period. I am not sure on that point. I think it is only fair that they should be credited. I shall go into it and I shall put up a fight for it.

*The hon. member for Pretoria (West) and I hold the same views with regard to this Select Committee. I do not think that a Select Committee such as that proposed here by the Opposition would really be of any use. A Select Committee which has to bring out a secret report would certainly not find favour with the Opposition. They do not like Select Committees or commissions which bring out reports which are not laid on the Table.

And they do not give evidence either.

I really do not believe that it would serve any useful purpose. I cannot see what such a committee could do.

As far as the training of these young men is concerned, how is a committee of that kind to know what is possible and what is practicable? They would have to be guided by the military people who work with these things from day to day. I really cannot see what useful purpose it would serve, nor can I see how the Opposition would then obtain information which they cannot get across the floor of the House or in my office or in the office of the Commandant-General. I naturally appreciate the co-operation which I have had from the Opposition in the past in connection with Defence, but I have always offered to show certain things to the Opposition; that offer still stands; I am prepared to show them certain things in connection with our Defence, but hon. members refuse to take advantage of that offer. What more could they get on a Select Committee? I cannot accept this suggestion because I cannot see what useful purpose such a committee would serve. Amongst other things this committee is supposed to discuss the increasing isolation of the Republic. If it were true, which it is not, that South Africa is becoming more and more isolated, what could such a committee do about it? I know it is being said that there is a growing wave of hatred building up against South Africa, every other country in which Whites still have interests in Africa, but I know nothing about increasing isolation. For my own part I do not think that that feeling is increasing in Africa; I think it is rapidly decreasing. There are certain parts of Africa where strong groups are developing which are very much in favour of the closest co-operation with the Republic, something which was unheard of a few years ago. Even in Africa therefore our position is not one of increasing isolation. If you hear the news, Sir, that I have received in the past few days you will probably realize …

Order!

I beg your pardon. You will then realize that our position in the rest of the world is not one of increasing isolation, because the rest of the world appreciates more and more what we are doing in South Africa. I want to say this, Mr. Speaker—and here I do not propose to let out a secret—that my problems in connection with military purchases are becoming easier and not more difficult.

Mr. Speaker, I am naturally speaking in support of the amendment and I must say that I am very sorry that the Minister has not accepted our proposal for the appointment of a Select Committee, particularly because we must remember that when the troubles started the Defence Bill went through a Select Committee before it was approved by this House. I was not on that Select Committee, but I venture to think that the United Party members on it did far more than their fair share towards putting it into form.

I want to deal with the morale of the forces, to start with. If the morale is not good, the force cannot be good. I want to deal with certain grievances that have come to my notice. Firstly, I want to deal with a matter that has been mentioned here already, and that is the grievance in regard to the last three months of training. The Minister dismissed that grievance so lightly, but he should not have done so. My information is the same as that of every other member on this side of the House, and we all have young relations in the Forces. Our information is that in the last three months to all intents and purposes their duties consist of standing guard. Now you cannot tell me that any man who is furthering his career, after he has had his weapon training and square-bashing, should do guard duty, even to guard so prominent a man as the Prime Minister. That is the information we have and it is quite definite that everything in the garden is not as lovely as the Minister thinks.

From there I want to move on to one other matter. There is the question of the issue of passports to men who have finished their nine months’ training and who wish to go overseas for the many purposes for which men do go overseas. Some parents, if they can afford it, as soon as the fellow has finished his training, send him overseas for a few months to see the world. Many others want to go to university overseas, or they want to go to the head offices of companies overseas for training purposes. Others want to go on tour on a shoe-string. Surely it shows a spirit that should be encouraged, to go round the world with practically nothing, working their way. Girls do that, too, and if we are going to bring in a lot of women and make their training compulsory we will come up against the same problem. But an extraordinary situation has now arisen. Any trainee who has completed his nine months’ training and wishes to go overseas is refused a passport by the authorities unless he can produce authority from the Defence Department. This is apparently to make sure that they do not miss their subsequent three weeks’ training in the following years. Several cases were brought to my notice. The Minister should not now shake his head.

