Further to what I have already said, i.e. that what we are now getting from the Opposition is a brand-new smear campaign against South Africa, I want to point out that as such it is not something entirely new, because the keynote in this connection was sounded by the “elder statesmen” on the opposite side, namely the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. The hon. member for Durban (North) is merely following in those tracks. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout, according to a report which appeared in the New York Herald Tribune of 4th August, 1965, a report which did us a great deal of harm—and he must have foreseen that it would do us harm—had the following to say—

That is how they describe the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, but you cannot blame them, because they do not know him—

Shame!

In that case the hon. member certainly does not fall into that category, because as far as I am aware he has never yet been intimidated. The hon. member also charged me with not knowing what I was talking about when on occasion, and quite rightly, I warned against the fact that the liberalists in South Africa were in many respects much more dangerous than the communists, because, as I said, you know that the communist is your enemy and you know what he is going to do, but the liberalists sail under false colours. In South Africa they very definitely sail under false colours. Is it not a fact that at least 30 members of the so-called Liberal Party were actively guilty of sabotage of the worst degree?

Those are the “decent people” he refers to.

Yes. Is it not a fact that Harris, who planted the bomb on the Johannesburg Station, was recruited for the African Resistance Movement at a meeting of the Liberal Party at the house of Hain, who was the Transvaal leader of the Liberal Party?

I was not talking about the Liberal Party or liberals.

The hon. member took the liberty of telling the world that we are using the Security Police to intimidate decent people in South Africa.

I was referring to Beyers Naude.

No, that is how the hon. member was reported, and that is how it will stand on the hon. member’s record! That is the position we have had in South Africa. I repeat that these people sail under false colours from time to time, and if they think, or if the hon. member thinks, that this will keep the Government from taking action if it is necessary to take steps against those people in the interests of the safety of South Africa, under whatever colours they might be sailing, then they are making a mistake and so is he.

I return to the hon. member for Durban (North), who made a positive accusation against me, an accusation one does not lightly make against any Minister of Justice. In his seeking after publicity he took it upon himself to say—and this is what it amounts to—that as Minister of Justice I am treating the courts with contempt. What right does the hon. member have to say that? The hon. member knows as well as I do—and it is not necessary for me to blow my own trumpet in this regard, because even my severest critics have admitted as much—that I do not have to take a back seat to any of my predecessors as far as my treatment of and respect for the judiciary of South Africa are concerned. I do not need a testimonial from the hon. member. My actions over the past five years—and to-day it is exactly five years that I have held this portfolio—indicate what my attitude in that regard has been in the past. But how stupid of the hon. member to have selected this particular sector of the battlefront in which to throw stones at me, he who has called his party’s past to witness—and what a past it has been, in this sphere as well! Mr. Speaker, was it not in fact that party which, when it was in power, assigned special Judges to hear certain cases because they did not trust the other members of the bench, while I have on behalf of this Government always adopted the attitude that, however essential it might appear to be, we shall not resort to appointing special Judges to hear specific cases, because we trust the entire bench with any case brought before it, whatever the nature of that case may be. That has always been our attitude.

Such as the High Court of Parliament!

If the hon. member argues in such a foolish way, then the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is going to take his place in this very Session.

But it is not only in respect of this point that the hon. member is vulnerable. Was it not that party which, while it was in power, removed a magistrate from the bench while a case was still in progress and appointed another magistrate in his place without hearing the evidence from the beginning again, merely because they knew that the magistrate in question was not going to commit the accused for trial? I am referring to the charge of high treason against 52 persons. The other magistrate committed the accused to trial on the instructions of the then Minister of Justice and the end result was that the Attorney-General refused to prosecute, but these people were left in prison for 16 months without trial. [Interjections.] No, it was the hon. member who called his past to witness. If I had a past like that I would feel ashamed. Was it not in fact that party which instructed a public prosecutor in the public court in the northern Transvaal to say to the accused, “If you are found not guilty we are going to intern you, but if you plead guilty then I shall see to it that you get off with a nominal fine”? That is the way, Mr. Speaker, in which they treated the judiciary and the administration of justice in their time, and then the hon. member takes the liberty of levelling the accusation against me that I treat the judiciary in South Africa with contempt.

The hon. member asked me to give this House an explanation of my attitude in respect of the restriction of individuals. Restrictions are nothing new; neither is it I who introduced them. Restrictions were introduced under the Act of 1950 and both my predecessors acted in terms of that Act. The hon. member knows as well as I do that as far as dealing with communists is concerned—and that is the premise adopted in the 1950 Act—there are two basic principles embodied in that Act. The first is that Communism must be eradicated and that communists must be punished for their deeds, but the second point of departure was that it is the Minister’s duty—and that obligation has been placed upon him by law—to prevent as far as possible and by means of restriction orders the committing of actions which constitute a threat to the safety of the State. That is why you impose restrictions on people; you restrict them not necessarily because they have done something in the past, but because their associations, their actions and their utterances are such that they might lead to the achievement of the aims of Communism. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout admitted that and so did the hon. member for Durban North. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout put it very clearly that Communism is of such a nature that one cannot always fight it with the ordinary democratic methods, and that other hon. member also conceded that. That is the split in which we nave always acted. At the present moment in South Africa—I am now furnishing the number as at 1st July—there are 453 people on whom restrictions have been imposed. Several dozen of these people are Poqos in whose case we deemed it advisable, after they had been released from prison, to keep them under observation for a period of two years and not five, as in the other cases, so that we could keep an eye on them in order to prevent any further acts of violence. Is there any hon. member on the opposite side who wants to tell me I have not acted correctly? This is one of the motives for imposing restrictions on people; but we do not simply restrict people and then forget about them. Over the years I have in many cases amended the restriction orders imposed upon people and in many cases I have even lifted them. Only recently I lifted the restriction in respect of two lecturers at the Grahamstown University. These people know that things are not the same to-day as they were in the days when hon. members on the opposite side were in power. They know that they have access to me at any time; they know that they can make representations to me and that I am prepared to consider those representations. But hon. members on that side, without having the facts at their disposal, come forward with a great display of verbosity and ascribe all kinds of motives to one. I want to mention one example. I am not going to reveal the man’s name on this occasion, but I am prepared to show the correspondence to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. One of the people whom I restricted in this way and about whom a tremendous fuss was made in the press, made representations to me through his head and asked me to lift his restriction order. I told the head that I was prepared to lift the restriction order provided that (a) he (the head) accepted responsibility for him and (b) that person gave an undertaking that he would not engage in sabotage or subversive activities. According to some hon. members and according to the anti-National Party Press in South Africa he was the epitome of good behaviour and decency, and what did he himself have to say? This is what he wrote to me—

Mr. Speaker, I have a responsibility, not only to my side of the House, but also to that side of the House and to the country as a whole, and if the evidence placed before me indicates that a man is toying with sabotage, or that he is not merely toying with it but that he is involved in such an organization, but the evidence is such that I cannot take him to court—and we have debated this point often in the past—what do hon. members expect me to do? Must I sit and wait until he has committed sabotage, or must I prevent it by imposing restrictions on him? And here we find this innocent man whom they were always telling me about admitting candidly, of his own accord and without my having asked him to do so, that he had toyed with sabotage. Sir, it is easy for hon. members who do not bear the responsibility in this regard.

But there is a new cry going up from hon. members on the opposite side, from the hon. members for Bezuidenhout and Durban North, that in the past the Opposition have always supported us when we were dealing with the safety of the State. The hon. member for Durban North said—

Sir, in what way has he suffered through supposedly having supported the Government? No, hon. members are in the state in which they find themselves because the people have rejected them, for the very reason that the people have come to the conclusion that those hon. members are not to be entrusted with this. Surely they know, just as well as I do, that one of the reasons for their decline has been the attitude they adopted in this House when the Sabotage Act was introduced. Do you remember, Sir, how they forced us through night sittings? Do you remember the crack-brained arguments they advanced on that occasion? The hon. member for Drakensberg, of blessed political memory—do you remember the argument she put forward here? And those things were sent out into the world. When they could no longer find a stick to beat us with she came forward in the early hours of the morning in this House with the silly argument that if you found someone along the road who had been involved in a motor-car accident, picked him up and took him to hospital and he subsequently turned out to be a communist, you could, in terms of this Act, be charged with sabotage. That was the foolish level to which we descended. Do you remember. Sir, what was said in regard to Section 17 in 1963? You will recall, Sir, and you will grant that I gave a full explanation of Section 17. In fact, the entire Second Reading debate on the Bill was devoted to it. But in spite of the long explanation which I gave and which I do not want to repeat now because it would be wasting the time of the House, the hon. member for Durban North came forward and this is what he said at that time in Hansard, col. 4861, of the 26th April, 1966—

Read a little further on.

Yes, I will read further, and because the hon. member is wont to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, he then went on to say—

But first of all he made the other assertion, and what was the effect? I have consulted the newspaper clippings again. The newspapers omitted to mention the second statement. They seized upon what the hon. member for Durban (North) had said, i.e. that all reasonable people could only conclude that we had a police state in South Africa, and with great gusto they trumpeted it abroad.

But I must make haste. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to the Robertson case. I want to reply to him in that regard. If my memory serves me correctly, I saw in the Press that the hon. member had had an interview with the young man. I restricted the young man, in terms of the obligation imposed upon me and the authority conferred upon me by the Act, and taking into consideration the facts and the circumstances. Hon. members are acquainted with this matter of the students, students who landed in prison, the tremendous grief caused to the parents, as a result, but I am better acquainted with the matter because it all went through my office and because, from time to time, I interview them in prison. I was mindful of the fact that I had to prevent a second Leftwich affair, and that is why I took action. Did the young man tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition what he did in Swaziland? Did he perhaps tell him whom it was he went to Basutoland to seek liaison with? This young man, whom the newspapers describe as a student, but who has never set foot in a classroom …

Is that how he got his degree?

I am not speaking of the time he got his degree. I am speaking about this year, after he had obtained it. He is no more a student than anyone in this Chamber is a student. He lived on the full payment he received from Nusas, money which he received from them monthly.

Did you cross-examine him about his visits to Swaziland.

Will the hon. member please stop acting like a “bobby-soxer”? Did this young man perhaps tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition with what overseas bodies he sought liaison, to put it mildly, which are hostile to the Republic? Did he tell the hon. member that he served on the committee of a communist front organization, Defence and Aid? We shall return to Defence and Aid later in this Session. I go so far as to say that no person who has had any dealings with that organization can be unaware of the fact that one is dealing with a communist front organization here. Sir, this young man had every opportunity to make representations to me. As a matter of fact, I invited him to do so and to furnish me with explanations. Up to the present I have heard nothing from him. The only communication I have had from him is one in which he asked me for a permit to leave the country, and that I granted readily.

But what is more important, I received a deputation from Nusas in this regard, and I want to conclude by saying something about that. They asked me whether I would be prepared to reconsider the case if they submitted proof to me that this young man, instead of furthering communistic aims, was in fact anti-communist, and that I had, therefore, made a mistake. I said nothing would give me greater pleasure than to receive such proof from them and to reconsider the case in the light of such proof. Not only would it have been my duty, but I would also have been glad to do so. That was three months ago. Up to the present I have not heard a single word from them in that connection. I do not believe I ever shall either. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister in replying to the speeches made by the hon. members for Bezuidenhout and Durban (North), started off by getting a few laughs from his side through sarcastic remarks. I would remind him that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Surely the Minister can get his laughs in some other way. But that is typical of this Minister’s replies. Instead of replying to the attack made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, what did he do? He took certain instances not referred to by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and dealt with them. Why did he not deal with the attack made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout when he referred specifically to the case of Dr. Beyers Naude? Why did the Minister ignore that? The Minister chose to take certain liberal saboteurs and suggested that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was defending them. The hon. member denied it and he explained to the Minister what he was getting at. Why does the Minister not reply to that attack? We have got used to this simulated anger by that side of the House. Whenever they are accused of acting undemocratically or unnationally we get that simulated anger from them. They would like us to forget their record. I say it is simulated indignation because we remember what happened in the past. The Minister has referred to the war years. I can also go back. He may say that I “haal ou koeie uit die sloot”, but the Minister has referred to it. In 1953 the Minister mentioned this interference with the courts which he again mentioned today. From what I can remember then, Mr. Harry Lawrence, who was the Minister of Justice at the time, denied the incident, but the Minister chose to refer to it again now, as an example of treating the courts with contempt.

Do you say it is not true?

The hon. member who could deny it at the time in fact denied it. I do not know about those instances.

What about the records?

Yes, let us talk about records: One thing I will say about this Minister is that he stands unrepentant. He said so. A few years ago he said he was not ashamed of what he had done and he would act in exactly the same way again. I refer to the time when the Government of the day thought it advisable to lock him up because he was a danger, as they thought, to the security of the State. Now the Minister chastises the hon. member for Durban (North) for referring to the country as being a police state, but this Minister accused the old United Party Government of having a police state. I would remind you, Sir, that the accusation was made when that Government was fighting not a cold war but a hot war. Sir, sabotage is nothing new. Sabotage is a despicable offence. None of us approves of it; we all abhor it, but I would like to remind hon. members opposite that sabotage is not only now being committed for the first time and that home-made bombs were not made by Strachan for the first time. Did we hear any criticism of it when it was committed before from that side of the House? No, Sir. [Interjections.] Sir, nobody on this side has ever hesitated to denounce sabotage, and we must listen to this Nationalist propaganda put across over the radio all the time that we, the United Party, by insinuation, and the English Press, are the un-South African elements. Continually they ask: How do you stand with regard to South Africa? Why does not “Current Affairs’ go back a bit and ask how the Afrikaans Press has stood between 1939 and 1945 with particular reference to the Transvaler? Why do they not ask how the Prime Minister stood when South Africa was fighting with her back to the wall against the greatest tyrant the world has ever known? [Interjections.]

Order!

I should like to remind hon. members that they supported the Nazis when Hitler had a contract with Russia … [Interjections.] When they thought that the communists would not fight for the democracies, the communists were all right. Everybody is now so democratic. Why are they all democrats now? Because it pays them to be democrats. What was their attitude during the period 1939-45? What did the Minister of Irrigation say about democracy, and what they were going to do with the British type of democracy? They wanted to have nothing to do with it. And what about the New Order? The Minister of Justice was one of those who supported the New Order. It has been forgotten how Dr. Otto du Plessis could not be accepted by Holland as an Ambassador because of his part in drawing up the New Order. What about the constitution of the republic published in the Transvaler when the Prime Minister was the editor? Was that constitution democratic? No, at that time it paid them not to be democratic because they thought Hitler was winning the war and they thought they would live in a totalitarian world. They thought the democracies would be defeated, but now the position has changed. Now they depend on the sympathy of the democracies, and now they are suddenly democrats. [Interjections.]

Order!

