The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) yesterday said, “The Minister must not sell the Government’s race policy overseas, but South Africa”. That is a nice phrase, but it is meaningless. Whatever Government is in power in South Africa, one will never be able to sell South Africa without a policy of segregation on the grounds of colour of some sort. To think that one can sell South Africa just because of its beautiful beaches, its mountains, its sunshine, its animal life, etc., without also selling its unique and complicated problem of human relations, is quite unrealistic. Here we have the greatest problem of human relations, a unique problem in the world, and that is why it is so difficult to sell it and to explain it. That is why previous Governments had the same difficulty. That is why Field-Marshal Smuts could not sell it to the United Nations in 1947, and that was without apartheid. That is also why Rhodesia without apartheid, is also struggling to sell the image it would like to give to the world.

The hon. member for Turffontein has now made a great fuss about certain incidents which took place here. I am afraid, as I indicated last night, that one gets such incidents in all countries and under all governments. In America there is at present being applied a policy of enforced integration, and in that process one gets much worse incidents than we have in South Africa. No, Sir, in South Africa we have a policy of enforced separate development and we are at present in a transition stage, and we will have incidents here. It is a pity that it should be so, but it is an even greater pity that there are certain bodies and certain members, of whom the hon member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) is a good example, who regard it as their task to blow up these incidents into international incidents. But I am not pessimistic. I think the Minister and his Department have during the past year achieved a great measure of success. The Department of Information no longer concentrates so much on reaching the broad masses overseas, and I think that is a very wise policy. It is an impossible task in view of the inimical Press one finds there and the inimical radio and television, and in any case it costs too much moniey to try to reach the masses. But I think the Department has brilliantly succeeded in reaching the people who are important, the financial, political and industrial leaders, and also the cultural leaders, etc. I want to congratulate the Minister and his Department on the successful tour they organised for American newspapermen who visited South Africa earlier this year I think it was a very successful tour and we received a lot of good publicity as the result of it. What the Department has succeeded in doing is in reaching the important leaders in other countries and in convincing them that our problems are different from those of any other country in the world, and that it is only South Africa which can solve those problems. I think it is to-day generally accepted among leaders in every sphere in other countries that our problem is unique and can only be solved by South Africa itself.

But I am optimistic for another reason. I think that as we progress along the road of separate development, the pattern becomes increasingly clear to the leaders of the Western world and they understand increasingly that our policy of separate freedoms is the only solution. I am increasingly struck by the fact that more and more people and responsible newspapers abroad are impressed by the unequalled prosperity of our Coloured races here, in contrast with the rest of Africa. They increasingly recognize how economically prosperous they are, that their housing is no less than a miracle and how good their health services and educational standards are. and they are increasingly impressed by the political progress being made by the Coloured races in South Africa, progress which in many respects is better than that in any other part of Africa.

But my most important reason for optimism is that our policy, as depicted in the Transkei, is increasingly being understood by the right people overseas. Now that the Protectorates are getting their freedom, our policy becomes easier to understand, and our chances of being understood will improve. I think this better understanding on the part of certain leaders of the West, certain important people who influence opinion there, and certain important newspapers, is due particularly to three things. Firstly, it is due to the basic soundness of our policy; secondly, to happenings in Africa as the result of which people in the West have become disillusioned, and thirdly, it is due to the excellent way in which the Department of Information has brought these facts to the notice of the right people. I am now more convinced than ever before of one thing, and that is that one cannot buy a favourable image of South Africa with money or by making concessions or by pretending that one does not have these problems. We can only gain the favour of the world by convincing them that on merits we will remain the leader in Southern Africa. We will only succeed in gaining their favour by convincing them that we demand nothing for ourselves which we do not grant to other nations in Southern Africa, and by convincing them that we want to live in peace and good neighbourliness with all the nations of Southern Africa. That is a tremendous task and it will mean much exertion and intelligence and diplomacy. But there is no doubt that we are doing this and that we are gaining ground, and in this task the Minister and his Department play a very proud role on which I want to congratulate them heartily.

I wish I could join in the hymn of praise which the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) has directed at the Minister of Information, but not a word of this hymn will be published overseas. What will be published, however, are certain facts about an oratorio called “The Messiah”. This has been publicized in every English-language newspaper in the Western world and in more than a fair proportion of the countries where other languages are spoken. What is the use of this continuous ostrich-like attitude, this kind of in-breeding, that hon. members opposite specialize in? They dig their heads into the sand and say this is a wonderful country—and, of course, we agree—but then they say this is a wonderful Government, and of course there we disagree—and the last straw is when they say this is a wonderful Minister!

When General Smuts shot the Bondelswarts, was it not publicized overseas?

I heard all about the Bondelswarts last night, and I read about that rebellion when I was a boy, but I am prepared to vouch for the fact that whereas not a word about what General Smuts did to the Bondelswarts in 1902 or any other year is even thought about, let alone printed, in the world, I say again that the facts about the banning of Handel’s “Messiah” have been publicized throughout the world—and if this hon. member does not believe it, he does not have the intelligence I always hoped he would achieve. Now, Sir, I want to tell you something. [Interjections.] The ostrich does not worry, either— until someone kicks him so hard in the posterior that he does worry; and that is the fate that awaits all of us because of the attitude of this Government. We will all share that kick in the posterior, but it will be the fault of that hon. member and not mine, because I prefer to tell the public of South Africa what the true facts are in regard to our image in the outside world. And when the Minister gets up here, as he did, and says it was considered feasible to perform Handel’s “Messiah” with an organ instead of an orchestra, then I for one feel that all the work I tried to do in the U.S.A. last year and the year before to assure people there that there were some civilized people in this country, even among the Nationalist Party members, has been completely undone, because any fool knows . . .

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that word.

I withdraw it, excluding that hon. member.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that as well.

I withdraw it. Anyone knows that when Handel wrote “The Messiah”, he had no thought that his orchestration would be prostituted in this way that an organ would be used where a full-scale orchestra was required. So although the Government can rewrite the history of South Africa—and it has been attempted, as we know—in regard, e.g., to the origin of the Coloured people and the conditions in South Africa—it can never rewrite Handel’s “Messiah”. I want to leave the hon. member for Vereeniging with this simple thought—that he can talk as much as he likes about what General Smuts did about the Bon-delswarts. It means nothing to us to-day; it is a matter of history, and it means nothing to the outside world, but this sort of conduct means a great deal.

We still got through.

Got through what? To the boom, because of the natural resources of this country, and despite this Government? What did we get through to? To the type of image . . . [Interjections.] I challenge that hon. member and the Minister to do what I have done. Go to the United States and tell them that all is well in South Africa because of General Smuts’s treatment of the Bondelswarts. [Interjections.] But what is current news is the refusal of a visa to an American Catholic newspaperman, news which makes every newspaper and television programme. That is news, and nobody knows why this man, Floyd Anderson, was banned. One cannot get an answer from the Minister. Last year we spoke about our image in the U.S.A., where the Minister of Information is spending a large sum of money, but last year they refused a visa to a man who had a letter of recommendation from the President of the U.S.A., a man who represented the Houston Chronicle, a very important newspaper. What kind of image do you expect that man and that newspaper, and for that matter the President of the U.S.A., to conceive of South Africa, when for no reason at all a man is refused admission when he wants to come at his own expense to see for himself, and to report to a very wide public in a syndicated column in a large number of important newspapers. which cost us nothing—and the reports might have been favourable? Yet the Minister beats his brains out to get space in the New York Times at R3,500 per insertion. That is the type of work this Department is doing. These hon. members, when they stand up and praise the Government, are entitled to their point of view, but I hope they will permit somebody with a little experience of what this Government has done to South Africa beyond it sborders, to criticize their attitude.

I want to deal with the work of the Department of Information in regard to its domestic and its foreign fields. The remarkable thing about our Department of Information is that whereas it should concentrate entirely on projecting an image of South Africa which is favourable, it concentrates the greater part of its resources, its manpower and its funds, on indoctrinating the South African public. Take a look at the Budget; 75 per cent of the personnel are in South Africa and a large sum of money is spent in South Africa. We were told that this service was modelled on the U.S. Information Agency. Does the hon. member remember that? Here is the Smith-Mundt Act. If the Minister has not got a copy, I will lend him mine. It is perfectly clear that we do not know what we are talking about when we say our agency is modelled on the U.S. Information Agency. This is called the “United States Information and Education Exchange Act of 1948”, and all through this Act the emphasis is on the restriction of the activities of this agency to other countries, to the foreign field, to promote a better understanding of the U.S.A. in other countries, to provide for assistance to school libraries and community centres abroad. You can go right through this Act. They are prohibited by law under this Act from uttering a single word or communicating a single thought to the people of their own country. That is what we should be doing, restricting our activities in this country and in fact eliminating them, and concentrating instead on the foreign field. If this is a great government with a great ideology, why this indoctrination of our own voters and our own people? Is it necessary? You say everybody is satisfied here. And so, Sir, I want to tell you that the Department of Information is misnamed. Internally, domestically, it is the Department of Indoctrination, and outside it is called by all kinds of other names that I have heard. I want to tell you, Sir, that when the hon. member for Vereeniging refers to the visits of newspapermen and to the fact that this gave us a very good image in the outside world, I want to tell him that he has misdirected himself hopelessly. I have here some of the replies given to me by the hon. the Minister about the visit of these newspapermen. I will give the hon. member my copy after I have sat down and he will see that without exception . . . [Interjections.] [Time limit.]

I do not want to say much in regard to what was said by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. I just want to say that the policy of the United Party is not acceptable to the people in this country, and it is equally unacceptable to the people abroad. Secondly, I want to say that it is an accepted fact that an information service is essential in a democratic state, and I want to read a short quotation from a pamphlet dealing with the United Kingdom information services, in which they say this—

I should like to devote the rest of my time to expressing a few ideas in regard to a visit I paid to America last year. I want to state that there is a very good spirit in the U.S.A. towards South Africa, in spite of the fact that the hon. member who has just spoken was there. During my visit to the U.S.A., I asked myself what a small country like South Africa could do favourably to influence a large country like the U.S.A.? I should like to praise the work done there by our information officers and the staff of our embassies. I think they are doing good work and I can only express the highest appreciation of it. What I am about to say is therefore not intended as criticism of the work they do, but I should like to submit a few ideas.

In the first place I want to say that my impression is that there is a great measure of goodwill towards South Africa among the broad masses in the U.S.A. It increases the further one goes to the south and the west of America. Now the question is how to mobilize that goodwill in favour of South Africa. That is a problem I do not wish to discuss this morning, but it remains a serious question to which we should devote attention, how to mobilize the goodwill so that it can influence people who have to take decisions in regard to foreign affairs. My second impression is that there is great ignorance about South Africa among the masses. One can understand it. It is a big country and South Africa is a small one. One can understand that there are not many people who know about South Africa. One of the great difficulties one experiences is that the people cannot distinguish between South Africa and the rest of Africa. To them Africa is Africa, and what happens in the rest of Africa is ipso facto applied to South Africa. People often told me: “You are having a bad time in Africa to-day,” and then I replied: “You are surely referring to the Congo, which is 1,000 miles north of South Africa.” We must make use of the mass media, but I think we should particularly concentrate on the universities and the schools in the U.S.A. We should particularly concentrate our efforts on the children in the schools, and we need not make propaganda; we can merely tell them about the history and the geography of South Africa. An objective film will be acceptable in all schools. The Americans are people who like to learn and I am quite convinced that if we can make objective films, all schools and universities will use them. We should remember that in ten or 15 years’ time those are the people who may influence foreign policy in America. Therefore one of the things I want to advocate is that we should in an objective manner and without making propaganda, give information about South Africa in the schools and the universities in the U.S.A.

I also asked myself what our aims should be in regard to our information service. My own opinion is that we should carefully consider the objectives we wish to obtain, and after a thorough study we should reduce them to the minimum. It is a large country with many bodies. There are 1,500 organizations dealing with foreign affairs. Therefore we should reduce our objectives to a minimum, so that we can make the best use of our money. I came to the conclusion that we should reduce our objectives to a very small number, and that we should make use of Americans to state our case there. We should make use of people who can speak the language of the American and who have an American background, to put our case from their point of view. But I do not want to say more about that. In regard to the universities, I want to say that the American Government utilizes the brain power of their many universities to a very large extent. The universities play a great role in the forming of public policy. Therefore I feel that we should devote much attention to the universities. In this regard I want to plead that we should try to get academicians in South Africa to visit those universities to talk to the academicians there on an equal level. Our information officers do very good work, but they are young pressmen and I feel that we should get people who can talk to the academicians in America on the same level. The Americans are very fond of lectures and conferences and conventions. We should make use of those opportunities to state our case, also at the universities. Those people will give us a good hearing.

Another lack, in my opinion, is books about South Africa. We know that our information service has distributed a set of four books, and I want to congratulate them on it. Those books are being distributed there by the thousand. But I want to ask that we should get Americans to write books for us about South Africa. The Department should bring people out to South Africa for research and study and get them to write boks about South Africa which can be distributed overseas. [Time limit.]

I wish to refer to the unnecessary delay which has occurred in dealing with a relatively simple matter. In February last year I had occasion to visit South West Africa and I travelled by S.A. Airways. It was an area with which I was unfamiliar and I soon found that the maps provided in the aircraft were quite inadequate if one wished to find one’s position, or to ascertain the nature of the country over which one was flying. I realise that frequent announcements over the public address system by the pilot might be inconvenient to other passengers who may not be particularly interested. It occurred to me that possibly there was some way in which visitors could get to know something about the surroundings over which they were flying. I felt that it was something which the Minister of Information could perhaps discuss with his colleague the Minister of Transport, to evolve some system by which this information could be given. I realise that the aircraft do not always traverse the same route and that different parts of the country may be covered on different trips, but I felt that some means could be devised whereby this could be overcome. I had in mind possibly a strip map similar to those issued by automobile associations, which could give the information passengers wanted. On 14th February 1964 I rang the Minister’s Department and asked whether it would not be possible for me to discuss with the Minister a matter which I felt had something to do with his Department. I was asked what the matter was and I disclosed what I had in mind. I was told that the matter would be placed before the minister for his consideration. On 4 March 1964 not having heard anything, I rang again, and was told that the matter would be considered and that in due course I would be advised of the outcome of my representations. During the recess I heard nothing, so on 24th February this year, a year later, I rang again and was told that I would be advised of the outcome of my representations. I have a diary which can substantiate these dates. I submit that the suggestion I put forward was not an impracticable one, because I feel that it is something which could be instituted by the Department to the advantage of people who use the South African Airways, who enjoy all the excellent facilities provided. I think this is a matter which can be considered by the Minister of Information. This was brought home to me very definitely the other day when I travelled to Durban. At East London the hostess politely asked my colleague and me whether we would mind changing seats and sitting on the other side of the plane because there were two people from overseas who wished to see a certain area of the Natal coast as they had in mind settling somewhere there. They wanted to see the area from the air because it might help them to decide. I could not see how this could help them in their decision, but again I thought that this was another case where information provided in the plane could give people a much better idea of our wonderful country, some idea of the area over which the plane was passing, the names of the major towns and rivers and mountains. I have taken the trouble to discuss this with many people who travelled with me and in every case the opinion expressed was that the maps provided are inadequate to give any indication of the actual route of the plane in relation to the land and that some form of information would be well received by the passengers. Under these circumstances I asked the Minister whether he could give some consideration to a matter which I believe falls within the purview of his Department.

The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) touched on a very important point in regard to which I agree with him to a large extent. It is often interesting to people who travel by air to know precisely where they are. If the hon. member, e.g., again flies to South West Africa, he should go to Windhoek where he will be able to get a very interesting scientific map of the territory which will indicate to him every important place in South West Africa, a map which I helped to draw up.

But I really got up to say something about the attacks which have been made ever since yesterday by the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) and other speakers opposite on the hon. the Minister and his policy. I admit that there are many problems connected with stating South Africa’s true position overseas, but I want to tell the hon. member that this is not a problem which we have had only since yesterday or the day before; we have had it for many years already. In fact, I want to call as a witness somebody who is perhaps an authority in this sphere. After having analysed the bad image of South Africa overseas, he says this (translation)—

The hon. member for Turffontein will now ask me who expressed this wise thought on 19 September 1958. It was the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson), and I think the hon. member for Bezuidenhout at that time still had the correct impression of the state of affairs abroad. Sir, there are various reasons why distorted pictures are painted about South Africa overseas. The one reason of course is that we in South Africa have to do with an unpatriotic Press, and we simply cannot argue that away. The least little thing that happens, like the incident to which the hon. member for Hospital has just referred and the incident in regard to the ship which has been debated here time and again, is published under big headlines by the unpatriotic Press in South Africa, and then the hon. members for Turffontein and Hospital come here and try to inflate these incidents to the proportions of international incidents. They discuss minor incidents here in Parliament, incidents which are really not worth the attention devoted to them. Sir, as soon as one discusses a matter in this House one inflates it to an international standard and then people abroad immediately say: “Look there; it is a very important matter because see what a big fuss the Opposition in South Africa makes about it.” The kind of incidents which were referred to here take place in every country; they take place in America and in Britain and in every country in the world, but the only difference is that their oppositions are not so unpatriotic as to proclaim it from the house-tops.

May I put a question? Is the hon. member saying that the incident of the Independence can happen in any country such as, e.g., America?

I say that worse incidents can take place there, and in fact do, incidents of a different nature, but the opposition there is not so unpatriotic as to pin it to a flagpole and discuss it in Parliament. There are of course also other reasons why South Africa is not very popular abroad. There is of course its traditional policy of separation. But do hon. members opposite want us to abandon our policy for the sake of getting a good press abroad? Does the hon. member for Turffontein want that? Does he want us in South Africa to adopt a policy which will be acceptable in all respects to the world?

Whoever said that?

That is precisely the implication of the speech of the hon. member for Turffontein. Sir, to what levels will we have to descend if we want to satisfy the world at the cost of our own people? Take, e.g., other areas like Rhodesia and the Portuguese Territories, where absolute equality is applied. Do they not have a bad press abroad? Does the hon. member for Turffontein want us to go even further in degrading our policy vis-à-vis our own people and apply, e.g., the policy of equality which is applied in other territories of Africa, just to get a friendly press? No, I do not think we should go so far and I do not think we can go so far as to try to set our sails according to the norm required for a well-disposed press overseas, [interjection.] If the hon. member for Turffontein wants to argue about that, he should get up and tell us that his party is not prepared to make any change in the traditional policy which has been followed in South Africa since the year nought, and then I want to see whether as the result of that he will get a better press. But of course South Africa has become the target, for various reasons, of a liberal press, not only in South Africa but also abroad, and unfortunately the hon. member for Turffontein and his colleagues play their role in that regard. They blow up these small incidents into big ones on such a scale that it creates the impression that a serious situation has arisen, and by doing that they definitely do not render a service to South Africa. To remedy South Africa’s position abroad, where we have to do with a malicious approach, is not so easy, and that is in fact what this Government has to cope with to-day and what previous Governments had to cope with. The Government is faced with ill-will towards South Africa. I have an example I want to mention. Recently a very important visitor came to South Africa. I want to mention his name because what he wrote about South Africa deserves the attention of his compatriots in this country. I refer to Von Hubertus Prinz zu Löwenstein, a member of the aristocracy in Germany who paid a visit here. He went back and wrote an article in a German periodical. Zeit, and he made a few allegations which are very interesting. Sir, you will permit me to read just three lines in the original for record purposes, because I do not want to misquote it. He expatiates on the question why the Nationalist Government obtained such a large majority in the recent provincial election, and then he comes forth with this clever statement—

[Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just spoken has taken a line here which we cannot allow to pass unchallenged. He in fact implies that the Opposition should not criticize stupidities of the Government and the ham-handed manner in which the Government is making a shambles of the good name of South Africa overseas because then we are doing South Africa harm. Does the hon. member not realize that nothing that this Government can do, can do one-tenth of the good for South Africa that is done by the attacks and the criticisms of the Opposition. If it were not for the attitude of the Opposition then this country would lose what little support and friendship it still retains in the outside world. It is the very fact that we as an Opposition can and do criticize and attack the Government that leaves some semblence of impression, despite the attitude of the Government, that this country is still a free country. To say that the Opposition blows up incidents is utter nonsense. Sir, who creates the incidents? It is the Government which creates the incidents, not we. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) referred to this ridiculous situation where a white orchestra could not play with a Bantu choir, but a white organist could.

On black notes.

On black notes, apparently. Sir, when you get that sort of crazy madness— you cannot describe it as anything else—then the Government carries the full and total responsibility, and we as an Opposition are entitled to criticize. We are entitled to criticize in the interests of South Africa; we are entitled to try to stop that sort of nonsense continuing. I want to ask the Minister how he is going to explain that incident to the world. It is his job to explain it to the world. How is he going to explain the Independence issue to the world? How is he going to put across to the world some sort of case to justify the ridiculous actions of his colleagues and of his Government? Sir, when we look at the Vote that we are now dealing with we find that the overwhelming emphasis in Information is on internal propaganda.

Why do you call it internal propaganda?

It must be so.

Sir, I used that term deliberately because I am now going to charge the Minister with acting as a propaganda organ for the Nationalist Party. I say that if you want evidence of that, it is a fact that the Nationalist Party as a political organization as a Party, uses, without any shame or pretence, the publications of the Minister’s Department to issue propaganda in support of their political campaigns and their political candidates. I have evidence to support that. I questioned the Minister on it and he tried to plead ignorance. Sir, if a political party can use publications put out by the Minister as party propaganda, then I believe that I am entitled to call it “propaganda”,

It is good stuff about South Africa.

It is not good stuff about South Africa, Sir; it is good stuff about the Nationalist Party, and that is the trouble.

But that is South Africa.

Not yet, by a long chalk.

