I move, as an unopposed motion:

Agreed to

Last night I only just started reacting to what the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan had had to say in his speech here yesterday afternoon. It is unfortunate that the time is so limited, but I should like to continue with him by just pointing out a few aspects of his speech. In the first place, and merely in passing: He tried to become very dramatic in pointing out that the National Party’s Congresses—provincial congresses or a national congress—have as yet never approved the Government’s policy in respect of homeland development, such as has already been started in the Transkei. That is what the hon. member said; I looked it up again in his Hansard. He referred to provincial congresses and, as he called them, general congresses. For the benefit of the hon. member I should like to quote from our congress records; I have the books here. In the limited time I had at my disposal this morning—because I was not even in town —I succeeded in obtaining, for the information of the hon. member, certain resolutions which were taken by the Natal Congress of 1963 and which refer specifically to the competent manner in which the Government has applied its homeland policy in Natal.

And independence for Zululand?

The hon. member must give me a chance. The Transkei plan was specifically mentioned by a long list of constituencies in the Cape Province. [Translation]—

The Prime Minister’s name is mentioned—

Very explicit. Here we have the congress record of the Cape Province in which the hon. member can verify that. Next we come to the Transvaal Congress. Here it is also mentioned specifically, in consequence of a whole series of resolutions taken by divisional committees and branches; I do not want to mention all of them; I do not want to fritter away my time on that. In 1962 the Transvaal National Party Congress explicitly approved the Transkei plan in the following words; it “expresses its thanks towards the Government for the positive steps it has taken in regard to the Transkei plan”. In plain and explicit terms; there is the record; the hon. member may consult it.

Does that include independence?

Yes. the entire Transkei plan, as it has been implemented and as it will be brought to fulfillment.

Then I would just like to deal briefly with another point. The hon. member claimed— other members have also, quite unjustly, done this before—that my Minister said at some stage years ago that he was completely opposed to Bantustans—as hon. members on the opposite call them—in South Africa. What the hon. the Minister had said—and he has explained it here before (I think he explained it here last year) and I now want to repeat it here and I hope that will be the end of the story— was that he rejected the idea of the eight Bantu national units forming a single composite Bantu homeland, or Bantustan, as those hon. members refer to it. That idea was rejected by the hon. the Minister. That idea is not in accordance with our view, because we envisage a Bantu homeland for every people and not a lumping together of various peoples into artificial units. That is the idea that was rejected by the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development.

I now come to the point I intend dealing with in more detail and in regard to which the hon. member behaved scandalously here yesterday, as scandalously as last year, when he wrote that article in that little publication of theirs.

You may not say that.

Mr. Speaker, it is for you to decide what I may say and what I may not, and not for that hon. member who is fleeing from Parliament. The hon. member for Orange Grove had a great deal to say here in regard to his so-called Basutoland letter after the drubbing he received at the hands of the hon. the Prime Minister the day before yesterday, and then the hon. member for Orange Grove came here yesterday and played the saint as though he had quite innocently become involved in that little issue. But if he would only play out the part of the saint and say that he was now repudiating his own words, that he was now better informed! He need not have apologized, for something of that nature is quite beyond the mentality of that hon. member; he could merely have said that he was retracting his words, but no, that he did not do. He went even further than that. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member cannot so easily escape from this matter by telling us that the identity of the person in question—that headman of Basutoland—was not known to him, as he suggested yesterday. No, there is nobody on this side of the House who thinks that that hon. member is so stupid that when he wrote that article he would not first have established the identity of the Basutoland headman in question. He investigated the matter thoroughly, and the knowledge he displayed here about the identity of the headman in question yesterday, was knowledge he had acquired in the past; to use a commonplace expression: he took a chance with that article he wrote in order to blame the National Party undeservedly. We do not believe that he is as stupid as that. I put it to you that the hon. member had in fact known at that time to what extent that particular Basutoland headman had connections with the Basutoland Congress Party. He cannot be as stupid as that; therefore it must be malice or insincerity or political insolvency which prompted him to use those words in that article in that way. Yesterday he put up a pious and serious front and said: “Surely the Prime Minister could have cleared up the matter before, because the article in the Argus or in the Friend has already dealt with the matter; why did the Prime Minister not clear up the matter then?” What foolishness, Mr. Speaker! Surely the hon. member does not expect our Prime Minister here in South Africa to intervene and to settle matters whenever an incident arises between political parties in Basutoland. Is he expected to do that? What a ridiculous excuse! No, the hon. member cannot get away with that; his own members are laughing at that sort of thing.

But the hon. member for Orange Grove did not leave the matter there in order to deal with other subjects: no. with reference to other statements made by the hon. the Prime Minister, he elaborated on the matter of the “Conquered Territory”, that strip bordering on Basutoland and extending from near Ficksburg to Wepener —and then he referred to that article he had quoted from the November 1963 edition of Bantu, an article which quoted a statement in connection with the Protectorates which had been issued by the Prime Minister in September 1963—not only in connection with Basutoland, but with all three of the High Commission Territories.

That is worse.

There we are now getting further elaborations! The hon. member for Orange Grove continues his campaign of casting suspicion on the Prime Minister and the Government, and suggests, as he did here yesterday, that the Basutoland Government, the Basutoland Prime Minister. Jonathan, and the Basutoland Parliament could dictate to this Parliament and to this Prime Minister of ours what matters should form the subject of negotiation. He must not shake his head now. I can almost hear him shaking his head. The hon. member clearly suggested that yesterday and one does not even have to read between the lines. He suggested that the Basutoland Parliament had resolved in November—he said that he had written for their minutes but that he had not yet received them, but that it was stated in those minutes that the Basutoland Parliament had unanimously resolved that headman Jonathan should approach the Government about that territory. And then the hon. member suggested that seeing that Basutoland had resolved that, the negotiations were now going to take place and the Prime Minister would then have to discuss with Jonathan what land was to be given to Basutoland. How does the hon. member arrive at those conclusions of his? I think it is scandalous. [Interjections.] The hon. the Prime Minister has said very explicitly on several occasions, inter alia, in this House and by means of statements, that he would decide, that this Government would decide for itself what matters would form the subject of negotiation and that in regard to certain matters negotiations could take place on certain conditions and provided that the right relationship existed between the two countries. How can the hon. member say that Basutoland can simply decide about anything, even that the moon is made of cheese, and that our Prime Minister would say yes, he would discuss it. [Interjections.] I shall give the hon. member an opportunity of putting a question when I have finished talking and provided there is time left.

The Prime Minister stated very clearly that he would decide what matters would form the subject of negotiations, and that certain matters would not form the subject of negotiations, and the Prime Minister has already stated that negotiations would not take place about the conquered territory. I told the hon. member a moment ago that I would give him an opportunity of putting his question, and that there would also be other debates during which he could raise that matter. Then the hon. member quoted from that article in Bantu and he referred to the “Conquered Territory” and he made various other suggestions; and. mind you, he did that after the Prime Minister had spoken here the day before yesterday. He continued to elaborate on the matter and he said that the Prime Minister had stated in Bantu that land in the Republic which belonged to the same ethnic group as the Basutos could be added to Basutoland and that land belonging to the Whites could be exchanged and purchased. What did the Prime Minister say in that regard? We can deal with that, but before I do I should like to say to the hon. member, for his own benefit, that it seems to me as though he has never been in the vicinity of Fouriesburg or Ficksburg or Ladybrand. That territory is inhabited by Whites and not by people who have ethnic connections with Basutoland. If he does not know that, there are members here who were born there and who can tell him that. That piece of land adjoining Basutoland and which fits in with it ethnically, is not the “Conquered Territory”. The hon. member knows that very well. He is not as stupid as that. He knows very well that it does not apply to the “Conquered Territory”. [Interjections.] Witzieshoek is situated there.

I just want to ask the Minister this. The point he is dealing with is point No. 3 of the Prime Minister. Please deal with point No. 4.

Order! That is not a question.

I shall deal with everything if hon. members will only give me the opportunity to do so. If they have studied the geography of South Africa, hon. members ought to know that the areas adjoining Basutoland and fitting in with it ethnically are Witzieshoek and the Herschel area. Then there are the other Protectorates as well, but I do not have the time to discuss them—they ought to know what the adjoining areas are. Now. what did the hon. the Prime Minister mean? In that statement of September 1963, which I looked up again to-day, he stated very explicitly that if the relations between the two countries were satisfactory—a very clear preliminary condition—and if good relations were established between the Republic and the High Commission Territories, a revision of the land situation could take place between the two territories. He did not put it vaguely; he tabulated it, one, two, three and four, and he also went further than that, because land was not the only issue that was involved. Economic and political development and the addition of land were also involved. The hon. members should read that statement. An official statement was issued in that regard by the Department of Information. What the Prime Minister said, amounted to this, that instead of a High Commission Territory eventually becoming an independent country and a separate ethnically related Bantu area in the Republic also becoming independent adjacent to it, those two territories could, if they adjoined each other and we could give them the necessary guidance, be united into one territory. Instead of there being a separate Basutoland A and a separate Basutoland B, which latter territory would, as it were, form or have formed part of the Republic, those two territories could be united with each other. It is in that regard that I referred to ethnically related people. [Interjections.] I shall deal with all the points if the hon. members will afford me the time to do so, but it seems to me that the hon. members want to waste my time so that I cannot speak.

Then the hon. Prime Minister said this. I am reading from the Press statement—

I am not backing away an inch from what the Prime Minister said. What does it mean? That is on the pattern of the 1963 legislation which allows for excisions and additions, and areas can be adjusted according to that pattern. If there is an area which can be cut out of the Protectorates and incorporated into the Republic, and if in exchange an area could be cut out of the Republic and incorporated into a Protectorate, that could be done. It can be done by means of exchange, or, as the Prime Minister said, purchase. How would one state sell land to another? One state cannot decide about it on its own. This House would have to decide about that, and we on our part would have to fix a price and would have to be willing to sell. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Transkeian Territories maintains that there will not be a price, but he puts into my mouth words I did not use. I have now stated this matter in general terms. Even though I did not want to quote examples. I have done so. But it ought to be clear to hon. members who are familiar with the High Commission Territories and the adjoining territories in South Africa that there are territories in all three of those areas which make an exchange a perfectly feasible proposition for the future. This matter has been discussed previously and hon. members ought to know that. I do not want to quote specific examples and I do not think it would be correct to do so. These are matters which depend upon the future. But to suggest, as that hon. member did, that the Prime Minister is intent upon creating a greater Basutoland and a smaller Republic, is an absurd misrepresentation of the facts. And considering what he previously wrote in connection with that Basutoland letter. I should like to tell the hon. member for Orange Grove that I sympathize with him. If he, in his capacity as a paid propagandist of his party, has to earn his money in such a manner, I feel sorry for him, because he has to write against his country and his people. That is a pitiable method of making propaganda and I hope that the hon. member will be brought to his senses.

But we cannot allow this matter to end there. The Prime Minister made a very explicit anneal to the Leader of the Opposition the day before yesterday in connection with what he called the smear campaign started by the hon. member for Orange Grove. The Prime Minister asked the Leader of the Opposition whether he approved of something of that nature, and now the hon. member for Orange Grove comes along and continues with his slanted representations of the words of the Prime Minister. I am telling the Leader of the Opposition that he owes the Prime Minister an explanation in this regard. We know that in the past the Leader of the Opposition has always conducted himself in a very exemplary and proper manner in regard to matters of this kind. I appeal to him to conduct himself in a like manner this time, and when he speaks in this House he should correct the hon. member for Orange Grove. He could even do it in private, but in fairness to us he must do it. But forget about us. For the sake of his personal honour he should repudiate the hon. member for Orange Grove, and the Leader of the Opposition should not unleash the bulls of Bashan or the Beelzebubs in his party.

Order! Who are the bulls of Bashan?

The Leader of the Opposition will be a better judge of that. He should not give free rein to the wild men of his party to perpetrate irresponsibilities and improprieties to their own discredit. If he remains silent about this matter, he will compromise himself and his party, and the hon. member for Orange Grove has, of course, already associated himself with the Congress Party of Basutoland as an ally. [Interjections.] If the Leader of the Opposition remains silent about that he and his entire party are associating themselves with it. We shall presently see whether he wants to associate himself with it.

I should also like to deal with the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes). He discussed our Transkeian policy and he said that the Prime Minister’s Transkeian policy and Mr. Wilson’s Rhodesian policy were the same in that they would lead to chaos and suffering for the Whites in the Transkei. That is a very mischievous allegation to make. It is a very ignorant and misleading allegation to make. The hon. member was intent upon suggesting that the Prime Minister’s policy in the Transkei was as chaotic for the Whites in the Transkei as Mr. Wilson’s policy in Rhodesia. [Interjections.] Now the hon. member wants to qualify that, but that was the gist of what he had said. However, he compares two countries and two policies which are not comparable at all. Our friend, Mr. Wilson, envisages in Rhodesia a multiracial, mixed and integrated community consisting of the Bantu masses and the handful of Whites in that country, and he wants the Bantu to dominate and rule over the Whites and to take over their developments and assets. Neither does Mr. Wilson provide any guarantees to the Whites in Rhodesia, which is in every respect the direct opposite of what we are doing to the Whites in the Transkei. We stand for a uniracial state in the Transkei. The ultimate object of our policy is to bring about a uniracial state in the Transkei. They already have a uniracial Government there, and it is going to develop further. But it is uniracial and its Government has no mixed element in it at all—that Government will not rule over any Whites; their assets will not be taken away. This Government is providing safeguards and guarantees to the Whites as regards the take-over of their properties and assets by the Bantu in the Transkei. Hon. members know that. We have issued a White Paper; we have made statements; we are voting money for that purpose and we have established bodies to do the necessary work in that regard. On what grounds do hon. members now identify our policy for the Transkei with Mr. Wilson’s policy for Rhodesia?

It is identical!

There that hon. member again exclaims that it is identical. That is a technique they can try in the coming election. Sir. Once again they will under-estimate the public, as they have done before. Our public is not so ignorant. They should not think that they will be able to mislead our public with such ignorant arguments. On the day of the election the public will once again turn the tables on them.

The hon. member for the Transkeian Territories also had something else to say about the Transkei. He again pleaded for the economic development of the Transkei and he asked why White capital was not allowed in the territory to develop it. This aspect has been dealt with repeatedly; consequently it is unnecessary to deal with it again. What hon. members want in this respect is exactly what they want in regard to Rhodesia. It is the same sort of thing. They want us to do something which would create for us an ever-increasing problem to be solved in the future. That is what they want to do.

Hon. members know that in the course of years many White interests have become established in the Transkei. Economic interests have become established there. These interests are now being taken over gradually, subject to our guarantee. They are being taken over from the Whites and transferred to the Bantu. We realize that it is a major undertaking. We know that it might cost a great deal of money. What those hon. members want is that we should allow those interests to increase there and that we should introduce them into the other Bantu areas as well, so that this process of the Bantu homelands becoming blacker and the change-over from White interests to Bantu interests may become progressively more difficult. That is what hon. members on the opposite side want.

As hon. members on the opposite side ought to know, it is our policy to stimulate economic, industrial, agricultural and other development in the Bantu homelands as much as possible. Our object in doing so is, firstly, to enable the Bantu himself to do what he can, and secondly, to provide him with economic assistance and advice. We also want to help them with border industries near their own areas. But in pursuance of legislation passed last year, we particularly want to stimulate and initiate the necessary industrial and other economic development there by means of corporations which are being established for the Bantu homelands. That is what can be done by means of corporations, so that we may have a statutory body which could hand over the reins to another statutory body. In that way we shall avoid having a number of White persons there who will have to be indemnified against losses when the Bantu are able to manage and take over those interests at some future date. This is what we call a creative withdrawal of the Whites from the Bantu homelands in which they have become too deeply entrenched over the years.

The hon. member for Transkeian Territories denied yesterday, by way of an interjection, that he had, as the hon. the Minister had alleged, obstructed and opposed the zoning committee which investigated the zoning of the White towns in the Transkei where the Bantu could infiltrate. He denied that. Here I have the newspaper report to which the hon. the Minister referred.