And when did they discover this sudden love for the English-speaking people and this sudden desire to work together? We remember that Constitution for the Republic which they published. Where were the rights of the English and their language then? Gen. Hertzog and Mr. Havenga had to leave the Nationalist Party. The Minister of Immigration knows what the position was. I think it was his son who wrote a book telling us all about the then South African Opposition. What was their attitude then? But now all of a sudden they want to work with the English. Why? Because they want the friendship of the English-speaking world. Seeing we are talking about shortsightedness, I should like to show how shortsighted the Minister of Transport was when he said that the whole future of Afrikanerdom would depend on a German victory. [Interjections.] I say that this simulated anger on that side, this accusation that we are befouling our now nest, does not impress us. We remember the history of that side of the House and we say this love of the English and of democracy is new-found. The shortsightedness of the Nationalist Party as displayed during those years is being repeated to-day. The shortsighted policy of this Government is going to land this country in a terrible mess, in the same way that it would have done had they won their no-confidence motions during those war years and had they made a separate peace with Hitler. In the same way the policy of this Government is going to be rued. The policy of the Government which concerns the country most is, of course, their colour policy. Their solution is separate development—“Apartheid” as it was previously known. Now, as far as apartheid is concerned, I think we are all agreed that, complete territorial separation—“algehele apartheid”—could be the answer. If the country were so divided that the different race groups … [laughter] … never met, then there would be no friction and that obviously would be the answer. Hon. members on that side are laughing, but the hon. the Prime Minister once said in the Senate that that was his policy, and it was denied here by the then Prime Minister. Yes, Dr. Malan said it was impracticable. Now I want to ask that side of the House—especially the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development who is grinning so widely—whether that is their policy. Are they supporting the policy now adumbrated by the editor of the Daily Dispatch, namely to divide the country up equally in such a way as to avoid the necessity of one group having to live in the country of the other group? Mr. Speaker, we say the policy of this Government is not practical. They have started applying their policy in the most obvious place, namely the Transkei, an area more advanced than any other native area. It is more advanced both politically and economically. And why is the Transkei more advanced politically? The reason is that it has been the policy of all our past leaders and of successive governments, over the past six decades at least, that self-government should be applied in the Transkei. Over 60 years ago a start was made in giving the Transkei self-government. Our leaders of the past carried on, leaders who to-day in this new fervour of nationalist extremism are conveniently forgotten, deliberately effaced and maligned. Those leaders, Botha, Smuts, and Hertzog, followed on those lines. But they did it in a practical way. They did it slowly. They made provision for the economic development of the African in the areas. They did not prohibit him from taking part in the development of the areas, as is being suggested now not only by that side but also by the Chief Minister of the Transkei, Chief Matanzima. They ought to know that nothing prevented a Bantu from buying a trading station in the Transkei. There is no law prohibiting him. He could own land in the urban areas. Laws were passed enabling him to buy land in the urban areas. He could develop there. We were setting about the matter in a practical way. We did not force anything on the Africans. This policy of separate development—which has now been given a new name—is being applied, and the only difference is that they have been promised complete independence, and the majority group of the people living outside the reserves are going to be regarded as foreigners with no citizenship rights in the area where they in fact keep the wheels of industry turning. Because they supply the labour they are mainly responsible for the industrial progress which is taking place. In fact, without them there would be no progress.

The Government was not forced to apply their policy to the Transkei. It was not something that had to be done on the spur of the moment. There was no emergency. The Government had all the time available in which to consider it. They did in fact take a long time before they applied it. Right at the beginning they were told that there were White people and Coloured people living in that area who had to be looked after, and we wanted to know what was going to happen to them. We were told that in time they would have to leave, but they would not be forced out. When we asked what provision was being made for them, we were told that they would be looked after. After long years of waiting the hon. the Prime Minister appointed a committee to tell him what to do with them, because he had not planned what he was going to do with them. He had no foresight, Mr. Speaker. So he appointed the Heckroodt Commission to tell him what to do. The Commission made its recommendations, and other committees had to be appointed, namely an adjustment committee to value the trading stations and a zoning committee for the villages. The White Paper issued by the Government at the time made provisions also for people living in the villages. They were told that eventually they would also have to go and they were assured that they would be treated in the same way as the traders. They were advised that the matter of their compensation would also be dealt with by the adjustment committee. But, Sir, what is actually taking place? How are the White people in the Transkei being looked after? Let us examine the position of the traders. What is happening to the traders? When I warned this Government that there would be a general demand to get out once the Government’s policy was applied and that the traders would want to sell, I was told by the ex-Minister of Bantu Administration and Development here that none would offer. The present Minister of Bantu Administration and Development interjected at the time that one or two would offer their trading stations. But up to May of this year, that is, over a period of a year, 237 trading stations were offered. I understand that over 300 have been offered by now. All these traders want to get out. And what has the Government done? The adjustment committee has to make recommendations of values and then the Minister has to decide on what basis compensation will be paid, whereupon the trader decides whether to accept the offer or not.

The Commissioner-General for the Transkei told the civic association the other day that these 237 trading stations had been offered, and he added that the hon. the Minister had dealt with 86, was considering a further 16, whilst the rest were either receiving the attention of the adjustment committee or were about to receive attention. It thus transpires that only 86 people had at that time received definite offers from the Minister. The others were still waiting.

I was accused of being guilty of scare-mongering and of being responsible for the traders wanting to leave. Now, I want to read from an address that was delivered to the traders at the opening of the civic association congress in Umtata this year by the Commissioner-General. This is what he said—

Yet now I am blamed because the traders want to leave. It is alleged that I am frightening them. But what about this warning they have received? They have received other like warnings. They have, for instance, received warnings from the Chief Minister of the Transkei to keep their bags packed. I cannot be blamed for what he said then. Can one now blame the traders for wanting to get out in these circumstances? And what happens when they want to get out? They just cannot get out because they cannot find buyers for their property. There is only one buyer to-day, and that is the Government. Nobody else will buy in the Transkei for obvious reasons. There is only one buyer, namely the Government. We are having unfortunate incidents in the Transkei, like the one we had during last week when a couple were murdered on a lonely trading station. Can one imagine what is the position of these traders who want to get out because they fear for their lives, yet, because they cannot dispose of their trading stations, they cannot leave? It might be said that that was an ordinary robbery case. We do not know because we have not heard the facts yet. We do not know who was responsible. I believe it was robbery.

An arrest has already been made.

I believe it was robbery. Perhaps the hon. the Minister can tell me whether I am wrong.

I am sure it was.

Then I accept it was not political. If murders take place on lonely farms and farmers or people living on the outskirts of towns decide to leave they can offer their places for sale, because there will be buyers. But the traders in the Transkei cannot act in that way because there are just no buyers for their property, except, as I said, the Government. How are they being dealt with? The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development said the following the other day when dealing with the adjustment committee—

I repeat the final sentence, Mr. Speaker. We know that is true; we know only the urgent cases are being dealt with. But besides the traders we also have the people living in the villages. When they offered their properties to the Government they were told to wait until zoning had been effected. In due course a committee was appointed to zone the areas. That committee put in its report in February of last year. The then Minister said he only received it I think in April some time. Then despite requests, not only from me here in the House and from the traders’ associations, but from everyone, Sir, to expedite the zoning, the zoning proclamation only appeared on the 31st December—the last day of the year. It was expected that the Minister would at the same time advise the public how the properties zoned Black would be dealt with. People were anxious to know how they were going to be compensated for residences and businesses. But we did not hear anything. In terms of the White Paper issued by the Government the villagers were told that the same procedure that applied to the traders would also apply to them. The villagers then started offering their shops and dwelling houses. But they were told that the adjustment committee could not deal with their cases and they would have to await a statement from this Minister as to what procedure would be adopted. On the 13th July, 1966, a statement was made. I am not the only one who bewails the fact that this Minister and this Government were so lacking in foresight that they did not know what to do with the villages. The Commissioner-General in addressing the civic association said this—

Well, Sir, it appears that this lack of foresight is not condemned only by me. It is condemned by important officials as well. I blame this Government for embarking upon the whole Transkei scheme without proper preparation.

What is to happen to these people who are zoned Black? Mr. Speaker, you will not believe me if I tell you that in some of the villages the businesses of people are zoned Black while their residences are zoned White. In other places businesses are zoned White while residences are zoned Black. What must a man do when he wants to sell his shop and it is zoned Black? He may find a Black man to buy it, but he is stuck with his house because he must sell to a White as it is situated in a White area. And vice versa. We find this illogical division. All this forms part and parcel of the Government’s lack of foresight. What is to happen to those people whose properties have been zoned White? Owners of Black-zoned property can at least offer them for sale to the Government, and we hope the Government will buy. But the owners of White-zoned properties just do not know to whom to sell. Whites will not buy. So what must they do? Must they be stuck there for life? I think in particular of aged people who are needy and who want to draw an old-age pension but who, because of the means test, do not qualify for payment of a pension. They find themselves in the invidious position of being unable to let or sell their houses. So there they sit with their property and all they get from the Commissioner of Pensions is a notification to the effect that because of the value of their property they do not qualify for an old-age pension. These people suffer hardship. The whole Transkei scheme is in a mess. It is a proper muddle. And it is all because of lack of foresight, because of the Government rushing in without giving the matter due thought. I also want to refer to the traders who want to stay there. These traders have bonds on their properties, and the bonds are being called up. But there is nobody to go to for a fresh bond. There are young men who are hiring trading stations and who are prepared to stay on but because they cannot obtain money on bond to buy the stations these will be sold to the Government. They have asked that the Government should start some organization from which they can borrow money in the same way as farmers can borrow from the Land Bank. These people have to be treated differently from ordinary business people, and it is up to this Government to do something. Resolutions were passed at the last civic association congress asking for this.

Quote me one instance concerning these young men.

Has the hon. member not read the minutes of those meetings? Why does he not take an interest in what is happening in the Transkei? Then he will know these things, instead of asking for instances. These people cannot get money. They cannot be treated in the Transkei in the same way as ordinary businessmen. This Government is treating the Whites in the Transkei worse than the British Government treated the Whites in Kenya. When I said this in the past hon. members on that side scoffed at the idea. But it is absolutely true. [Interjections.] The British Government made money available to the Government of Kenya with which to buy farms. But what is this Government doing? I wish some hon. members on that side would come out and meet the traders and attend some of their association meetings and find out what is going on.

I have dealt with the position of the Whites in the Transkei. But, Mr. Speaker, what about the Coloureds? There are 14,000 Coloured people living in the Transkei. What is to happen to these people who live mostly in the villages with a few residing on the trading stations? The villages have been zoned for occupation by either Whites or Blacks. But what about the Coloured man? There is no provision for him at all. The Coloured man is the artisan in the Transkei. Quite a lot of building is going on there. Hon. members should go to Umtata and see what money is being spent on building schools for White children. And this although the White people have to leave! Vast sums of money are being spent on buildings throughout the Transkei. And who are the artisans? The Coloured man is the artisan. In fact, he is indispensable in the Transkei, because if he were replaced by White artisans it would cost the Government much more to undertake and complete these building programmes. These Coloureds have nowhere to go. If they live in an area which is zoned and their houses are sold, they have nowhere to go to. I hope the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development will tell us what is to happen to the Coloureds. Where are they to be settled? What does he intend doing about White people living in areas which have not been zoned Black and who cannot sell their properties? How is he going to compensate people who want to sell residential properties in the zoned areas?

The hon. member who has just sat down brought up a matter which is of a purely local nature and which in actual fact has nothing to do with this debate as such, but I want to reply to a few statements he made right at the beginning of his speech. He flung a few most unfair reproaches at this side of the House. He said that this side of the House committed sabotage during the last war.

I did not say that.

The hon. member is denying what he said a moment ago. I want to ask him: What National Party member committed sabotage at any stage or approved the making of bombs? He knows as well as anyone of us in this House that the then Leader of the National Party and the entire National Party disapproved of that. But let me remind him that under the regime of the United Party South Africa fought a war which was a henchman’s war for Great Britain; it was not a war in the interest of South Africa; it was a war which was conducted in the interest of a foreign people. In those days they were still “empire builders”; then they did not ask themselves what was in the interest of South Africa. At that time this side of the House warned the United Party that if one fights a henchman’s war for another people one will find that kind of thing that sabotage is committed by people for whom South Africa’s interests come first. Not only were they henchmen of Great Britain; they were also henchmen of Russia. We still remember the days of the “Friends of the Soviet Union”, when United Party Ministers co-operated with Russia. I want to emphasize most strongly that the National Party has always been and will always be a democratic party. The predecessors of the National Party were democrats to the core. The old Republics were founded on democratic principles.

The hon. member made another point this afternoon with which I want to deal briefly. He asked: Where has this love of the English-speaking people come from all of a sudden? I hope that was the last time we shall hear that question in this House. I hope that was the last time we shall hear the United Party say that we have all of a sudden acquired a love for the English-speaking people. The mere fact that they ask that question proves just how bankrupt they are in policy. They always want to appeal to the emotions of the English-speaking people in order to play them off against the Afrikaans-speaking people and to build up their party in so doing. It will be a good thing if now, after the election, the United Party does some rethinking, if they take a look at the future of South Africa, and if they formulate a new policy for the party. Yesterday the hon. member for Bezuidenhout elaborated at great length on his statement that the proportion of United Party representatives to National Party representatives in this House should be taken into review. He wanted to set that proportion right. Let me tell the United Party that it is not necessary to change our electoral laws in order to set right that proportion. That is quite unnecessary. What is in fact needed in this House is that the United Party should formulate a policy that will make an impression on the people, a policy for which the people can vote; then there will be no need for them to juggle with figures. If they really have an alternative policy, the people will support that policy.

This afternoon the hon. member for Transkei also came up with a new story, and that is that they too have now become advocates of total territorial segregation. The hon. member said this afternoon: “That is, of course, the ideal; that is something we should all like to see.” But is it not their party that has been fighting it all these years, saying that it was impracticable and that one could not even consider it? They have persistently adopted the attitude that integration and not segregation is the answer. I can quite understand why the hon. member said this afternoon that that is, of course, the ideal. A representative of the Daily Dispatch gave a lecture in Umtata recently; that was the opinion he expressed there, and the hon. member is simply echoing him. Mr. Speaker, we insist that that is an ideal which one should pursue, but there are, of course, many factors which influence practical politics and we have to take those practical problems into account. Now that the Transkei has achieved self-government, the hon. member claims that that has always been the policy of their leaders in the past, and he mentioned the late General Smuts, the late General Botha and a number of other leaders of the United Party. He claims that they have always advocated that, but that the only difference is that we are now promising the Bantu absolute independence, while those leaders did not. But when we mentioned that in this House at the time when the Transkei Act was under discussion, they denied that. The hon. member for Transkei himself denied that either General Smuts or General Hertzog or General Botha adopted that attitude.

What attitude—independence?

No, I am not speaking of independence; I am speaking of self-government for the Transkei. When we told them at that time that previous leaders of the United Party had advocated self-government, they denied that; he said that was not true at all, but this afternoon, he sings a different tune: he now admits that that was the case after all.

It is the Sunday Times that has influenced him.

I can quite understand why hon. members on the other side are resorting to talk of that kind, they do not want the skeleton of race federation to be disturbed. They are running away from it as fast as possible.

I want to deal with a few ideas expressed here yesterday by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He came up once again with the argument that the Bantu territories which constitute the Bantu homelands and which house the various Bantu peoples should first be economic units, that they should be “economically viable units”, before they can be granted any form of self-government or independence. He declared that it would be dangerous to grant or promise the Bantu homelands independence before they had become economically independent. It has been pointed out in this House more than once that that is not a valid argument. There are many examples in history of countries which were not economically independent but which were in fact politically independent. There are many such instances in the modern world. I could, for example, mention almost all the South American states, which are all economically dependent upon the U.S.A. Most of the Black states in Africa at present are by no means economically independent but are in fact politically independent The best examples of states which are politically independent but not “economically viable” are right here on our doorstep, namely Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland, the three Protectorates, ail three of which will become politically independent in the near future. They are not “economically viable” and will not be for years to come. Therefore that statement that a country has to be economically independent or economically viable before it can be granted any form of self-government or independence, is simply not borne out by current circumstances.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition brought a further charge against the Government in claiming that the Government is doing nothing to establish industries and factories in the homelands to enable those homelands to become economically viable. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition speaks as though the mere establishment of factories, the establishment of industries, is a complete and ready solution to the problem. The Western nations made the same mistake in Africa. They also thought that by voting large sums of money for the African states, by giving them factories and smoking chimney-stacks, they would develop those countries and make them economically independent. The Western nations have discovered their mistake. In a report by the experts of a Senate committee in the U.S.A, under the editorship of a certain Millikin and a Blackmer, published under the title “The Emerging Nations”, I find the following important statement—

It is clear from that that economic considerations are not the basis for the development of an under-developed people, what is basic, is the human factor; the community should in itself be able to generate and produce the development. It should be able to absorb what is given to it, to appreciate and assimilate it. It is of no use merely to build factories and do other things which that under-developed people cannot appreciate, which it cannot absorb and from which it cannot benefit. In a dissertation, “Growthmanship (International Economic Association)”, the economist Colin Clarke put it pertinently as follows—

It is on this basis that the Government’s entire policy of separate development is founded. We do not develop our policy of separate development merely by establishing the outward symbols of development, such as factories and chimney-stacks; we start with human development, and education is basic to human development. In this connection I want to pay tribute to the hon. the Prime Minister, who as long ago as 1953 realized how essential it was to place Bantu education on a sound basis in order to implement the policy of separate development. At that time the United Party fought the Bantu Education Act tooth and nail, but that Act was passed and to-day we are reaping the fruits of the implementation of that Act. What has the Bantu Education Act brought about? It has brought about the Bantu’s participation in his own education by means of his school committees and school boards. The Bantu has now been drawn into his own education on the basis of ethnic units, because mother-tongue instruction is basic to Bantu education. May I quote the following figures in this regard: At the moment there are some 1,750,000 Bantu children at school, in other words, more than 15 per cent of the total Bantu population is at school. South Africa has long accepted what other African countries are only just beginning to learn, namely that education should be linked to the development requirements of each territory. Unless we train the Bantu we cannot achieve that development in his territory; lack of education would give rise to political instability, economic instability, unemployment and a large measure of frustration. Skilled labour is absolutely indispensable to the development of any territory. It is in this respect in particular that the Government has done a great deal by means of the Bantu Education Act and also by the establishment of the three Bantu university colleges. The Department is also making arrangements to give the Bantu practical in-service training on the artisan and managerial level. This Government has also given serious attention to the matter by establishing vocational schools and other training centres. I want to emphasize this afternoon that the Transkei has taught us one thing in the past few years, something it has brought to our notice very pertinently, and that is that there is a shortage of trained Bantu who can serve their own people. The Department of Bantu Education is taking all the necessary steps in this regard and we have made a great deal of progress in that direction. Hon. members will be surprised to hear how rapid the progress in that direction has been.

