During the course of my speech yesterday evening I paid the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) a compliment by saying that he was a member of the commission of inquiry in connection with the socio-economic development of the Bantu areas. My attention has been drawn to the fact that it was not Dr. J. H. Moolman the hon. member for East London (City) who was a member of that commission but Professor Moolman. If I have done the hon. member any injustice by referring to him as a member of the commission, I withdraw my remarks and I apologize.

The hon. member for King William’s Town (Mr. Warren) asked me last night what released areas there were in the vicinity of Braunsweich. If he looks at the 1936 legislation he will see that released areas nos. 27 and 28 lie there. The hon. member also asked how many areas there are there which still have to be cleared up if the corridor from East London via Stutterheim through to Queenstown is to be made White. I want to tell him that there are at least six scheduled areas in that area. I do not know whether it is necessary to mention them for the hon. member. He ought to know this. They are Newlands, Kwelegha, Mooiplaas (in the district of East London) Umgwali and Wartburg (in the district of Stutterheim), and then there is also the Goshen Mission station in the district of Cathcart although I am not sure whether this has already been cleared up or not. There are still about 30 or more Black spots in that area, which have to be cleared up.

I do not have much time at my disposal. To sum up I just want to say this. Notwithstanding the opposition which we have had from the hon. member for King William’s Town it is the Government’s intention to develop and consolidate the Ciskei just as it is developing other Bantu areas. I want to tell the hon. member that it is not this Government which has created problems in that area. The problem there is age-old. The Bantu had their reserves there which were never White areas. The Black spots were there and it is this Government which will clear those Black spots and which will consolidate the position there. This was the recommendation of the Tomlinson Commission which I quoted to him last night. It does not avail us to try to frustrate this aim which the Government has set itself. It does not avail the hon. member for East London (North) (Mr. Field) to say that the policy of the Government has failed in this regard and that border industries are not being developed swiftly enough The opposite is the truth. That area has enjoyed a development over the past few years which has been unknown hitherto, and the inhabitants there are grateful. The Government is going to clear the Black spots but it must have land for exchange purposes in order to make those Black spots White. But when the hon. member says that so many and so many farmers have to be removed, I want to point out to the hon. member that Black spots are cleared and are then made available to White farmers. The Government will solve the problem there as painlessly as possible, but it will not allow itself to be put off by the hon. member for King William’s Town. There will be deliberations with interested farmers, in consultation with the agricultural unions. I want to make an appeal to the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bennett). I know that we will be given his co-operation in this connection. He has given us some co-operation in this connection up to the present. I hope that he will continue to do so in the future and that he will not allow himself to be influenced by the hon. member for King William’s Town who in this case is playing directly into the hands of the Progressive Party against which he is continually warning us. If we leave the position as it is—the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) also said here yesterday that the areas must remain precisely as they are—the Government will not be able to develop that area and so the problem cannot be solved because there will be the same intermingling there that there has been in the past. But now there is a ray of light at which the hon. member for King William’s Town has taken fright, and that is that we are beginning to receive the co-operation of the farmers themselves. The hon. member for King William’s Town said in a speech to which I also referred last night—

He is not causing a “stampede”. Those farmers are approaching him in order to assist in the implementation of the policy of the Government to clear those Black spots, to consolidate the fragmented areas and to give the Government the opportunity to develop those areas as they should be developed.

I think I had better just reply to the question put to me this afternoon by the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo), rather than start with the questions he put yesterday. It is quite obvious that the hon. member has lost sight of the fact that there are such things as released areas and there are scheduled areas. Now it was never intended under any circumstances that the scheduled areas should be bought up. I will deal with that at a later stage.

When the hon. member referred to me as having said “He …”, then I want to say that I do not blame the hon. Minister at all. It is those people who are working for the hon. Minister who have stampeded a group of people into offering their farms who had no intention to sell and who do not want to sell. That is the position. However, I want to suggest to the hon. member for Somerset East that he has been very badly briefed on the subject he dealt with. First of all he must be well aware of the fact that we have got to take advantage of time and opportunity in this House to present our case. He knows that I placed a notice of motion on the Order Paper to discuss this matter, but when I found that I was 28th on the list, notwithstanding the fact that I had handed my motion in before anybody else, I found that I would have no opportunity to discuss the subject.

Blame your own Whips.

I do not blame my own Whips at all. I blame the Government, and they have got to take the blame for it. My Whips were extremely good to me. They allowed me the opportunity to discuss the matter on the Part Appropriation Bill, and if it so happened that I discussed the matter when the hon. member did not have the opportunity to reply to it, well, blame the House.

The hon. member went on to suggest certain misrepresentations by me in respect of this whole matter, as did the hon. the Minister and I intend to reply to each of those categorically. He told us that the Government is only carrying out the 1936 Act. Now where in the Act of 1936 is there any suggestion of consolidation into an independent Bantustan? At no time was it suggested in the 1936 legislation that that should happen. Then he goes on to question my accuracy in regard to the land to be bought. I want to repeat what I said because I think it is necessary that the House should get this completely straight. The hon. Minister sent one of his officials down there to tell us what land he wanted. It had evidently been selected in Pretoria, and he came down to tell us what was wanted, and he wanted Frankfort, Wiesbaden, and he wanted Izini, Braunschweig, and he wanted land at Alice and at Peddie. That was what we were told at five different meetings. What we objected to is this, that we were told that the Minister’s Department wanted this land and that if we were not prepared to give them that land it was up to us to find compensating land. We realized that certain compensating land had to be found, but I will go on to illustrate to the Minister that we found all the land that we could possibly grant him in that corridor. What I objected to, and the Minister knows it, in private conversations (I do not want to deal with that now), but it was also stated categorically that the hon. the Minister would not interfere with the catchments and the water resources that serve East London, King William’s Town and the other towns in that area, and if the area as claimed by the Minister’s representative is taken by the Native Affairs Department, it takes the complete area on which those waters are dependent in respect of those towns.

The hon. member for Somerset East told us that the hon. Minister wanted no land west or north. Sir, he has got his whole geography mixed up. These are definitely west of Kei Rd. and Amabele. It is the whole of that section of country comprising that catchment. Again I say that the hon. the Minister will be ill-advised to embark upon that plan. But, Sir, there is this fact that if he does not take that land, he still leaves the border corridor in a dangerous position, whereby the railway line on the one side, the national road, all telegraph communications and all power lines will be running through Black territory. Sir, are we to be at the mercy of the hordes that he is going to put into that country in the future? The hon. the Minister is wrong in doing things like those he is trying to do in that corridor.

I indicated to the hon. member for Somerset East just now that the hon. the Minister had released numerous areas of land, and I was questioned on the position of the land that had been released, on which the Government had options, and so on. Let us get this straight. Released area has gone over to Government control. Do not let us make any bones about it. Once this Parliament has released an area, it goes over to the Government. Those farmers can do nothing about it. Other than to sell out to the Government or to sell to each other, perhaps on a speculative basis. To confirm the figures that I have given, I want to say that the hon. Minister has taken or has released the whole of the area between Fort Jackson and Arnoldton, that is at Umdanzani. He has taken the whole of Potsdam, the whole of Mxesha, he has taken the whole of the Mt. Coke farms on the western boundary of the Buffalo River, he has taken the whole of Welcome Wood farms and he has bought farms right down to Chalumna. The hon. Minister cannot deny it. The hon. member there talks in terms of 10,000. Mr. Speaker, is the Government not ashamed of the fact that it released these areas years ago and that it has got anything from 150 to 200 farms, the farmers sitting there waiting to be bought out. They can do nothing about it. And when they have been bought out, there is nothing that this Government is prepared to do about them. But added to that I want to remind the hon. member for Somerset East, that the farm Fort Merriman was bought. That was never a released area until that time, that he created a Black spot in the midst of the European area. You have the two farms that were bought in the Chalumna River, from the late Senator Malcomess, you have the six farms adjoining Mooiplaas, which were bought to relieve the position of squatters in the Komgha District. But what happened? The Native Affairs Department went and collected 72 families from Chalumna and put them into the Komgha District. It bought Dank den Goeverneur, which was not a released or a scheduled farm, creating a new Black spot on the western side of the Keiskamma River. I want to remind that hon. member that it is not 10,000 but at least 30,000 or 40,000 morgen that have already been bought, and at least another 50,000 acres are scheduled or in the process of being purchased by this Government. These are figures which cannot be denied. That is, excluding the Alice section and the Peddie section, in respect of which the hon. the Minister is making demands.

The hon. member for Somerset East was only putting up a smoke-screen. The significance of the motion that I put before the House and the request that I made to the Minister at the time was that he should clear the Border area of that corridor of the countless thousands of illegal squatters that were to be found in that area.

That is quite a different matter.

I repeat that there are thousands of them and the hon. Minister is doing nothing now. He has had reports from his officials day after day and the position is becoming unbearable to the people living in that area.

You know that that is not true.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw.

I want to put the parallel to the hon. the Minister. If that was in Cape Town or in any of the cities of South Africa, those would be regarded as redundant labourers, or labourers who have lost their employment. And where are they sent to? They are sent to the Transkei or wherever they came from. But because it happens in the corridor, the Minister calls upon us to find land for them, to turn them all into peasant farmers. The hon. Minister knows that that is true. The officials with whom I discussed the matter told me that they cannot find the land. But can the hon. the Minister stand up and tell me now that any of these Natives that are to be found in the corridor differ in any way from those down in Cape Town? These in Cape Town can be sent back, but those must have land in our midst, and the Europeans must surrender land to them. That is one of the smoke-screens the hon. member is putting up.

There is another extremely important item, but before I proceed with that, may I remind the hon. the Minister that it has been the boast of this Government when it took over office in 1948 that it would rid us of squatters. Here is a pamphlet issued in 1949 “Fruits of the National Régime” and it mentions “an Act to prevent unlawful squatting”. And many of the other pamphlets have got exactly the same thing: “This Government will see to it that squatters will not be allowed in your midst”. So you go on. But where the real smoke-screen comes in, is in the following. We are suspicious, and can the hon. the Minister blame us if we are suspicious? The hon. member for Somerset East and the hon. member for Heilbron surely cannot blame us for being suspicious. They expect our co-operation, but here is a statement issued by the hon. Minister as late as 1964—

And this is what the hon. Minister said—I quote “The Government’s aim is to consolidate the Transkei and the Ciskei into one Bantustan with the capital as Umtata, the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, Mr. M. D. C. de W. Nel told me this week”.

No target date had been set for the amalgamation of the territories, nor was it possible to give any idea at this stage when the incorporation would take place.

And this is significant—

No deviation from the consolidation of the Ciskei and the Transkei, with a link between the two. Sir, we have the right to be suspicious, until such time as the hon. the Minister can get up and tell us that that European area is not expendable, we will not be satisfied.

When we come to his corridor, one appreciates that he came down there and said: “Well, there will be a corridor to the north and there will be a corridor to the south.” But where? When I questioned that particular item. I was told that there would be a corridor through what is known as the Mantindo’s over-crossed aerodrome, over to meet a road that is to be built from Maclean Town to the north. Is that what the hon. Minister means? Because if he means that, it is not going to fit the bill. That means he is going to take the land which constitutes the catchment area of the whole area of the Buffalo River. We plead with the hon. the Minister: Put us at ease, and if he does that he will get all the cooperation that he wants. But leave our catchments alone, give us a reasonable corridor, give us a reasonable no-man’s land between those Natives and us. because the hon. Minister knows that no Native knows any boundaries, and if he is going to make the railway line the boundary and the national road running through the area and all the power lines, he is courting serious danger to all the Europeans in that corridor.

The hon. member for King William’s Town Mr. Warren) will forgive me if I do not deal with what he has said because there are other and more important matters I wish to discuss.

During the last week, the United Party was searching for excuses as to why it lost four seats to the National Party in Natal. I hear the hon. member for Zululand saying that the policy of the United Party really won, but that the party itself lost. I have seen other statements in which it was said that it was due merely to a lack of organization. Well, they can still overlook places such as Jeppes and Port Elizabeth (Central) and Cape Town (Gardens), but not Durban and Pietermaritzburg and Zululand. That is not something from which the United Party will ever get away.

The reason why the United Party lost those seats is obvious, but they do not want to recognize it. They have been told this many times, but they do not want to accept it. The United Party wants Natal to live in the past. They do not want Natal and the English-speaking people there to have a share in the present and the future of South Africa. But Natal wants it. The English-speaking people of Natal want to have a share in the future of South Africa together with the Afrikaans speaking people in the rest of the country. That is why the United Party has lost the support of those people. That is why the English-speaking people in Natal are seeking refuge with the National Party. When I say the reason is that Natal wants to live in the present and the future and not in the past, then I am only repeating what has already been said in Natal, and perhaps more authoritatively than I can say it. Therefore I should like to quote what was written in the Natal Mercury in order to prove what I am saying here.

Read the Springs pamphlet.

I want to quote what the Natal Mercury wrote in a leading article—

More in sorrow than in anger we feel it necessary to pass what some may regard as harsh criticism. The mumbo-jumbo of political doctrinaires may go down well on the platteland, but in Natal it cuts no ice. This province wants to live in the present and the future, not the past …

It is not that this province is hostile to the United Party …

Now listen—

“The ox-wagon mentality of some of its leaders.” Then it continues—

This is an unbelievable prophecy, because it was written on Wednesday, 15 October 1947. In 1947 this is what the people of Natal were already telling the United Party: Take us out of the past, bring us into the present, and accept the future with us. But the United Party was powerless to do so. Sir, just as little, or even less, than it was able in 1947 to accept the present and the future of South Africa, has it been able since our becoming a Republic to accept the new reality of South Africa. That is why this breakthrough has taken place in Natal, in regard to which the United Party is so terribly concerned. Because in the first place the realities of South Africa demand not only a single patriotism and allegiance to the Republic. That is very important, but it is not all. It also demands a recognition of the real situation with which we are faced in South Africa and of its important constituents.

One of the most important constituents of the real situation with which we are faced in South Africa is that there are national and racial differences as the result of which the South African population cannot become a single community or nation. That is what the United Party refuses to accept. That is the reality it refuses to accept and which to-day still brands it with an ox-wagon mentality in the same way as it was branded in 1947 by the Natal Mercury. It does not want to accept the fact that we are not a single nation or community. It wants to go back to the days of the old British Colonial Government, when all “loyal subjects” were regarded as members of one community which had a political share in South Africa, as it was expressed in the 1854 constitution of the Cape Colony.

It is still the object of the United Party to try to establish a multi-racial community in South Africa in these times when it is clear to everyone from the evidence we have had from all over Africa that a multi-racial community cannot exist, that there cannot be any such thing—the evidence of Kenya, of the former Central African Federation, of Tanganyika, of Zanzibar, where Whites did not come into conflict with Blacks, but other races. That is what is proved by every happening in Africa. Those are the facts, but the United Party will not admit them. It still wants to live in the past. It still wants to bluff us that we should apply this multi-racial theory in South Africa. It does so with all the piousness and cleverness with which it was introduced in the rest of Africa, and it wants to tell us that it will not have the catastrophic results here which it had there.

This object of theirs, in whichever way one looks at the policy of the United Party and this race federation plan of theirs, and if one strips it of all the trimmings, is simply directed towards the establishment of a single community in South Africa which will include all races and nations.

In the beginning of the year the hon. the Leader of the Opposition came along with a new slogan. He changed his slogan of former years, and instead of saying, as he had done previously, “White leadership for the foreseeable future”, this year he said: “White leadership over the whole of South Africa.” Last year and the year before it was the time factor he emphasized—“for the foreseeable future”; this year it is the territorial factor he emphasizes. Well, I have already heard about “trading space for time” in military strategy, but I have never yet heard of “trading time for space” as he has now done. When the hon. the Prime Minister asked the Leader of the Opposition what he meant by “White leadership”, he said, “It is control”, and when the Prime Minister asked him: “How do you get that control in terms of your race federation plan?” he said: “You have it now.”

Therefore what the United Party wants to tell South Africa is that the situation we have here to-day is White control in terms of his race federation plan. White control, they pretend, is equal to the status quo in South Africa, a word of which the hon. member for North-East Rand (Brig. Bronkhorst) is so fond. But the status quo we have in South Africa to-day was brought about in 17 years of Nationalist government, particularly to recognize the existence of separate communities in South Africa, and to promote their development. That is why there is racial classification, as the basis of the recognition of racial and national differences. That is why we have group areas separation, why we have separate universities, and that is why we have separate Voters’ Rolls for Whites and Coloureds. Those are the essential components of the present position in South Africa. And the United Party surely knows that it does not want to maintain this status quo. It does not want to preserve these measures. It wants to repeal these measures— and this is important, and I challenge any member of the United Party to give me another reason—because these measures are in conflict with the United Party’s conception of one community, one nation, for South Africa. Because that is what it wants, it wants to repeal these measures, and in the place of it the United Party wants to restore mixed universities in South Africa and reintroduce the Common Voters’ Roll for Whites and Coloureds, and it wants to allow mixed residential areas again, and to repeal the group areas segregation.