That was after their meeting.

Whether it was a meeting, a carousal or a spree is none of my concern! It is stated very clearly in the report—

Why did I say that?

Further down in the report the following appears in quotation marks—

But why did I in fact say that?

It is printed in his local gospel, namely the Daily Despatch, of 3 October 1964.

Read the whole report!

I have read the whole report. These two quotations are doubly sufficient to prove what the hon. the Minister had said here. He merely did not have the report at hand.

But why did I say so?

Now I come to the hon. member for Natal South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell), to whom I should also like to say a few things. This hon. member was very perturbed yesterday when somebody said here that the United Party’s policy, its race federation policy, was a policy of partnership with the Bantu. This little publication of theirs, which comes from the yellow Press of South Africa, says it very clearly, in several places, in fact. We know the words “share in the government of the country”. They occur like a refrain. We know those words and they also occur in this little publication entitled “’n Handleiding vir Beter Rasseverhoudinge”. I shall now proceed to read from it. The following appears on page 2, paragraph (iii) [translation]—

On page 10 the following words appear—

I repeat: “… of being represented in the central government.”

But not in Parliament.

Is that not partnership? Is that not a share? Mr. Speaker, I say that it is a share! [Time limit.]

I am sure that the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Development will forgive my not entering into what is quite obviously a private fight between himself and the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan). Accordingly I will devote very little time to the speech he has just made. He made one interesting observation about the policy which he stated was that of Mr. Wilson towards Rhodesia, which, to my mind, is the only interesting part of his speech which is worth replying to, and I shall be replying to that in the course of my speech. Listening to this debate during the last few days I find that everything that we have heard in this House is old hat. We heard of Bantustans and race federations and all the other arguments. We have been listening to the same things year in and year out on race policies in South Africa. The only new element that has entered the no confidence debate has in fact been the Rhodesian issue. Therefore I want to come directly to the Rhodesian issue.

I want to deal first of all with the attitude of the official Opposition to the Rhodesian crisis. I want to say at once that I am in complete support of those people who have said—and some of them are on the opposite side of the House—that the attitude of the Opposition concerning U.D.I. has been utterly irresponsible. The intention of the Opposition has been obvious to anybody who has the eyes to see and the wit to understand. They realized —or they thought they realized—that the whole of White South Africa was firmly on the side of Smith and U.D.I. And therefore, seeking the votes of the electorate in the forthcoming election and believing that the Nationalist Party had missed out on what was clearly an important emotional issue, they hastened to show their support of Mr. Smith and his Government. The ink was not even dry yet on the declaration of U.D.I. when in November at the Bloemfontein congress of the United Party, the entire congress leapt to its feet, led by its leader, and gave three hearty cheers for Mr. Smith. And I say, Sir, that this is the height of irresponsibility. Because what in fact are the hon. Leader of the Opposition and his party asking South Africa to do other than to ally itself with a band of rebels, ally itself with a government of rebels, legally and otherwise categorized as rebels, a government whose constitution has not even been recognized by its own High Court? Our Government is urged to give de facto recognition to a government whose own High Court in Rhodesia has not yet recognized the validity of its constitution! Therefore I say that is the height of political opportunism. I do not know what the United Party was cheering when it cheered at Bloemfontein. Rhodesia is in a state of siege, in a state bordering on economic paralysis. She is desperately seeking markets. She has been put out of the sterling bloc and is encountering the most difficult financial conditions. She is unrecognized by the Western world, and her inhabitants are riding bicycles. Well, if all these things are to be cheered, then I for one am astounded! I ask the hon. Leader of the Opposition what in heaven’s name did Rhodesians, White or Black, have after 11 November that they did not have far better before that day? At that time business was looking up. Immigrants were coming in and after several years of economic uncertainty, the country was clearly showing signs of recovery. What is more, there was no political hurry for U.D.I. Politically Rhodesia has been in fact self-governing since 1923. She was to all intents and purposes completely self-governing. There was no immediate danger of a Black take-over which might have forced Mr. Smith into declaring U.D.I. Indeed, the one good thing that has emanated from this whole Rhodesian crisis, a crisis that has put the whole continent of Africa into a turmoil as far as race relations are concerned and has endangered the relationship of the Whites everywhere in Africa, the only good thing that has emanated from this has in fact been that the British Government has made the most unequivocal statement about not requiring a Black take-over in Rhodesia immediately. This is the one good thing which has emanated from the Rhodesian crisis.

Speaking in Rhodesia before he left for England, Mr. Wilson made it quite clear that he did not regard the choice to be one between U.D.I. and a Black take-over, or that independence would only be granted on a basis of a Black take-over. He made that point again— and this is where the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development was quite wrong—when he broadcast over the B.B.C. on returning to Britain. He made it at Lagos at the conference of Commonwealth states. He made it at the U.N. when he was talking to all the Afro-Asian nations who were demanding the enforcement of a policy of “one man. one vote” and military steps against Rhodesia. He reiterated his point of view that it was not a condition as far the British were concerned for consent to independence that there be a hand-over to Black majority government. That, as I said, is the only good thing which has emanated from the Rhodesian crisis.

Now, in the light of all this, I wonder why it was imperative for Mr. Smith to declare U.D.I. when he did. What was the hurry?

Read about the negotiations.

I have read the negotiations; I have read the Blue Book issued by the British office of information. And as far as I can see from those negotiations Britain and Mr. Smith were within an ace of reaching agreement. In fact, the only thing on which they were not in agreement was the question of pace. That is all. But the actual details could have been hammered out. The Royal Commission could have hammered them out. There was no urgency for the declaration of U.D.I. The only explanation that I can think of is that Mr. Smith himself was committed to U.D.I. He knew perfectly well that if he did not declare U.D.I. he would go the way of his predecessor, Mr. Field. He misjudged the situation in Britain, because he believed he was dealing with a weak Government in England. He was basing his whole gamble on the precarious situation of the Labour Government in England. Apparently he does not realize that even a Tory Government would be committed to basically the same line on U.D.I. as are Mr. Wilson and the Labour Government. He was probably basing his hopes also on the fact that he was going to get some aid—why he thought so I do not know —from South Africa. He thought, perhaps, also that U.D.I. would be a nine-day wonder. But he completely misjudged the feelings of the world on the issue of U.D.I. The result has been a crisis which has endangered race relations throughout Africa.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me turn to the Government and its attitude on U.D.I. I must say that, prior to listening to the hon. the Prime Minister two days ago in this House, I thought all along that the Prime Minister’s attitude towards the Rhodesian crisis was strictly correct. I thought he had taken the correct line. And I thought so for reasons which I now want to explain.

First of all, I thought he gave two very valid reasons for not intervening. The first was the obvious one, namely, that if we wished to have our own doctrine of non-intervention respected then South Africa herself had no business to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries, or in what were strictly negotiations between Britain and Rhodesia. So, therefore, to me that was a valid reason for non-intervention.

The second was that I thought that we would undoubtedly—and this was another reason given by the hon. the Prime Minister— jeopardize our own relations with our Western allies and with our trading partners if, in fact, we intervened on the side of Rhodesia in the dispute.

Now, regarding the third reason, I should like to say that, although we reach the same conclusion, the bases for the conclusion are quite different. The hon. the Prime Minister has implied, and indeed the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and others have also implied—that because the Smith Government has partnership as its basic policy, because the Smith Government does not apparently, according to them, support apartheid, therefore the cause of U.D.I. was not a worthy one. That was the implied statement when the Prime Minister, inter alia, said that in any case the policy of Rhodesia is that of partnership, and not a policy of separation.

I say that the cause is not a worthy one for precisely the opposite reason. How anybody can still be under the illusion that Mr. Smith has partnership as a basis of his policy is quite beyond me. The whole history of the development of the Rhodesian Front, stemming, as it did, from the Dominion Party, which emanated from opposition to Sir Edgar Whitehead and the 1961 Constitution for Southern Rhodesia, surely makes it obvious that precisely the opposite is the case. Mr. Smith has stated over and over again that it is his intention to maintain White supremacy in Rhodesia for as long as possible, for his life-time, and presumably forever, if he were able to do so.

Hear, hear!

The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) is uttering one of his last bleats in this House. Perhaps he should rather get up and tell us exactly what it is that he wishes us to do in the case of Rhodesia.

The very first thing Mr. Smith did after U.D.I. was to scrap the 1961 Constitution and to substitute his own Constitution, which is, of course, a very different cup of tea indeed. He radically altered the whole mechanism for amending the entrenched clauses of the 1961 Constitution. He has not yet amended any of the clauses, but what he has amended is the mechanism for amending those clauses. The entrenched clauses, such as the franchise, such as the constitutional council, such as the declaration of rights are involved. These are the entrenched clauses that existed in the 1961 Constitution. They could only be amended not merely by a two-thirds majority of the Rhodesian House but also either—and this obviously would go with independence—with the consent of the British Government or— and this could have remained, since it is an intrinsic factor of Rhodesia herself—by a majority obtained at all racial referenda. That was the only way the entrenched clauses, including the franchise, could be changed. That has gone by the board. Now the entrenched clauses of the constitution may be amended by a two-thirds majority of the Rhodesian Parliament, and then there is a delaying period until the Officer Administering the Government can at the following session be asked to implement the changes. That is all. The racial referenda have gone. And, therefore, Mr. Smith has made the Rhodesian Parliament sovereign and completely unhampered by any entrenched clauses.

Now, that alone should have given the hon. the Leader of the Opposition cause, I would think, to think twice before he supported Mr. Smith. Have we not in this House, in South Africa generally, had a great deal of experience of Governments which monkeyed with their constitution, which changed entrenched clauses, which changed methods whereby entrenched clauses could be over-ridden if they could not be altered in the ordinary way? Have we not had years and years of fighting in this House and in our courts over the very issue of changing constitutions in order to amend entrenched clauses? Surely nobody can be under any misapprehension whatever that the reason why Mr. Smith has changed his constitution and has radically tampered with the way in which the entrenched clauses may be amended, is specifically in order at some time when he deems it more propitious, to alter those entrenched clauses? Surely nobody on the Opposition benches is foolish enough to imagine that the constitution as it obtained in 1961. that the clauses referred to therein are going to be maintained? That is what the whole fight is about in Rhodesia.

Therefore, as I say, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition should have thought very long and very hard before he was swept into an emotional approval of Mr. Smith and the illegal government in Rhodesia.

Now, to get back to the hon. the Prime Minister. As I said earlier, till he spoke a couple of days ago, I believed that he had adopted the right attitude towards Rhodesia. But now I am not nearly as sure as I was before, but for quite a different reason, of course, from the official Opposition, which is trying to push the Government into open support of Rhodesia. The hon. the Minister of Transport quite justifiably said yesterday that the Opposition should tell the Government just what they wanted South Africa to do. I should very much like to hear from the official Opposition what they would do if they were in a position to assist Rhodesia at this particular time. Do they want South Africa to send oil tankers up in defiance of the oil embargo? Do they want us to get ourselves in trouble with the sterling bloc by playing around with our balances to Rhodesia’s advantage? Because these are the things that are going to help Rhodesia, not sending up a dozen golf balls to one’s chums. Nor will it help to send up sugar, a sort of “Gifts and Comforts” Verwoerdian variety that was suggested by the hon. the Prime Minister. Why he suggested sugar heaven alone knows. Because the one thing they are not in short supply of is sugar, since Rhodesia lost her Commonwealth quota.

Now, what did the hon. the Prime Minister tell us the other day? He said he had no objection to people aiding Rhodesia privately. They could send sugar and butter and oil. I think sugar is quite unnecessary and butter is not important. But oil is very important. Now, what does the hon. the Prime Minister mean when he said that private individuals could assist in sending oil? Does this mean that the Prime Minister is remaining neutral in this event, so that it can be easy for people privately to aid Rhodesia? Is the intrinsic reason for not aiding Rhodesia still the important one, namely that he does not want South Africa to be brought into a state of siege and does not want repercussions on South Africa as a result of anything we might do to aid Rhodesia? Or is it something else? As I said, I am no longer as sure of the Prime Minister’s attitude as I was previously.

So I want to carry the hon. the Prime Minister’s rather shifty statement on this question of aid a little further. I want to ask him what he meant by that. Does he mean that private individuals will be allowed to send as much oil as they can afford to send?

And why not?

I will tell hon. members why not: Because if this thing really assumes important proportions, it will mean, of course, that South Africa’s own requirements for oil will have to be made up either out of our own stockpile of oil or out of additional purchases. Now, this is not normal trading any longer.

Suppose I would be prepared to make do with less oil. What has that to do with you or Mr. Wilson?

That means you will have to start rationing, because the hon. member’s saintly intentions are unlikely to be carried out by the rest of South Africa. People do not act that way unless they have to. Supposing that this reaches proportions where our own oil has to be replenished, either out of the stockpile over and above our normal use, or from additional purchases. That would no longer be normal trading. This is something the oil companies cannot ignore. They will have to order additional amounts, quantities over and above our usual requirements. And that will surely come to the attention of their own governments. These are the logical implications.

That is business.

No, it is not. The hon. member should confine himself to defence matters. He is not too good on those, but on this subject he is even worse. As I say, this is not business, this is not normal trading. The moment South Africa has to order any untoward quantities of oil from outside, it will be noticed, and it can bring repercussions on this country. Is this what the official Opposition is prepared to face? And is this what the hon. the Prime Minister wants for this country? Let us make no mistake about it.

To return to my main theme, I think negotiations about independence for Rhodesia should have continued until some agreement was reached. As I say, the parties were within an ace of reaching agreement. I think it is absolutely crazy to have put the whole of the continent of Africa into turmoil over the reckless declaration of U.D.I.

Tell Mr. Wilson that.

Why? Mr. Wilson did not declare unilateral independence. Mr. Smith declared unilateral independence. As I was saying, this airy-fairy business of private individuals helping Rhodesia is not in fact as airy-fairy as it sounds. It has grave implications, and it might carry grave repercussions, and I think the hon. the Prime Minister fortunately is aware of that. I would like very much to know from the Prime Minister or the Minister of Economic Affairs what this inter-departmental committee set up by the Department of Commerce and Industries is going to do about this question of allowing oil in free supply to go up to Rhodesia. I for one do not think that Rhodesia can get away with U.D.I. like this. I think the Western powers are committed not to allow it. It is not only Britain’s commitment to 4,000,000 Africans, it is not even only the rest of the African states which are involved here, but there is the one important over-riding political fact, and that is that the Western nations cannot condone an illegal government dedicated to racial discrimination, which is what the Smith regime in fact means: it cannot condone it, and I for one do not believe that the present state of affairs in Rhodesia will continue. I must say that I do feel considerable sympathy for all those moderate Rhodesians, White and Black, who find themselves in this calamitous position through nothing of their own making, through the actions of a bunch of hot-headed politicians, which indeed is what this country so often has to suffer, too.

I suppose Wilson is cool-headed!

It is not only Wilson. The hon. member here, in his hot-headed way, makes the same mistake that so many people in this country are making and indeed that Mr. Smith is making. He seriously thinks that it is only Mr. Wilson who is opposing U.D.I. He is quite wrong. The Tory party also opposes U.D.I. A Tory government might negotiate with Mr. Smith more easily than Mr. Wilson; it might perhaps have some different detailed arrangements, but basically the Tory party— one need only read the statements made by previous prime ministers—is as much against U.D.I. as is Mr. Wilson and the Labour Government, and so is the U.S.A, and so are the other Western nations, which is why they have joined Britain in the oil embargo and the other sanctions applied against Rhodesia. I say that if we really hope for any long-term security in Rhodesia, what we should be hoping for is the speedy re-establishment of proper multiracial government in Rhodesia. That is the only long-term safeguard that Rhodesia can have because, after all. when all the heat and dust of U.D.I. has died away, the future government of Rhodesia is going to have to deal with the same situation, which still means a multi-racial Rhodesia, where the interests of a Black majority have to be reconciled with the interests of a White minority and where one hopes economic progress can be assured within the context of social justice. That, Sir, is the basic factor that any Rhodesian government is going to have to deal with, and that is why, if we are really sympathetic towards Rhodesia, we should hope for negotiations on that basis and on no other basis, not on the basis of keeping Mr. Smith’s White supremacist government in power. If I may say so, I have never heard of a more ludicrous suggestion than that the hon. the Prime Minister should act as negotiator. If anything is likely to act as a red rag to a bull …

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) said that yesterday. and he said that if the Prime Minister does not act, then some Black mediator would come in. Or did I misunderstand him? If I did then obviously I will withdraw what I said but that is what I understood him to say and I was here when he spoke. He is often incoherent but I did hear that.