Apart from the human factor there is the second factor which is emphasized in the U.S.A. report from which I have already quoted, namely “the political institutions and social structure”, which is a sine qua non for economic development. Here, too, I want to pay tribute to the hon. the Prime Minister, who in the early fifties, as Minister of Native Affairs, laid the necessary foundations for this political structure of the Bantu by means of the Bantu Authorities Act. By means of the system of “tribal”, “regional” and “territorial” authorities, a political structure was put into operation for the Bantu through which he can realize himself. It is not something alien; it is in accordance with the character of the Bantu and it was born of his own national awareness and culture. I have been associated with Bantu administration for several years, and I want to state my conviction that Bantu authorities are the best and only means of making the development of the Bantu Bantu-centric, i.e. not a development handed to the Bantu on a platter by the White man, but a development generated within the Bantu themselves. It is a system whereby the Bantu will develop themselves through their own endeavours. This development is not brought about artificially by giving the Bantu factories and other things. In creating this sub-structure by means of Bantu education and by the establishment of a political structure, we create opportunities for the Bantu himself to generate everything he needs. It is an unfortunate fact that the general public do not know how much progress the Government has already made in this field. It is the active endeavour of the present Minister of Bantu Administration to activate the Bantu’s own administrative institutions, which will be able to support him in future, rather than to set up a superimposed White political structure to control and govern the Bantu from Pretoria. I regard this as a gradual and slow process, and with your permission I want to read once again what I quoted just now: “It must be marked by a patience and perspective which have not always been its trade mark.”

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also mentioned Professor Bruwer’s article in the Beeld of about a month ago. I also read that article, but I read it in a different spirit from that of the Leader of the Opposition. I found a good deal of well-meaning criticism in that article, but I want to say here that I came to the conclusion that Dr. Bruwer based his criticism to a large extent on his own personal experience as a Commissioner-General in South West Africa. Because of the court case which was in progress we could not introduce our Bantu authorities system in South West Africa, and as a result of that, I think, Dr. Bruwer was suffering from a certain amount of frustration. Perhaps he judged our policy too much from that point of view when he wrote that article, because that is not the case in the Republic of South Africa. Here the Bantu authorities system is being applied in all its facets, and the fact remains that we are making tremendous progress in that field. If Dr. Bruwer had had experience of what is happening here in the Republic, he may have been less critical in some respects. But I want to assure Professor Bruwer and also the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that at the moment, under the policy of the Minister, the Bantu is being drawn into every facet of his own national life; that it is no longer so that a White Government is superimposed upon the Bantu. The Bantu himself is being drawn into his own government through his tribal, regional and territorial authorities, and those authorities are systematically being given more powers to enable them to govern their own people. On the pattern of the Transkei, Bantu administration in the rest of the Republic will develop more and more on a Bantu-centric basis, i.e. the Bantu in the Bantu homelands will of his own volition and for his own benefit manage his own administration. In other words, the Bantu in actual fact holds the key to his own progress in South Africa. I am not in the least concerned if there are not so many smoking chimney-stacks in the Bantu area, or if there are not so many factories. Those must be established by the Bantu himself because that will ensure stability.

I want to pass on to something else, however, and that is border industries, a different matter altogether. The establishment of border industries is an integral part of our entire policy of separate development, and in that respect we already have the necessary development and everything is being done to expedite that development. We realize that we can establish a great industrial complex on the borders of the Bantu territories; there the Bantu can be taught the necessary know-how and skills; there he can also begin to acquire the capital which will later enable him to start similar industries deep inside his own area. I want to emphasize once again that we are at present not actually working on the physical development, because physical development should follow human development. Human development should always come first, and that was in fact the object of our five-year plan. The five-year plan concentrated primarily on furthering the Bantu’s agricultural development. As far as physical development is concerned, that is the only kind of development to which the Bantu is receptive and which he understands. Agronomy, the pastoral industry, is known to the Bantu; he understands and can absorb that, and for that reason the five-year plan concentrated on the development of agriculture in the Bantu areas and not so much on industrial development, to which the Bantu is not yet receptive. I do not want to quote any figures with regard to agricultural development on the five-year plan because I do not want to bore the House, but there has already been tremendous development. I think in certain respects agriculture in the Bantu areas is ahead of the agriculture of the Whites. I want to mention just one of the developments in the Bantu areas, and that is the development of the fibre industry. In this field the Bantu areas are far ahead of the White areas, and it is a fact that, as a result of the vast amount of fibre cultivation undertaken in the Bantu homelands, South Africa will soon be completely independent of the outside world as regards bags. The conclusion of my whole argument is therefore that the Leader of the Opposition is quite mistaken if he thinks that we will bring about prosperity in the Bantu areas merely by establishing factories and industries or mines. By those means we shall never achieve our object. The policy of separate development does not mean development brought to you by someone else; it means development that you have to bring about yourself, and by seeking first to develop the human being and by emphasizing human development we believe we shall in due course also achieve that development in the Bantu areas. I do not think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition’s criticism on this point was well-founded.

Mr. Speaker, hon. members on the other side of the House have been giving us advice in regard to policy. I want to say to them that four out of every ten South Africans support our policy; and before any of them give us any advice about our policy they ought to decide which of the three policies that they have, they are really going to try to carry out. Mr. Speaker, I shall indicate this in the course of what I have to say; but I should like to touch on just one other matter which the hon. member for Heil-bron mentioned. He referred to border industries. A main justification or certainly a very great justification for the establishment of border industries is decentralization. I want to point out to him that the only area in which there is any development to speak of is near Durban and near Pretoria, and that there is no decentralization at all in either of those areas. In the one area where you really want decentralization, the one area where you should have your show-window, namely the Transkei, what do we find there? After all these years, notwithstanding the fact that the Transkei is the show-piece, fewer than 6,000 jobs have been created anywhere near the border, 30 miles from the Transkei.

What do you know about Rosslyn?

Rosslyn is very close to Pretoria and there it is not a question of decentralization.

It is another suburb of Pretoria.

What about Pietersburg?

Sir, very many points have been made in this debate by this side showing lack of foresight by the Government in the handling of our affairs. I want to return to another matter which I think is of the most fundamental importance; it is a matter upon which the whole security of White civilization depends, according to the Government, and that is this whole question of the ratio between Black and White in the year 2000. Sir, the Government have admitted that they have miscalculated. The Tomlinson Commission laboured for many years; the Government then laboured for many months considering the report of that Commission, and at the end of it came to the conclusion that our whole future security is based upon a ratio of approximately fifty/ fifty between White and Black at the end of the century. We are told by Dr. Roodie, that he has it on the “highest authority”, that this is quite impossible. The year 2000 is only 30 years away and he says that to attain this ratio is physically impossible and incapable of achievement. In other words, a fundamental basis upon which all the Government’s actions are based, has now been completely denied by themselves and by the highest authority. Sir, what greater lack of foresight can you have than to imagine, nearly ten years ago, that this could be achieved and then to have to concede ten years later that it has turned out to be completely impossible. So much is that so that two leading Afrikaners, the managing director of the Trust Bank and the general manager of Federale Volksbeleggings, have said that by the year 2000 there will be a population of 40,000,000 in South Africa and if we get 50,000 immigrants a year we will have 8,000,000 Whites and therefore 32,000,000 non-Whites, and half of them will be in our cities. That means there will be 16,000,000 non-Whites in our cities in 34 years’ time. It is merely a matter of calculating population ratios, and knowing that the Tomlinson Commission said we could have 10,000,000 as a maximum in the Reserves at that time, there will be something in the region of 12,000,000 Natives in our urban areas, and at least another 4,000,000 in our country areas. The total is therefore 16,000,000 in the so-called White areas. Therefore we shall be not equal in the year 2000, but 2 to 1 against. And yet it is an absolute cornerstone of Government policy as accepted in that White Paper following the Tomlinson Commission’s Report that for the security of White civilization these numbers had to be approximately equal. So I say that all these words we have had from the hon. member for Heilbron about development here and there is all good and well, but it does not get to the whole core of our problem, which is revealed by these figures.

Now it is interesting to know who this highest authority is. It could very well be the hon. the Prime Minister himself, because he has stated clearly that increases in numbers of Bantu in White areas do not amount to a violation of his policy. He said that last year in this House, and the hon. member for Heilbron gave an even more graphic description that it did not matter how many Bantu there were in the White areas. He said: If you follow the principle of our policy, it does not matter whether there are 50 or 50,000 or 5,000,000 Natives in the White areas. He could just as well have said 15,000,000.

This is the first policy of the Nationalist Party, that it does not matter how many Natives you have in the White area; you just regard them as citizens of the Bantustans to be and you live happily ever after. That was the attitude which was stated clearly by the Government speakers and by the Prime Minister in 1965. This was the policy of one section of the Nationalist Party. But then the intellectuals came immediately in revolt against this policy because they know that it means no security for us here, and what do we find? We had several intellectuals from all quarters saying that this was a hopeless policy and that we should rather change it if this is the way we are going to carry it out in practice. First of all, we had the Calvinists. In Woord en Daad in May of last year this is what they had to say about the way the Nationalist Government was applying its policy—

And then they quite rightly go on to say—

In other words, they realized here that the way the Nationalist Government were executing this policy was hopeless.

What are you reading from?

I am reading from a reprint in the Burger of 13th May, 1965, from Woord en Daad, the May issue. But the hon. member for Heilbron does not realize what his intellectuals are thinking. I will show how great are the gaps in his reading, because I will now give him a leading article from the Burger of 8th September, 1965, “Die Harde Boodskap”. The hon. member for Primrose had said a few straight things, and this is what this newspaper said in commenting upon it—

In other words, they say that if you carry on along this road you have not got our support; you are living in a fool’s paradise and you had better change your policy. This also was what Professor Dr. J. P. Bruwer said. Now we have heard the hon. member for Heilbron trying to explain away his departure from this policy, but this was quite inadequate.

What did Dr. Bruwer say?

I will tell you one thing he said, Sir. He said—

The Hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. member for Heilbron, his first lieutenant, are the prophets of this easy philosophy that you can have your cake and eat it. You can have the Blacks in South Africa to the greatest extent you like, but you will pretend that since they are citizens of other countries they will be satisfied.

That is the great division in the Nationalist Party, and the third section is those who want the old Nationalist Party policy, before the Prime Minister came on the scene, “die heer- skappy oor die hele Suid-Afrika” of Mr. Strijdom. Those are the three divisions. They must not come and ask us to change our policy. They must first work out one for themselves.

What is your policy?

You know our policy very well.

Which one are you referring to?

The first Government speaker to rise after the Leader of the Opposition had spoken was the hon. member for Bellville, and he said, “Die Verenigde Party staan rotsvas op sy beleid”. Our policy is well known.

Mr. Speaker, it is worse than that, because not only are there these great divisions which our friends opposite must resolve in their own minds, but they are also deceiving the public, whether they know it or not. I have already quoted to hon. members what the Prime Minister said in the clearest language in the session of 1965. When this side accused him that his policy was failing because of the numbers of Blacks that were streaming in, he said that was “no violation of his policy”; it was “not essential”. And what do we find? A few months ago we got a new Deputy Minister and he is chosen as the spokesman to do an acrobatic turn. We find the hon. member for Vereeniging saying this—

What greater misleading of the public can you get than that? The Prime Minister says one thing in this House one year and the next year he allows one of his Ministers to say this sort of thing.

My friend the hon. member for Transkei said that it might indeed be much easier if we were all happily divided into a White state with only White people in it, and a Black state with only Black people in it; but we know that this is not the hard reality, and we have to shape our policies in that light. While I am on this point, I interjected yesterday that they were hiding their policy. I have given one example; but there is another. Many speakers on the Government side go round saying that there will not be independence for these Bantustans for 1,000 or more years. This is what their leader in Natal said, and I understand the Chief Whip also.

Mr. Speaker, we are not impressed. We know that the Government’s plans for the next five years require that approximately 80,000 Blacks shall be incorporated each year into our economy, and I do not doubt that the number will have risen at the end of that time, because we certainly look forward to greater prosperity in due course.

But there is another aspect of this. It is not only a question of these people coming from the Reserves to the White areas. There is the very birth-rate in our big Native townships today. It was to this aspect that Dr. Bruwer also referred in this article. He said—

I would like to give hon. members opposite a striking illustration of the truth of that statement. If one wants to think of any corner of South Africa which is not a Black man’s land, one would think of the Western Province; and here the City is Cape Town. But what do we find here? We find that at present if the trend of 1964 and 1965 continues, there will be more Black births in the city of Cape Town than White births in this very year of grace. There were in the year 1964—and I have the official figures of the Medical Officer of Health of Cape Town on the subject—3,700 White births in the municipality of Cape Town, a rate of 18.7. In 1964 there were 3,054 Bantu births, a birthrate of 41.4 In 1965 there were 3,404 White births, a rate of 17.2 per 1,000, and there were 3.171 Bantu births, a rate of 40.3. That has merely got to continue into this year and we will have more Black births in Cape Town than White births.

So I say that not only these births but the influx is going on more strongly than ever. One knows of all the extra jobs into which Bantu are moving, not only in the Transvaal and Natal, but in Cape Town. More and more farming areas around Cape Town are demanding Native labour. We have recently had the case of the Durbanville-Philadelphia Farmers’ Association, which was quite dissatisfied with the rate at which they were able to get contract labourers from the Transkei and elsewhere. They formed their own company, and they were so successful that they paid a 10 per cent dividend within the first year. That is what is happening. And the farmers’ associations of Paarl and Constantia are considering doing the same thing. The very Government building which is rising across the road from here is being built by 80 per cent of Black men from somewhere.

Now, I am aware that the hon. member for Heilbron only just managed to restrain himself from saying that they are there on contract, and that they will go back, but I suggest that in this respect, too, the Government is showing a great lack of foresight. I say that we are doing immense harm to many of these people by insisting that this is the case. We are storing up trouble for ourselves as well as for them. There is a far greater denial of family life there, which is the foundation of our and the Bantu society, than is justified. [Interjection.] We have always said that there is a certain place for migrant labour, but equally we have always said that under our policy there would be more family life than under yours. But I ask the hon. member, to take it from me that this is an evil which has to be watched. If he is not prepared to take it from me, let me tell him what a body which he will respect has said on this point, no less a body than the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church. This is what they had to say, and this resolution was adopted by the Synod at its Central Sitting—

So hon. members opposite can have their choice. They can either try to keep the flood back in this way as I have indicated, and it makes so little difference to the numbers and the proportions that it is a waste of time or, if they wish to do that, they will fly in the face of what they know in their consciences is a state of affairs which they should not tolerate.