Surely you are not stating it correctly.

As the corollary of that philosophy and those conditions it wants to create, the United Party wants to establish a multi-racial Parliament in South Africa, and in the long run it wants to have a multi-racial Government here. [Interjection.] The United Party does not try to deny the fact that it is its policy again to have mixed universities and Common Voters’ Rolls and mixed residential areas, but it tries to deny that its policy will lead to a mixed Parliament and a multi-racial Government. The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) was so loud in his denial, and I want to call him as a witness to what his leaders themselves said, and I want to begin with the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell), who is not here now. Note the date. It was in September 1961, before the election, when he held a meeting in Durban and said the following, according to the Star—

Surely it is not true that he said that.

On 4th October, at another meeting, according to the Transvaler, he said the following at Scottburgh—

Untrue.

If it is not true, why did the hon. member for South Coast never reply to the very simple question put to him by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) (Mr. Odell)? Why did he not say then that it was not true? Dr. Carel de Wet got up in this House on numerous occasions and asked the United Party: “Give us a guarantee that you will not bring Blacks here,” and there was no sound from the Opposition benches, just as there is no sound now. But I want to come to the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn). On 5 December 1961 the Star published a leading article in which it said this—

Not a multi-racial Parliament, but a multiracial Government. Now I ask the hon. member for Yeoville whether he ever refuted that leading article in the Star. No, he never denied it. The Star not only referred to a multiracial Parliament but to a multi-racial Government, and the hon. member for Yeoville never denied it. That was on 5 December 1961. On 12 December 1961 the official organ of the United Party, the Sunday Times, that great authority on the United Party, published a front-page report: “United Party plans a multi-racial Parliament,” and then the report says—

It was therefore a review of their former policy. What does this report in the Sunday Times say further—

But listen to this—

What is Sannie saying now?

We know what happened in the beginning of the year when the Sunday Times gave an exposition of United Party policy with which the United Party did not agree. Then the Leader of the Opposition got up in this Parliament and stated that they did not agree with what was published by the Sunday Times. This was a front page report in 1961 and I challenge any member of the Opposition to prove to me that what was written here was ever denied by the United Party. It was not denied because it is part of the United Party’s whole philosophy to establish one community in South Africa, and one cannot escape the conclusion that if one wants to establish a single community in South Africa one must have the representatives of each of these racial groups in this Parliament. It is just the simple consequence of the United Party’s whole view of South Africa. Because that is the basic standpoint of the United Party, the Leader of the Opposition told Mr. Clive van Ryneveld at the time when he wanted to join the Progressive Party: Remain in the United Party, because here you can express your principles just as well as in any other party. And he told him that as a Progressive. [Interjections.] There is the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp). I challenge him. Show me the denials of what was published in these newspapers as the authoritative statements of the Leader of the United Party in Natal and of the hon. member for Yeoville. And now I finally want to quote what the Leader of the United Party himself said. Remember, this was in the beginning of December 1961 when the Sunday Times published this report, and on 7 May 1962 the Leader of the Opposition addressed a meeting in De Aar. Remember that all these statements had been made that the United Party would establish a multi-racial Parliament and Government and what does the Leader of the Opposition say on the one occasion he then had either to confirm or to deny these things? He spoke about the advantages of this race federation plan of theirs and said—

But that is not all. He said, further—

The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson), who has so much to say, should tell us how one can participate in the executive functions of a state without sitting in the Cabinet of that state. No less a person than the Leader of the Opposition put his official stamp of approval on all these statements I have read out on 7 May 1962.

For the United Party to pose to-day as the people who stand for White leadership is nonsense. I say that the whole philosophy and policy and struggle on the part of the United Party do not differ one iota from the British colonial policy which resulted in so much misery and disaster in the rest of Africa. The United Party wants to put South Africa back on a road which South Africa has irrevocably deserted under the leadership of the National Party. It wants to put South Africa back on the old road of integration, and that is why the English-speaking people of South Africa are no longer prepared to be taken in tow by the United Party. That is why the English-speaking people of Natal and the rest of South Africa will join the National Party in growing numbers “to live in the present and the future, not in the past”, as the editor of the Mercury told the United Party. They will come to the National Party in order, together with their Afrikaans-speaking fellow-citizens, to build a future and not go back to the past, a future of which the United Party cannot know anything because it just wants to live in the past.

Mr. Speaker. I hope the hon. member for Innesdale (Mr. J. A. Marais) will forgive me if I do not enter into his private fight with the United Party. Judging by the cries of dismay from this side, I feel sure that somebody else from the Official Opposition will take up his challenge. I want to deal with another matter altogether, but before I do that I cannot allow to pass without reply the remarks made by the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) a couple of days ago about the recent election and the part played by the Progressive Party in fighting the Coloured seats. I am sorry the hon. member is not here, but I have no doubt that his Whip will convey my remarks to him.

The hon. member for Peninsula was indignant that the Progressive Party should have put up candidates in the Coloured seats, and he seemed to think that there was some moral implication about this. Now why it should have been all right for himself and his colleagues to represent Coloureds in this House for all these years and then it is immoral for the Progressive Party to do so, is beyond me. As far as I know, there is no personal monopoly in regard to any seat in this country, and according to the ordinary democratic procedure at elections, any party is entitled to put up candidates for the seats that are offering. We did so in the normal constitutional way and won those seats in the normal way. I must tell the hon. member, too, that not only is there no monopoly in regard to seats, but seats are not hereditary; they cannot be handed down from father to son. I also want to tell the hon. member that he has lost touch with the Coloured voters entirely. Perhaps if he had played a more active part in the election he would have realized how the Coloured voters are thinking these days. They have opted to support the policy of the party I represent, and not any promises we made, because we made no wild promises. We stated our policy, as every party does at election time. No more is the Official Opposition able to implement its promises or its policy than we are, so clearly it is absurd for the hon. member to take exception to the fact that we placed our policy before the Coloured electorate, which was accepted by them. They voted against race discrimination, and in so doing they voted against the Government as well as against the official United Party candidates. But mostly they voted for our party because we offered them not patronage but the hand of friendship which they have accepted. We offered them not protection against racial competition but equal opportunities on a non-racial basis, and they were quite prepared to accept the fact that ours is a qualified franchise party and not a party which offers universal franchise. The Coloured have therefore shown a clear preference for our party in these elections and I have the highest regard for their courage in demonstrating this preference, because in so doing they not only stood out against intimidation from the Government, veiled threats and intimidation, but they also withstood the blatant “swart gevaar” propaganda which I regret to say was used by at least one of the candidates. That is what I have to say in reply to the hon. member for Peninsula.

I now want to come to the main matter I intend raising this afternoon, and that is to try and trace the most extraordinary new example of this Government’s compulsive urge to interfere with the most ordinary activities of the citizens of this country. I refer to these new bans on multi-racial entertainment in South Africa. It was of course quite inevitable that this would have to come. Last year when I had a private member’s motion on civil rights before the House, in which, needless to say, nobody supported me, I pointed out that this sort of interference was quite obviously the sort of line which the Government had to take; that South Africa more and more was becoming a country subject to officials issuing permits and refusing permits and renewing permits and withdrawing permits, with all the normal activities of life completely at the mercy of officialdom. But until fairly recently there were certain accepted exceptions from what I call Government by ukase in this country, and the exceptions involved also multi-racial entertainment in this country.

The legal position I think is fairly clear, although to get clarity out of the Group Areas Act is a matter of great difficulty. But certainly under the original Group Areas Act of 1950, the casual presence of disqualified persons in an area set aside for groups other than their own, was in fact tolerated under the law. In 1957 the position changed when the Government amended the Group Areas Act and took unto itself powers to prohibit by proclamation even the casual attendance of so-called disqualified persons, except by way of permit, at places of public entertainment or at restaurants or cafés for the purpose of partaking of refreshment or being in a club for the same reason. This power by proclamation has in fact been used on several occasions since 1957, but mainly in so far as cinemas are concerned, and where restaurants and clubs are concerned, for the purpose of partaking of refreshments. That means that until recently there was a large variety of places of public entertainment such as theatres, concert halls, civic centres, sports stadiums, amusement parks, show grounds and racecourses, where multi-racial entertainment could and in fact did take place without any need for obtaining a permit. The discretionary right to allow or disallow multi-racial attendances at these places was left entirely in the hands of the owners of these places. That is why there has always been in South Africa a great variation in practice from town to town and from province to province. For instance, in Johannesburg the City Hall may not be used for multi-racial audiences. In Cape Town this has always been allowed, and the same applies to Durban and to various other parts of the Cape Province. The so-called tradition to which hon. members opposite refer in fact does not exist at all, because there have been so many variations of custom over the years. Last August, however, there was a new turn in the whole trend of events. A cloud no larger than a man’s frown appeared on the horizon, the frown of the hon. the Prime Minister, before which I might add, Rotarians quail and lesser mortals have been known to faint dead away. But this frown appeared, and the Prime Minister made a statement at a Nationalist Party Congress when he talked about this traditional way of life in South Africa as far as multi-racial audiences are concerned. Since then that enunciation of policy was actually used with the force of law on two occasions that we know of, the Luxurama incident being one. Since then we have had further action being taken, and on 16 January in this House, we had first of all a long verbose statement by the hon. the Minister of the Interior enlarging on this so-called traditional policy as enunciated by the Prime Minister. He did so in reply to a question put by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan). He talked about transitional periods during which time multi-racial attendances would be allowed until new venues could be found and adequate facilities could be provided. He said that non-White audiences at certain international matches would be permitted but if such events could be repeated, they would not be admitted, and so on. Since then we have had the appearance of Proclamation R.26 of 12 February, and it is no exaggeration to say that the whole world of public entertainment in South Africa has been in a state of utter chaos and consternation since the appearance of this proclamation.

Do you expect us to submit to that silly organization called Equity?

The Equity incident came long afterwards. I have just been tracing the absurd history of what has been going on in this country since Proclamation R.26 made its appearance. We have had a sort of Nationalist variety of the Mad Hatter’s tea-party. That is the only way I can describe the events which have been going on in this country ever since then. Proclamation R.26 now enables the Government to implement to the full the amendment passed in 1957, and with the quaint exception of people being allowed to enter premises for which they are disqualified persons, provided they do not partake of refreshment sitting down—this appears to have some special significance. It would appear that the 1957 amendment has now been fully implemented because it not only applies to cinemas but it applies generally to all places of public entertainment. Now this is the difficulty with this incredible proclamation. It is impossible to know what it means, because first of all there is no definition that I know of in the original Group Areas Act or in any of the amending Acts which defines what is meant by a place of public entertainment. We have had ministerial statements, of course, and in fact we had one from the Minister of Community Development himself, who was kind enough, with a note of realism I might add, at least, to inform us that political meetings did not fall under the umbrella of public entertainment. How right he is about that one! Secondly, nobody is clear as to what the real point at issue is. What is the deciding criterion which operates in the ministerial minds when they make their decisions? We do not know whether it is what the Minister of the Interior originally said, that it is just to prevent the presence of mixed audiences. We do not know whether the point at issue is to stop Coloured performers appearing before White audiences, or vice versa. We do not know whether the point at issue is the provision of adequate separate facilities at the actual place of entertainment. We do not know whether the point at issue is whether the entertainment can in fact be repeated or not, such as an international match or a club match, or whether it is the existence or otherwise of adequate facilities for the different racial groups in their own areas. Indeed, every one of these different criteria has in fact been used since Proclamation R.26 appeared in the Gazette.

So it appears that we have six different criteria. We do not know which takes precedence over the others, or whether it is a combination of these factors, or what it is that is the real deciding factor. Not only have we six criteria but to add to our confusion, we have four separate Ministers to deal with. It would have appeared from the first statement by the Minister of the Interior that he was going to be the guiding spirit in all this, because he actually mentioned his own name in the statement. He said that interim provisions would be made until the Minister of the Interior decides otherwise. In fact, he has become a very unimportant entity now. It now seems to devolve on two Ministers, on the Minister of Planning if the venue happens to be in a controlled area, and on the Minister of Community Development if it happens to be in a proclaimed group area. Now the Minister of Bantu Administration floats about in all this in some ephemeral way and I am not too sure where he comes in, but in one of the statements, it was said that where Bantu were concerned, he would be the Minister who would make the decision. So we have six criteria and four Ministers, adding tremendous confusion to an already vastly confused situation. I have here a veritable forest of cuttings to show how these different Ministers have been making different decisions, and each time they have used a completely new criterion for deciding. In six weeks only, the Minister of Planning has had 73 applications and the Minister of Community Development. 306. The Minister of Planning has granted 34, refused two, and is still considering 37, and I have no doubt that more applications have come in since I put this question to the Minister last week. The Minister of Community Development, busy little bee that he is, has granted 178 permits and refused 104. and he is still considering 24, although I have no doubt that he also has more to consider now. But the point I want to make is that all these decisions are ad hoc decisions, all by grace and favour of permits granted by Ministers who do not have to give any reasons whatever for granting or refusing a permit. For example, the Wanderers Club in Johannesburg was forbidden to allow non-Whites to attend a football match, although always at the Wanderers there have been separate stadiums, separate entrances, separate toilets, etc. At Hartleyvale in Cape Town non-Whites were allowed to attend a football match. In Durban, at the Kingsmead Soccer Ground and the King’s Park Rugby Grounds, both situated in proclaimed White areas, they were allowed to admit non-Whites. Nobody knows who decides in the case of race meetings where you have non-White jockeys riding horses. God knows whether that is considered multi-racial entertainment or not.

Now there are other events which are classified as “public entertainment”, where we have the same absurd confusion. We have had the Maynardville incident and the Red Cross parade, where there were 40 schools involved, some of the children coming from Coloured schools. That was forbidden. The Community Carnival, however, was granted a permit at Maynardville. At the Rand Show now only five days are set aside for non-White attendance. All cultural events are now in a turmoil. The Selborne Hall in Johannesburg, which was always open to non-White audiences, is now closed to them. The City Hall in Cape Town may have non-White audiences, provided separate facilities are provided. As for social events, heaven knows what happens to the poor promoters of social events. The use of the Woodstock Town Hall has been denied to the Marion Institute and the St. Philip’s Church, both of which wanted to hold functions there, for Coloured people only, not with Whites too, but because Woodstock is now a proclaimed White area, they were forbidden to have those functions. Finally we had what I consider to be a most shaming incident, the St. Dunstan’s incident, where permission was refused to hold a mixed banquet for ex-servicemen, men who have been blinded in the service of this country. They were not allowed to attend a mixed banquet, and when those Coloured ex-servicemen were given facilities for a separate banquet, the chairman was not allowed to attend because he was a White man, and we had the shaming incident of one of the Ambassadors having to stand outside the doorway to read a message to the ex-servicemen who were Coloured. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. If ever there was a case of confusion worse confounded, it is +Tis unbelievable muddle over Proclamation 1.26. I do not believe the Government has even begun to understand the implications of what it is doing. The hon. member for Vereeniging mentioned Equity. That is the tip of the ice-berg, let me tell him. After this we are going to be in trouble with every international body, with the Red Cross, with St. Dunstans, with boy soccer organizations. with girl guides, with rugby organizations and soccer organizations. All those organizations are going to have something cruel to say about this country, and I might add with very good reason indeed.

If they want to mix in politics, they have only themselves to blame.

No, they do not have only themselves to blame. All this came about through the Government’s absolutely paranoiac inability to stand being challenged by anybody. They cannot bear it. One would have thought that after 16 years of power they would have grown up and could have ignored the stupid challenges which were in fact issued to them, and have allowed this country to carry on in the way it has always carried on. But it is asking for trouble all the time because of its adolescent inability to ignore a challenge. It considers it a slight to its “kragda-digheid”, to its power complex. After 16 years one would have expected that the Government would have grown up, and it is just too unfortunate that it has not. I do not believe that the electorate knows what it has let itself in for, either. I am sure one of the Ministers is going to say that the electorate knew about this and voted for the Government in March, but I believe people did not have the slightest idea of where this would lead this country, and I am convinced that we are adding to the legacy of bitterness and hatred and mistrust in this country to a degree we have never had before. I do not consider this petty apartheid or a pin-prick. I consider it to be a very serious matter indeed, and I want to add that I am shocked that not a single leading member of the Official Opposition has raised his voice about it in this House. [Interjections.]

You never said a word about it, Marais. She is quite right.

One of them said something about the Luxurama incident. The hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) said something, but much though I respect her, I do not consider her to be a leading member of the Opposition. This Proclamation has not been raised by the Official Opposition at all. [Interjections.]

Order!