It is quite clear why that is so.

It is not clear to me and it certainly causes great grievances in the Force. This is the case of a man and his friend who finished their nine months’ training on 30 September last? These two were being sent on a trip overseas by their respective parents. Initially their passport was renewed, with the authority of the Defence Department, to 31 December 1964. They were not leaving for overseas until December. Fortunately for them their parents were extremely influential and they managed to get their passports extended for one year until 31 December 1965, but these particular people told me that they had considerable trouble in getting these things fixed up. In another case the parent was talcing his son on a fishing holiday for a week outside the Republic and a renewal of passport was necessary, but it was refused. Again influence was brought to bear and in this case the passport was renewed for five years. I have other cases, too, but I just wanted to quote these two to show what is happening.

What happens in the case of the young man who has no influence and whose career might be affected by the fact that he is held up for another three years? If a young man wants to emigrate some time, not having completed his service, is the hon. the Minister’s policy to refuse him permission to go? Because if he does not get permission and goes he will apparently be a deserter and he could not come back here without the risk of legal action being taken against him. One wonders where the Minister gets this power to withhold passports at his will, and I hope he will tell us. He will not have time to-night, unfortunately, but this will come up again and I hope he will give us a full explanation. Perhaps he will tell us, too, whether he considers it fair that a man who comes out of the ballot and who has to do service should carry this extra burden, which is not carried by the man who does not come out of the ballot. Is that fair? Surely the Minister does not want to penalize ballotees and interfere with their future to such an extent. After all, if a man is studying overseas, surely no objection should be made to deferring his three-week training periods. What objection can there be? When he comes back he will still have to do his training, and in the meantime he is required urgently, if he is being trained for some highly technical job, to take his place in the economic set-up of the country as a whole. We keep on talking about the shortage of trained manpower. To my mind this passport question can so easily be dealt with by a deferment of the three weeks that I cannot understand why the Minister objects to this, I am afraid I cannot find anybody else to agree with him either. I wish he could define his policy fully in this debate or make a public statement about it because this is a most serious grievance and it is considered to be a gross, unjust, ill-considered act on his part.

I want to come now to the second grievance. Here we have appealed to the hon. the Minister before to use his influence. Earlier this Session I asked the hon. the Minister—

His reply was—

I thank the hon. the Minister for giving me that reply. But the extraordinary part is that although these men now come under the War Pensions Act, they still fall under that disability clause which still stains our war pensions legislation. If one of these young men—in the nature of things, they must nearly all be young men—gets married more than ten years after the date of his discharge he will not receive the marriage allowance provided for in the Act. And stranger and more unjust still, Mr. Speaker, no child of his born more than ten years after the date of his discharge qualifies for the child’s allowance. The Minister may remember that some years ago when he opened the annual congress of the South African Legion this matter was brought to his attention and he said he would certainly look into it. Under the pressure of the duties he has had to perform, it must have slipped his mind. But this thing is still going to grow; the hon. the Minister knows that applications for pensions from men who served in World War I are still coming before the Select Committee on Pensions by way of petition. Now there have been 114 of these boys in two years; the matter is raised every year in the House with the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions, but this is a matter in which the hon. the Minister of Defence should now take a hand. He will no doubt be told that this will bankrupt the country. Well, the position in that regard is that last year I submitted to the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions information from the South African Legion and from the Governor-General’s National War Fund, information which showed that there were only ten widows and 125 children affected by this “time limit” clause. This had nothing to do with the hon. the Minister; these are from previous wars, but the boys coming out now will be affected in the same way by this “time limit” clause … [Interjection.] The figures were gone into very thoroughly by the National War Fund and by the South African Legion, and they revealed this extraordinary position that this Government was fighting to keep this injustice alive, and yet it would cost the State only R23,840 per annum, a flea-bite compared with our defence expenditure, to grant these ten widows and 125 children the right that really was theirs and would be theirs but for this “time limit” clause. Every year we are going to have men who are injured in accidents. We hope that there is going to be no trouble but while we get these men together we are going to have accidents; we are going to have any number of accidents. The way in which men can get hurt when they are on this sort of training is astonishing. These men all fall under the Military Pensions Act. They are discharged, and if they marry after ten years there is now allowance for the wife, no widows allowance, and there is no child’s allowance. Some children get the child’s allowance and some children do not. I often quarrel with the hon. the Minister but I know that in this instance he must agree that as far as the present generation is concerned this matter has to be met, and if it brings in the other ten widows and 125 children at the same time then I certainly do not think, in view of the amount of money we are spending on defence, that the country will go bankrupt.