I should like to know from the hon. member whether he would like all the Bantu in the Western Cape to be settled here on a family basis.

I have already answered that. I have indicated that we believe there is a place for some migratory labour, but under our policy there will be more family life than under yours. I also want to say this. I want members who are so fearful of this whole situation to remember that we have had many Native families in our towns on a family basis for a long time, and there is still a shortage of labour. In other words, the children of these families are more than absorbed into our labour force, and we still have to bring in more and more.

It is quite clear that the best thinkers on the Nationalist side reject the way they are carrying out their policy, and indeed, the way the hon. the Prime Minister states it. They reject it as completely as we do. There is undoubtedly a struggle going on in their ranks and they are trying to bring the Nationalist Party back on to a policy which they can support. But they will not tolerate the present position much longer. I say hon. members opposite should themselves abandon it before they waste further valuable time, because we are all the time fostering nationalism amongst the Native people. They are being encouraged with flags and anthems to throw away the loyalty they have so far shown to this country. I want to mention a simple thing. We all deplore what happened yesterday and our sympathy goes out to those affected, and we regret that people reacted as they did. But think about this smash we had yesterday. If these Natives had been members of independent states they would have been foreigners, and where this person was shot by the police we would perhaps have had an international incident. We would have had a situation where a member of a foreign state was dealt with in this way. How much more serious would this situation not have been if we had that situation in the country?

Consequently the real challenge in South Africa is to develop a larger loyalty, so that although we may remain distinct in our groups, as we have been for all these hundreds of years, we will have a larger loyalty towards South Africa in terms of which all the people would stand by us if ever we are attacked by outsiders. If all those arms for which we are paying so much money, ever have to be used, we shall certainly need them all to stand with us. But, Mr. Speaker, where you have, as we have in this country, so vastly many Natives inevitably and permanently in the White area, it is ridiculous to have any permanent constitutional arrangement affecting them looser than that of a federation. It is ridiculous to give to some complete independence at a time when you have the great bulk of them in the balance of your territory virtually treated as foreigners.

Before dealing with the hon. member for Pinelands, I just want to say something to the hon. Whip on the Opposition side. When the hon. member for Bezuidenhout made an attack on me, yesterday, he did not inform me. Now I want to do him the favour of informing him that I shall deal with him in due course.

To-day the hon. member for Pinelands dealt with the Bantu policy in his argument, an argument which I grant him was a much more reasonable argument than those of many of his predecessors, for he did not use the clich?s intended for propaganda abroad which we so often heard to-day and yesterday, but in his entire argument he never once referred to what the United Party’s policy was. The words “race federation” never fell from his lips. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Durban (Point) knows what happened here last year; he knows what he has been up to during the recess, and we are coming to him. However, the hon. member for Pinelands argued that the policy of the National Party could not succeed because the Bantu in the White areas had to be regarded as permanent. We know that that is the United Party’s real objection to the National Party’s policy. Their objection is not so much to the policy of homelands. According to the views held by the United Party, as has been written by the hon. member for Yeoville, the Transkei may be acknowledged to have the status of a province immediately. They are not opposed to that. They are opposed to the National Party’s views on the urban and rural Bantu. They say those Bantu have been detribalized; they no longer belong in the homelands; they must get their political and economic rights in the White areas. That was the point at issue in his argument. I have said before in this House that whereas the National Party has had to deal with really one matter only during all the time it has been in power, namely undoing the legacy of integration left to us from the colonial days of Britain—just like it has been the legacy of Rhodesia—the United Party’s whole attitude has been the consolidation in South Africa of that position of integration dating from the British colonial days. Every step we have taken—the removal of the Coloureds from the Common Voters’ Roll, group areas, the removal of the Native Representatives from this Parliament—has been directed towards undoing that legacy of integration. The United Party says it will reverse every single one of those steps. It wants to restore the Coloureds to the Common Voters’ Roll. It wants to return the Bantu Representatives to this House, but not only that. As I have said before in this House, and from reports and articles from the Sunday Times and the Star, the policy of the United Party is very definitely not only the representation of the Bantu in this House by Whites, but the representation of the Bantu by Bantu, and to use the words of the Leader of the Opposition, to allow Bantu into the Cabinet.

Untrue.

If it is untrue, he has to lay it at the door of the Sunday Times because the Sunday Times wrote—

What does that mean if what I have said is untrue? Has the hon. member who made that remark ever come across a denial of that report in the Sunday Times from the Leader of the Opposition or from any of the spokesmen of the United Party? It has never been denied. The Star published a leading article. [Interjections.]

On a point of order, one of the hon. members opposite has just said that the hon. member for Innesdal knows that it is untrue. I am asking for your ruling.

I have said that, but I withdraw.

It is not only the Sunday Times. The Leader of the Opposition used the following words at De Aar in connection with his race federation plan—

The United Party will not get away from that. [Interjection.] I am raising the matter again because the United Party wants to run away from its policy, but it will not succeed in doing so. The hon. member for Pinelands said that we should have a policy of a larger loyalty. Previously it was known as “common loyalty”, but now it is known as “larger loyalty”. It is so nice to have such a large loyalty. Basically it is still another interpretation of the views held by the United Party that the population of South Africa is a single community, a single nation of Black and Brown and White, with one democracy and with one common fatherland. That is where it differs from us basically. Where it differs basically from us is that it is its policy to create one nation of White and Black and Brown in South Africa—the policy which has caused so much misery all over Africa. It is not only us who say that, Mr. Speaker. In March this year Elspeth Huxley said—

Mr. Speaker, that is precisely what the National Party has always maintained. The tolerance of parliamentary democracy has its limits, and it must explode when a population of such diversity is combined in one parliamentary democracy as is the policy of the United Party. The United Party will not get away from that policy of theirs.

I want to come back to what has happened in the course of this debate. The United Party has emerged from the election in its present form, and in its heart of hearts it knows that it has not been rejected by the electorate merely in this election. It knows that it has been rejected by the electorate permanently. It knows in its heart of hearts that it can never again regain the esteem of the electorate of South Africa. Because of its disloyalty towards South Africa in the years when South Africa was running the gauntlet of foreign animosity, the electorate rejected it.

How dare you say that?

Yes, that is why it has been rejected. For that reason it will never regain the confidence of the electorate of South Africa. The electorate knows that it can no longer entrust the interests of the White man in South Africa and the interests of South Africa to the United Party. And what does the United Party do now? It now turns to the outside world. We now get the statements we have had in this debate. We have had that conglomeration of information and fictions to imply that this Government was totalitarian, and that it was following a Nazi and a Fascist policy. Those statements were intended to add fuel to the hostile fires abroad where they are now engaged in launching a new campaign against South Africa. There again the United Party allows itself to be used by hostile powers abroad to do South Africa disservice. That is precisely what it has been doing all these years.

The Robertson case has been referred to here. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that as a result of that case South Africa had received a great deal of bad publicity abroad. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has done so, but I hope that he has consulted the report of the Press Commission. If he has consulted that report, he will know that whatever this Government has or has not done, does not alter the position that every occurrence in South Africa which can possibly be used abroad to place South Africa and the Government in a bad light is seized upon. The Government need not restrict Robertson to experience this kind of thing. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is fully aware of that. I want to illustrate to him how that kind of thing happens. I want to refer him to the Star of 26th July last year. It contains an article with the heading “South Africa lashed in United States”. That report reads, inter alia, as follows—

That is Harold Strachan’s story on which he has been convicted of prejury. Because of that story, drawn up by Benjamin Pogrund of the Daily Mail and published in that newspaper which is under the editorship of Mr. Lawrence Gundar, he finds himself imprisoned to-day. However, that is the kind of thing which is used abroad to besmirch South Africa. The Minister of Justice need not restrict Ian Robertson for those things to happen. What happened when Ian Robertson was restricted? Can you recall the response in those newspapers of ours? The following heading appeared in the Sunday Times: Nusas vigil for Ian Robertson. In the Daily Mail of 13th May the following heading appeared: Vorster is challenged in shameful ban. In the Star of 12th May the following was published: Robertson ban outrages students. In the Daily Mail of 12th May the heading was: Nusas leader banned. Rand protest march planned. The Star of 16th May contained articles under the headings: “The spirit of protest still alive” and “entitled to know”. And this is merely a small portion of what has appeared in the newspapers. In the light of the Press Commission’s report, can you realize to what extent those things were enlarged for the specific purpose of giving a wrong impression of the South African Government and South Africa abroad and of exposing South Africa to foreign antagonism? The Government is not to blame if the kind of thing hon. members have been discussing is published abroad. They know that full well. The United Party knows that it has always been applauding that kind of thing from the side-lines. When the Government was besmirched abroad and when its enemies abroad misrepresented its image, has the United Party ever stepped in to take up the cudgels for the truth?

The following is an example of the kind of thing the United Party itself circulates. In the Transvaler of the 12th March a section of a circular from the United Party to its youth organizations was published (translation): “Ten ideals and principles of the young South Africans who support the United. Party.” Part of that reads as follows (translation)—

That is the kind of thing circulated not by the English Press, but by the United Party. And then the hon. member for Durban (North) asked the question yesterday: What is the difference between the behaviour of the hon. the Minister of Justice during the war years and that of Mandela to-day? I told him that it was a shame, and I cannot be more serious when saying that. That is one of the most shameful acts which the United Party could possibly commit. What is the position in the case of Mandela, Mr. Speaker? Justice de Wet who tried him in the Rivonia case, said that that group should not really have been charged with sabotage, but with high treason. Mandela was convicted by Justice de Wet and was sentenced to life imprisonment for his share in the planning of what Dr. Percy Yutar called “a devilish revolution in South Africa”. And then the hon. member for Durban (North) has the audacity and the impudence to make a comparison between Mandela and the Minister of Justice. I have here a photostatic copy of Mandela’s own handwritten document “How to be a good communist”.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition yesterday spoke about the United Party’s attitude towards Communism. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said the United Party had always been the bulwark against Communism. To-day the hon. the Minister of Justice referred to their record in connection with the administration of justice in South Africa. What a record! But what is their record in regard to the combatting of Communism in South Africa? You will recall that General Smuts instructed a senior police officer in 1947 to investigate communistic activities in South Africa. When this Government came into power, this entire report was included in Hansard Volume 80 of 1952. In this report the then Government was very clearly told—

Mr. Speaker, do you know what action was taken in this regard? I think the highest penalty imposed was R40 or two months’ imprisonment. That was in 1947. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Yeoville: If that miserable penalty was imposed because of the inadequacy of legislation at that time, why did the United Party not immediately introduce legislation to improve the position? Did the United Party do anything to improve that position? One can hardly believe that persons who were charged with sedition were fined R40 and could get away with it. Mr. Speaker, they did nothing because they did not want to do anything against the Communist Party. The hon. member for Yeoville is shaking his head. Does he still recognize this newsletter which he wrote in the forties? I have here one dated November, 1947. He wrote about the dangers of Communism. He said (translation)—

The poor United Party is always so unfortunate—

He was prepared to act against the Communist Party on condition that every step it took against the Communist Party would also be taken against the National Party. That was his condition for action against the Communist Party. That is the United Party, the bulwark against Communism. What happened when that party was in power? See what J. K. Cope wrote in “Comrade Bill” about Bill Andrews, the then leader of the Communist Party. On page 336 one finds—

That then is the United Party’s bulwark against Communism. It placed the S.A.B.C. at the disposal of the leader of the Communist Party to address the workers of the country. Mr. Speaker, the United Party’s record as far as that is concerned, is worse than the record any party in South Africa can dream of having.

What was the attitude of the hon. member for Yeoville subsequent to the Rivonia verdict? On 13th June, 1964. the same day on which the verdict in the Rivonia case was given, he spoke in this House, and he did not express a single word of disapproval of that group of communistic saboteurs. He said that it was the unfairness and the injustice of the Government’s policy which, by depriving those people of their normal political expression, compelled them to commit sabotage. He also said—

That was his commentary on the communist saboteurs of Rivonia.

Now it is said that Liberalism has nothing to do with Communism. It is said that Liberalism does not promote Communism. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that there was no justification for saying that Liberalism promoted Communism. He then referred to Cuba and said that if Batista had not been such a tyrant there would never have been a Communist regime in Cuba. But who are the people who established the Cuban communist regime? The Cuban communist régime was established because American aid was withheld at a strategic moment. I want to read to you what role the New York Times played in this connection. In 1957 the New York Times wrote—

The American public and the American Government were misled in this way. Subsequent to Castro’s take-over, the same newspaper wrote—

If it be the inability of a liberal to know when he is dealing with a communist, what danger does a liberal not constitute? We have also witnessed that here. We have had communists in this House and the liberals here could not recognise those people before they themselves said that they were communists. We have had the case of late Professor Edward Roux who was a listed communist. Nevertheless they repeatedly described him as a “liberal”. They regard every communist as a liberal and that is why those people are so dangerous. They constitute a danger to themselves, much more than to the State.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition said that this Government had no ideology to pose against Communism. I admit that nationalism is not an ideology, but there is no philosophy of life and no attitude towards life which has more resistance against communist subversion than nationalism. If the hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to look for examples of that, let him look at Ireland. That country is poor, but it has a strong nationalism and for that reason Ireland to-day has the lowest percentage of communists of practically all states. But what about the Afrikaner himself? During the thirties when the Afrikaner was experiencing poverty, did he turn to Communism? No, he did not do so because the Afrikaner was an ingrained nationalist. For that reason I am saying that we do not have an ideology, but our entire philosophy of life is such that we are not pre-disposed to that subversion. The nationalist inevitably remains true to his identity, and for that reason we on this side have the policy of cultural plurality and race integrity in contrast to the views of the communist. The nationalist sides with excellence and distinction as opposed to that compulsion towards mediocrity and levelling. The nationalist sides most decidedly with the entire continuity of our origin in God and a purpose beyond life, which is the very thing those people fail to appreciate, not only the communists, but also the liberals. All the principles, sentiments and axioms of Communism are shared with liberalism. For that reason those people so often become confused. For that reason the communist can take advantage of the liberalist. For that reason the liberalist is so incapable of recognizing the communist. They have the same enemies here in South Africa. If there is one common enemy of every liberalist and every communist, then it is the National Party. Throughout the world every enemy of the communist is also the enemy of the liberalist. For that reason those people so readily make common cause. For that reason they become so entangled that one finds young people who land themselves in the position in which they have landed themselves here in South Africa. The United Party is playing a dangerous game. It is a game which will reduce it to the condition of two years ago when it dared not open its mouth about these matters. The United Party may do what it likes. It may continue on its way of making South Africa’s position abroad difficult once more. It is precipitating its undoing. As a result of the divergent views within itself, it is precipitating its undoing.