As I say, that is what we should be hoping for, and I would like to say as far as the longterm prospects in Rhodesia are concerned, that what I ask for Rhodesia holds good for South Africa too. The only long-term safeguard in South Africa is racial goodwill based on racial co-operation, and if the peace and quiet in South Africa, which the hon. the Prime Minister boasts about, can only be maintained by bigger and better police forces and bigger and better armies and further and further encroachments on the rule of law and on civil liberties, in that case I say that it will not be a lasting peace at all. Sir, it is all very well for smug Whites to boast about peace and quiet; they do not have to pay the price in poverty, in malnutrition, in broken homes. [Time limit.]

In her speech the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) succeeded in informing the country that she was opposed to the Official Opposition, that she was opposed to the attitude adopted by the Government in respect of Rhodesia, that she was opposed to Mr. Smith and the Rhodesians, and consequently only supported Mr. Wilson and his actions. Her solution is a multi-racial government in Rhodesia—the old old story—and also the same recipe for the Republic of South Africa. I do not intend reacting to that. This afternoon I want to confine myself briefly to the question of education. Recently the Opposition has seized this matter as a means of spreading unrest. According to a newspaper report the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) set the ball rolling, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said when introducing his motion that the manpower shortage in the country was due to a lack of vision and a lack of prior planning in the education and the training of our young people. Yesterday the hon. the Prime Minister was brief in effectively squashing this allegation. However, 1 want to elaborate somewhat and want to give more details. These are all loose allegations, especially as a result of there being a very vague notion of all the problems one has to contend with. It is very easy to add and to subtract a little and to say: “So much is needed; so much is available, and consequently the shortage is so much,” but in this instance the problem is more involved. I wonder whether the Opposition realizes how difficult it is to predict a country’s manpower requirements in the various sectors of the national economy, and in the second place how difficult it is to arrange one’s training and one’s education programme in such a manner that one can make a proper contribution at the right time to meet the requirements. This is no easy matter, and I am afraid that hon. members on the Opposition side who allowed themselves to be misled, allowed themselves to be misled by bodies and persons who are not truly authorities in the field of education. The bodies and persons who misled them and who created the impression amongst them that political propaganda might possibly be made from education, actually helped them from the frying pan into the fire—and I am going to prove that this afternoon.

What are the difficulties really in determining the manpower shortage in the various sectors? A labour force is of course necessary in each sector and on each level of a country’s economy. from the unskilled labourer to the most highly skilled specialist. One does not only require one group: one requires one’s group of workers on each level and in all sectors, and as soon as there is a disturbance in one sector, it leads to a general disturbance. The difficulty lies in being able to determine in advance how many trained persons will be required at the various stages of a country’s development on each level in each sector to ensure a really balanced growth of one’s economy. It would be easy to do so if the social, the economic and the political structures of a country, with all their institutions would remain unchanged, and if the only change which would take place in the life of such a nation, would be a population or economic growth; then it would be very easy; then one could quite easily predict in advance for five to 15 years, but one could not possibly do so if the social, the economic and the political structures of a country are constantly changing. In a country like South Africa that is constantly progressing and growing, one can never predict these changes in advance. It is very easy to draw up a blueprint of other matters; one could draw up a blueprint and state that one was going to build so many dams and that one was going to complete them within so many years. One could quite easily say that one was going to build so many houses within a certain period; one could easily hold out the prospect that a certain number of housing schemes would be completed in so many years, but in a democratic country like South Africa one’s private sector will not allow blueprints to be drawn up for its economic growth and its economic expansion; it simply does not allow that, and the result is that one can expect only one thing from the authorities, whichever authority it may be, and that is that the authorities should indicate the direction of such a development, but they may not determine the direction or impose certain restrictions upon it. If they could do so—in a dictatorship it can in fact be done—then they could also determine what the requirements would be in ten or 15 years’ time. But there is a third problem. There is a constantly changing society in a dynamic, progressive, growing and young population like that of South Africa. Mr. Speaker, surely it is a fact of life that the larger the number of people receiving education, the higher the educational levels of man have become, and the higher the educational levels have to be raised, the more the entire structure of society is changed. There were times in the Republic of South Africa when someone on the educational level of Std. VI was considered sufficiently advanced to fill certain posts, even clerical posts. This level has gradually been raised to Std. VIII, and we are very close to the stage where it will become Std. X. As the educational level is raised, one finds that society as a whole and its composition is changing. New ways and means of doing things are created by this extra education over the years. One no longer does things in the old way. There is a new approach to life; there is a new approach to one’s work and to the way one spends one’s free time. New physical standards and totally new tendencies arise. I am only trying to show that the higher educational level is constantly bringing new tendencies. new ideas and new developments, and that one’s economic circumstances change accordingly. New markets a~e created, new needs arise; there is mechanization and automation which exercises a tremendous influence on the methods of work of a few years ago. There are scientific inventions, there is the application of these inventions in the industries, and if we take all this into account, then there is also, as a result of the age in which we are living, an age with its new inventions, an age in which scientific knowledge is adapted and applied, a continuous moving of labour forces. In one place one has gaps; in another place one needs retraining. What used to be a trade in days gone by is no longer a trade. There was a time when my colleague next to me regarded it as necessary, as a result of the scarcity of trained people, who as adults did not have the opportunity to be trained, to pass legislation (the Adult Education Act), to give them the opportunity of being trained in a much shorter period. And what happened then? As a result of mechanization automation, etc., many of the trades in which those people were trained are no longer trades to-day. Nobody could foresee that; nobody could foresee precisely how fast this process would develop, but in this process of development it is possible to say: “Here we should no longer undertake training and there we have to do less.”

We started too late.

I want to point out to you that something can in fact be done, but in a growing country like South Africa one cannot meet these relentless demands from the Opposition that we should be 100 per cent prepared at the moment when it is required. I am saying that a great deal can be done and a great deal has been done to determine in advance, as far as possible, what the requirements of our nation will be at a certain stage.

The question is whether enough has been done.

In the first place regular man-power surveys are made to determine the requirements of our nation. The Bureau of Statistics makes these surveys, so does the Department of Labour, and also the National Bureau for Educational and Social Research. These surveys for the determination of the manpower shortage range from highly skilled professional and executive officers to technicians and artisans and clerical workers. Only when a survey of the manpower shortage is made—and it has been made for many years— and when this survey indicates in which directions the shortage is to be found, one’s vocational advisers at high schools and other places are able to say: “Here are the vacancies; here are the expected shortages, here training should be undertaken.” I even hold out the prospect that we shall have to go one step further as regards the surveys of the manpower shortage so as to make provision for possible surpluses in the future. We should not think that we are only dealing with manpower shortages. There are so many other factors which influence the position. In five to ten years’ time it may appear that there is in point of fact no shortage on a level where a shortage was expected, with the result that one has trained a surplus of people, and provision will have to be made for more basic courses so as to render it possible to train these people anew within a short period and thus make them serviceable in the positions they hold. This is the prospect we hold out. In engineering, for instance, there should be basic training which can merely be adapted so that the technicians’ training will not be entirely lost. As a matter of fact, I think that this is already done, but I think that in our surveys of manpower shortages we should allow for possible manpower surpluses, and that we should then arrange our basic curricula accordingly.

Mr. Speaker, I have given this brief outline to bring me to the implications which these problems I have mentioned will have for education, but before I proceed to discuss that, I have to say the following: The function of education is not only to train production units, and against this I want to give a very serious warning, because the price a nation will eventually have to pay for simply equipping people with technical knowledge to perform a certain function will be a very high price indeed, and the poorest heritage a nation can leave to posterity. Education should always be based on the basic, essential elements of character forming, of knowledge and of facility. This should eventually become part of every person one educates or trains. One should make that individual a happy and a useful person, but one’s system of education should also prepare that individual as the future father or mother of a family. One should mould the individual to fit in as a member of the society in which he will move, and ultimately one should mould the educated person, or person to be educated, into becoming a useful citizen of the country. In the process of education, for whatever task one may be giving a person the necessary education, allowance should therefore be made for the intellectual, the cultural and the physical needs of each individual. This implies that in the broader sense of education provision should be made for the particular occupation of the person. We cannot simply proceed to make everyone the same type of person without considering whether they have the necessary physical or mental skill. My Department is doing this in connection with the functions entrusted to it. This is where I want to try to destroy the basis of the United Party’s argument that nothing has been done, that there has been no planning and that the Government’s bad planning has been the cause of the terrible position in which we find ourselves. What are the real facts? I am not going to tire this House with many figures, but it is necessary for me to mention a few. In 1954 there were 27 vocational schools. I am only taking a period of ten years. There were 27 vocational schools, commercial high schools and technical high schools in the entire country which had 5,000 pupils. The operating costs in this connection was R1.9 million for that year. In 1963 there were 77 vocational schools with 30,025 pupils at a cost of R8,000,000 per annum. Does this not bear testimony to impressive planning? Hon. members should remember that these schools were not in existence; they had to be erected in those ten years. I am not even speaking of the capital costs involved. These schools had to be started from scratch, especially since the decision of 1956 to take higher technical and higher commercial education away from the technical colleges. What about the technical colleges? I am only speaking of the four larger ones—Pretoria. Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. Here, in a planned fashion, we commenced technicians’ courses in 1958. In 1958 various technicians’ courses were introduced for people to qualify themselves, even after hours, as technicians, and as far back as 1963 1,625 certificates were issued to technicians. But what is more: In 1964 there were 4,514 students who had enrolled for these technicians’ courses, technicians’ courses in every sphere in every field where there was any indication of a shortage or of vacancies. What is more, these technicians’ courses were specially designed so as to enable these people to perform those less important duties which always had to be performed by engineers and other professionals.

There are always so many complaints about the shortage of teachers. What is the position? In 1954 we had 13 teachers’ colleges with 4,600 students. In 1963, nine years later, there were 15 colleges with more than twice the previous number of students, namely 9,567. If the Government did not do its duty …

That is not enough.

For that hon. member nothing is ever enough, and there is much too much that he cannot understand. Merely consider the amounts of money spent on teachers’ colleges. In 1954 the costs were R1.4 million, and by 1963 the costs had increased to R4.9 million. Take our universities and consider the phenomenal growth which has taken place. In 1954 we merely had 20,486 students in our universities, and ten years later we had 37,723. This is astonishing. When this phenomenal influx of students to the universities was experienced, this Government immediately established a new university and it is in the process of establishing a second, an interval of 40 years having elapsed since the date of establishment of the last university. This is a tremendous achievement on the part of this Government.

I come now to the quality of the work done at our educational institutions. To me this means more than figures and numbers. In times of breath-taking development such as the present, great care should be taken not to lower and weaken the standard of education. To aim at qualified manpower only would to my way of thinking be the biggest blunder we could make. It would be like a sausage machine turning out sausages, each like the other. These products would only be intended for the single task which they would perform, so that one can put a man down in front of a machine or into any professional service whatsoever, and if we do this we lower the standard of education. That is why we are saying that we are not afraid of making comparisons with Western countries. I have made a comparison here on two points only, and in the first place that is the striking changes which have taken place in overseas countries in respect of high school education. There they found that 14.1 per cent, or one-seventh, of the males in the Western countries received a high school education which exceeded that of their parents by an average of four years. Now I want to mention the Republic of South Africa. In the Republic the number of White matriculants increased from 18,023 in 1960 to 27,652 in 1964, in other words, by more than 50 per cent in four years. And then we can only say that a mere 14.1 per cent received an additional four years of high school training in Western Europe during a period which covered a lifetime. I want to give the percentage increase of people receiving a university education in the Western countries. During the past 50 years this increased in Western Europe from 3.6 per cent to 9.7 per cent. The number of White students in the Republic of South Africa increased by 6 per cent per annum over the past three years, not from 3.6 per cent to 9.7 per cent but by 6 per cent over the past three years. Thus in Western countries the number of students has increased by 6.7 per cent in 50 years, while in this country the number of White students increased by 9 per cent in three years, while the increase in our White population is approximately only 2 per cent per year. Is this not a tremendous achievement? Is this not a powerful message which the Opposition ought to help me carry out? Does this not prove that this nation is full of life and enthusiasm and wants to make progress? And then the Opposition piously states that we are lagging behind and that we have done nothing about it over the years! But during these years we have simply exploded so that no government could really have kept up with the expansion. To me the raising of our standard of education is as plain as a pike-staff. That is why I am saying that the higher the level of the worker is raised in the sphere of education, the greater productivity we may expect of him. And we may not tamper with the standard of education. We want that to be high. The worker with a higher standard of education will be able to perform his task with greater ease and less supervision and with more imagination and discretion, and that is the type of worker we want. From the lowest to the most specialized of schools these are the qualities one seeks in one’s worker. That is why I am saying that seen against this outline I have given in brief, we ought to be very thankful that the standard of education of such a large number of our youth has improved, and that this has had a beneficial effect on our economy and will continue to do so in future. There is no doubt about that. But it will not benefit us to do this in a cheap and hasty manner. [Time limit.]

I am very glad that I have the opportunity of following the hon. the Minister of Education in this debate. I think it was necessary for him to come in; after the speech of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition which was not met by the hon. the Prime Minister; we did need the Minister of Education. I should like to join issue with him. He says he challenges the Opposition. We accept that challenge. The statement of our policy is this, that we think that this Government has failed lamentably to provide a system of education for these days. When I say a system of education I mean a system of education from the university professor who is a research expert right down to the lowest type of Bantu education teacher that we call the lower primary teacher. They have failed throughout in the whole gamut of our preparations for what is happening to-day.

Now, what is happening to-day? This Government has been in office now for almost 18 years. They have failed to realize what is happening in the world to-day. The world today is living through a new industrial revolution. It is not the industrial revolution of 100 years ago which started in the middle of the eighteenth century. This is an industrial revolution which is post-war. It is a revolution in which we have science research combining with industry. It is a collaboration between these two great factors which gives us the situation we have to-day and for which we require this system of education. But they have failed to give it to us. That is our indictment. This is an age of new processes and new devices. It is not the old age of iron and steel. We have got beyond that. It is the age of synthetic materials, of colour television, of artificial leather, of electronic devices and of plastics. It has been called the plastics age. New materials have been created. What is necessary in this age? The Government should have prepared for us a system of education similar to what is being prepared in the countries of the Western world. I speak especially of the U.S.A., which has given the lead, and of the United Kingdom, Western Germany and France. We should take our lead from them but we have not done so. We have gone on with the old nineteenth century system of education and we have made little progress.

That is not correct.

I want to tell the Minister that the most essential thing to-day is this. I agree with the speech he made last night when he said that university development is primarily important to give leadership, but it must do very much more. The U.S.A, grasped this position in the beginning. They said they must have research workers. In ten years the U.S.A, drew from Western Europe, chiefly of course from the U.K., Germany and France, 30,000 engineers, 14,000 physicists and 9,000 research workers, post-graduate men, professors, etc., experts in their own work. In addition to that, the U.S.A, started training people itself. They were anxious to have these research workers who are so essential for the development of industry in the new age. They set about obtaining these men in their existing universities. We usually say that the number of research workers is calculated on the number per 10,000 of the population. In the U.S.A, it is 23, in Russia 19, in the U.K. 10, in Germany 8, and in France 6 per 10,000 of the population. I do not know what it is in South Africa. What the Minister should have asked himself, and should have told us 15 years ago at least is: What do we require? What is our aim? The Prime Minister said that the planning was for the future. They will not be judged in this election by what they do in the future; they will be judged by what they have done in the past and by their failure in the past. Let us take a look at what we should have been able to provide in this country. Let us say not 6 per 10,000, but half of that for South Africa, the lowest of any country which claims to be a Western country. Let us say 3 per 10,000, and let us take only 20 per cent of the White population. That means that we should have in scientific research to-day 1,000 workers. We have not got them. I will say that our great industries are providing their own to a great extent. The Minister who is in charge of the universities has not given them the support and the training that the men should have. That was the failure. Iscor, the Chamber of Mines and Sasol have been providing their own research workers. Our Department has not been doing so. That is the first thing.