This country is deliberately adding insult upon insult to the non-Whites. The result is that thousands upon thousands of innocent non-Whites who have been enjoying themselves in their leisure hours following innocent pursuits, are now denied those facilities, because it is not true to say, as the hon. the Minister for Community Development has said, and the Minister of the Interior, that adequate facilities exist in their own area. They do not. Not even the beginnings of adequate facilities are there and there can be no way in which theatre, drama and international sporting events or sporting events of any magnitude can be carried out in their own areas. I say that there is no end to the abysmal stupidity of White South Africa.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) has proved once again to-day that she has chosen the road of integration for herself and that she rejects the road of separation. She complains that the rules in connection with admittance to places of entertainment are simply beyond her comprehension; she says that she does not know precisely what the object is. Sir, I want to say to her that if she accepted the accepted policy of South Africa, she would have no difficulty in understanding these things. I shall come back again to this later on, but before I leave the hon. member’s speech I want to refer to one allegation that she made here. She says that she appreciates the fact that the Coloureds supported the Progressive Party in the Provincial election in spite of covert threats. I wonder what she meant in making that statement; I wonder whether she can quote a single case where covert threats were made against the Coloureds that if they supported the Progressive Party they would be discriminated against or that steps would be taken against them. Mr. Speaker, the fact that the Opposition protested here so strenuously to-day against a certain allegation made by the hon. member for Houghton, proves beyond any doubt that what I am about to say is absolutely true. The Opposition strenuously denied the charge that they had done nothing in connection with the matter referred to by the hon. member for Houghton. We have had the phenomenon in recent weeks that the allegation has been made in the Press—and the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) has made the same allegation here—that Government policy or the implementation of the policy of the Government is responsible for the fact that the Coloured voters have now turned to the Progressive Party, in spite of the fact that the United Party contend that they have always objected to the Government’s policy. Sir, that is one of the most illogical statements that I have ever heard in my life, namely, that the reason why the Coloured voters are no longer supporting them and are now voting for the Progressive Party is the fact that the Government is following a certain policy, a policy to which they, the United Party, have always objected. The hon. member for Houghton has also made the allegation that the Coloured voters are voting for the Progressive Party because they have accepted the Progressive Party’s policy. Sir, they are both wrong. The Coloured voters voted for the Progressive Party because they had no alternative; they no longer wanted to vote for the United Party, not because of anything done by this Government, but because they found out that the Opposition were telling them a different story every second day. I think it is an absolute insult to the intelligence of any person to think that you can tell him a different story every day and that he will still go on believing your story.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

I will come to that hon. member in a moment; my time is very limited; the Whips have asked me not to speak at great length. I shall come back to the hon. member for Houghton later on.

Mr. Speaker, what is interesting about the amendment moved by the Opposition this year is not what they say in that amendment but what is omitted from the amendment. In this year’s amendment we do not find the usual allegation that the Government’s policy is responsible for the fact that we are unpopular with the outside world. Instead of that, the amendment this year deals with farming matters, cost of living, pensions and development. One was entitled to hope that the Opposition would at last awaken and that they would decide to carry out their function as opposition in a worthy manner in this House; that it was their intention to make the contribution that the country is entitled to expect from an Opposition. But what did they do? One deplores the fact that certain members of the Opposition, for political gain, saw fit to exploit the disaster the terrible drought, which has hit our farmers. Sir, I sat here listening to hear whether the Opposition was going to put forward any constructive proposal in this connection. But what happened? The drought was simply exploited by the Opposition. They made the accusation against the Government time and again that it had done nothing in this connection. I want to tell the Opposition that this matter was thoroughly discussed by the representatives of the drought-stricken constituencies; it was discussed for days on end with the Ministers concerned and with the Departments concerned. Proper planning is being undertaken at the moment with a view to granting further assistance to the farmers. The farmers have already been given a great deal of assistance; number of temporary measures has been taken and at this very moment the Departments and the Ministers concerned are devising plans with a view to introducing a permanent scheme of assistance for our farmers, a scheme under which it will be possible to help them without making them lose their self-respect. But the implementation of schemes of assistance is not such a simple matter. Certain schemes are being planned at the present time in the closest co-operation with organized agriculture with a view to granting further assistance to the farmers. I want to tell the Opposition that the farmers will not thank them for the attitude which they have adopted in this House. On the contrary, the farmers will only condemn and criticize them.

I want to refer just briefly to two terms which are being used more and more nowadays by the Opposition, namely the so-called “Cape way of living”, a term which they never define, and “little apartheid”. I want to come back now to the hon. member who spoke just before me. As a person who was born in the Western Province, who grew up in the Cape Province, I want to say emphatically that the Cape way of life has always been one of mutual respect and goodwill but not integration between White and non-White. The hon. member says that we do not know what we are talking about when we talk about a traditional way of life. I want to say to her that I come from a family which has lived in this country for many generations and that the traditional way of life of the South African people has always been one of the greatest mutual respect and the greatest goodwill be tween all races but that the people of South Africa have never believed in the integration of White and non-White.

Have you never attended the mixed concerts in the City Hall?

These are things which have only been introduced in recent years. What we want to do is to restore the traditional way of life of our people in South Africa. That is precisely what we are trying to do. There are certain people who are trying to create the impression that mixed residential areas have always formed part of the traditional way of life in South Africa. Sir, I want to say to those people that this intermingling of the races was always looked upon by the old White population of this country with indignation and by the Coloured population with scorn. I myself have heard them hold it up to scorn. The hon. member knows that they will never convince the voters or mislead them to support them in their policy of integration, and I just want to say to the Opposition, since they continually talk about the “Cape way of living” and about “little apartheid” that I regard these things, which are constantly on their lips, as just another form of integration, as an attempt to bring together families which do not belong together. I submit that if it is not a strange thing for families to live apart, each in its own home, then it should not be a strange thing, in our broad national life, for racial groups to live apart, each in its own area. Why should there be hositility between us if we cannot all live together in one large community? As far as families are concerned, we know that the best way to live in love and peace with one’s relatives is for each family unit to live in its own home. If you want hostile relations between two family units, bundle them together in one house and then you can be sure that there will be clashes. Why do the Opposition refuse to believe that in a multi-racial country such as South Africa, the best way to maintain harmonious relations between the races is for the various races to live apart. The best policy, in the words of the hon. the Minister of Community Development, is to maintain good neighbourliness but to see to it that your boundaries remain intact. Sir, is that not the best policy basically? The Opposition strenuously denied the statement made here by the hon. member for Houghton that the United Party had refused to join her in objecting to this legislation. They almost had a heart attack when she made that accusation against them. [Interjections.] I am talking to the Opposition …

You know that we are in favour of separate residential areas.

The Opposition know that the electorate of South Africa has repeatedly accepted the principle of separate development and that Nationalists have been returned to this House in ever-increasing numbers; that is why they are now trying to undermine us. Now suddenly they tell us, as the hon. member for Durban (Point) did a moment ago, that they also stand for apartheid. The Opposition now suddenly come along with these white-ant tactics and they tell us that they stand for apartheid but that they do not stand for full apartheid.

Nonsense.

Sir, I want to say here to-day that there are only two roads in South Africa. The National Party, throughout the years, both when it formed the Opposition and since it has been in power, has never advocated anything but total apartheid.

Nonsense.

I want to quote here what a previous Prime Minister, the late Dr. Malan, said years ago, if hon. members opposite allege that what I am saying here is not correct. According to the Burger of 5 March 1953, the late Dr. Malan made the following statement at Stellenbosch at a meeting on 4 March; he said—

Sir, I want hon. members of the Opposition to listen now and to tell me whether I am wrong; this is what the late Dr. Malan said as far back as 1953—

such as the Opposition is now trying to find—

Those were the words used by Dr. Malan, and it is on the basis of that policy of apartheid as enunciated by Dr. Malan that the National Party, without deviating from it, without any compromise, has grown to become the force which it is in South Africa at the present time. Do not tell me that the electorate of South Africa did not know what our policy was. The hon. the Prime Minister has already referred in the past in plain language to the four-stream policy, under which four racial groups in this country, isolated from one another, are living side by side on terms of good neighbourliness. Sir, the policy of integration has been tested time and again and it has failed time and again. Why do the Opposition refuse to accept that? Why do they say that they accept apartheid partially, as the hon. member over there told me a few moments ago? I say that they do not accept the policy of separation in its entirety because we have heard from them time and again that they do not accept this, that or the other part of our policy of separation.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to deal with this at greater length: I just want to say that separate development is the guarantee for the survival of the White man in South Africa; but I go further, the survival of the White man also guarantees the survival of the Coloureds in South Africa. Is there anybody on that side who is prepared to deny that if the Coloured is to survive in South Africa, then the White man must survive otherwise the Coloured will disappear.

Will he disappear into thin air?

I do not think there is a single member on that side who would be prepared to deny that. I do not have the time to motivate this statement, but if there is any member on the other side who is prepared to deny it, then perhaps we can debate this matter further on another occasion.

Sir, in the few minutes still at my disposal I feel that I must come back to something that happened in the House yesterday. I am sorry, but I must refer to the statements made here by the hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) in connection with agricultural matters, statements which were not only irresponsible but also in bad taste. He linked up his statements with the question of labour problems in South Africa. The hon. member in this debate was not only irresponsible, as usual, but in addition to that he also became personal. He repeated the very reckless statement which he made here last year that labour has become so scarce in this country that farmers are beginning to steal one another’s labour. He said that he made this statement here last year and that he wanted to repeat it this year and that he challenged any member on this side to deny it. Well, I deny it. I deny that the morality of the farmers of South Africa has sunk to the level where they are beginning to steal one another’s labour. I say that that is a reprehensible statement and as farmers we take the strongest exception to it.

May I put a question to you?

I shall reply to the hon. member’s question even before he puts it. Let me first finish my statement and if by that time the hon. member has still not got his answer, he may put his question. But the hon. member went further. When the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. G. P. Kotze) told him that that had not been his experience as a farmer in the Boland, the hon. member for Sea Point said to him, “yes, but you are not a farmer; you are a ‘skilpadboer’ (tortoise farmer).” Sir, it is extremely insulting to address those words to somebody who enjoyed the confidence of the farmers as the hon. member for Gordonia did. The hon. member for Gordonia was chairman of the Orange River Agricultural Union, and I am convinced that that is a post which the farmers would not entrust to the hon. member for Sea Point. I think it is a very great pity that the hon. member used that term in relation to the hon. member for Gordonia.

May I ask a question?

Let me first finish what I want to say and if time permits I will then reply to the hon. member’s question. Sir, I want to put a pertinent question now to the hon. member for Sea Point: Does he object to the removal of the Bantu from the Cape; does he object to it in principle?

May I give the answer now?

The hon. member need only say “Yes” or “No”. Does he object in principle to the removal of the Bantu from the Western Cape?

Yes.

Well, now we know where the hon. member stands.

I have answered your question; may I ask my question now?

Let me first finish my speech; I will then gladly reply to the hon. member’s question if I still have time. Sir. this Government adopts the attitude that the natural home of the Coloured is the Western Cape and within this natural home of his preference must be given to him as far as employment is concerned. That is the first point.

And what about the Whites?

That also applies to the Whites, of course. But I say that this is the natural home of the Coloureds and that is why preference must be given to the Coloureds over and above the Bantu when there are limited opportunities of employment. That is my first submission. I now come to my second submission: We know that at the present time we are experiencing an economic boom which has resulted in a manpower shortage in all sectors of the economy. I want to say immediately that it is only natural that there should also be a shortage of farm labourers.

Why are you complaining then?

I have never complained about it but I do object to the hon. member’s attitude that we must not remove the Bantu from the Western Cape when we have a labour surplus here. But how does one know that there is a surplus unless one makes a survey? How can anyone on earth know whether there is a surplus when no survey has ever been made? Sir, what did the Ministers concerned do in this regard? They established an inter-departmental directorate of labour, and that directorate of labour is at present conducting large-scale surveys of the labour potential and the availability of labour. After all, that is the way in which a responsible Government sets about things. That is precisely why this Government is growing from strength to strength. But the Opposition are apparently not aware of the survey or they are simply taking no notice of it. As I said, this directorate of labour is conducting a survey at the present time to ascertain the labour requirements as against the labour potential in the Western Cape. Once this survey has been completed, a register will be kept of unemployed Coloureds who will then be available to fill vacancies. Those who are not equipped for the labour market will then be equipped properly; facilities are being created to equip them for the labour market. That is the second step. Has the hon. member for Sea Point any fault to find with that? When we come to the final step and we find that all Coloured labour has been absorbed in this area, in which we say that preference should be given to them as far as employment is concerned, then the Government will allow Bantu migrant labourers to come here on a temporary basis. The hon. member over there pretends that he is an absolute stranger in Jerusalem; that he has never heard of these steps. Why does he not rather co-operate with the Government to make it possible for these registrations to be completed as soon as possible? Why do members of the Opposition not rather give their co-operation to the Government with a view to creating facilities to equip these people for the labour market? Once we have done that, then, if there is still a labour shortage, the Government will allow migrant labourers to come here. Sir, the Government has repeatedly given the guarantee that it will see to it that our agricultural industry and our secondary industries are not killed. We will then make available migrant labour on an organized basis in places where it can best be controlled and utilized. The existing labour force will then be made available to places where Bantu labour cannot be provided. What is wrong with that policy? Would the hon. member for Sea Point prefer to have the state of affairs which prevailed here when scores of Bantu walked our streets looking for employment? Would he prefer that state of affairs to the organized state of affairs that we are now going to have in South Africa? That is my question to the hon. member; what is his reply? A moment ago he was very anxious to reply but now it seems to me that he is no longer so keen.

On a point of order, may I reply to the hon. member’s question?

Order! That is not a point of order.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Houghton has always come here with the plea: “Away with job reservation, away with your policy of removing the Bantu from the Western Cape.” I just want to say to her, since she and her party are now taking a little more interest in the Coloured vote, that if they persist with that story the Progressive Party will perhaps not be as successful in the next Coloured election as they were in the recent Coloured election. The hon. member for Sea Point may now put his question.

After the hon. member’s eloquence …

Order! The hon. member-must not make a speech now.

Is it true that the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. G. de K. Maree) was so short of labour that he later on hired a farm belonging to the Government from Coloureds and farmed there at a rental of R30 per annum?

The hon. member for Sea Point has nothing to do with it if I hire a farm. It has nothing to do with the shortage of labour in any event because unlike certain members who like to spend their time in the Sea Point swimming pool, I am not too lazy to do my own work.

I think that there was more steam and dust in the speech of the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. G. de K. Maree) than there was substance. I think it ought to be clear to him that no matter how much his party may talk about the removal of the Bantu from the Western Cape, the number of Bantu in the Western Cape continues to increase week after week and month after month and all the towns and cities in the Western Cape are becoming blacker and blacker under the policy of the Nationalist Party. The hon. member based his speech on the fact that the Nationalist Party has always been in favour of total apartheid, and he quoted Dr. D. F. Malan, a former Prime Minister, in this connection. I wonder how accurately the hon. member read the speeches of the late Dr. Malan? I have here the speech which Dr. Malan made in this House on 12 April 1950 in which he said (Translation)—

That is not the policy of the Nationalist Party! Let the hon. member read that speech at column 4251 (Afrikaans).

Before dealing with other matters I also want to refer to the speech of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) in which she attacked this side of the House for apparently not having taken strong enough action in connection with places of entertainment where the rights of the Coloureds were being curtailed.

I wonder whether she knows that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition raised this matter at a large meeting in the City Hall, Cape Town, at which 1,000 people were present? He discussed this matter at some length and pointed out the mistakes which the Government was making in this regard. Does she not know that frontbenchers on this side, inter alia, the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), have travelled throughout the country and have spoken about the scandalous action of the Government in this connection? Does she not know that the first person who raised this matter here in this House was myself through the medium of a question to the Minister? I do not know where the hon. member for Houghton was at that time; possibly she was busy helping the Nationalist Party in one or other of those three-cornered contests. No wonder the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) addressed the hon. member for Houghton as “my girl”. Neither can I understand that the Progressive Party, just like the hon. member for Houghton, can still go on saying that their policy will not lead to “one man, one vote”. To put the position very simply, they want to give the vote to every Native man and to every Native with a Standard VI education or an income of £25 per month, in the case of men. …

And Standard VI.

Yes, Standard VI and an income of £25 per month in the case of men, or only Standard VIII. Does she not know as is stated here in one of the pamphlets which they published, that it is also their policy to make education compulsory up to Standard VIII?

Of course.