Yesterday the hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred to me. It does not astonish me at all that he refers to me in an attack. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said all kinds of things about me, Sir, and I do not want to deal with them in detail, but I do want to quote to him what Mr. Edgar Hoover, the chief of the F.B.I. in America said. He said—

I want to thank the hon. member for Bezuidenhout for giving me the assurance that I am not slipping. To me his attack was the best assurance. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, we have big problems in South Africa and we are big enough to admit that those problems are big. These problems in the Republic of South Africa are created by three factors in particular. They are the multi-racial composition of our population, the widely divergent views held by the various Parties in respect of the solution to the problems, and thirdly the different interpretations given to world opinion, world thought and world pressure on South Africa. In the midst of these problems and the tasks we are faced with, this hon. House has a special function to perform. That function is to look after the interests of every population group in the Republic of South Africa. Those population groups are the Whites, the Coloureds, the Indians, the Chinese and the Bantu. Those different population groups are entitled to receive guidance and protection from this House. In other words, all political parties in this House should have the welfare and the interests of those population groups at heart, and should provide guidance. The guiding principles are laid down by the Government; they are determined by the Government of the day. I want to say at once that at present those groups have greater needs than the need for the franchise. Many of those groups will admit that themselves. Therefore this Government does not lack foresight. I venture to suggest that this Government has a clear vision of the future. On 26th May, 1948, when this side of the House came into power, there were mixed residential areas in South Africa. No provision had been made for the protection of the various population groups in their own residential areas. Through superior purchasing power, whether of the Whites, Indians or Coloureds, the underprivileged were forced into mixed residential areas. The more privileged people could move because they were able to buy their segregation and separation if they wanted them. This Government therefore established separate residential areas. In that way all population groups are protected in their own areas. I want to give you an example. In the past many Coloureds owned beach-houses, particularly here in the Cape Province. Becauce of the stronger economic position of the Whites in particular, they were bought out as the years went by. At present there are few Coloureds who still own houses along the South African coastline. In this regard, too, the Government does not lack foresight. It is at present setting aside seaside areas where Coloureds will be able to buy seaside plots either now or in future. That also applies to the residential areas of all the various groups in South Africa. The Government is fully aware of the fact that even if there are not many Coloureds who can afford a beach house at this stage, their economy is improving and sooner or later they will be able to afford that. For that reason land is being reserved so that they will be able to buy their own plots when their economic position permits them to do so. Supposing the Government did not make that provision, then there would be the possibility that the Whites and the economically stronger people would stake their claims all along the coastlines, and when the Coloured became economically strong enough he would find that there was no plot available for him. A government which acts in this way, with a clear vision of the future, is a government which is worthy of looking after the interests of all the people of South Africa. This Government serves the country and the population without concentrating on catching votes. The introduction of separate residential areas is by no means a popular measure: in fact, it is a severe measure. It entails hardship and sorrow for many, for those who are uprooted and for those who are affected by it. There are cases where the entire White population of a town had to be moved to make room for a non-White group. Those are the hardships and sorrows of being uprooted. I want to submit that if the Government merely wanted to catch votes it would surely not have been so foolish as to introduce and apply such severe measures! But now the question arises why the Government adopts a course which entails such severe measures. The answer to that is quite simple: It is the only way in which happy co-existence can be assured for the various population groups of the Republic of South Africa, and if those teeth are not drawn to-day, the pain will be worse if it is left to the future to ensure happy co-existence. These pains and sorrows are unavoidable because the hand of the surgeon, i.e. the hand of the hon. the Minister of Planning, has to cut out malignant roots which have become deeply entangled over a period of 300 years.

At present we have to deal with a population of only 18,000,000. Something that went wrong over a period of 300 years now has to be corrected within a short period, because time is against us. We already have evidence from the various population groups that they are benefiting by the practical application of the Group Areas Act. The Indians, for example, are already asking for their own group areas of their own accord and the Coloureds welcome the new dispensation in terms of which they can get their own residential areas where they can develop according to their own character, where they will no longer have to sit on the back benches in our churches and halls, but where they will be placed in the privileged position of being able to sit in the front benches and front rows in their own halls and churches.

What about the future? By the year 2000 our present population of 18,000,000 will have virtually doubled itself, i.e. if the present trend of population increase is maintained. By the year 2000 our population figure will therefore be about 34,000,000 and by the year 2025 there will be 70,000,000 people in our country. In other words, when the babies of to-day are 60 years old, they will live in a Republic with a population of 70,000,000. This Government has a very clear vision of what all this will involve. That is why it is even now laying the foundations for that great South Africa and for its great future. Hence the Orange River scheme, hence the Pongola River scheme, and hence a second Sasol and a third Iscor. There are so many other things I could mention in this regard, things which are being done because we see even now which way South Africa will go in future and we see even now what course we have to adopt. That is in fact the reason why complexes and areas are being allocated to population groups and why attempts are being made to place such areas on an economic basis wherever possible, because one can do so successfully only if one gives a residential area an economic basis in order to assure its people of an economic existence. If we want to be honest, Mr. Speaker, I think even the Opposition will come forward to-day and express their gratitude to this Government for the steps it has taken to set these matters right for the sake of our country’s future.

Allow me to say in conclusion that when the 70,000,000 people in the Republic of the year 2025 have each been supplied with a place of his own, the province of Natal will play a very important part. Here I want to state, having regard to the Whites, Indians and Bantu in particular, that the carrying capacity of Natal is unequalled. It has the necessary potential and I am therefore convinced that it will play an important part. I venture to suggest that it is the province which, on a proportionate basis, will carry the heaviest concentration of people in the future. More and more eyes are turning to Natal and to the Tugela Basin in Natal. Here we envisage progress and the creation of facilities which will meet the needs of the future. My constituency is situated in the Tugela Basin, and that constituency sends out a call to our industrialists and to all who seek the advancement of our country to come and to open up and exploit the vast possibilities of that area. Do you know that the volume of water carried by the Tugela where it flows into the sea is greater than that needed to supply water to a city like Greater London? In addition, labour is available there for the border industries—White, Indian, Coloured and Bantu labour. We have main railway-lines there and the Durban harbour is at our front door. Those are the possibilities offered by that area, and which should be exploited for the greater South Africa of the future. If we are all prepared to work hard and to lay aside petty considerations, if we are prepared to seek common ground as far as the major issues are concerned, then the Whites of South Africa, and the Coloureds, and the Indians, and the Chinese and the Bantu can face the future of the Republic of South Africa with confidence.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of this side of the House I am privileged to congratulate the hon. member for Kliprivier on his maiden speech. He was the first of many newcomers to break the ice by making his maiden speech in this very important debate. However, in all modesty I want to say that if that is the hon. member’s interpretation of a non-contentious speech, I should like to hear him when he swings into action with a speech which is in fact contentious. At any rate, I trust that the hon. member will still have many opportunities for making a constructive contribution to the business of this House and that he will be happy in our midst.

I now want to deal with the hon. member for Innesdal. I am sorry that he is not present in the House at the moment.

He will be here soon.

True to the image he has created for himself in this House, he once again let go this afternoon with the bitterness to which we on this side of the House have become accustomed, instead of trying to defend the Government’s policy concerning Bantustans, the matter we are dealing with at present. We do, of course, know why: it is a kind of indefensible policy in any case. He did not try to defend it either, but simply let go by recklessly hitting out at the Opposition, at hon. members who have already taken part in the debate as well as hon. members who have not yet taken part. We are used to hearing that from him. He is slightly embittered in his views and he shows it when he takes part in a debate in this House. He started by saying that the United Party realizes now that Ichabod has been written all over it and that it will never again gain the confidence of the electorate. And yet he maintains that from the very beginning of the debate on this motion of censure we have been saying things intended for consumption abroad. At this stage I want to remind the hon. member of an old Afrikaans proverb, namely, “The gift of prophecy has gone with the prophets of old”. We know that we are being accused of being a Party that has become obsolete, but we are also aware of the strong support this Party still enjoys in the country and of the number of votes it has drawn in the latest election. Any person, even the embittered member for Innesdal, who wants to suggest that a party which has the support of 42 per cent of the electorate should write Ichabod behind its name, is therefore totally mistaken. The hon. member alleges that what we have been saying in this debate up to now, has been said for consumption abroad. However, I should like to point out to him that his speech this afternoon does far more damage abroad than the speeches of all those members on this side who have taken part in this debate up to now. Instead of defending the Bantustan policy of his own government, he launched a bitter attack. I remind you of the case of Mr. Robertson. That case was mentioned by my Leader as an example of a case where a suspected person could have been summoned to court, and he wanted to know whether the latter should not have been done instead of restricting him. He did not refer to this case with the purpose of acting as Robertson’s defender. The Minister of Justice is aware of the fact that Robertson saw my leader, and in his speech the hon. the Minister made several references to what Robertson had told him about his activities in Basutoland and Swaziland, and so forth. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that as we were listening to the hon. the Minister of Justice, we gained the impression that he had sufficient evidence at his disposal to charge Robertson in court at once. What happened, however? Do not think that I am defending Robertson now. While an honoured guest from America was paying us a visit at the invitation of Nusas. Robertson’s movements were restricted. If that is not looking for a reason to compromise this Government, what is? Was it the right time for such an action? Could the Minister not have waited a little? Could he not have waited until after Mr. Kennedy had returned? Was it only at that stage, which coincided with Kennedy’s visit, that it came to the attention of the hon. the Minister that Robertson was a dangerous person whose movements had to be restricted? It was characteristic of the hon. the Minister that in his speech this afternoon he stirred up suspicion against my Leader by suggesting that Robertson had told him certain things. However, if I understood the hon. the Minister’s remarks correctly, I accept the fact that the hon. the Minister did in fact have sufficient reason to restrict Robertson. However, let us leave it at that.

If the hon. member for Innesdal wants to suggest that when we are talking of the “petty apartheid” applied by this Government, we are talking with a view to consumption abroad, then he is completely mistaken. As a matter of fact, it has nothing to do with consumption abroad, but it is being said on behalf of our own fatherland. He gave out that all of a sudden the United Party wanted to create the impression that it was not opposed to separate development. But, since when could the United Party be accused of being opposed to separate development? When did we say that we were against it? Has it not always been the policy of the United Party that, with the resources of the Whites, the reserves should be developed as areas for separate development in order that those areas might absorb more non-Whites? Has that now always been our policy? Why should we again be accused of changing our front all of a sudden? We stand for the seperate development of the Bantu. Long before the Nationalist Party came into power, we were the people who said that the reserves had to be developed and that it had to be done with the aid of White capital—to a greater extent than is the case at present. We maintained that those areas had to be developed by allowing a free flow of White capital into them in order to create in them greater possibilities for making a living.

While I am speaking about the Government’s policy, I want to say a few things concerning the policy of independent Bantu states. This policy is one of two things: it is either political fraud of the worst degree, or it is a thoughtless lack of planning and farsightedness ever to have spoken about independent Bantustans. If that policy is merely political fraud and their political independence is never to become an accomplished fact. I want to know whether that policy is merely intended for consumption abroad. If not—and the electorate believes that under this Government and under this Prime Minister there will never be independent Bantu states, and I definitely believe that that is to a large extent what they believe—what are we trying to do? The Transkei is our first model state. What are we doing with it? Are we experiencing a greater exodus from this country to the Transkei because it has become more pleasant and advantageous for the Bantu to make a living there? Did the chairman of the African Institute tell the truth when he said that at any given time there was still 250,000 of the Transkei’s inhabitants looking for work in the Republic? He said—

We all have to agree with that. Continuing, he said—

That is the Bantustan out of which we want to create a model state, a state about which we want to delude the world into believing that it will have sovereign independence at some stage or other! I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that this represents either political fraud of the worst degree, or thoughtless planning. If the Transkei and the other planned Bantu areas do in fact become independent, what effect will it have on South Africa’s economy? According to the hon. the Prime Minister an independent Transkei will be a good neighbouring state of the Republic seeing that it will be economically dependent on us. We are only too well-aware of what has happened elsewhere in Africa. We know that when a country gains political independence there is great competition between America, Russia and Red China to see who can get the strongest foothold in the newly independent state. Do we truly realize the importance of the Transkei here at the toe of Africa? The Transkei’s coast-line borders on the sea-route between the Indian and Atlantic, and the Suez Canal belongs to Nasser. Do we realize how keen the competition will be to gain a foothold in that strategic part of the country? Are we bearing in mind that the Americans would exert themselves to pour their dollars and know-how into the Transkei in an attempt at educating the population of the Transkei in such a manner that they would come under the American sphere of influence? We know about the unlimited amount of financial aid and technical services America granted Japan. Are we bearing in mind that America will try to do the same to the Transkei in an attempt at raising the standard of living of the population of that country to such an extent that they will no longer be able to compete with them in the field of industry and to cut their throats? Surely that is what is behind it all. For what other purpose would the Americans purposefully have raised the standard of living of the Japanese, than to westernize them to such an extent that the resultant high standard of living established there would eventually have the effect that they would not be able to cut the Americans’ throats with cheap labour in the industrial and related fields? Is there any reason to believe that they would not do the same in the Transkei? If such is the manner in which they will act in the independent Transkei and other Bantu areas, would we still be able to obtain the labour to keep the wheels of our industry in the Republic running? Over and above the Bantu we have at our disposal in the Republic, we employ approximately 1,000,000 natives from the Portuguese Territories, Rhodesia, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, etc. We recruit these natives because we do not have sufficient labour at our disposal. I simply fail to understand how we can recruit labour in foreign territories while we are sending Bantu out of the Republic and back to the Transkei and other Bantu areas. Here I want to state that conditions in some of those transit camps do not do us as Whites any credit at all.

To which camps are you referring now?

I am not going to mention names, Mr. Speaker. However, I have already seen some of these transit camps for myself, and I saw a hut 8 foot by 8 foot in which at times a few people had to stay for long periods. It does not do us credit that some of those who are sent back to the Bantu areas—some because of age, others because of unemployment—have to live in transit camps for long periods and in extremely unpleasant circumstances. I shall leave it at that.

Where is the camp you are referring to? Are you going to furnish that information?

If the Government is not serious about its plans for sovereign independence, it is probably the most thoughtless thing that one can imagine. How can the world and the population groups in question be promised that they will be given sovereign independence based on ethnic grouping at some time or other, when one does not seriously intend to do so? If that is not our real intention, if the standard of living of those areas is not going to be raised by means of foreign capital—because we are not in a position to manage on our own capital assets—then great numbers of Bantu will always continue to flock to the White areas in search of work. Shall we ever reach the stage—even in the year 2000 which was mentioned by the hon. member—at which the Whites in the White areas outnumber the non-Whites? The inhabitants of those areas which are not independent, which do not have the necessary avenues of employment and which do not have sufficient land for the settlement of their own populations—taking into consideration the natural increase in population—will surely always come to the Republic in search of work. That would mean that there would be an ever-increasing non-White population as against a White population. Mr. Speaker, if the Government is honest in its intentions, it should take the population further into its confidence. Then the hon. the Prime Minister should not talk about “a smaller Republic, perhaps”. He should tell us what he means when he talks about “a smaller Republic”. If the Republic is to be a White Republic, the Whites would have to outnumber the non-Whites in that Republic in order to justify such a name. Or would we still have a non-White labour group which would constitute up to 80 per cent of the labour force? I ask that because that is the percentage of foreign labour in our country. Now, Sir, I should very much like to know whether there is a country anywhere in the world which reconciles itself to the fact that 80 per cent of its labour force is made up of foreigners. Can such a country delude the world into believing that that 80 per cent will be satisfied with having citizenship in a country they have never seen, and that they will not constitute a source of danger in such a country? How thoughtless and illogical can we be in our approach to this matter? However, if the Government seriously intends to establish a Republic with Whites in the majority, a Republic which would have 4,000,000 Whites and 3,000,000 non-Whites in the year 1978, then it must state that it intends to have a Republic which will be as small as that. It should state that it has in mind a Republic with only 7,000,000 inhabitants, that it will be as small as that. Then he will be honest with the people.

It is this political insincerity—I am perhaps too harsh in my choice of words, Mr. Speaker—it is this dual thing which appears to us to be political insincerity. To me this appears to be quite a thoughtless approach to this project. For that reason my Leader suggested—and we insist on it—that the Government’s approach to and philosophy of the administration of the country and politics in a multi-racial country, justify condemnation. The hon. member for Innesdal remarked earlier that this side of the House regarded the South African population as one nation. However, we have repeatedly stated that we regard this country as a multiracial one seeing that the various races will simply have to live together, whether they like it or not. We do not want to make foreigners out of one lot and citizens out of the other. The following question will most probably be raised, “But what about the United Party’s policy?” We are so tired of hearing that old refrain. We stated that in the first instance there would be eight White representatives of the Bantu in this House. Hon. members on the opposite side maintained that the Sunday Times was the mouthpiece of this Party. Well, to my knowledge, we do not have a mouthpiece; what we have is very small. At any rate, that newspaper stated that it would eventually have to result in multi-racial representation in this Parliament. And what did my Leader have to say about that? What is the Party’s policy in that regard? The policy is that eight White representatives …

Provisionally.

… provisionally, yes. And if it should ever have to be changed, we shall consult the present electorate about this matter. I put it to any hon. member on that side—and also to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development—that when legislation is contemplated, when a con-constitution is changed, or when anything is at stake which is of fundamental interest to the people, the final say in the matter does not rest with either the hon. the Prime Minister or the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, but with the electorate. The electorate ultimately decides the composition of its Government.