The next is the cost. But before I speak of the cost, where are our research workers to come from? We cannot get them in other countries. The flow is the other way; they are going away from South Africa. Our professors and lecturers are leaving every month for the United Kingdom and the U.S.A, where there are opportunities for them to develop as they should. I want to add that what I am saying now about the failure of this Government and the reasons for its failure in university education and research is not just my view. It is the view of the experts in this country, and nobody knows it better, if I may say so, than you, Mr. Speaker. If there is one man in this House who understands these shortcomings, it is Mr. Speaker. If that is to be the aim we have, what about the cost? What should the cost be to South Africa? What provision should be made in our Budget? They have in Western Germany a Minister of Science, who said recently that they had provided 2 per cent of their national income to devote to scientific research at the universities, but he said that was not sufficient. It should be 3 per cent. Let us suppose South Africa, more modest again as it was in regard to personnel, spends only half of the 2 per cent that is not sufficient in Germany. Let us take it at 1 per cent of our national income to be devoted to this aim of scientific research to give tone and direction to the whole educational system. The hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) said that our national income was approximately R7,000,000,000. Let us take it at R6,000,000,000, to be on the safe side. Then 1 per cent of R6,000,000,000 is R60,000,000 which is the minimum which should have been provided for our great research institutions like the C.S.I.R., with the assistance of the other great industrial undertakings. Well, what have we been devoting in our Estimates? The whole of our Education Department under the Minister is R35,000,000, and that includes his staff and the universities. I want to be correct in regard to the universities. Let us be fair. It is approximately R15,500,000 for all university education, and not for scientific research which is the key to the modern world. For technical colleges it is R2,400,000, making approximately R20,000,000 for all possible higher education. The only contribution from this Government is R20,000,000, which is grossly inadequate. But I want to call in a much better authority than I. Last year on 24 November we had the annual meeting of the S.A. Scientific and Technical Associations, and we had a speech by a man who is a household word in South Africa, Dr. S. M. Naude. If there is a greater authority on science and education and research in this country than the President of the C.S.I.R. I do not know him. We have no greater authority in the country to-day. He made a speech there and said that there were three causes for our failure. The first was this: He said that in the universities we make the demand, the student-lecturer demand, so great that the men do not have time for research. The second point is that enough money is not being made available. He said, as a matter of fact, that the C.S.I.R. in 1964 were given R1,075,000 for research. That is all they got. They wanted another R400,000 for extra requests but could not get it. R1,000,000 is completely inadequate for the C.S.I.R., but that was the attitude of this Government. And the third reason is that because the salary scale is so low at our universities among these men of science, they are leaving the country. The flow is in the opposite direction to the flow in America. This is what Dr. Naude had to say—(Quoting from Scientiae)

There you have it, right from the men of science themselves. But there was another, Dr. W. S. Rapson, the director of scientific research for the biggest industrial undertaking in South Africa, the Transvaal and Orange Free State Chamber of Mines. He is a vice-president of the C.S.I.R., a man of international reputation. He spoke about this and said—

We have all seen that. To-day in the Transvaal there are 165 vacancies in the high schools for teachers of science and mathematics. Of graduates at the only English language training college at Johannesburg there were nine in science and only four were qualified in chemistry. How long will they remain in the profession? Why should they remain in the teaching profession at the salaries paid by this Government and by the provinces? Unless there is going to be a change in that you will lose them. They will not remain in the profession when they have served for the two or three years they have to serve. They will leave.

That is very irresponsible.

There is nothing irresponsible about that. A graduate who is highly trained gets a very low salary in our high schools and he can get double that salary in industry. That is the indictment I have, and I think it is a very serious one. We have to start now training men but we have not been doing so. I want to say this, that the Minister has had a wonderful opportunity to put this right. He has had the opportunity of creating two new universities. The Prime Minister referred to it. There was an opportunity. The Minister addressed a meeting in Johannesburg where they were celebrating the establishment of a new Afrikaans university. There he could have given the leadership we ask for, but what did he do? He said that in this new university they must exterminate humanism. They would have no liberalism, and of course he also mentioned Communism—inevitably. Let us take this question of humanism. When we speak of humanism we naturally think of the Renaissance, the new birth of learning. That was the beginning of what we call the humanities. The Minister seems to think that humanism and Christianity are mutually exclusive. They are not. A man can have any religion and be a humanist.

Surely you know better.

The Minister will probably be able to tell us what he means by humanism. But the Minister professes a reformed religion.

He knows the close association between the Reformation and the Renaissance. He knows what the inspiration of the Renaissance was to the reformed religion. Why should he condemn humanism? But he had to come, as the Prime Minister also did in his speech, to the liberals. Now the word “liberal” in the English language has a definite meaning and significance. The Minister and other members here have conducted a campaign which is nothing but a denigration of the meaning of the word “liberal”. We have the word “liberal” in the Bible. In Proverbs 11 we are told that the liberal soul shall be made fat. He is a man of honour. [Interjection.] I will give a quotation from another source; I would speak of the prophet Isaiah. In the 32nd chapter of Isaiah we are told very clearly, that “the evil person, the vile person, shall not be called liberal”. The converse is also true. The liberal person shall not be called vile. How is it translated in the Afrikaans? The same passage from the Hebrew is translated into Afrikaans: “Die dwaas sal nie meer ’n edele genoem word nie.” The liberal is a noble person. But the Minister just wages a campaign of denigration of the meaning of the word “liberal”.

I have spoken chiefly about university education, but I want to emphasize that right down through the whole gamut of our system of education the same weakness prevails. The Minister says there are four technical colleges. We had a campaign in this House about the technical colleges. The Minister knows our attitude. We said he should have let them continue as they were if they were doing good work. He says there are four, but my estimate is that there should be 12.

I only mentioned the four bigger ones.

When the Minister speaks of vocational schools or “beroepskole”, I do not like that word. All education is vocational. When a doctor goes to the university he goes there to get vocational education in order to be a doctor. Our system of vocational training and technical training has gone wrong. We have at the top the skilled engineer and few courses between down to the artisan. That is the weakness. We need in between the class of man called a technician, and from him to a technologist, and from the technologist to the academic engineer.

Have you not met any of these men? I can introduce you to many.

They are so rare that they are like rain in the Northern Transvaal. We have been suffering from an educational drought in this country. Now, I have referred to our White education, especially the education coming under the Minister. If we are to provide a system of education in terms of the policy of the Nationalist Party, equal development in their own sphere, what are we doing about Coloured and Bantu education? As a loyal South African I have tried to explain to people overseas what we are doing in Bantu education, but it is very difficult. We on this side say that the Government’s White leadership is to blame. Now, I have said a few words about education. I want to mention one or two other things. I am glad the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) is here, because he made an interjection when we were comparing the two immigration schemes, that of the Government and that of the United Party. He made the old interjection of the good and the bad, who should come. I do not know what the origin of it is.

General Smuts.

I accept that. If General Smuts did say that, I know where he went wrong. He was talking above the heads of these gentlemen. They did not understand what he meant. What is a bad immigrant? I am an immigrant and the Prime Minister is one. I think he and I are the only two in the House. What is a bad immigrant?

A bad immigrant is not a criminal. He is not an immoral person. He is not a lazy person. A bad immigrant, as the hon. Minister of Immigration will tell you and as the hon. Deputy Minister who is present and who has had many bad immigrants will agree, is a man who cannot adapt himself to the new country of his choice, the country he has adopted. That is a bad immigrant, but he may be a very fine person. He may be a highly trained man. But if he cannot adapt himself to the country he has chosen as his adopted land he is a bad immigrant. He is a write-off. Very often this Government has to send immigrants home and pay for their passages as well as those of their families because they are longing for their old home; they have family difficulties, and so on. I hope we shall not hear any more about the good and the bad.

Now I suppose every speaker in this debate must have a confession of faith about Rhodesia. I want to say a few words about Rhodesia and they are going to be very few indeed. When I speak of Rhodesia I go across the avenue into the Gardens and look at the inscription on the Rhodes Monument. “Your Hinterland is there” he said pointing to the north 70 years ago. It is still there. Whatever is done, whatever the attitude of our Government is going to be, we must never forget that that is our hinterland. What happens to Rhodesia to-day, will happen to us to-morrow. We must have that in mind, however we are going to assist Rhodesia, and I assume we are going to assist Rhodesia. There are people in Britain who want to assist Rhodesia. We must try to do that.

I wish to make one final point. Hon. members on the other side have spoken about our Native policy as compared to the Native policy of gentlemen on the other side.

I am not going to discuss their policy. I want to say that the policy which has been adum brated by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is the traditional policy of this country. From 1910 to 1960 there were representatives of Africans here in the House. When that first commission of General Hertzog met, the proposal before the Select Committee was that there should be a grand council of Natives represented by Natives in the Senate. And there was a majority of members in favour of it. But the Commission said they would not adopt any resolution which was not unanimous. And when that resolution failed, it was amended and it was moved that there should be a grand council of Native representatives in the Senate but that they should be Whites. Finally, we had the scheme of General Hertzog whereby he gave Parliament seven representatives of Natives and nobody asked, on that side or the other side, how long would it last? It lasted. The Government Party had to put them out. How long will the system last which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has advocated? As long as the White members of this House want it to last. That is the answer. As long as the Government of this country wants it to last. What a blunder it was to put those three representatives out of this House! And why did they do it? They did it because the hon. the Prime Minister on April 10th, 1961, enunciated a new policy—the new policy of Bantustans. I shall never forget the looks of anxiety and perplexity on the faces of those gentlemen opposite who knew nothing about the policy until it was announced. He said that we are going to create independent states, independent Black states, not on the periphery of South Africa but here in the heart of South Africa itself. They did not know anything about it. When they go to their constituents now they say that the independence will never come. That is something quite different. When the hon. the Prime Minister changed the policy of the Nationalist Party, when he as a will-o’-the-wisp led them into the morass of Bantustans, they lost what they had built up over 50 years. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, if one listened to the arguments used by the Opposition in this debate during the past three days, and if these should serve as an indication of the kind of election propaganda we can expect up to 30 March, I think that the country has to prepare itself for many slanted and wild stories and representations in connection with the state of affairs. In the very latest contribution from that side, we had many examples of that. I am going to refer to a few of them, but before doing so and before replying, I want to state in broad outline the two reasons why this debate has made an impression upon me.

Firstly, one takes it for granted that an Opposition would regard a no-confidence debate such as this as very important in view of the coming general election. One takes it for granted that they would regard it as extremely important and might handle it in possibly two ways: In the first place to come to light with substantiated criticism of the administration and implementation of the policy of the present Government, and in the second place, to contrast their own policy to that policy in clear terms in this House so that the country could know what to expect should it support the policy of the Opposition. In this House and in this country we have become accustomed to the Opposition not displaying the insight or the courage to give us or the country a clear statement of their policy or to state what the implications thereof will be for the future. As practical people we have to accept that at this stage. But the thing that astonishes one is that they display the same lack of courage and insight in their criticism of the administration and implementation of policy and that one also has to seek for substantiated criticism in this respect. In the light of this debate, including the last speech, one may expect to come across a whole number of slanted representations in the election campaign. The criticism aimed at education by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. P. A. Moore) was preceded by that of his hon. Leader and that of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson). The day before yesterday the hon. Leader asked where the technical schools for the technical preparation of the youth were to be found in this country. He said that this Government had failed the youth of this country. The hon. member for Kensington has now brought the further charge that this Government has neglected its duty and that we have failed in our task of doing our duty in regard to the training of the youth in this technological age in which we are living. He referred to the Minister who supposedly said that he was merely giving “direction” and the hon. member wanted to know about the costs involved. What was the Government prepared to do in terms of tangible contributions towards the relief of this condition? The impression was created that this Government has shamelessly and disgracefully neglected its duty with regard to the training of our young people in the needs and requirements of the time. Mr. Speaker, I am now going to deal with some of the aspects of this matter. But I am going to do so to link up with the statement I want to make at the outset, namely that what this Government has done in this country to prepare our youth technically and academically, is an achievement which has no parallel in our history.

At the outset I want to quote a number of figures. The question has been asked what expenditure the Government was prepared to incur. It might interest the hon. member for Kensington, and I trust that it might interest the Opposition too, to take cognisance of the following particulars. Whereas we allocated an amount of only R2,000,000 to all the universities in the country when we came into power in 1948, the amount for the current year has increased to R16,700,000. Perhaps the hon. member will be able to understand this better if I explained it to him on the basis of one or two universities. Does the hon. member for Kensington know that the amount granted by this Government to a single university, the University of Stellenbosch, this year, exceeds the total amount given by the State to all universities in 1948? Does the hon. member know that the amount given to the University of Pretoria under this Government, is one and a half times the amount given to all universities in the country in 1948? I shall give you the specific figures, Mr. Speaker. [Interjections.] Let us obtain the figures, or are we going to fight this election only with slanted representations and wild stories?

Will the hon. the Minister be kind enough to give us a comparison between 1948 and 1934, when the Nationalist Government was in power too?

Mr. Speaker, in a little while I shall give figures which that hon. member might find instructive, but allow me to complete this statement first. The hon. member for Kensington said that we were merely giving “direction”, in other words, we are merely saying what should be done, without saying anything about costs. I shall now give you the specific figures.

In 1948 the State’s contribution to all White universities was R2,023,000. The amount which the University of Pretoria will receive from the Treasury this year is R3,100,000. This is one and a half times as much as the amount given to all the White universities in 1948. This year an amount of R2,300,000 will be given to the University of Stellenbosch. This too exceeds the amount given to all universities in 1948. But, Mr. Speaker, I accept that this is not the only criterion, and I am prepared to say that we can apply other criteria in order to establish to what extent this Government is prepared to make its contribution to the development and training of our youth so as to hold their own in this technological times. If one considers that the Government subsidy per student to-day is three times that of 1948, if one considers that the State to-day makes a contribution of 64 per cent towards the expenditure of all universities in the country, if one considers that expenditure on universities has increased from R2,000,000 in 1948 to R16,700,000, then one can understand why the White population in this country yields the largest percentage of students in the world, except for America. The White population in this country is second only to America in the entire world as regards the number of students it yields per White population. Does this not constitute a criterion of the manner in which this Government has properly performed its duty?

This has not always been the position. I admit that this has not always been so. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout wants to go back a long way. Let me go back on this road with him. In 1952 we had 18,000 White students in this country, but thanks to this Government’s active contribution in this connection this number has increased to 39,000 students. This means an increase of 110 per cent for the period 1952 to 1965. Is this not evidence of what is actually being done to prepare and assist our young people to hold their own in these technological times?