Sir, there is a third thing I want to mention. I want to refer to our Coloured Corps. The majority of members of this House probably think that the Coloured Corps does not exist, but it does exist. It has been reconstituted and, as in the past, it has gained the respect of all its officers and it is a fine body of men. I am told that there is to be a parade or a review on the 24th of this month on the Grand Parade opposite the City Hall where I believe a very large contingent of the Coloured Corps will be going through their paces. I suggest that all hon. gentlemen in this House who are so proud of the Luxurama incident and other incidents of that kind should go to that parade to see what they are doing to the men who, if trouble comes, will be by our side. Is that the way to treat them when you are training them to take part? It does not help us to humiliate people like this.

Order! The hon. member is introducing all sorts of extraneous matters into this debate.

Mr. Speaker, we are asking for a Select Committee to be appointed.

Order! Not to inquire into the Luxurama.

May I renew the invitation. I believe there will be a large number of chairs. There will be no official invitations. It will take place at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Members of this House should go and see what is being done. They should see the type of men they have and the way in which these men train. I do hope hon. members will take up this suggestion.

In the original motion there is the question of incorporating women in the defence of the country. My own view is this that the women of the country have got to be trained for certain jobs but I hope to heaven we never get to the stage where we consider ourselves in such danger—we are spending a lot of money so there must be great dangers coming from somewhere—that we have to train them as the ladies in Israel are trained. The women there are trained in all arms, except heavy arms, even in parachuting. I know it is said we are just going to use the women for driving and clerical work and so forth but I hope there is no idea in the back of the mind of the Minister of getting them into the combatant forces. Talking about Israel, Israel, of course, is in terrible danger. I have seen men there plough with a rifle over their shoulders. They live in a country which is surrounded by well-armed enemies. But unlike us, of course, they have some friends. However, they are surrounded and it is necessary to be armed to the nth degree. We must clear up in our own minds what the position is with us. The hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. van der Walt) made it quite clear that in his opinion our expenditure on defence was in order to put us in a position in which we would be a valued and wanted member of the Western defence group when any trouble came. His view of course is borne out by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister saw the chief correspondent of the Daily Express recently and he is reported to have said the following—

He went on to say—

Then he went on to say—

I want to support the Prime Minister in his views. It is hardly likely that any real military trouble will come to us from the Black states in the north. I have here a publication which gives figures in regard to their military strength. I am only giving those in respect of the countries south of the Sahara, those countries which are regarded as West, Central and East African states. The general armed forces of these countries are as follows: Urundi 800, Central African Republic 1,200, the French Congo (Brazzaville) 800, Congo (Leopoldville) 30,000. We know a few South African mercenaries are up there and that they are walking through the place on their own. So I do not think there is very much danger to us from 30,000 from the Congo (Leopoldville). Ethiopia 34,000—they have plenty of troubles of their own—Ghana 9,000, Kenya 3,000. Madagascar 2,700, Malawi 1,500, Northern Rhodesia 2,250, Somaliland 7,000, Sudan 1,200, Tanganyika and Zanzibar jointly 1,500 and Uganda 2,000. The Prime Minister must have had some knowledge of this from his military advisers. He knows there is no danger to us at the present time and for the foreseeable future in the form of an attack from the north. I must on this occasion find myself in agreement with him on that basis.

The Prime Minister says there is no danger to us from the Black states. Secondly, he says the Communist Party in South Africa is not a serious threat. Then what I want to know is what are we arming for? I would like to be told what we are arming for and that is why I should like to be on a Select Committee. We cannot afford not to be armed. That would be ridiculous in a world as dangerous as this one. We must be armed. If you are weak you never know who is going to attack you.

Has it occurred to you that you and the Prime Minister might be wrong?

I cannot believe that. You would not admit that the Prime Minister was wrong. I am not saying we must be weak but we are spending so much money and there are all sort of grievances. The hon. the Minister must not sit back complacently and say: Everything in the garden is lovely. It is not. We would like to know whether this expenditure and the manpower is responsibly dealt with. I am not talking about the senior officers. Heaven alone knows how they cope with the amount of people who are brought in in such a hurry, with the staff at their command—well, they simply cannot cope with it and they need all our support. But we want to know what is happening and that is why we ask for a Select Committee.

I want to make one last point. The hon. Minister and the hon. member for Pretoria (West) made great play of the fact that we were a most important part in the scheme of Western defence. Of course we are. But there is one thing that the Minister never mentioned, but which his military chiefs must have considered in their appreciation of the position, and that is that it is highly likely, and we have been told this straight out, that in the event of trouble between East and West, we might be tossed aside by the West because they would consider that they could get more aid from north of us. You cannot expect us to sit back here and believe that everything is right.

When one looks at the motion moved by the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg (Mr. J. W. Rall) one finds that it consists of three legs. In the first place it expresses gratitude for the fact that the striking power of our Defence Force has been increased to such a great extent. In the second place the hon. member put forward two points for discussion, the first being the establishment of a military engineering gymnasium. In the second place he asks that consideration be given to the employment of women in our Defence Force. However, when I listened to the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) I could find no connection between his speech and the motion moved by the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg; I could not help thinking that we were discussing the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Defence. There was not a single thing that he mentioned which cannot be discussed under the Vote of the Minister of Defence. For example, he complained about ballotees who, after having completed six months of their nine months’ military service, are used for guard duties only. He complained about people who are allegedly refused passports after having completed their nine months’ service. He complained about people who were medically unfit and who were unable to get their pensions; he complained about the allowances paid to their wives and children. He did touch upon one matter which was important, although it has absolutely nothing to do with the motion of the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg and that is the question of the Coloured Corps. I am very pleased that he told us about the parade and that he invited us to go and see it. I will certainly not forget it. That date happens to be my birthday and it will be very easy for me therefore to remember that the Coloured Corps will be on the parade on the 24th. I hope we will all go and see it. But why the hon. member also dragged in the Luxurama Theatre is simply beyond my comprehension. I did not think that in discussing the motion of the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg one could end up by discussing the Luxurama. That is something which only the hon. member for Benoni can succeed in doing.

The hands-upper.

The hon. member then went on to make a speech about Israel; I do not want to say anything in that regard, but I do want to say a few words which is relevant to the motion of the hon. member for Bethal-Middelburg, and that is with regard to the employment of women in our Defence Force. I agree with the hon. the Minister that in the posts which he mentioned the services of women can be used with great advantage and that we will save manpower by doing so. In those posts it is essential that we employ women in our Defence Force. I think there are many people, however, who adopt the attitude that since we are giving military training to our young men, the time has come also when we should give military training to our women and not merely clerical training. For my own part I have always been opposed to it. My attitude is that as long as we are still in the position where we cannot train all our young men who qualify for training every year—although I hope we will be able to do so in the future; that we will be able to train all our young men when they reach the age for military service—I see no earthly reason why military training should be given to women. Their services can be used, however, in clerical and other posts, particularly in those posts which the hon. the Minister mentioned; they can be trained for that purpose, but that is quite different from the military training that we give our young men in the Defence Force. Sir, I hold strong views on this matter. The time may come when we may face the same dangers as Israel, the dangers outlined here by the hon. member for Benoni, when we will have to rely on our women to defend South Africa and when there may still be people who will say, as the hon. member does, that they refuse to fight for South Africa.

Where were you when the Japanese were on our coast?

I wonder where the hon. member was at the time of the Battle of Hastings. That answer is perhaps just as relevant and appropriate in reply to his question as it would be relevant for me to tell the House where I was during the last Japanese war, but I can tell the hon. member that I will not allow political reasons to stand in my way, as he has suggested he will, when it comes to the defence of South Africa, if it is at all within my power to make a contribution.

Sir, there is another thing that the hon. member for Benoni said that I cannot allow to pass without comment. He wanted to know what we were arming for. He wanted to prove to us that there were no dangers threatening us from the north. [Interjections.] The hon. member also gave us certain figures that he had worked out to show how weak the Defence Forces of the various Africa countries were. But his attitude was that there were no dangers threatening us from the north to justify the expenditure of these large sums on Defence. Sir, while I was listening to the hon. member I asked myself whether that was the same party which kept on telling us a year or two ago how weak our Defence Force was and how badly they were equipped, and who talked about the great dangers which threatened us from the north. But to-day they ask, “What are we arming for?” The hon. member must remember that things have not changed very much within the space of the last year or two. I think the hon. member was only trying to throw suspicion upon our Defence Force and to belittle the amounts that we are spending on Defence by suggesting that we are spending that money unnecessarily. Remarkably enough, shortly afterwards, in practically the same breath, the hon. member said, “Not everything in the garden is lovely.” I do not know whether he said that in connection with the dangers threatening South Africa, or whether he said it in connection with the position of our Defence Force. That is something that we will certainly debate here on some later occasion.

I could only infer from the tone in which he said it that he was doubting his own statement that there were no dangers threatening us from the north. [Interjections.] The hon. member now wants to put the entire blame on the hon. the Prime Minister. I must assume that he adopts the attitude that there are no dangers threatening us from the north. Sir, we are grateful for the fact that the striking power of our Defence Force has been strengthened so considerably. We do not say that we have strengthened the striking power of our Defence Force with an eye on a particular enemy. We are not aggressors. Our Defence Force is there for the purpose of defence. We are not going to tell the world against whom we are defending ourselves. We say that we are defending ourselves against any aggressor who may be foolish enough to attack South Africa and to endanger our freedom, whether that aggression comes from Africa or from any other part of the world; South Africa will defend herself at all costs and with every means at her disposal.

I think it has been refreshing to listen to this debate this afternoon. We have heard about the defence of South Africa in relation to the whole world before we came to the motion before us. In the few minutes left to me I should like to deal with the Minister first.

Now, the Minister agrees that the Prime Minister’s statement on the Buccaneer question was timely and correct, and he said that it was taken in good spirit. Well, I happened to be in another part of the world when this announcement was made, and the banner headlines were: “Verwoerd uses the big stick”. I can tell hon. members that the statement the hon. the Prime Minister made was treated with contempt overseas and it made us no friends. It was unstatesmanlike and did us no good.

We have spoken about our country and our defences and one is rather shocked at the considerable isolation we are living in at the moment when you see the enormous armies on the European Continent. I happened to see portion of the autumn manoeuvres, and one is impressed to see how those armies are equipped, and you realize what a small potato we are in this southernmost tip of Africa. One wonders if the statesmen on the other side of the House, if we have any, have done anything about securing for this small country of ours treaties of mutual defence.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 32 and motion lapsed.