In conclusion I want to say this. I spoke about the Transkei and the other planned Bantu states. I referred to the Government’s political dishonesty when they talked about the sovereign …

Order! The hon. member may not use the words “political dishonesty”.

I withdraw those words, Mr. Speaker. The impression created in the minds of the public is that the Government is either serious when it mentions sovereign independence, or that it is not—one of the two. I should now like to appeal earnestly to the Government and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. We who represent Eastern Cape constituencies are very conscious of the uncertainty and unrest which exists mainly among the Whites—but not only among the Whites—seeing that they are unable to obtain from either the Prime Minister, or the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, or any of the hon. Deputy Ministers, a definition of where the borders of the Transkei and the Ciskei will be when they have been consolidated. Does the Government now or at any other time intend to consolidate the position between the Transkei and the Ciskei? If so, why do they not say so? Then the people can gradually prepare themselves for what is to come. If it is not their intention to consolidate, why do they not state where the borders will be? This is merely a further example of the Government’s tendency to announce its policy for to-day and to-morrow, but it will not say a word about what its policy will be in five years’ time. The entire policy of apartheid is based on that. That side always wants to hear from the Opposition what they plan to do when the eight White representatives for the Bantu will no longer be regarded as sufficient. They want to know at what stage non-Whites will be present in Parliament. They expect the Opposition to state what their policy will be in 20 years’ time, and that they should state the exact nature of their future policy. But the hon. the Prime Minister and the Government will not even state what their policy will be in regard to the borders of the Transkei and the Ciskei five years from now. They do not want to state whether or not they will be consolidated. Mr. Speaker, in this debate which is to continue for another few days until Friday, I doubt whether we shall find a more striking example of this Government’s lack of foresight and planning than its Bantu policy.

Mr. Speaker, in 1959, when the United Party found itself on the fields of despondency after having been abandoned by a large number of Progressives and after having given a great deal of thought to what direction to take, a bright new star suddenly appeared on its horizon. They followed that bright star eagerly, because in their dejection they saw it as a bright star which would lead them to the promised land. But unfortunately that star disappeared over the horizon very rapidly. Since yesterday we have been listening to a new philosophy of government, and we are looking forward to someone telling us what the United Party’s philosophy of government is. I myself am not a philosopher, but every single philosopher of whom I have heard, has been a positive person—a person with a positive plan for the world. But what do we get from the United Party? We get nothing more than a yelping at the heels of this Government which does have a positive plan for governing the people of South Africa. The present United Party is of course the political child of former great leaders on their side …

They have been badly bred.

… but to-day I am thinking of a former leader of the United Party who said in typical fashion, “Let things develop”. If I look at the United Party of 1966, it strikes me that it has progressed no further than the philosophy of “Let things develop”. Is that perhaps the reason why they act as they do? We eagerly awaited them to put forward a positive philosophy and when the hon. member for East London City rose in his seat, we thought that this one-time star of theirs would perhaps be the man to expound their new positive philosophy for us. But we have waited in vain. The only possible deduction I can make is that the United Party has no greater philosophy for the government of South Africa than that expounded by it from platform to platform during the latest election. The policy advocated by it was that of White leadership over an undivided South Africa. Some of its candidates even went further during the election and not only spoke of White leaders of an undivided South Africa but of White leaders of an undivided country and nation. In other words, Mr. Speaker, that means one nation in South Africa consisting of Whites, Coloureds, Indians and Bantu. And because that was rejected so effectively in the election, we are getting no new plan and no new positive policy here this afternoon. That then is the reason why we have received nothing new since yesterday except for a yelping at the heels of a Government which does have a definite plan. We are waiting in vain on that clear vision, on the great plan for a nation’s future. And now the United Party comes along and accuses this Government of shortsightedness. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that if the Government is shortsighted, the Opposition is totally blind. The United Party always comes along afterwards and criticizes what has been done by others. Where is the ambitious plan, the ambitious well-considered plan of its own for a nation’s future? The few plans which the United Party did put forward up to now were so badly considered that they were abandoned as hurriedly. I am referring to the Graaff Senate plan and quite a number of other plans. In contrast to that, one has a Government with a clearly defined plan for the future of South Africa. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition speaks of shortsightedness. Has there ever been a Government in South Africa which has done so much planning for the future of a nation as the one which is in power to-day? Was it not this hon. the Prime Minister who established a Department of Planning with a very dynamic Minister at its head? Was it not this Prime Minister who established an Economic Advisory Council which has been advising the Government for quite a number of years in connection with the planning of the country’s economy? Was it not this Government who decided in 1962 to introduce a system of economic development programming? At present numerous entrepreneurs are using these economic development programmes in order to organize their undertakings accordingly. Here there is very definitely no question of “Let things develop”. Proper planning has been undertaken by experts in every sphere and those experts of the Economic Advisory Council are most certainly not merely a crowd of Nationalists or public servants. Those people are all experts in their respective spheres drawn from the broad national economy to advise the Government. I am thinking of a few names such as Mr. C. B. Anderson, and Mr. H. C. Koch of the gold mining industry. I am thinking of Dr. de Kock the former Governor of the Reserve Bank, Mr. Frame a well-known industrialist, Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Hamilton, Professor Houghton, Dr. Tienie Louw and Mr. Lesley Lulofs. I can continue in this way, Mr. Speaker, to mention the names of well-known industrialists and economists in South Africa who serve on the Economic Advisory Council to assist in the planning of the economy of South Africa. Here there is no question of ‘ Let things develop” whatsoever. The planning of this Government is very thorough and clear. It was on the recommendation of that Advisory Council that steps were recently taken against certain inflationary tendencies, namely the increase of the bank rate, the lifting of control over rates of interest and the partial relaxation of import control.

In the entire argument of the Opposition I once more see nothing but the double-barrel tactics of the United Party with which we had to cope so often in the past. On the one hand the Leader of the Opposition is complaining about the high rates of interest the poor house-owners have to pay. May I ask him whether he will reduce those? Is he going to reduce or enforce the payment of high rates of interest? How would that, Mr. Speaker, effect the poor person who has retired and who saved during his lifetime—his working lifetime—for his old age? I am talking about that man who did not wait for the Government to pay him an old-age pension in his old age but who saved while he was working in order to have an income to live on in his old age. I am saying the Leader of the Opposition is complaining about those high rates of interest. Will that retired person then have to maintain a lower standard of living?

I mention a second example. The Leader of the Opposition also complained about the high cost of living of the worker, the poor worker who cannot succeed in balancing his budget. According to the 1955 survey of family expenditure White urban families spent an average of 64 per cent of their food budget on meat, dairy products, vegetables and fruit. Is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition opposed to the high prices farmers receive for their meat, for their vegetables, fruit, maize and wheat? On the one hand there are complaints about the higher cost of living and on the other hand complaints about the low prices the poor farmers receive. How does one reconcile these two statements? After all, it is not possible to have high prices for the farmers’ products on the one hand and to have low prices for the consumer on the other hand.

I want to point out that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was not always very precise with regard to the figures used in his argument. Yesterday afternoon he referred quite melodramatically to our poor pensioners who receive a miserable R30 per month. To this he contrasted the position in the wonderful Canada where pensioners allegedly received R75 per month. May I inquire from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he did in fact say that pensioners in Canada received R75 per month?

Yes.

I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is most definitely not very accurate with his figures. I shall tell you what the exact state of affairs is in Canada. In Canada the pensioners do not receive R75 per month but 75 Canadian dollars. That gives one a completely different picture, because 75 Canadian dollars equal approximately R50 in South African money. That, however, is not the only inaccuracy in the facts. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also alleged that in Canada they do not have the terrible means test which we have in South Africa. Do you know what is the real position in Canada? Up to last year 75 Canadian dollars were paid to persons from the age of 70 years—not 65 years as in South Africa. Only this year was the age changed to 69 years. Now 75 Canadian dollars per month are paid from the age of 69 years. Do you know what the position is in South Africa? If a person does not apply for the old-age pension immediately on reaching the age of 65 years and waits until having reached the age of 69 years, he does not receive a miserable R30, but R40. War veterans receive an additional R8 which brings the amount to R48.

Is that enough?

Does the hon. member remember what the amount was in his days? The major difference between the Government and the party on the opposite side is that the Government is a responsible body. Although the. Government would like to grant a higher old-age pension on the one hand, it has to see that the poor tax-payer is not too heavily burdened on the other hand. The first person who would complain about higher income tax would be the hon. member who has just made the interjection. I want to emphasize that it is very easy to act like a little dog that barks and snaps at the heels of a man who is striding along purposefully. That, however, is no positive philosophy for governing the country. No wonder the nation of South Africa rejected the United Party so decisively at the latest election.

Mr. Speaker, as a new member in this House, I want, in the first place, to express my thanks and appreciation for the way in which we have been received here by you as Speaker of this House, by the Leader of the House, by the Chief Whip and his Whips and by the officials of this House. As all the old members here can testify, making one’s appearance in this House is certainly not one of the easiest entries into public life. However, the cordial reception we were accorded here, the affection, the friendship and the helping hand, has made it very easy for us as newcomers, and for me in particular. Where I have been asked to deliver my maiden speech during the course of an extremely contentious political debate such as this one, I hope I shall not be provoked and drawn into a political discussion. However, I am going to do my best in this regard, for in the short time I have been active in public life I have never really been inclined to allow myself to be provoked or to be lured into snares. I hope that it will not happen to-day either. I represent the constituency of Benoni, and as you know Benoni means “son of sorrow” I hope and trust that during the years I shall represent this constituency, the sorrow will not be on my side. I was given a definite charge by the voting public of Benoni to carry out here. When I look at the notice of motion before me, I feel that my voters would most probably ask me whether the problems allegedly existing in this country really do exist. Since I am now placing my services at the disposal of this House, I must ask myself whether or not the problems that are being mentioned really do exist. Benoni is one of the most advanced industrial towns on the East Rand. We form part of a large metropolitan complex which stretches from Pretoria over the whole of the Witwatersrand right up to Vereeniging. Considering this complex one immediately becomes aware of the fact that there are major problems. There are, for example, problems in respect of collective services, transport and water supply. The inhabitants of my constituency may ask me what is actually being done to see to it that these essential requirements are being met. As far as I and my constituency are concerned, we do not look at problems through dark glasses. We are aware of the fact that there are problems. We are also grateful that we have a government which is helping us to deal with those problems. Through the agency of the former hon. Minister of Planning, the present Minister of Economic Affairs, a statutory committee was appointed in our area which was directly charged with the planning for the entire area. For the past six or seven years this committee has been actively engaged in planning for the area. We are sorry that a point has not yet been reached at this stage where an interim report in connection with the activities of the committee can be submitted to the Government. In a young, growing, and developing country our greatest problem, however, is the problem of manpower. I thank God that our problem is one of a shortage of manpower rather than a surplus of manpower. To me a shortage of manpower is a sign of prosperity and progress, while a surplus of manpower indicates a stage of decline. This also applies to the above-mentioned project and the task of working it out. We do not have the manpower to make as rapid progress with the project as we should like to do. Certain steps, however, have been taken. As you know, physical planning, town planning and regional planning requires that manpower potential which is the most difficult to obtain. Nevertheless, the Government, in collaboration with the Universities of the Witwatersrand, Pretoria and Potchefstroom, is tackling the problem. Courses are being offered at these universities and we hope that within the next year or two the shortage of absolutely essential manpower will be overcome. Attending the University of Pretoria at the moment are 62 students who may complete their studies at the end of this year. There is a great demand for these students throughout the country. Physical regional planning is being carried out not only in the Transvaal, but also in Natal, the Free State and the Cape. We therefore hope to receive a small proportion of these students to help us with our task. Surveys have been made and data gathered which can now be processed. That is why I feel quite at liberty to say that proper planning of the entire metropolitan area is now well under way. Other resources are also being utilized. The universities are assisting with this planning by means of practical work. For example, the University of Potchef stroom has been given the major task of investigating certain sections of the Vaal basin with regard to its water potential and the utilization thereof. The University of the Witwatersrand has been given the task of processing certain data, while the University of Pretoria is lending a hand with mapping. We hope, therefore, that we will be able to satisfy our voters, in particular in Benoni and in the Witwatersrand area, that something is being done and that these problems are not being overlooked. As far as the water problem is concerned, one of the problems which affects us the most, I want to say that I grew up in the Karoo and that there is nothing that disheartens me more than seeing the boreholes or dams dry, while men and animals have to go without water. When we consider the abnormal climatic conditions prevailing in our country to-day, and over which we as individuals have no control, the question arises whether we are responsible. I want to express the opinion that we as individuals are not responsible for those conditions, since they are something over which we have no control. If the rainfall was normal as in the past, we would have had the necessary water to supply all our requirements. Now the water shortage constitutes a threat and if deliverance does not come soon, we could be faced with a water famine. However, we must hope and pray that it rains so that the dams may be filled. Although our dams will still be able to supply the present demand, surveys show that in the seventies we shall arrive at a stage when our reservoirs will not be sufficient to meet the needs of the growing population of the above-mentioned complex. However, the Government has not been blind to these problems. The hon. the Prime Minister has now appointed a commission which will go into this matter very carefully. We want to express our appreciation and thanks for that action. The voting public in our neighbourhood and in that area which will be directly affected by that state of affairs if an emergency arises, is also grateful for that. We know that the commission has been instructed to bring out an early report. We know that there are men serving on the commission who have high qualifications as far as professional grounding is concerned, and we expect great things of them. We foresee that the day is not far distant when we shall have in South Africa a series of connected water networks so that, if you open a tap in the Limpopo system, the water flowing out will have come from the Orange River, the Komati River or the Usutu, or might even be that surplus water flowing down to the sea from the Tugela, as the hon. member for Klip River put it here. If one considers the morgen feet of water flowing into the sea along these rivers, one can easily visualize the Government being able to utilize that water by pumping it through to and laying it on in areas where there is a shortage of water. Just as we are able in Cape Town today to throw an electric switch and draw power from power stations in the Eastern Transvaal or wherever they may be, so in South Africa the time will come, and must come, when we can turn open a tap, when we can open a water furrow, and draw water coming from sources where there is an abundant supply of this natural resource. Mr. Speaker, in a conversation I had with you the other day you had the vision to say: “Why cannot we convey the waters flowing from the snow-covered peaks of the Drakensberg to these dry areas?” That day must and will dawn for South Africa. In the same way as the Israelites are to-day bringing water from its source to the dry Negev valley, as it is being done on a large scale in Australia and in a country like America, where water from the snow-covered peaks of Nevada is being conveyed to the dry desert areas in the valleys of Texas and pumped over to the other side of California, to Los Angeles, so we foresee that this Government of ours, which has a great love for our fatherland, will also see to it that a system such as this, a series of connected water-networks, will be established in our fatherland. Mr. Speaker, water has often played a decisive part in the history of this country. How different our country would have been if Simon van der Stel, when he explored Namaqualand, had found a country rich in water? How different would our history have been if a “Dorslandtrek” into the Northern Transvaal has not been halted there?

I want to conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying this: In the area I represent there are no problems which cannot be solved by visionary planning and we say “thank you” for what is being done in this regard.

I am sure I speak on behalf of everybody in the House when I congratulate the hon. member for Benoni on his very fluent and able maiden speech. I hope it will not be the kiss of death for him with his own side when I tell him that I even agree with a great deal of what he said this afternoon. This is possibly going to be the last occasion on which the hon. member and I will agree, but I should like him to use his eloquence to persuade his Ministers that it is indeed high time that we had at least an interim report from the commission which is studying the development of the Witwatersrand-Pretoria triangle, and also that we hope to have a speedy report from the hon. the Prime Minister’s water commission. I think these are matters which affect all of us equally, and therefore I congratulate the hon. member and I wish him well during his term of office.

Sir, having said those few kind words to the hon. member I would like to turn my attention to the hon. the Minister of Justice who, I must say, disappointed me. I thought he was going to give me at least as ceremonial a welcome back to this House as he gave me a farewell when I left at the end of last session.