Mr. Speaker, when one considers the previous efforts, and when one thinks of the contribution made when the United Party was in power, then those efforts appear to be small and insignificant to one. However, it was not only at this university level that this Government has performed its duty of preparing our youth technologically for the times in which we are living. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked the day before yesterday where the technical schools in this country were to be found. Are we now dealing with a Rip van Winkle? Are we dealing with a man who will not see? Are we dealing with a man who will not see what is happening around him? Is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and is the United Party unaware of what is happening in this country in the field of technology? Do they not see the technical schools coming into being in this country? Are they unaware of the new technological institute at present nearing completion in the Vaal triangle—a unique technological institute? However, to come back to the technical schools themselves, I can only say that 12 new departmental technical high schools have been established in this country since 1960, with the result that we have 17,000 pupils at the 28 existing technical high schools in the country at the present time. I am not speaking about vocational schools and commercial schools, but only of technical high schools. Is this not an achievement? There has been talk of staff. It has been said that we do not have the teachers to do the work. Does the hon. member for Kensington know that during the past five years we have succeeded in increasing the number of teachers in the technical high schools from 571 to 953? Is that a sign that the Government is neglecting its duty in connection with technical training in these times? When one considers the gigantic task we are performing to train the technicians for their post-matriculation courses, and when one considers that the expenditure incurred this year in connection with vocational education, technical education and commercial education, is four times that of the 1948 expenditure, then this charge by the United Party simply appears to be foolish.

The hon. member has also asked what we are doing to train artisans? Everybody cannot be technicians. Everybody cannot be scientists. Now the question is asked what we are doing to train artisans. Mr. Speaker, it astonishes me that such a question is asked. Only a Rip van Winkle ought to ask such a question—a person who does not know what has been done in the past number of years. Does the hon. member not know that the new Apprenticeship Act placed on the Statute Book by this Government, the new and modernized system of training apprentices, and the higher wages now paid to apprentices, has placed South Africa’s system of apprenticeship in a leading position among the industrial countries of the world? Does the hon. member not know that as a result of this modernized system of training introduced by this Government, we are at present training larger numbers of apprentices in this country^ than ever before? This is significant, for we are living in a time of full employment. We are living in a time where a score of avenues of employment is open to our young people. That is why it is even more remarkable, and even more to the credit of this system than anything else, that we could succeed in effecting a proportional distribution for the available potential manpower in these times. To a large extent this is attributable to this system.

Mr. Speaker, there have been complaints that we had a shortage of certain groups of scientists and teachers and artisans. But how can a government which is not a dictatorship give directives with regard to manpower? These are not times of war when we can instruct people to move in certain directions. I think the manner in which this Government has succeeded, by providing training facilities and by encouraging our young people to move in certain essential directions, has had the result that we have effected a proportional distribution of our available potential manpower in this country which enables South Africa not only to man one field of activity, but to distribute the available young people in all the essential fields of activity which this country will require in future.

I said at the outset that in the first instance one would expect an Opposition to use a debate on an occasion like this to make a full policy statement, but in the second instance to come to light with really substantiated criticism of the Government as regards the implementation of its policy. Strangely enough, we have had very little of that. Now one has to become accustomed to what lies ahead. I take it this Opposition will not only be fighting elections in the drought-stricken constituencies. I take it they will also be fighting elections in workers’ constituencies. I take it that when they fight elections in these workers’ constituencies in our country, people like the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. member for Kensington will come to light with these wild stories in these constituencies and will say that this Government has neglected to develop the White people mentally for these times. One may accept that one will once more hear this refrain: where are the technical schools in this country? One must accept that the impression will be created that this Party and this Government have neglected their duty not only with regard to technical training, but that they have also neglected their duty with regard to the general welfare of our people in those areas. That is why I now want to confine myself to those people on whom the United Party in times to come will concentrate its propaganda, propaganda which it does not have the courage to substantiate here where it can be refuted. It will not be these wild stories spread here by the hon. members that are going to count among the people in the workers’ constituencies. What is going to count among those people is whether this Government has complied with certain fundamental requirements in regard to their way of life, their livelihood and their happiness. This is the test to which this Government is going to be put. I want to say that the National Party and the Nationalist Government are prepared in this election to have the country and its people judge them on their record. We have no objections to this Government being judged on what it has done over the past 17 years, and furthermore we have no objections to being judged on the future implementation of our policy as clearly set out the other day by the Prime Minister.

But, Mr. Speaker, we are not the only ones who are going to be judged on our record. The United Party will also be judged on their record. In saying they are going to be judged on their record, I do not want to discuss this record at any great length, because it is so cracked that I do not know on which gramophone it would fit.

Mr. Speaker, we have no objection to the people in the workers’ constituencies judging the National Party on its record and on its actions, not only in the technical field in the training of students at universities, but in all these important fields. For me there are three fundamentals which may be required of us and which may also be required from the United Party. As far as we are concerned, the first fundamental which the people in the workers’ constituencies may require of this Government …

All constituencies are workers’ constituencies.

Very well, so there are three important requirements which people in all constituencies may demand. The first requirement is that a Government should govern a country in such a way that there is employment for all people and their dependants, and that there will also be employment for their children in future. I think that the development schemes this Government has put into operation during the years it has been in power, have settled this question. Thanks to this South Africa does not have unemployment at present. The only unemployment we have, exists in the wishful thinking of the Opposition. We do not have unemployment. We make it possible for our young people to know that upon leaving a technical school, or a university, or any training centre, they will be able to enter into employment in which they will receive a living wage and in which they will be protected. This to my way of thinking is the first thing which may be required of a government.

The second thing which may be required of a government by the workers is that they should have and retain the right of negotiating for an improvement in their wages and conditions of service. This to my way of thinking is a basic right which they should have. What is the position of this Government in this sphere? What has this Government done in this respect during the years it has been in power?

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Speaker, in spite of the predictions from that side and that member that this party and this Government would destroy the workers’ organizations in this country, and in spite of their predictions that we would destroy the trade unions in this country—trade unions being the means a worker has to employ to effect an improvement in his conditions of service and which he also has to employ to improve his standard of living—trade unions have grown and flourished under this Government. The trade unions have grown under this Nationalist rule. In terms of figures they have grown as follows: Whereas 179,000 Whites belonged to trade unions in this country in 1957, the number has increased to 263,000 under this Government. Consequently they were not destroyed as the United Party predicted in this Parliament in 1956. However, it was not only the number of Whites which have increased. During the years we have been in power, the number of non-Whites belonging to trade unions has increased from 26,000 to 46,000. This Government has always recognized the right of our workers to negotiate for the improvement of their wages, and because this is so, it was possible for the trade unions in this country to grow. Because this is so, we could encourage the workers at more than one trade union congress, to belong to trade unions. Because this is so, the standard of living of our workers and our people in this country could be raised during the years of Nationalist rule. Thanks to these rights of protection and entrenchment we grant the worker in this country, the average wage of the factory worker could increase by 132 per cent during the period from 1948 to the present time.

It had to increase.

Yes, the cost of living has also increased, but do you know to what extent it has increased? The cost of living has increased by 65 per cent since 1948. In contrast to this increase the average wage of the White factory worker in this country has increased by 132 per cent. At present the workers in this country are enjoying a standard of living which is regarded as being one of the highest in the world. Now, I want to tell the United Party: Should there be any United Party grumblers who doubt this statement, who are dissatisfied with the standard of living they enjoy in this country, I think that we should make arrangements for them to be sent overseas a fortnight or so prior to the election, but to be back in time to vote for the National Party out of gratitude for the privileges they enjoy under this Government. We can be proud of the standard of living the workers in this country are enjoying under Nationalist rule, and this is attributable to the positive and sympathetic actions of this Government. But this is not the only thing which may be required or demanded from a Government. It is not only the workers who may make demands in connection with the handling of their interests. No, the country as a whole also has a right to make a demand. The country as a whole has the right to demand from its government that it should arrange, manage and guide the labour relations in the country in such a way that there will be industrial peace in the country. The country, the entire population, has that right to demand from this Government that we should arrange the labour relations in the country in such a way that there will be industrial peace, because one cannot have a higher standard of living if there is no industrial peace in the country. As a result of the small number of strikes we have in South Africa, strikes which have decreased in number to such an extent that they are not worthy of mention, strikes which have decreased in number to such a mere trifle that there is an unprecedented peace in this country, not only among the White workers but also among the Black and Coloured workers in this country, we have in this country industrial peace which a population, the electorate, may at any time demand from a government. But this industrial peace we are enjoying did not come about by itself. It was effected by this Government’s policy, by its attitude regarding the worker and specifically by its attitude regarding the maintenance of the colour bar in this country. I have noticed that newspapers supporting the United Party have been writing lately that job reservation has collapsed in this country. Let me immediately tell these prophets of doom, these wishful thinkers, that I have to disappoint them. Job reservation has not collapsed. On the contrary job reservation will remain on our Statute Book and it will be administered for as long as the National Party rules South Africa. To refer to the employment of non-Whites in jobs previously done by Whites as evidence of the collapse of job reservation, is further proof of the poor understanding the Opposition and its newspapers have of the labour pattern in this country. Are there any instances of Whites having been pushed from their jobs to make way for non-Whites under the present Government and its administration? Where did this happen? Can the Opposition get up in this debate, or in any other debate still to come, and furnish us with examples where under the present Government’s administration Whites in this country were pushed from their jobs to make way for people with a lower standard of living? No, such instances cannot be mentioned for this Government maintains its labour pattern in such a way that it implements the industrial colour bar in a way which is fair to the non-White on the one hand, but which at the same time affords the White man the protection required by his higher standard of living. Where Whites have been replaced by non-Whites, it has not happened without control. Where it has happened, it has happened under control; it has happened by way of exemption and subject to certain conditions. It has happened subject to the condition that should Whites again become available to do that work, they should once more be employed in that work. Mr. Speaker, we have this industrial peace in this country, we have the maintenance of this pattern, also because the Government is always prepared to consult with their workers. When, as a result of the shortage of White manpower, we have non-Whites doing work which was previously done by Whites, we do so in consultation with the White trade union organization concerned. For this reason one can understand why the conservative trade union organizations in this country have faith in this Government. I am not referring to the Leftists because they are a lot of agitators. I am referring to one’s responsible trade union organizations. These people have faith in us because they see in the Nationalist Government a means of protecting their interests and of perpetuating industrial peace which is essential for their standard of living. [Time limit.]

The hon. the Deputy Minister who has just sat down devoted the half hour in which he addressed this House to two aspects of his Department. He followed the usual practice of hon. members on the Government benches in this debate, and that is to quote reams of globular figures to indicate what this Government has achieved in the past 17 years, without attempting to give the full implications of those figures. He devoted the second part of his address to an exposition of what he considers the White workers in workers’ constituencies will demand in this election from the party which they place in power. Sir, I have noticed in the course of this debate that ministers and others who participated in the debate disappeared from the Chamber a few minutes after addressing the House, with the result that one has to address them, so to speak, in absentia.

I am going to try to deal fairly fully in the course of my remarks with what the hon. the Deputy Minister said this afternoon, but in the first place I want to deal with one or two matters raised by the hon. the Prime Minister. I do not want to start with the address delivered by the Prime Minister in this debate; I would like to take a point from the Prime Minister’s New Year message when he told the people of South Africa that the political struggle was no longer between sections of the population but between political objectives. There I agree with the hon. the Prime Minister, but what are the political objectives not only of the political parties but of our South African nation? Sir, there are certain common interests that must predominate in any consideration of the political scene in South Africa. The first political objective clearly is that we want freedom from outside intervention in our internal affairs. We want to stand firm on the principle of not allowing intervention in our internal affairs. The second common political objective is the survival of the White man and the retention of his influence on the future destiny of our South African nation. The third common political objective, to which the Deputy Minister devoted a part of his speech is the promotion of prosperity and the well-being of all our South African peoples. These common interests are the basic political objectives of our nation. What is placed before the people for their judgment in the forthcoming election is not the political objectives but the policy and the plans of the respective political parties to achieve these national objectives. Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister contends that these objectives are in dispute, as he has tried to do in this debate by changing his attitude as revealed in his New Year message, then the Prime Minister in my opinion will stand guilty of exploiting the White man’s position for party political gain in this election. What is worst to my mind is that the Prime Minister, in the light of the remarks which he made in this debate, must stand guilty of selling South Africa, White South Africa, short in the eyes of the world. On the first of our common interests, namely to ensure our internal and external security and to stand firm on the principle of non-interference in our internal affairs, I think no one in South Africa has stood firmer than the Leader of the Opposition and this side of the House on these fundamentals and the principle of ensuring adequate forces for the protection of our national interests in the face of dangers which may threaten South Africa. Our criticism is that in many respects the Government has not done enough to ensure adequate and sufficient forces to protect our interests. I therefore consider it foolish on the part of the Prime Minister to attempt to claim in this debate, because he is in temporary power, that the people can trust the Nationalist Party and his party to protect our fundamental interests and to ensure our external security. Sir, problems such as South West Africa, the problem of the United Nations and the problem of Rhodesia would be attended to by this side of the House, as the Government of South Africa, and they would be attended to in the national interest just as we expect the Government to do assuming it continues to remain in power. The Prime Minister offers no proof that he can manage these affairs better than we on this side of the House could do if we were in power. In fact, if one has to judge the ability of the Nationalist Party Government to find solutions to these problems, then one must judge it in the light of the Prime Minister’s observation that the success of his foreign policy is proved by the fact that he has obtained for South Africa what he describes as “stille vriende”. The fact is that the electorate should view this matter in its proper perspective. In our opinion solutions for the problems facing South Africa may be more difficult for a Nationalist Government because of world animosity to their racial policies, from which stem all our troubles on the foreign front. By the same token it cannot be disputed that a new government in South Africa would create a fresh image of the White man in South Africa in the mind of the world. If it does not resolve all our difficulties it will certainly create a climate in which it will be easier to find solutions to our international problems.

In regard to the second of our national objectives, the survival of the White man and the retention of his influence in Southern Africa for the common good of the peoples in Southern Africa, and the continued existence of our South African nation, let me say that I agree with the Prime Minister when he says, as he said in this debate, that everything— every other problem—pales into insignificance against the basic issue of continued White existence, but what is in dispute in this election, what is to be placed before the people for their judgment, is not the issue of continued White existence—that is fundamental —but the policies and the methods to be applied that will ensure the continued existence of the White man and of the White South African nation and that will allow each national group in our country its proper place in the South African sun. Mr. Speaker, this is a problem of human relations, as has been stated by my Leader. It is a problem of human relations, on the satisfactory solution of which depends the survival of our White nation. Essentially the problem is how we as civilized Whites can evolve patterns of coexistence with the non-White groups to the universal advantage of our multi-racial South African society. We on these benches have our plan. We do not say that it is a perfect plan, nor do we claim that it is the answer to the problems of every non-White from the cradle to the grave, but we do claim that it is based on one fundamental concept and that is White political control and White leadership, which means continued White responsibility for the future destiny of all national groups in our country as we know it to-day. As far as we are concerned, it must be clearly understood that there will be no abdication of White responsibility or of White political control in our country. I want to refute here clearly and categorically what is being said by Nationalist organizers and candidates and even by Ministers, purportedly representing the interests of our country, in this debate, namely that a vote for the United Party is to put a Bantu into this Parliament. I say that that is lying propaganda made purely for party political gain. Sir, what is implicit in the Nationalist Party’s policy—and this must be clearly understood by the electorate—is nothing but abdication of White political control and the admission that to save the White man the Prime Minister must create his own White laager in Southern Africa by retreating from the White man’s over-all responsibilities to the non-Whites of this country. The Prime Minister has stated in this House that he views our attitude of White political control as being politically immoral. He claims political morality for his policy because he says: “Ek gun aan die Bantoe wat ek vir myself gun.” We want the South African electorate in this forthcoming election to note that our standpoint is considered by the Prime Minister to be politically immoral, because we ask unashamedly from the electorate, for ourselves as a White Government, for the foreseeable future, White political control over the destinies of all our people in the country as we know it to-day.

“The foreseeable future.”

How far can you see in the future?

I will deal with that in a moment. Sir, the choice before the electorate is a very clear one. A vote for the Nationalist Party will be a vote for White abdication from White responsibility. I hope that it will not go unnoticed by the Press, a section of which sits on the fence, and by the people outside, that every speech made in this debate, the pattern having been set by the Prime Minister, every speech made by Ministers and members on the other side, has been nothing but an attempt to paint one group of Whites as being prepared to sell out their country and their birthright—cheap political tactics for party political gain—a statement which is nothing but a blatant propaganda lie. I hope that what I have said here, that we unashamedly stand for White political control, will now be accepted by hon. members on the Government benches so that outside on the hustings we will not have to face this false type of propaganda that has been disseminated in the country, as I know for a fact that it has been disseminated in my own constituency.

I come now to the hon. the Deputy Minister. Sir, hand in hand with White responsibility, which is a vast responsibility, must go plans for equipping our White nation for the fulfillment of its destiny, a task in which this Government has miserably failed in the 17 years during which it has been in power.

This brings me to the third of our common interests, the promotion of the well-being and prosperity of all our people, a political objective in regard to which until yesterday when the Prime Minister spoke, we have had no new thinking from the Government, no new plans and no new vision. What we had yesterday from the Prime Minister was a natural extension of administrative plans in regard to such national institutions as Iscor, Escom and Sasol, a repetition of a promise made 17 years ago to the farmers of South Africa to dam all the waters of the rivers of South Africa and hastily assembled plans by the Prime Minister to relieve the present difficulties of the farmers of South Africa. But of plans for the nation, for the ordinary man and woman—the people who carry the responsibility for the day and the younger generations who will carry the responsibilities of to-morrow—we heard absolutely nothing in this debate from any of the Ministers or members on the other side. I hope that the public and the voters will recognize this. It is a hollow cry on the part of the hon. the Deputy Minister to say that he expects plans from the Opposition. Sir, the Government is asking the electorate to endorse its policy, if it has one, or for an endorsement of a new plan to take care of our problems in South Africa over the next five years. Sir, I must correct myself; I am not being entirely fair. We have had two positive thoughts. After all, we did have the proposal from the Deputy Minister’s colleague that we should have a new baby with no State responsibility attached to it of course. We did also have a positive proposition from the Prime Minister, and that is that in order to educate the youth a few more bursaries will be dished out, and he says this in spite of the fact that it is recognized to-day that only 5 per cent of our entire expenditure on higher education is available for free education for the youth of our country. Mr. Speaker, the ordinary man, the ordinary woman of South Africa, is looking for much more. The ordinary man knows that ideological legislation will not ensure continued White existence. He has had it for 17 years and he sees what is happening in Africa and elsewhere. He knows that only his ability to progress will ensure his continued existence. Two Ministers, including the hon. the Deputy Minister who spoke before me, recognized this fact. The hon. the Deputy Minister issued a warning, only a couple of weeks ago, to White South Africa. I think he was addressing the only English-speaking branch of the Nationalist Party, the John X. Merriman Branch on the Rand. This is what he is reported to have said—

That obviously implies more skills for the non-Whites. What is the position of the White man, by the way of comparison? I would like to give the House the true situation as far as the youth and the education of our people are concerned. I want to give the House not the globular figures, not the number of additional institutions, not the expenditure over the last 10 or 15 years but what the actual, factual position is, as revealed by the Department of the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs. What I am about to give the House is not something which we on the United Party benches have concocted. These facts are revealed in reports by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and its subsidiary, the National Institute for Personnel Research. The facts revealed in those reports are astounding; they reveal a shocking state of affairs as far as the training of the youth of our country is concerned. But before I deal with that I want to say that to secure White existence and to ensure adequate and proper White responsibility, White leadership, there is only one way and that is continued White progress. We on these benches recognize that this is dependent on three important factors: firstly, security of income at decent levels to maintain White standards of living. The hon. the Minister said that this was merely an objective of the White workers; it should be a national objective; it should be the objective of the people of South Africa, of every White man and every White woman. The second factor is a healthy home background for each family unit under acceptable social conditions, and the third is the education of the youth to the fullest degree possible. Mr. Speaker, let the hon. the Prime Minister walk the streets of the Witwatersrand and talk to the White workers for a change. We would then hear an entirely different speech from him in this House. It is no good coming here and throwing globular sums of expenditure on education across the floor of the House. The hon. the Minister of Education must go outside and ask the White worker what chance his son or daughter has of entering an institution of higher learning. Our universities to-day have become places for the children of economically privileged parents. Is it any wonder, as an educational authority recently pointed out, that 70 per cent of the students registered for a Bachelor degree in science and engineering, take one, two or three years longer than the normal period to complete their courses. Under this Government, for a decade or more, we have squandered and are still squandering our White assets, merely because this Government has done nothing. It has neglected its basic responsibility.

Let me now give the hon. the Deputy Minister a few facts with regard to the institutions which he and the hon. the Minister of Education threw across the floor of the House here to-day. What about the over-crowded classrooms, classrooms with 40, 50 and up to 60 students in the primary grades throughout the Witwatersrand. What about the inadequate number of teachers? What about the student/ teacher ratio in our country, which is at least 50 per cent below that of any other civilized country in the Western world? Let me give the facts on figure which have become available recently. Of every 50,000 pupils in Std. VI, 34,000 drop out before reaching Std. X; more than 17,000 drop out before reaching Std. VIII. The majority of our White youth are not reaching the educational standards for Bantu laid down by the Minister of Bantu Education. What is the position in the vocational and technical colleges? What is the position inside those institutions? This is the position according to the latest figures available: Of the average attendance of 24,000 at the present time less than ½ per cent have passed Std. X. The majority, over 13,000, attending vocational and technical schools have not even reached Std. VIII. No wonder that the report of the Department of the Minister of Economic Affairs points out that the majority of these students are not fit for vocational and specialized training as typists, secretaries, bookkeepers, on the commercial side or as technicians on the commercial side. And then we are told that the youth of South Africa are being looked after. Sir, what chance have the children of the railway workers, of the civil servants and of the White workers in the factories? Have we heard any plans, any ideas or thoughts from this Government to ensure that the White man will be able to carry the responsibilities of leadership in Southern Africa? No, Sir. What did the Prime Minister do? I say that the Prime Minister in this debate, for propaganda purposes, deliberately attempted to create a false impression in regard to Government expenditure on education. I made a very careful note of what he said. When my leader talked about the need to raise White educational standards in South Africa the Prime Minister stood up here and said: “What nonsense! We are spending R230,000,000. We are spending 4.5 per cent of our national income on education.” What are the facts, Sir? My leader spoke about the need to raise the standards of the White man. The figures quoted by the Prime Minister in this House are the globular sums spent on education for Bantu, Indians and Coloureds. The amount spent on White education in this country is not R230,000,000, it is only R107,000,000. But let me quote what an educational authority says about this. He says that of the R230,000,000 R107,600,000 was spent on Whites, R25,400,000 on Coloureds and Indians and R21,900,000 on Africans, and that the percentage increase spent on non-Whites since 1940 has been almost double that of the increase spent on Whites. In other words, this Government’s expenditure on education for non-Whites has been precisely double the amount, relatively speaking, that should be spent on the education of the White man who has to carry the responsibility and the burden of government in Southern Africa. I do not complain about the money spent on the education of the non-Whites, I am merely stating the facts.

I want to refer very briefly to one other aspect. The hon. the Deputy Minister talks about the White workers and his colleague pleads for more babies. He has put forward a plea that the 427,000 married women between the ages of 20 and 45, in fulfilment of their duty and out of love for their country, should produce a baby this year. He obviously made this proposal because he was concerned about the declining birth rate amongst the Whites in South Africa. Sir, I want to say this in the short time left to me: As far as the younger generation is concerned —and if he doubts it let the hon. the Deputy Minister walk through his constituency or through Roodepoort or Turffontein or Kensington or Rosettenville—we are becoming a nation of flat and maisonette dwellers. We find young married couples residing in boarding house establishments or in rented rooms.

The Prime Minister says the programme is 12.500 houses in the next two years, but the exact figure quoted by the Minister of Housing not nine months ago was something like 20,000 houses to house the young people of South Africa. When you come down to the realities of the situation one may ask what the people vote for. I will try to show what the people of South Africa must look at. This Government has become soft in the opulence of its political office. They have been there too long. They think they can do no wrong. They have forgotten about the people and the little man who brought them into power. Their attitude is no more what is best for the ordinary man, for the people of South Africa. They have forgotten that because this Cabinet never gained any experience in opposition. They were plucked from the backbenches by the Prime Minister. What are their abilities? They ride about in big black limousines like Sheiks of Araby. They tour the countryside in these limousines and it has become the talk of the nation now. There are 25 of them. They do not consider themselves to be ordinary men any longer. They do not consider themselves to be the servants of the people, elected by the people, any more. They sit in the glory of their office enjoying the opulence of their situation and the fruits of political office.

Should they ride bicycles?

I see the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) is becoming a bit agitated now. I want to tell him that the people of South Africa will stop him from getting a big black limousine. They think that everything they do and say is right. Listen to their speeches—long quotations of figures, saying those are their achievements. Those are the things they dazzle the public with. And what is worse, having left the people behind, having risen above the people, they now judge the affairs of South Africa by the words of political adulation submitted to them by their party organizers who are themselves looking forward to enjoying the fruits of office. Look at the expression on the face of the Minister of Housing. He is worried now. But this efficient Cabinet has even let its Prime Minister down in this debate. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has now made the profound statement that the Government is no longer looking after the interests of the people outside, that they are beginning to rest on their laurels and contend themselves with statistics and data supplied to them by the party organizers, and that they are no longer doing anything themselves. I think that is something we may quite safely leave in the hands of the people. That is a test for the various parties who enter into the election, to see which party has the interests of all the people, of all sections of the people, at heart. I have no doubt as to what the people’s decision will be in that regard.

The hon. member also spoke of propaganda which the Ministers and speakers on this side were supposed to be making as regards the Colour problem and other problems, merely for the purpose of party political gain. That hon. member dare not speak of political propaganda for political gain while in his own party he has a propagandist in the person of the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan). I think he had better keep quiet, and his party should not say a word about propaganda, since we now have enough evidence of the dirty kind of propaganda we shall meet with in the election; untrue stories and other things which will simply be dished up but of which, fortunately the public outside will take no notice. The hon. member is very concerned about the survival of the White man in South Africa, and he made the observation that we should get a new government because this Government has been in power too long. He said that if a new government came into power it would act as a stimulus to the world outside to adopt a more friendly attitude towards South Africa. I find it tragic that the United Party should still be running away from their policy before an election, as they have always been doing at the past series of elections. It must be humiliating. It is a tragedy if a party has to bring that humiliation upon itself and has to admit that its policy is not acceptable to the public outside and has to cover up and hide its policy whenever judgment is to be passed and if every time before an election it has to pose with a new policy which is not really its own. Just consider their race federation plan which they held up as the salvation of White South Africa. Just consider what really lies behind it, behind the statements made by their own leaders, and consider what it in actual fact amounts to. I want to point out some of its aspects.

According to the United Party it is their policy that under the race federation the Bantu will have eight White representatives in this House and six in the Senate. But is that all? Why do they conceal the rest? Why do they evade the repeated questions which have been put to them on that matter? Are they ashamed of their own policy? Why do they conceal the fact that under their policy they will also give the reserves, the Bantu homelands, representation in this House? Why do they not reply to that? I myself and other members have asked them that question repeatedly. Is it protection of the White civilization in South Africa if they also want to give the Bantu homelands representation here? Why do they conceal that?

But that is not additional.

That is strange. Does the hon. member deny that? Immediately before an election it is not additional. He should tell me how they are going to grant the Bantu homelands representation in their federal parliament of all of them have to be represented in this House by eight Whites. That makes the whole thing so much more of a farce. But it is typical that we can expect that type of thing before an election. None of their leaders has ever dared to say that the representation of the Bantu homelands is included in those eight representatives in this House.

They would not dare to make the statement which has just been made by way of interjection by the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson). But apart from that, would the Bantu be satisfied with having those eight representatives? Would that satisfy the Bantu’s striving for freedom and political independence? What self-respecting people, whether White or Black, would be satisfied with such a state of affairs? But would it satisfy the Western world, which would allgedly be so satisfied with a United Party Government? Would the leading Western countries such as Britain and the U.S.A, be satisfied with such a state of affairs? Are they not demanding a majority government in every multi-racial country, here and elsewhere? Do we not see that being put to the test now?

But I want to continue. Is that not discrimination of the worst type? Where do those hon. members get their cry that they are steering away from discrimination? In an article in the Cape Argus the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) stated very explicitly that their race policy is aimed at the gradual elimination of discrimination. Whom are they trying to convince? Are they trying to convince the world that it is not discrimination if eight White representatives are to represent a three to one majority of Bantu for all time to come? How dare they say that they have a policy which steers away from discrimination if they propagate that kind of thing and if they say here just before an election that they stand for White control of South Africa for all time or for the foreseeable future? Towards the end of last year the hon. member for Yeoville made this profound statement in a speech at Umtata, which I should very much like to be explained. He said that White leadership was necessary and would be necessary for a generation in order to eliminate the racial prejudices with which the population was plagued. What does that mean? That can mean only one thing—that under their policy White leadership will have to remain for another generation in order to eliminate racial prejudice.

You are blundering.

What I am now repeating are the words of the hon. member for Yeoville and he is always blundering. The hon. member does not understand the words of the hon. member for Yeoville. I want to put them to him very clearly. The hon. member for Yeoville says that White leadership should be retained in this country for another generation in order to eliminate racial prejudices. What does that mean? That hon. member will not understand that, but it simply means that racial awareness should be blunted and that after the next generation leadership will pass into the hands of the non-Whites. It cannot mean anything else. The United Party, which is so concerned about White survival in this country, is preparing the Whites for gradually and voluntarily handing over leadership to the majority group in this country, the Bantu, after the next generation. That is the “foreseeable future” they are talking about. Immediately after the last election the hon. member for Yeoville also advocated more political rights for the Bantu in an article in the Cape Argus, in which he stated very pointedly that we should steer away from racial discrimination; in other words, that in that single-nation idea of theirs, that concept of a single White and non-White nation, that unity concept of theirs, that in that unified group it will be necessary to steer away from racial discrimination, in other words, that the non-Whites should gradually be given more and more political rights as they develop. In essence that is really the policy of the Progressive Party. In an article in the Argus of 22 February 1962 the hon. member for Yeoville advocated very explicitly that we should steer away from racial discrimination and that the non-Whites should gradually be given more political rights.

But the hon. member for Yeoville also went further. (The hon. member for Turffontein was so concerned about education.) He stated in very strong terms that mixed higher education was quite allowable, and they said that the Government’s legislation and other measures to establish separate universities should be repealed. If the hon. member is so concerned about the education of the youth, I do not know whether he intends to achieve it under these circumstances, by steering away from separate universities. The hon. member for Pinelands said a moment ago that those eight White representatives would also include the reserves, but the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) said in an article in the Cape Times of 24 April 1962—

If that is the attitude adopted by one of the sensible members of the United Party, I think his point of view is correct. They do not want to grant the urban Bantu and the Bantu in the homelands the same kind of representation, nor can one do that. How on earth does the hon. member for Pinelands want to grant those two different groups representation through eight Whites?

The hon. member for Durban (North) went further in that article, and said—

In other words, everybody can go there. They can teach whom they like and what they like there. That is an indication of what we could expect if that party should come into power. Surely we know what is happening at some of those universities. We know how many liberalists and listed communists have taught there. We know that it is this Government which had to remove them and which is responsible for the fact that the White man in South Africa, the young people, the nation of the future are being protected against the corrupting influences exerted on the minds of our young people by those universities. But they do not agree with that. They maintain that anybody should be allowed to go to the universities and teach there what they like. There will be virtually no supervision. But let the people decide. This party stands by its policy of separate universities, and that that type of subversive activity and that type of liberalistic propaganda shall not be allowed, neither at the Afrikaans universities nor at the English language universities; because I believe that the large majority of the English-speaking parents in this country are also concerned about those influences which are exerted on the minds of their children. The United Party is not prepared to face the consequences of its own policy. They believe in the single-nation concept, that we do not have different nations in this country. They do not believe that there is a White nation with its own identity in this country; nor do they believe that there are different Bantu nations in this country. They believe that there should be one multi-racial nation, which would be represented in one Parliament. As long ago as 1959 the Leader of the Opposition warned in this House that numbers would be decisive. I want to quote that again, because before an election it is necessary that they should be reminded of their past pronouncements. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said—

That is so. We agree with him. In a single multi-racial nation exactly the same thing will happen which has happened in other multi-racial countries, where no multi-racial Parliament has ever succeeded. So far all the experiments have failed. The hon. Leader admits that leadership is dependent upon numbers. Can there be White leadership if the Whites are not in the majority? I should like to see how he can maintain that position. I want to ask him whether he will do so through force; but he has never been prepared to admit that.