She admits it. She says that all Natives with a Standard VIII education should be placed on the voters’ Roll and that education should be made compulsory up to Standard VIII in the case of Natives. This is clearly a policy which will lead to “one man, one vote”. Her own leader, Dr. Steytler, has said—

Their great propagandist, the editor of the Rand Daily Mail, wrote as follows only a few weeks ago on the policy of the Progressive Party—

This is the policy of the Progressive Party—

Then Dagbreek had an interview with the leader of the Progressive Party, Dr. Steytler. Dr. Steytler said that he could find no fault with what the editor of the Rand Daily Mail had written about integration in this connection. I do not want to argue any further with the hon. member for Houghton; they have suffered a tremendous defeat in the important constituencies. The stronghold of the Progressive Party has moved from Houghton to Hanover Street—but let us leave the matter at that.

May I ask a question?

I wish the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) would not give the Progressives so much help to-day. We have heard a great deal during this debate about the past election. We have heard pearls of wisdom from the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) and also from the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) in regard to what apparently happened to the United Party and how badly things apparently went for us. I think it is time that we replied to these charges. In the first instance, we all agree that the election was disastrous for the Progressive Party. I am also prepared to admit that things did not go as well with the United Party as I expected, but to conclude from this fact that it was a great victory for the Nationalist Party is equally wrong. I want to mention a few facts and I challenge hon. members opposite to deny them. In 37 constituencies in which the election was fought in the Transvaal and in the Cape in regard to which a comparison can be drawn, the United Party did better than the Nationalist Party in no fewer than 13 of those constituencies, that is to say, in more than a third of them, in comparison with the position in 1961. We reduced the majorities in no fewer than eight Nationalist Party seats. We brought down their majority in Marico by 829 votes; by 1,080 in Christiana and by 1,129 in Wolmaransstad. No, Mr. Speaker, the United Party did not suffer a total defeat.

That is a lie.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg) allowed to say: “That is a lie”?

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that remark.

I withdraw the word “lie”, Mr. Speaker.

I have the Burger in front of me and if the hon. member for Wolmaransstad wants to say that the Burger is lying, then I shall accept his statement. In the Burger’s article on the rise and fall of the parties’ majorities, it is stated that in 1961 the majority in Wolmaransstad was 4,469 and was only 3,340 this year, in other words, a drop of 1,129.

What was the percentage vote?

What does the percentage have to do with the position? I have mentioned the facts and the hon. member has denied it; now he must admit that he is wrong.

There was another characteristic of this election; never before has there been such a low percentage poll, as far as I can remember, at a Provincial Council election. If we look at the figures, Sir, we will see that Nationalists stayed away from the polls in their hundreds and thousands. Hundreds and thousands fewer than in 1961 voted in many cases. In Brakpan they had a thousand fewer votes than in 1961; in Christiana, 1,500 fewer; in Langlaagte, 700 fewer; in Baberton. 900 fewer; in Rustenburg, 700 fewer; in Wolmaransstad, 1,600 fewer; in Aliwal, 800 fewer; in Hottentots Holland, 700 fewer; in Prieska 700 fewer. The Nationalists simply did not go and vote for their Party as they voted for it in 1961. Hon. members opposite now boast that they have won the votes of so many hundreds of English-speaking people. If the votes of those English-speaking people are to be counted amongst the votes which were cast for them, then even fewer Nationalists voted for them than I have described.

Can you imagine what will happen if all of them vote?

It is just as well we should analyse a few of the nebulous statements which were made after the election. Firstly, we had the shameful lie that there was apparently a split in the United Party. When an unimportant newspaper dishes up rubbish like this, one may just as well ignore it. There is, of course, not a single word of truth in it. If we want to talk of internal strife, if we want to talk of a threatened split, let us look for a moment at the Government itself. I wonder whether hon. members remember that an independent Nationalist candidate stood at Wonderboom? He was so aggrieved by his own party that he stood against the official candidate of that party and received 2,700 votes. I hope that the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, who is the hon. member for Wonderboom, will reply to this. Where is mention made about the establishment of new parties? It was the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) who said a few weeks ago that he hoped that the Nationalist Party would become like the old South African Party. They want to see change in their party; they are dissatisfied with their party.

There is no unanimity amongst them as far as policy is concerned. Just think of the struggle between the editors of Die Transvaler and Die Vaderland. Mr. Speaker, you will remember how the editor of Die Transvaler wrote that the White man could never survive unless he did away with the Bantu labour. This editor was strongly attacked in a special article which appeared in Die Vaderland in this regard. Hon. members say that there is a split in our party but that split is not in this party. Just consider the tension between the north and the south, between the west and the east in their party. Where is the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. P. S. Marais)? He was actually called a “liberalist” in a Transvaal newspaper; he was also called a “radical” which is even worse. He was called a “radical” like Jonty Driver, the former president of Nusas. He was called this by his Transvaal friends from the north. We in the United Party do not say things like this about one another; we are more united than that. Then there was a counter attack on the part of the hon. member for Innesdal (Mr. J. A. Marais) in Dagbreek. After this the editor of Die Vaderland stated that any person who disagreed even slightly with the official Nationalist Party policy could be called a liberalist and a radical. Let me read what the editor of Dagbreek had to say (translation)—

His own people say that he is not a good Nationalist! Dagbreek went on to say (translation)—

This is how fond the Nationalists of the north and south are of one another, Mr. Speaker! Let us now consider the reaction of Die Burger in regard to the attacks from Pretoria on the Cape Nationalists. This is strong language; it is almost as strong as the language which they use against the United Party. The editor of Die Burger writes as follows (translation)—

Note, Sir, “broeders” and not “broers”— with a magnifying glass and delousing comb for un-national and liberal deviations in southern circles has now become worse than ridiculous. When these people pretend to start searching for their bogies in the head office of the Nationalists Party in the Cape then it is time to tell them: “Listen, go and play marbles with your mates”.

This is how the Burger writes about the northern Nationalists! Then they talk about a split in our ranks! In any event, one group in the United Party did not call another group a Jonty Driver; one group in the United Party did not call another group delousing-comb carriers.

Another nonsensicality which we hear in Nationalist circles is the story that the English-speaking people went over to them in large numbers during the past election. That is just not true. What the ordinary English-speaking voter thinks of the Nationalist Party is reflected in a letter from a former chairman of their’s in Natal who resigned and who wrote as follows—

He was a Nationalist for 30 years. Let me add that he is an enthusiastic United Party supporter to-day.

Attempts were made a few months ago to obtain co-operation in the economic sphere between Afrikaans mining interests and English mining interests. Do you remember, Mr. Speaker, that there was almost an explosion in Nationalist Party circles and newspapers when this matter was raised? There is the hon. member for Edenvale (Dr. Koornhof), the secretary of the Broederbond. He was so shocked to see that there was co-operation between Afrikaans- and English-speaking economic interests that he made a special announcement in which he said (translation)—

I do not know whether the hon. member is still the seoretary of the Broederbond. We should like to know from the hon. member for Edenvale and leading frontbenchers of the Nationalist Party whether, when they talk of co-operation between Afrikaans- and English-speaking people, this also holds good in the case of the Boy Scouts and the Voortrekkers, the Red Cross and the Noodhulpliga? Have there ever been any signs on their part? Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) and I addressed a meeting at Empangeni a few weeks ago, the hon. member for Zululand put this question to the audience: “I ask any Nationalist in the audience to mention one organization for me in which it is possible for an English-speaking Nationalist to be placed on an equal footing with an Afrikaans Nationalist?”, to which a voice from the back of the hall replied “Avbob”!

Another untruth which is spoken in connection with this election is that the United Party has apparently swung right and has shirked its policy completely. That is not true; the United Party still stands where it has stood over the years. It is the hon. the Prime Minister and his party who have swung in a radically anarchistic direction, while the United Party is the party that has held its course. Since the establishment of the United Party in 1933, under General Hertzog, we have been explaining what the United Party stands for. We are pleased that it has at last begun to penetrate clearly to the Nationalist Party, to the country and, I hope, to the S.A.B.C., who will publish it, that the important basic difference between the parties to-day is the following: The United Party stands for an enlightened White leadership throughout the whole of South Africa, the Nationalist Party stands for White leadership over a part of South Africa, and the Progressive Party stands for White leadership nowhere in South Africa. As long as that fact can penetrate to the ordinary voter in South Africa we can discuss the minor details of policy further at a later stage.

Are you going to stand against Mantanzima?

No, it is not my intention to stand against Kaiser Mantanzima. I can refer you to an interview which Kaiser Mantanzima gave in which he said that he was very fond of the Prime Minister. I can also refer you to the Hansard of the Transkei which I have here in which Kaiser Mantanzima now says: “I recognize no Central Government.” He is already repudiating this Government.

I want to come now to an extremely important matter. This is something which affects every person and every business in South Africa. I am sorry that the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs is not here; I hope he will be back in time. I want to deal with the threatening crisis which exists in the Post Office to-day. Collapse threatens the Post Office in South Africa, Sir. This is a matter which is causing inconvenience to the public. There are few Members of Parliament who have not received complaints in this connection. There are cases in which it takes a week for a letter to go from one end of a street to the other end. I know of a case in which a person travelled 120 miles and arrived at his destination before the call which he had booked was put through. As far as this matter is concerned, we have the fullest sympathy with the hardworking Post Office staff. We, on this side, thank them for what they are doing. We agree with them when they say that this Government is neglecting them shamefully. I have here a telegram which reads as follows (translation)—

Where does this come from? From “Nationalists, General Post Office, Johannesburg”; We have now to look to the interests of their people, Mr. Speaker! That is how poorly they look after their own people. There is discrimination against Post Office staff; they have a longer basic working week than other departments; the opportunities for promotion in the Post Office are the most limited of all Government departments. Only one in 50 in the Post Office can ever hope to earn more than £1,400 in basic salary, while one in ten in the Department of Bantu Administration and Development can look forward to this. What a great difference between the two! The working conditions of the Post Office workers are dreadful. The building programme of the Post Office is 20 years behind; there is a fantastic shortage of staff; there were no fewer than 30,000 resignations during a period of five years, and the total staff number only 47,000. Hundreds are resigning from the Post Office every month, and the reason for this is simply the weakness of the hon. the Minister to look after his officials and the obstinate refusal and delay on the part of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to do anything. I warn the Government that if they do not do something in connection with our Post Office, if they do not create better working conditions and pay better salaries, there will be a collapse in the Post Office within the next few months. It is necessary for conditions of service to be improved; it is necessary to improve working conditions. If agreement can be reached with existing staff associations as a means of alleviating the great temporary shortage, we can also, where necessary, make use of non-White postmen. This must, however, only be done where agreement can be reached with existing staff associations and where the non-Whites are not used—I want to make this clear— as an excuse not to pay better wages or salaries to Post Office workers.

I am pleased that the hon. the Minister is here now. I have here one of the official publications of one of the largest Post Office associations, the S.A. Telecommunications Association. It consists of 32 pages. The leading article is 16 pages long. That leading article consists only of criticism of the policy of the Government towards the Post Office. I can quote from this, Mr. Speaker, until my time no longer permits me to do so. “We have pointed out,” they say, “the inability of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs to recruit and retain the services of an adequate number of pupils and trainees.” They talk of the inability of the hon. the Minister to retain staff; they refer to the extra burden which is placed on the shoulders of the faithful worker who remains in the Department; they refer to the strict application of administrative procedures; they refer to the fact that the salaries which are paid outside the Department are far higher than those paid by the State; they refer to the bitter grievances which spring from agreements, in terms of which private firms are prevented from recruiting men from the Post Office who have been out of the service of the State for less than six months; they refer to the slow rate of salary increases and to the despondency which is caused by the knowledge that the ordinary Post Office man will at no stage during his career in the Department ever be able to afford anything but the ordinary necessities of life.

I make an earnest appeal to the hon. the Minister to stop this delay in dealing with the requests of the Post Office staff. They approached him more than a year ago. In 1964 they approached him in a body. They were told: “The Ministers are on holiday; the Cabinet cannot decide now what to do.” The Cabinet met at a later stage and it took weeks and weeks before a committee was appointed to inquire into the grievances of the Post Office staff. In reply to a question I put to him, I now understand from the hon. the Prime Minister that the committee which he appointed has submitted a report to him. I want to ask the hon. the Minister what the decision of the Cabinet is in regard to this matter. We want to know what that decision is. The hon. the Minister is present. If he has decided that something can be done, we will be able to judge whether it will be adequate. One thing is unforgivable and that is the delay which has existed for weeks and months. Mr. Speaker, have you ever thought of the thousands and thousands of ordinary businesses which are suffering as a result of the fact that the Post Office cannot deliver their letters? Important legal contracts are not being delivered; documents are not being received in time. How many hundreds of postal votes were not delivered in time during the past provincial election? These are examples of a collapse in the Post Office. Unless something is done on the part of the hon. the Minister, that collapse is going to take place. If it comes, I hope that it will also mean the end of the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs.

When listening to the analysis of the election given by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan), and when one considers that he must have given more or less the same analysis to his caucus, one can quite understand the cheerfulness of the United Party during the last few days. He says he can give an account of how many Nationalists did not vote. If we give them such a hiding when the Nationalists do not vote, what is going to happen in the next election when all the Nationalists vote?

I have now heard three statements already from the United Party in regard to White leadership. The first was that their policy was White leadership with justice. Early this year they said that their policy was White leadership. Then they omitted the “justice”. The hon. member for Orange Grove to-day propounded a new policy, viz. enlightened White leadership. Sir. it is for that reason that the ranks of the United Party are so thin; it is this double-talk, this dualism, which is thinning their ranks to such an extent. They do not propound a policy with one tongue. I want to give the United Party an analysis of elections. In 1934 the National Party formed the Opposition with 19 members in the House of Assembly. During the 15 years the National Party was in Opposition, it only on one occasion, viz. in 1938, lost two constituencies, but it increased its numbers from 19 to 27. The National Party never again lost an election: it never again lost a constituency. Its numbers never decreased thereafter. It won more or less all the by-elections, and in 1948 the National Party came back to this House with 79 members.

What happened to the United Party during the past 17 years? In 1948 the United Party formed the Opposition with 71 members, and this year they have only 50 members sitting there. I shall tell them why things are going so badly with them. It is because they do not have an accurate and sincere policy based on principles which they can announce. When I think of the United Party. I think of a book I read years ago. The title of the book was “Niemand se Liefling”. The Afrikaans-speaking people have now for a lone time refused to accept the United Party. This election has proved that the English-speaking people do not want them any more either. The election between the United Party and the Progressive Party has shown that the Coloureds do not want them either. I think if there were to be an election among the Bantu between the United Party and the Progressives, the Bantu will also prefer the Progressive Party. They might perhaps prefer the National Party, but certainly not the United Party. Everybody is rejecting the United Party. Nobody wants to accept it, and there is only one reason for it, and that is because the United Party, as a party, is not honest and sincere with South Africa. That party serves the United Party interests, but it does not serve South Africa. If a party had to have a mother, I do not think that the United Party’s mother would have loved it because a mother is not fond of insincerity and dishonesty. The opposite can be said of this party. We have made a breakthrough. and I shall tell you why, Sir. The National Party throughout the years, when it was still in opposition for 15 years, and also when it came into power, had principles. It always based its policy on and adapted it to those principles. In addition, we have ideals which we held up to the people, ideals which were deeply rooted in the people of South Africa. Do you know what happened on 24 March. Sir? The whole nation is taking part in a march. I shall tell you where to. The whole nation, English and Afrikaans-speaking, is gathering around its heritage. It gathers around its symbols. It rallies to the Republic, it rallies to the flag, to its two official languages, to its possessions, to its soil. And, do you know. Sir, Natal is also busy taking part in this march. The hon. member for South Coast said in this House a few years ago that he would march and that he would make Natal march. Sir, Natal is marching, but the hon. member for South Coast is not in those ranks. Do you know what he reminds me of? The story is told that during the French Revolution a man was walking along and another joined him and asked him, “Who are you?” and he replied. “I am one of the leaders of the revolution”. Then the first man asked, “Where are your followers?” His reply was. “There they go. ahead of us.” The hon. member for South Coast is still the leader of the United Party in Natal, but he has lagged behind. Natal is far ahead of him. Natal is rallying around its heritage, South Africa. The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) may laugh. He may laugh that sneering laugh he also laughed before 24 March, but he knows that what I say here is the truth. The English-speaking population of South Africa have also found the United Party out. It took years. It took the Coloureds many years to find them out. but they did so.

I want to point to another matter. The United Party had much to say here about agriculture and about the farmers of South Africa. Now I want to ask the United Party: If in their hearts they are interested in the farmers of South Africa and in their plight, not only for political reasons and not merely to catch votes, why did they as an Opposition not do the obvious thing? In terms of the rules of this House, the Opposition has the right and the privilege, when there is a matter which needs urgent attention, to move a motion of urgent public interest in this House. Sir. South Africa has now been suffering for years as the result of drought. We on this side do not deny that there are farmers who have suffered hardships. As the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) explained here yesterday, we on this side have been busy for months already, not only since this Session began, but we have been busy for years struggling with this problem which has arisen as the result of climatic conditions. Now I ask the United Party: If they regarded it as being of so much importance, if they are sincere towards the farmers of South Africa, why did they not move a motion of urgent public import? Then one could have believed that they were serious. They have the right and they have had the opportunity to do so. I cannot help but think, and I think that is more or less the impression of the whole of the population of South Africa, that the United Party is not interested in South Africa or in its people as such; the United Party is interested in one thing only, and that is the United Party itself. They do not ask what is in the interest of South Africa. When they start considering formulating policy, the question they put to themselves is: What is in the interest of the United Party? And let me tell them that as long as that is the mentality, so long will the United Party deteriorate and so long will the National Party grow.

There is another matter I should like to touch on. The hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) said yesterday that he was repeating what he had said the year before. Sir, last year he accused a man here, a farmer who was alleged to have said that another farmer—and he mentioned the name—stole his Coloured labour from his farm, and the other day he had to admit that he had mentioned the wrong name. And he actually comes along and repeats it. I am glad. I want to leave him there. I do not want to discuss this matter with him further, because I say that last year he told an untruth here, but now he repeats it. The hon. member will definitely not catch votes for the United Party in that way. It suits us if they allow an hon. member of this House to chase votes away from them in this way. But he now says that we will not repeat that the Bantu should be removed from the Western Province. Sir. of course I shall repeat it. It is Government policy and it remains Government policy. The hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. G. de K. Maree) has already pointed out that as the result of this process of removal the Western Province is not troubled to-day by vagrants, and I say it was troubled by vagrants. Because in the first place the object we wanted to achieve was to get rid of these vagrants, and as the result of this process of removal we have already achieved that ideal. The Western Cape is no longer the breeding-ground for vagrants. We have one problem, namely that under the old set-up—and I want to admit, also under this Nationalist Government, for a long time, as the result of certain reasons, a wrong situation continued, and the old set-up did not train the Coloureds for work. For that reason this process of removal will proceed slowly, not as fast as we should like to see.

The Coloured is not prepared to work. We must prepare him for work, and we must create opportunities to prepare him for work, because the United Party may be assured that this process of removal will be continued with.

I should now like to bring something to the notice of the Government. I think the facilities exist for what I want to advocate. In view of the fact that the removal of Bantu from the Western Cape is Government policy,

I want to plead that what the dairy farmers call the pole system should be introduced in the Western Cape, with assistance of the State. Sir, this new system is much more effective than the old-fashioned milking machines which were installed in grand stables, and which increases the production cost of milk by 10 per cent. But under this new system, these expensive stables are worthless. They will become white elephants, and the new system will cost a farmer between R5,000 and R7,000. Now I want to plead that the Government will consider providing short-term loans to farmers on the basis of a low rate of interest over a period of at least seven years, so as to enable them to introduce this system, because this system saves at least 50 per cent labour on the present basis. It means that a dairy farmer who to-day needs eight Bantu to keep his dairy going can let at least four of them go. Therefore I strongly want to plead with the Government to devote attention to this matter and to evolve a system according to which these dairy farmers can be assisted.

Then just this: The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and the hon. member for Boland, and also the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) and other hon. members opposite, are guilty from time to time of giving a wrong interpretation of the policy of the National Party. Sir. we do not run away from our policy. Our policy is social, economic and political segregation.

Economic segregation?

Yes. and that is the legal position in South Africa.

How many segregated factories are there in the Cape?

We have the permit system, not as a right but as a privilege where we have not yet created separate facilities for the various racial groups.

In Cape Town also? What about the shops?

The permit system operates in Cape Town also. I repeat that it is not a right but a privilege. It takes place under job reservation, but of course the hon. member for Yeoville does not want that either. Now they come along with their story of petty apartheid. Petty apartheid is the thin end of the wedge.

Tell that to the Burger.

It is the thin end of the wedge. Do you know how those people argue? They say: “We must now take the good type of Coloured with us on the beaches and elsewhere, because they are too good to be pushed away together with the skollies”. Do you know, Sir, it is the old British colonial policy which that party has inherited, and it is bound up by that heritage. That was also the policy applied to the Afrikaner: Take the top strata and reject the rest. In that way almost the whole of the Afrikaans-speaking nation became poor Whites. We say, “No, on our beaches and all the other places where people gather we also have the White skolly type, but we do not chase them away from us”. We say: “No, we will accept them; it is our responsibility and we will uplift them”. Now we say: The good type of Coloured, and there are many of them, cannot be separated from the skollies; they must do the same that we did as a nation and as a people, and they must uplift their skolly types because that is their responsibility, and they must make use of the opportunities the Government creates for them. The hon. member for Peninsula has accused the Nationalist Government and has said that it was our fault that the Progressives won in the Coloured constituencies. Sir, I want to accuse the four Coloureds’ representatives. If they had disassociated themselves, as the hon. member for Outeniqua (Mr. Holland) did. from the United Party and had not expressed opinions in regard to White politics, they would have been able to do something for the Coloureds. It is not too late yet. I want to give them the advice the late Mr. Tot le Roux gave them when he was still alive. Let us dissociate ourselves from White politics and let us take this opportunity to do something for the Coloureds. I want to tell the Coloureds’ representatives that they have not made use of the opportunities this Government has offered them to assist in uplifting the Coloureds. The Coloureds will not honour them for it but will curse them for it, and one of the ways in which the Coloureds do so is to turn their backs on those representatives and to turn their faces to the Progressive Party.

The hon. member who has just sat down, well, “me thinks he does protest too much”, giving all these reasons. Fact is that they have changed their policy year after year. When Dr. Malan was leader of the party they changed their policy, but that policy was never adhered to. What did Dr. Malan say about votes for Coloured women and to the Natives and Malays in the twenties in 1928? Sir, there are several hon. members I would like to reply to, as for instance the hon. member for Welkom (Mr. H. J. van Wyk) on planning, apartheid and “volkseenheid”, the hon. member for Paarl (Mr. W. C. Malan) on the subject of friends overseas and blocked rands, the hon. members for Innesdale, Houghton and Namaqualand, but I want to deal with my own points first before I come to that, so I have very limited time.

Sir, again and again have we on this side of the House urged the Government to make a gesture to the non-Europeans, and, as I said last year, let us start with the Coloureds.

Speaking for myself, I believe most sincerely that in the long view of the safety of our Western way of life, as well as that of the White civilization, we can only be assured if we make the Coloured people feel that they are part of the Western civilization and that they must help us to defend it. I am not talking of social equality or social intermingling. We stand for residential separation. But I am talking about the ideal of patriotism, making the Coloured man feel “my country, right or wrong”, and above all having a feeling of belonging to South Africa. I saw a picture of the hon. Minister of Defence inspecting the Coloured Corps the other day. There they marched past with rifles, and fixed bayonets. I congratulate the Government on creating that corps, because in every war the Coloured man has fought in the interests of and for the White man. And surely if a man is good enough to fight in the interest of Western civilization he is good enough to be accepted as part of it.

I will obviate repeating what we stand for, as it has been said again and again in this House, and if anybody does not know what we stand for he is deaf and blind, or otherwise he is a high-grade moron who can’t understand it.

I maintain that full segregation is only necessary where, if it is not imposed, it will endanger our White civilization, or if not imposed would be a danger to the State. We are entirely against “one man one vote”, or ever handing over the political power to the non-European. But except where necessary for other reasons, such as influx control, I for one would do away with this petty apartheid which hurts the feelings and personal pride of the non-European. Last year, I gave a detailed account of what I meant by “petty apartheid” and I do not propose to cover that ground again. I have said before, and I repeat: Never touch the pride of any man, never touch his personal self respect, never touch his ego, because that is one of the things he will never forget or forgive.

To-day I want to deal with the Coloured question and to emphasize what I mean by touching the ego of the individual. I will give a simple example of a remark made by an official of the Public Works Department that will ever rankle in the mind of the non-European. It will serve as an example of what I mean “by touching his ego”. The incident was petty, but its implications were far-reaching. I read from a longish report in the Sunday Times of 23 August 1964. The heading is—

It goes on to say—

A more disgraceful—I might even say a more subversive remark as far as race relations are concerned—I cannot imagine. Surely the Flag is the flag of everyone living in this country. Surely he or she must be made to realize with pride that it is his or her flag to which complete allegiance and loyalty is owed. How can they feel that, how can the Coloured man feel that it is his flag if he is told that he may not even touch that bit of bunting because he will defile it if he does. For that is the implication and must cause deep resentment; and any decent government would have thrown that official out of the service. But not a word was said about it by anyone on that side of the House nor was it repudiated. It is incidents like this that make the non-European feel that he is not a citizen of the Republic, or owes any allegiance to the Republic or the Flag.

All the letters I get from Britain, the Continent, America, Australia, Canada, and other parts of the Commonwealth (and they are quite a considerable number), bear out the statement made by our High Commissioner in London, Dr. Carel de Wet, that due to what is happening in the black states to the north of us, the attitude of thinking people overseas is slowly beginning to swing more towards a sympathetic outlook to South Africa. Dr. Carel de Wet was perfectly correct when he said that. But surely now is the time, when the pendulum has reached its peak and is starting to swing back, to give it a push; and this can easily be done if the Government makes a gesture by not piling on more and more forms of petty apartheid, more and more forms of hurts which embitter the non-European; and which are not necessary for the safety of our civilization; and which are indefensible in the eyes of the world. Things which we who go overseas cannot defend, and that is why I do not go overseas any more, because whilst I am prepared to attack the Government here, I am not prepared to let strangers attack the Government of my country as much as I disapprove of its policies. For heavens sake, let the dust settle for a bit! The Government is always talking about the South African traditional way of life when it suits them. When we pointed out from this side of the House that in the Cape segregated mixed audiences were our way of life, and had been for centuries, the hon. Minister of Planning said: “Ah. that was a long time ago.” Apparently he does not understand the meaning of the word tradition. Because what is a tradition? Something that has been built up over the years. Sir, but why not allow local option to decide such things? Why not let the local bodies, the municipalities, the divisional councils, the village management boards decide what they want? If they do not do what the people want, the people can chuck them out at the next election.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman), whose outlook and policy I dislike and disapprove of entirely, made a few remarks, and I am mentioning this here, because I do not want her to think that what I am going to say now is because she made those remarks; because I have it in my notes here which I prepared long before I heard her speech.

We have recently heard a number of the most deplorable hate-creating statements made about mixed audiences. There was the shaming case recently when decent, educated, well-dressed Coloured people arrived to see a show. At the last minute they were turned away, and because Whites in their cars, who arrived after them, had parked behind the Coloured’s cars in the parking area, those Coloured people had to sit in their car for two-and-a-half hours before they could get out. Had I been a Coloured person and had had all that took place that evening happen to me. I would never have forgiven or forgotten it. It has been said by certain Ministers here that the Coloured will not be allowed to attend open-air sports meetings, even if they are fully segregated. Do these Ministers think that their presence will pollute the air? Do these Ministers think that they are gods and that a non-White cannot be allowed to breathe the same air as they do? Are our Ministers going to out-Banda Dr. Banda eventually? Will we have to stop our cars when we see a car approaching flying a flag, must we get off the roads and take off our hats and breathe in them while the great man passes? I would like to know. Frankly were I a Coloured man and I was humiliated like they have been I would have a burning hate that would last for ever. Can’t these hon. members opposite whose forebears fought at burghers, courageous men from 1899 to 1902 realise that just as those forebears had a hatred for the British for humiliating them, that the Coloureds also have feelings? To-day after 60 years the descendants of those forebears are still fighting the Boer War. Can’t they realize that the humiliations suffered by the Coloured people will never be forgotten? That is the point, if you touch a man’s ego, if you humiliate him. that is what happens. I still remember a speech made by Gen. Hertzog on 4 September 1939. when he talked about what humiliation can do to a man and to a nation. That happens when the ego is touched, and just so the hatred of the Coloured man is boiling up because of the continuous and unnecessary hurts he has to suffer in many cases to-day. Sir, it is pathetic to see how the moment there is a more favourable climate towards us overseas (and here I come back to the speech made by the hon. member for Paarl) the Government seems to go out of its way to do some, stupid thing which plays straight into the hands of our enemies and the detractors of our country abroad. For heavens sake, give our overseas friends a chance to speak up for us. We have many friends there, but let us help them to help us to improve our image abroad. Old Afrikaner families when they had prayers, allowed the Coloured people to sit on the stop, or (when it rained) inside the voorhuis to listen to the morning and evening prayers. That was our tradition. To-day, the way the other side is behaving, these people will feel that they are not wanted and they feel that they are being insulted. I know there are a number of dishonest overseas correspondents who will stick at nothing to blacken our good name, but it is largely the asinine, adolescent actions of this Government which play straight into the hands of our enemies. They are the people responsible for ruining our name overseas.

I for one do not believe in giving ground when dealing with definite principles and which are necessary to safeguard our White civilization. I do not believe in compromise when dealing with principles or letting down your friends so as by compromise to suck up to some possible future enemy. Such people usually merely succeed in dragging themselves down as well as their friends. Hence the remarks I made to a friend of mine when we walked out of the dining-room having heard the “winds of change speech”. I said: “That fellow Macmillan will go down in history as a second Neville Chamberlain with his compromise, compromise, compromise, and letting down his friends, like ourselves.” Whatever the cost, we must never compromise over the question of “one man one vote” or making it possible for the Bantu ever to gain the political power. But there are many aspects of apartheid which can be no possible danger to our civilization, but which are quite impossible to de fend, and which engender hate and bitterness.

We, on this side of the House, especially my Leader, have pointed out again and again that in the long view the Bantustan policy can never work and constitutes a great danger to the Republic, for which our children will have to pay in future. In fact it is already coming apart at the seams. It was only started in the first instance for political expediency, and from what the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) said earlier in the Session, it is clear that our Prime Minister is to the Whites of the Transkei what the British Prime Minister is to the Whites of Southern Rhodesia I do not propose to repeat the arguments we have used again and again, except to say that the danger and stupidity of that policy becomes more apparent every day. Very few of the rank and file of the Nationalist Party—I am not talking about the professional politicians—any longer believe in the Bantustan policy, or believe that it can ever be carried out to the full. What is the position? In a short while we will be in the same position in which Britain was 100 years ago when she was surrounded by a galaxy of colonies, and that at a time when the word “colonialism” had became a dirty word in international politics. Two great powers, the United Kingdom and France, and two lesser powers, Holland and Belgium, have been unable to hold their colonies against the rising disapproval of world opinion, when it was of the utmost importance to the economy that they should hold those colonies. If they could not hold them, how can we, a small nation of 3,000,000, a small White island in a great Black ocean, do it? But that is exactly what we are doing. These Bantustans, until they get sovereign independence, will merely be colonies, and nobody believes for a moment—certainly not anyone on that side—that they are going to get sovereign independence within the next 50 or 100 years. What will happen? We will have these little colonies all along our borders, with the whole world blaming us for doing so and with those same people telling UN that they are colonies. At a time when the great colonial empires of the world have been unable to maintain their position, here we have our Prime Minister forming a galaxy of colonies around the Republic. But for the sake of argument, let us accept that there will be separate development in the Bantustans, and let us suppose for argument’s sake that it will succeed. How can you apply partition and separate development or a form of self-government to the Coloureds who have never had any territory of their own of which they can eventually have entire control with their own Prime Minister and their own Cabinet and their own Parliament, like the Transkei? Admittedly you can create a patchwork quilt, bits and pieces all over the Republic, which areas can be set aside for the Coloureds, but it is not possible to give them separate representation or full self-government in those areas as we are doing in the Transkei. That being so, can the Coloureds have partition and a separate Government on the same lines as the Bantustans? In other words, the Government is putting the Coloureds, whom we and they look upon as more cultured and educated than the Bantu, into the position where the Government are making them lower-grade citizens of the Republic than the Bantu. You cannot treat Mamre and Elim and Genadendal as little separate governments. On the periphery of the suburbs here you have Coloured areas. You cannot give them separate government. They have no areas like the released areas or the scheduled areas which the Bantu have. Will anyone other than a high-grade moron believe that the policy appertaining to the creation of Bantustans (out of what have always been Bantu released or scheduled areas) can be applied to the Coloureds who have never had such defined areas? So obviously the whole Coloured policy is hypocritical, unrealistic and absurd and very dangerous for our White civilization. The Prime Minister has told us that he really did not like the Bantustan policy, but was forced to implement it in order to appease world opinion. My Leader earlier in the Session said that not only has it failed hopelessly to cause any favourable, impression abroad—it has caused no favourable world reaction—but it has endangered our White civilization. I suggest that the Government really adopt a policy which will create an immediate impression on world opinion and will strengthen the position of the Whites and of our Western civilization. Let them adopt our colour policy and solve the problem by replacing Coloureds—with certain qualifications—on the Common Roll and allowing, under certain conditions, Coloured men to be elected to this House if they can get sufficient votes. Sir, in the days of Gladstone and Disraeli, one party said that the other had caught them bathing and had stolen their clothes. Well, nobody on that side is going to suggest that the Government has caught the United Party with their pants down; but that is merely by the way. But it is obvious that on several occasions the Government has stolen our clothes, our policies; they have taken over our policies and our suggestions and have pretended that they were their own. The blatant one was, of course, our policy of immigration. Not only did they purloin our policy when it was nearly 15 years too late, but they pinched a United Party trained man to carry it out for them. Let me say at once: I do not begrudge them that. They are welcome to both. In the first place they are welcome to our immigration policy because it is in the interests of South Africa, and they are welcome to the gentleman who is carrying it out, because it was in the interests of the United Party that he left us.

Now that is a very smart remark.

Do you think so? Wait until I come to you. [Interjections.] Then there is the question of unity that the Government talk about creating between the English- and the Afrikaans-speaking people. Who created real unity? Who created the United Party? Hertzog and Smuts, two great opponents, came together and Afrikaners and English got together on the same footing to meet each other in the same party. Now Frankie you asked for it, and you are going to get it. What does the Nationalist Party do? They get a few tame Englishmen looking for jobs who swallowed their policies hook, line and sinker, and what are they? They are just yes-men and nothing else. Sir, we are a patriotic party. My colleagues are South Africans and we put our country above party politics. We are only too pleased to pass on our wisdom and our policies to the Government and we will gladly let them take the credit for our ideas if it will help the country. Therefore I say to the Government: Take our colour policy and use it and you will solve one of the great problems of South Africa. Not only will such a step safeguard our White civilization; not only will it nearly double our numbers and manpower to defend South Africa, and not only will world reaction be immediate, but the Government will be handing to our friends abroad a weapon which will help them to fight our battles before the world.

The Minister of Justice in a foreword to a very sound pamphlet issued by his Department, “The Survival Plan for South Africa”, has this to say, and he is entirely right—

I entirely agree with him. He rightly foresees what the future could possibly hold for us. But all the great nations of the world including America and Russia are looking for friends, and are trying to consolidate their alliances against the holocaust that the future might hold for the world and ourselves. What is our Government doing? We, one of the smallest nations in the world, are doing nothing to strengthen our position internationally; but for the sake of political advantage locally, the Government continues to pass legislation that not only creates more enemies for us overseas until we stand practically alone and naked in a dangerous world, but it goes out of its way to antagonize the Coloured section who are anxious to stand by us and they also create hatred in the minds of the Bantu as well. Meanwhile they bluff the unthinking or the uninformed section of the people that they are out to save White South Africa, when in reality they are digging the grave of White civilization here. So hard-up are they for some good and cheerful news that when they win a few seats in a provincial election they behave as if they have won a great international victory. They rush around in the Lobby slapping each other on the back till they have corns on their shoulder blades. They behave like a mighty empire once did in 1899 when they relieved a little drop called Mafeking from a handful of burgers who had encircled it, and they coined a new word in the English language and made themselves look ridiculous in the eyes of the world. But this mighty Government, mighty in numbers only, is meanwhile losing the battle for White South Africa. They are throwing away all that our ancestors worked, sacrificed, and in some cases, died for. What a Pyrrhic victory! What a bunch of little men!

Mr. Speaker, 12 years ago when I had the privilege of being elected to this House. I had often to listen to the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. Van der Byl), a highly respected person, and I was able to see the fire in him. We saw someone then who fought with conviction for a cause in which he believed at the time. To-day, 12 years later, we see that same highly respected frontbencher of the United Party, the hon. member for Green Point, as a man without fire and without conviction. The only fire which he revealed was contained in the last few words of his speech when he said contemptuously: “What a bunch of little men!”

I have done far more for South Africa than you have.

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. member for Green Point and we will excuse him because the hon. member gave me the impression throughout his speech that he is more closely aligned to the Nationalist Party than to the United Party. Older people can also learn from younger people, and if the young Mr. Van Byl in Rhodesia gives the lead and the hon. member for Green Point wants to follow that lead, that is something which we will not resent. That was what I gathered from his speech.

The hon. member put a question when an interjection was made in regard to the steadily growing national unity in this country. The hon. member for Green Point referred to the United Party as the symbol of national unity and asked this question: Who made the United Party? I want to reply with a counter-question: Who is rejecting the United Party and its pernicious policy at this moment? We know the history of the United Party and we know how it came into being. We know the principles of the old S.A. Party and the principles that were followed in 1933 and 1934 and we also know what happened in 1939. I am now going to accuse them of something of which they often accuse us. Three are hon. members sitting there who stabbed General Hertzog in the back in 1939 and destroyed the United Party. Already at that time they had rejected the principle of greater national unity in South Africa.

I am pleased to be able to say to-day that a very clear voice is being raised to-day, a voice which can be heard throughout the world, a voice which is listened to. The people of South Africa are massing and consolidating themselves behind the policy of separate development. That is the clear voice which is speaking and not the besmirching voices of individuals. That voice speaks to the world and the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) knows that what I am saying now is the truth.

That voice whispered at Wolmaransstad!

I am pleased that the hon. member has made that remark because I want to deal with Wolmaransstad. I am sorry that the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) is not here. He drew certain comparisons but he compared things which are not comparable. I shall be very pleased if the United Party choose to go on living under that misapprehension, because it is a misapprehension. Let them bluff themselves; as long as they do so I am satisfied. Listening to the hon. member for Orange Grove one would swear that they had actually won the election! Let me just draw the attention of hon. members to these few statistics. At the Parliamentary election in 1958, the Nationalist Party had a majority of 3,502 in the Wolmaransstad constituency. In 1961, with the same delimitation, the Nationalist Party had a majority of 4,469. These are comparable figures. At the Provincial election in 1959 the Nationalist Party had a majority of 2,811. Last week, in 1965, the Nationalist Party had a majority of 3,340. I want the hon. member for Orange Grove to listen to this because these are comparable figures. At the Provincial election in 1959 the Nationalist Party obtained 70 per cent of the total number of votes cast, as against 30 per cent for the United Party. Last week the National Party obtained 75 per cent of the total number of votes cast as against 25 per cent for the United Party. That is the sign of whether there is growth or not. I just wanted to rectify these figures.

But, speaking of this election, I want to tell the hon. member for Durban (Point) that they had already lost this election on 24 February, not on 24 March. Because the United Party have no faith in themselves, they did not have the courage to put up sufficient candidates against the Nationalist Party in order to win the election.

There is a shortage of manpower!

One does not need much manpower in order to find a United Party candidate. The United Party candidate at Wolmaransstad was a good example in this regard! I say that the United Party had already lost the election on 24 February and in that respect it has flagrantly neglected its duty as an Opposition. It is one of the tasks of an Opposition to make some effort at least to come into power in a democratic country having a parliamentary system of Government such as ours. How can the United Party ever hope to come into power if it does not appoint sufficient candidates to win an election? And why does a party not put up sufficient candidates? It is because it does not have sufficient faith in itself. I accuse the United Party of not having sufficient faith in themselves. How are the voters to show their faith by voting for the party if it does not even put up candidates? And if the voters in a constituency do not even have a candidate to vote for—in our part of the world the United Party candidate was not nominated but was dragged in by the hair …

Did he hold meetings?

I take it that he did hold meetings unlike the position in the Free State, but he would have been far better off if he had not done so. He would have been even better off if the Opposition had not sent their chief propagandist, Mr. Marais Steyn, to waste his time on the Saturday evening before the election by holding a meeting in a Nationalist stronghold like Leeudoringstad. Perhaps he should rather have assisted his colleague from Jeppes on that evening. But I thank him for the meeting which he held in Leeudoringstad. Every time they hold a meeting there we get more votes.

We have had the opportunity to listen to this debate for a few days now. One can listen quite objectively but to my mind not one convincing argument has been advanced by the Opposition as to why the Government should make way for another party, apart from the fact that the voters have repeatedly rejected the United Party. The criticism to which we listened was not strong enough to convince anyone that this Government is not able to handle its Budget and to act as the trustee of the taxpayers’ money, both as regards its collection and spending. Any objective listener sitting here would have come to the conclusion that South Africa is satisfied with the way in which her money is being spent, having regard to all the factors and sectors which must receive attention. While it behaves us to-day to thank the electorate of South Africa for the wonderful victory they gave the Government it also behaves us to thank the hon. the Minister of Finance and the people assisting him, on behalf of the voters, because he is spending our money in the interests of the development of South Africa.

We have listened to the criticism which has been passed in regard to the administration of the country. I want to ask any objective listener or observer: Where has the United Party put its finger on a sore point and said that this Government is not fit to continue to govern South Africa? On the contrary. I am happy and proud and grateful to be a member of the governing party which is keeping South Africa’s administration on such a high level after so many years. I think this merits the respect of the whole country and of the whole world, and for this reason we do not resent the fact that the Opposition is unable to pass criticism of this point. The voters went to the polls last Wednesday with their eyes open. We have an intelligent electorate who know what they are doing when they vote. It is characteristic of the citizen of the Republic of South Africa that his vote is a serious thing to him because he knows that in a country like South Africa, with all her problems, when he makes his cross he helps to determine a direction and to create a future. That is why he goes to the poll in a necessarily serious frame of mind and he goes not speculate with his vote. The voters knew exactly what they were doing last Wednesday. Over and above the fact that they rejected the negative direction of the United Party the voters did something else last Wednesday. For the umpteenth time they confirmed the mandate which they gave the Nationalist Party at the polls in 1948. We are still following the same policy and direction.

I want to hasten to say that this mandate which the Government has received from the voters is not a chance political fluke. The policy of the Nationalist Party has been hammered out on the anvil over the years. It is born of the needs of a nation. We went from congress to congress with points for discussion and we planned a road for South Africa, bearing in mind all her problems. The Nationalist Party’s policy is founded on separate development and is, in fact, national for every group in the country. We laid down that mandate in a manifesto which was submitted to the electorate at election after election. The voters knew what they were doing and last Wednesday they reaffirmed this mandate and by so doing gave the Government the green light, not to act recklessly with the future of South Africa but to create a future for her in accordance with the dearest wishes and cherished desires and aims of a nation. That is why there is only one political party in South Africa which can adopt a definite attitude under any circumstances, notwithstanding world opinion. When it adopts an attitude, it is influenced and inspired by what is in the best interests of South Africa. The party which can do this is the one which has up to the present protected the honour of South Africa and that of her inhabitants, the party which has led South Africa along the road of her constitutional development, the party which will continue to administer the country for many years to come, and that party is the Nationalist Party.

Mr. Speaker, for the seventeenth year in succession we have before us a Budget introduced by the National Party Government. We find that this Budget introduced by the Minister of Finance places the emphasis on the promotion of economic stability. We also find that measures have been taken in this Budget to check inflationary trends in our economy and that this Budget helps to relieve the manpower shortage in our country by making concessions to working wives. We are very grateful for this tax concession and we are convinced that it will be of great assistance to married couples where the wife also has to work in order to be able to educate the children.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Finance, however, whether the time has not come when we should order an investigation into the way in which our Estimates are drawn up. We have before us Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure as well as capital estimates. Our Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure show a surplus of R110,000,000. John Citizen is only interested in the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure and in whether revenue and expenditure balance or not. When John Citizen sees such a large surplus he immediately thinks that we are over-taxing him. He is not interested at all in where the money comes from for the capital works of the country. I want to ask the hon. the Minister this afternoon what possibility there is of our having just one set of estimates which will embrace everything—our revenue, our expenditure and our capital works. I think that if we do succeed in drawing up such estimates we will at the same time put a stop to this exploitation of our large surpluses by the United Party. The second problem in connection with our Estimates is that no adjustments can be made to them in the course of the fiscal year to which they relate. If therefore the rate of expansion tends to decrease unduly or to increase unduly, very little can be done from the fiscal point of view to check the deterioration or to promote progress. We are a young country which is expanding rapidly in every possible sphere. We are expanding in the field of mining, in the industrial sphere as well as in the field of agriculture, but we are hit very hard by natural catastrophes such as droughts, floods and hail. Must we continue to adhere slavishly to the old conventional way of drawing up our Estimates, or has the time not come to devise a budgetary method which is suited to our problems and our circumstances and which will reflect the true and correct facts for the information of the public? The result would then be that we would not show surpluses which in fact do not exist.

The third matter that I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister is this: When we look at the annual reports of companies for the past year we find that their profits have assumed record proportions. To a certain extent the Minister has now placed a damper on net profits by increasing company tax and by introducing a savings levy. But since we are asking the worker to-day to make sacrifices, I want to suggest for the consideration of the Minister of Finance that companies are being allowed too much latitude with their so-called expense sheets. These companies incur excessive costs which they then deduct from their taxable income. We have just had the case in Pietermaritzburg where a certain company invited its clients from the Witwatersrand. chartered aircraft to bring them to Pietermaritzburg and treated them to as much caviar and champagne as they wanted, and I am convinced that the costs of that function will be deducted from their taxable income.

I want to put forward a plea here that these expense sheets should be very thoroughly checked to see to it that justice is done to the poor worker.

Mr. Speaker, I now come to the United Party. Their “expense account” is empty. On 16 May 1948 the people of South Africa expressed their confidence in the National Party. What was the position on 16 May 1948 when the National Party took over the United Party’s bankrupt estate?

What about the gold loan to England?

We inherited the greatest dissension between White and non-White from the United Party. We inherited the unbridgeable gulf of hatred and mutual suspicion between Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking from the United Party Government. By 16 May 1948 the relationships between White and Black had almost reached breaking point. In 1948 this country was almost paralyzed by strikes by White workers as well as non-White workers. We inherited the most inadequate educational facilities for Whites as well as non-Whites from the United Party, so much so that in 1938 our children had to receive their schooling in tents or even in the open air under trees. Hon. members who represent the East Rand know that that is true. The hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) knows that on the whole of the East Rand we did not even have a high school, because of the chaotic conditions brought into being there by the United Party Government. The housing conditions at that time were chaotic; we inherited a situation from them in which Whites and non-Whites were living cheek by jowl. Just think of the chaotic conditions which had developed in squatters’ camps as a result of the fact that non-Whites had been allowed to flock to the cities without control; think of the campaign launched in South Africa as well as in the outside world by the Opposition and the English-language Press which supports the Opposition to sow suspicion against and to blacken the name of South Africa. Mr. Speaker, when the National Party came into power with a slender majority in 1948 it was faced with these tremendous problems both internally as well as abroad. The leaders in the National Party, imbued with an ideal, then came along with the slogan, “South Africa first”, coupled with the further slogan, “Let justice be done to all national groups in this country of ours”. The National Party had to decide in 1948 which course it was going to adopt; there were three courses open to the National Party. It could have followed the road which the United Party is still following to this day, the road of integration, but, Sir, the National Party was not so stupid; if it had been so stupid the National Party would today have been sitting on the Opposition benches. Sir, I can only describe the road which the United Party is following at the present time as the road of cowardice. There was a second road which the National Party could have followed; it could have ignored world opinion entirely and refused to take notice of it: it could simply have carried on and said, “We are the masters in this country and we take no notice of what the outside world says.” Indeed there were people in South Africa at that time who would have liked the National Party Government to have adopted that attitude but the National Party was not so stupid or so ignorant as to follow such a course. The National Party followed the third road, namely the road of separation between the various national groups. In actual fact, it followed the only sensible road. The National Party chose the road of separation because we have four national groups in South Africa. We found that from the very moment the National Party accepted the policy of separate development and began to implement it in a practical way, a flood of vituperation was let loose against the National Party both within and outside of this country. [Interjections.] The hon. member over there must listen carefully now. Sir, the sins which they have committed against this fine country of ours over the past 17 years are catching up with them. Let the United Party consider all the insults, the scorn, humiliation and calumniation that we as a White nation had to endure in this process of becoming a nation. Instead of helping us in this process, what did they do? What role did they play? I hope the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) will listen carefully now. What attitude did the City Council of Johannesburg adopt when the National Party Government wanted to clear up the squatters’ camps in Johannesburg? Did they support us? No, under the false pretext that they wanted to protect the rights of the non-Whites, that they wished to preserve land tenure rights for the non-Whites, they allowed the non-Whites to live in squatters’ camps under chaotic conditions. Sir, whose rights were they protecting there? They were protecting the rights of the owners of the land, the owners of the land who were exploiting these poor Natives. They protected the land-owners because they were donating funds to the United Party to enable them to contest elections from time to time. I want to remind the United Party of the role that they played in connection with the reference book system. The United Party so strenuously attacked the reference book system that they built up hatred and jealousy between White and non-White. They fanned the flames of hatred between White and non-White to such an extent that it eventually led to a clash between White and non-White on 20 March 1960 at Sharpeville and Langa. Sir, I lay the blame for that clash on 20 March 1960, a sad day in our history, squarely at the door of the United Party. That is one of the sins that they committed against the Republic of South Africa. We go further and we think of the hatred that they encouraged between White and White here in South Africa, a hatred which eventually culminated in an attempt to assassinate the hon. the Prime Minister on 9 April 1960. Sir, the United Party together with their Press, were responsible for engendering that hatred. I also want to remind the United Party of the role that they played when we withdrew from the Commonwealth and became a Republic. Just think of all the prophecies that they made here. They said that our commercial banks would close; they caused Whites to flee from the Republic; they predicted that our fruit would rot on our quays. As a result of their prophecies the outside world withdrew its investment capital from our country. They prophesied that the mines on the East Rand would close. Sir, here I want to say a few words to the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker), a person who is very fond of talking of the East Rand, and also to the hon. members for Springs and Benoni (Mr. Ross). I want to make the accusation against the hon. member for Germiston (District) this afternoon that he is one of the persons who, together with the building societies, was responsible for the fact that towns such as Brakpan and Nigel were almost brought to their knees because the building societies refused to give loans to the people in those towns.

That is completely untrue.

Their refusal to give loans to people in these towns only came to an end when I, in my capacity as a member of the Provincial Council, had discussions with the Executive Committee with a view to the establishment of our own loan fund, because the hon. member and the building societies wanted to choke us to death.

That is completely untrue.

The hon. member knows that they wanted to choke these towns to death but they could not succeed in doing so. I want to go further; what role was played by the United Party when the United Nations sought to bring us to our knees? Did they try to alleviate the task of the Minister of Foreign Affairs? No, they joined the enemies of the Republic to fan the flame of hostility against us. And what role did the United Party play in this House last year to facilitate the task of the Minister of Justice and of the police in taking steps against Communism and saboteurs? They fought him day and night here in Parliament.

In conclusion I just want to remind the United Party of their election slogans, “Vote for the right to vote again”, and “Exterminate Nationalism”. I also want to remind them of the fact that their blue-eyed boy, Patrick Duncan, went to seek assistance “across the colour line” against the Whites. That is what Patrick Duncan did. Mr. Speaker, the Bible tells us that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children up to the third or fourth generation. But the sins of the United Party are already overtaking them. Their sins are being visited upon them in the first generation already. After 17 years of rule we are the only White Christian nation in Africa to-day that refuses to submit to world demands to clear out of Africa; that refuses to lose its identity. In this struggle to achieve nationhood we have taken everybody along with us and after 17 years of rule we can pride ourselves on the fact that the two White language groups are much closer to each other to-day. We can pride ourselves on the fact that the non-Whites are obedient subjects of the Republic. We can take pride in the fact that we have a stable Government, free of corruption, a Government which has been responsible for excellent planning, a Government which has maintained law and order, a Government which has built up a strong Defence Force, a Government which has maintained racial peace and labour peace in our multi-racial country and which has freed the workers of the yoke of the United Party. That is why the workers voted for the National Party last week and returned Nationalist candidates with such large majorities, because they have been freed of the intimidation and victimization to which they were subjected throughout all these years under United Party rule. Sir. our majorities are going to grow from day to day. The workers have completely rejected the United Party.

I do not think the House will expect me to reply to the hon. member who has just sat down. The hon. member said that he was a Christian, and I am all the more surprised therefore that he made so many vague statements and uttered so many half-truths and, I might almost say, untruths against this side of the House.

This side of the House has proved that it always puts South Africa first. My hon. friend should have thought twice before using that slogan. It was not we on this side who ran away and committed sabotage during the 1939 to 1945 war; it was that side. It was not we who stabbed General Hertzog in the back.

Order! The hon. member cannot accuse members on that side of committing sabotage.

No, Sir, I am speaking of the Nationalist Party.

The hon. member must withdraw the word “sabotage”.

I withdraw. Sir. They voted against and worked against participation in the war. It was not we who stabbed General Hertzog in the back in Bloemfontein in 1941; it was the Nationalist Party that did it.

You betrayed him.

I cannot reply to arguments of that type, but in passing I want to refer to the conceitedness of my hon. friends on the other side over the hollow victory they had a few davs ago in the Provincial Council elections. Their conceitedness is quite understandable, but it leaves this side of the House quite cold, because we realize full well— because we have had the experience: hon. members on that side of the House have not had it yet—that the larger and stronger one’s party is, the deeper one is planting the seed of its destruction, and that is precisely what is going to happen to the Nationalist Party. On 24 March it planted the seed of its own eventual destruction.

In the second place I want to refer to the vagueness of that party’s policy in regard to the main planks in its platform. I want to refer to four of these planks in particular, four of the most important planks in its platform. which I have heard discussed here in the past few days. The first one that hon. members on the other side boasted about was the Nationalist Party’s immigration policy. The immigration policy of that side of the House is something that is foreign to them; immigration is something that was always condemned by them. Perhaps this immigration policy of theirs is due to the entry of the two “Nationalized” (mak) Englishmen to the Cabinet! Be that as it may, this policy was stolen from us.

A second plank, the main plank, the basis of the policy of this side of the House, which led to our formation, is co-operation between the Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking sections. This basis of the policy of the United Party has now become the basis of the policy of that side. This is a second instance of political plagiarism being committed by the Nationalist Party Government; it is the second political theft that has been committed by them, but we are proud of the fact that after so many years that side has at last seen the light and stolen the policy of this side holus-bolus and that they are now showing off with it.

There is a third instance of theft, Sir. We have heard a great deal about the Orange River Scheme in this debate. Sir, that, too, is a project which they stole from this side of the House.

I am glad that the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is present here, because I want to say that if we are not careful they will also steal our Native policy.

You have no policy to steal.

I should very much like to get an honest and unambiguous explanation in regard to this matter, and therefore I am glad that the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is here, because he is an honest man and he will reply to my question although he may say something different again to-morrow! My hon. friend will recall that in 1950 the then Minister of Native Affairs—at that time the Minister in charge of Bantu Administration was still known as the Minister of Native Affairs—addressed the Natives’ Representative Council. He will recall that the then Minister of Native Affairs told that Council on that occasion that the Bantu would be granted certain things. Through the statement he made that day, when he propounded the famous or notorious “baasskap” theory (theory of mastery), he created uncertainty in the ranks of not only the Bantu, but also of the Whites. One would have assumed that what he said on that occasion would have been accepted as the policy of the National Party, but shortly after that statement had been made and after this side of the House had pointed out that it was a dangerous statement which could have far-reaching repercussions, Dr. Malan, in the first place, pointed out that that statement by the then Minister of Native Affairs would not mean that the Bantu areas would be granted sovereign independence; that it would not mean Bantustans. The hon. the Chief Whip on the other side asked me the other day to quote Dr. Malan’s words and said, “You refer to him, but you do not quote his actual words.” Our interpretation of the statement to the Bantu at that time was held up to ridicule. But what did Dr. Malan say? He said—

Shortly afterwards, in 1953, Mr. Strijdom said—

A short while later, in 1956, Mr. Strijdom said that he believed in permanent mastery of the Whites over the Bantu.

That is what you are saying now; you have taken it over now.

You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that the last time I spoke about this matter in this House, I stated that the present Prime Minister had stuck to his guns as far as this matter was concerned; that he had consistently adhered to the statement made by him to the Natives’ Representative Council in 1950. But, Sir, I was wrong, and I want to put the matter right and apologize for perhaps having embarrassed the hon. the Prime Minister, particularly in view of what he said in the Other Place on 1 May 1951, of which I was not aware. To put the record straight, I want to correct it in Hansard—because the Press and the radio will not give publicity to it— and I want to quote in some detail what he said at the time. The then Minister of Native Affairs said the following in the Other Place—

I come to an important part of his speech now—

Has one ever heard such a thing Mr. Speaker? Surely this is United Party policy! I shall read further—

Now we find this gem—

The world has stood still in the meantime of course; nothing has happened in the meantime.

Do not try to evade the issue now! Here we have a clear statement by the present Prime Minister that total territorial separation, that Bantustans, were not the policy of the Nationalist Party. We agree wholeheartedly with what Dr. Malan and the late Mr. Strijdom said, of course, but the speech made by the present Prime Minister in 1951 shows us clearly that we were right at the time when we pointed out how divided my hon. friends must have been in their caucus. I am sure they are still quarrelling about this matter to-day. I am convinced that most of the members on that side of the House love South Africa with its present boundaries as much as I do, and that they will not allow the Prime Minister or anybody to give away our country, to give away the land we have inherited from our fathers.

In 1959 the then Minister of Native Affairs became Prime Minister, and what did he say then? Now it was no longer guardianship; now it was no longer control over those areas for all time. Now he said the following—

And now? Where is the logic now? His firmness of principle?

The world has not stood still in the meantime.

No, my hon. friend; you have run away from the land you inherited from your fathers, you have run away from South Africa. If the United Party had been prepared to cut up South Africa, we would have been accused of liberalism, but we have never been prepared to give away one square inch of the land left to us by our forefathers. And we shall fight for the preservation of our fatherland as it is to-day. If anybody wants it, he will have to take it from us by force. The Prime Minister continued——

In other words …

What is the point?

The point is that you are misleading the people, that you are committing political fraud against the people.

Order! The hon. member is not allowed to say that the party is committing fraud. The hon. member must withdraw the word “fraud”.

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker. The people are being misled. My hon. friends on the other side do not tell the people the truth. Why was a court order made against the Nationalist Party during the recent elections and what was it about? It was about what we on this side of the House are saying, and that is that that side of the House wants to give away the land we have inherited from our fathers, that they are going to establish Bantu-stans which are going to become independent. What did my hon. friends say in their pamphlet? “That is a downright lie.” That is what they are leading the people to believe. In the lobbies and outside they say: “We do not mean it; do you think we shall ever grant the ‘Kaffirs’ their freedom?”

“Kaffirs”!

I did not use that word. I am quoting. Call them “Africans” or “Bantu” or “Natives” or whatever you like, but my question is simply this: If it is the policy of the Government to establish sovereign independent states, let them tell the people that candidly.

We are doing so.

No, you are not. Hon. members are running away; they are running away so fast that lately the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is no longer talking about territorial apartheid, but about political apartheid. They are stealing our policy again. One of these days they will say that it never was their policy that the Bantu areas should ever become independent. They will tell the people, as they are already doing: “We shall always remain the guardian; we shall retain a position of guardianship for ever.” But to the Natives and to the world they say: “We are going to grant independence to these territories.” Tell us and tell the people precisely what your policy is. Are the Bantu areas going to become sovereign independent States or not? Is there going to be total territorial apartheid? Or is the White man going to remain the suzerain? Is the White man going to maintain his control? It is very important that the people of South Africa should know.

They do know.

No, you are too afraid to tell the people. Mr. Speaker, even the Chief Whip is too afraid to say these things outside.

I say them outside and I say them here.

No, you do not. Why do you deny these things in that pamphlet? Surely the hon. the Chief Whip must have been aware of that denial. And why these new statements to the effect that it is not so much a matter of territorial apartheid as of political apartheid? That is why I say that it is absolutely essential that we should know precisely what the policy of the Nationalist Party is. The United Party says: Our policy is race federation on such and such a basis. The people may criticize us, you may condemn us, but we are honest and we say precisely where we stand.

Where do you stand?

We say that we would rather have eight Native representatives in this House of Assembly than eight Bantustans. It is the country of my people that you are giving away.

I want to put a question to the hon. member. Is White rule over the whole of the Republic, including the Bantustans, not synonymous with White domination?

In terms of the United Party’s policy there will never be a Bantustan. There will be developed Bantu areas, there will be Bantu homelands, but they will always be subject to control and suzerainty of this Parliament. The Whites will always retain the leadership.

“Baasskap”.

No, I did not say “baasskap”. Political leadership. We have never believed what was said by the late Mr. Strijdom, which was that we should practise “baasskap”. We believe that White leadership must be maintained in South Africa.

The United Party members remind me of a broodhen with a very high fever, who is so anxious to brood that instead of sitting on her own eggs she sits on duck’s eggs with the result that she hatches ducklings. The time then duly arrives when she sits all alone on the wall of the dam while the little ducklings play about in the water where they belong. That is exactly what is happening to the United Party. They do not adhere to a policy. They are continually adopting a new policy. I can think of about seven policies they have announced over the past few years. That is the reason why their ranks have become so depleted. I predict that the people will reject them at the next general election. Many of those sitting on that side to-day will not return.

I want to say a few words about the remarks made this afternoon by the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl). He referred to this side of the House and said “what a bunch of little men”. The hon. member has often been wrong and has had to retract. Sir, you will remember how he carried on when we held the referendum on the republican issue. I think it was only last year when he admitted in this House that he had made a mistake in voting against the Republic.

I did not say I had made a mistake; I said I wondered whether I had not made a mistake.

If we are a “bunch of little men” why does he wonder whether he did not perhaps make a mistake by not following this “bunch of little men”? I can give numerous examples of things this Government has brought about and about which hon. members opposite are ashamed to-day for having opposed us. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) has referred to it. Everything this side of the House has done to promote the interests of South Africa that side of the House has opposed.

The hon. member also referred to the hon. Minister of Information and the hon. Minister of Immigration as tamed Englishmen. The hon. member should be ashamed of himself. And then hon. members opposite tell us it is their policy to bring about unity in South Africa! Is that the way to bring about unity? We have two honourable Englishmen in our Cabinet.

What did you think of them when they were still in the Opposition benches?

We thought of them exactly what we think to-day of every English-speaking person in South Africa who places South Africa first and who gives his undivided loyalty to South Africa. I want to tell hon. members on that side that they will not bring about unity in that way. They have continually tried to get into power by stirring up racial feeling in this country.

The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) who has just sat down also said it was the policy of the United Party to bring about unity in South Africa. What did he do when we provided in legislation that South Africa would have only one flag? It was the late Mr. Barlow who proposed it. That hon. member then went to Paarl and said to the English-speaking people there: “This Government has now taken your flag, the Union Jack, away; to-morrow they will take your language away”. Is that the way in which to try to bring about unity in South Africa? That is to cause disunity and stir up racialism. They want to strengthen their own position by bringing about racial disunity. It is due to the United Party’s policy of sowing suspicion and creating disunity that the English-speaking people in this country have become wise to them. The English-speaking people are not such fools. They are faithful patriotic citizens of the Republic and they will no longer fall for that kind of United Party bait.

When did you discover that?

I shall deal with the hon. member for Point (Mr. Raw) in a moment. He must not be so forward.

The hon. member for Green Point suggested that the people who voted for us were a lot of unenlightened people.

No.

The hon. member always works himself into a temper and then he says things which he subsequently does not remember having said. He said the people who voted for us were unenlightened people. Is the hon. member suggesting that everybody who voted for us is stupid?

[Inaudible.]

A short while ago the hon. member also denied having said something which I had maintained he had said and when I read out the reports to him he had to admit that he had been wrong.

That is not true; you know it is not true.

Order!

I withdraw that Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member for Hillbrow said the United Party always placed South Africa first but that he could not say the same of this side of the House. I want to give him a few examples. I have already referred to the instance when the hon. member for Hillbrow went to Paarl. When we said South Africa would only have one flag did he place South Africa first? Do you place South Africa first if you do not want your own national flag but the flag of another country as well? Another complaint of the hon. member for Hillbrow was that we had opposed the war effort. He said we were against the war. Of course we were and we had good reasons for being against it. The late Dr. Malan got up in this House and said to General Smuts: “Do you know what you are doing? The Russian colossus will straddle the whole of Europe because of what you are doing”. General Smuts then said to him: “You should rather remain quiet on external affairs because you do not know anything about it”. What was the result: What did they fight for? What threatened us? Had South Africa been threatened we on this side of the House would have been the first to defend South Africa.

You were Hitler’s allies.

Has the hon. member forgotten the Denk case? Has he forgotten the scandalous stories they spread around that Dr. Malan had gone to Pretoria with the specific object of handing South Africa to Hitler on a platter? The hon. member for Green Point was the person who spread that story. I still questioned him about it and he confirmed it.

That was what I had read in the newspapers.

Do you place South Africa first when you represent your fellow citizens in such a wrong light in the eyes of the public?

What did you say about the soldiers?

Who referred to the soldiers as “skunks in uniform”? Was it a front bencher of the Nationalist Party or a front bencher of the United Party? [Interjections.] No, it was a front bencher of the United Party.

Who?

Just read Hansard. The hon. member should be very careful about making interjections because every time he does he puts his foot deeper into it.

The hon. member for Hillbrow accused us of having stabbed General Hertzog in the back. He said they did not stab General Hertzog in the back in 1941 but who stabbed him in the back in 1939? Whose newspapers said he was quite mad, that he was a person who had a screw loose somewhere? Who said that? The newspapers of the United Party or of the Nationalist Party? To-day they say we were the ones who stabbed General Hertzog in the back.

The hon. member for Hillbrow said they knew from experience that the stronger a party became the deeper embedded became the germs of its own destruction. Yes, we know it. We know that as far as the United Party is concerned. But we are not the United Party.

Thank Heaven.

Yes, thank Heaven, because we are not going to sow the germ of self-destruction. If we were to sow the germ of our own destruction it would mean the end of this nation because there you see the alternative government, Sir. If we were to be destroyed and the United Party came into power it would mean the end of White South Africa.

The hon. member said we were against immigration. Where does he get that from? That is the party who said they would throw open the doors of South Africa so that the immigrants could enter by their millions, the good and the bad, to plough this side of the House under. If anybody wants to do that to any nation with self-respect does the hon. member not think such a nation would oppose it with all its might? That is how we know the hon. member; when he gets a beating he pretends not to be listening.

When it was their intention to plough us under with immigrants, the good and the bad, we were against immigration. Who would not have been against it? Anybody with self-respect will fight for his own preservation. But when we came into power we said: “We shall bring in immigrants provided they do not constitute a danger to our own people on the labour market.” Nor does the hon. member know his history because the moment we needed immigrants we screened them and brought in those we wanted. We do not want the good and the bad. Nor do we want to bring in immigrants who will take the work out of the hands of our unskilled labour. We are not only concerned about the Whites; we are also the guardian of the non-Whites. We must also see to it that there is work for them. We cannot import unskilled labour on a large scale and be the cause of our own non-Whites dying of hunger. The hon. member must not say immigration is foreign to us. He would be more correct if he said: “The National Party must be ploughed under with millions of immigrants; that is how we want to remain in power”.

The hon. member says we shall steal their Bantu policy one of these days. The hon. members then quoted what Dr. Malan is supposed to have said, what Adv. Strijdom is supposed to have said and what Dr. Verwoerd is supposed to have said in 1950-1.

Why “supposed to have said”; they did say so.

Very well—“what they said”. I accept that for the sake of argument. Mr. Speaker, the National Party has always said it was the guardian of the non-Whites. [Interjections.] I did not interject once when the hon. member spoke. It has always been the policy of the National Party that it would remain the guardian of the non-Whites until such time as they became of age. A guardian cannot remain guardian over the ward for all time. He remains guardian over the ward until the ward becomes of age. We have always adopted the attitude that when the non-Whites become of age we shall give them self-government provided they have developed the necessary maturity. We say it to-day and we say it outside that we are going to give the various non-White national groups of the Bantu their own homelands, homelands which we shall recognize.

Independent and free?

The day the Bantu proves that he is ready to maintain independence and appreciate it.

And they are colonies in the meantime?

What does your leader say about it?

I wish the hon. member would give me a chance. He asked questions and made allegations which I want to refute. We have never yet hidden it under chairs and benches. The United Party who is to-day opposed to Bantu homelands entrenched the idea in legislation in 1936. They recognized the areas in which the Bantu had been living traditionally and they went further and said an additional million morgen of land had to be purchased from the White man and given to them. The National Party says that in view of the fact that the White man has given his word to the Bantu he, the White man, is going to honour it. Have hon. members opposite forgotten their union congress at Bloemfontein? I think it was the hon. member for South Coast who said “not another inch of land to the Bantu”.

To Bantustans.

What you are saying is not true.

Why do you want to buy land for the Bantu if you do not want to add it to the existing Bantu areas? I speak subject to correction but I think it was the hon. member for Hillbrow who objected to the people being moved to Meadowlands when we cleared up slum conditions in Johannesburg.

To the way in which you did it.

The hon. member said he would only vote for it if the Bantu were given property right there. He was prepared at that time to give them property right in the White areas, to give them land.

You are talking a lot of nonsense; you ought to know what the facts are.

I promise to check up in Hansard and if I am wrong I shall apologize to the hon. member, but if I am right I expect the hon. member to apologize to me. No, Mr. Speaker, they are not honest as far as these matters are concerned. They recognized it in 1936 but now they refuse to recognize it. I want to put this question to them: If they come into power what will they do with the traditional areas of the Bantu?

We shall develop them but they will remain part of South Africa.

What are you going to do with the Transkei?

But it will remain part of South Africa.

How are they going to develop it? Are they going to invest White capital there on a large scale and are they going to leave the Transkei to the Whites?

I shall give you a copy of our resolution.

Are they going to honour the undertaking they gave to the Bantu in 1936? We are not the people who gave them that land. History has given it to them. Every White man in this country knows where they live and knows it is Bantu area.

You are closing your eyes to the truth.

They say they will maintain leadership over the whole of South Africa. How are they going to do that? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said at a meeting that they wanted to maintain White leadership over the whole of South Africa for all time and that it would require a revolution to deprive them of it. In other words, according to the Leader of the Opposition, the United Party says, only a revolution will upset their policy. He therefore at this stage already recognizes the fact that the possibility of a revolution is inherent in that policy of theirs. But what else does it mean? With this battle-cry of theirs the United Party is suggesting that they want to keep these Bantu politically subordinate for all time and they know that is impossible. However, that is not what it is all about. What does this battle-cry of theirs really signify? They have realised that they cannot tell the people straight forward that they want a race federation, that they want to give the Bantu the opportunity of being represented in this Parliament and that it is possible that the Bantu will be represented by Bantu in this House. They do not want to tell the public that because they know the public will reject it. But to-day they come forward with this battle-cry that they want to maintain White leadership over the whole of the Republic of South Africa. It is only a battle-cry and they hope the nation will accept it. Once the nation has accepted it and put them in power the quickest and easiest way to destroy South Africa would be for them to apply their policy. Then they will not have any opposition; then it will be too late to oppose them. However, they do not want to tell the Republic what is the motive behind this battle-cry of theirs.

The maintenance of White civilization.

The hon. member has already tried to catch the public in many ways but the National Party is wide awake. We shall inform the nation as to the motives behind this battle-cry.

That hon. member says that by creating Bantu homelands we are giving away our heritage. Did our forefathers ever regard those Bantu homelands as a heritage they would be leaving us?

Always. Ever since they were conquered.

In that case I should like to know why the United Party recognized that that was not a White area in the 1936 legislation? Sir, how can you expect the nation to vote for a party which says that the area in which the Bantu are living and have been living traditionally, an area which the nation has recognized as being theirs, is a White area. Sir, have you ever heard such nonsense? If it is a Bantu homeland how can it be a White area? And they admitted it. But to-day they want to pull wool over the eyes of the nation but they will not succeed.

We shall.

I am sorry the hon. member was not here from the beginning. He said we refused to tell the public what we had in mind with the Bantu homelands. When have we refused to tell them?

During the last election

For Heaven’s sake, Sir, we said it throughout the election. We say it here and outside, everyone of us. I dealt with this matter at every meeting I addressed.

I said we did not hide our policy under chairs and benches. This is what we have in mind with the homelands. [Interjections.] Hon. members are getting foolish.

In conclusion I just want to say this to the United Party particularly to the hon. member for Hillbrow. As an Afrikaans-speaking person he will gain nothing by trying to stir up racial feelings against the English. He was not here but for his benefit I want to repeat what I said, namely, that when the Flag Act was piloted through this House he immediately held a meeting at Paarl and said to the English-speaking people: “This Government has now taken your flag away and one of these days they will take your language away.”

That is not true.

If it is not why did the hon. member not repudiate it? I think I quoted it in this House at the time. I just want to tell him that he will gain nothing by trying to incite the English-speaking people against the Government because the English-speaking people have become wise to him. They have discovered that the United Party only thrives on racial hatred. Nor will the hon. member gain anything by referring to these two Ministers of Information and Labour as tamed Englishmen.

Detribalized Englishmen.

I am grateful for that interjection.

I said I was regarded as a detribalized Englishman.

Those English-speaking persons who are joining the National Party in greater numbers will know in future that they are regarded as detribalized Englishmen. But the English-speaking people will no longer fall into that kind of trap. They are firmly rooted in this country to-day. They are citizens with one loyalty and one love and that is for South Africa. That is the reason why they reject the United Party and are joining this party in greater numbers. I can tell him that the more they sneer at the English-speaking people on this side of the House the more shall we, the Afrikaans-speaking people support and welcome them because here they will find a real home.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member for Vryheid (Mr. D. J. Potgieter) will forgive me if I do not follow his arguments or reply to them. As in the past I would rather confine myself to the interests of the people I represent and not take part in the dispute between the White political parties.

A few weeks ago when the results of the provincial elections in the Coloured constituencies came out people had a great deal to say because it showed that the overwhelming majority of the Coloureds had voted for the Progressive Party. I was pleased to some extent when I heard in private conversation with many members of the Government why they were concerned about the results. I was pleased to hear so many expressing concern that if the Coloureds were to be represented in the highest forums of the land by people who belonged to a political party which was completely rejected by the Whites it would only harm the cause of the Coloureds; it would only harm the feeling of goodwill that had been built up over recent years. People asked what the reason could be. I think there are three reasons for it. In the first place I do not think anybody will deny that the results of that election should be interpreted to mean that the Coloured voters and the Coloured people as such differ from a feeling of frustration and humiliation. They have been subject to humiliation over the past few years as a result of the actions of the Government. In the second place, Sir, you will remember that the Coloured voters were faced with the choice of voting for a Progressive Party candidate or a United Party candidate. I have in the past warned the United Party that they could not sit on two stools. I have told them that the policy they advocated was not acceptable to the Coloured voters because of its ambiguity. These elections have proved that it is not acceptable. However, there is a third reason for the results. I do not think I put it too strongly when I say that the third reason is the reprehensible methods employed by the Progressive Party. In the good old days when the Coloureds were still on the common roll and the matter discussed in this House the accusation was often made that during elections there was corruption as far as the Coloured voters were concerned. If any truth attached to those words in those days I can assure you, Sir, that the corruption which took place during the past election in which the Progressive Party took part, has no parallel in the political history of South Africa.

Did you report it?

The interjection by the hon. member is of no value; the hon. member knows very well that reports were made and that those people who had acted illegally in connection with the registration of Coloured voters were caught but the hon. member also knows that when money is thrown about during an election it is very difficult to find out who the guilty persons are. I do know, however—and I say this in all honesty—that financial offers were made to me to support the Progressive Party or their candidates. I know of Coloured voters who were approached by members of the Progressive Party in an attempt to get their support and were told: “Naturally we have Mr. Oppenheimer behind us and if you vote for the Progressive Party all your financial worries will be over.”

Disgraceful!

It is a disgrace.

The same thing happened when the United Party was in power.

No, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad should not talk about the old United Party Government because in the days when the United Party did things like that the Nationalist Party was equally guilty. But those days are past; the Coloureds are on a separate roll to-day.

It was clear in four or five cases where, because of inexperience on the part of the persons concerned, they acted in such a way that it could be determined by those in charge that it could not have been possible for one person to have signed as witness at so many registrations on one day or one evening. There were four or five such cases but that is nothing in comparison with other things that were done. I am sincerely and honestly afraid that the methods employed in this case can only lower and harm the political consciousness of the Coloured community and if the Coloured people, or rather the Coloured voters, were to elect people to represent them in the highest forums of the land, people who did not stand the slightest chance of fulfilling the promises their party or they themselves had made, people who were not sincere with the Coloureds but only wanted to use the Coloured vote to obtain a political platform in the highest forums of the land, it would only worsen the very difficult position in which the Coloured people find themselves to-day, a position in which they aspire to higher development but feel that their political development is being hampered, and drastically retard their development. After the formation of the Progressive Party there was an election in 1961. They said at the time that they would not take part in Coloured elections because the policy of separate voters’ rolls was to repugnant to them that they did not even want to take part in the elections. But the results of the 1961 election also clearly indicated that the Progressives had as little hope as the proverbial snow ball in the other place to come into power on the White vote and that is the reason why their hearts are suddenly bleeding for the Coloureds. I just want to say this to the people I represent, the people for whom my heart bleeds and whose fate is my concern, that if the day should arrive when those people who want to use the Coloured vote merely to get a platform, become their representatives, the growth of their development will be irreparably damaged.

I want to deal with the second reason I have mentioned: The hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) has appealed to the Coloureds to accept the policy of the United Party. The hon. member is completely out of touch with the Coloureds and their ideas. The Coloureds of South Africa have developed to the stage where they no longer believe the story that if you have certain qualifications you are politically so mature that your name can go on the voters roll in the Cape Province but the moment you cross the border into the Orange Free State you are no longer politically mature. That is the kind of anomaly which is responsible for the fact that the Coloureds are no longer attracted to the policy of the United Party and were no longer attracted to the United Party as such during the last election. The days are past when the Coloured was only faced with the choice of voting United Party or Nationalist Party and voted for the better of the two candidates. That situation no longer obtains. The Coloured voters who voted on the common roll up to 1953 only constitute a small percentage of the voters on the separate roll. The United Party can no longer appeal successfully to the Coloureds to vote for the United Party. There must be a re-adjustment of policy if they want to give a certain measure of satisfaction to the Coloureds as far as their political aspirations are concerned. I want to say a few words about the third reason I have mentioned. This is something which happens from time to time as far as the Coloureds are concerned. I do not want to rake up old stories but I want to say a few words on this question of mixed audiences and the steps taken in that connection. It is something of minor importance which could have been avoided. I want to say in all honesty that no Government has ever done as much for the Coloureds as this Government as far as their housing, their education, their economic upliftment and so forth are concerned. That is undeniably true. But, as I have said before, you can have a beautiful home with a pretty garden, you can have the best furniture and wonderful toys for your children, but if there is no happiness in that home it is not a home in the true sense of the word. It is true that as far as material things are concerned the Government has done a great deal for the Coloureds (particularly when you think if it, Sir, that in 1950, in the municipal area of Cape Town alone, there was a shortage of 20,000 houses for Coloureds. It is clear, however, that there is no happiness in the Coloured home. On the 18 March a letter appeared in the Burger. The letter was written by a Mr. Phillip Stohr and he said this—

I say again that the entire Coloured community appreciate the beautiful University College which has been established for them at Bellville. I encourage them to go there because the more B.A.s and B.Sc.s coming from that university college the faster will be their upliftment economically and culturally. But what do we see in this morning’s Burger: “Civic Centre refused to Coloureds.” The University college has not yet got a hall big enough in which to hold their graduation ceremony. I was present last year and it was held in a lecture room which was hopelessly too small. A suitable hall has still to be built. They have applied for permission to use the Bellville civic centre for their graduation ceremony. Only intellectuals and the parents of the students who have to receive their degrees are invited to the ceremony but the application has been refused. I am informed that the mayor of Bellville said that it was not their policy to allow Coloureds to use it. Of all these statements we have had about mixed audiences there was one which I could understand and that was that it was suggested that if facilities were not available to Coloureds at any particular place they would be allowed, under permit, to use those of the Whites. What goodwill is shown to the Coloureds when a municipality goes as far as that? I was present when the University College was opened. The Coloureds sat on one side of the hall and the Whites on the other side. Subsequently there was a reception to which only Whites were invited. One would have thought it was a university for Whites. The Coloureds were not invited because they are not allowed in the civic centre!

Mr. Speaker at such a ceremony you only have to do with intellectuals, with students who have to get their degrees and their parents those parents who have been able to educate their children to that standard. But the Coloureds are humiliated in public by not being allowed to hold their graduation ceremony in the civic centre at Bellville. How can we expect them not to show extremistic tendencies when it comes to an election? What is worse is this: A Bantu choir may perform in that hall before a White audience. In other words, Coloureds and Bantu may appear on the platform but they may not appear in the auditorium. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what stupidity?

A few years ago the hon. the Minister of Finance said in this House that the world outside must remember that there were five million hearts here beating as one. How can you expect the heart of a person who is insulted in that way to beat in unison with yours or mine, Sir? How can you expect these people who are daily humiliated in their very soul to have a feeling of absolute loyalty and faithfulness to South Africa and to the Government of the country? I appeal to the Government, in heaven’s name, in the interests of the future of South Africa— the future of both White and Coloured because their fate is the same as ours—to reflect and to put an end to these unnecessary pin-pricks; to stop inflicting wounds unnecessarily. I appeal to the Prime Minister and to the Cabinet to stop making mountains out of molehills and to stop insulting the Coloureds in this way.

During the course of this debate some hon. members, particularly the Coloured Representatives, made some remarks which caused us to believe that they were a little worried. We can well understand that because the recent election has clearly showed that the Coloured people have more or less washed their hands off the United Party and were looking for other avenues to realize their political ideals. We also gained the impression that the present Coloured Representatives were also very worried. They think their representation of the Coloured people will probably also be interfered with.

I think it is good that on an occasion like this we should take stock of ourselves as regards our own attitude towards the Coloured people. I think I can say without fear of contradiction that, in spite of the signs that the Coloured people are tending towards the Progressives, this Party and this Government will continue to fulfill its obligations towards the Coloured people.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23 and debate adjourned.