I was hoping to congratulate you on your maiden speech.

The hon. the Minister entered this House, I think, in the same year that I did, so it is quite possible that we congratulated each other on our maiden speeches in the same year. The hon. the Minister did say that he was going to deal with me at some stage or another because I had a lot of responsibility. I think he said, in certain matters; that I had to answer for a lot of things. Well, I am not too sure what I have to answer for but I look forward to some subsequent occasion when I will hear from the hon. the Minister what his very efficient Special Branch or other informants have to tell him about me. I am absolutely unperturbed at this….

All you have to answer for is your irresponsibility.

Sir, I am not too sure what the hon. Minister is insinuating so I leave that to one side. What I am concerned about is tackling the hon. the Minister of Justice on the question of his responsibility. I feel that the explanation which he gave this House as to the reason for the banning of Ian Robertson, just as an example, is one of the flimsiest and most fatuous explanations I have ever listened to. Unless the Minister is concealing information which he still has, I think the explanation that he gave is absolutely incredible. He tells us that he has banned this young man because he paid visits to, I think, Swaziland and Basutoland; because he had connections with Defence and Aid, and then he added that the affidavits which had been promised to him by the Nusas delegation had never arrived. Well, I have a couple of affidavits for the hon. the Minister concerning the visits of Ian Robertson to Basutoland which, to the best of my knowledge at any rate, is the only protectorate which he visited.

You know quite a lot about it.

I have made it my business to find out about it and I wish the hon. the Minister had done the same. I suggested to the hon. the Minister that he should send for this young man and cross-examine him himself. After all, the hon. the Minister is trained in law; he should be able to cross-examine a 21-year-old boy and he should soon be able to ascertain, if he is not prepared to leave this to the courts of law, whether or not there is in fact anything in the dossier on which he presumably acted. I believe from the close cross-examination, on two occasions, to which I subjected Ian Robertson, that in fact the Minister will find that there is nothing of substance in what he has been told. But the hon. the Minister does not bother to do this. He accepts the information which is given to him. He is prepared to cut down in its prime a young career and a young life, the career of a young man who after all had risen to the highest position amongst the English-speaking students in this country at a time when, as other members on this side have pointed out, it was particularly undiplomatic on his part to have done so. The Minister mentioned two visits, one to Swaziland and one to Basutoland. I only know of two visits to Basutoland. It is possible, of course, that his infallible Special Branch has mixed up the High Commission Territories, but Ian Robertson paid two visits to Basutoland, both of which were entirely innocent in character according to sworn affidavits by the people who accompanied him and according to his own statement to me which I in my innocence, in fact, believe. If the hon. the Minister can produce any real evidence as to subversive activities or contacts with subversive elements in the Protectorates, then I may have to swallow my own words, but until that time I am unable to do so simply on the strength of ministerial assurances.

On one occasion Robertson visited Basutoland in order to be an observer at an M.R.A. Conference. I think the present Minister of Sport has on occasions been to Switzerland—I think as a member—to examine the activities of the M.R.A. On another occasion Robertson paid a brief holiday-visit to Basutoland and he returned via the Transkei. On that occasion I understand the car was stopped by a police block and he was then allowed to proceed, having had no contact whatever with anybody in the Transkei. These are the only visits that I know of. If the Minister knows of anything more subversive, I see no reason why he should not take this House into his confidence. He does not take one into his confidence when one puts questions to him. His answer always is that it is not in the public interest to disclose these things. Interestingly enough, this is also the answer which he gives to the victims of his banning orders on many occasions, that it is not in the public interest to disclose to the very people whom the hon. the Minister is banning, why he is banning them. He gives them no hint whatever except to re-assert that he is banning them because he has reason to believe or that he is satisfied that they are advancing the aims of communism. I have the letter which he wrote in reply to Mr. Robertson’s request which, by the way, Mr. Robertson is perfectly entitled to make in terms of the Minister’s Act. Any person to whom a notice has been delivered, banning him, may write to the Minister and ask the Minister to furnish him with the reasons for such notice and with a statement of the information which induced the Minister to issue such notice and—I quote the Act—“the Minister shall furnish such person with a statement in writing setting forth his reasons for such notice and so much of the information which induced the Minister to issue the notice as can, in his opinion, be disclosed without detriment to public policy”. Well, apparently not even information concerning the visits that Mr. Robertson paid across the border to Basutoland, as I say, or once to Swaziland and once to Basutoland, according to the Minister’s information, can be disclosed to him for reasons of public interests. It is absolutely absurd, Sir. It does not seem to occur to the hon. the Minister that this order is changing a young man’s whole life.

The other reason given by the Minister was that Robertson had been associated with the Defence and Aid organization, which is now banned. I must point out to the hon. the Minister that Ian Robertson acted as the liaison, ex officio, for his Nusas body on Defence and Àid, which was then, of course, a legal body. It was a perfectly legitimate organization. It was supplying, as the Minister well knows, defence for persons accused of certain crimes. He may not approve of the fact that such defence was supplied; that is another matter. He may not approve of the people who supplied the funds to that organization. That is also quite another matter. What is important is that this was a legal organization; that this young man, in fact, served as a liaison for his own Nusas organization but did not as a matter of fact attend meetings of Defence and Aid. He had conversations with certain highly respectable citizens who served on the committee in order to discuss the question of defence, if necessary, for Nusas members or any other matter which might make it necessary for Nusas to know about the activities of Defence and Aid. Sir, these are the reasons which the hon. the Minister has the impertinence to give to this House as the reasons for banning this young man. I say that this is a fatuous explanation, and if this is what the hon. the Minister means when he says that he is responsible to the House, I say that this is absolutely useless to anybody. I challenge the hon. the Minister to give us proper evidence, which certainly cannot in any way conflict with the public interest, as to why he has banned young Robertson, otherwise I must come to the same conclusion to which others have come and that is that this was a purely vindictive act because Nusas had invited Senator Kennedy to this country, on the one hand and, secondly, that it was intended to intimidate the young people at our English-language universities and to discourage them from taking part in the activities of their official students’ body. I can reach no other conclusion. As to the affidavits which the hon. the Minister says he challenged the Nusas people to supply and which were never forthcoming, I want to tell the hon. the Minister that in fact Robertson was anxious to proceed overseas to take up further academic work. He has been offered a scholarship and he has accepted it. The hon. the Minister has told us this afternoon that he has granted an exist permit to Ian Robertson. This will probably preclude Robertson, since he wishes to take up the scholarship, from continuing with the case which he wished to bring against the Minister in the courts. I know that nobody really has a hope of succeeding in challenging a banning order issued by the hon. the Minister because one has to prove the impossible; one has to prove that the hon. the Minister did not apply his mind to the case; one has to prove mala fides, and I am told by my legal friends that it is virtually impossible to succeed in a case of this kind. Nevertheless, it was intended to raise this matter in the courts of law. However, if Ian Robertson is to leave the country and the case cannot be heard before next year the chances are that it will not come before the court, but affidavits were in fact being prepared and those affidavits which were going to be submitted to the court will certainly be submitted to the hon. the Minister, so it is not for lack of evidence as to the good character of this young man that such affidavits were not submitted. I wish to take the earliest opportunity, Sir, of clearing up the impression with which the Minister has left this House.

I want to go further and challenge the hon. the Minister for his use of his very extensive powers. Other members here, especially the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, have most ably demonstrated how this country is gradually handing over more and more powers to the Minister in this regard. I say that if one reads the debates on the bills originally introduced in this House and the assurances which we had from the Minister at that time, one realizes how much further things have gone since the Minister introduced the bills and since he told us of the uses to which he was going to put the vast powers which he now possesses. He told us that the General Law Amendment Bill of 1962 dealt with communists and communists only. He said: “I am not launching an attack on the freedom of the citizens. What I am doing is to restrain the liberty of the communists to destroy the freedom of the citizens.” In dealing with the same bill in the Other Place he said: “This bill is restricted to communists and to communists only.” He went further and said: “It deals with communists and only communists; it will prevent only such people from attending meetings….” Over and over again he gave assurances that he intended to restrict his bill, his house-arrest bill, and his banning bills, to communists and communists only. But, Sir, the Minister has run out of communists. There are no communists left; he tells us every year that he has finished them off. His police officers tell us that they have completely destroyed the communist movement, so they have to find other people and now they are using this weapon of intimidating people who are not communists, who never were communists and who do not even sympathize in any respect with communist ideology. I accuse the hon. the Minister of using his extensive powers to intimidate citizens who have no connection whatsoever with communism or with any of the aims of the communists. The hon. the Minister sits there secure in his power, knowing that he cannot be attacked in the courts of law and knowing, unfortunately, that his intimidatory tactics are succeeding; that people are becoming frightened to speak up outside this House, where there is a certain degree of protection. People are beginning to be afraid of being associated with certain organizations on which the Minister has cast his dark frown of disapproval.

Order! What does the hon. member mean by saying that there is a certain degree of protection in this House?

I mean that in this House we have protection….

Complete protection.

Yes, I beg your pardon, Sir. I did not mean to reflect on the Chair. We have protection inasmuch as one can even quote a banned person in this House, a thing which one cannot do outside. The hon. the Minister now is treating with contempt even the questions which are put to him. He is not prepared to disclose, for instance, the names of the people whom he has arrested under the 180-day clause. The Minister says that I wish to use the names he discloses for my own purposes. What those purposes are I do not know. But it is quite extraordinary that some of the names are published and some not. If it is protection of witnesses that the Minister requires, what is he doing about protecting them after they have appeared in the cases in which he wishes to use them? Do they not then require any protection? I say this, too, is a fatuous excuse by the hon. the Minister. The answer is that he cannot be bothered any more. He just cannot be bothered. He does not have to be bothered. Things have come to such a pitch in this country that he need no longer account for his actions. He no longer needs to tell anybody why he is doing anything; it is enough that he is doing it, and unfortunately a whole generation of our young people has now grown up under this Government and they know no other form of regime; they know no other form of democracy, in inverted commas. They only know what this Government has taught them and they accept these things as being perfectly legitimate. We have gone so far away from normal concepts of democratic practice that it is, indeed, no wonder that people to-day are intimidated and are nervous of taking part in ordinary organizations, and I believe that is the object and the purpose.

The hon. the Minister also said something extraordinary about the fact that he banned people in order to prevent them from committing certain actions. Now that is a very stupid thing to have said, and I will tell you why, Sir. If the Minister had just paused for a moment, he would realize that he banned Mr. John Harris, the man whom he mentioned to-day, before Harris threw his bomb. He did not prevent any bomb-throwing by banning Harris, and I say this to the Minister, that many of the people whom he has banned turn to violence because they are driven to desperate straits. I predicted that three years ago in this House. I told the Minister that long before this chapter in our history is closed there would be people who formerly were never violent who may in fact unfortunately turn to these unconstitutional actions. They get driven to it very often by the Minister.

Are you referring to the Harris case now?

Well, Harris was banned before he threw his bomb.

But he was a member of the African Resistance Movement before he was banned.

That may be so, but the act of violence which the Minister thought he would prevent was not prevented.

The African Resistance Movement was a violent movement, and people addicted to violence joined it.

The point I was making is that the Minister believes that banning people will prevent violence. I take a different attitude, and I take a different attitude from the hon. member for Innesdal, who is fast getting the reputation of being the Goebbels of the Nationalist Party. My view is that if you really want to overcome Communism, if you really want to strip communists of their ammunition and their weapons, then you must examine the genuine grievances and do your best to remove them.

Must you join the Progressive Party?

No, you do not have to join the Progressive Party, but something you do not do is to join the Nationalist Party, because the Nationalist Party does not admit that there are genuine grievances in this country. It does not admit that any wrong is done to people by throwing them out of homes which they have occupied or that the generations before them have occupied for at least 100 years. The Nationalist Party does not think that it causes any grievance when it prevents Africans from living normal family lives, when it attempts to turn the whole system of labour in this country into a vast migratory labour system, which is the worst system sociologically and economically that one could imagine. The Nationalist Party never admits that there are any grievances and that non-Whites suffer in South Africa, and until that party is able to realize that there are grievances and does something about those grievances, no matter how strong-armed the Minister is, no matter how large his police force is, one will always face the threat of further violence from dangerous people. You have to give people hope. That is the only way in which you can develop a peaceful community of people of different races living together in South Africa; and whether we like it or not we are a people of different races living here. And by the year 2000, as one hon. member has told us, we will be a vast population of 70,000,000 I think he said. But whatever the size of the population he anticipates, we are already 18,000,000 people of different races, and banning people, putting them under restrictions, and the taking of vaster and vaster powers by the Minister will not. I fear, tend to allay the difficulties South Africa will have to face in the future. So I ask the hon. the Minister again whether this “explanation” which he has given us to-day, and which certainly does not satisfy me, although it might satisfy all the fiery brands sitting opposite, whether that explanation is the only one we are going to have as far as Ian Robertson is concerned and whether it is the Minister’s intention to give us a little more information when the opportunity arises, when his own vote comes around, to tell us something about the banning of other people who are not remotely connected with the Communists or the Communist Party.

Sir. I regret that I had to devote so much of my time to this particular aspect, but I could not allow the Minister’s statement to go unchallenged. I really wished to address my remarks to the hon. the Prime Minister on a different issue altogether, and to ask him whether it is his intention to take the House into his confidence at the earliest possible opportunity about the relationship that South Africa is going to enjoy with the newly-independent states of, formerly, Basutoland and Bechuanaland. As everybody knows, before the next Session of Parliament, within the next couple of months, those territories will have become independent. We have not up to now had any information about this and I think it would be very good if this House was given some idea of the sort of relationship the Prime Minister envisages. Let us have it in the open and not behind closed doors at the Union Buildings or Marks Buildings. Let us hear something from the Prime Minister about what he intends to do in regard to diplomatic relations with those countries and also about our economic relations. Are we going to treat them as impoverished stepsisters, or are we going to attempt in every way to build up those countries not only to their own advantage but to ours as well? The Prime Minister did say it was his intention to have an open door. I do hope he will put out the “Welcome” mat in front of the open door and that we will do everything we can to assist these neighbours of ours who are closely tied to us economically, to get established as viable countries as soon as possible. I do not mean aid by way of charity. That is the last thing I mean. I do not mean aid in the form of grain at times of starvation and famine. All those are fine gestures and one welcomes them, but what I am thinking of is aid in the economic field, aid for development, the sort of aid that benefits not only the recipient but also the giver of such aid. The hon. member for Benoni referred to this question of water supplies and he took us on a fine geographic tour of the snow-capped mountains of the Drakensberg, but I want to point out to him that we have in Basutoland, a wonderful opportunity, on the one hand, of assisting Basutoland, the new independent territory of Lesotho, to get going economically, and on the other hand, of assisting ourselves by examining in detail as swiftly as possible the Oxbow Scheme, for using the snow-capped mountains of Basutoland which could supply the whole of the Vaal Basin, the basis of our economy, with unlimited water supplies, and at the same time open up great economic opportunities for Basutoland. This is one thing which I think we ought to explore as soon as possible. There are other forms of aid which are not economic aid and which are not even diplomatic relations. There is the sort of human element, too, that we ought to consider. A short time ago when I was talking to some young people in Natal, I suggested that it would be an excellent idea if South Africa launched something on the lines of the British Voluntary Service Organization, or the American Peace Corps, to attract our thousands and thousands of young people who are eager to render service to the less developed areas, to the Reserves and the newly-independent territories, and to allow them to go out and assist in building and teaching, in the numerous jobs like health services, etc. in these territories. This sort of service would be of inestimable value not only to our young people and to the countries they are going to serve in this way, but also to our own international relations. It would be an excellent thing if South Africa showed for once that she was not withdrawing into further isolation but was merging into the general trend of breaking down the barriers between the races, and that she was supplying not only financial aid and the technical know how of our skilled personnel, but also the services of our young people who, I believe, badly need to do something of this nature, and to demonstrate South Africa’s openhandedness in her relationship with our neighbouring territories. I put this suggestion out because I know it will be very difficult to get such an organization off the ground unless it has the blessing of the Government, because they are in the position of raising great difficulties if they do not approve. I would like to commend these ideas to the House, and in particular to the hon. the Prime Minister.