There have also been other admissions on the part of the leaders of the United Party. There are many of their pronouncements of which they do not want to be reminded now, before the election; pronouncements which show very clearly that they themselves do not believe in that White leadership, that they themselves do not believe that the eight White representatives are the ultimate object of their policy.

They are not prepared to face the consequences of their own policy. Thus we find that leaders of that party—the hon. member for Yeoville and the Leader of the Opposition himself—have repeatedly stated that those representatives simply cannot remain Whites; eventually they will have to be represented here by their own people. The hon. member for Yeoville has said repeatedly that race federation would be a farce if each race could not be represented by its own people. They say the guarantee will be a referendum. If that is what they say, what can one expect from such a referendum? Why should they want to hold such a referendum if they did not mean to change the representation from White to Black? Then surely it would not be necessary to hold a referendum. If they declared an election or a referendum specifically on that issue of changing the colour of the Bantu representatives in this House, then it is self-evident that in that referendum they would ask that the colour of the representatives should be changed. Otherwise it would surely be unnecessary to declare an election. Surely that is an admission. What is more, a secretary of their party in the Peninsula, the M.P.C. for Rondebosch, said very explicitly that they would call for a referendum whenever there was an increase, every time the numbers here had to be increased. They themselves admit that once they have accepted this policy, it will not be possible to stop at those eight White representatives. Pressure from inside would simply force them to make concessions.

Mr. Speaker, no nation can indefinitely be denied the right to be represented by its own people, nor can any nation be denied the right to achieve and to realize its own national aspirations. It cannot be denied the right to strive and fight for its own national freedom. If they do not get separate freedom and if they are not given the opportunity to strive for their own freedom in their own territories, they will, as a majority group and by force of their numerical superiority, realize those aspirations at the cost of the White man in this country. Only this morning the Cape Times said very explicitly in a leading article that Black control was essential if the Western world was to be satisfied. The Cape Times wrote that with reference to the position in Rhodesia and the hon. the Prime Minister’s suggestion that Rhodesia’s policy was wrong and that they should follow a policy which would ensure that the White man would survive there permanently. In this connection, that newspaper maintained that such a policy was impracticable. If Rhodesia wanted to gain the favour or the friendship of the Western world, it would simply have to abandon that policy and not even consider that idea. That newspaper maintained that in order to satisfy the West, it was essential that a Black Government should come into power there. The difference, Mr. Speaker, between that side of the House and this side—and that is the difference on the basis of which judgment will once again have to be passed—is that the National Party recognizes the existence of separate nations and that it is prepared to grant each separate nation in this country the opportunity to develop on its own, as opposed to the policy of the United Party, which advocates a multi-racial nation. And by believing and propagating that, and by attuning its entire policy to that, it is also harming South Africa abroad. The image it is creating abroad is that South Africa is also a multi-racial country, like all the other countries in Africa. They hold the view that the Whites are not a separate nation which has become established here in the course of centuries. It is not a separate nation which has come into being here, with its own identity and its own national characteristics, and which has striven for and has achieved its own freedom. The impression is disseminated abroad that we are only colonialists, colonialists who will eventually have to submit to a Black majority. By implication that is what this single multi-racial nation means. That is the image they are trying to create in the world abroad. We, Mr. Speaker, are creating opportunities for the various nations to realize themselves, to preserve and develop their national spirit, their national pride, and their own identity, But, Mr. Speaker, at the next general election the South African people will reject that concept. We shall see to it that this White nation of South Africa will remove from the minds of the world abroad that concept of multi-racialism, that concept of one multi-racial nation with one multi-racial parliament and one multi-racial government. On 30 March the White voters of South Africa will see to it that there will no longer be any question of anything like that in this country. Proof will be provided of the fact that we as Whites are prepared, if necessary, to stand and fight to the bitter end for those things in which we believe and which are our only guarantee of survival.

My colleagues and I have decided not to take up too much time in this debate in order to allow the major parties an opportunity to carry on their pre-election campaign. I feel, however, that it is necessary to bring to the attention of this House a certain matter which has brought a considerable amount of hurt and humiliation to the Coloured people. I refer to the refusal of at least one Department of this Government to grant the necessary permission to an outstanding Coloured golfer, Mr. Papwa, to take part in certain golfing tournaments. I want to give the House some facts which will prove conclusively that a new type of job reservation has set in, namely that golfing tournaments are henceforth to be reserved for Europeans only. Everybody without a White skin will be barred. When this matter was initially brought to my notice I immediately contacted the Hon. the Minister of Planning at his home in the Strand where he was holidaying. The Minister received me very well and I do think that he was sympathetic to the case as represented to him at that juncture. I must also make it clear that the Hon. Minister of Planning has already granted Papwa permission to play in two tournaments, the one being at Port Elizabeth and the other the Natal Open. This person has brought honour to this country. He is not an ordinary golfer but has brought honour to South Africa by winning open tournaments oversea. He is really a top class golfer. This golfer wanted to play in the Carling Golfing Tournament overseas, and it was a condition of this tournament that he should at least have taken part in five tournaments in South Africa. These were the General Motors Tournament at Port Elizabeth in respect of which the Hon. Minister of Planning granted permission. Then there is the Dunlop Masters at Pretoria, the South African Open in Johannesburg, the Transvaal Open and the Natal Open at Durban. Permission, I believe, has also been granted in respect of the latter tournament. There is now a multiplicity of Departments that have to be approached. At the time I interviewed the Minister of Planning he intimated that he had received no further applications for permits and that this was a matter that fell under the control of the Minister of Community Development. I am sorry that this Minister is not in the House at the moment but I was told that he is a very busy man indeed. The Hon. the Minister I found completely immovable. I do not wish to be personal but the Minister’s attitude makes the rock of Gibraltar look like a piece of putty, comparatively speaking. I explained to him, Mr. Speaker, and I want every member of the Government to realize that all this man wanted was an opportunity to qualify for a competition which carried a purse of 200,000 dollar. This man is a professional golfer and why should he be prevented from complying with conditions to go overseas and play in this tournament merely because of the colour of his skin. The tragedy of it all is that he has been allowed to play in two of these tournaments but not in the remaining three. It is not just a case of this one golfer being affected. In actual fact it affects all the Coloured golfers of South Africa. It must also be understood by this Government that there are no separate golf courses set said for the Coloured community. Coloured golfers have to play on existing courses. Are we now going to bar this man from earning a living? Are we going to bar him for ever from upholding the golfing honours of South Africa? Influential Coloured people came to see me. They said that this was to them a matter of great principle. Why should this Government continue to add hurt after hurt when they have expressed the wish that there should be a better understanding between the Coloured and White people of this country. Why should the Government through its deeds continue to further widen the gap that already exists? How in heaven’s name could the fact that this most outstanding golfer would play as an individual, not in partnership, in a golfing tournament affect the future of South Africa?

I say quite frankly that it is to be regretted that I have to drag this man into politics—I have met him personally—but I do so because I have no alternative. The fact that the P.G.A. themselves made representations, according to Press reports, is an indication that they have no objection to this man playing with them. Whom is the Government trying to protect by refusing this man permission to play? What are they hoping to gain by refusing this man the lawful privilege of a South African citizen to pursue his living on the golf courses of South Africa? Whom are they trying to protect? Whose keepers are they? I would have no objection, and I am sure nobody on the other side would have objection if a Coloured golfer of the calibre of this player walks with his clubs on to a golf course and plays the game on his own with a view to winning further honours overseas. I say that if ever the Government has failed to do something worth while to bring the Coloureds closer to the Whites, they have done so in this case. As I have said, I have met this man. He is a quiet, unassuming fellow who does not ask for anything except what is right and moral. He says, “Give me an opportunity to earn my living; I am a professional golfer.” The fact that he is allowed to play does not affect one White person in this country. If I go on the golf course with my grandchild and he or she has a Coloured nanny, she is allowed to accompany me but here a golfer is not allowed to walk on the course. When hon. members opposite play golf they are allowed to have a Coloured caddy with them. Then the whole principle is of no importance, but when a Coloured golfer walks on a golf course on his own then it is something terrible.

Where a caddy is employed it becomes a master/servant relationship!

As long as you have the master/servant relationship then it transcends all other considerations. Sir, I personally am deeply hurt that this should happen to the people whom I represent in this House. This is not behaviour which is worthy of the White people; there is a further danger. I do not know what attitude the golfing authorities of the world will adopt in connection with this case. We have already been expelled from other international sporting bodies. Why should we persist in doing things which will make it possible for us to be expelled from another international sporting body?

Sir. I do not want to pursue this matter further. I thought it was my duty, not only on behalf of this man but on behalf of the Coloured people to lodge the strongest protest against the decision of one Minister to refuse to allow a man as an individual to qualify for this tournament overseas. It is my duty as a representative of the Coloured people to lodge my protest against this further hurt, injury and humiliation and almost degradation that they have to suffer as a result of an incidence such as this.

Is the Minister a golfer?

A bad one.

I understand that a caddy knows more about golf than he does. However, I do not want to be personal. I am sorry the hon. the Minister is not here at the moment, but I think I am in order in repeating what he told me; he said “If he had played in these competitions before I might have let him play.” The fact that he trod the grass or the land last year or this year means that it is already contaminated! In other words, “I won’t let him contaminate the land or the soil or the grass on which White men have to walk in these other tournaments.” I do not think there is any hon. member on the other side who can be proud of this decision. I do not think there is anyone on that side who can be proud of their policy in this matter. We must remember that in golf the players do not come into contact physically. It may not be a good point but for what it is worth I want to make it. You might say that you cannot have a Bantu man and a White man in the same scrum in a game of rugby or in the same forward line at soccer because there may be personal physical contact; that might be the excuse. But where a man plays a game of golf as an individual and does not touch anybody and separate arrangements are made for him in terms of Government policy, where in Heaven’s name does this man offend? Sir, I have made my case: I have protested. It is too late now, or it may not be too late. I am going to make a very sincere and honest appeal to hon. members opposite to try to get the Minister of Community Development to change his mind. I am thankful to the Minister of Planning for what he tried to do and I want to say quite frankly that I had him so much convinced as to the justice of my case that if it had depended on him solely, the decision might have been different; I do not say it would have been different.

He is smiling.

Well, he is a legal man. He understands. You cannot talk to the Minister of Community Development; he does not understand anything about legal justice. His attitude is: „Dit is my beleid en ek gaan niks verder nie.” Sir, it is heart-breaking to represent people in this House when we are up against a brick wall. It took years and years to abolish slavery. The Coloured people of this country have patience and I am sure that their patience will be rewarded.

We expected the Opposition to start with the agricultural debate now, but it seems to us that they are afraid to discuss agricultural matters and that they are trying to put it off for as long as they possibly can.

The hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) has now got up and made a speech, and so I have been told told to fill the gap in the interim before the agricultural debate begins. I should like to tell the hon. member for Boland that it is time that he and also the people outside realized that the Government is serious with its apartheid policy and that our apartheid policy will apply in all spheres of society, and that it applies, and will apply, to golf as well as to other fields of sport. I know that Papwa was an exception who had been granted certain concessions and who had been allowed to play under certain circumstances, but that also had to be discontinued at some stage or other, because we find that quite a number of non-Whites are beginning to demand to be allowed to participate in golf competitions. and we cannot allow ourselves to be forced into the position of allowing more and more non-Whites to participate in White competitions. It should be realized once and for all that we have reached the end of the road as regards allowing non-Whites to infiltrate into sporting circles.

I have listened with interest to the debate conducted here in the past two days. If one keeps in mind the fact that we are on the eve of an election, and if one has to regard the debates conducted here as the prelude to the fight that lies ahead, I cannot help saying that the Opposition has put up a pitiable performance. We really expected the Opposition to come forward with something, but what did we get? Once again it was the Prime Minister who had to give a vision to the country, something which we can strive towards, something which we can live for, and something for which we shall make the necessary sacrifices if it becomes necessary. My honest conclusion is that the Opposition has achieved absolutely nothing by their large-scale attempts to stir up suspicion and to exploit the grievances of the electorate. The election will show us what they have achieved by their propaganda because, after all, the electorate will not allow itself to be influenced by propaganda and clever talk. The electorate will judge the tree by its fruit. The electorate will choose the tree bearing the best fruit. Mr. Speaker, the United Party, as we see it sitting over there, is bereft of all its leaves after a prolonged drought of 17-18 years, and it cannot bear fruit any longer. We know that the United Party has started to get rid of the dead wood recently; the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl), the hon. members for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp), Simonstown (Mr. Gay) and King William’s Town (Mr. Warren), will not return to this House, and one wonders why the United Party has not got rid of even more dead wood; why they did not get rid of the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) and the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) too. However, they cannot afford to get rid of all the dead wood, because if they do they will be left with a lot of water-shoots, and water-shoots can bear even less fruit than other shoots. Surely a tree such as that cannot bear any fruit, and even all the care in the world will have no effect on it. Even if they prune the tree again, even if they try to use the best fertilizer in the world, and even if the tree is watered by the National Party from time to time with each election, it cannot bear fruit because the stem of that tree is rotten, the stem which should supply the life-giving juice. I do not mean anything bad by saying that; I simply mean that the United Party has stopped to have any message for the electorate of the Republic of South Africa. It is so bad that even the Sunday Times is making fun of them. In an article in the Sunday Times oi 12 December. “Politicians’ Diary”, we read the following—

The United Party has no policy to pursue, and if we do not bring disaster upon ourselves, the United Party will definitely never succeed in doing so. Up to now the only thing we have had from the Leader of the Opposition which merits some consideration is that they are raising the cry of White leadership for the whole of the Republic of South Africa; it is the old story dressed up in a new guise. However, I honestly do not think that the United Party is sincere in raising that cry. Let us analyze that cry a little. In the first place, we know that the United Party has opposed the Immorality Act through all these years. Secondly, we know that it is the intention of the United Party to restore the Coloureds to the Common Voters’ Roll. It is difficult to understand how they are going to promote White leadership by doing that, because if one does that one immediately starts sharing the leadership or the say in the country with the non-Whites. What do we really mean by “leadership”? Leadership is the power to govern and to control, the power to compel and to prohibit. It is difficult to understand how they want to apply that leadership when we see that there are people on our borders, in the protectorates, who demand and agitate for the right to govern themselves and to manage their own affairs. Even in terms of the race federation plan of the United Party it is envisaged that there will be eight representatives of the non-Whites in Parliament in due course. They think that apparent concession will satisfy world opinion because it will be a step in the right direction, but where is that step going to lead us? I cannot but quote to you what was said in a leading article of the Cape Times of 1 May 1964, which, to my mind, shows what that step would lead to. In that leading article this course which the United Party wants to follow is described as follows—

That is precisely the line of thought advocated by the United Party and that is what they have in mind. For that reason we say that the course followed by the United Party will most definitely result in non-White supremacy in South Africa. But I do not want to waste much time on the United Party. As I have said, we are on the eve of an election and we have to show the people what the National Party has done and what fruit the national tree has borne. The National Party will gain lasting recognition for that. One of the greatest turning-points in the history of South Africa came on 26 May 1948, when the National Party came into power. Now, Sir, you may ask me why. It is because the National Party has done great things. I find it very strange that no mention has been made of that so far. But I want to emphasize it, and we shall still hear it many times this year. In this connection we need think only of the establishment of the Republic in 1961, and what it has meant to the country. In addition to the economic advantages which resulted it has also had the result that the people of the Republic have been reborn. In this connection the words of the historian Breytenbach are only too true—

To-day this greater Afrikaner nation is marching together into the future to protect and secure our inheritance. I find this change of attitude strikingly illustrated in two speeches I should like to quote to-day. The first speech was made by the Leader of the Opposition in Paarl, where he said that we were neither colonials nor settlers we were here to stay, even if we had to stay here by force of arms, and the world should realize that.

On 11 March, 1964, the hon. member for Green Point said that if South Africa was to be attacked or if the outside world was to try to interfere in our domestic affairs, every man and woman, except for a handful who had sold themselves to the enemy, would stand and fight behind the Government in power and that hundreds of thousands of non-Whites would help, That is the concept of national unity which we are striving to achieve and which was revealed in these statements namely, this love for and loyalty to the Republic of South Africa in which the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Green Point are prepared to share. I should like to tell the Opposition that there is a difference between national unity and political unity as far as I am concerned. We on this side of the House do not seek political unity; we seek national unity, and that is something totally different from what they mean by that concept. The Opposition is too much inclined to confuse those two concepts. That is why it is right to say that national unity was promoted by the advent of the Republic.

Secondly, the National Party has made the people of the Republic and many others realize the seriousness and the extent of our racial problem. It has given us a new vision as far as our racial problems are concerned. In this connection I should like to quote an article in the Burger, written by “Dawie”, which illustrated this point very effectively. Writing under the heading “Geboorte van ’n Magtige Idee vir Suid-Afrika”, he said—

That is the vision of a racial policy which has been created for us by the vision we have had from the Prime Minister.

Thirdly, I could entertain you by mentioning what has been achieved in the economic sphere and what is envisaged in that regard. We can discuss our social and welfare services and what is being done for the stricken agricultural areas, but that is common knowledge to you. In conclusion I just want to say that the difference between the National Party and the United Party is that the National Party has a message for the Republic of South Africa and that its deeds and its actions therefore fire the imagination of the people of the Republic, with the result that they will again vote for the National Party at the next election.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately there is not much one can reply to in what the previous speaker said. The hon. member was so confused that one cannot really make head or tail of what he meant. I am talking about the hon. member for Welkom (Mr. Van Wyk). I do not really blame the hon. member, for I understand he had a difficult nomination struggle. [Laughter.] Difficulties await him, and one is therefore not surprised at his speech. He tried to tell us what the idea behind the Nationalist Party’s policy was, but he never came to the major idea behind that policy, which is the idea of independent Bantustans. At one stage he spoke about the protectorates which will govern themselves, and he spoke about the terrible danger they would constitute to South Africa, but he forgot to say what danger the Bantustans, which will be situated within the boundaries of South Africa and which will govern themselves, would constitute.

But I want to deal with a few other little matters. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration said it was a matter affecting the personal honour of the Leader of the Opposition that there should be no smear campaign in this election. It was almost with tears in his eyes that he said that, and he was still speaking when he pulled out a book on United Party policy and said that it had been printed by the “yellow press”. What does that mean?

But it is a yellow book.

The hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Sadie) also spoke of the propaganda made by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan), the same story which the hon. the Deputy Minister told. The Deputy Minister of Education spoke of the United Party’s slanted representations. Let us examine for a moment the slanted representations which the hon. member for Orange Grove was allegedly guilty of. This is the article which the Deputy Minister read ad nauseum, and I shall also read a passage from it [Translation]—

A greater Basutoland. Where does he come by his story of it being an exchange? And if there could be an exchange, is he going to give the Republic twice as much land as that obtained by Basutoland? That article speaks of a greater Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland. What other meaning could it have?

But what I actually want to deal with is the Prime Minister’s speech, that election speech which was so full of promises, the most wonderful promises. Do you know, Sir, I could not believe my ears when he said the people of South Africa must not only live, they must live well. I ask you, Sir. They must live well. This goes for the civil servants and for the railwayman and the workers in the postal services—the people who struggle every day—and it also applies to the farmers of South Africa who, during the period this Government has been in power, have gone through the bitterest years they have ever known. Now these people should not only live, they should live well. The Prime Minister went further; he promised us a great many things. We have just experienced a drought and all at once he promises us plenty of water. He says there is a long list of projects for the next five years which are going to be submitted. In addition to the Orange River scheme 36,000 morgen will be placed under irrigation. There will be more water for the existing 14,800 morgen, and then he talks about the Orange River again and it seems to me he has now become a little confused by the figures, for he says a further 53,000 morgen will be added to the 86,000 morgen already existing, and that another 35,000 morgen will be added. He speaks of three power stations, and also of a wonderful large dam which will be built at Oppermansdrift on the Vaal River which will solve all the difficulties experienced with the Vaal River and supply the Witwatersrand with sufficient water. But even then he is not satisfied and he says the Tugela has great possibilities. Sir, have I not been fighting for the Tugela these 10 years or more? Why does the Prime Minister only wake up now? He then speaks of possibilities in the Boland and concludes with that. He says it will be the greatest plan in regard to water that South Africa has ever seen. He waits eighteen years and then tells me about this ambitious plan. Is it not pitiable? Is is nothing other than an election speech with election promises. But then he comes back to the farmers of course, and here he stirs my soul deeply. He says he wants to assure the farmers of South Africa that the distress brought upon them by the drought has touched us all deeply and that we are united in our sympathy and our determination to find a solution to their problems. He says that the production of food is of fundamental importance to us. Is it not this Government which has brought the farmers to this pass where we now have to import foodstuffs? Is it not this Government which had to import butter during the past two years, and powdered milk as well? Is it not this Government which laughed at me last year when I asked how one could rear a baby without milk? He then speaks of the character of the farmer and he speaks of the conservative person who is of great importance. It seems to me the Prime Minister has read my speeches. He says the spirit of the conservative person forms the mainstay of our way of thinking and that it is foolish to think that we can leave the farmers in the lurch, and that we should in every possible way endeavour to get them back on their feet again, and that a new department would be created. This is very interesting and I shall return in a moment to this new department. The farmer must remain on his farm, he should be self-supporting and undertake and plan his own business.

Do you say he should not do so?

The Prime Minister then comes along and states that it is dangerous to issue general regulations; one should not look for major proclamations and regulations; there would be individual attention for each farmer. How many farmers are there? There were 102,000; I do not know if there are 77,000 left. Could you imagine how long the Prime Minister would have to live if he wants to give each one of them individual attention? When will they be helped out of their plight if it is he who has to help them? He says that each farmer will receive support and aid on his own merits and then he speaks of cattle farming and the dairy industry. The man in the street, hearing the Prime Minister for the first time, must find it very touching. But I was present in this House last year when we were talking about agriculture and my hon. Leader raised the matter under the Vote of the Prime Minister. This is what the hon. Prime Minister said on that occasion—

The hon. the Prime Minister does not merely put his foot in it once. Oh! no, he puts his foot in it three times in succession! On 6 April last year he said certain things in this connection, and on 7 April he resumed his story—surely you know, Sir, how tedious the Prime Minister is! He said:

I repeat: “… the real, the basic problems of this country.” Then the farmers were not those conservative people on whom the structure of the entire South Africa was built. Then they were of lesser importance! Subsequently, however, he had to admit he was wrong. When the hon. the Leader of the Opposition pointed out to him that there had also been a discussion of farming matters under the Vote of the Prime Minister in 1946, he admitted it and added that he had not been aware of it. But he also said: “However, that was years and years and years ago.” In 1946 the farmer was still a farmer, he was the master on his farm. He did his own planning. At that time they did not have three Ministers of Agriculture each one of whom knew less than the other!

It was with interest that I learnt of a certain Bill which will be introduced here. I undertook a bit of reference work on that matter and discovered a few interesting things in the Hansard Report of 1958. In column 1736 Mr. Hans Abraham introduced the following motion:

This motion was introduced by the then member for Groblersdal (Mr. Hans Abraham). And do you know, Mr. Speaker, who seconded it? The present hon. Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, and of Lands! And it then took him eight years to introduce a Bill of this nature. Eight years after he had seconded the motion! I paged through the Hansard Reports, one after the other, and I saw that in 1960 the hon. member for Sea Point (Capt. J. A. L. Basson) spoke about the meat market and the state of affairs in which the meat producers had found themselves. This afternoon I referred to the fact that the hon. the Prime Minister spoke about the dairy industry and cattle farming. I am quoting from column 7367. Inter alia, the hon. member for Sea Point said the following:

Whereupon the present hon. Deputy Minister of Agricultural Technical Services, of Water Affairs, Agricultural Economics and Marketing and of Lands made the following interjection:

Subsequently the hon. member for Sea Point said the following in reference to the hon. Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing and of Lands:

If he is a farmer, as I know he is, he will realize that if he did not have his ministerial salary, he would have had great difficulty in making ends meet on the profit which you make on meat to-day.

Whereupon the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Keyter), who is Chairman of the Mielie Board, said: “Go and fetch yourself a soap box.” That is what they thought of the farmers. But I am far from finished with them!

In 1962 the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) introduced a motion in this connection {Hansard, col. 1217):

1. (a) the downward trend in commodity prices;
2. (b) the upward trend in production costs;
3. (c) the accumulation of commodity surpluses;

and of making adequate marketing facilities available.

And who opposed that motion? Once again it was the hon. the Minister. I referred to what he had said when he opened the Congress of the South African Agricultural Union:

After I had pleaded the farmers’ case, the hon. the Deputy Minister passed the following remark during the course of his speech {Hansard,col. 1234):

In his speech {Hansard, col. 1237) the hon. the Deputy Minister asked what farmers were in a bad way and then supplied the answer, i.e. farmers in category 3. He then enumerated which farmers these were, i.e. the uneconomic farmers, farmers who farmed on uneconomic units. Inter alia he mentioned those farmers living in the Southern Transvaal.

The hon. the Deputy Minister moved an amendment {Hansard, col. 1240):

… this House once more expresses its confidence in—

1. (1) The marketing system as embodied in the Marketing Act, which serves as the only guarantee of stabilization;
2. (2) The steps already taken by the two Agricultural Departments …
3. (3) the steps taken by the Agricultural Departments and the Control Boards
4. (4) The steps taken by the Agricultural Departments, the Land Bank, the Farmers’ Assistance Board and other Government bodies in giving financial assistance to areas where unsatisfactory conditions arise in the agricultural industry on account of phenomena of nature.

In this way the Ministers were to be thanked for everything which they had supposedly done. In 1964 the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) once more introduced a motion in this connection. {Hansard, col. 607)—

And what reactions were evoked by this motion? I have the passages here, but unfortunately do not have sufficient time to read them. It was said that the farmers of South Africa were prospering. It was alleged that the entire matter was merely United Party propaganda.

I now want to try and indicate how closely consumers are related to farming matters in South Africa. These people who are now supposed to live well. The Civil Servants, the Railway people, the Post Office workers, the man in the street—I would like to show how closely their lives are linked up with the farming industry in South Africa. And in this regard I want to make an accusation against the Government. I maintain that this Government has locked the consumers’ larder. Owing to its neglect of the farmers it has destroyed the source of our foodstuffs.

Look at all these wonderful promises which the hon. the Prime Minister is now making on the eve of the election! Will they be of any assistance to the thousands upon thousands of farmers who did not succumb as a result of the drought but as a result of the production costs pincer in which they have been caught over the years? Now the hon. members on that side are absolutely quiet! [Laughter.] I am glad to hear their hollow laughter once more! Each time those hon. members make their hollow laughter heard, the people of South Africa, the farming population of South Africa, realize more and more how hollow the gesture is which has now been made by the Prime Minister.

Why does the Prime Minister only wake up now, after he has sold his own farm? If he has such great faith in the farming population, why is he not a farmer himself? He was once a farmer! Why is it that to-day, we, and many other farmers, are alone in our quandary? Why is it that now, during the drought, we farmers assisted other farmers ourselves.

But just the other day the hon. member’s Leader wanted to buy a farm …

Mr. Speaker, the trouble is that the Prime Minister has appointed two agricultural Ministers who are always to be found in the Cape Province only, and do not know what is happening in the other provinces! The hon. Ministers do not know what is going on in other parts of our country.

I want to repeat what I said. It was the Transvaal Agricultural Union, it was the Vleissentraal, it was the S.A.A.U. who helped the farmers. I am speaking from experience. In the Utrecht district are between 50,000 and 60,000 sheep from the drought-stricken areas. They were brought there by our own farmers’ associations. And, Sir, we are not charging a single cent for that pasturage we are supplying it free of charge. And what is more, we are not giving it out of our abundance. I have here a letter which was posted to me on 21st January by the Co-operative Wool Company and which reads as follows:

It is clear therefore that we are not supplying grazing to our fellow farmers out of our abundance. We are helping them with the little we have. But this is the accusation which they are levelling at us. Where was the Government? Where was the Minister, the one who is laughing so heartily now. This hon. Minister, who states that he makes a profit of 18% on his land, why did he not come to their assistance?

I have assisted more farmers than you have ever thought of assisting with pasturage, and some of them were United Party men!

Well, if he helped them, he must have done it in the dark, because I have heard nothing about it. The general complaint of the farmers’ associations and agricultural unions is that they only get to see the Minister for a few minutes only, and then they are gone. [Interjections.] I want to say to the hon. member for Cradock that if he had listened to the speech of the hon. the Prime Minister … The hon. the Prime Minister made false accusations against the U.P. He said the following for example:

He contended that the members of the Opposition believe in political integration. He contended that the members of the Opposition had accepted political integration, that they had accepted partnership. He said things like that, and other things too, which I know, and which the Prime Minister himself knows, are untrue. Mr. Speaker, where is the Prime Minister this afternoon? I want to talk to him about his promises! I have just called to mind that when drought conditions were prevailing on the Reef, the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services and of Water Affairs was lying on the beach at Port Elizabeth acquiring a tan. I can still see how red he is! At this late stage, while the water consumption of the greatest industrial complex in the country is being cut by 25%, all these solemn promises are being made on that side. The hon. the Prime Minister has promised that a dam will be built at Oppermansdrif, but those people will still suffer from a water shortage in the future. Do they realize how our country is suffering because our boreholes are drying up and our underground water supplies are steadily diminishing? Have our Ministers ever considered that every drop of water should be conserved!

I listened attentively to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. [Interjections.] The Minister is always silly. I have never said that there is a water shortage in Cape Town. Here I have a glass of water on my desk. And there is still drinking water on the Reef. It is absurd, it is foolish, and it is a sign of bad taste on the part of the Minister to carry on in this way.

Has the Government ever considered that all the water flowing away to the sea should be caught up so that our subterranean sources may be replenished? Has this Government ever been concerned about the fact that our underground water table is dropping? Have they ever gone to see in what condition the orange trees in Rustenburg and its vicinity are? Those trees are dying because of lack of water. Have they ever gone to see people who have had to leave their homes for lack of water for their cattle? But now they come here with their election speeches, with their wonderful promises. It is heartwarming to see how fond they have suddenly become of the farmers. Well, Mr. Speaker, it is seventeen, eighteen years too late!

Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk), and I must honestly admit that, as usual, she has put new life into the debate. That is how we have learnt to appreciate her as a parliamentarian, irrespective of how much substance there really is in what she has to say! I must admit that whatever she says, she does know how to say it in a manner which not only arouses mirth on the part of everyone listening to her, but also endears her to us. [Laughter.] That also assures her of her place as a comrade in politics.

The hon. member for Drakensberg said that the hon. the Prime Minister always puts his foot into it.

He always puts both feet into it.

But what has been granted her is not granted every parliamentarian, and that is always to keep her feet in it! Mr. Speaker, I have never had the privilege of seeing one of her feet out of it!

However, I must admit that she has made contributions in this House which have given one food for thought, contributions which were worthy of consideration. On other occasions, however, she made speeches which did not contain anything worthy of consideration. The hon. member became the member for Drakensberg thirteen years ago. Thirteen years is a peculiar number. For some people it is a lucky number, for others an unlucky one. In any case, it is thirteen years ago that she made what to my mind was a graceful entrance into Parliament. And I now expected that since this was to be her last speech in a no-confidence debate in this House she would have concluded her thirteen years of service to the nation in Parliament with more grace.