Sir, the Minister owes this House and the country an explanation as to exactly what proportion of his expenditure is going to protect the good name of South Africa and how much is being spent on internal propaganda. When you look at the staff position you find that there are 336 members of his staff in South Africa and 42 outside. If you look at Publicity, you find that R320,000 is being spent internally, plus R717,000 on printing. over R1 million, as against R571,000 overseas. The Minister must tell this Committee to what extent he is becoming the mouthpiece of the Government for making political propaganda. Take the Minister’s own report; look at some of the duties of his Department. The report sets out the important Press projects dealt with during the year: The Commission of Inquiry into the Press, a commission which sat for 13 years and made South Africa the laughing-stock of the journalistic world, a commission whose whole report tended to do nothing but create unpleasant feelings amongst foreign newspaper men because it attacked the foreign Press. The most important project of the Minister’s Department is to publicize a commission which in its report attacked the very people who should be helping South Africa. Then there is the report of the Odendaal Commission; that is fair enough; then there is the Rivonia trial and the South West Africa case. Those are the five issues which are reported to be the major tasks dealt with by the Department. Then we come to the item “Liaison amongst the non-Whites,” and we find that this Department is apparently now going to teach the Bantu in the Transkei how to vote. A hundred and fifty five meetings were held to teach the Transkei how to vote. Sir, is this a department of voting education? Were they teaching the Transkeians the procedure or where they teaching them who to vote for? Were they telling them for which candidates to vote or how to vote. Who distributed the political pamphlets in that election, at the meetings where the people were being told how to vote?

You are a disgrace to this House!

On a point of order, the hon. member says that I am a disgrace to this House. Sir, I am dealing with the report of the Department which says that 155 meetings were held in a by-election in the Transkei to explain electoral procedure to the people, and I am asking the hon. the Minister whether propaganda was distributed at those meetings by his Department for any particular party or candidate.

That is a shameful suggestion. Read what the report says.

The report says that these meetings were held to explain the electoral procedure. I am putting this question to the hon. the Minister, not to this noisy member who is getting so excited. I think he must have a guilty conscience. I am asking the Minister to deny that political propaganda was distributed at these meetings.

Why should he deny something that does not exist?

I am asking him to deny it. I have stated as a matter of fact that his publications are used by the Nationalist Party and were issued in the Umlazi election in Durban in February or March of this year by the Nationalist Party as propaganda for their candidates.

Why not? It is good stuff about South Africa.

Sir, I submit that this Minister and his Department must tell this Committee and the country that they are either a propaganda organ or, if not, to give the full facts to the Committee.

There is another amount on which I want some information from the hon. the Minister and that is this interesting sum of R500 for a secret service. Will the Minister tell us about Frankie’s Secret Service? Why should a Department of Information want a secret service? What secrets are they going to ferret out? Is the function of the secret service to get information from other Departments? I can imagine the Department of Defence or the Police having a secret service, but since when does a Publicity Department have to have a private secret service? I think the Minister should explain to the Committee whether that secret service is connected with the internal or the external activities of his Department. [Time limit.]

I just want to complete the argument I was advancing before I come to the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw). I was reading from a periodical to indicate how an important visitor to this country abused his position by ascribing certain things to the Government. The allegation he makes is that the Government obtained such a large majority in the provincial elections because we got groups of students and youths to keep the Opposition away from the polling booths.

Who said that?

Prinz Hubertus von Löwenstein. I want the Opposition to tell us whether such incidents ever occurred. The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) should tell us whether this visitor was correct in making that allegation, viz. that the National Party got groups of youths and students to keep the Opposition away from the polling booths and whether that is the reason why we obtained such a great victory. It is one of the most foolish arguments one can imagine, but one asks oneself where this person got hold of this argument. He must have got it from some Opposition source; I do not want to say that it came specifically from the United Party, but it must have come from malicious sources.

Why should we be held responsible for information emanating from a malicious source? [Interjection.]

I hope the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman), who is now being so loud, will tell the hon. gentleman that we have a provision in our Electoral Act making it an offence to keep anybody away from a polling booth by violence. But he goes still further in this article and makes the allegation that the Opposition suffered such a severe defeat because everybody in South Africa has now more or less come to the conclusion that in any case it is useless opposing the Government and that South Africa is on the way to becoming a one-party state. I do not know whether the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) has become so discouraged that he told him that. But in any case one would have expected the Opposition to reply to this important allegation made against South Africa’s good name. I just want to conclude this argument by saying that if important people who visit South Africa and get the opportunity of looking at matters here and having interviews with people, want to make such allegations, I do not even want to talk about the allegations made by people who have never even been here. One then realizes what a tremendous task rests on the shoulders of the hon. the Minister. If these reckless allegations can be made by a person who comes here as the guest of an Embassy, we can imagine what sort of allegations will be made by persons who have no knowledge at all of conditions in this country.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) said in the first place that I had alleged that the Opposition inflates small incidents so as to besmirch South Africa’s good name. I want to invite the hon. member to point to a single case where any opposition party overseas makes use of these methods to bring their country into disfavour. The incidents which are brought here are minor incidents which we could have settled among ourselves instead of voicing them here in Parliament and making them appear to be important incidents. The hon. member for Durban (Point) also said that one of the strongest points in our favour overseas was the fact that there is still an opposition in this country and that it is so active. I think the hon. member was much too optimistic. Everybody values an opposition party in a Parliament; we appreciate the Opposition and we welcome it, but we at least expect responsibility from an Opposition. Sir, South Africa has many great assets. One asset South Africa has is its great material riches; another asset is its people, but I think the greatest asset South Africa in fact has, is a strong Nationalist Government. Take, e.g., the foreign investors who invest their money here. They know to-day what their position is; they know precisely what the standpoint of this Government is; they know what it is to-day and what it will be tomorrow and what it will be for as long as this Government remains in power. But if it should ever seem that the Opposition may possibly win an election, those foreign investors will not know where they stand vis-à-vis the Opposition, and they will then ask themselves what the future policy of South Africa will be; what will happen in regard to the Opposition’s policy of race federation, etc. That was the tendency in African territories where there was not a firm Government, where the possibility existed that Black governments would take over. Investors withdrew their money from those countries, in the Congo, e.g., before the riots began there, foreign investors at one stage withdrew their investments at the rate of more that £10 million a week, and that is the fate which will overcome South Africa also if it should ever appear that the United Party might possibly come into power, and therefore I say that one of the greatest assets this country has to-day is its strong Government. The fact that we go from strength to strength is one of the greatest assets South Africa can ever have.

The hon. member for Middelland (Mr. Van der Merwe) referred to an article written by a German visitor to this country, in which he stated that students deliberately prevented people from going to polling booths. I can tell him quite frankly that I know of no such incidents at elections anywhere, and if he wants to use this statement of mine he is at liberty to do so. I have seen the actions of students on election days; they are sometimes rowdy and they are on occasions ill-mannered, but they have no right under the law to prevent anybody from voting and, of course, the ordinary police procedure can be invoked if any voter is prevented from casting his vote.

Sir. I deplore the attack made by the hon. member for Middelland and other members of the other side upon this side of the House inasmuch as they intimated that we have no right to raise incidents and matters affecting the good name of our country, incidents for which in actual fact the Government is in most instances responsible., I want to quote a statement made by the hon. the Minister of Information, and I am not going to quote it as an attack on him because I believe that it was quite a sensible statement that he made while he sat on this side of the House, and I do believe that he has no( changed his opinion since. In 1952 when he sat on this side, he said—

Sir. that was a sensible statement.

Who said it?

The Minister of Information. I sincerely hope that he still stands by it.

Sir, there is one matter that falls under the hon. the Minister that I would like to raise here, and that is that incubus, that old man of the sea—call it whatever you like—the report of the Press Commission. The hon. the Minister will remember that this report consisting of 11 volumes and weighing 500 or 600 lbs. was off-loaded on to his shoulders sometime ago. He promptly passed the buck by sending most of his copies abroad to New York and to London. I do not know what happened to those reports; I do not know whether they are gathering dust there or not. I have said before that I believe the vast majority of the recommendations of that Press report are useless; some of them are not factual and some are obsolete and detrimental to freedom of speech in South Africa. But there were certain points in that Press Commission report, not dealing with the freedom of the Press, nor with the right of a newspaper to publish what it wishes, which I believe is a fundamental right and should not be interfered with provided it was within the law, which are worth some consideration.

I want to refer to certain of the commission’s recommendations in regard to Sapa. I shall not read all the recommendations; some of them are worthwhile and others not. I asked the hon. Minister a question whether he had done anything in connection with the recommendations of the Press Commission in respect of Sapa and, if so, what steps he had taken. He said “no, and the rest of the question falls away”. Sir, I have nothing against Sapa’s news service. It is factual; it is comprehensive and from the nature of things, extremely dull as far as its parliamentary reports are concerned. But I am not criticizing Sapa on account of its news service nor its right to publish what it wishes. I do, however, want the hon. Minister to go into those recommendations of the Press Commission dealing with certain monopolistic practices on the part of Sapa and to find out whether anything has been done by the S.A. Press Association. Limits were set in the past to the rights of people starting a new newspaper to getting the Sapa news service. Anyone who wanted to start a daily or weekly newspaper in Johannesburg, for instance, had great difficulty in getting that news service. I should like to know whether the freedom does now exist which we all desire in that connection.

There was another part of the Press Commission report which was of importance and that was the section which dealt with the investigation into the monopoly ownership of certain newspapers in South Africa. I do not wish to reopen a new Press commission but it might be worth while for the hon. Minister to ask his colleague, the Minister of Economic Affairs, whether he could not ask the Board of Trade, under the Monopolies Act, to inquire into further monopolistic practices in regard to the control of the Afrikaans Press in South Africa. A huge Afrikaans newspaper empire is being built up on the Witwatersrand under the control and the chairmanship of the hon. the Prime Minister. He has even swallowed the newspaper of the hon. Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. I believe it is an unsound and an unhealthy practice that such newspaper monopolies should exist, whether they exist in the Afrikaans or in the English Press which latter is by no means entirely free from such control. I should like the Press to be freer than it is, and control exercised on monopolistic grounds, whether in the Afrikaans or English Press, certainly does not contribute to Press freedom in South Africa.

In regard to the work of the Department’s work I would like to say that the Minister has my support in all constructive work that he does to bring the great story of South Africa across to the people of the rest of the world. It is a grand country with a great story to tell. We should proclaim that story loudly and strongly wherever we have the opportunity. I wonder whether an inquiry should not be made into creating better liaison with other Government Departments. I am thinking of the C.S.I.R. They have representatives abroad. I am thinking of the Department of Immigration who have their men abroad. I am thinking of the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Foreign Affairs and particularly of the Department of Economic Affairs. Recently a South African Italian Chamber of Commerce was founded in Milan. That was an instance where Italians took the initiative to form closer liaison with South Africa. I believe there are tens of thousands of people like that in the rest of the world whom we can gather, through the assistance of the Departments of Economic Affairs, Commerce and Industry, Transport, Immigration and so forth, into closer liaison with the Department of Information. I am sure the hon. Minister has been considering those matters and I am sure that he has been working along those lines. But I am not satisfied that sufficient has been done or that sufficient assistance is being given by the other Departments to the Minister of Information through their overseas representatives. There is the Department of Commerce and Industry which has contacts with thousands of importers and exporters. people who have an economic interest in South Africa, people who can be approached in bringing the story of South Africa across to the rest of the world. There is the Department of Agriculture, which, surprisingly enough, probably sends more members of its staff abroad every year than any other department in the whole of the country. These people have their contacts amongst the farmers in the rest of the world. They can assist in putting South Africa’s message across to the rest of the world. There is still a great deal to be done.

The hon. Minister is making use of television. I do not want to say much about television—it is a sore spot with me. Sir. I do commend the fact, however, that the Minister is making television films for distribution and showing abroad. I wonder whether I could ask the Minister one question in this connection? Are these films ever tested out locally in South Africa? Has he some television set on which he can see how these films do come across to the viewer? Surely it is important to test these films. Are there secret television viewing stations in South Africa? If there are I do not blame the Minister; I commend him for it. After all, how can you manufacture a product and try to sell it to the rest of the world without knowing how the rest of the world will receive it or whether it will be able to see it in its proper perspective; in other words, whether it is a good film? Or does that account for the secret service amount of R5,000 on the Estimates? Is that amount for buying secret television sets? [Time limit.]

I think I should reply to some of the points which have already been made. I want to start with the remarks made by the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant). The hon. member referred in general to the fact that, as he put it, this Department’s efforts were sabotaged by Government policy. He said it was Government policy which had created the disastrous image of South Africa overseas and caused the animosity to the race policy of this country overseas. As the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) has pointed out that animosity has nothing to do with the race policy of the Government. Southern Rhodesia is unpopular overseas but there is no Dr. Verwoerd and there is no National Party. They do not follow a policy of apartheid or separate development. Their policy is quite different from ours. They have not even a White Parliament. They have 15 Black members of Parliament yet they have plenty of trouble.

What a comparison!

I want to say to that hon. member that this Government is not prepared to put up a pretence when it comes to its policy. It is not prepared to deceive; it is prepared to tell the factual truth of our separate development policy and of our apartheid policy. It is in that regard where we differ from the United Party. The United Party will never tell the people overseas what their true policy is. Why won’t they do it? They put up a camouflage; they try to pretend that their policy is a policy which is acceptable to the world overseas.

But it is.

It is! Let me ask the hon. member for Simonstown why General Smuts and later Mr. Harry Lawrence, failed at UNO to put over South Africa’s policy?

They did not fail.

They even had the assistance of the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant). That hon. member who is the public relations expert! He was there and in those days, in 1946 and 1947, UNO was different from the UNO we have to-day. Even in those days, in spite of all the ability of the hon. member for Turffontein who went there as a member of the staff of the information section, they failed. Why did they not succeed?

They did succeed.

They did not succeed in 1946. General Smuts did not get a two-thirds majority; the two-thirds majority was against him. In 1947, when the hon. member for Turffontein was there, the opponents to South Africa failed to get a two-thirds majority by one vote. Is that right?

Is that success or not?

In 1948 the United Party was not in power and Mr. Louw was also able to prevent them from getting a two-thirds majority. It had nothing to do with the race policies of the Government of the day. It was, as General Smuts said, a stone wall of opposition they were up against and to-day the position is much worse. I say to the hon. member that we are not afraid to put our policy forward. As the hon. member said himself human relations are very important. We also believe that. We say the best form of human relations in South Africa is separate development and that we shall maintain peace in our country along those lines. We shall never attain peace on another basis. We have seen that in the history of Africa. I don’t want to cover that field again. I remember when I was in Kenya; there they originally had a White Legco. They then experimented and brought in five Africans and two Asiatics. The argument was that Uganda would go Black but that they would keep Kenya White. They said they were making the experiment just to give their friends an opportunity of defending a White controlled Government in Kenya. They were like the Opposition, they thought it would work but it did not work.

They tried another experiment in the Federation; they tried partnership, a sort of multiracial partnership. What has happened to the Federation? In Southern Rhodesia they even have 15 African Members of Parliament. They sent a deputation to the United Nations. They took Africans with them. Sir Edgar Whitehead said to the Committee: “This is the type of Parliament we have; we have 15 African representatives. In 15 years’ time Southern Rhodesia will be politically controlled by the African people.” They laughed at him; they sneered at the Africans; they did everything they could to belittle them. The voting was something like 87 against Southern Rhodesia and two (South Africa and Portugal) for Southern Rhodesia.

Why then do you concentrate on selling something which is unacceptable?

I am telling the hon. member that the “disastrous race policy of this Government”, as he put it, has nothing to do with it. He knows it: everybody knows it. Portugal has a different policy and it is still under the hammer. The position is that South Africa has a unique situation and it is resolving it in its way and it is determined to put its case to the world. But hon. members of the Opposition don’t put their case over. When they go overseas, they put up a pretence. I want to quote from a B.B.C. television programme by a man who came out to South Africa. I want to read the whole of the first part so that there cannot be any misunderstanding. Robert Day was the person who came out here and this is part of his Panorama programme—

Now Mr. Marais Steyn has the television set—

It is no good the hon. member trying to laugh it away. I can also show how other hon. members have made misrepresentations . . .

Of what?

. . . where they have said that Dr. Verwoerd is going to rule South Africa with White people only; that he is not going to have anything to do with non-Whites.

Is that not right?

Of course it is not right. When these things are said overseas hon. members must not get so sensitive when people say to them: “Some of the things you people say are sabotage.” I have not changed my view. I believe an Opposition has every right to criticize. Every member on this side of the House says that. Many hon. members opposite have been overseas. I know the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) went overseas but I never found him to say one thing which I could say was sabotage against South Africa and there is no harsher critic of this Government than the hon. member for Durban (Point). I know the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) also went overseas. I also know that he appeared on television—once! I also know that they distorted the television to such an extent that he would not go on it again. On the other hand I know the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) revels in television and speech-making overseas. He loves it!

May I ask a question? When does the hon. Minister of Information intend to expose himself to 22 television audiences in the United States. Let him laugh then !

The hon. member exposes himself to these television interviews because they jump at him because what he says on these televisions are things which are unfavourable to the Government of South Africa. He does not disclose the true policy of the Opposition. The hon. member thinks I have forgotten but I remember his visits so well. The year before last he went over to America. When he got back he had a lot to say for himself. I want to read something to show that he is still the same member for Hospital that we have come to know. He came back and this is what he was reported to have said—

Then this very modest member for Hospital had this to say—

May I ask another question? I want to know what the hon. Minister will say if I show him testimonials from Consuls and Consuls-General in the United States of this Government? Will he stop laughing then?

I heard all that last session; I also have the things he said. Let me go on with this modest hon. member. [Interjections.] Just as the Opposition claims the right to criticize, I claim the right to answer in my way, not in their way. They are very jumpy.

That hon. member again went to the United States. He must have a wonderful business to be able to go to and fro like that. This appeared in the English Press—

The hon. member goes overseas and he says he goes to assist South Africa. But we know the hon. gentleman. He is one of those people who loves to get himself in the limelight. He is an exhibitionist. We see it here. This is his way of satisfying this particular trait in his character. I am not impressed with this great friend of South Africa. I am not impressed with what he said overseas. He learnt one lesson; when he came back the second time he did not say that he did more good than all the millions spent by the South African Information Office. He had quietened down. I hope when he goes to America next year he will be even quieter. I hope he will also be quieter in this House.

The hon. member says criticism is fair and I agree with him but I want to read an extract from the Hansard speech of one of the hon. members. I want to ask hon. members opposite what they think of it. It says—

I immediately asked my Department to find out where these figures came from. I want to read the report. It is not my report but the report of the official who investigated the position—

These figures were quoted time and again against South Africa overseas. They said: “You talk so much about what you do for the Bantu but in Nigeria there are only 70 deaths, 90 in Ghana whereas you in South Africa, you who say you do so much, have 400 deaths per 1,000”. That was used against South Africa. Everybody is entitled to say what he likes but this is in fact what is happening. It is not the Government which destroys the image of South Africa; this is the sort of thing which destroys that image. Of course, the hon. member for Hospital will always object to anybody who defends South Africa.

May I ask a question?

Order! I am not allowing that hon. member any more questions.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, surely if the Minister is prepared to answer questions . . .

No, the Minister said “No”, he does not want to answer his questions.

The hon. member makes statements instead of putting questions.

Was it one of the United Party members?

Yes, in 1963 or 1964. One of the United Party members.

Why did you not contradict him?

Is that all you are prepared to suggest: “Why did we not contradict that?”. Is that your defence of South Africa? No, Mr. Chairman, I think . the best thing hon. members can do is to drop this matter at once.

Did you ask the hon. member in question whether he could justify that statement?

The Department tells me that these figures are wrong.

Do you see their reaction?

The hon. member for Turffontein said that we must present South Africa’s case in a positive way. But he will remember that right from the beginning we said that we were putting the positive side of South Africa. But we are not going to deceive people. We are not going to tell them that we are going to have a multiracial Parliament when we are not going to have a multi-racial Parliament. We are going to say what sort of Parliament we intend having, and we are going to say what sort of Parliament they will have in the Transkei. They will have their Black Parliament and their Black Ministers. We are not prepared to curry favour with their overseas friends. After all I remember members on the opposite side saying: “When you make your policy statements, you make it difficult for your friends to defend you at UNO”. I would like to know where Southern Rhodesia got at UNO with their 15 African Members of Parliament? So far as South Africa is concerned, I have always maintained that South Africa has got one true friend and that is South Africa. We are the people who are going to look after our country.

The hon. member for Turffontein said that we should make a point of it of sending non-Whites abroad to put South Africa’s case. We are not prepared to try these little stunts. They were tried before. They were tried by Southern Rhodesia. The hon. member should know if he follows these matters. They taunted these people, they even terrorized the Black men. The communist states put the fear of heaven into them. As far as we are concerned, we are not going to play those little stunts to send some Black men over to defend our policy. We will defend ourselves, also at the United Nations. If the hon. member knows what happens at UNO, as he should, he will know that that sort of stunt will never pay. We will follow the line that we think is right, and we will send our White representatives to UNO.

Who sent Golding to America?

I think it was the Foundation. I am not sure.

The Department did approve.

The hon. member talked about sending these people to defend us at UNO. We are going to fight our own battles, and we are not going to allow our non-Europeans to be belittled and discredited and taunted by other African states.

I want to get back to this matter of the report of the Department of Information. The hon. member for Turffontein says: “Look, even in the Department’s own report, they admit that no progress is being made”. Then he reads out of the report and this is what he reads on page eight in regard to the United Kingdom—

The hon. member says “You see, in the department’s own report they say that their case is submerged.” But he does not read on, three or four paragraphs later, because we state the position quite objectively and we say that for the most part the Press, the radio and television in the United Kingdom are deliberately closed to us or the dice is loaded against us. But then we say this—

Then the hon. member says that there was a little bit of encouragement in respect of France, but all that is now wrecked by the Breytenbach affair, and then he repeats that even in our own report we admit that we are getting nowhere. But the hon. member has not read the report properly, because otherwise he could not make such a general statement. In the introduction on page three there is a statement to this effect—

That he will find at the beginning of the introduction. I can also go on and quote to him what is said about the United States, on page four, another reference to the fact that headway is being slowly made. We are not saying that there has been a tremendous change, but headway is being made. Criticism of South Africa is becoming less “spontaneous” and more and more organized, is said in this report about the position in the United States. I want to ask the hon. member whether he said that even the report says that no progress is being made.

I did not say that. I said there were brighter spots.

You said the one bright spot was France.

I gave that as an example.

You see. I know the hon. member. He reads from a report an extract that suits him. He does not expect, somebody, the Minister or anybody else, to follow it up and to answer it. I can read the report in regard to the United States, in regard to Canada, in regard to Australia, Germany, Portugal, Belgium. There is a change taking place. But from the other side we get the same old story. You remember how we heard from the other side that South Africa was facing economic ruin. For years we had to listen to that story. Now that we have got prosperity, they turn round and complain that there is a manpower shortage. We heard that South Africa would have a mass of unemployment. Now it is a manpower shortage. And in regard to the Department of Information you have the same thing. If there is a move in the right direction for South Africa, the Opposition only finds fault. They do not want to know, and the hon. member wants to paint a black picture, as far as South Africa is concerned. I say that there are definite signs of a change in the world. In the past whenever there was trouble in the country, a large section of the foreign Press used to talk about the “freedom fighters in South Africa”. Now they do not say that anymore. They talk about the rebels influenced by Communists who plan to upset the settled government of the country. It is a slow process, but a definite change is gradually taking place.

Now the hon. member for Turffontein and also the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) stated that the Department of Information is top-heavy, that it is loaded for internal propaganda, and so many hundreds are being employed in the Department for internal propaganda and only 42 for propaganda overseas. That was the line of their attack. I want to point out the actual position to these hon. members. Take the overall personnel in the Department. They give the figures, and the hon. member referred to 145 people in the regional offices. But, Sir, in these regional offices there are only 30 professional officers, the others are auxiliary of a lower grade. There are only 30 out of 145. In the head office of 191 people only 55 are professional appointments; the others are auxiliaries. And when it comes to overseas, in respect of which the hon. member quoted the figure of 42, I want just to tell him that the auxiliary staff overseas do not appear here, they appear under the Foreign Affairs Vote. I do not regard the auxiliary force as the most important, but the professional staff the important section. So the hon. member must appreciate also that if you have got overseas offices, you have got to have an organization here that can keep these offices au fait with the position. To keep them supplied with information material and to keep them on their toes about latest developments. We have desks in the head office: A German desk, a Continental desk, a British desk, an American desk, all concentrating on material for overseas, and the staff comes under the head office Vote. So how can you criticize the staff in this way by saying “This is all loaded as far as internal propaganda is concerned”?

Give us the facts.

If the hon. member will only listen, he will get the facts.

The total overseas is 42.

But they are all professional. The auxiliary staff falls under Foreign Affairs.

No, 28.

Forty-two is what we have on our establishment.

A total of 42, and of these 28 are professionals.

The hon. members are just trying to fly a kite.

Get on to the Secret Service now.

I am coming to that. The hon. member for Turffontein started quoting from what he said was the Prime Minister’s paper, and he referred to the Financial Gazette. I pulled him up and said: “Where does your information come from?” I asked him whether it came from an Australian source. He said “Yes”. The impression he wanted to give was that in the Prime Minister’s newspaper they were saying that the Department of Information spends too much time on defending the Department of Information instead of defending South Africa. That was the gist of the article.

They were “selling” the Department of Information.

Very well and he tried to lead up to it as a basis of criticism which appeared in the Prime Minister’s paper. But of course it was an extract from an Australian publication. I would like to tell the hon. member something he may not know. That particular publication wanted to come over to South Africa to raise funds through the Department of Information to carry on their publication in Australia. We in South Africa should finance it! I refused and said that we could not allow the Department of Information to be used for that sort of purpose. This is why we get this sort of attack. But the hon. member tried to associate it with the Prime Minister’s newspaper, I think only in an endeavour to deceive and to indicate that this is what the Prime Minister’s paper thought of the Department of Information.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) also said that the publications of this department were really Nationalist propaganda. I remember last year, I quoted from the South African Digest. I read out policy statements, I quoted the Leader of the Opposition, I quoted policy statements by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, policy statements by the Progressive Party, and I gave a picture of what is published in that publication. Admittedly when it comes to policy, the Government obviously makes more policy statements, but in regard to statements of importance by members of the Opposition, by leaders of the Opposition, they are published in The Digest. But you get this kind of general statement that this is a propaganda machine of the Nationalist Party. It is nonsensical! The hon. member said that material was distributed to certain persons by the department. I give material to the public all over, to hon. members of both sides of the House, any amount of material. How it is distributed I don’t know. But we give factual information.

It was just incidental that it was useful for elections.

The hon. member can try and wriggle out of that one, but he cannot. He also spoke about the amount we are spending inside South Africa: “Look at the colossal amount the department is spending here compared with overseas”. Let me give the hon. member one item: Films. We make films in South Africa and pay for them here. We have them printed in South Africa. That is a very costly item. Where does the hon. member think these films are distributed? Overseas. But the item does not appear on the overseas estimates, it appears under the Head Office. How can you try to show that the amount spent in South Africa is the amount spent for internal, as he puts it, propaganda?

Give us the breakdown. Give us those figures.

The hon. member is trying very hard to get out of his allegations. He finds now that he has exaggerated and over-stated his case, and now he is trying to change it.

Give us the figures.

I think the films cost something like R60,000. Of the R200.000 on films, approximately R175,000 is really for overseas. Although the amount appears in the estimates of the Head Office, R175.0000 worth of that is more or less allocated to overseas.

What about those staff figures now?

The staff is: 46 professionals in the Head Office, 30 in the regional offices, and 28 in the overseas offices.

That is right.

But you gave different figures.

How can one supply the overseas offices with information unless you have a head office in Pretoria? How can you have desks of the various overseas countries to control information going overseas . . .

But you have got more professional men in regional offices than you have in overseas offices.

We have got 18 regional offices, and I think 13 offices overseas.

The hon. member for Turffontein referred to the fact that this department has no proper Press liaison, and he said that everything must go through the department. Of course that is not true. The department only assists where it can the various newspapers. Every newspaper has access to every department, and the newspapers know it. The newspapers in fact appreciate the service which the Department of Information tries to give them, but it does not prevent them from going to any other department. The hon. member for Turffontein talks as if everything has to go though the Department of Information. That is absolute nonsense !

That was the instruction of your department.

Sir, this is ridiculous! Any amount of statements are made by Ministers direct to the Press. As far as I am concerned, my door has always been open to every editor. I see many of these newspapermen, but one thing I am not going to do and that is that I am not going to run round to editors as a Minister. If they want to come and see me, they are welcome.

Big stuff !

The hon. member for Simonstown sits there in his corner making nasty remarks. The position simply is that the Minister’s office is open and he is there available to editors who want to come and see him. He does not go and visit an editor. And the newspapers know it and act accordingly.

Do you ever invite them to come and talk to you?

I sent out a general invitation when I took office. The hon. member referred to stringers. Now the hon. member talks about “stringers’” disparagingly. But I remember my first effort in this House as a Minister when I attacked the stringers, the Stanley Uys’s the Delius’s the Stanley Hursts. I remember the hon. member getting up and saying “You are attacking the freedom of the Press”. I denied that and said that I was attacking these people who were slandering South Africa overseas, who were selling South Africa for pounds, shillings, pence and dollars, but the hon. members then jumped to their defence: “When you attack them you are attacking the freedom of the Presss”, knowing that the freedom of the Press is something that is very sensitive in the public mind. So they switched the attack from these stringers onto the freeedom of the Press. And now the hon. member talks in a different way about the stringers.

I want to refer to the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) who made such a humerous speech about Handel’s Messsiah. You know, the hon. member’s memory is short. A colleague of his in Another Place, Mr. Berman, endeavoured to get the City Council of Cape Town to forbid the playing of Wagner by the Orchestra . . .

That was during the war and you supported it.

I supported the war, but I did not support the idea that Wagner should not be played. But I am not talking to the hon. member for Boland, I am talking about the hon. member for Hospital who made such a plea that a musician like Handel, and Handel’s Messiah should be untouchable and one must never think of doing anything about it. Yet his colleague was the man who persuaded the City Council of Cape Town to prevent the playing of any music by Wagner, during the war! I do not think Wagner had anything to do with the war, and I am sure he was not one of the Nazis during the war period. But nevertheless he was not to be played by the Cape Town Orchestra. When the hon. members speak, they should remember their own history.

The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) referred to a matter in regard to which he approached my Department. I can assure the hon. member that I accept the facts as stated by him, and I have to apologize to him. I do not say that it has never happened, but it seldom happens that such a request is not followed up. I make a point of attending to everything that comes may way. All I can say to the hon. member is that the first time I ever heard of his suggestion was when he made it across the floor of the House. I immediately sent a note to the Secretary to find out about it, and apparently the request was made to the Department of Tourism, which falls under me as Minister. But I think the hon. member will appreciate that if at any stage he were to talk to me about it personally, I would be only too pleased to discuss it with him—at any time, in the lobby or in the House. Unfortunately the first time I ever heard about it, was when he mentioned it here. As a matter of fact, we comply with a lot of the points he raised. On the overseas air trips we see that there is this quizz book about South Africa, that there is information available about South Africa and that people who come to South Africa can obtain the necessary information. We also see to it that people who go overseas have at their disposal information about South Africa. On the internal trips we do not do so particularly. It is a matter which my Department will go into, although I realize that there is a limit to such activities for my Department. If I should start giving information internally and distribute material here, the next thing I would hear would be the accusation that I am using the South African Airways for propaganda purposes.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) also spoke about the Transkei election.

The Transkeian Secret Service.

I want to tell the hon. member that in that case all the efforts of the Department of Information were devoted to satisfying itself that democratic procedures were understood and followed in elections, which the masses of the Transkei were completely unaware of. To prove the bona fides of the Department I may say that the Press established here and also overseas newspapers were all aware of what was going on. There was never anything hidden and there was never a criticism from them that the efforts of the Department of Information were used for any other purpose than explaining to people how they had to exercise their votes.

May I ask the hon. Minister whether he has investigated the allegation that was made by Paramount Chief Victor Poto as reported in the Transkeian Hansard for 1964, on page 11, that an information officer distributed political propaganda for Kaizer Matanzima? An information officer stated in Umtata.

I am speaking from memory, but I remember that that matter was raised, and the Department undertook en inquiry immediately. It refers to a Bantu assistant information officer, one of the Bantu employed by the Department of Information, and it appears that on an occasion pamphlets were distributed, an election pamphlet. He was immediately hauled over the coals for doing that sort of thing. The hon. member will appreciate that he was one Bantu in the employment in the whole of the Transkei and on one occasion that happened, and it was in no way part of a campaign by the Department of Information. He maintained he did not distribute any pamphlets. He gave a lift to a person who, unknown to him, had these pamphlets for distribution. That was discovered after the inquiry which we immediately instituted. But he did not distribute pamphlets. That was the grave crime which was committed as the result of which the hon. member for Berea said that the Department of Information was trying to obtain votes in the Transkei for a certain party. If anything like that had gone on, do you think the Government or I as Minister would not have been rapped over the knuckles by the Press? But this is the only isolated incident the Press could refer to.

Then I come to the Secret Service Fund of R500. I should like to point out to the hon. member that that amount has been on the Estimates year after year. I inherited it. As I explained on a previous occasion, this amount was used purely for one purpose, and that was in the Bantu sector. It was for internal Secret Service information as far as Bantu activities were concerned, and I do not think that for the whole period it has been under the control of this Department that amount has ever been used up.

Can you explain what it is used for?

To obtain information for the Department of Information which ordinarily we would not be able to get, and as the hon. member knows, this being a Secret Service Vote it is I myself or the Secretary of the Department, who have to pass it. Now a big fuss is made about this amount of R500, but it is quite out of proportion. Basically there is no Secret Service in this Department.

Can you not let us into the secret?

No, I have no intention of doing it. I then come to the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan). At the outset I want to say that I really appreciated the friendly tone in which he referred to the Department of Informaton and myself. I say this because it has not always been this way. I realize that at any rate he feels that we are getting on with the job and are trying to do what we can for South Africa. But when he spoke about the Press Commission’s report, he said that I passed the buck and sent the report to New York. Of course that is not true. I sent copies of the report to certain overseas offices, which is surely expected of my Department. I also did a service to the Press. The hon. member for Durban (Point) considered that it was a ridiculous service. He indicated that the Department’s activities were devoted mainly to certain -things, but that is not the case. The Department’s activities are covered by the whole publication. All that it referred to was State and Press liaison.

I said under this section.

The hon. member was not referring to the State and Press liaison sections’ activities. He spoke about the Department’s activities. The hon. member must realize that when it comes to State and Press liaison there are certain functions that the Department can perform. One of them was a very difficult task which we took upon ourselves in view of the fact that there were 11 volumes. We took on the task of summarizing that report, and it was done completely objectively.

That is of course a matter of opinion.

The Press itself, which had all the reports available to them, said that the summary was completely objective and they even sent letters of thanks to the Department. That was one of the liaison jobs that the Press liaison section did. The other was in connection with the Rivonia Trial and the Odendaal Commission. Surely the Department of Information has the function of doing liaison work. The hon. member maintains that we do not do sufficient liaison work. The hon. member for Durban (Point) seemed to want to cut this out of our activities. The hon. member also referred to the television films made in this country and he wanted to know whether I could try them on a television unit. I am sorry to disappoint him. I have not got a television unit under the Secret Service Vote. It is a 16 mm. film and we play it on the ordinary screen and then it is sent overseas and they play it on television. Some of our films are shown on television for 20 or 30 minutes.

I would now like to refer to the hon. members for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee), Pretoria (West) (Mr. van der Walt) and Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe).

You have not yet referred to the remark I made about Sapa.

I have nothing more to say about Sapa than I have told the hon. member already. The hon. member referred to the monopolistic tendencies of Sapa, and would I go into the matter, but that is for the Minister of Economic Affairs to do. I am only concerned with the report of the Press Commission and not with monopolistic practices.

If you are concerned about it and do nothing about it, you are encouraging it.

Is the hon. member inviting us to do something about it now? That really amuses me. One minute hon. members talk about the freedom of the Press, and the next minute they almost encourage the Government to take action against the news services of the Press.

The hon. member for Pretoria (West) referred to his trip to America. I can assure him that we go out of our way to convey information about South Africa to the schoolchildren and the universities over there, through educational programmes on television. On page 6 of the report he will see that 500,000 copies of a pamphlet called “Three Hundred Years Young” were distributed among the school-children in America to make the children understand something about South Africa. But the task of trying to educate the whole of America to understand the problems and the position of South Africa is practically impossible. After all, there are 200,000,000 people. They have all sorts of avenues of information, whereas South Africa is almost negligible to their minds. To try to educate 200,000,000 people to understand the problems of South Africa is quite impossible. But what the Department has done is to tackle special targets with special programmes. We have operated through the Chambers of Commerce in these overseas countries regularly. We talk to them about the economic position of South Africa. We have told them how our industries are developing. We have shown them the strength of our economy and of our mining industry. We have also spoken to them about this threat of boycotts. We have asked them to forget about politics and to consider whether economic boycotts against us are justified. I think our arguments have had an effect. We will continue to give that information to people who are useful and constructive and who will appreciate our position, but to try to get through to the masses of the people in America is impossible. We make slides available for lecturers. Our own officials go to lecture to university students and to professors, and they put our case as it is, and not an artificial one. We tell them the exact facts about South Africa, however distasteful they may be to the Americans. We are not afraid to state the facts. We do not want to camouflage the facts just to make friends in America. Therefore when hon. members like those I have mentioned come to the defence of this Department I do not regard it only as a defence of this Department; they are defending a department which defends South Africa overseas. A department whose duty it is to put up the true picture of South Africa as against all these distortions which flow not only from South Africa but from elsewhere. Nobody can tell me that South Africa is such a bad country. I have seen many aspects of life in various parts of the world. I say that our human relations in this country, which the Opposition is entitled to criticize, is something we can be quite proud of. We are determined to improve the human relations in this country under a system which we say will succeed. Whereas the multi-racial system to which hon. members opposite have now tied themselves will only lead to chaos for all in this country.

We have listened now for one hour and nearly ten minutes to the hon. the Minister. [Interjections.] I am being quite factual. I do not know what hon. members are objecting to. We listened quietly to the Minister. He has answered a question or two, but 20 minutes of the Minister’s time was taken up by the Minister’s idea of his Government’s race policies and his objections to the attitude adopted by the United Party and its race policies, and you have the silly statement that the United Party will never tell its true policy overseas, but in the very next breath the Minister quotes from a television report statements made by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) when he was interviewed by the B.B.C., in which he stated the policy of the United Party.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Afternoon Sitting

When we adjourned I was pointing out to the Committee that the Minister had spoken for one hour and ten minutes in reply to the debate so far. The Minister, in his capacity as Minister of Information, is the public relations officer of the Government and one would have thought that he would have taken the opportunity of this debate, apart from answering the few questions he answered, to give a somewhat broader indication of the policy he intends applying in regard to the dissemination of information about South Africa. The Minister, of course, ignored completely the charge made by this side of the House that according to his report and all the available information, the majority of the activities of his Department were completely confined to disseminating information internally, on the home front, and therefore he leaves himself wide open to the charge that his Department is really nothing more or less than the Public Relations Department of the Nationalist Party, who are in power. Besides that, the Minister again tried to play the racial tom-tom in this debate, which we carefully avoided in our discussions. The Minister attacked the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) with exactly the same speech that the Minister made in the House last year. During the dinner interval, I looked up what the Minister had to say last year and he gave us the same quotations and made the same observations, exactly as they stand in Hansard of last year. But what the Minister did not do is this. He could not point to one single example of any statement made by my colleague which would in any way belittle the position of South Africa in the eyes of the Americans. In all the statements he made my colleague attempted to give a picture to the advantage of South Africa. That is the gravamen of our charge.

While I am on my feet, I want to kill one other argument which the Minister has used, following in the steps of the hon. member for Vereeniging, by saying that in 1947 when the United Party was in power the situation was exactly as bad at UN as it is to-day.

I never said that at all.

Then what was the point in raising the matter, if the Minister was not attempting to draw a parallel between 1947 and 1965?

UN is a different body now from what it was in 1947.

Apparently the Minister is trying to justify the non-success of his Department, because the conditions of those days are not parallel with conditions in 1965. We did not have a Ministry of Information in those days. One would think that the Minister would be able to point to some success achieved by his Department rather than to come along with the old story that because it was bad in 1947 it is still bad in 1965. I say that it was not as bad in 1947 as it is now in 1965. The Minister says that when this Government took power in 1948 they met exactly the same set of circumstances as prevailed in 1947. I want to remind the Minister that in those days he sat on these benches and he launched one of the most vicious attacks on the then Minister of Foreign Affairs because he accused the then Minister of being one of those who had initiated the concept of apartheid at the United Nations in 1948. And the Minister was one of the strongest critics of the Government of those days in regard to the policy they followed at UN in 1948 to 1950. So it ill-becomes the Minister to draw parallels of that nature, and to adopt this holier-than-thou attitude. We throw it back in his face and I say it is regrettable that the Minister did not use this opportunity to give us a picture of the activities of his Department in the interests of South Africa. We have tried to make some positive suggestions. If the Minister refuses to attach any weight to the advice and the suggestions of the Opposition in regard to the work of his Department, which we all in this House want to be successful—we do not want to make political capital out of this issue—and if he does not follow our advice to take a more objective approach to his problems, perhaps he will follow the advice of his own Press and other publications which support his Government. The charge we make against the Minister is made even by his own periodicals, that he should stop trying to sell our problems overseas, the problem of South Africa’s race policies, and that he should rather attempt to sell South Africa as she really is, and not to sell the Government’s race policies to people who do not want to accept them but reject them outright. I want to refer to a recent article that appeared in an influential publication, News Week. This article was published as recently as March this year, where they talked about the Republic’s image abroad, and they give a great deal of objective reporting in this matter, but I want to quote the conclusion of this article because if the Minister does not want to accept my advice he should at least accept the advice of these people who have South Africa’s interests at heart just as much as the Minister. It says this—

And that is the gravamen of our charge against the Minister. He is not selling South Africa and its people. He does not even want to tell the people overseas that there is an Opposition. He does not even want to create the impression that there are White Africans. [Interjection.] I would appeal to the Minister. We know his limitations in struggling against the racial policies of the Government. We are aware of his fight in the Cabinet to get a more objective approach, and we are aware of his struggles with the Minister of the Interior in his prohibition of visas and his shortsighted views, and we are aware of all his struggles in that regard in the Cabinet and his attempts to get Ministers to see the light from the public relations point of view. But the Minister’s limitation is the somewhat junior and insignificant position he holds in the Cabinet. But our advice to him is to persevere. Then perhaps he can persuade his colleagues in the Cabinet to stop these silly, idiotic actions which give of South Africa such wrong impressions abroad. [Time limit.]

I rise to reply to what the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) said here this morning. I informed the hon. member that I intended replying to him, but unfortunately he is not in the Chamber now. I want to deal with two of the points he raised. The hon. member said that the criticism of the Opposition was justified because that criticism of the Opposition gave South Africa “a semblance of democracy and free speech” overseas. I want you to note, Sir, that he spoke about “a semblance of democracy and free speech”. The implication of his words is that what we have in South Africa is not really democracy or free speech, but only a shadow of that reality. If this speech of the hon. member for Durban (Point) were to be published in the Press overseas and it is announced there that South Africa only has a semblance of democracy, does the hon. member think that it will improve our image overseas? I should like the hon. member to answer this question honestly. Is it true to say that there is only a semblance of democracy in South Africa?

The hon. member goes further and refers to the fact that 150 or more meetings were held in the Transkei, and he wants to know from the Minister of Information whether those meetings were held with the object of making propaganda for the National Party. What was the object of that question; what was the insinuation? What did he want to intimate to the world? The hon. member for Point last year in this building attended the exhibition of a film which was shown to all members in Parliament by the Department, a film showing the Bantu how to vote. It was this film which was shown at 150 or more meetings of the Bantu in the Transkei. What right has the hon. member to ask in this House now whether those meetings were held by the Department of Information to propound National Party propaganda? The implication of his question was that the Department of Information is used by the Government to make National Party politics.

I now come to what the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has just said. The hon. member said that the objection of the Opposition is that the Department of Information is used by the Government “to sell the race policies of the Government”. But neither the hon. member for Turffontein nor any other hon. member of the Opposition brought a tittle of evidence to prove that that is the object of the Department of Information. The Department tries to sell South Africa’s traditional way of life overseas. In this regard I should like to quote what the task of the Department of Information is, and I want to do it by reference to what is described as the task of the information service in Great Britain. I just want to read one paragraph from a pamphlet published by the United Kingdom Government Information Services—

What does our Department of Information do? Is it not its task to present the South African way of life overseas? Will hon. members of the Opposition deny that the policy of separate development or of apartheid is the way of life in South Africa? Did hop., members of the Opposition not particularly say in the last provincial elections that they are also conservative and that they wanted to retain that way of life in South Africa?

The hon. member for Hospital said that their objection was that so much money was being spent by the Department in concentrating on internal matters. Again I want to quote what is being done in Britain. The hon. member quoted the American example. He said that the Americans concentrate only on the outside world; that they go out of their way to impress the outside world and do nothing to disseminate information in their own country. As against that, I want to say what the position is in Britain. Their Information Department is divided into two sections, Section 1 which concentrates on the outside world and Section 2 which concentrates on the interior. I just want to quote what sections they have in Group 2. They have an advertising division, an exhibition division, a personal survey division, finance, accounts, establishment and organization and a regional unit. I may say that the whole country is divided into regions for purposes of disseminating information internally.

Under what account do they spend the most money?

There are certain factors in South Africa which are absent in the United Kingdom. One of those factors, e.g., is that we have an undeveloped mass here to whom the State must also give information. The hon. member for Hospital is quite wrong when he says that we spend far too much money on disseminating information internally. He only looked at the position in America and did not look to see what is being done in other countries, and I now give him the example of Britain. Sir, I want to ask that more emphasis should be put on internal information than on external information, because what will really create an impression overseas one day is not the image we are now trying to create by propaganda overseas, but the image we are creating by implementing our real policy in South Africa, such as e.g. the image we have already created by making the Transkeian experiment and telling the world about it. It is extremely important to have an internal information service, particularly in order to reach our Bantu, Coloured and Indian populations.

In regard to the external service, I should like to see our laying less emphasis on our game, Bantu customs, etc. We should rather emphasize what the Whites are doing in South Africa. I should like to see more emphasis being laid on the fact that South Africa is a White country. I should like to see the White image of South Africa being emphasized more.

I want to conclude by saying that we should try, by means of our internal information service, to bring the correct image of South Africa to all population groups. Our own population groups should be made aware of our South African way of life, of what our institutions are and what the objectives of this Government are in regard to its policy. Surely that is also one of the functions of an information department. The whole policy of the State, as formed by the Government of the country, should be publicized among the various population groups here. The policy in regard to which the Department of Information disseminates information is not only a party policy; it is the national policy. [Time limit.]

In the first part of his speech the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) made an attack on the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw). I would like to deal with the point made by him in the latter portion of his speech where he tried to draw a comparison between the position in Britain and the position in this country as far as internal information services are concerned. Sir, he suggested that we should follow the British system. But there is a very great difference. The way of life in Britain is based on hundreds of years of tradition. The British way of life was not built up overnight. The hon. member would apparently like the way of life in this country to be fashioned according to Government policy. That is not the way of life of South Africa. The policy of the Government is not the traditional policy of South Africa, and that is not the information that we want distributed amongst our children and the people of this country.

Sir, when the hon. the Minister got up to reply to the debate he reminded me of the gentleman who got on his horse and rode in all directions. It has been noticeable over the years that when the hon. the Minister gets up to reply he comes up fighting; he hits out left and right. He even brought Rhodesia into the debate. I think the Minister must be reminded, when he starts drawing comparisons between the position in 1948 and the present position, of the wonderful prosperity that existed in this country at that time, so much so that we were in a position to loan Great Britain something like £80,000,000 in gold to help her out of her financial difficulties. At that time thousands of people were clamouring to come to South Africa and everything in the garden was rosy. Then unfortunately in 1948 this Government came into power.

The sun went down.

The hon. the Minister then went on to attack the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) about his television broadcast overseas. Sir, would it not have been very much better if the hon. the Minister could have got up this afternoon and said “during the recess I as Minister of Information went to the United States and I was invited to make 20 television broadcasts setting out the way of life in South Africa”? He attacked the hon. member for Hospital for doing precisely what he should have done.

At my own expense.

I think the hon. the Minister exposed the weakness of his whole case here. Sir, the hon. the Minister is always telling us about untrue statements which are made about this country and published overseas. I wonder if the Minister has seen the statement which appeared in the Star a little while ago. The heading of this report is “Complaint over South African Advert”, and the report goes on to say—

Sir, I have nothing to do with the Christian Action’s Defence and Aid Fund, but it is stated here that the fund’s executive director wrote to the N.P.A. complaining that the South African Government’s advertisement contained “deliberate misrepresentations and untruths.” We have the Minister telling us that people go outside of this country and make statements about South Africa which are quite untrue and which harm South Africa and then we find that the South African Government is doing exactly the same thing itself.

Sir, it is probably just coincidental that within the past 24 hours we have had a man leaving his space capsule and walking in space for 20 minutes. I think during that time he walked over the United States in space. When one thinks of that incident, one cannot help being struck by the narrowness of this debate as far as hon. members opposite are concerned. My feelings are that the Department of Information is there to put forward a better picture of South Africa and to tell the outside world what a good country South Africa is. We on this side believe that it is a good country and it always will be a good country in spite of the Government. I feel that the Minister’s main task should be to try to sell South Africa and to do away with the misrepresentations that we have of this country. Sir, we have over the years and recently again had editors and journalists from world-famous newspapers visiting this country as the guests of the Government, and we would like to hear from the Minister whether these visits have helped to improve our image in any way. We would like to hear the reaction of these visitors. Sir, I am really sorry for the Minister and his Department when I think what they have to put up with from Cabinet Ministers and even the Prime Minister. The actions and the statements made by the Minister’s colleagues do not only affect him and his Department; they also affect South Africans who go overseas. Take, for example, the statement that was made by the Prime Minister about the Buccaneer contract and about Simonstown. I feel that that statement should have been made through the proper channels, in other words, through diplomatic channels. In point of fact the Prime Minister made this statement at a public meeting and it was reported under banner headlines overseas: “Verwoerd Threatens British Government”, or words to that effect. Sir, that does us no good. There are ways of doing these things; there is the right way and the wrong way. Just at that time there had been a change of Government in Britain; people were upset, and the vast majority of people in England have a great deal of sympathy with South Africa, but that particular statement did us no good. Then we had the statement of the proposed visit of the Independence. The unfortunate part about it is that our information officers throughout the world have to live that sort of statement down, and that also applies to South Africans who go overseas. When I attended some conferences overseas some time ago, the first thing I was asked was, “What is happening in South Africa? Is your country going to come right; will it ever come right?” You then spend about half an hour not defending the Government but trying to put this country’s position in its true perspective, but then they produce damaging evidence against South Africa in the shape of articles in newspapers and magazines, etc. You then have to try to explain away the Government’s policy which does so much harm to this country. Sir, this Government and this country cannot live in isolation. I tried to demonstrate that a few moments ago by referring to the gentleman who left the space capsule and walked in outer space for 20 minutes. We must make up our minds that we are not the only people who are right in this world. Other people outside may be right and we may be wrong. I feel it is time we adopted a different approach; that the Minister of Information should try to convince the outside world that South Africa is part of the Western world, that we want to live with the Western world, and that we are prepared to pull our weight. At the present moment we simply say, “this is our policy, whether you like it or not; if you do not like it, leave us alone”. We cannot afford to live in isolation. If we are to live in isolation, I would say that we might as well withdraw all our information officers from overseas, because it is a complete waste of money, unless we can give them ammunition which is going to help them to improve our image in the outside world. I do not say that South Africa or the Government must abandon its policies, but there must be give and take. Those people who say that we do not live in a multi-racial country, of course, are just day-dreaming. We do live in a multiracial country; let us face that fact, and in facing those facts let us show the world that we as Whites in this country are prepared to lend a hand to develop Africa and to assist the Africans. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Timoney) said that we should withdraw our information officials from abroad because, as he alleged, they were apparently not having any success. I wonder whether he has considered what that statement implies for him, in view of the success which the United Party is having in its struggle; whether he does not think that if logic had to prevail, the United Party itself should have withdrawn from the struggle long ago. For the same reason that the United Party is not withdrawing from the struggle, I think the hon. the Minister will never consider withdrawing our representatives from abroad.

The Opposition repeatedly gave us to understand this morning that the Department of Information was not succeeding in satisfying the so-called world opinion. I am not suggesting that the Opposition used those terms, but we are repeatedly being told that this and that occurrence in South Africa had such and such an effect abroad, and that it was as a result of the actions of the Government that the unsavoury propaganda was being made against South Africa abroad. I want to put this question to the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) or the hon. member for Salt River, who has just spoken: What country in the world is able to satisfy so-called world opinion to-day with the existing means of communication, as those hon. members are expecting this Government to do? Is America able to do so? Is France able to do so? Is Britain able to do so? Is Spain or Portugal able to do so? What country in the world is able to satisfy demands such as those hon. members are making upon this Government, the demands to satisfy so-called world opinion? Can they mention any country to me? No, they are remaining silent. I take it they are unable to mention any country to me which can satisfy the demands which they are making upon this Government. Because what is this “world opinion” which they want us to satisfy? Mr. Chairman, it is represented by a small group of people in every country in the world who have been rejected because of certain leftist ideas which are in harmony with the larger section of the mass media in the world to-day. We have them in this country too, the local representatives of that “world opinion”; I need not mention their names to you; you know who the people are who profess to speak in the name of “world opinion” in South Africa—the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman), Alan Paton, Mandela, Sisulu, Luthuli. Those are the people who say that they are speaking in the name of “world opinion”. Is there any member on the United Party side who would get up and say, “I am speaking in the name of world opinion”? Would the hon. member for Salt River do that? Would the hon. member for Turffontein do that? No, they know that the United Party, too, cannot speak in the name of this so-called world opinion. They know that the United Party would be as exposed to criticism as this Government is. To my knowledge, there is no decent Government in the world which can speak in the name of this so-called world opinion. I do not know of any Government which deserves to be called decent which can say that all its actions satisfy the requirements of so-called world opinion.

I have mentioned examples of people in South Africa who profess to speak in the name of this so-called world opinion. Take a country such as America. In the past few months America intensified her counter-attacks on the communists in Vietnam and tried to check the communist onslaught on the Dominican Republic, and what happened? I have with me the Burger of 12 May, the morning of 12 May, in which I read the following (translation)—

That was in the morning. That same evening, on 12 May, the following report from Washington appeared in the Cape Argus —

Further on in the report they said—

What was stated in the communist countries such as Red China, Cuba, Ghana, etc., in the morning, was echoed in the criticism expressed by these so-called representatives of world opinion in America itself in the afternoon.

Time published an article recently in which it referred to America’s image in the world, and in which this process was described. What happens is that what is said abroad against any particular country is seized upon by critics within that country, who then say, “Look what is said by the outside world”, and then their criticism is sent abroad so that critics in the outside world can say: “Look what your domestic critics are saying”. Time calls it the “incestuous inter-quote”. That is what is happening in this country too.

We received the report of the Press Commission last year. I regard the report of the Press Commission as a very valuable document because it shows South Africa what the true techniques that we are up against are— how the opinions of people who are hostile to the Government, who employ every means to misrepresent the Government’s image abroad, are sent out of South Africa, and how those things which are sent from South Africa are then used abroad in order to say, “That is what people in South Africa think of the Government”. The hon. member for Humans-dorp (Mr. Sauer) visited the Argentine and Europe in 1960, and upon his return he said that what he had encountered abroad, whether in the Argentine, in Spain or in Greece, was a flood of poison against South Africa which was being poured forth from London.

Sir, I ask the hon. member for Turffontein: If he accepts these facts, what steps would a United Party Government take to create a different image of South Africa in the outside world? In what way would a United Party Government act in order to be safeguarded against all these things? And if he does not accept them, as I must assume they do not, because they are continually coming forward with this criticism, then I ask: How do they explain the phenomenon which I mentioned here at the outset, namely, the fact that they are unable to mention one country in the world to me which is qualified to meet the requirements laid down by so-called world opinion?

We had a very interesting example of the real content of this so-called world opinion a little while ago. Hon. members probably saw it in the supplement to the Sunday Tribune of 16 May, which included an article, written by an American Negress, Ida Lewis, about a visit she paid to Tanzania and an interview she had with a Minister and another official there. This is what the Minister told her—

And then there is the following statement in capital letters: “South Africa is the Prize of Africa.” When they intimated to the journalist that they were regarded as “Peking Africans” and that they stood directly under the influence of Red China, and she asked them, “But how is it then that you think the world would tolerate it if you, as communists, wanted to threaten and attack South Africa?” that Tanzanian Minister replied—

[Time limit.]

The hon. member for Innesdale (Mr. J. A. Marais) is the umpteenth member on the Government side who has tried to prove that it is not the policy of the Government which makes the image of South Africa worse overseas than it really is. The hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe) spoke along the same lines. The hon. member for Innesdale talks about world opinion and interprets it as being the meaning of a small number of leftists in the world.

I did not say that.

The hon. member tried to create the impression that it is the leftists in the world who hate South Africa so much. I wish the hon. member had the privilege to visit 50 countries of the world 50 times so that he could realize what the image of South Africa is in the world. It is not an image created by ill-disposed people who went there from here. That image was created by the policy of the Government and the steps taken by it in connection with implementing its policy of apartheid.

Earlier the hon. member for Middelland asked whether we wanted to change the traditional policy of South Africa, whether we wanted to degrade the country by adapting ourselves to world opinion so that we could receive favourable comment in the overseas Press? Hon. members opposite forget, however, that since the year nought the traditional policy of South Africa was social apartheid. It was never a policy of separation of the races on the ground of colour by means of legislation according to which some of the people in the Republic are aliens because they do not have their own homeland. That is what the hon. member for Middelland wants to interpret as the traditional policy of South Africa. It is not our traditional policy. It makes it increasingly more difficult to keep our image overseas such that the White Western nations still tolerate us and still want to say something good about us.

Do hon. members opposite approve of the action taken in regard to the presentation of Handel’s “Messiah”? They approve of it. Here we now have it from the hon. member for Middelland. The Minister did not want to reply. He approved of there being a presentation of Handel’s “Messiah” by non-Whites, only a White organist to provide the music. If the hon. member for Middelland approves of that, and he speaks on behalf of the Government, there is no way at all of ever remedying the image of South Africa.

I want to come back to the Minister and his pathetic action when he spoke a little while ago. He had the opportunity once and for all to tell the world what the best sort of information and guidance is he could give on behalf of South Africa, and what did he do? He attacked the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) for ten minutes because he appeared over television in America 22 times. I want to tell the hon. the Minister with respect that the money he has available under his Vote is not sufficient to make one of his people appear on television in America 22 times. I agree that if the Minister or one of bis senior officials could appear on television overseas more often and talk objectively about South Africa to those millions of people, he would perhaps make better progress than he is doing.

I now want to discuss the Budget. It does not help for the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) to say that under this Vote one must have such a great amount for internal matters and such a great amount for external matters—R600,000 as against R400.000. It is no use saying that such a large staff has to be kept here to do the preparatory work and to distribute material, because where is one going to use it? I ask the Minister: Is it to be used by way of advertisement overseas at a tariff which his Budget does not allow him to pay? Where does he want to use that material? The Minister tells us there are German and Italian desks in his main office at which these people are served when they come here and are given guidance and information. Would it not be better rather to have four desks in Germany itself? We are well provided in Germany because we have two offices there. If we have two offices in Germany, where is our office in Sweden, where is our office in the Scandinavian countries? Are we afraid to disseminate information about South Africa in the Scandinavian countries because we think we do not have their goodwill? Do we rather want to do so in Portugal, whose goodwill we, of course, have because they are a neighbouring state of ours which is also finding things difficult? The Minister must tell us why his Department does nothing in regard to the Scandinavian countries. Surely they are one of our countries of origin; they ought to be close to us. We find the same kind of pattern in regard to our immigration policy. Surely the one is complementary to the other. The Minister’s Department is complementary to the Department of Immigration. There we follow the same type of pattern; we want to be closer to the Mediterranean where the sun is hotter but we do nothing in regard to the Nordic countries which ought to be well disposed towards us and where we ought to disseminate information.

I quite agree with the hon. member for Heilbron. Has the time not arrived for us to stop showing the people overseas beautiful aloes and Bantu huts in order to advertise our country? This beautiful country of ours has enough other material which can be used for purposes of advertisement overseas, other than simply to use wild animals and Bantu to advertise it.

I want to conclude by saying that I will be grateful if the hon. the Minister will tell us why the ratio between what he spends internally and externally is so unsound. The hon. member for Heilbron has told us they also have a large internal section in Britain, but what he did not tell us is that Britain spends much more money on its foreign service than on its internal service. That is the sort of ratio we ought to have here. We shall also be glad to hear from the Minister when he intends disseminating the same sort of information in the Scandinavian countries that he tries to disseminate in the other countries of Europe where he already has offices. When is he going to remedy this ratio, so that what is done in this country will flow out to the outside world, to those countries which we want to be well disposed towards us? [Time limit.]

I want to tell the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) right in the beginning that the more they try to belittle the Minister of Information and to allege that he has shortcomings and is not fit for his job, the more this side of the House will support that Minister. We know he has a difficult task to perform. He does it conscientiously and efficiently. We shall not take the least notice of the attacks by the United Party of this Minister. We are accustomed to their doing so. As soon as a Minister does his work thoroughly, they concentrate on him and try to break him and make him suspect. However, they have never yet succeeded in doing so, nor will they succeed this time.

The accusation has been made by almost all the speakers opposite that the bad image of South Africa in the world is the direct result of the policy of this Government, and particularly the policy of apartheid. Sir, I want to deny it. This bad image existing overseas was caused by nobody else but the United Party Government when they were in power.

That is too long ago.

Is it too long ago? They created an image in the world with which even General Smuts had to cope when he was Prime Minister. They ask us what we are doing to correct this bad image of South Africa. When they were in power—surely that is the test—what did they do to give the world the correct image of South Africa?

We did not do the stupid things you did.

That hon. member was on the Government side in those days and if I were he I would not be so presumptuous. In their days they gave instructions to a very high officer, the chief of the Intelligence Section of the Army, to take instructions from a person who was the Secretary of the United Party. And what were those instructions?

The old story.

It is not an old story; it is a fact. I want to tell the United Party this: If it so happens that this Government comes to a fall one day and the United Party has to take over, then this Minister of Information will not find it necessary to burn documents so that the people of South Africa cannot see them. [Interjections.] It is a fact; hon. members may refer to Hansard. Those documents were read out here. They instructed the Intelligence Section to publish a Quarterly Review. In it they concentrated on depicting the National Party, the Afrikaner, the Afrikaner’s churches, his cultural associations, etc., as being monstrous, in the most terrible way, and that was sent all over the world. It was sent to Russia, England and all the countries which fought on their side. I say that image was created by the United Party Government.

It is no use your saying that.

Now they say we created that image. They created such a bad image of South Africa that when General Smuts, the creator of UN, got there he had to face that bad image which they had created. In this House ne expressed his dissatisfaction with the opposition he experienced at UN. And that was while the United Party was in power. Now they say that we created this bad image! It is they who created it. And thereafter they continued to create it. They and their kindred spirits continued to create that bad image of South Africa.

The hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) asked why we did nothing in the Scandinavian countries. When I was there there was a flood of hatred, for a whole week, via London ex South Africa, in those newspapers. After a long struggle the most important newspaper in Sweden allowed me to publish three articles about South Africa in that paper. [Interjections.] I am not like the hon. member who knows only one language. When I had finished there was a footnote under the last article which read: “Mr. Potgieter has now put South Africa’s case, but we prefer to believe the telegrams sent to us from his father-land.”

Who?

Do you want to know who they were? Kindred spirits of that hon. member, and probably fellow members of that party. They should not accuse the National Party to-day of having created the bad image of South Africa. It is they themselves. It is their baby, and we lay it on their doorstep that the United Party is the party which is responsible for this image of South Africa.

The hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Timoney)—I am sorry he is not here—used the image of the spacemen but his whole speech floated about in space. He said, inter alia, that the way of life of South Africa is not reflected by the policy of the National Party. In other words, apartheid, segregation, is not the traditional policy of South Africa.

Not your apartheid.

Evidently they all agree with them. I want to tell the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) that his former great leader, General Smuts, described it as the traditional policy of South Africa. He supported that policy; he sketched it just as we are applying it to-day.

Definitely not.

I want to refer the hon. member to just one speech. In 1917 General Smuts made a speech in the Savoy Hotel.

What did he say about the Luxurama?

It seems to me the hon. member has not read that speech yet. He should read it. I also want to ask him to read the speeches of another former great leader of the United Party, General Hertzog. Does he want to say that General Smuts and General Hertzog did not propound the traditional policy of South Africa when they made those great speeches? Why were they not repudiated?

They were not petty, and you know it.

Yes, but at that time the United Party, under their leadership, was not as petty as it is to-day either. If ever there was a petty party in South Africa it is the United Party.

No, the National Party.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is so busy stopping up the cracks in his party that he does not know what is going on here. He simply cannot stop up those cracks. I think the Leader of the Opposition should rather have attended this debate than to try to close up the cracks in his party, which he will not succeed in doing either. He could have made a contribution here. We would have liked to hear what his opinion is of the speeches made by his back-benchers. Then he would perhaps have been in greater difficulty than the difficulty in which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Bason) has landed him. [Time limit.]

I really do not understand the Opposition. They predict a depression and when prosperity comes they grumble at the boom. They predict unemployment and when full employment is available they grumble because there is not enough people to do the work. The hon. member picks me out because I used up some time to make a speech. But the hon. member knows that the Opposition moaned in the past and said that the Minister’s time should be outside the ordinary time for debate in Committee of Supply. That was granted to them. I am not responsible to the Opposition. The only people to whom I am responsible are the Leader of the House and the Whips. I must admit they told me to cut my reply short.

This injured innocent, the hon. member for Turffontein, said they had specifically avoided bringing in any racial politics. That is absolute nonsense. He started his speech by saying: The Minister is sabotaged by the disastrous race policies of the Government. Of course, now he says he never brought in race policies, whatsoever! When I reply to them on racial issues I am called a pathetic Minister, a small Minister and a Minister who does not know how to run his Department. He was the member who raised the question of race policies and he is the member who is going to get the reply. Just before lunch the hon. member defended the speech made by the hon. member for Yeoville on television. He said that was their policy. I want to read it again so that there can be no arguments about it. Mr. Robin Day asked Mr. Marais Steyn—

The hon. member referred to that and said: “This is our policy, why do you make an issue of this?”

I did not say that.

I can get the hon. member’s Hansard and show it to him. But he left it alone this afternoon; he has been told to leave it alone. Do you know why, Sir? Because that hon. member himself in this House this Session made a statement to the effect that—

That is right.

What is the policy? Is the policy as stated by the hon. member for Yeoville, namely, that it will change and that future Parliament will allow Black people to come into Parliament or is it as the hon. member has stated?

That is why I say when they are speaking overseas on television in Britain they do not clarify their own policy; they try to persuade the people overseas that they have a policy of a multi-racial Parliament. But when they come here the hon. member for Turffontein says it is merely propaganda; it is not true; “we believe only in a White Parliament”. That is basic to their policy.

I want to raise another matter. The hon. member for Turffontein again said to me that I could not give any example of anything the hon. member for Hospital had ever said that was un-South African. I want to quote one thing because this story of “we never do anything un-South African” is just a bluff. Listen to this; this is directed at the Prime Minister and the National Party—

In America.

Listen to this—

On a point of order, am I entitled to ask the hon. Minister to read the whole statement and not to take something out of its context?

The hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) and the hon. member for Turffontein have tried to indicate that the hon. member for Hospital has never said anything outside detrimental to our country and I say it is not true because he has done so. I am going to read again what was said by an hon. member on those benches last year. I want to quote it to show to what limits they will go to try to condemn South Africa in the eyes of our enemies. This is from Hansard.

Give us the reference.

Keep quiet and listen—

I did not say that. [Interjections.]

I did not say you did.

I want to appeal to the hon. member for Turffontein to remain quiet. I warn him.

That was not the hon. member for Hospital. It was made by a member on those benches in 1963.

You said earlier on in 1964.

You did not hear correctly. What I am getting at, Sir, is this: This statement gives the figures for Nigeria and Ghana which are very low in comparison with those of South Africa. What is the object of that? Is it to try to get a few votes for the United Party? No. It is done to try to condemn South Africa in the eyes of the world. This has been quoted time and again as figures emanating from the Opposition in South Africa. Hon. members opposite get so sensitive when one talks to them about sabotage. But this is sabotage. I do not mind criticism. As I have said there is no severer critic of the Government than the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) but I never feel that he will make use of these tactics. I always welcome his criticism. I place this sort of statement on the heads and the shoulders of those hon. members opposite. This is the sort of thing which is damaging to South Africa. When they say it is South Africa’s racial policy, it is the Government, I say to them that they themselves have a great deal to account for as far as South Africa is concerned—they and the English-language Press which has supported them in the past and the stringers the hon. member for Turffortein has mentioned. And then the stringers which the hon. member mentioned and their distortions in the overseas Press. These messages go overseas and these people go overseas, not to fight an election in South Africa—you cannot get votes for the United Party out of this, but they do it to damage South Africa’s name overseas.

May I ask the hon. Minister a question? Is the hon. Minister implying that if this statement which he has read out were made outside, stens could be taken against such member for sabotage?

I said nothing of the sort. All I talked about was the fact that hon. members opposite were objecting when hon. members on this side of the House accused them of sabotage in South Africa, and I said that this sort of statement which is mentioned in this House is used against South Africa and has the effect of playing into the enemy’s hands.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, the hon. Minister is now quoting a statement alleged to have been made by some member of the Opposition and taken out of Hansard. At the same time the hon. Minister is saying that that statement is sabotage of South Africa. I would like to ask your ruling, Mr. Chairman: Is the hon. Minister allowed to take quotations out of Hansard or statements in this House and accuse hon. members of sabotage as far as South Africa’s interests are concerned?

In the sense the hon. Minister has made the statement, he may continue.

It is amazing to me that these hon. members when you attack the stringers, when you attack people who write against South Africa, come to their defence on all occasions. When there is a statement like this which is indefensible, they immediately cover it up and come to the defence. That is why I say to them that as a party, their un-South Africanism is killing them right through the country.

You are the only good South African!

Sir, these sort of things are damaging the party opposite.

The hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Timoney) said that he would have liked to get more information from me about the visit of the editors from overseas. I would with great pleasure have given him that information if he had asked me for it, and I will give it to him now. I might say that this last group tour of United States editors, some 14 or 15 of them, resulted in some 125 constructive articles in overseas newspapers so far, in over 60 newspapers. I have a report here from our New York office, and naturally, it is an information office and may have, what you may call a view that is pro-information, but this is the report—

That is what I would like to mention to the hon. member for Salt River. The hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) unfortunately considered my efforts pathetic. But I would also like to point out to him that when he refers to us opening offices in places all over the world—he talked about Scandinavia, and apparently he wants this department to have offices all over the world.

I referred to Scandinavia

I would like to say to him that there are certain priorities on which we concentrate our efforts. We have certain funds available and certain personnel and we decide on the priority and Scandinavia has not become a priority, and I will tell the hon. member the reason why. We know the atmosphere in Scandinavia. Their foreign ministers were invited to South Africa and refused to come. The atmosphere is such that we say: Why should we open up offices where the possibility of achieving success is small. We can achieve much more in other countries. We are prepared to rather spend more money in other areas than have the cost of an office in Scandinavia.

Do you want to talk to the converted?

When the time comes and the funds are available and the personnel is available, we will consider opening an office in Scandinavia.

The hon. member talked about the United States and the United Kingdom spending far more overseas. Of course they spend far more overseas. Part of the atmosphere they create is to give themselves a favourable image overseas. America spends billions, but I want to point out to the hon. member that we do not spend more in South Africa than we do overseas. I have explained this morning that large amounts are included in the South African Budget which are used in connection with our efforts overseas: Our films which are made here, the people here who have to supply the offices overseas with the information they need. All that is done here in this country, because it has to be done here.

May I ask the Minister whether he thinks that we can neglect the 18,000,000 White people in Scandinavia, all belonging to the Western civilization? Are they of lesser importance than Portugal?

Quite frankly our attitude is that at this stage we do not consider it from our point of view advantageous to establish an office in the Scandinavian countries. That does not mean that we do not convey information to the Scandinavian countries. Everyone of our information officers works as an ambassador and the ambassadors in every country are kept supplied with information from us, but the hon. member seems to think that if we have got a man there you can convert the whole people in Scandinavia. When we think the time is ripe, we will take the necessary steps in that direction. But at the present moment we work through the avenues which are there and we consider that sufficient.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 47.—“Tourism”, R1,262,000, put and agreed to.

On Revenue Vote No. 48,—“Foreign Affairs”, R4,385,000,

May I claim the privilege of the half-hour on this Vote?

I would like first to make a reference to the Protectorates as a question of the first importance. One would like to know what the hon. Minister intends doing about these three new emergent states. It is quite clear that we have got to revise our thinking as regards these states which very soon will no longer be colonial dependencies, and they are going to present a very interesting and new, and I think, a challenging problem, in human relationships for us to have to deal with. I do not want to open up a full-dress debate on this subject this afternoon, but I do want the Government to know that we believe that this is a matter of urgent importance and I do ask the Minister to give us as full a statement of policy as he can on the subject, so that we can know the lines on which he is working. It is a problem with many facets and it is a problem which is going to call for the most constructive and the most imaginative forward thinking of which all of us are capable. I say that, because on the one hand, if we can evolve and actively pursue a policy based on co-operation, close co-operation, friendship and trust with these three new countries, it is going on the one hand to strengthen immeasurably our position in Southern Africa, and not only in Southern Africa but in the eyes of the world, whilst on the other hand, if we fail to do that, I think we may imperil the whole future of the Republic, or at least make it very much more difficult. That is why we attach so much importance to what is either being done or should be done without delay in regard to these territories. I leave the subject there for the moment.

I want to refer to last year’s meeting of the United Nations, where the hon. the Minister made his fist appearance a? a Minister, and he made then what purported to be a full and frank statement on his Government’s race policies, a very proper thing to do. I have not got the full text of his speech, and I think it is a pity. We raised the matter last year with the hon. the Minister, and I repeat what I said last year that I think it is most unfortunate that the hon. Minister has not issued a White Paper or some form of document for the information of members in regard to the proceedings at the General Assembly and the Special Committee there at the meeting of the United Nations, because it is very important and I do not think it should be incumbent on hon. members in this House to go searching for copies of the speech, and the only thing to do is to issue a White paper, or a verbatim account of these speeches, and I do hope the hon. Minister will overcome his natural modesty next year and let us have full verbatim accounts of what takes place.

As it is, I and the public generally, have to rely on the Sapa, Associated Press, Reuter reports, which appear in the South African Press and from those reports several questions arise, and I think those questions should be raised here because it will give the hon. Minister an opportunity of clarifying them, or explaining them, or correcting them. Because otherwise I think the report is open to considerable criticism, either on the grounds as to its fullness or its frankness, or even as to its accuracy on certain matters of fact. The hon. Minister on that occasion made the point that our problem in the Republic was not a multi-racial one but a multi-national one, and that the aim of his Government was to set up different independent states, or nations of the Bantu races. That raises the first question I want to ask the hon. the Minister: Why in his statement did he confine himself to the Bantu people? Why in his statement did he make no mention of the Coloured people or the Indian people? Why in his speech, as reported, was there no reference at all to the political or territorial future of the millions of Coloured and Indian people in the Republic? Of course if the hon. the Minister likes to reply to that that he cannot be expected to explain the inexplicable, I could quite understand it, but at the same time if he was purporting to make a full statement to the International Assembly in regard to his Government’s race policies, it seems to me to have been a glaring omission, and even a very obvious omission, because it must have been obvious to the audience to whom he was speaking, who are not uninformed as to the affairs in the Republic, and to that extent it weakens the value of his statement.

The Minister then went on to discuss the policy in regard to the Bantu people and he said, or is reported to have said—and I repeat that I am only quoting from newspaper reports, and if I am quoting wrongly, this will give the hon. Minister an opportunity to correct the reports—he said we were attempting to build up wholly self-governing states inside our borders. That brings me to my second question, because how does that tally with what we are being told by the hon. Minister’s colleagues in this House, day in and day out? Whenever the hon. Minister of Bantu Administration rouses himself from his comfortable lethargy, he invariably tells us, and so do his colleagues, that his aim is to build up these areas for which he is responsible to the point of them becoming sovereign, free, independent states. For the life of me, I cannot see how you can have a sovereign, free, independent state within the borders of another free, sovereign independent state. I ask the hon. Minister how does he really visualize a sovereign independent Republic having eight free “sovereign” independent states within its borders? I must say I cannot visualize it. It seems to me to be a contradiction in terms. But that apparently is what he told the United Nations.

It has been fully set out by the Prime Minister.

I am sure the hon. Minister will feel relieved to know that if he can’t give the explanation, the Chief Whip can do so for him. I, however, would prefer to have the reply from the hon. Minister, and I think the House would too. But I would like somebody on that side of the House once and for all to tell us which it is. What is the policy of the Government? It is a very vital question. Is the policy of this Government to aim at the fullest possible self-government within the borders of the Republic for the Bantu people, the Bantu races if you like, but subject ultimately to the control of, a central Government, or is it the aim to build up sovereign, free, independent states outside the borders of the Republic, and free to link up with Zambia, or China or Russia, or anybody else? That really is one of the main points of difference between this side of the House and that side. What the Minister is reported to have told the United Nations and what we have been told here in the House are two different stories.

What about the Protectorates?

The hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe) has certainly gathered that I was talking about the Protectorates earlier on, but I am not talking about the Protectorates now. I am talking about the Bantustans which are to be created by this Government, and in respect of which two different versions appear to have been given, one to this House and one to the United Nations.

The hon. Minister then went on to refer to the Transkei and he pointed to the success so far achieved there in carrying out their policy. He claimed that a 60 per cent poll showed the confidence with which the electorate had accepted their new system of Government and the new constitution. That bring me to question No. 3, because, Sir, is it not a fact that a very substantial majority of the electorate in that election actually voted against the constitution and for its amendment? The composition of the Transkei Parliament is 64 chiefs and 45 members, and is it not a fact that the present majority of the Government in the Transkei consists of nominated chiefs, all of whom are paid by the Government, and that the actual voting according to a speaker in the Transkeian Parliament in their last session, cast at that election, was 445,600 votes for the Government and for the constitution and 1,297,000 against the constitution and against the Government’s policy of separate development? Is it not a fact that the result of the election in the Transkei was in fact exactly the opposite of what the hon. the Minister told UNO? So far from the electorate in the Transkei showing their confidence in their new constitution, voting enthusiastically for it, there was very nearly a three to one majority against it when the election took place, and unless my figures are entirely wrong (and the Minister can correct me) it seems to me that it was not a statement of fact.

Then the Minister is alleged to have continued by referring to a vocal minority opposed to the National Party Government, and to have said that it was largely a communist inspired conspiracy to overthrow the State by violence. That brings me to question No. 4: What does the hon. Minister mean by “National Party”? If he means the party supporting Mr. Matanzima in the Transkei, did the hon. Minister mean that the Opposition in the Transkeian Parliament representing three-quarters of the voters in the Transkei are mostly communist inspired? And if he meant that and it is vocal, why is it not banned? After all, Proclamation 400 is still in full vogue in this happy and free, new state, this democratic state which has been established! Why is it, if it is vocal and communist inspired, not banned and named? If on the other hand, when the Minister talks about “National Party”—and I may say that all the people I have spoken to and who have read the newspaper report assumedso—he was talking about his own party, and not the party in the Transkei, and says that the opposition to his party is a vocal minority, largely communist inspired and conspiring to overthrow the State by violence, well, Mr. Chairman, then it means that all of us on this side of the House are communists. Either way, does the hon. Minister really think that it is quite accurate, speaking anywhere, to describe the official Opposition, whether it is in the Transkei or whether it is here, as largely communist inspired? If I misinterpreted what he said, will he please explain to us just what he did say and what he did mean? Because if he meant what he appears to have meant, that the Opposition to the National Party Government was largely communist inspired, conspiring to overthrow the State by violence, then I think it was a most disgraceful statement to make. I can only say that on the face of it, this speech, as reported in the Press, needs a lot of clarification, and I repeat that it is a great pity that the full text of the speech has not been made more freely available, but on the face of it, as reported, it certainly does not present an accurate picture by reason of its omissions and its inaccurate facts—it by no means gives an accurate picture of what is going on in the Republic.

I want to come to another matter and that is the statement by the hon. the Minister in regard to the aircraft carrier Independence. The facts, I think, are known to the Committee. The matter was referred to under the Defence Vote, and I am not going to go into the facts again. But I am concerned about the position which the hon. the Minister will be called upon to maintain and justify, as being the mouthpiece of the country, in our dealings with foreign countries. The position, as I see it now, is that in peacetime and during the cold war, South Africa refuses to co-operate with the armed services of the United States if such co-operation involves any personal contact with non-Whites in those services and South African Forces. That is as I read the result of this incident. But in time of war, to quote the Minister of Defence, South Africa will co-operate with other nations on the ground of common interests, irrespective of what he calls “smaller differences about customs”. Well, I would like to ask the hon. the Minister what he means by “common interests”? Would he not agree with me that the Number One common interest is surely to build up defences so strong and well equipped in the West as to preserve the West against Communism in a war? But also, and what is more, to prevent a war developing at all by reason of the strength and the unity of those defence preparations? In other words, prevention of war comes before and is more important than taking part in it. I put this question: How can you take those precautions, how can you build up your defences to the highest point without close co-operation, in the closest possible way, just as in war, if necessary, and building those defences up in advance, if you say: “No, we cannot do this because it is only a cold war. What we do in a hot war is quite different”. I say it makes full co-operation and prevention to make war, quite impossible. In any case: When does a cold war become hot? When do these, what the Minister calls, “small differences about customs”, melt and disappear? Who holds the thermometer and says when the war is cold and when it is hot? This incident we are discussing is a case in point. This great American aircraft-carrier Independence was not here on a pleasure cruise, was not calling in on a goodwill visit. As far as I know she was on her way to join the United States Pacific fleet in the Far East where the fleet with the United States Forces is engaged not in a cold war, but a hot one against Communism.

We are always told that the Government is itching to have a crack at Communism. This ship was calling on its way to join her fellow ships taking part in a hot war against Communism. By allowing these small differences about customs, as they are called, to interfere because the war was still cold, we interfered with the movements of a ship engaged in a warlike operation. I think that by allowing this incident to blow up into a major issue, of which we have not heard the last yet, we may well have talked ourselves out of the defence plans of the Western Powers in the war against Communism. The question of the possibility of a few non-White Americans landing on a South African airfield, on duty connected with the fight against Communism has been allowed to jeopardize the whole important issue of our relations with the West in the plans to combat Communism. I think that the irresponsibility with which this matter was handled is shown amongst other things by the way the Minister in his statement, if he drafted it, which I have grave doubts about, dragged in the American Ambassador’s garden party into the dispute. What on earth the Ambassador’s garden party has to do with a cold or a hot war I cannot imagine. All these things make one ask very seriously whether there is no limit to the stupidity and the shortsightedness of the Government in its handling of foreign relations. Apparently there is not. I think there is no doubt that this matter of the Independence has been a diplomatic blunder of the first order. It has been a blunder which will take all the tact and the ability, which I do not doubt, of the hon. the Minister, to discount and to set right, and a blunder which, unless it is set right, I am afraid may have long-term consequences which may be very disadvantageous to the Republic in future.

The hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) touched upon mainly three points. I want to say in all modesty that we really expected to hear more from the hon. member. One of the points which he touched upon was the matter of the Independence, which has been debated ad nauseam in this House in the past few weeks. It was raised in the Defence debate and in the Information debate, and it leaves a very bad taste to raise it again in this debate as well. I think hon. members on the other side are doing it not so much because they are concerned about that incident; I think the fact that they have raised it once again, is merely a matter of their showing the proverbial cloven hoof, in that they wanted to elevate the matter to the status of an international incident to see whether they could not create some shock or other of the type once mentioned by the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman), the type of shock which must throw the National Party out of power. I just want to say this to the hon. member. that I do not think it is worth the trouble to discuss the matter of the Independence today. The hon. the Minister of Defence gave a perfectly adequate reply in regard to the matter. He replied to it in great detail and indicated that we ourselves had non-Whites in our Defence Force, and that it was by no means a question of an inflexible policy having been laid down. He explained adequately that we had fought along with other non-Whites in the past, and that we received ships from friendly states on which there were non-Whites every day. There was a ship like that in port yesterday, and they are perfectly happy in the City here, and no one takes any notice of it. But I can believe that hon. members on the other side are now pretending to be very concerned about this matter, and I think that at some stage or other somebody should say this, that there are certain rules of etiquette in international law which do not date back to yesterday or the day before yesterday, but which have been laid down as conventions over the centuries, and one of those rules is that when one is in Rome one does as the Romans do. And if South Africa happens to have any particular rule, one expects people from other states who come here and to whom we act as host to observe those rules. When we in turn visit those states it is of course our duty to do the same and to observe their rules. I think the leakage of information about this case was perhaps deliberately engineered in an attempt to embarrass South Africa. [Interjections.] I am speaking of the leakage in the Press. It was done in Press quarters and hon. members must not misunderstand me.

Where did the Press get it then?

The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) is old enough to know that.

The other point touched upon by the hon. member for Constantia was the Transkei. At one stage I almost thought that we were having the debate on the Transkei all over again. This is the first time in the history of this Parliament that the internal affairs of the Transkei have been dealt with in such detail. I do not know what the reason for that is. The hon. member even quoted figures in an attempt to show that the Matanzima Party does not necessarily have a popular majority. I want to give the following advice to hon. members on the other side: Leave the Transkei alone; leave them to work out their own politics. Why must we interfere with that? If the hon. member for Yeoville has fared so badly in presenting his policy to the Whites, he will fare much worse still in the Transkei.

The third point mentioned by the hon. member for Constantia was the Protectorates, and he asked what the Minister’s policy in that regard was. The Minister will probably reply to that in detail. I just want to say this, that we have always had the best of relations with the Protectorates and that it is hoped that that will be the position in future as well, and that, in any case, if it depends on our attitude we shall always have the best of relations with them. But perhaps I must add this. For many years attempts were made by previous Governments to incorporate the Protectorates with South Africa. I foresee that a time will come when the Protectorates will want to join South Africa of their own accord, because they will realize in due course that the opportunities we are offering the Transkei are opportunities which Britain, which is a long distance away from them, cannot offer them. They will see that the Transkei finds itself in the exceptionally privileged position of developing much more rapidly, both economically and otherwise, than those territories without the assistance of South Africa. I want to predict that a tendency will develop in the Protectorates to seek incorporation with South Africa.

But I want to mention a few other matters too. I want to avail myself of this opportunity to congratulate the hon. the Minisetr on his approximately eighteen months of service as Minister of Foreign Affairs. I really think that there has been a considerable improvement in the approach adopted towards South Africa in foreign opinion. I think the Minister has had a full share in that. There are, of course, other factors too. I think the developments in Africa and elsewhere in the world have shown the world that South Africa has a fair case. But I also think that the Minister has gone out of his way to put South Africa’s case squarely and to deal a considerable blow to the image we are fighting against. One finds everywhere that there has been an improvement in the general image of South Africa in the outside world. If one just calls to mind the boycott movements which were afoot, then we realize that there has been an improvement. I never took any serious notice of those movements. Boycott movements are inevitably limited to isolated groups and one must never take them too seriously. One is also aware of the fact that many of those boycott movements are professional movements. The demonstrators are professional demonstrators. One day they arrange a demonstration against the atom bomb and the next day against South Africa and the day after that against something else. One must not take them very seriously. But it is also very obvious from Press reports from abroad that South Africa is achieving a break-through as far as foreign attitude to South Africa is concerned. I have quite a number of clippings here, but I shall not have the time to read all of them. I just want to mention one, a small report in the Daily Express in London, which refers to what a member of a UNO committee in Africa said about South Africa. The newspaper stated that that representative of Mali said that Black states would perhaps have to fight against South Africa, and then went on to say—

Mr. Chairman, I ask for the privilege of the second half-hour. I think the Committee listened with interest to the suggestion by the hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe that there were certain age-old rules which apply in diplomacy and in the relations between different states. I should have thought that one of the most fundamental of those rules was not to impute dishonourable conduct to a friendly state. I think it is right that I should say that because of the deplorable position in which we seem to have landed as the result of an incident last night in connection with the Broadcasting Corporation. The hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) put a question pertinently as to whether there would be any end to the stupidity in our handling of our relations with other countries, diplomatically. He suggested that a first-class diplomatic incident had arisen as the result of what happened in respect of the aircraft carrier Independence, an action which I am glad to say the hon. member for Middelland himself says he deplores.

I deplore the incident, not the action.

I accept that, but who created the incident?

The United States people.

[Interjections.] Now we are beginning to see what happened. You see, Sir, I am afraid the worst fears of the hon. member for Constantia have been realized, because there is not an end to this stupidity yet. Last night there was a talk given on the subject by an anonymous commentator on Radio South Africa. Since it was an anonymous commentator, it must be presumed that he was presenting the official view of the S.A.B.C., which I need not remind you, Sir, is a Government-protected monopoly and which we already know is going to be used, when the new transmitters are installed, to put across the Government’s views to the rest of Africa and probably to the rest of the world. I want to say without fear of contradiction that that comment last night was not only childish and uninformed, but in certain of the remarks made it actually suggested, with unbelievable irresponsibility, that the Independence might have created for itself an opportunity to refuse to visit Cape Town, that it might have engineered this unfortunate incident to which the hon. members for Constantia and Middelland referred. It implied that the American Ambassador, and possibly even the American Government, might have been parties to the scheme. The broadcast was so fantastic but at the same time it was of such vital importance to South Africa in our relations with the U.S.A. that I feel it is imcumbent upon me to make it available to the House as nearly verbatim as I can. I am going to start therefore, with a paraphrase which goes on, I believe, to a verbatim report of what was said. The programme said it was difficult to determine when incidents were concerned with the merits of the case and when they were artificially created as a move on the chess-board of international diplomacy. Then comes what I believe to be a quotation—

Now, it deals with the facts, but of course you will see, as I read, that these facts are interspersed with comment—

These are the facts—

Order! I have allowed the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to read the comment, but I must point out that this hon. Minister is not responsible for the Broadcasting Corporation.

My question is now going to be what the hon. the Minister is going to do about this. Because can you imagine anything more provocative, more stupid or more irresponsible from an organization enjoying State protection, an organization which is going to become the official mouthpiece of the Government in respect of certain broadcasts, an organization chaired by a member of that secret organization of which the Prime Minister is a member?

Order!

Can any country in the world be blamed for regarding this statement, if not as an official statement, then as representing the views of those connected with framing the ideological background of this Government, and having its blessing? Of course the statement is factually incorrect, too, in certain respects. What is so strange about the Ambassador making the request? Surely it is merely indicative that the message was sent from the ship itself. This is a 60,000-ton carrier. It takes a bit of docking. Chandlers have to be warned in regard to supplies, etc., but what happens? This is interpreted as being strange. What one wants to know is what the Minister of Foreign Affairs is going to do about this. I feel that in the interests of South Africa, after a broadcast of this kind to the world, there should be an immediate statement from him now in this House. He should repudiate that statement and the imputations and implications made in it, just as I hope he will repudiate what came very near to being a similar imputation from the hon. member for Middelland. I want to know whether the Minister must not now get up in this House and repudiate it, and whether he should not reprimand this corporation for this action, and whether he should not now make representations to the hon. the Prime Minister to get Radio South Africa under proper control and make it answerable to this House for the sort of things it broadcasts.

Are you perhaps acting as the mouthpiece of the American Ambassador?

Sir, this is very interesting. The hon. the Prime Minister has made two statements since I have been talking. He suggested that America created this incident, and now he has the impudence to suggest . . .

I did not say that. I did not use the word “create”. You asked who started it.

No, I did not. I did not ask who started it. If the hon. the Prime Minister does not mean to say America created it, I will be very grateful. If he wants to withdraw that, I will be very grateful.

I do not want to withdraw it. I did not use the word “create”.

Let us leave it at that. May I take it then that it is not the meaning of the Prime Minister that America created the incident?

It is my view that it was started through their intervention.

What does that mean? I think the Prime Minister has either said too much or too little. I hope he will get up and tell us what he means. But he said something else. He has had the impudence to suggest that I am the mouthpiece for the American Ambassador.

I said it sounded like it to us.

I think the Prime Minister ought to be ashamed of himself, because I have not had one word with the American Ambassador or anyone in his office. I am taking this up as a patriotic South African who believes that one of the most important things at the present time is for South Africa to have friendly relations with what I regard to be the strongest power in the world. [Interjection.]

And so you immediately blame the South African Government.

I give the South African Government the opportunity of coming out and repudiating the nonsense that has been put out on Radio South Africa, which can be interpreted as having the back-stage blessing of the Government or people connected with it. [Interjection.] Let the Prime Minister get up now and say that he repudiates this attitude, that there was never any imputation or implication of that kind so far as this Government is concerned, and that he regrets that the incident ever happened. Then I believe that the hon. the Prime Minister will have done South Africa a service, but if he does not do it then I believe he is making himself guilty of something very close to sabotage, because nothing can be more dangerous to South Africa . . . [Interjections.]

Order!

. . . than to handle our relations with the strongest country in the world in this irresponsible, stupid manner. [Interjections.]

I am not going to make a statement about the radio talk. I do not know the contents of the talk and I do not think it is my duty to talk about it.

You have just been told the contents.

I think it might assist the debate if at this stage I make a statement about the proposed visit of the Independence, and I hope that this statement will enable us to dispose of this matter and enable us to discuss more important matters in this debate.

Hon. members found it necessary once again to raise the question of this proposed visit, despite all the information which has already been given by myself in a public statement and the additional information which was given by my colleague, the Minister of Defence. I think it is abundantly clear that this matter has again been raised in an endeavour to embarrass the Government. [Interjections.] I have no intention of criticizing hon. members opposite for trying to do so, but I must express my disappointment about the spirit in which the matter was raised and the manner in which the matter was deliberately blown up in certain quarters. I also think that it was wrong and unwise of the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Water-son) to speculate about the future actions and reactions of a foreign country to this particular event in South Africa. I think this sort of thing can serve no good purpose as far as our normal relations with the U.S.A. are concerned. Most of the facts of the case are by now generally known from my own statement and the statement of the Minister of Defence, but there are a few points which I want to clarify. In the first place, I want to make it quite clear that the Government welcomed the proposed visit of the Independence. There had been previous visits to South Africa by ships of the United States Navy. These visits took place without any embarrassment to ourselves, to the United States, to those on board who, without exception, were always met with courtesy and consideration and indeed a warm welcome. These facts cannot be questioned and I hope they will be accepted and recognized by all concerned. In the second place I want to emphasize that no special or new conditions were attached to the proposed visit of this United States ship, irrespective of the composition of its crew, for we believed that it would take place in the same pleasant atmosphere as previous visits by United States vessels to this country.

The third point—and this is a very important point—is that an unfortunate circumstance arose only because we were also approached formally, through diplomatic channels, for permission for certain aircraft to fly over South African territory and to use facilities at two of our airfields. The Government had no objection to these flights over our territory, but for various good reasons we could not receive mixed crews at the two airports concerned. Amongst other things, as the hon. the Minister of Defence explained, there is a lack of facilities at these two airfields, one of them being a military airfield. It was, of course, also necessary to ensure against any embarrassment, any misunderstanding or any possible incident which could have arisen as a result of such mixed crews being used. But what is still more important is that we could not agree to the non-observance in the Republic of the policies and traditions of this country. The United States Embassy was therefore informed that it would be appreciated if only White crew members were used for the relatively small number of planes concerned. We, for our part, firmly believed that it should be possible to find ways and means to meet our requirements without violating the rules, practices and policies which are naturally followed on board United States ships, but our suggestion to the effect that a formula should be found was not acceptable. The United States wanted to know whether it was a condition or a mere suggestion, and we were informed that if it were merely a suggestion, no guarantee could be given that it would be complied with. In the circumstances, the Government, of course, had no choice other than to make it a condition. It is indeed unfortunate that what was in effect little more than a routine reiteration of the customary requirements of our policies and traditions, should have been regarded as in some way novel, and it is even more unfortunate that there was an impression in certain quarters that we were trying to interfere in the domestic arrangements of a ship of the United States Navy. This is, of course, quite ridiculous. You might just as well accuse me of trying to interfere in the private lives of my friends whom I invite to dinner in my own house when I remind them that they should wear a black tie and dinner jacket. In other words, we do not suggest to the United States authorities how the United States Navy should be run. We are entitled to expect that our rules and customs and traditions be respected in South Africa. Sir, I hope it will be quite clear that whatever the nature of any visit to our country, the law of the land and the customs prescribed by our special circumstances in South Africa must be obeyed.

In peacetime.

Always.

Unfortunately, the cancellation of the proposed visit gave rise to Press reports from Washington, which were seized upon in South Africa. According to one report, quoting from “informed sources”, the visit was cancelled because South Africa had told the United States that it would not welcome the negro crew members of the Independence in Cape Town. This wholly incorrect report compelled me to issue a statement in order to make the facts public. I was obliged to make a public statement as failure to do so would have created the impression here in South Africa, and also elsewhere, that the alleged reasons for the cancellation of the visit were correct and it would have placed the Government in a completely false position. In fact, I as Foreign Minister, and the Government, could have been taken to task if nothing had been done to expose this distorted publicity and to refute what was in effect vicious propaganda against South Africa, propaganda which would have reflected adversely upon the Republic’s dealings with many friendly nations.

In conclusion, Sir, I believe that any further discussion of this matter in this debate would serve no useful purpose and that it can only arouse feelings, on all sides, which we all want to avoid.

The hon. the Minister ended off his statement by making an appeal to us not to discuss this incident any further. We would very much like to comply with that appeal; indeed it is our firm wish that an incident like this should never have occurred, but the trouble is that the hon. the Minister made a statement which he had obviously prepared before we started this discussion and for that reason he avoided the only major issue that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition raised on this side.

Order! I cannot allow the hon. member to continue along those lines.

Which lines?

The line of criticizing the publication of this report by the S.A. Broadcasting Corporation. This hon. Minister is not responsible for the S.A.B.C.

Sir, I want to discuss what the hon. the Minister is going to do about the provocative statement made by a South African organization . . .

For which he is not responsible.

Surely, Sir, he is responsible . . .

Order! The hon. the Minister is not responsible and the hon. member must please observe my ruling.

Sir. I must have clarity and I am sure you will assist me. Is the hon. the Minister responsible for our relationships with other countries or not?

The hon. the Minister is responsible for that but I hope the hon. member is not going to cross-examine me. He must accept my ruling.

Sir, I do not want to discuss the S.A.B.C., but I want to discuss certain effects of a statement made by the S.A.B.C. upon the international relations of South Africa.

Order! I cannot allow the hon. member to continue on those lines.

He wants to harm South Africa; that is all.

Sir, am I permitted to discuss methods whereby the Minister can defend the good name of South Africa in international relationships?

The hon. member may continue.

I want to put this question to the hon. the Minister and I would like him to give this Committee information on his policy in international relations when he is expected to justify to the world outside events that occur in South Africa. I want to know because we on this side of the House are deeply perturbed at certain actions by the Government—I am not referring to the S.A.B.C. now—which are so short-sighted, so removed from reality and so petty, that the Government makes the task of its own Minister of Foreign Affairs impossible, and that is what I want to discuss. I want to ask the hon. the Minister how he as the Minister of Foreign Affairs sees his way clear to defend certain things which are happening in South Africa at the instigation of the Government.

Then you must discuss the Press and the S.A.B.C. is part of the Press.

Particularly the Government Press.

Sir, I want to discuss organs of public opinion but I have been ruled out of order.

The hon. member may do so provided another Minister is not responsible for such an organization, but in this case another Minister is responsible. The hon. member must observe my ruling.

I am observing it. Sir, but I need your help. We have again and again tried to hold another Minister responsible for the S.A.B.C. and we have been told again and again that he cannot be held responsible.

That it is an independent organization.

Order! I warn the hon. member for the last time now he must observe my ruling or resume his seat.

Sir, quite clearly South Africa’s relations with foreign countries are affected by certain incidents inside South Africa. The hon. the Minister is clearly not responsible for those incidents, but those incidents having happened are we not allowed to discuss what the Minister is going to do to put right any harm that has been done to our relations with another country?

The hon. member may make that point in passing but this hon. Minister is not responsible for anything broadcast by the S.A. Broadcasting Corporation.

Sir, I accept that entirely. He would not be responsible if an American sailor were murdered in Cape Town . . .

The remedy is beyond his power.

With great respect, the remedy is certainly not beyond his power. He speaks for South Africa. Surely he is entitled . . .

Order! I am afraid I will have to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to resume his seat. I have given my ruling and the hon. member must abide by it.

I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will take action, following the precedent of other Ministers and even Prime Ministers in the history of South Africa, where certain newspaper launch attacks upon foreign Governments. I am speaking, for example, of General Hertzog who on several occasions in the period just before 1939 actually apologized to foreign Governments because of attacks made in newspapers upon those Governments. We have had an example of a news-purveying organization that has suggested that other Governments have been dishonourable in their conduct of diplomatic relations with South Africa. We want to know whether the hon. the Minister thinks that that is correct, irrespective of where the suggestion has come from. A public suggestion has been made that there has been dishonourable conduct on the part of another Government in its relations to South Africa. Sir. if that is true it is a most serious matter and I think we are entitled to ask the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs whether he agrees with that allegation, because it has been made publicly. It has been said in a South African context. Does he repudiate that or does he support it?

Order! The hon. member is circumventing my ruling.

With great respect, Sir, I would not dream of doing that. I abide by your ruling, Sir, but I am dealing with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and I am dealing with South Africa’s relationship with other Governments and there are precedents which I have quoted where Governments have taken action to repudiate irresponsible public organs. The hon. the Minister is responsible for the relationship between South Africa and other Governments. I am asking him whether this is true. Does he agree that there has been dishonourable conduct; that an incident has been engineered deliberately to put South Africa in a bad light. Does he agree with that? If he does not agree with that, what is he going to do about correcting what may be an insult to a friendly Government.

What are you insinuating? The Minister has given the facts.

I am not insinuating anything: I am dealing with the facts. Sir, I will put it in another way; let us forget about the S.A.B.C. The hon. the Prime Minister in reply to a question put by my Leader, suggested that this incident was the fault of the Americans.

It started as the Minister indicated in the facts he gave the Committee.

Sir, my hon. Leader was dealing with the statement made by the hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe). If I remember correctly my hon. Leader asked, “who was responsible”? and the hon. the Prime Minister interjected, “the American people”.

I did not say “the American people”.

I though I heard the words “the American people”.

You are wrong.

I am sorry, Sir, he said “the United States people”.

I did not say “people” at all.

I might have misheard the hon. the Prime Minister, but he did impute that this was started by somebody on the American side and not by South Africa. I want to know whether that is the view of the Government.

You have had the facts given, which support my statement.

What are you trying to get at?

I want to know whether the Government believes that this incident was engineered deliberately for propaganda purposes by the Americans.

Of course not— we said so.

Well, I am grateful, to hear that at least.

Mr. Chairman, hon. members of the Opposition who raised this matter here were quite rightly checked by your ruling. I am astounded that those hon. members know so little about the rules of this House. If they had wanted to discuss the matter and to call the responsible Minister to account, they could have done so by moving the adjournment of the House at half-past seven, which is provided for by the rules. Under those circumstances they could have had the Minister concerned present here and could have raised the matter. But the hon. members did not want to do that; on the contrary, it suited them better to try to place the Government in a difficult position and to call this Minister to account on a matter over which he has no authority. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must please give the hon. member a chance to make his speech.

I think hon. members of the Opposition will have to get to know the rules of this House better if they want to handle a situation such as this correctly. They had an ideal opportunity of raising the matter here.

I should like to say a few words in connection with this matter. I think the whole attitude of the Opposition here is really shocking, shocking in the sense that they are not showing the least sign of any patriotism or loyalty to South Africa. The hon. the Minister issued a very clear statement in regard to this incident, and he has now restated the position very clearly. Notwithstanding all that, this incident is still being seized upon by the Opposition in an attempt to embarrass the Government and, by so doing, to make political capital for themselves out of the situation. Sir, as a true and loyal South African I just want to ask a few simple questions. Was it the duty of the Government to accede to this request made by the American Government? [Interjection.] Hon. members of the Opposition say: “Yes.” In other words, by implication we would immediately acknowledge that we grant a foreign power the right to dictate to us what our policy in our own country should be. In other words, we would immediately yield to pressure from outside and, by so doing, allow interference in our internal affairs, in connection with which we have always adopted the attitude that we would not allow it. We tried to handle this matter in a very tactful way. But I want to ask another question, and I want to state it very clearly as a fact: If the Opposition were in power I am convinced they would accede to such a request, which would mean that the Opposition would be crawling before the outside world and would submit out of respect or out of fear of what might possibly happen. This Government has never adopted that attitude. It has always adopted the attitude, and rightly so, that we behave decently towards every nation, but that we expect every nation in the world to respect this country as an independent and sovereign state and to acknowledge that it has the right to make decisions in its own country as it thinks fit and in accordance with its traditional policy. That is the angle from which I want to view this matter, and I do not think the Opposition are achieving anything by continuing to discuss this matter. On the contrary, I think they are not only placing South Africa in a very difficult position, but also America, which at this stage would herself most probably like to forget this incident. What is more, I think it is being done deliberately, with the specific object of trying to place the Government in a difficult position.

Mr. Chairman, the National Party Government has no intention of crawling before anyone on earth, not even America. We are handling the situation, delicate as it is, as carefully as possible. There is clear proof that this Government was prepared to prevent this incident from occurring; it was prepared to state the practical problems and to say: “Look, we do not have the facilities at our airfields: we cannot receive mixed crews there; it would create incidents which would place you in a difficult position; we are now asking that, if there is any goodwill on your side, we should settle this matter amicably and without any incidents being caused, but we are just asking for a little co-operation on your part; if you will just agree, in respect of this specific case, that the small crews of your aircraft will be Whites; the ship is welcome in our ports; the necessary facilities exist for that; ships with mixed crews enter our ports every day, but we are asking for the goodwill of America in this connection.” Mr. Chairman, I do not want to suggest that there was any question of wilfulness, but in this case America, in her wisdom, decided that it would get into discredit in some way or another, that it would place itself in a difficult position in some way or another, that it might be accused of having given way or having departed from the general principle, and consequently it refused, and what else could the South African Government have done? Should we have submitted and said: “Seeing that you are taking a firm stand we are now submitting; you may now alter our policy and our traditional attitude to suit yourself”?

May I ask a question?

No, I am not prepared to reply to questions now. Sir, the facts are very clear to me and they are very clear to any right-thinking, responsible person, and those facts are that the Government went out of its way to try to prevent this incident from occurring, that it went out of its way to be accommodating, that it went out of its way to negotiate with the American Government as far as possible so that no problems would be created, but on the express condition that on its own territory the Government would not deviate from its standpoint and would determine its own policy and would not allow anyone in the world to dictate to it what it should do. We as South Africans are proud to have a Government which takes so firm a stand and which adopts that attitude to the outside world. If, unfortunately, it should lead to an incident, then, particularly in the light of the fact that we did not make public the facts in this matter, one wants to ask, in love and friendship, what the object behind the whole thing was. In the first place I want to support the appeal made by the hon. the Minister and to say that the report of the Broadcasting Corporation has nothing to do with this Minister. The Opposition had a solution; if they wanted to discuss the matter, they could have handled it in a different way, because the rules make provision for a half-hour discussion on matters of public interest. They could have raised the matter here in terms of that rule and then they would have had the Minister concerned present here to give account. In the second place, I feel that in the interests of South Africa, in the interests of America and in the interests of our good relations we should now drop this matter, and I want to make an appeal to the Opposition to leave the matter there.

I think the statement made by the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) and also the hon. member for Midddelland (Mr. van der Merwe) that this incident of the Independence has been engineered by the United States Government or the United States people, is a statement which reflects the height of irresponsibility.

Whoever said so?

Surely hon. members must realize that we have raised this issue because we of the Official Opposition are concerned about our future relations with the greatest country in the world amongst the Western nations, a country which guarantees the protection of any Western nation against communist aggression. We are concerned about what has obviously become . . .

We are not prepared to creep.

Sir, if the Government has been guilty of what is obviously a diplomatic blunder of the worst kind, why should we, because we raise the matter from these benches, be regarded as creeping to the American Government or the American people? I want to ask whether the attitude of hon. members on the Government benches would be the same to-day if we were involved in a hot war. Who would be creeping under such conditions? Sir, what are the facts? The Minister has made a statement which he prepared beforehand.

The Minister gave the facts.

Very well, let us take the facts. Let us find out if a diplomatic blunder has been committed by the Government. The Minister gave the facts and I accept what the Minister has said. Does that statement made by the Minister differ from any statement issued by the State Department of the United States Government. Is there any statement contained in the statement made by the State Department of the United States Government that varies in any way with the statement made by the Minister? Because as I understand the facts, after the normal diplomatic etiquette had been complied with and permission had been granted for the docking of the Independence, as I understand the situation—and I think the Minister’s statement confirms it—a subsequent request was made to our Government that certain aircraft should be permitted to land at military airports. The Minister said that he attached a further condition, after he had given his permission, a permission of which the hon. member for Randfontein does not seem to be aware. Permission was granted by the Government but subsequently, according to the statement of the American State Department, the condition was attached that any members of air crews landing at any of our military installations must belong to the White race. Is that so or not? I have a Press cutting here of the statement made by the State Department, in which they state quite clearly that they had no information at the time of the Minister’s statement issued to the Press. The hon. the Minister did not observe the usual diplomatic etiquette, when he was going to issue a statement on an important matter of this nature in order, as he says, to enlighten the South African public, of at least transmitting a copy of the statement he was giving to the Press and the public to the United States Ambassador, which I understand is the normal diplomatic practice in cases of this nature. But this is what is stated in the statement of the United States State Department, and this is where we want clarity, because if what is stated here is true, then obviously the Government was guilty of a diplomatic blunder of the worst possible kind. This is what the statement says—-

And then they make this statement—

In other words, there was no precedent for attaching a condition of the nature outlined to us by the Minister in his statement. This condition was subsequently imposed. Sir, is this statement issued by the State Department true or not? Because if it is true then it is obvious that the Minister or somebody in the Cabinet—it may have been the Prime Minister—automatically came to the conclusion that because the United States was going to put members of their Navy on our shores in Cape Town, they were going to take provocative action and land at our air stations with non-White aircrews. Why should it have been assumed by the Government that the United States Navy would have adopted such provocative action when it had never been done before? [Interjections.] Why should it have been assumed? No condition would obviously have been attached by the Minister subsequently without the assumption that such action would be taken by the United States Navy. Has it ever happened before? The American Ambassador, on his own diplomatic territory here, exercises and practises the custom of his own country. He is entitled to do so according to ordinary diplomatic practice. Just as South African ambassadors practise our South African national customs on South Africa soil in foreign countries at South African embassies. If they wish to invite non-Whites here to celebrate their national day with them they are entitled to do so. Because they do so why should it have been assumed by the Government that the United States Navy would not have observed the normal conventions of its host country? That is the issue. By virtue of the fact that every action of this Government is dominated by racial prejudice they have embarked upon an action of this nature, an action which has been nothing but sheer embarrassment to our country. It has obviously done our country untold harm. Where is this going to end? Let us face it, Sir, this is not a story between Government and Government; it is a story which has gone out to 170,000,000 Americans. It is a story which has gone out to people who vote for a Government. What hope has the Minister got to get better relationships? The Minister of Defence has been in heavy negotiations to .obtain arms for our country. What hope has he got to get those arms, in the light of incidents of this nature, to achieve those ends for the better security of our country? Think of the irresponsible utterance the Prime Minister made here this afternoon when he said my Leader was talking through the mouth of the United States Ambassador. If the Minister wants to prove that he is a real Minister acting in the interests of South Africa he must get up and say openly: “I am sorry, these things do happen in diplomatic negotiations; I regret it very much; there is no intention on the part of the South African Government to embarrass the United States Government and we hope that these incidents won’t happen in future again.” Say it openly, let it be understood, in the interests of better relationships between the South African people and the American people. I realize that utterances, such as those made by the Prime Minister to-day, place the Minister of Foreign Affairs in an embarrassing position. Because he can’t make such statements as I have suggested without embarrassing the Prime Minister and in the light of the irresponsible interjections which have been made in the course of this debate. It is a matter of regret. Sir. and I hope what has happened in this House to-day, and the attitude adopted by the Prime Minister to-day, will not go unnoticed by the South African people.

Much heat has been engendered over this matter. The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has tried to keep the debate warm on this one point. I wonder whether we should not, before going further with this matter, talk about something about which we are all agreed. I think all of us in this House desire to have good relations with every foreign state, not only with large and strong states in the world, not only with mighty nations, but also with the small nations of which we are one. Furthermore, we are all agreed that we rejoice together with the people of the U.S.A., at the great achievement and the great success they obtained in sending their men into space. I think we in this House all want to congratulate them on it.

Seeking favour!

That hon. member should not be ridiculous. It seems to me those hon. members are just trying to see to-day how much political capital they can make out of a certain incident which took place. They are not prepared to listen to decency. I repeat: We all agree about one thing to-day, and that is that we want to congratulate the people of America on this great achievement. It is an achievement of the West and every achievement of the Free World is something we can all rejoice about.

What is this matter, about which we have heard so much to-day, really if we analyse it?

A bit of foolishness.

I am not so unacquainted with Afrikaans that I cannot give equivalence for words like “foolishness” and “stupidity”. Where does it take adults and intelligent people? What good does it do any nation? I repeat, what are we really discussing here when we analyse it? A ship of a friendly power came here, a power with whom in future, as in the past, we would like to have the greatest co-operation and the best relations. We said: “Come, come, you are very heartily welcome, as you were in the past, even though that ship of yours has a mixed crew.” When that power said that they would like to land on our airfields, we simply said: “You are also welcome to do that, but we then simply ask you to consider the customs of our country.” I ask the Opposition and the country: What is wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with it, Sir. No right-thinking South African will find the least fault with it. When this power told us that if it was only a request it could not guarantee that it would comply with that request, we made it a condition. And what about that? What is wrong with that? If we have to differ on that point, let us and the Opposition then differ from on another on that point, but do not let us drag in our relations with foreign powers further. I am quite satisfied that here we have a matter which was handled by our Government in accordance with the laws and customs of our country. Hon. members made another point in regard to the Minister’s statement, etc. to which the hon. the Minister can reply himself. What has happened here need not—I repeat, need not—affect the relations between us and the U.S.A. if from both sides we respect each other’s sovereignty in regard to our domestic affairs.

Because the Opposition has nothing else on which to attack .the Government in regard to its foreign policy, they have dug up this thing. They have nothing else because the Government’s foreign policy, as applied in past years, has been a great success. Because the Opposition sees that South Africa no longer stands as isolated in the world as they said at one time, they have done this thing. Even the Cape Times in the last week or so has stated how the spirit in Britain is becoming more favourable to South Africa. Why is South Africa busy making such a very good impression in the world? Because we comply with the basic requirements of the world. The world to-day desires peace and in this southern point of Africa we have peace; we have here a young, small State which has peace internally and keeps the peace with all its neighbours. The world to-day is also seeking a direction, firmness and stability. We can cast our eyes over all the continents of the world and we will find that there are few of them where one can really find stability, firmness and continuous progress The world knows what it has in this southern corner of Africa. They know our system of Government; they know that changes can take place here in a predictable way; they know what they have in us in regard to our economic progress and our constitutional development.

I want to mention something else to indicate why our foreign policy is such a success. Last year UN conferred for three months in Geneva to frame plans to uplift the under-developed countries of the world. We are doing precisely the same thing in South Africa. We are busy uplifting under-developed areas and under-developed people and taking them with us along the road to a better and more prosperous life. We do not ask UN for money or to give us the brain-power. We do it all year with our own people.

South Africa also makes a wonderful contribution to the world in the economic sphere. The outside world still increasingly invests more money here year after year. The world has invested over R3.000,000,000 in this country. We give America and Britain the highest dividends on their investments in South Africa which they can get on any foreign investment. Last year they made an average profit of 13.3 per cent on the money they invested here. We are playing our full role in every respect.

When we come to human rights, the world becomes increasingly more convinced that if you give a man food and a house to live in and a bed in a hospital when he is ill, you are also doing something to his human rights. From the point of view of the world, we are also trying to comply with the other quarter of political rights. We are promoting human rights as far as we can. South Africa is not out of step. This Government has refused to let itself be dictated to in regard to its domestic affairs, as has again appeared to-day from this debate. That is the basis on which we co-operate with the world. We cannot allow other people to prescribe to us what we should do in regard to our domestic affairs, not in this case either, and we have every right to expect that our request will be respected.

In the debate on 2 February this year, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) told us that the world had changed its standpoint long ago; that the world has been saying for a long time that the question of human relations was no longer a domestic matter. Then the hon. member warned us and said that we would have to amend all our so-called racial laws, otherwise the world would still be against us, as it was against Hitler, and this would be a casus belli. That is the standpoint adopted by hon. members opposite. We say, and we repeat, that the world cannot have a casus belli against us; in terms of international law and of any obligations we have it will not be a casus belli to the world if we regulate human relations in South Africa as we think fit in the light of circumstances and of our conscience as a Christian, civilized nation.

The conclusion to which I arrive is this: The whole matter which is being discussed to-day is just an excuse the Opposition makes to divert us from the successful foreign policy this Government has built up over the years. The fruit we are plucking is confidence in South Africa. We must remember, Sir, that we were a game of chess in the diplomacy of the world. In the great struggle for power they used us as a weapon. Now the world climate is changing. We are now being depicted in a better light there. Because this policy of ours is succeeding, because what the Prime Minister has always said would happen is happening, viz. that the day will come when the world will understand us. The Opposition is not prepared to-day to discuss that policy and therefore they pick on the only thing they can get to see whether they cannot cause trouble and problems for the Government.

Every year when we discuss the Foreign Affairs Vote, one wonders what advice the Opposition can give the Government which will assist our country in the sphere of foreign policy and which it will be possible for the Government to accept. Every time one must come to the same conclusion, that the Government has involved itself in such an impossible position in respect of foreign policy that there can really be little talk of normal relations with the outside world.

Earlier this Session I had the opportunity of congratulating the hon. the Minister on the statements he had recently made overseas. I specifically referred to his statements at UN in December 1964, and also the statements he made last year in October in Paris and Keulen. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that I meant it sincerely because I was impressed with the statements he made on those occasions. I was impressed by his statement that our problem basically was not based on race and colour but on nationhood; that it was the Government’s object to put an end to racial discrimination in South Africa; that our policy was one of co-operation with the African states; that there would be equality of status and of human dignity for all groups in South Africa; that it was the Government’s object to eliminate all forms of political inequality: and that no single nation would predominate over another here. Those are things which everybody on this side of the House can defend and subscribe to. The question which arises in our minds is this: What is the hon. the Minister doing to give practical content to those things, or at least to open the road for the adaptations we shall have to make if there is to be any talk of friendly relations with other countries. He said, e.g. that his policy was one of co-operation with the African states. That presupposes that sooner or later, even though not immediately, we must arrive at the stage where there must be mutual representation between us and those African states. Before we know where we are, we will find ourselves in the position where we will have an independent Basutoland within our borders. They have thousands of citizens here. They have extensive interests here. Thousands of their people live and work here. It is obvious that they will ask for the right and the convenience of having representation here in South Africa. If the day arrives where there will be such representation of these African states as part of the policy of the Government, is the Government then going to blame those people if they make contact with White leaders? Will the Government also avoid the diplomatic functions of those people? Will they expect those people only to come into contact with Black people? Because how on earth will they then have proper contact with the authorities and with the people in power in South Africa? How can there be any talk of normal relations between people and states if the Government adopts the attitude that White representatives, such as those of America, should not invite non-Whites to diplomatic functions? What will the position be if there are non-White representatives here? Are they then only to invite non-Whites? Is the Government going to avoid their functions, too? Surely these are problems we should face at present. It is now the time—even though it is not a matter or urgency at the moment—for us to prepare the road in regard to these problems which will arise and which sooner or later we will have to face. What is the Government doing in that regard? And this is our complaint, that instead of the Government making preparations for the adaptations which will have to be made if normal relations are to exist between us and other countries, what are we experiencing at the moment? We have had this debate about the Independence incident to-day.

Does the Government never weigh the merits and the demerits of a matter before it takes a decision? Was this incident really worth while? Was it necessary for the Minister to issue such a lengthy statement about it? Was it necessary to drag in the question of diplomatic functions and the person of the American Ambassador? What good can it do? In Mr. Joseph Satterthwaite America has an Ambassador here who behaves with great dignity and correctness and who has handled many difficult situations with great tact vis-à-vis the Government. He is now on the point of departure. What will happen if somebody with less tact comes here? Does the Government want things to develop into an open rift between us and an important state like America, so that later we just have a sort of token representation here? We regard the Minister’s statement itself as extremely unfortunate.

I do not think the Government has the right to play about so recklessly with South Africa’s future interests as it did in regard to this matter. We continually hear the story of our traditions which are being affected, but did our traditions start in 1948? We are becoming a little tired of this story about our traditions. Formerely we had an Agent-General of India in South Africa. He was here for years. Does the Minister want to tell me that when he was here he sat in isolation and that there were not diplomatic functions while he was here which were attended by Government leaders? Is that not a tradition which was already a firm one? If dignitaries come here, as they regularly do—the other day we had the Negro, Dr. Max Yergaw, from America —in what hotels do they stay? They are accommodated in the best hotels and the ordinary rules of apartheid are ignored. Then the Government and those hon. members who talk about our traditions ignore those traditions; then the Government makes exceptions. Was it worth while creating a colossal incident like this merely over certain facilities? What were these facilities? Do they concern a lavatory? Is it worth while creating an international incident about that, whilst exceptions are continually being made in other cases? Let us tell the hon. the Minister that unless it is accepted that selective contact between people on a high level takes place, irrespective of race or colour, there can be no possibility of our having sound and normal relations with other countries, and there certainly can be no talk of friendly co-operation with other countries. Look, e.g., at this position. I quote from a report in the Star of 17 April 1965—

Where does this policy of friendly relations come in when we cannot maintain them when they are subjected to a practical test? Is it not these incidents which result in our having so few diplomatic missions in the Republic, in comparison with other countries, as we have to-day? Is that not the reason why the position has deteriorated? There are only 20 countries to-day which have diplomatic missions in the Republic. We had 21, but the United Arab Republic withdrew in 1961. Now there are only 20, and we have the position that all posts of permanent heads of missions are vacant, viz. the Greek Embassy—that has been vacant since 1961, one of our oldest allies. In the Brazilian Embassy it has been vacant since the beginning of 1963; Israel, since 1962: and the Argentinian Embassy since last year. In all these cases there are only temporary charges d’affaires. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) dealt with the so-called image of South Africa which is not what it ought to be in the outside world. I want to ask him in what respect our image is so distorted. What is really wrong with South Africa’s image abroad? Let us analyse the position. We have three independent protectorates adjacent to our borders. There is nothing wrong with the relations between ourselves and these protectorates! In the economic sphere we have the best possible relations. Economically we are largely inter-dependent. The fact that they do not agree with certain aspects of our policy has nothing to do with our image. Let us go a little further. On our eastern boundary we have Mozambique and on our northern boundary we have Angola, both of which are good friends and neighbour states. What is wrong with our image in the eyes of the Portuguese? Take Southern Rhodesia. What is wrong with our image in Southern Rhodesia and our friendship with Southern Rhodesia? Then there is the Congo. There is nothing wrong with our relations with the present Government in the Congo! Mr. Chairman, we are surrounded with friends. The remarkable thing is that all the people who are close to us and who know our problems are our friends. I know of no enemy we have. Where are our enemies? Because certain countries, in their own interests and because of international considerations, are unable to agree with us publicly in respect of certain matters, the accusation is now made against us by the United Party that we have made enemies.

Sir, I say that South Africa is surrounded with friends. Where did this distorted image of our country really have its origin? I take it that the United Party will concede that the image of South Africa was still a good one when they were last in power. I want to show where this distorted image really had its origin. In October 1947, the last year in which the United Party was in power, they issued a certain pamphlet. Look at the role they played in creating this distorted image of the Republic. I want to read out what they said in that pamphlet. They told the electorate of South Africa that if the National Party came into power in 1948, only National Party supporters would be entitled to vote. This is what they said, amongst other things, in that pamphlet—

1. (2) The supreme power will be in the hands of Nationalists;
2. (3) the Republic must become a fait accompli, no matter by what means;
3. (4) those who are opposed to the Republic will be charged with high treason;
4. (5) the machinery for a democratic system of government will be abolished. The Union Jack will no longer fly over public buildings; “Die Stem” will be the only recognized National Anthem; newspapers which do not support the Republic will be suppressed; the English-speaking will be treated like the fifth columns of a foreign state; the accepted principle of Government will be Nazism and will be adapted to South African conditions; British subjects will have to reside in the Union for seven years before they will be able to apply for naturalization and the vote will only be granted to those who have proved their full and undivided loyalty to the Republic.

That pamphlet was issued in the last year before the United Party laid down the reins of government. That was where this distorted image had its origin. Sir, after the National Party has been in power for more than 17 years South Africa has more genuine friends in the world than she had while the United Party was in power. I say that without any fear of contradiction. But what is our image in the outside world? Sir, I also come into contact with foreigners and indeed many of them. It is not the sole prerogative of hon. gentlemen opposite to come into contact with foreigners. What is our image in the outside world? I think the outside world regards South Africa as one of the most stable countries in the world. Secondly, foreigners regard South Africa—and so far I have not come across a single foreigner who has not confirmed and re-affirmed this; one foreigner after another has confirmed it—as a country on whose word one can rely, as a country that one can trust. We do not say one thing today and a different thing to-morrow. That is the one thing that characterizes our image. But the third characteristic is that South Africa is honest in the application of the policy that she propagates. Just imagine what the position would have been if the United Party had been in power. Just imagine what the image of South Africa would have been then! We would have presented the image of a cowardly, miserable country abroad ! Because, after all, the image of South Africa abroad would have been the same as the image of the Opposition party in the outside world. Sir, I do not call my colleagues and my party as witnesses; I call the whole of South Africa as my witness; whether the United Party wants to admit it or not—ask anybody in the Republic—there is one complaint about the United Party and that is that one cannot understand these people; one can never discover what they want. That is the general complaint about the United Party. The complaint of the public against the United Party is that it is a cowardly (“papbroek”) party. I think I am correctly interpreting the feelings of the public of South Africa when I say that the public regards the United Party as a truly cowardly party.

Sir, we have these three protectorates along our borders. I must say that that personally I foresee that we are going to build up a harmonious, solid understanding with these protectorates. The protectorates will probably apply for membership of the United Nations and I think they will be admitted to the Commonwealth. I am convinced, since the protectorates realize what our problems are, since they have a clearer understanding of South Africa’s problems, that they will exercise a moderating influence in the councils of the Commonwealth as well as at UNO in respect of South Africa. We can expect a better and clearer image from the protectorates than we can from the people who foregathered at Lusaka the other day, for example. I want to say in all honesty that I am not afraid of world opinion. I am sick and tired of these people who want to crawl to world opinion and who are afraid of it. Who is the world? Does South Africa not count at all? We find that hon. members on the other side stand up here, one after another, and adopt what is really an apologetic attitude towards a foreign State which has acted in its own interests. Are we not allowed to act in our own interests? Sir, the United Party still suffers from the old inferiority complex which is a remnant of the old colonial complex; it still clings to them and there are times when it almost nauseates one.

The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) asked: Who is afraid of world opinion? Implying that of course he and his Government party are not afraid of the viewpoint of the world about South Africa. I want to suggest to the hon. member that he should read the speech made by the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs at the United Nations recently, from which I am going to quote a few extracts. He will find that that speech was designed to consider world opinion. I want the hon. member to study that speech and see whether that speech was made in complete isolation, without any consideration as to the views of the outside world, and the general views accepted in any normal civilized society, because obviously when you read the speech, it was a speech completely designed to present the internal policies of the South African Government in the closest context and perception as is possible with general world opinion as it is recognized in White civilization as we understand it today.

I want to deal with one or two other matters in the time at my disposal. Firstly, I want to deal with the question as to what steps the Minister is going to take and what is his policy in order to reinstate South Africa as a country on the African Continent in the eyes of the rest of the peoples of Africa. You see, Mf. Chairman, we have slowly been kicked out of Africa, a slow process—as the other peoples of Africa have emerged to independence and the position of self-government, we have slowly in that process been kicked out of all the instruments in which we formerly co-operated with these people under the old colonial types of government. I refer to the Commission for Technical Co-operation, the United Nations Economic Commission and other bodies of that nature. It is clear that as peoples emerged to independence, so South Africa was slowly kicked out and reduced to complete isolation at the base of the African Continent. I want to ask the hon. Minister what steps he is taking to implement what I assume was a policy statement made by the hon. the Prime Minister when he addressed his party congress in September 1964 at Port Elizabeth. There the Prime Minister, recognizing our isolation and in order to make some suggestions for positive steps to be taken for closer co-operation, suggested amongst other things that we should form a sort of economic association with certain non-White states in Africa. If the Press reports are correct, they said “Dr. Verwoerd visualizes the formation of a common economic market consisting of South Africa, the Protectorates, Southern Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia and Malawi.” I would like to ask the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs who has the responsibility for a closer association in the event of such steps being taken, whether he has taken any positive steps to bring such a conception about of a common market for Southern Africa as visualized by the hon. the Prime Minister.

Then taking the speech made by the hon. Minister at the United Nations he said this—

Well, Mr. Chairman, there have been such indications made by the Prime Ministers of different countries. Time does not allow me to go into them, but I would like to ask the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs this: Apart from all our unctuous and pious statements of co-operation, can the Minister tell this House and the country whether it is his intention to take any positive steps of approaching as Minister of Foreign Affairs the leaders of these other peoples on the rest of the continent, because I fear that we cannot any longer leave the situation in a position where we have got to wait for approaches for the statesmen of these other countries. I think the Minister would be the first to admit that if we have to wait for such approaches, we will never get any further. It is clear that no politician in charge of any government which has real power in any African state, can make an approach to South Africa for assistance without fear of losing his political position, amongst the peoples that he represents. Therefore I suggest to the Minister that he should make the first approaches, at least to give some positive indication and to take some positive steps to show that we are prepared to play our part as a White South African state together with the other African states on the continent.

Then I want to ask the hon. the Minister what is his attitude and the Government’s attitude to the proposals now being made and discussed by the other Western nations in regard to a review of the Charter of the United Nations? The practice seems to have arisen in the discussions at the United Nations that a change in the Charter can be given by interpretation, interpretation in the sense of different viewpoints that are expressed by different countries, rather than a change from the legal aspect of the actual wording of the Charter itself. The hon. Minister had this to say at the United Nations—

It is my submission . . .

He dealt at length with proposals for changes in the Charter, and he had this to say—

I do not want to debate that point of view with the hon. Minister, but that sentiment seems to indicate to me that the Minister holds the view on behalf of the Government that there is really no need for a change in the existing Charter of the United Nations. I hope that the hon. Minister will use the opportunity of this debate to give us the benefits of his views in this regard, because I agree with the viewpoints that have been expressed by other Western nations that the present balance in the United Nations as a body of world authority in respect of the powerful state as opposed to the influence of the smaller states is an imbalance and that it has now got out of all perspective in regard to the objectives of the Charter as originally envisaged by the founders in 1945. I will be glad to hear from the hon. Minister that these sentiments that he uttered did not infer that the Government were prepared to see that the Charter remains unchanged in its present form. I hope that the Minister in his reply to the debate will use the opportunity to give us his views in that regard.

Finally. I want to put another question to the hon. Minister. My hon. colleague has stated that if there is any value to be attached to the statements by Ministers representing South Africa’s viewpoint before the peoples of the world at the United Nations, then the test of these sentiments expressed by the Minister is obvious—these sentiments should be tested against the background of the Government’s attitude towards all the people in South Africa, and I want to ask the hon. the Minister: Is it this intention now to use his influence as a member of the Cabinet for a change of viewpoint on behalf of the Government towards the Coloured and the Indian peoples of South Africa, because the hon. Minister had this to say in his speech: In order to prove the Government’s bona fides before the rest of the peoples of the world at the United Nations’ Forum, the Minister said this—

And he went on to say—

At present.

Yes, and who are the people living within the boundaries of South Africa at present? I am not aware of any foreigners, I am not aware that the Coloured people for example are foreigners within the boundaries of South Africa. Is the hon. Minister going to strive for political equality, the ideal which he enunciates to the world, for the Indian people. Because the whole test of these utterances and of these sentiments stands on what the Government actually does in South Africa. That is the test. I want to read one other paragraph, because these are very high-sounding sentiments, sentiments which have not gone unnoticed by the world Press, and I quote again where the Minister said this—

I want to ask the hon. the Minister: In the advanced stage of the Coloured people of South Africa, the Coloured people of the Cape Province, is it the Minister’s intention to eliminate all stages of discrimination in regard to these people? Is the Minister going to take active steps to prove this? [Time limit.]

Before starting my speech I should like to put a few questions to the hon. the Minister in regard to matters about which I think the House and the country would like to have a little more information. The Opposition has unfortunately, through the dust they kick up here, sent the debate into a direction we would not have liked to have, nor the country. Therefore I want to bring the Committee back and ask the Minister to give us a little more information in regard to a few matters of importance to the country. In the first place, I should like to ask the Minister—we know that last year he went overseas and visited various countries—whether he can briefly give us a few impressions of his tour, of how he was received and what the spirit was like in those countries. South Africa is curious to know what the position in that respect is. Secondly, I should like to ask the Minister a question in respect of the impressions he gained at UNO. We should like to know more in regard to UNO and the position of checkmate which has been reached at the moment in regard to the voting at UNO, and what the position is. Then the third question I want to put is this. I have here a cut-! ting from the Rand Daily Mail of 22 May, under the headline “United States and Us”. Now I do not want to make the matter more difficult, but should like to ask a question. It is in connection with a cocktail party given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the position of our Ambassador in America, and it says the following—

I just want to ask the Minister whether he is aware of this, and whether he can tell us something in this regard. We should like to have a few more facts.

I should like to devote the rest of my time to the broad concept of foreign policy. I think we should come to the stage where we account very clearly to ourselves as South Africans as to what actually the position is in the world outside. The Opposition makes wild statements in regard to the fact that this Government and its policy and its standpoint are responsible for South Africa’s unpopularity in the world. I firstly want to deny that South Africa is unpopular in the world. We have had the report this year, which we still discussed this morning under the Information Vote, in which it was proved that a better spirit towards South Africa is being revealed in every country in the world. I do not want to go into details, but it is clear that this is so. We also came into contact with visitors from overseas who give us the impression that the world, as the result of certain circumstances, is prepared to listen to South Africa and to try to understand its problems and is prepared to give South Africa a chance to solve its problems. There is another reason why I say that we are being better understood in the world, namely that events in Africa have shocked the civilized world back to reality, so that they now realize that the problems in Africa are different from those in the rest of the world and that the South African Government is at present very tactfully handling the only method of solving those problems.

I think another matter which is definitely operating in our favour at present is the increasing communist influence, and particularly that of Chinese communism, in certain African states. I think Western Europe and even America are reviewing the whole position in regard to their Africa policy and their attitude towards South Africa. We are the only country on the Continent of Africa which has unequivocally expressed itself as being opposed to communism and has taken positive steps against it. In most countries of Africa there is still the attitude of sitting on the fence watching from which side the wind will blow in the future. I want to say that the unpopularity South Africa had was not due to this Government or its policy; it was the result of a world tendency, and I want to motivate it.

In the first place there is the general situation, viz a revolt and a reaction on the part of the non-White world against the era of White domination which has lasted over the past few centuries. That is a world tendency. If we look at the situation historically, we clearly see that 400 or 500 years ago White civilization consisted of a small, unimportant group of people in Western Europe. They had authority over one-tenth of the surface of the earth, but as the result of circumstances and the driving force of the White man they crossed the seas and, took possession of new countries. The White man maintained his authority there and he was master over nine-tenths of the surface of the earth. Now a reaction has set in against the position of the White man on the part of the non-Whites, and in various countries the White man had to get out and go back whence he came. The countries which were occupied in this way fall into two categories, firstly the group }f countries where world opinion accepts that the White man came temporarily to bring civilization and technical knowledge and thereafter to disappear, and the White man has in fact disappeared from areas such as India, Indo-China, etc. But there were other areas where the White man came to stay and where he is still being accepted to-day and nobody doubts that it is White area, as e.g. Australasia, which includes Australia and New Zealand and the U.S.A., the New World. Nobody talks about America any longer as being a colonized area. The world and everybody who criticizes us so much are prepared to accept, if there is talk about America for the Americans, that it means the White American and not the original inhabitants. But the moment it comes to South Africa there is a section of world opinion which adepts the standpoint that South Africa is only a settler’s area and that the White man must get out here. The Government and we as South Africans adopt the standpoint that South Africa is a White area just like America and Australia, and that the White man has come here to stay here permanently. It is this struggle, which has given rise to this whole tendency, and it is in that light that I want to view the matter. I want to say clearly that we in South Africa have to do with a world tendency, a challenge to the authority of the White man. and the Republic of South Africa is just a small part of the world where the authority of the Whites is being challenged.

There is a second reason why we have this problem in South Africa, and that is the ignorance and the deliberate distortion of facts for overseas consumption, and standpoints which are deliberately distorted overseas. But I want to put it very pertinently that we are busy combating this situation also and that progress is being made. I want to point to one proof of this. Just as a matter of interest, I examined the report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services to see what was being done to give guidance to the states to the north of us in Africa, and I found a long list of things. I was quite surprised to see all the things that are being done and what co-operation there is between South Africa and a whole series of African territories. [Time limit.]

I should like to reply to some of the questions put to me by hon. members. Because of lack of time however, I shall not be able to reply to all of them at this stage. I want to say to the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) that I am sorry that I cannot make the promise that he would like me to make in connection with a talk, which I did not hear myself, by a person whose identity is not known and which was broadcast by an organization over which I have no control.

I want to say to the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) that I am pleased that he referred to this allegation which was made in a leading article in the Rand Daily Mail to the effect that there is a senior Negro member of the State Department in Washington, in the Africa Division, who has never been invited to any of the social functions at our Embassy in Washington. I can tell the hon. member and the House that it is not my policy to poke my nose into the social affairs of our ambassadors and that I do not check guest lists from time to time, but I can give hon. members the assurance that our embassies abroad do respect and fall into line with the customs and traditions and practices of the countries in which they are serving, also as far as social integration in America is concerned. I can go further and say that Negro members of the American administration and members of the Congress and Government and of their Department of Foreign Affairs have been invited to such functions by our Embassies in the past and they are still invited. I can also say that it happens every day in many parts of the world that our ambassadors associate with non-White colleagues. I did so myself, and if hon. members have been following the recent Press reports they will realize that that is still being done by our ambassadors. I am glad the hon. member gave me the opportunity to touch upon this matter here.

The hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. Loots) referred to the great achievements of the U.S.A. in connection with space research and space travel. In this connection I can say that I sent a telegram to our ambassador in the United States, in which I requested him to convey the congratulations of the Government of South Africa to the American Government, through the American Foreign Minister, because, as the hon. member has correctly said, this is a tremendous achievement for a member of the Free World and we share America’s joy in this regard.

The hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Water-son) has referred once again, as he did last year, to the fact that I have not issued a White Paper with regard to the last session of U.N.O. I must say that after he criticised me in this connection last year I considered the matter very seriously and I consulted my Department in this regard, but in the light of the extraordinary nature of the nineteenth session of U.N.O. towards the end of last year I came to the conclusion, together with my advisers, that it would serve no useful purpose to issue a White Paper with regard to that particular session. I am sorry the hon. member for Constantia did not let me know that he did not have a copy of the speech which I made there, because I would very gladly have given him and other hon. members copies of it. If the hon. member had read the speech he would have come to the conclusion that most of the quotations from my speech to which he referred here were either quoted out of context or were not correct at all. He asked, for example, whether it was correct that I had only referred to the development of the Bantu areas and what was being done for the Bantu in South Africa: That is not correct. I did refer briefly at page 13 of the text of my speech to what was being done for the Indians and the Coloureds in South Africa, but in the nature of things I placed the greatest emphasis on the Bantu, having regard to their large numbers and the fact that the most difficult and the most important part of our problem has to do with the Bantu. I pointed out that a great deal was also being done for them.

May I ask whether the hon. the Minister is referring to page 13 of the copy of U.N.O. or page 13 of the copy provided by the Department?

I think, the copy of my Department. I think the other impression which the hon. member gained and that is that I talked about the independence of nations within the borders of South Africa is based entirely on a misunderstanding or an erroneous interpretation of my words. I did refer to the peoples who are within the borders of South Africa at the present time, but, as has correctly been pointed out, it would be completely illogical to talk about sovereignty within the borders of another state.

The hon. member talked about my reference to a “vocal minority” which opposes the National Party. In this connection I think I should perhaps refer hon. members to the text of my speech. I said, amongst other things—

I was referring here to a small minority of saboteurs who cause trouble in South Africa and whose activities receive great publicity overseas.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) attributed quite a number of statements to me. I am not going to admit here that I immediately recognized all the statements attributed to me, but I do not want to quarrel with him in that regard. The hon. member talked about diplomatic representation, particularly as far as the Africa states, the non-White states, are concerned, and about preparatory work that should be done in that connection. The impression I gained was that he had in mind preparations here in South Africa to accustom our people to this idea. But if that is what the hon. member had in mind, then I think he is wide of the mark. We in South Africa have proved in the past that we know how to associate with non-Whites and how to treat them. We had non-White representatives here in the past and the fact that they are no longer here to-day is not due to any action taken by this Government. Our ambassadors abroad come into contact with these people daily. But when we talk about diplomatic relations with Africa we must continually bear in mind—I do not propose to go into this matter fully—that there are certain extremist states in Africa which are conducting a cold war against South Africa. No matter how much preparatory work we do here in South Africa or elsewhere, as long as that cold war continues to be conducted against us by extremists in Africa, all our preparatory work will be to no avail and will take us no further in extending diplomatic relations in Africa. Sir, I do not propose to enlarge upon this. The Government’s attitude in connection with the question of an exchange of diplomats and diplomatic relations with Africa states has often been explained in this House. It was also stated quite clearly here last year by the hon. the Prime Minister, amongst others, and I would refer hon. members to the Prime Minister’s statement. I think the hon. member for Bezuidenhout also talked about the possibility of diplomatic relations with the High Commission territories. Sir, in my opinion this is a matter which should not be discussed in this House at this stage. I do not think it could serve any useful purpose at this stage to discuss a matter of this kind in public. It could only embarrass the Government; it could only create difficulties for us, whatever explanation I might give here; it would simply be exploited against the Government, perhaps in South Africa and perhaps also overseas. I do not think the hon. member should press me therefore to discuss this matter here at this stage.

The hon. member for Constantia raised a very important matter here; he did so in a fine spirit and I want to thank him for the spirit in which he raised it. He referred to our future relations with the High Commission territories. Sir, this is an important matter. He asked me to make a statement in this regard. Our relations with the High Commission territories, as the hon member for Constantia and other members know is a matter which falls under the hon. the Prime Minister, but that does not mean to say that my Department and I do not have a great interest in our relations with the three territories concerned. At the moment they are not sovereign; the sovereign power at the moment is still Britain, as hon. members are aware, but there are certain arrangements in connection with these territories which fall under my Department, and once they become sovereign they will be sovereign foreign states and then they will, of course, receive the attention of my Department and myself. As I say, although this is a matter which falls under the present Prime Minister and which fell under his predecessors in the past, there are one or two facts which I want to bring to the notice of hon. members again, because I do not intend to say anything here which is not already well known. Sir, I can say that it is the Government’s earnest desire to continue, now as well as in the future when they become sovereign independent states, to live in peace and in friendship on a basis of good neighbourliness with those three territories. All three territories are moving forward on the road towards independence and members of the Government have pointed out in the past that we welcome this and we wish them every success and happiness on the road towards independence, particularly since this development towards self-government is in line with a development that we have already set in motion in the case of the Transkei and which is our aim in the case of the other Bantu peoples. All we ask is that these territories, these future states, should display the same measure of goodwill towards us in the future; that they too should observe the principle of good neighbourliness. We have already co-operated with these territories in the past in various spheres of common interest, such as the economic sphere for example. It is generally recognized and accepted to-day that economically the High Commission territories are linked up with the Republic to a very large extent. Practical evidence of this is to be found in the customs union and the monetary union, both of which have been in operation for more than half a century. Then there is the fact that the Republic provides employment to thousands of the citizens of these three territories. We shall continue to provide employment to them, provided it is not done at the expense of our own Bantu, because our first duty is to look after our own people. But if it is at all possible to do so we shall continue to employ them. Our relations with these territories continue to be friendly. We shall go on striving to co-operate with them, with every separate member of that group, in the economic sphere as well as other spheres, but particularly in the economic sphere, without any ulterior motives, without any attempt on our part to dominate them economically or otherwise. In other words, we shall continue to strive to co-operate with them, fully respecting each other’s sovereignty, without interfering with each other’s internal affairs and irrespective of the different political systems which may apply in each of these territories or states. Apart from co-operation in the economic sphere, we are already cooperating with these territories in quite a number of spheres. I might point out that technical guidance and assistance is being given to these territories to a large extent, particularly in the agricultural sphere and in the combating of stock diseases. I want to remind hon. members that the authorities of Swaziland, the British authorities, as well as the Swazi authorities, recently approached the Government in connection with the foot and mouth epidemic that broke out there. The Government of the Republic of South Africa responded immediately and at the present time I think there are six veterinarians and 100 stock inspectors from the Republic who are combating this disease in Swaziland at the cost of the Republic.

But it is also in our interests.

Of course it is in our own. interests, but international co-operation is always in the interests of both the parties who co-operate. That is why we are doing this at the cost of the Republic. I took it for granted that this would be approved and welcomed. As I have said, we did this at the request of the British authorities, which are sovereign there, as well as at the request of the authorities of Swaziland. I would also remind hon. members of the fact that South Africa helps those territories with the marketing of certain products such as citrus and wool, for example. We have a common system of marketing in respect of these products and I take it that we will continue to have this arrangement; we should like to do so. We are going to try to maintain the existing ties and to make them even stronger to our mutual benefit. But we shall only be able to do this if this aim is supported by each of the small states and if they adopt the same attitude as we do, and I hope and trust that they will do so. There are, of course, other territories in Southern Africa with which we are already heartily co-operating at the moment. The hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) has already referred to what is being done by our Department of Agricultural Technical Services. Sir, my view of Southern Africa is the following: I believe that the time has come when all the territories in Southern Africa will co-operate in all matters of common interest with a view to tackling their common problems and solving them in the interests of all the inhabitants of each particular territory.

But what are you doing in practice in that connection?

We are helping Swaziland, for example, to combat its stock diseases; we are helping them to sell their products. I have already said that we are trying to co-operate with them as far as possible.

When you talk about “Southern Africa” where do you draw the line?

I draw the line very vaguely. I even include the Congo (Leopoldville). I am explaining my view as to the future and I do not think the hon. member can expect me in these circumstances to draw a very clear line of demarcation. I am talking about the southern portion of Africa. People sometimes talk about Africa south of the Sahara. I am not suggesting that I have any specific territory in mind. But, Mr. Chairman, the realization of this ideal will depend, of course, on the attitude of each of these territories. Fortunately there are signs of a more realistic approach, in many respects, not only in the High Commission territories but also elsewhere in Africa. Hon. members will recall that two or three days ago the head of one of the Africa states strenuously attacked Red imperialism. In this connection I should like to refer hon. members to the charter of the Organization for Africa Unity and the latest attempts to live up to the principle of that organization. Let me briefly quote these principles—

1. 1. The sovereign equality of all member states;
2. 2. non-interference in the internal affairs of states;
3. 3. respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each member state, and
4. 4. its inalienable right to independent existence;
5. 7. affirmation of a policy of non-alignment with regard to all blocs.

We do not agree, of course, with the last aim, nor do we agree with the principle of arbitration, particularly where domestic affairs are concerned. We have nothing against consultations and negotiations, but the point I want to make is that, fundamentally, the vast majority of the ideals of the Organization for Africa Unity form part of our own policy. Not only do we subscribe to the vast majority of these principles and ideals but we in fact also apply them. It would be a great blessing to the whole of Africa if the other states of Africa could also apply and live up to those principles. It is no easy matter to apply those ideals in practice. It is perfectly clear to all of us who are interested in these matters that there are many Africa states which simply cannot maintain these principles. It is a fact well known that more and more we find that voices are being raised in Africa against the violation of the principles of the Organization for Africa Unity. Strenuous objections are being raised, for example, to the fact that the principle of non-intervention to which I referred a moment ago, is being ignored. Objections are being raised in particular to the interference by Ghana in the domestic affairs of other states and to the establishment of training camps for the training of saboteurs and that sort of thing. Serious attempts are being made at the moment by various Africa states and groups of Africa states to put a stop to these malpractices. Sir, I mention this here because I welcome this development. It is a development that one must welcome and I am sure hon. members will agree with me. I want to express the hope that all efforts of this kind in Africa will be successful and that the Africa states will concentrate increasingly on solving their own problems—they have many problems—and on the welfare of their own citizens because it is only in this way, Mr. Chairman, that peaceful co-existence, which is also the crux of our policy, will be promoted.

I hope the time will come when the world will realize and when Africa will also realize that we the Republic of South Africa, are prepared to make a great contribution to peace and to the welfare of Africa and that we are eminently equipped to ward off the communist danger.

What I meant when I asked the Minister to pave the way for the time which must certainly come when we would have to exchange representatives with African states outside and within our borders, was that we felt that the Minister would have to find some way or other to narrow down the field for incidents which might make others wary of co-operating with us—incidents which from time to time have brought our country into discredit. Nobody is asking the Government to let the political power out of the hands of the White man but it will have to see to it, in the interests of our safety and our co-existence with others, that normal relationship between people is possible and that human dignity is not unnecessarily hurt. Reference has been made to our future relationship with the High Commission territories. We again had an incident quite recently in Bloemfontein where, according to reports, the Prime Minister of Basutoland with his retinue arrived at a bank, was turned back at the front door and had to enter at the back door. We can shortly expect to be in a position where the states inside and beyond our borders will not only have Prime Ministers who will visit us from time to time, but ministers who will travel fairly often between their territory and ours. We must even expect our friends, like Mozambique and Angola, reasonably soon to be in a position where they will have non-White Portuguese together with White Portuguese in authoritative positions. With the traffic, which must of necessity follow, of highly placed officials between those territories and this country, how on earth are we going to maintain friendly relationships if, as a result of our internal arrangements, we continually move from one incident to the other? As we see the position, the Government will have to decide to make certain adjustments, if not, there can be no talk of good relationship. It is no good just talking about it; we shall have to make major adjustments as far as the less important things are concerned. We can retain the political power in our hands but petty apartheid will have to go, otherwise we shall get nowhere. We think the time has arrived for the Government to pave the way in that direction. We cannot have the position where the Government locks itself in a glass case, as it were, because it is afraid to have contact with civilized people at all levels. We think the least we can expect of the Government is that it plays less at party politics, that it thinks, for a change, of the greater interests of South Africa and our safety in this difficult world in which we are living.

Must all colour bars be removed?

Just think back to the position which obtained prior to 1948. Did we have all these things then or not? We need only revert to the normal position which obtained prior to 1948. People had a free choice. We had a position in which compulsory apartheid was rejected and in which compulsory integration was rejected. We had natural relationships. People determined their own relationships with other people. We did not have signs on doors prohibiting a person from entering by that door.

Do you know that Sturrock had those signs painted for the trains in Cape Town?

I am not denying that there were areas where there was separation. But if we want to co-operate with other countries, in a world which has become as small as this one, we shall have to get away from a system which affects the personal dignity of people. If we do not we shall have one unpleasant incident on the question of colour after the other with all their attendant detrimental effects. That is unavoidable. We shall find ourselves in a chronic position of crises. I think the time has arrived for us to realize that. There are responsible members on that side of the House who feel the way we do about this. Let us retain those things which are worth while retaining, such as a powerful position. It is necessary that we retain that. But we can fruitfully abandon all these petty things and take the country back to the normal and human position in which it was prior to 1948. Before 1948 that the hon. Minister who has now interjected was a leader on the side of the United Party. At that time he did not advocate petty apartheid; on the contrary, he opposed it.

I raised a matter previously which I now want to finalize. Our position as far as foreign missions are concerned is really deteriorating. At the moment we only have 20 diplomatic missions in our country of which four are vacant. The previous Minister of Foreign Affairs envisaged a mission from Japan. What has happened to that? I also want to ask whether the hon. the Minister would avail himself of this opportunity of giving us a reply to a question which I asked earlier, namely, why the special political mission which would have come here from Holland is no longer coming to South Africa?

Mr. Chairman, I am surprised that the Minister . . .

Oh!

I shall sit down if the Minister is going to rise.

You talk such a lot that you can sit down for a change.

Mr. Chairman, why has the hon. Chief Whip of the Nationalist Party always to make these silly interjections? He is supposed to set an example in this House and not to come with inanities and ridiculous statements. If he has any thoughts about the matter I suggest he rise in this House and let us have the benefit of his knowledge.

I shall reply later.