The hon. member for Houghton mainly pleaded for Ian Robertson to-day. I should like to add immediately that I was not at all impressed by the hon. member. On occasion she has pleaded in this House for people who have made much more of a fuss than Robertson. There were times when she pleaded in this House for people who had already been convicted and who had already served lengthy sentences. It is, therefore, to be expected, and small wonder that if she had pleaded so touchingly for people like Mandela and Sobukwe, she would also plead for Robertson at this stage. I remember an occasion on which she spoke about Adrian Leftwich, and what happened to him later? It was also said of him that he was innocent and that he had no communistic tendencies, but what happened to him later? And there were many more of that kind. It is for that reason that I think that she did not make an impression on this House.

However, there is one matter which upsets me in the hon. member’s speech. She made the allegation that this Government would threaten people into resorting to violence. Mr. Speaker, can one describe it as anything but an invitation to those people to resort to violence? Can one describe it as anything but inciting those people to come to light with worse deeds? For that reason I say that the hon. member for Houghton has definitely not rendered this country any service with this, as she seems to think, innocent speech. However, what struck me while she was speaking was the reaction of the Opposition. While the hon. the Leader of the Opposition listened to every word of the hon. member for Houghton, I only thought of what he had to be thinking, because it was a chicken hatched by the United Party. For years the hon. member for Houghton sat in the ranks of that party, helped to formulate the policy of that party and was one of the prominent speakers in that party. What is the position to-day? They may maintain that those bad seeds they have sown has disappeared into the Progressive Party, but do all the seeds of that quality germinate at the same time, or are there in that party still some of those bad seeds which may germinate in the future? That merely goes to show that one finds in the United Party groups which range from absolutely conservative to completely liberal, and that brings me to the theme of the observations I want to make to-day I want to make an analysis of the reasons for the United Party’s steady decline at every election over the past years. I am not talking about the positive side of the National Party and the reasons for its progress, but about the main reasons for the United Party’s hitherto consistent decline at each election.

Why are you concerned?

Yes, I am concerned about it because I am a democrat, and I should like to see in this House an Opposition party worthy of this country; otherwise none of them will be left in time to come, and then it will be said that the Government is dictatorial and is forming a one-party state, as is already being said in parts such as the Free State and South-West, where they no longer exist. I have jotted down nine different reasons accounting in the main for the United Party’s decline during the past decades. I do not want to pretend that the nine reasons I have jotted down will form a full list. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition can be helpful to me in pointing out further reasons. I think there are many others. This is the first reason I want to mention. The reason for the United Party’s consistent decline is that it has been collecting under its wing people with totally different views, such as the hon. member for Houghton. Sir, they are no united party; they are a divided party. They are only united in one respect, and that is in their defence against and hatred for the National Party. They themselves have never been united because I will not be told that members such as the hon. member for Houghton and the hon. member for Albany can be happy in the ranks of the same party. That merely goes to show the conglomeration that existed in the ranks of the United Party. Which schools of thought go into the composition of the United Party? In the first place it is made up at present of people with liberal views. They will, of course, not appear at this stage and say that they are progressive or liberal because they support the United Party seeing that they are of the opinion that the United Party is the only alternative government we can have in this country; and that is one of their major reasons for still being in the ranks of that party and not having joined the ranks of the progressives long ago. No, when the United Party is finished they will definitely join the Progressive Party, but for the time being they want to use the conservative element in the United Party to see whether they can offer resistance to the National Party. For that reason I maintain that there is a large and strong group of libera-lists in the United Party, and what proof have I got? My proof is the result in Houghton. Until a few years ago Houghton as a seat was still very favourably disposed towards the United Party. There were few traces of progressive concepts as advocated by the Progressive Party at present. Do you know what happened in Houghton? Members of the United Party in the Houghton constituency realised that a very important matter was at stake, namely that in that seat, unlike other seats, they had to look out for their real interests and for their real feelings. In other seats they thought that they had better support the United Party seeing that the United Party could at least form an alternative government, but in Houghton they voted in accordance with their own consciences, and they did that because they knew that they very much wanted to send the hon. member for Houghton back to this House.

The so-called traditional United Party supporters are also to be found in the ranks of the United Party. I have a great respect for them. They are people who already feel as we do on this side of the House, but owing to their ties with the United Party of the past, they still remain members of that party, and the idea of joining the National Party at this stage does not appeal to them. They still retain a small measure of faith in the United Party, they still read its newspapers and still vote for it at every election. But that is all. As I have said, I have considerable respect for these people. At the same time I want to predict that they are the people who will eventually join the National Party and in that process the United Party will be wiped out entirely. I say that because it is through this very group of United Party supporters that the United Party is still in existence at present.

One also finds opportunists in the United Party—such as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who is not in the House at the moment. This is another group that does not form part of the United Party because of a feeling of solidarity with the other elements of that party, but merely because of their hatred for the National Party. It is only for that reason that the different elements in the United Party still act in concert.

However, there is a second reason I want to mention. The United Party is consistently deteriorating because of its erroneous conception of the function of an opposition party.

Do you want us to agree with you all the time?

No, decidedly not, but I should like to see the United Party agreeing with the Government in matters which are in the interests of South Africa. However, hon. members on the opposite side are apparently under the impression that the function of an opposition party is merely to say “Aye” when the government says “No”, and conversely. We have seen that happen in this House time and again. When the National Party said that we should have a Republic, they said “No”. The position was the same in regard to the combating of sabotage. Every time the Government introduced important legislation, the United Party said “No”. That is another reason for that Party’s consistent decline. Whenever the Government took action against communism, or sabotage, it was never able to rely on the support of the United Party. That Party is apparently under the impression that they simply have to negative everything proposed by the Government. By doing that they think that they are doing their duty. But an opposition also has another duty. It is correct that it should attack the Government of the country all the time and that it should always be on the alert by performing the duty of a watch-dog. However, as a watch-dog the United Party has no teeth. In addition to that an opposition party is also supposed to be the alternative government of a country and for that reason it is one of its cardinal duties to suggest an alternative policy for each point on which it criticizes the government. Without a policy it is impossible for a party to take over the government of a country. What have we found in this debate up to now? Did we at any stage find that a member, criticizing the Government on some or other point of policy, stated the alternative policy of his Party? No, decidedly not. Do hon. members on the opposite side think that they can take over the government of this country without a policy, or, if they do have one, without stating is very explicitly? That is not possible, surely. For that reason I maintain that it is time that hon. members on the opposite side realize what the real duty of an opposition party is.

However, there is a third reason for the decline of the United Party, namely the fact that that Party is in a rut. We do not find any thought in it, any positive thought. The following was said of that Party by one of its own newspapers—

This is a basic fact as far as the United Party is concerned—it no longer has any positive thought. Take the hon. member for Orange Grove as an example. The speech he made in this House yesterday, is the same as those we heard from him ever since 1958. He merely clothes his allegations in different language and arranges them slightly differently, but time and again the speech is the same. The same applies to Dr. Cronje, the former member for Jeppes. He also made the same speech in this House again and again. There is no longer a single grain of originality to be seen in the United Party. It is still strumming the same old tune it started with. We are getting and hearing nothing new from that Party. Let us consider the arguments we heard in this debate. I notice that the hon. member for Durban Point is smiling and I assume that he will agree with me. The arguments raised by them in this debate up to now are arguments they have already raised ad nauseam. There has been nothing to date to which the hon. the Prime Minister can reply. I listened attentively, but I could not find anything that would make it worth while for the hon. the Prime Minister to reply to. It said that the United Party was in a rut. In saying that, however, I do not want to imply that this is also the case as far as its policy is concerned. What I find most peculiar about the United Party is that as far as its policy is concerned, there is always change. For instance, we heard of the Graaff Senate plan which was succeeded by a federation plan, etc. The United Party trims sails to the wind. In that manner it tries to catch a few votes every time. The United Party’s policy has changed to such an extent that I wonder whether the United Party as it was in 1948 would endorse the policy of that Party today. I am therefore convinced that General Smuts, for instance, would not endorse the present policy of the United Party. As far back as 1936 General Smuts was instrumental in placing the Bantu on a separate voter’s roll. I strongly doubt whether the present United Party would do the same if it should be faced with such a situation again. Allow me to furnish my reasons for this statement by quoting words perpetrated by one of the prominent people in the United Party, namely (translation)—

That is what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said. Today he is a frontbencher of that Party. It is therefore immediately apparent that if he should be faced with the choice of 1936. he would have adopted an entirely different attitude. It is clear that he wants all these groups he mentioned to have representation in this Parliament. In this connection let us also take notice of the obtuse argument raised by the hon. member for Pinelands this afternoon. He criticised the National Party by pretending that we are unrealistic seeing that, as he maintains, 16 million Bantu out of a total population of 32 million in the Republic will be living in the territory of the Whites by the year 2,000. On the strength of that argument he maintains that the policy of the National Party is heading South Africa for danger.

That you can deduce for yourself from what the Government has said.

Let us accept the hon. member’s figures for the sake of argument. Let us do that and ask ourselves what the position would have been in terms of the policy of the United Party. By the year 2,000 all of the 32 million inhabitants would have to have representatives in this Parliament. Does the hon. member honestly think that die number of Bantu who will inhabit our country by the year 2,000 will be satisfied with eight representatives in this House of Assembly, which is in accordance with the policy of the United Party? Does the hon. member not think that by the time that the number of Bantu will have reached the 32 million mark, they will demand the majority in this House? I should rather advise the hon. member that he himself should think a little more realistically. However, there is a further reason for the United Party’s consistent decline. That reason can be found in its lack of confidence in itself. That is why it makes more fuss than most parties I know of. In order to make up for its lack of strength, it tries abuse and vituperation. In this regard I am thinking of the Barabbas speech of one of the frontbenchers of the United Party. I am also thinking of one of the leaders of the United Party in South-West who compared the hon. the Prime Minister to a Dr. Phillips, Read and Van der Kemp. As long as the United Party continues with this type of thing they will never be able to govern this country. On the contrary. They will decline even more. I see the hon. member for Orange Grove nodding his head. Apparently he also realizes that.

However, there is further reason for its decline, namely that in spite of the confusion in which it is it has also became stubborn. It has never taken to heart the advice it has received from us in this House. As a matter of fact, it does not even take to heart the advice given it by its own supporters. Take its Bantu policy as an example. Last year on the 24th January one of its mouthpieces, the Sunday Times, advised the United Party to be practical by abandoning its federation plan and accepting the National Party’s policy of Bantu homelands.

It did not speak of “Bantu homelands.”

I have the article in question in front of me. It says—

There is an enormous difference.

The article in question continues—

Has the hon. the Leader of the Opposition now taken this to heart? Surely he knows that the Sunday Times is one of his most important mouthpieces in this country. He knows it is the Sunday Times which took him in tow and which is at present laying down to us what his policy for South Africa should be. But I do not think that the Leader of the Opposition will take this advice to heart. No, he has become too stubborn. That is therefore another reason for his Party’s consistent decline. Today, after its many statements about its own policy and its criticism of the National Party, the United Party became entangled in its own words. I want to refer in particular to its scare-mongering since 1948 to the effect that the language rights of the English-speaking people would be taken away. Round about 1952 I was present at a meeting at Kokstad where the hon. member for Transkei and the hon. member for Constantia were the speakers. At that stage the National Party had been in office for some three years. Their theme at that meeting was that the National Party would take away the language rights of the English-speaking people in this country. What scaremongering! One could expect that the English-speaking people present at that meeting would in due course want to know what had happened to that prediction. And then they have the arrogance to suggest that this Government has made no progress on the road to national unity, i.e. as far as the relations between English- and Afrikaans-speaking people are concerned.

I now want the hon. member for Pinelands to listen to one of the testimonials of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He is a person who was in the United Party and who knows them. It is his testimonial concerning the United Party’s attitude in regard to language rights. This is what he said—

Everybody is aware of the fact that the National Party receives with open arms Afrikaans- as well as English-speaking people—and in South-West Africa, German-speaking people—as long as those people endorse the policy of the National Party. There is no language discrimination with us. The fact that a person is English-speaking does not in any way make him an inferior or less welcome member of the Party. The hon. member for Pinelands ought to know that.

There is yet another reason. From the earliest years onwards the United Party was basically and essentially un-national. That Party was consistently opposed to everything that promoted national unity. I am thinking, for example, of our own flag, our national anthem, citizenship and the Republic. To all of these it was consistently opposed. I maintain that a party which is so un-national ought not to be present in this House. I do not know whether we shall find an opposition party anywhere else in the world which is as un-national as our United Party. I can quote a lot in order to support this statement, but I can see that my time is running out.

Allow me to state my eighth reason. The United Party is un-national to such an extent that it places its own interests above those of South Africa. I refer in particular to its attitude towards countries abroad. In my opinion foreign policy is virtually like a clock. There are cog-wheels that turn clockwise, just like the National Party. There are cog-wheels that turn anti-clockwise, just like the United Party. There are even cog-wheels that, just like the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, turn anticlockwise and clockwise. They turn to and fro. But, Sir, one would at least expect the hands on the face of the clock to turn in one direction only, namely pro-South Africa. But the United Party does not do that. The speeches we heard from that side today, were mainly directed at accusing this Government abroad. They realize that the main attack of our enemies abroad is concerned with the fact that we are supposed to be becoming a police state. The United Party is always hammering at this reproach and trying to make mountains out of mole-hills of their own making. Thus they bring discredit upon South Africa. They bring discredit upon themselves. They bring discredit upon the voters they represent.

The ninth reason for the United Party’s consistent decline, is that it is not realistic. It is hopelessly underestimating the intelligence of the electorate of this country. Take its Bantu policy for instance. It thinks it will satisfy the Bantu by having eight representatives in this House on their behalf. Is the hon. member for Pinelands really so unrealistic that he does not realize that it will not end there? He is so unrealistic that he assumes that the Bantu outside will resign themselves to that situation for years to come.

It is for these reasons, Mr. Speaker, that I can say that in South Africa I do not see any future whatever for this Opposition.

Mr. Speaker, it was obvious to this side of the House when we saw the hon. member for Middelland get up that the Government had run out of speakers. Now that he has sat down we are convinced that they have still run out of speakers. For the last half-hour we have heard an analysis of what is wrong with the United Party. Now, why this concern on the part of the hon. member? For two days we have been hearing about what a thrashing the United Party received and how finished we are. Yet this hon. member spends half-an-hour telling us all about ourselves. It seems to be an obsession. When you start following the logic of the hon. member then you realize why.

The hon. member first of all said the United Party is dictated to by the Sunday Times. Then he complained for the next ten minutes because we do not do what the Sunday Times tells us to do. I think we should now hear what the new friend and ally of the Sunday Times thinks. Is he now going to persuade his party to listen to the Sunday Times! Because obviously the Sunday Time? views are acceptable to him. Let us hear from the Nationalist Party whether they are going to follow that advice. Because that hon. member has already admitted that we in the United Party think for ourselves and we are not dictated to by any newspapers in South Africa. And that hon. member knows it. For the rest not a single word has been heard in answer to the charges made by this side of the House. There has not even been an attempt to answer the charges. There was not even a pretence. Those have been the tactics of every speaker on the Government side. They have shown an inability to even try to answer the charges made by my leader and by the other speakers on this side.

This Government, having come back with a swollen majority, now has to face the fact that its honeymoon is over. The election braaivleis is over. It now has to get down to the hang-over part of winning an election.

We have not started our honeymoon yet.

You have not started yet? The Burger says that the Government has not started to accept its responsibility—it must now with its big majority start to pay attention to solving the problems of South Africa. And that is exactly the charge of my leader. We have on our side the Burger. [Interjections.] Dawie of the Burger says that now the Government has this vast majority now is the time—and he put in parenthesis “at least we can hope so”—that the Government will start to solve the problems of South Africa. I say the Government has not solved one problem in South Africa in the 18 years it has been in power. In view of the hour and the fact that I hope to deal with some of those problems, I now wish to move—

Agreed to: