House of Assembly: Vol3 - THURSDAY 10 MAY 1962

THURSDAY, 10 MAY 1962 Mr. SPEAKER took the Chair at 2.20 p.m. NATIONAL EDUCATION COUNCIL BILL

Mr. MOSTERT, as Chairman, brought up the Report of the Select Committee on the subject of the National Education Advisory Council Bill, reporting an amended Bill entitled the National Education Council Bill.

First reading of the National Education Advisory Council Bill discharged and the Bill withdrawn.

By direction of Mr. Speaker, the National Education Council Bill, submitted by the Select Committee, was read a first time.

INCOME TAX BILL

Mr. FRONEMAN, as Chairman, brought up the Report of the Select Committee on the Legislative Effect of the Income Tax Bill, reporting the Bill without amendment.

STAMP DUTIES BILL

Mr. VISSE (for the Chairman) brought up the Report of the Select Committee on the Legislative Effect of the Stamp Duties Bill, reporting the Bill without amendment.

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

First Order read: House to resume in Committee of Supply.

House in Committee:

[Progress reported on 9 May, when Votes Nos. 1 to 25 had been agreed to and Vote No. 26,—“Bantu Administration and Development”, R26,385,000 was under consideration.]

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Before I come to what I want to say this afternoon, I should like to refer—and I am sorry that he is not here at the moment—to the impudent (“domastrante”) and nonsensical chatter as well as the senseless allegations made by what I can only describe as the stupid-normal (“domnormale”) Chief Whip of the Nationalist Party.

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

What must I withdraw?

*HON. MEMBERS:

Everything you have said.

*The CHAIRMAN:

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

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

I withdraw it. Let me rather say the abnormal Chief Whip then.

*The CHAIRMAN:

The hon. member cannot say that either.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Mr. Chairman, surely I can use the word “abnormal”?

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

*Mr. G. F. H. BEKKER:

He is “Sap”-normal.

*Mr. STREICHER:

On a point of order, the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) has just said that the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) is “sub-normal”. Surely that is not parliamentary?

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

No, he said that the member was “Sap’’-normal.

*The CHAIRMAN:

What did the hon. member for Cradock say?

*Mr. G. F. H. BEKKER:

I said that he was “ Sap ’’-normal.

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member must also withdraw that.

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

But surely he is not “Nat’’-normal.

*Mr. G. F. H. BEKKER:

He is not normal.

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member is trying to evade my ruling. He must withdraw those words.

*Mr. G. F. H. BEKKER:

I withdraw them.

*The CHAIRMAN:

The hon. member may proceed.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

It has unfortunately become the habit of the hon. member for Brits (Mr. J. E. Potgieter), wherever an opportunity presents itself and particularly when he becomes upset and when his party is at the receiving end, to make accusations against all and sundry on this side; to evade the truth very often or to represent the position in a wrong light. These charges are usually without substance and not based on facts. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development referred yesterday to scaremongering by this side of the House. There is no better example of a person who goes in for scaremongering than the hon. member for Brits. In this respect he is the greatest sinner. We usually find that he ignores the truth and sees false visions, on which he then bases his attacks on this side, and then he exploits the issue for party political purposes. This side of the House is sick and tired of it, because he does it not only in this House but from platform to platform outside the House. The Chief Whip of the Nationalist Party then bases his attacks on this side of the House on those untruths and unfounded facts.

My hon. friend comes along and says that the United Party’s policy is one of integration and assimilation. The policy of the Nationalist Party, on the other hand, is supposedly based on the South African tradition! I want to ask my hon. friend why, if that is the tradition, the Nationalist Party appointed a commission in 1947 to come and tell us what apartheid is or was? Since those days my hon. friends on that side have been going throughout the length and breadth of South Africa trying to tell the public what is not apartheid! What nonsense that this side of the House supposedly stands for integration and assimilation and that the policy of that side of the House is based on the South African tradition.

*An HON. MEMBER:

The hon. member for Brits has got under your skin.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Is the Immorality Act South African tradition? Or did we remain White in South Africa for 300 years or longer because we believed in the traditions, the religion and the pride of the White man? Is it our tradition in South Africa to have a Church clause?

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member is going too far now; he must come back to the Vote.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

But I am dealing with the Government’s policy. The policy of this side is being attacked.

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development has nothing to do with those matters. The hon. member must come back to the Vote.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

With all respect, I am trying to refute what the hon. the Minister himself and the Chief Whip of the party alleged, and that is that the policy of the Nationalist Party is based on the traditional policy in South Africa. I want to prove that is not so, and I am discussing this matter under the Minister’s policy. I submit with all respect therefore that I am within the rules of this House.

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! I am telling the hon. member for the last time now to come back to the Vote and to confine himself to the policy of the hon. the Minister whose Vote is under discussion here.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Mr. Chairman, will you please give me a bit of advice then? Am I not allowed to refute what has been said by the Chief Whip?

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member cannot discuss anything which does not fall under this Vote. If there is any point which particularly worries him he may reply to it briefly, but he cannot discuss the matter here fully.

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

On a point of order, the hon. member, as I understand him, is dealing with the traditional policy which the Government alleges is the basis for its policy. The hon. the Minister and other speakers on that side have claimed that their policy is the traditional policy of South Africa.

The CHAIRMAN:

The hon. member for Hillbrow may discuss it in so far as it relates to Bantu Administration.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

But with all respect, that is what I am doing.

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member may not discuss the Church clause, and that is the point on which I called him to order.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

The question that I am posing is whether it is the tradition in South Africa to have a Church clause. Is it the tradition in South Africa to banish people without giving them a hearing in the courts of law?

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

Gen. Smuts did so.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Is the cutting up of South Africa our traditional policy? Is the splitting up of our country South African tradition? Is the alienation of the Coloureds the traditional South African policy or have we always accepted them as an appendage of the Whites while they have helped us to build up South Africa over the past 300 years? That is my question to my hon. friend and to the hon. the Minister: Is that the South African tradition? Is it South African tradition to repudiate the guidance and the leadership and the guardianship of the White man, or is the tradition that we as Whites, the more privileged, look after the less privileged and lead them towards development as part and parcel of South Africa? No, the policy which is being followed by the Nationalist Party at the present moment is not the traditional South African policy; it is an evil policy and it can only lead to the downfall of the White race and to chaos in the Bantu areas which are going to be established by the Government.

I want to come to the hon. the Minister himself, but first of all I want to refer him just in passing to what he told us in connection with the Port St. Johns harbour. He gives the assurance to South Africa that Port St. Johns will always remain White! What right has my hon. friend to say that when he knows that South Africa herself was not prepared to have a foreign harbour in this country? What right has he to dictate to the Pondos or to the Transkeian Natives what is to become of Port St. Johns? They are the people who will eventually decide what is to become of Port St. Johns. [Time limit.]

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

I have never listened to worse nonsense than that spoken by the hon. member who has just sat down. The hon. member has asked whether it is traditional in South Africa to banish people without trial. Of course it is traditional, and I shall also tell him who introduced this tradition. It was the late Gen. Smuts. He put people on a ship and banished them from the country without trial.

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Vote.

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

I am sorry the hon. member did not keep to the Vote. Mr. Chairman, we are now discussing the banishment of Bantu and I am justifying the banishment of Bantu agitators in this country; I am justifying the banishment of people who caused trouble in Pondoland and the Transkei, and I am doing so because my former leader, Gen. Smuts, set an example. He said that if people were so difficult, if they encouraged rebellion and strikes, then we should not try them; we should send them out of the country. This is not what the Prime Minister or the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development has said; this is what my former leader, Gen. Smuts, did, and that is why I regard this as a tradition and a very sound tradition. But the hon. member wants to protect the agitators because who are the people who are being banished; which Bantu should not have been banished; are there any of them whom he wishes to defend? Not one single Bantu who was not an agitator, who did not want to undermine law and order, has ever been banished. [Interjections.] That is the trouble with the hon. member over there and the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). They regard it as their sacred duty not to maintain law and order in this country, not to advocate sound orderly development; no, when we want orderly development, they are always to be found on the side of the agitators and the criminals and the people who disturb peace and order.

Mr. HOPEWELL:

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to say that the hon. member for Houghton associates herself with agitators and criminals?

*An HON. MEMBER:

And you as well.

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

I say they always defend those people here, and they will simply have to suffer the consequences of these actions of theirs.

*Mr. DURRANT:

You are an agitator.

*Mr. G. H. VAN WYK:

On a point of order, is the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) entitled to say that the hon. member is an agitator?

*The CHAIRMAN:

What did the hon. member for Turffontein say?

Mr. DURRANT:

I said that the hon. member was an agitator in this House.

The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

Mr. DURRANT:

I withdraw it.

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

Mr. Chairman, I do not mind what the hon. member says because after all we do not take any notice of him.

I now want to refer to what the Leader of the Opposition said here yesterday, namely that there were members on this side of the House who denied throughout the election that it would be possible for the Bantu homelands to become independent. I want to tell him that is absolutely untrue. I now challenge him to name any member on this side of the House who denied on a public platform during the election and after the Prime Minister had made his statement at the beginning of last year, that it was possible for the Bantu homelands eventually to become completely independent. I challenge him. Allow me to put this question to the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) because he paid me the compliment the other day of saying that I at any rate was not one of the members who did so. I shall tell the Leader of the Opposition what we denied from one platform to another. We denied that silly story which they spread on the platteland, after the Prime Minister’s statement last year, namely that we could force all the Bantu out of the White areas and that there would no longer be any Black labour in White South Africa; that is what we denied and we deny it to-day. We say that story is a malicious untruth. It is a pity that the Opposition have simply made it impossible to hold a reasonable and objective debate on this important Vote. They refuse absolutely to pit principle against principle, to pit standpoint against standpoint. What are their tactics? They give free rein to their imagination. They conjure up all possible and impossible difficulties which could flow from the Government’s policy, and then they only discuss these difficulties which may arise. I want to say here that not one single difficulty which they have mentioned as being a possible consequence of the policy of this Government will not be encountered to the same extent and to a greater extent if their policy should be implemented. Listen to the foolishness of the Leader of the Opposition. He is the Leader of the Opposition and in a serious debate such as this, what is one of his objections to the Bantu homelands policy? He asks: How will the Zulu be able to go from one part of his country to another part, seeing that these areas are not yet consolidated? He says that such a Zulu will have to go through a White area, and he wants to know how that will be controlled; he wants to know whether it will have to be by means of passports. Is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition really serious? Do we not have greater problems to solve in this country than that? I say that this is the worst nonsense in the world …

*Sir. DE VILLIERS GRAAFF:

Just answer the question.

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

It is the worst nonsense in the world to expect that, at this stage, we should give an answer to every silly question asked by hon. members opposite. After all, it is childish to expect such a thing. The hon. member would not do so in his own business. No, one meets these problems as they arise, and this type of problem has been solved throughout the world. My answer to the Leader of the Opposition is this: If it has to be done by means of passports, what of it? Or if it has to be done by means of permits, what of it?

I now turn to the other difficulty which the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) has seen. He wanted to know what we shall do if Kaiser Mantanzima, if he becomes Prime Minister of the Transkei, decides to disfranchise the Xhosas who work here in the White areas. What can we do about that; what has that got to do with us? I now want to put this question to the hon. member for Zululand: If he were in power, what would he do if the Government of Basutoland were to decide to disfranchise the Basutos who work in our areas? He could do nothing about it because it has nothing to do with him.

I then come to the hon. member for Turffontein. He asks this terrible question: Who is going to win the election in the Transkei—the irresponsible man who urges that the Transkei should be extended, or the reasonable man? Mr. Chairman, I do not know who will win the election, but they are going to give those people representation here in the Federal Parliament. Which of those Black people will win the election—the one who says that they will be obedient, that they will accept the great White king, Sir de Villiers Graaff, or the people who say that Luthuli or Mantanzima should be Prime Minister, not of their areas, but of all South Africa? I therefore say that each of these possible difficulties will be encountered to a far worse extent if their policy should be applied.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) says that Luthuli wishes to divide the land of the Whites amongst the Zulus; he wants “one man one vote”; he wants the right to strike. Then he says that is the man whom we now want to make Prime Minister of the Zulu homeland. But that is the man who does not want to divide up Zululand, but he is the man who wants to divide the whole of South Africa amongst the Zulus: the man who wants “one man one vote” throughout South Africa. But hon. members opposite have no objection to his sitting here in the Federal Parliament. The hon. member for Innesdal (Mr. J. A. Marais) was quite correct: If Luthuli and Mantanzima and Sabata wish to sit here in the Federal Parliament, then they can become Prime Minister. Or do the United Party intend making second class members of Parliament out of them? Because, according to what the Leader of the Opposition had said, their policy is that those people will initially be represented by Whites, but that they eventually must have the right to be represented by their own people here. [Time limit.]

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

When my time expired I was addressing the hon. the Minister in connection with Port St. Johns. I asked him what right he had ultimately to dictate to those people that Port St. Johns must remain White. But that is not the worst. On its western side the Transkei borders on a foreign country, Basutoland, and that country realizes that it cannot survive unless it has an outlet to the sea. The hon. the Minister is aware of that problem. He realizes the possibility of an ultimate amalgamation between the Transkei and Basutoland. That is why he has already spoken of the establishment of a so-called neutral area. He knows just as well as I do that neutral areas have already been tried out in South Africa before; he knows just as well as I do that it was a hopeless failure in 1819 and he knows that it led to the Fifth Kaffir War. He knows just as well as I do that it will not work, and yet he does not tell the people what the implications of his policy may be; he tries to avoid the issue by trying to make the people believe that Port St. Johns will always remain White.

But I would like to take the hon. the Minister further; I want to take him to a territory where the results and consequences under his policy may be more serious than in the case of the Transkei, a territory that is bordered on two sides by foreign countries. I refer to Tongaland. Maputaland or Mapuduland. The hon. the Minister knows that the Maputos or the Tongas are related to the Tembe, and like the Sutu and the Swazi they are also members of the Nguni tribe. He knows, of course, that the whole territory up there is inhabited by people who are related to each other, but he also knows, for instance, that the Tongas are not very fond of the Zulus.

My hon. friend goes now further and admits openly that, as far as Zululand is concerned, his consolidation plans cannot work out. He now says that in all probability there will have to be three Bantu territories in Zululand. My hon. friend knows that of those territories. Tongaland was independent until 1896-7 under Queen Zambile; he knows the history; there is no need for me to teach him. He knows that is one of the territories which will ultimately have to be recognized as a Bantustan. But my hon. friend also knows that territory borders on two foreign territories, namely, Swaziland and Portuguese East Africa. That is where the fellow-tribesmen of the Tongas reside.

They do not like the Zulus because, immediately after Chaka’s death, they were slaves of the Zulus for some time. To this day there is still so much ill-feeling that the Tonga women speak Tonga to one another; they refuse to speak Zulu amongst themselves; they only speak Zulu to their husbands.

The Minister’s words concerning the possible subdivision of Zululand had scarcely been uttered when the Tongas asked to be incorporated with Swaziland. But whatever the case may be, whether they are going to become a Territorial Authority, or whether they are ultimately going to become independent on their own, and whether they are going to remain part of Zululand, the fact remains that the Tongas occupy one of the most fertile regions in South Africa. The Swazis living on the western side of the Pongolo River and the Tongas living on the eastern side, towards the sea, are backward and virtually live on sweet potatoes, ground-nuts, bananas and “lalasap”, which they use both as a food and as liquor. They occupy extremely fertile land, however. Towards the sea the land is suitable for afforestation; millions of trees can be planted there. They also have the right climate for such a project. My hon. friend also knows that Tongaland has some of the most valuable harbours in the Republic of South Africa. Tongaland does not only embrace the Makatini Flats where 2,000,000 acres can be irrigated but there are also mineral possibilities on the Flats, as geologists have already testified. It also embraces Kosi Bay: it embraces the Kosi lake; it embraces the Sibaya fresh-water lake; it also embraces Sordwana and, if this territory obtains independence, the White population will have to get along without the areas I have just mentioned; it will have to manage without Sibaya, without the possibility of a harbour at Sordwana, without the possibility of a canal from the sea to Sibaya, in the deep fresh-water lake of Sibaya; it will have to manage without this lovely sheltered harbour and it will have to manage without the best and the biggest game reserve in South Africa and most probably in Africa, as far as both birds and game are concerned, namely, the Ndumu Reserve. The most serious aspect, however, is that the Pongola River is situated within this territory. In other words, the Pongola Dam which the Government wants to build will be situated within this region. As soon as this area obtains its independence, therefore, the Pongola Dam will be lost to the White man! Who is going to prevent it? You will remember that when the Pongola Dam scheme was announced here last year. I told the Minister, by way of interjection. that he was going to build this dam for a Bantustan. He held that against me at the time because he did not want to tell the people at that stage, just before the election, what the Government’s plans were in regard to the cutting up of South Africa. At that stage my hon. friend did not want to admit that Pongola Dam was going to be built for none other than the Tongas and the Zulus, and that no White man was going to derive any benefit from it. These are the sacrifices my hon. friends will have to make if they continue with this policy, and if the people of South Africa do not wake up soon and get rid of this Government in time, these are the sacrifices that we will have to make for the sake of this abominable policy of this Government which is intent not only on cutting up South Africa but also on giving South Africa away to all and sundry; on giving away the heritage left to us by our forefathers. [Time limit.]

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

I have the most serious objection to what the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) has said about the Chief Whip of this party. He has accused him of conjuring up ghosts, of overlooking the truth and seeing false visions. But when he made those accusations, he was thinking of himself, because as far as colour policy is concerned, I know of no worse scaremongerer, no one who overlooks the truth and sees false visions to a greater extent than the hon. member for Hillbrow. I just want to refer to the role which he has played in Northern Natal. He played a scandalous role there. He travelled throughout the country telling the people that this hon. Minister and I myself wished to sell practically the entire Vryheid to the Trust.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

That is an untruth which you are now telling.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

The hon. member has said it here in the House. Sir, two years ago he said that up till two months previously this Minister and I were practically selling the entire Vryheid to the Trust. He said it in this House. The worst scaremonger is the hon. member for Hillbrow. The hon. member was very annoyed at the fact that we supposedly wished to divide up the country. He said this was not in accordance with our traditions. Does he not know that certain land has been kept in trust for the Bantu over all these years? Is that not traditional? And when land is given to the Coloureds, then it is not traditional, but it is in line with the traditional policy of the country and of this Government. He says that we want to cut up the country and give it away to anyone.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Do you deny it?

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

The policy of that hon. member and his party is not merely to allot areas to the non-Whites but to hand over the entire country holus bolus to the non-Whites. When he speaks of a scandalous policy, then the policy of that party and his behaviour are scandalous as well. The hon. member who sits over there read last night from a pamphlet which the hon. the Minister issued, I think, in 1947.

*An HON. MEMBER:

in 1943.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

A pamphlet in which objections were raised to the wasting of money on the non-Whites, the Bantu. He does not deny it; he did publish it. But why did he do so? Because the United Party were giving the Bantu everything on a plate, were giving them everything as a present. They never used the talents of the Bantu to help himself as well. Houses which this Government is building to-day for the Bantu at a cost of £300 or R600, they built with White labour, expensive labour, and they cost £800 or R1,600 per house. And the houses stood empty. We objected to that wasting of money. Now the hon. member wants to create the impression that our party once advocated that nothing should be done for the Bantu.

*Mr. J. A. L. BASSON:

What about the bulls and the cocks?

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member must not continually interrupt.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

I do not blame the hon. member. He is still inexperienced in politics. He does not know what antics his own party has got up to. In 1953 that party issued a pamphlet, and inter alia the following appeared in that pamphlet—

The annual expenditure on kaffir education …

just like that, “kaffir education”—

… has increased by £3,487,500 in five years.
The annual bursaries for kaffir students have been increased by £2,440.
The annual subsidies and gifts to kaffir paramount chiefs have been increased by £13,860.
With this education, with everything that is being done for them, the labour problem is becoming ever more difficult, they are becoming ever more unreliable and irresponsible in their work, and stealing, impudence and assaults are becoming worse by the day.

This is what they wrote in 1953, and they now criticize the hon. the Minister for not wishing to invest White capital in the reserves. In 1953 they objected to the fact that capital was being invested; now they are advocating it. They then went on—

Just a few more remarks about the phenomenal increase of expenditure on kaffir education during the four years of the National Government, an increase of £3,487,500. The United Party feel, and this is also the view of General Smuts and Mr. Hofmeyr, together with the missionaries and our forefathers, that it is wrong and that it can only have extremely dangerous and harmful results to give a barbaric population academic or scholastic education too rapidly.
How often do we not see that a kaffir who has passed Std. VI or matric—I do not even want to mention university students— thinks that he has a monopoly of wisdom? Then he no longer wants to do the ordinary work for which he can be used. With his book learning he then comes up against an impassable wall and he becomes an unhappy and dissatisfied individual who hates everything that stands for European education, one who is ripe for the doctrines of Communism.
The money of millions of our European taxpayers is being spent on kaffir education and kaffir pensions.
I stand for South Africa where European civilization is safer on the foundations of an honest Christian guardianship over the non-Europeans. I stand for a White South Africa.
*Mr. J. A. L. BASSON:

Who wrote that?

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

This is what a candidate of the United Party, namely Mr. Teichman, said in 1953 with the approval of the United Party, and he said this was the policy of the United Party. These were the pamphlets which he distributed in Brits. And now the hon. member tries to criticize the hon. the Minister because he issued a pamphlet objecting to the policy of giving the Bantu everything on a plate and the wasting of money of the United Party. I think the time has come for the United Party to review its position. An Opposition which is not able to submit its policy in the finest detail to the people does not have a right to exist. This impossible position has now continued for 14 years, and as far as I can see it will continue as long as this Leader of the Opposition and his advisers are in control on the other side of the House. When we expect the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to set out his policy, he only asks questions. He has become a professional questioner. And when the questions are answered, he does not listen, and” in the next year he asks the same questions again. He is not only a professional questioner, but he is always looking for a policy. He originally started on the threshold of South Africa; he then jumped over the Limpopo to “partnership”; then he went over the Luangwa to the Congo, and now he is going via the Mediterranean, past Cyprus, and I understand he is on his way to Cape Canaveral, and from there to the moon. And, Sir, the position is no better as far as his advisers are concerned. When the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) was asked the clear question: “What is your colour policy?”; “What is your policy as regard the Bantu?” he said: “I am not going to hang a millstone round my neck”; in other words, their policy is a millstone and they dare not disclose it to the public.

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

I never said anything of the sort.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

I am accustomed to the hon. member denying everything which he said the year before.

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

Quote it. It is in Hansard.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

He says it is a millstone round his neck, in other words, a millstone round the neck of the people which will cause them to drown in a Black sea; that is why they do not want to disclose it and that is why they cannot disclose it, nor will he disclose it. [Time limit.]

Mrs. SUZMAN:

Mr. Chairman, I am very glad that you have given the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) a chance to speak, because I want to tell the hon. member that he can do all the bullying and shouting and yelling that he likes in this House and all the name-calling that he likes in this House, but nothing will deter me from bringing up every single case of injustice that is brought to my notice. He can call me an agitator and say that I am on the side of the agitators, and I will not hesitate to raise in this House those matters which I believe should be raised, cases of individual injustice, and not only that, but I intend as far as I possibly can to strip the shabby façade of democracy behind which this Government is hiding.

I want to tell the hon. member something about the banishments that he referred to when he was talking about agitators. The hon. the Minister has given this House assurances at various times on the whole question of banishing persons. He has told us that each removal order is reviewed every year, that accommodation for people who are banished is provided on trust farms, that employment is found for people or an allowance is paid to them; that deportees are allowed to have their families with them and that the maintenance of families is given special consideration in certain cases; he told us that a rail warrant is issued so that families in certain circumstances can visit the deportees; and that the deportees can communicate with anybody they like. Now he also told the former member for Parktown (Mr. Cope) last year that it was completely untrue to say that people were sent to far-off, desolate places, near the Kalahari, and that he had never banned anybody to any area further than Vryburg, I think he said, which he said was a fine place and that he had visited it himself and that he had never seen cattle in better condition than he had seen there. And he said that he was prepared to explain, presumably to this House and the country at large, every single case of banishment. I want to take the hon. the Minister up on that, and I want to ask him to explain every one of these banishing orders, removal orders, and to give details. In particular I want to ask him to explain to us the case of certain members of a tribe, some of whom were banished as far back as seven or eight years ago. The hon. the Minister will know about these people. They are the Kgatla tribe, 20-odd members of whom were banished from their reserve near Pietersburg between the years 1952 and 1955. Not one of these persons has been reprieved according to my information, five of them have died, two were allowed to go home, and died within a very short time and 16 are still in exile, and they have been there for seven years and more; three of them were actually taken off to banishment when they were still schoolboys. Will the hon. the Minister please follow up on what he said in this House last year and explain to us in detail why it is necessary that these people, who have never been brought before a court of law, should have been left in banishment for seven years or more? The hon. the Minister has told us that only in cases where the Bantu Authorities specifically have requested him to keep people away that he does so. I want to know what circumstances surround these cases where they are kept in banishment for seven years and more without ever having been brought before a court of law. The overall position of people who have been banished is very bad indeed. I want to tell this House that since 1948 no less than 120 Africans had been banished without trial.

Mr. G. L. H. VAN NIEKERK:

You first talked about thousands.

Mrs. SUZMAN:

The hon. member should go and see a film called the “Trial at Nurenberg”. The words uttered by the Judge at the conclusion of the film is something the hon. member ought to know. He said that “the moment the first innocent man was knowingly sent to goal, from that time onwards the whole system of justice in Germany collapsed”. And I don’t mind whether it is one person or a thousand persons. It is a case of injustice. If these people have committed crimes, let them come before a court of law, and if they have committed crimes according to the laws of the land, they can take their punishment, but a system of banishment without trial is a system that is used only in totalitarian countries, and nowhere else in the world.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

It happens in all countries, also in England.

Mrs. SUZMAN:

One hundred and twenty people have been banished since 1948 without trial and of these at least 44 are still known to be in banishment. These are figures which the hon. the Minister has supplied to this House. There are six or seven more, Sir, whose names have not yet been traced: 11 of these people have died in banishment and 12 have fled the country. Of the 46 that have been allowed to go home, 14 are living under a permit which can be withdrawn at any time and then without any appearance before a court of law. And indeed that is no idle threat, because three of these people have already been deported again.

The hon. the Minister told us that money is provided for these people. I have no doubt that in each individual case one or other of his assurances has been carried out. I have no doubt for instance that cases are reviewed, although exactly how many are reviewed every year. I should like to hear from the hon. the Minister. I believe that the time has come for a full commission of inquiry into this whole question of banishments. I cannot agree with any system that allows people to languish in banishment for more than seven years without ever being brought before a court of law. Some of these people are getting some wages; they are working on Trust farms and they get something like R8 to R12 a month, out of which they have to support themselves and where possible send some money back to their families. Some of them are getting a wretched allowance of R4 a month from the Government and that was only started after some agitation in 1956. Many of these people are living in a state of near starvation. They may not be living in the Kalahari, as the hon. the Minister said, but they live in arid, desolate areas, Trust farms which are far away from anywhere and among people who do not speak their own language. These are living deaths, Sir.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Slowly.

Mrs. SUZMAN:

I wonder how any of those hon. members would survive under conditions like the ones I have been describing.

Mr. G. L. H. VAN NIEKERK:

We have gone through it ourselves in your internment camps.

Mrs. SUZMAN:

Had any of these people been brought to court for a political offence, and heaven alone knows there are enough laws in this country with sufficiently wide provisions to allow practically anybody to be brought before a court for political offences— had any of these people been brought before a court and charged for political offences and been sentenced, most of them would already have been out of prison. Most of them would have served their sentence and been out of prison, if found guilty. And now we find even more sinister things happening in this country. Men who have been sent to gaol for political offences are being picked up as they have completed their terms of detention and are deported without trial. That has happened.

Mr. GREYLING:

What are political offences?

Mrs. SUZMAN:

How any country can consider itself a democratic country that deports people who have already served a prison sentence is beyond me. I can give the hon. member several instances if he would like to have them. The whole system of banishment without trial is pernicious. It is time that this country recognized that we are living under a façade of democracy and nothing else. Sir, this country can’t claim to be living under the rule of law. The “rule of law” is defined by Dicey, the constitutional lawyer, as follows—

No man is punishable, or can be lawfully made to suffer in body or goods, except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts of the land.

In this case, Sir, that rule of law has not been observed. [Time limit.]

Dr. MULDER:

I do not want to follow the hon. member nor do I want to reply to her arguments in respect of agitators. There are other hon. members who will certainly do so, if they consider it necessary.

I have risen with the specific object of refuting two untrue statements which the Leader of the Opposition made here last night, and which have been followed up by his supporters. The first untruth which I want to expose is that we as a party have changed our policy, that our policy has done a “somersault”, to use the term they have used. The second untruth which I wish to refute is that we have misled the voters and that we have not told them that our party as such intends or is prepared to grant the Bantu states full freedom and full development.

I first want to discuss the first point. The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) last night quoted the example of the attitude adopted by General Smuts in 1917. I do not want to expand on that because General Smuts later adopted a different attitude which was quite clear and acceptable to me. In his later development General Smuts became an international citizen and regarded South Africa as too small for himself, and consequently I can understand his attitude. With his concept of holism he became a world citizen and as a result came to a different insight, in terms of which his own country was too small for him and he pushed the traditions of his own country into the background. That is the truth and I am prepared to prove it. I want to add: No matter to what insight General Smuts may have come in later life, I want to make the categorical and clear submission that General Smuts would not have accepted a federal policy as advocated to-day by the United Party. He would not have accepted any federal policy because he is known in the history of the world as the man who strongly opposed any idea of federation or any federal scheme. He never wanted to consider the name “federation”. We know that when Union was established in 1910, Natal and certain Cape leaders put forward the federal argument, and General Smuts was the man who stood firm in support of the concept of Union and who threw overboard all ideas of federation. I am convinced that he would also have rejected the federal policy which the United Party are now advocating. But I want to leave General Smuts at that and come back to the arguments which have been used here. The present position in South Africa and the policy advocated by our Leader, the hon. the Prime Minister, is that we are prepared to give the Bantu in the Transkei and various other Bantu states eventual self-government. We are therefore prepared not only to give the Bantu legislative powers in his own areas, but also executive powers and administrative powers, that is to say, in his own areas. That is the policy which according to all members opposite is a new policy and a completely new approach, and they say that we have done a somersault. I first want to quote briefly our point of view as set out by Dr. Verwoerd and I am reading from Hansard for 27 January 1959—

I am also ensuring that I choose a policy in terms of which I retain for the White man on the one hand in his areas the full right of government, but in terms of which I give the Bantu under my care as their guardian the full opportunity to travel in their areas along the road to development along which they can develop in accordance with their abilities. We want to build up a South Africa in which the Bantu and the Whites will be able to live as good as neighbours next to one another and not as people who are engaged in a continuous struggle for supremacy.

That is the policy as expounded to-day. But we are now being accused of having departed from our old policy. I now also want to read from a speech made on 4 December 1925. General Hertzog made this speech and it was reported in the Burger of 4 December 1925. And these words sound as though they could have come from the mouth of Dr. Verwoerd—

The Native should feel himself at home in the Native areas. As far as he is concerned no other restrictions other than those which are required in every well-regulated national community should be imposed upon him in his own areas.
But I do not only want him to be his own legislator in his own national community, but he must also control his own administration through the use of his own Native resources.

And then the final sentence—

Within the Native areas, as I see the position, there will therefore be openings both for the Native statesman and the Native official.

If this is not proof that the same policy as that which Gen. Hertzog advocated in 1924 is still our policy and that there has not been a somersault of any kind, then I do not know what other proof one can adduce. No limitation is placed on their freedom. It is stated clearly here that there will be no restrictions except such as are found in every well-regulated national community. I want to suggest that hon. members should abandon this hollow and empty cry of a change in policy on the part of our party.

The position is quite clear. Unlike the United Party the National Party is not a party which springs from one policy to the other and which moves from one extreme to the other. We stand firmly by our policy. I want to make it quite clear that we are not the party which runs around. We are the party which knows and keeps to the road we are following.

I want to expose another argument, namely, the argument that we supposedly did not tell the voters that we are prepared to grant full independence and freedom to the Bantu states. I want to refute this accusation with the assistance of quotations. In the first place I once again quote Dr. Verwoerd, and this statement appeared in the Transvaler of 6 December 1950, that is to say 12 years ago. After this statement we fought three elections, namely, in 1953, 1958 and 1961, and on each occasion we were returned to power with greater majorities and the Opposition suffered yet greater defeat. On 6 December 1950 Dr. Verwoerd said the following, as reported in the Transvaler

The basis underlying the relationship between the White and non-White can be: (1) Must the development of the Bantu and the White communities take place on an integrated basis in future, or should they be separated from one another as far as possible? If the answer is “integrated”, then it must clearly be appreciated that difficulties and conflicts will arise everywhere. In such conflicts the Whites will at least for a long time come off best and the non-White will come off worst in every sphere. This must inevitably cause a rising resistance and resentment in the mind of the non-White. Such a position cannot be the ideal future for either the White or the Bantu.

And then these very significant words—

The only possible solution is the second alternative, namely, that both should accept development separately from one another. The present Government believes unequivocally in the supremacy and the “baasskap” of the White man in his own area.
*Dr. STEENKAMP:

That has been denied on more than one occasion.

Dr. MULDER:

It was reported in the Transvaler of 6 December 1950, and thereafter we successfully fought a number of elections. But I want to come to the story that we are disintegrating the country and that the voters have not been told this either, but were brought under a misapprehension. I want to quote from the speech made by the hon. the Prime Minister in the House of Assembly on 20 May 1959—

I would rather eventually have a smaller state in South Africa which is White, which will control its own army, its own navy, its own police, its own defence force and which will stand as a bulwark of White civilization in this world … in other words, I prefer a White nation here which can fight for its continued existence to a larger state which has already been handed over to Bantu domination.

And then a last quotation in this regard from a speech made by Dr. Dönges on 23 May 1959. Thereafter we fought an election and we won. This is what Dr. Dönges said—

The Government has now put forward the plan of leaving a part of South Africa permanently under the control of the White man. The Natives will be given a part of South Africa where they will be given what the White man demands for himself in his own areas. We prefer a smaller South Africa with the political power in the hands of the White man to a bigger South Africa with the political power in the hands of the non-Whites. This was not an easy choice, but the circumstances of the past few years and events in Africa have forced us to look to the future and to devise this plan.

This is a speech which was made on 23 May 1959 as reported in the Transvaler on 25 May. What becomes of the hollow cry of the Opposition that we did not tell the voters outside what we intended doing, but nevertheless are deliberately moving in that direction? [Time limit.]

Mr. J. D. DU P. BASSON:

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is a very entertaining speaker, and I always like listening to him. But one gets the impression that he goes a little bit too far in his speeches in an attempt to achieve effect in the hope, or possibly the knowledge, that there will not be time to analyse everything logically. He has used the argument, for instance, and it is an argument that is constantly used on the Government side, that one cannot give political privileges to the Coloured people without having to give them also to the Indians and the Bantu sooner or later. This argument is used as though historical factors play no earthly part in the development of countries and peoples, and in the face of the well-known fact that there is hardly any constitution in the world where logic has overruled history.

But assuming that the argument of the hon. Minister of Bantu Affairs is correct, what is the position of the Minister and his Government then in regard to their policy? They have given representation to the Coloured people in Parliament as a group. And the hon. the Prime Minister has now given the assurance that it is the Government’s policy to retain that representation here. The Government’s policy therefore is that the representation of that section of the non-Whites is to be a permanent part of our parliamentary structure, and that the Whites and the Coloured people, each through their own representatives, are to help one another to rule together. I approve of it, and I am in favour of the proposition that they should be represented by their own people. But according to the Minister’s own political logic, if the Government’s policy is that they must be represented in this Parliament, it surely must also give rise sooner or later to demands by the other two sections of the population and eventually to the granting of representation to the Indians and the extra-territorial Bantu. Moreover, Mr. Chairman, at the time the Natives’ representation was abolished, this hon. Minister used a very interesting argument in the Other Place. He said that it was absurd that one section of the population, such as the Bantu for instance, should be represented by representatives of another section of the population, such as the Whites. He attacked the whole idea of indirect representation in Parliament. He said that if a non-White section of the population such as the Bantu were represented in Parliament, that group would inevitably always demand to be represented by its own people, and that in the long run it would be impossible to resist that demand. But where has this bit of logic brought the Minister? If the position is that once having given representation to one section of the non-White population, the other will also demand it, and that if it is granted it must eventually end in direct representation, then I say that I have the fullest right, according to the hon. Minister’s own logic, to contend here to-day that the Government’s policy is that the Coloured people are to be represented here by Coloureds. The Minister has admitted that once representation has been given to one section of the population, one will not be able to resist the demand for representation by their own people, and the Minister therefore admits that the policy of the Government, as it now stands, must culminate in direct representation, in terms of their policy, for all the non-White population groups residing in this country. [Interjections.] I say that on the basis of the hon. Minister’s own political logic.

I say that the Government and the Minister, therefore, have no moral right to attack the Opposition because they want all sections of the population represented here in some form or other. The Government itself, according to the Prime Minister, has accepted the principle that this Parliament is not a Parliament where only Whites are represented. The principle has already been accepted that this is a Parliament for Whites and non-Whites, although for the time being it is only the Coloureds who are represented in Parliament together with the Whites. The Government has already accepted the principle. My question now is this: What moral right has he to attack the same principle when it is advocated by the Opposition, with this difference only that the Opposition wants a slightly broader application of the principle which the Government has already accepted and has said it is going to retain?

Mr. Chairman, I submit, therefore, that the principle of White and non-White co-government in the same Parliament already exists in terms of the Government’s own policy. This Parliament, as established in terms of the Republican Constitution and as it is to be retained by the Government, if the words of the Prime Minister mean what they ought to mean, is already based on the principle of race federation. White and non-White are ruling together here, although on an historical basis of different privileges. I say that this is the whole basis of race federation; and the only difference between the Government and the Opposition on this point, as I see it, lies in the scope of it. And, as long as that is the position, members on the Government side have no moral right to attack the fundamental basis of the policy of race federation. Much has also been said here about the whole concept of federation, always, of course, in so far as it will eventually affect the political relationship between White and Bantu. It has already been proved over and over again in the world that in countries where there is more than one race or more than one cultural group within the same borders, a federal constitution in some form or other is the only effective method of avoiding absolute domination of one group by another or domination of one region by another. The federal idea is the only effective answer to the idea of “one man one vote”. The system of one man one vote, and the consequent domination by the majority group or the group which has control over the election machinery, is a characteristic of the unitary system; it is a characteristic of the unitary state and not of the federal state. The federal state is mostly based on the equality of groups or areas, irrespective of the numbers of such population groups or areas. The unitary state, on the other hand, is mostly based on the equality of individuals; and the passage of time will prove that for a multi-racial and multi-national state such as South Africa is, and always will be, it was a cardinal mistake in 1910 to establish a unitary constitution instead of a federal constitution.

*Mr. GREYLING:

Jan Smuts was also wrong, then.

Mr. J. D. DU P. BASSON:

The circumstances were different. The amendments made to the Constitution by the National Party were made for the very reason that they said that the founders of the Constitution could not foresee what the position would be 60 years ahead. It is not a question of having been wrong; it is a question of changed circumstances. [Interjections.] [Time limit.]

Mr. GROBLER:

I am not going to follow the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson). He does not represent a party. His policy is just his own. And I think its scope is so limited that we can just ignore it. I should like to refer to the hon. members of the Opposition who have become so excited for two days already whenever they referred to the policy of the Government. The hon. members for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) and Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) and others really became lyrical when depicting the dangers which the policy of separate development of the Government will lead to. One would rather expect them to become excited about their own policy, and propagate it more, and to raise the iron curtain which they have conveniently dropped over their policy and behind which they take shelter, and are as silent as the grave. I think it is necessary for us to break through that curtain and to look at their policy.

The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) also became very perturbed when he spoke about the dangers which are supposed to be inherent in our policy of separate areas. He described it as a black cloud hanging over the Republic. But, Sir, they also have a policy in regard to separate areas. I want to refer to it and quote from their official organ, the Weekblad of 25 August 1961, in which the hon. member for Orange Grove made a statement in regard to their policy. The headline is “Here is the Big U.P. Plan, Short and Succinct”, and in paragraph (3) he says—

(i) All groups will receive representation in the Central Parliament…. (ii) entrenched rights through federal elements.

Then he comes to the division of areas and talks about “White and non-White areas, like with like”, and in a following paragraph he expands on that and shows what it will be like. He says it will be like this—

Areas which are predominantly White or predominantly Black will be grouped together, wherever possible, for administrative purposes as political units.

Now I should like to know from hon. members opposite what future there will be for the White people in their predominantly White areas? Our division of areas is clear, and we say we stand for separate areas where the White area will be White and governed by Whites in future, and the Bantu areas will be quite separate, and what greater dangers can our policy then lead to? They say their division will be predominantly White areas and predominantly Bantu areas. Now I want to ask, when their policy is developed, when we arrive at the full consequences of that policy, what will happen to the White minorities in those predominantly Black areas which will necessarily have White spots where White people will live? Take, for example, areas like we have in Natal where there are smaller White areas which, in terms of their policy, will fall in the predominantly Black area. What will be the future of the White man there when they apply their policy? What social, economic and political future will there be for him? Think, for example, of Umtata, amongst others.

Mr. E. G. MALAN:

It is not we who want to destroy Umtata.

Mr. GROBLER:

What will happen to Port St. Johns and other smaller White areas which will fall in their predominantly Black areas, in terms of their stated policy? They say they will be units, definite units for administrative and political purposes—predominantly Black areas and predominantly White areas. And in the White areas will be retained the Bantu who, according to their policy, will become and remain a permanent population group in the White area, but in addition there will be incorporated in it the smaller Black spots situated in the predominantly White areas. In other words, the superior numbers of the Bantu who are already settled in the White area, plus the inhabitants of those Black spots which will be included in the White area, will still further increase the superiority of numbers of the Bantu in the predominantly White areas. What do we find when we come to the statement of policy made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition? That statement reads: “Graaff gives U.P.’s six-point policy for future.” It appears in the Cape Argus of 19 June 1961 and reads—

The Leader of the Opposition, Sir de Villiers Graaff, writing in Foreign Affairs, an influential American quarterly of opinion, yesterday laid down a six-point policy.

Then in regard to his fourth point he said—

In the future I can foresee a South African Parliament retaining full control over major policies, but delegating as of right certain powers and functions to … local institutions on a federal basis. Representatives of those areas will naturally be elected to the Central Government…. As an immediate step the United Party will restore the representatives of the Native peoples to the Central Parliament of the country … at least in the initial stages the representatives will be White people.

Then he goes further in point 5—

He said his party would accept non-Whites who have left the reservations “as a permanent and indispensable part of our population”.

In other words, the Bantu will be accepted on a permanent basis in the predominantly White area. Now it is clear that the first step in the implementation of their federal policy will be—eight White representatives for the Bantu in the White areas, but he talks here about “in the initial stages their representatives will be White”; and the next step will therefore follow logically, that they will be replaced by Blacks. That proves that the policy of the United Party is intermingled with the principle of capitulation and surrender. We have heard what the first step is; the second step is that the Blacks come in, and the third stage was admitted and described by the hon. member for Orange Grove. He says in the Weekblad of 8 September 1961—

The logic of the National Party is …

that if you have first given the finger, if you have opened the door and allowed them eight representatives, they will continue to urge to have more representatives, and then it will soon be 16 or 32. Then he says—

… but the wise man says: To blazes with your logical consequences.

He says it is impossible—

… because we will first hold a referendum or a general election.

Then it will be decided at that referendum whether the third step of still further extension will follow. But he just forgets to add to it that stage, when their federal policy has already developed, the Coloureds will already be on the common voters’ roll. They will already have taken their seats in this Parliament. Then there are also the Indians. He says that in so far as they are concerned, they are not going to say at this stage how many representatives they will be given, because, he says, if he wants to sell a motor-car and he wants £500, he first asks £550 and then the buyer offers £450. He says they will bargain with the Indians in that way. It is again the principle of making concessions and surrendering. By that time the Indians, therefore, will also have the vote and will already be represented here. Then also the Bantu will already be represented here on a separate voters’ roll, and in the referendum everybody will be allowed to vote for this dangerous conciliatory policy which will soon neutralize the White majority.

*Mr. E. G. MALAN:

Where did we say that?

Mr. GROBLER:

They will then be the integrated electorate. They will all have to vote. When we held the referendum on the republican question, the Opposition demanded that we should also consult the Coloureds and the Bantu, and that we should allow the Coloureds to vote. How will they then be able to refuse and allow only the Whites to vote on the voters’ roll which will exist then? No, the electorate, on the basis of their policy, will all have to be allowed to vote, with the logical result that there will be more non-White representation. Sir, that is quite clear. But I just want to come back to the remarks of the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp), who described our policy of separate areas as being so impossible. We were always clear and logical about it, but what does their pattern look like, according to these quotations? Yesterday hon. members opposite told us that we were dishonest and that we have changed our policy. They said that Dr. Malan and advocate Strydom said that there would never be total territorial segregation. That is a wrong interpretation. ([Time limit.]

*Mr. VAN DER SPUY:

Mr. Chairman, seeing that I wish to introduce a new element into this debate, I am not going to try to reply to allegations which previous speakers have made. I should like to make one or two submissions with reference to the Native Urban Areas Amendment Act of 1955, generally known as the locations in the sky Act. As you know, the hon. the Minister transferred his powers under this Act to the local authorities. Thus we find, inter alia, that the Johannesburg City Council since September 1956 has issued licences for the accommodation in urban buildings in which they are employed of non-Whites who are doing so-called essential work in the White residential areas. Since that time five years have elapsed which in my opinion is quite long enough to enable us to form a fair opinion of the effectiveness and the judiciousness with which this legislation is being applied and the effect which this measure has had in practice. An analysis of the facts which are available in respect of the period September 1956 to September 1961 convince me, and I hope will impress equally upon the hon. the Minister, that the way in which this Act is being applied in Johannesburg leaves much to be desired and in fact tends to frustrate completely the objects of this legislation. My plea this afternoon is also that the hon. the Minister should seriously reconsider the whole question of the application of this legislation and particularly a drastic revision of the formula in accordance with which this control is applied in Johannesburg. Hon. members will obviously expect of me that I should substantiate my allegations, Mr. Chairman, and I am pleased to do so. Unfortunately I am obliged to do so on the basis of statistics, but I promise that I shall not weary the House with figures.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to direct your attention to the fact that during the five years under revue the number of residential permits in respect of Bantu males performing so-called essential work in flats, hospitals, hotels and offices, etc., fell from 24,426 to 24,221. You may consider this a very slight fall over a period of five years, but I think that it acquires considerably more significance when one bears in mind that the number of premises to which this figures relates increased during the same period from 4,309 to 4,469. These figures which in my opinion illustrate conclusively the practical effectiveness of this legislation, were the result of the application of a clearly defined formula in accordance with which the control was carried out, a formula which did give discretionary powers but which did not allow those powers to be arbitrarily applied. However, I ask myself, and I also want to put this earnest question to the Minister, whether the formula at present applicable in Johannesburg should not be seriously reconsidered. I am referring to the formula which applies at the moment and which has the result that applications for five or less residential permits in respect of Bantu males who are performing so-called essential work are granted without further ado, that is to say automatically, and that for every eight flats over and above the number already granted, an additional boiler attendant, a cleaner and a night-watchman may be licensed. In my opinion this is an altogether too generous provision. When we bear in mind that it is considered adequate in Bloemfontein to licence only one Bantu male for blocks with 11 or less flats and that only two licences are granted in respect of blocks of 12 or more flats, one can understand, Mr. Chairman, that a serious and drastic revision is essential in the case of Johannesburg.

The reverse side of this picture, of this comparatively favourable picture in my opinion, relates to the licensing of Bantu women in the municipal area. Here the picture is not only unfavourable but in my opinion it is to a large extent disquieting. During the five years concerned the number of residential permits rose in the case of Bantu women from 5,866 to 10,632, of which only 548 related to flat buildings. In other words, the others were all normal domestic servants for flat dwellers. This position is undoubtedly in my opinion the result of the vague provisions of this formula and the unduly wide discretion for which it provides. This formula lays down in the case of Bantu women that when owners make application for more than five Bantu women to live on premises belonging to them, that application is granted without further ado, that is to say automatically and that applications by tenants for domestic servants are considered on their merits. How these merits are determined and by whom they are considered I do not know.

Mr. Chairman, seeing that they are so concerned about reducing the number of Bantu in the White residential areas, I am convinced that the United Party will readily help their colleagues on the Johannesburg City Council in reducing these numbers drastically in Johannesburg as well. There is a second argument which I want to use to substantiate this request of mine, namely that this system, this formula which applies in Johannesburg, promotes serious discrimination. For this purpose I have compared three area. I have taken Killarney in Johannesburg, an exclusively rich man’s residential area, which is a comparatively new area and where at the moment flat development is still taking place. In the second place I take Berea, a well-to-do but established area. And in the third place I take the southern suburbs of Johannesburg where there are less flats and for the most part cheaper flats. What do we find is the factual position as at the beginning of this year? I first take the position in Killarney. Here the investigation related to 27 buildings with 1,017 flats. I find that for every 100 flats an average of 94 Bantu women were licensed and 45 Bantu men; in other words, 139 licensed servants. Now you must understand, Mr. Chairman, that these figures exclude those servants who come in from the Bantu townships in the mornings to the city and who return in the evenings. In the case of Berea, where the investigation related to 91 buildings with 2,532 flats, we find that for every 100 flats an average of 50 Bantu women and 19 Bantu males, that is to say 69 servants, were licensed. In the case of the southern suburbs where only nine buildings with 248 flats were covered by this investigation, I find that for every 100 flats an average of 24 Bantu women and 17 Bantu males were licensed, in other words, 41 servants. These average figures of 94, 50 and 24 Bantu women per 100 flats are approximately in the ratio of 4 to 2 to 1, and this is typical of the general pattern. [Time limit.]

Dr. FISHER:

I do not intend to follow the hon. member for Westdene (Mr. van der Spuy). I want to come back to the question of Bantustans. One of the greatest tragedies that has befallen any country, and which is befalling our country to-day is this headlong rush of the Government along the path of giving sovereign independence to the Bantustans. I say that because this Government is doing it at a time that is most inopportune, because the people who will receive that independence have not been prepared to run a state of their own. In whichever field you wish to look in any country, the success of that country depends on its economic structure, on its scientific basis, and on its education, and if any of those three structures are interfered with, if they are not encouraged, if there is not freedom in any of those three structures, that country must fail. What has this Government done in any of those spheres? Has this Government encouraged, at any time of its life in the past 14 years, further education for the non-Whites, education which will mean that a country can be self-sufficient? [Interjections.] I hear somebody say, “Of course ”, but one of the worst things this Government ever did was to close the universities to the Bantu people, especially if they knew then that they were going to give freedom to the Bantustans. How can they expect trained people to come into the Bantustans from the White areas through the universities if the universities are closed to them? Where are you going to train the engineers, the architects, the roadmakers, the doctors and the laboratory assistants?

Mr. B. COETZEE:

At the Bantu universities.

Dr. FISHER:

And when? Sir, it takes 14 year to train some of these people.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Well, you have to make a start.

Dr. FISHER:

Let us just look at the figures that this Government has so obligingly given us on the eve of granting freedom to the Bantustans. At Cape Town University not a single Bantu architect is being trained, and not a single doctor, and there is not a single undergraduate amongst the Bantu who has reached an honours degree. In the engineering field not a single Bantu is registered at the university, and so I can go right down the list.

Mr. FRONEMAN:

Surely that is not the only university in the country.

Dr. FISHER:

These people are obsessed with the political outlook and with votes. What concerns them is either one man, one vote, or one man, ten votes, or ten men for one vote, but the people in these states cannot live on votes. The hon. the Minister tells us in all seriousness what a wonderful change has taken place in some of the Bantustans and that there are even butcher shops and people fixing shoes there. That is the progress they have made. He tells us that they are even learning to build houses. What it means is this, that if they want to make a success of the Bantustans they can only do it one way now, and that is to bring in White initiative and know-how. When they do that, they will end up with a mixed Black and White state; just where they started from. It becomes a state of Black men working and White men with the know-how We on this side begged the Government not to close the universities to the Bantu because we knew that the whole future of our country depends on the education of our people, and it matters not whether they are Black or White. But they are so obsessed with apartheid that they would rather have no Black educated people of university status than have them going to the same universities as Whites.

An HON. MEMBER:

That is downright nonsense.

Dr. FISHER:

These people say it is nonsense. Do they want to tell me that the university colleges they have provided have any hope of providing the services I have mentioned? I will tell you, Sir, what has happened to their education system. We have in Johannesburg the largest non-White hospital probably in the world, but it comes under the jurisdiction of the Witwatersrand University. Right next to this hospital is the greatest complex of non-White people, the South-Western districts of Johannesburg, with 750,000 Black people living there. What would have been easier than to allow those people who are on the doorstep of Baragwanath Hospital to learn to be doctors there? But because it falls under the University of the Witwatersrand, the doors are closed to the very people who live next door …

The CHAIRMAN:

Order! I must ask the hon. member to come back to the Vote.

Dr. FISHER:

Sir, there is provision made for medical services in this Vote, but I will come back to the Vote. Throughout the establishment of this Bantustan conception, has that Minister told us what plans he has for the future? Has he told us how big the Bantustans will be? Is he able to define what Bantustan is? My hon. Leader asked him on several occasions to define the Bantustans. In the Minister’s Digest he gives the vaguest possible explanation of what the Transkei is. He stood up here and admitted that it would be impossible to define the Bantustans of Zululand, and yet, without a fixed area of land, without personnel to look after those bits of land which he is giving away, he is giving them away to these people. He is giving parts of South Africa away to these people, and I doubt very much whether the Bantu want to be broken away from South Africa. In this headlong rush, and in this attempt to appease outside pressures, all he is doing is to lead these people, who could be trained and are willing to be trained, away from a good life. The more we think about this conception, the worse it appears. [Time limit.]

Mr. GORSHEL:

I was rather surprised to hear the hon. member for Westdene (Mr. van der Spuy) discussing the question of the administration of the so-called “locations in the sky ” in Johannesburg, because about halfway through his speech he said, “I do not know how these matters are considered and how they are decided.” Now, if an hon. member wishes to stage a diversion in order to distract the attention of the House from the obvious embarrassment of the Government over the attacks levelled at it by this side of the House in regard to the Bantustan policy, I daresay that it is a good way of doing it, suddenly to pluck the “locations in the sky” out of the sky. But if it is done, even for diversionary purposes, I think the whole story, or at least the relevant part of the story, should also be told. I am therefore compelled to use some of my time in order to fill in some of the gaps which unfortunately, and perhaps deliberately, were left by that hon. member.

The trouble to which he refers in regard to “locations in the sky” is an old story, and I am sure the Minister himself remembers much of the detail, and the negotiations that went on in the years before the Act was passed, and before the delegated powers were given to the City Council of Johannesburg in 1956. The Minister will remember that we urged upon him the necessity to face the simple fact that there was always a class of person in a large city like Johannesburg who would require some help from the sort of person who could only come out of the non-White community, in this case the Bantu. There are, e.g., the aged and the sick, the mothers who work and whose children have to be left in the flats to which the hon. member referred; but apparently he is not concerned at all with the human aspect of the matter, only with statistics. He is not concerned with the fact that we were told over and over again from that side of the House, within the last fortnight, that it was a fact that working mothers are the norm in South Africa. There you have three very compelling reasons why the service of a Bantu servant, male or female, is required by a household in a city like Johannesburg. It is regarded as perfectly normal when that householder lives in a house, and in the years when I was in the City Council, I never got an answer from the Nationalist Party members of the City Council to the question: Why do you regard it as normal to have from one to three Bantu servants living in your backyard, say, in Auckland Park, and why do you regard it as undesirable and abnormal to have one single servant living on the roof of the building in which you have your flat? Where is the moral difference and the distinction? If you say that no White householder may employ a servant who lives on his premises …

Mr. FRONEMAN:

We are not discussing the principles of that Act now.

Mr. GORSHEL:

No, I am replying to this hon. member. These are the facts of the matter which were not raised by that hon. member when he made this diversion. But there are other things I want to discuss.

I really wanted to remind the hon. the Minister that in order to ensure that there was some provision for the minimum basic needs of the White inhabitants of South Africa’s largest city in regard to the domestic employment of non-Whites, a formula was worked out, and I think the Minister should remind his followers of the fact that the formula was worked out in consultation with his Department. One of the things that the so-called Mentz Committee, the Committee headed by the then Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, was set up to do, was to ensure that there was agreement and understanding in regard to the implementation of the Act dealing with “locations in the sky I have never heard the Minister complaining of it. Every time Johannesburg was compelled to make recommendations it did so on the basis of an understanding in the Council itself, and no one can deny that the leader and the members of the National Party in the City Council at all times served, firstly, on the non-European Affairs Committee of the Council, and secondly on the special committee which licenses these very buildings about which that hon. member has just complained. In other words, there was an agreement, quite above any political differences, about the minimum and basic requirements of householders living in flats; and whether it is a good or a bad thing, in the larger cities, and particularly in Johannesburg, more than 20 per cent of the White population have to live in flats. They may not have to do so in Westdene where they can have a plot of ground and keep a servant in the backyard, but in Hillbrow, Killarney, Berea, Hospital, they have no other accommodation; and it was understood that those people should also be entitled to follow the normal custom of employing a servant and having him or her on the premises. The hon. member, knowing all these things—I submit with the utmost respect—has only succeeded in staging a diversion in order to distract attention from Bantustans. I could deal with this matter at great length, because I know a good deal more about the administration of the Act than that hon. member does.

But let me come to another matter, the feasibility of the Bantustan concept. We have been told in the last couple of days particularly that it is conceded that a certain number of Bantu would remain within the borders of the White State, even when the entire Bantustan concept has been translated into reality, and more particularly in the case of the Transkei, all sorts of figures were given in regard to those who would still remain in South Africa after the Transkei became independent. But the impression has been created that the majority, at least in the case of the Transkei —the majority of the citizens of the Transkei will live in the Transkei. I cannot help drawing the attention of the Deputy Minister to this publication with which I am favoured regularly, called The South African Patriot. As it is addressed to me, I accept it as a compliment that I am regarded as a “South African patriot”, because it comes from the John X. Merriman Branch of the National Party in Johannesburg. Now this Branch has been very active in Parktown and even in my constituency; apparently it asked the Deputy Minister to write an article for it, and sure enough, he chooses, for his maiden article in The South African Patriot, the Transkei Plan, with an exclamation mark behind it! Then, after a great deal of valuable information for such a short article—there is appended a series of about 30 “basic facts” about the Transkei; it is a very valuable document—my copy will eventually go into the Africana Museum in Johannesburg! This “fact” appears in it—

The resident Bantu population is 1,500,000 (in the Transkei), although a similar number are employed elsewhere in the South African Republic.
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

That is not my article.

Mr. GORSHEL:

Your photograph is there. Then I must have an extra-special edition of the same publication. But let us assume that it is not. These 1,500,000 Transkei citizens who are apparently going to remain in the Republic of South Africa are but a relatively small proportion of the total number who must always remain, on the showing of various hon. members opposite, within the borders of the White Republic, and no one has even attempted to calculate the actual capital involved in this aspect of the matter—and I have heard from the Minister that money is very important in regard to this matter of Bantustans, because he reminded us of the old Bantu woman who came along with R600 that she had dug out of a hole in the ground and wanted to invest in the Bantu Development Corporation for the betterment of her people. Now I want to talk about real money. big money. I am talking about the physical presence of Bantu within the borders of the White State to-day, and I have estimated that the investment we have made for their presence here is of the order of R1,000,000,000. So let us not talk about that glorious R600. Let us talk about this R1,000,000.000 which we, the White people, have provided as a capital investment. If anybody doubts that, I will give just a very few figures to show how the total is made up. Firstly: Up to this year the National Housing Commission will have invested R110,000,000 in Native housing in the urban areas. [Time limit.]

The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

We have now had this third example of misquotation, but I want to dispose of the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) by just telling him that I challenge him to show me those figures which he has mentioned in my written article in this journal, and if he cannot do so he must accept my word for the fact that he has violated and emasculated the truth.

Mr. E. G. MALAN:

On a point of order, is it parliamentary to say that an hon. member is emasculating the truth? [Interjections.]

*The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

I only have ten minutes and I have told the hon. member for Hospital that the figures which he has quoted do not appear in an article which I wrote for this journal. If he can prove to me that those figures do appear in my article, I shall withdraw my statement that he is emasculating the truth, but until then I shall not withdraw anything.

Mr. GORSHEL:

May I ask a question? Does the hon. the Deputy Minister not recall that I showed him this journal and I said this was his maiden article, and I said that there were about 30 facts attached to the article? If the hon. the Deputy Minister now says that the basic facts did not emanate from him, then I do not argue with him.

*The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

On this page there are three articles and I wrote one of them, and I did not give any figures in my article. I accept responsibility for what I wrote, but not for the other articles. I should like to refer to the facts relating to the locations in the sky legislation, to which the hon. members for Hospital and Westdene have also referred. I think the hon. member for Westdene in raising the matter has done a very good thing in the interests of the administration by our Department, and I think the hon. member for Hospital can learn from the hon. member for Westdene how to handle this matter in the House. The hon. member for Westdene has done so in a non-political, impartial and dignified way, while the hon. member for Hospital has dragged in political arguments and has even dragged in Nationalist Johannesburg city councillors. I am now going to give the facts regarding the matter and I shall move on the same plane as the hon. member for Westdene and do so in a dignified way, and not in a disparaging and political way as the hon. member for Hospital has done.

This matter had its origins in 1956. In that year the formula under which the locations in the sky are dealt with, was introduced. The hon. member for Westdene has quoted the formula more or less correctly. He has also given certain figures in respect of the occupation of buildings in Johannesburg, which are also correct in broad outline. I just want to give three individual figures, which at the same time will serve as a very telling reply to the hon. member for Hospital. I want to mention the example of three flat buildings in Johannesburg. each containing 69 flats. No. 1 is situated in Hillbrow and 17 Native males and 12 women are licensed to live in that building and to work for its occupants. Building No. 2 which is also in Hillbrow and which also contains 69 flats, has nine males and 34 women, that is to say 43 as against 29. But flat building No. 3, which also contains 69 flats and is in Killarney. has 50 males and 69 Bantu women licensed to live in that building. All three buildings are exactly the same size.

*Mr. GORSHEL:

But what is the size of the flats?

*An HON. MEMBER:

They are over-bulk.

*The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

I just want to give these figures because I want to show that this formula which has been drawn up, and which the Johannesburg City Council is applying as well as it can—and at this stage I do not want to criticize the City Council at all, because I shall say presently what the relationship is between us in respect of this matter—has been applied since 1956. However, I think that inherent in the formula is a very great defect, and I already told the City Council so three or four Weeks ago during the sitting of the committee, of which I am now the chairman, and of which Mr. Mentz was formerly the chairman. I said, and one of the city councillors agreed with me, that the formula had a weakness because it controlled the male Natives, but not the female Natives. The formula provides that male Natives must be controlled on the basis of one for eight flats, etc., but as far as the female workers are concerned, the formula says that as many females as the owner of the flat applies for can be permitted, and if individual flat tenants apply, each case can be dealt with on its merits. Hon. members will see to how great an extent there can be flexibility in the exercise of such discretionary powers when one building of 69 flats has 17 males and 12 females, and another 50 males and 69 females. This shows that too great a measure of flexibility is allowed, and, for that reason, the matter has been discussed with the City Council. We and the City Council have agreed that this formula should be properly investigated, and the departmental officials, together with the City Council, are doing so. The hon. member for Hospital therefore became too excited about the matter. He has put a reasonable question to me, but the hon. member has tried to justify something which the present Johannesburg authorities, in consultation with us, are trying to review because circumstances have taught us that it should be reviewed. The hon. member for Hospital was altogether too quick off the mark. The tendency of the formula has been that, although the number of buildings which can be licensed in Johannesburg has practically doubled since the middle of the 1950’s, the number of male Bantu licensed in respect of those buildings has remained practically stable. In other words, the number of buildings has doubled and the number of male licensed Natives has remained approximately stable. In other words, there has been reasonably sound control. But, as far as the female servants are concerned, as the hon. member for Westdene has shown, the number has also doubled, just as the number of buildings has doubled, and here we consider the control has been a little too loose. and it is, for this reason. that the matter is being reviewed. [Time limit.]

Mr. SCHOONBEE:

On a point of order, may the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) sit and read a newspaper? We are not even allowed to read a book.

*Mr. HUGHES:

It is not a newspaper. It is a Nationalist pamphlet.

*The CHAIRMAN:

Order!

Mr. BOWKER:

I do not intend to enter into this controversy with the hon. the Deputy Minister. He has perhaps learned the lesson that he must be careful as to how he is reported in the papers.

An HON. MEMBER:

And not in the English-language Press either.

Mr. BOWKER:

What I want to do is to expose the futility of the apartheid or Bantustan policy, and I want to come down to a few simple facts. One point is that this Nationalist “integration” cry is now at last giving political indigestion to the electors, and there is evidence now that there is a revulsion in the public mind as regards this continual cry of integration from the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker). There is evidence to-day that the writing is on the wall…. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Niemand) said that the United Party policy would lead to the creation of a great Bantustan in this country, whereas it is just the opposite. The Government has commenced laying the foundation for a great Bantustan in this country, and this will only promote the cry of “Africa for the African”, which is right up the communist’s street. That is what this Government is doing at present. The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) bore this out by saying that there were no defined boundaries for the Bantustans, but that these boundaries would be extended from time to time. Eventually, therefore, the White man will be driven back into the sea from whence he came. Sir, hon. members have been arguing about this all day. I should like to give an example of what the Bantustan policy will mean. Just imagine France with little German states separated throughout the country, with the possibility of the boundaries of those little states being extended from time to time. Germany would then occupy France within a few years, and that is what is going to happen to us here. The Natives outnumber us by three to one, and they are going to be scattered over this country of ours in little blocs. That will be the effect of this Bantustan policy. It will mean the end of White civilization in South Africa. This policy was initiated by the Nationalist Party, and they must bear the responsibility for it. The United Party policy also differs fundamentally from that of the Government ….

An HON. MEMBER:

Which United Party policy?

Mr. BOWKER:

… in that the United Party advocates Native representation in this House by Whites.

An HON. MEMBER:

For how long?

Mr. BOWKER:

For as far as we can see in the future.

Mr. P. S. VAN DER MERWE:

How far can you see?

Mr. BOWKER:

The greatest disservice that was ever done to this country was that this Government expelled Native representation from this House. All the Native had was a voice in the highest legislative assembly of this land; that is all they had, and what more do they want? They only want a voice. Any Native who is ill-treated in the street, if he has representation in this House, knows that he can turn to someone to make representations on his behalf at governmental level. That representation in Parliament means a great deal to the Natives, and in removing that representation from this House this Government did a greater disservice to this country than any party has ever done before.

This House must also realize the reaction of the farmers in the Ciskei to this Bantustan policy, particularly since the boundaries of the reserves which are dotted over the Ciskei, are going to be extended from time to time. The Ciskei is packed with various Native tribes, where Whites were placed as buffers between these tribes to keep the peace. The Government is now planning to purchase the farms and to consolidate those Native areas. What the Government is trying to do is not to remove White spots; what the Government is trying to do is to consolidate the Native areas and to remove all the Whites from that particular area. There is great unhappiness in the Ciskei because the Government, in spite of resistance from farmers’ organizations, are putting into effect a scheme to consolidate the Native areas. They are doing it on the quiet and on the sly. They have committees sitting which are considering this. In spite of the fact that the Minister said that the Government will buy no ground unless the farmers agree to it, these committees are going amongst the farmers and offering them high compensations in order to consolidate these Bantu areas. We must remember that in the Ciskei there is a tribe like the Fingo. The Fingo fought for the White man in all the wars and he is bitterly hated by the other Native tribes. I would like to ask the Minister whether they are going to be included in the Ciskeian Bantustan.

Mr. FRONEMAN:

They are already.

Mr. BOWKER:

Are all these tribes there going to be lumped together? I refer to the Tembu, the Fingo, the Ngqika, the Gcaleka, the Baca, the Pondos, the Mantindes and other tribes. Are they all going to be lumped together in the Ciskei in one Bantustan? They are now living peacefully in areas separated by White buffer strips. The Minister must remember that the fact that the British gave back this territory of Queen Adelaide to the Natives was the cause of the Great Trek. It brought about one of the biggest traditional revolutions in this country. Those farmers have been living on those farms for over 100 years now. Their ancestors lie buried there, and these farmers have rendered a great service to South Africa; they have kept the peace between the Natives, and now this Minister thinks that we can lump together 12 different tribes in one Bantustan. One of the largest tribes is the Fingo, who are the traditional enemies of all other Natives in this country.

And, talking about “traditional”, before I sit down I would like to emphasize that the United Party policy is the traditional policy of social and residential segregation. That policy was defined by Gen. Hertzog in his Acts of 1936. Many people have already quoted what members of this Government said when they came into power, but my hon. friends opposite must remember what Mr. Havenga said at Oxford shortly after this Government had been put in office in 1948. He said that apartheid was just another word for segregation: that it was the same old traditional policy, and Dr. Malan, in this House, confirmed that was the truth. This Government came into power in 1948 on the cry of apartheid, but it was a subterfuge. We know what their policy has developed into now. It can no longer be regarded as a policy of social and residential separation. Their policy now is to give South Africa to the Bantu races eventually. This policy marks the end of White civilization in South Africa. There is no doubt about that. [Time limit.]

Mr. GREYLING:

I just want to submit one fact which is as plain as a pikestaff and it is a historical fact, namely that the areas which were Bantu areas in South Africa and the areas which were White areas in South Africa are still as they were in the past. No White man has ever annexed one inch of land from the Bantu. On the contrary, the White man has given more land to the Bantu than historically the Bantu were entitled to. We must state this fact as a historically irrefutable fact. As a logical consequence of this historic fact we must also accept the logical consequence and the logical natural historical development which will flow from this historical fact. I want to repeat that the areas which belonged to the Whites still belong to the Whites to-day and those that belonged to the Bantu in the past belong to them to-day. And now we are in a dilemma. We are all in a difficulty.

Brig. BRONKHORST:

[Inaudible.]

Mr. GREYLING:

Will that hon. political pathological object please remain quiet.

Mr. E. G. MALAN:

On a point of order, may the hon. member refer to another hon. member as a “political pathological object”?

The CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

Mr. GREYLING:

I withdraw them. While we have this geographic, historical separation, we are faced with the problem of how we can effect separation in other spheres in such a way that we shall cause the least disruption in race relations. We have one solution and the United Party offer another solution. Our solution is the solution of separate development, based on our traditional attitude. The United Party offers a solution by means of a federation, but the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party are faced with a great difficulty, and the difficulty with which they are faced is that they are struggling with a lie. They are struggling with one of the worst lies in history, and this is the lie which was born in the French Revolution. I am referring to the lie of “equality”. If ever there was a historical lie, it is this lie of equality …

An HON MEMBER:

And fraternity.

Mr. GREYLING:

Yes, we can add fraternity. I now want to tell the House that the United Party’s difficulty is the result of this lie. They cannot apply this lie to their federal concept, because this lie causes them difficulties. But they cannot apply the truth either, because the truth also causes them difficulty. If they accept in their federal concept what the French revolutionaries propagated, then they are faced with a terrible difficulty because the people will not accept it. And even if they do accept it within their federal concept, then they are already introducing the germ of conflict into their federal concept. If they accept the truth in their federal concept, namely that there is no equality, then they are also looking for trouble because their whole federal concept is based on the idea of partnership. How can we have partners in this federal concept when we are not equal in status? Equality within the framework of this federal concept means equality in respect of political rights, economic rights, and all rights which civilization grants a citizen. Our difficulty therefore is great; we know that our path is not strewn with roses, but the Opposition’s difficulties are greater and insuperable, because they cannot serve this lie nor can they follow the truth in their policy because whichever road they follow will result in conflict. And where will this conflict take place? This conflict is not going to be found at the lower levels of government. This conflict between partners will take place at the highest level of their federation, namely within the cabinet which must be a logical consequence of this federal principle. And who will serve in this federal cabinet? In this federal cabinet they will have the elements which they want to combine in this federation; and the man who denies that one cannot prevent the one partner who enjoys membership of such a federation from aspiring to the highest positions in that federation, has no idea of what it means to be a human being. This is precisely the difficulty I have in understanding what the United Party means, namely how they are going to keep the one partner superior in their federal system and the other partner subordinate, and how they are preventing one or other of those partners breaking through to the highest level, that is to say entering the cabinet of that federation. Or do hon. members not foresee a federal cabinet? How then do they want to govern the country? There must after all be a federal cabinet. After all this federal cabinet must give guidance. And who will eventually have the upper hand in that federal cabinet? Numbers will count. Or do the United Party want to persuade us that merely by the use of “checks and balances”, by restrictions through qualifications, they will be able to control the numbers within that federation to such an extent that the weight of numbers will not eventually have its effect in the culminating point of that federation, namely a place in the cabinet itself? Now matter how earnestly I consider the matter, I cannot avoid this problem with which the United Party is faced, that is to say how they are going to apply the slogan of equality, this slogan which very easily takes hold amongst the non-Whites, which has a tremendous impact amongst the non-Whites, which will cause the non-Whites to strive to go far further than the United Party visualizes …

*An HON. MEMBER:

You must still overcome your difficulties.

*Mr. GREYLING:

In other words, the difficulty facing my hon. friends opposite is dismayingly great. [Time limit.]

Mr. E. G. MALAN:

The historic insight of the hon. member who has just sat down is not really very great. The hon. member has spoken of the possibility, the unavoidability of there being a federal cabinet under a United Party government which will be under Native control. I just want to put it to him in this way: Surely he knows that there are 8,000,000 to 12,000,000 Negroes in the United States of America. How many Negroes have there been in the federal cabinet of America over the past 200 years? So much for the historic insight of the hon. member.

I want to assure him that the traditional policy of South Africa is far closer to a policy of racial federation than this Bantustan policy. We have had this Bantustan policy in our history before. It is an old outmoded policy. There have already been independent states in South Africa—the Bantustan of Chaka and Dingaan, the Bantustan of Gaika, the Bantustan cf Moshesh. Those were the Bantustans of the past, and that policy was rejected by history when the traditional policy of combining all these Native states into one great state, as we had in 1910 in the Union of South Africa and as we retained it in the Republic of South Africa, came into the picture.

*An HON. MEMBER:

Tell us more about America.

*Mr. E. G. MALAN:

It is undeniable that the policy of this Government is extremely dangerous to the preservation of White civilization here in South Africa. I do not want to maintain that the Nationalist Party deliberately wants to destroy White civilization. Do not let them say that of us either; none of us wants to do that. But let us examine the facts and see which policy is really the most dangerous to White civilization. Is there a single hon. member opposite who will deny that their policy entails great dangers? If any of them wish to deny it, let me read to them what the Prime Minister himself said in the House of Assembly this year. The Prime Minister said—

A second point which has been made in this regard is that these separate Bantu areas will be dangerous. The hon. member for Yeoville has also asked me … will the Russians not perhaps enter with investments or with other offers of help; will the Bantu areas as is sometimes outside the House, not perhaps build up their own armies; will they not form a springboard for Communism within South Africa? Of course those dangers exist.
Mr. VOSLOO:

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled under Standing Order 61 to read a speach from Hansard which has been made during the course of this Session?

Mr. E. G. MALAN:

The hon. the Prime Minister explained right at the commencement of his speech that this Bantustan policy did in fact entail dangers, and he said: “Of course these dangers exist.” If there are dangers— and hon. members opposite acknowledge that there are dangers—let us use our common sense and see which of the two policies entail the greatest and which the least danger to White civilization here in South Africa. I have said that we have already had Bantustans in the past in this country. Those Bantustans caused seven or eight kaffir wars in our history, and it was only when one state was established that those wars ceased. But these Bantustans which we are going to have are far more dangerous than those former ones because at that time it was assegai against rifle; in the case of these Bantustans it will be tank against tank, aircraft against aircraft, cannon against cannon. Of course those dangers exist, as the hon. Prime Minister himself admitted. The traditional policy is the policy of Shepstone, the policy of President Kruger, who saw to it that those areas were incorporated in the Transvaal and Natal under White leadership. It is this traditional policy which this Government wishes to reject. Of course they are following a road which will lead to the destruction of White civilization.

If these independent Bantustans are established. the doors will be open for the appointment of their own ambassadors; then their borders will be open for the entry of weapons; then their harbours will be open to economic assistance from Russia and the communist states. Even now, before they achieve full independence, I forecast that these Bantustans will send their representatives and agitators to UNO; it is unavoidable, and when these Bantustans are given their independence, this Government will have betrayed the whole Western world because they will add another eight anti-White states to the United Nations to vote against South Africa and the West. This is the type of policy the Government is following to-day. Of course their policy is a danger to White civilization. What policy will safeguard our White civilization in South Africa more effectively: (1) A policy of White supremacy in a fragmented, destroyed South Africa or (2) the policy of White leadership in one united state with White leadership, in the Bantu areas as well? Under this Bantustan policy we shall immediately have a fifth column within South Africa consisting of millions of Natives, exceeding in number the Whites in the White areas.

*Mr. GREYLING:

It is just the reverse.

Mr. E. G. MALAN:

Whereas in the past they were citizens of South Africa, they will now become citizens of foreign countries. We shall have millions of citizens of foreign countries in our own country.

*Mr. GREYLING:

Arguments are deceptive.

Mr. E. G. MALAN:

The story is being told that the position as far as the Bantu in the White areas are concerned will be the same as the position of the Italian workers in France. That is of course not so. Remember that there will be more Natives in the White areas of South Africa than Whites, all citizens of foreign states. Would Britain for example allow 50,000,000 Russians to enter Britain—in other words more Russians than Britons in Britain? But that is what the Government wants to allow here. They are creating a fifth column in this country which will effect the destruction of White civilization in this country. Trade unions will be established in the Bantustans which will have control over these foreigners in our areas; they will call out strikes from Umtata, from Nongoma, from other parts of the Bantu areas, strikes which can paralyse and destroy our gold mines, our industries, our farming. That is where the danger to White civilization lies.

There will be border incidents; passports will be required to enter those areas. If the Transkei becomes independent, we shall not even have a link between the Cape and Natal through those areas, unless we obtain special permission from the Bantustan concerned. And when one is in this foreign land, in the Transkei Bantustan, then one will have to obey the orders of Native police and one may have to carry a pass to show that one is a White. [Interjections.] Why will this not happen? If these Transkei citizens object to the apartheid laws as they are applied here, do hon. members think that they cannot apply apartheid to the Whites in the Transkei as well?

Mr. Chairman, just think of what can happen as regards foreign affairs if these states become independent, and we have the word of the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) that they are going to become independent. These are the dangers which will threaten this country of ours.

Dr. MULDER:

What about Basutoland?

*Mr. E. G. MALAN:

Basutoland will be right next to the Transkei under this Bantustan plan—two independent countries within the next 20 years. Do hon. members not think that the Transkei in that case will also offer entry to Basutoland, to the heart of South Africa and that this will not constitute a tremendous danger to White civilization? This Bantustan policy is a fatal policy. Our White civilization is based on certain foundations. One of these is that there should be leadership. And let us not confuse leadership with dictatorship. We do not believe in White dictatorship; leadership does not mean that one forces one’s will on to the people under one. Leadership means that one is prepared to consult one’s followers and the people who are subordinate to one; it means in the second place that one recognizes their dignity as individuals. When one does these things under one’s policy of leadership, then one can have co-operation within one country. This policy is based on the rights of individuals; it is based on consultation; it is based on the maintenance—and we admit this—of a White majority in Parliament. That is the policy of the United Party. It is based on constitutional guarantees which exist under our policy, constitutional guarantees which will ensure that White civilization will remain and will be preserved in our country, with justice for all. Then we hear such a silly cry that under the United Party policy Chief Luthuli can become Prime Minister of South Africa. That will be impossible. But what will prevent either he or Sobukwe becoming Prime Minister of the Zulustan under the policy of the Nationalist Party? Can anyone tell me what will prevent that? [Time limit.]

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Just before dealing with the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan), there is something which the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) has said which I cannot allow to pass unchallenged, namely that the banishment of certain Bantu is a medieval action which is not found in any other democratic country. I now tell her that she is talking nonsense, and she knows that she is talking nonsense. These banishments take place in Rhodesia; these banishments already took place under Gen. Smuts; these banishments take place in Kenya and in Algeria; these banishments take place in Britain—without trial Makarios was taken by the neck and sent to the Seychelles Islands. And I go further and I say that the only way to maintain democracy is to have this system of banishment without trial. Because these are not ordinary offences. These are attempts to overthrow the State by unconstitutional means, and this is the only way one can act against people who want to overthrow the Government unconstitutionally. In such a case one cannot uphold the process of law and one has to suspend the process of law, as was done in this country and others during the war, and as is done in a state of crisis in any country of the world. The hon. member for Houghton is talking the worst nonsense in the world. An intelligent and attractive member such as she should not talk such nonsense. Because she is intelligent and she should know that these things are done everywhere, and to say that it is medieval and that it is not found in any other democratic country is absolute nonsense!

I just want to give the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) a little advice. I was a member of the United Party for a long time. I belonged to the United Party for a long time and I know them very well.

Mr. J. D. DU P. BASSON:

I do not need your advice. I know your record too well.

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

The hon. member now wants to join the United Party. I want to give him the advice to join now. because if he makes another speech such as he made this afternoon, they will not take him. To tell the truth there are a few who already say they do not want him. Because I think most of them still want him. My advice to him is to apply for membership before the end of this Session or otherwise he will get nowhere. I want to tell him that the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) is already going to vote against him if he applies for admission. I just want to show how his logic left him in the lurch this afternoon. He says the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development has said that if we give the Coloureds representation in this House, one must also give representation to the Indians and we must also eventually give representation to the Bantu. Of course, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration is absolutely correct. But where his logic left him in the lurch is here; if one wants a common fatherland as he and the United Party do. then this is the logical consequence: When one gives the Coloureds representation in this House and one eventually allows the Coloureds to enter this House and one allows the Indians, one will also have to allow the Bantu to enter this House, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition now openly admits. But under the system of representation which we are giving the Coloureds here, the position is quite different. It is not at the same level. We are first giving the Coloureds representation here and then something quite different, a Parliament of their own. And the hon. the Prime Minister has said that the same can eventually be done in the case of the Indians, and we are working in that direction. As far as the Bantu are concerned, their development will eventually take place in independent states. The argument which the hon. member used against the Minister therefore does not hold water because we do not need to give them representation here since we are giving them their own Parliament where they can develop to full independence.

I agree with the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) that this entails dangers. The hon. the Prime Minister has said that it entails dangers. Of course it entails tremendous dangers. But can the hon. member mention any policy which does not entail dangers? The hon. member has made himself guilty of the same ridiculous debating style to which we have now been listening for two days. They are not prepared to pit fact against fact and policy against policy, and then the hon. member uses these nonsensical arguments: There can be strikes; these countries can declare war on us. He conjures up these bogeys and he bases his whole argument on them. That can happen, but it is not necessary for it to happen under a sensible policy. There is only one way to test it and I now challenge hon. members to try to do so. The only way to test our policy as against their policy is this: Let us examine how South Africa will look in 50 years’ time, in the first place under our policy and in the second place under their policy. I now want to make the submission that under our policy, even at its very worst, the Republic of South Africa in 50 years’ time will still be far better off than it will be in 50 years’ time under the policy of the United Party even if their policy only follows the normal course. What is the worst that can happen to the Republic of South Africa under our policy? The worst that can happen is that the Bantu states will become independent and that we shall have seven or eight independent states around us all of which are hostile towards us. That is the worst that can happen. But we must make provision for that. Then one must simply be strong. That is what has happened in Europe. There are many small countries in Europe that have survived this. We cannot prevent this position if it should unfortunately arise. But it is not we who have made South Africa as she is. It is Providence, it is history which has made us what we are. Because, whether we want to establish these national homelands or not. we are still faced with the same problem. Basutoland is going to become independent, Swaziland is going to become independent. Bechuanaland is going to become independent and Rhodesia may also become a Black independent state. Then after all we are faced with that problem. If they want to be hostile, if they want to make war. if they want to take away their citizens, if they want to cause strikes, we are still faced with that problem whether we want it or not, and whether we implement this policy of Possibly independent states or not. I, therefore, say that is the very worst that can happen to us. But why should it happen? Why must there be animosity between us and these countries? There is Switzerland which, for 600 years, has not seen a war. And we know about all the fighting in Europe and the relationships between countries in Europe and we can learn from these examples. Why must there be hostility between us and the Transkei? Why cannot we live next to one another like civilized people if we are sensible? The unfortunate thing is of course the agitation which we shall encounter from the other side and from the pernicious English Press in our country. They are trying to create this hostility. But there is no reason why we cannot live in friendship with the Transkei and in friendship with Zululand, as we are living in friendship with the Portuguese areas, as we are living in friendship with Rhodesia. Why must the position be otherwise? Therefore the best that could happen under our policy is a position of absolute safety for the Whites and the safeguarding of the Blacks and a peaceful South Africa. That is the best. And the worst that can happen is that there will be hostility which will make it necessary for us to build up a large military force to protect ourselves. And this has been the lot of all Europe and I do not see why we should draw back before this possible fate which may await us.

But what is the normal, simply the normal position, which must arise under their policy? I am quite prepared to argue with them and to take the worst which can happen under our policy and the normal development under their policy, the development which logically must take place under their policy. What is their policy and what will be the position in 50 years’ time in terms of their policy? At its best under their policy we shall have White representatives in this Parliament, we shall have Bantu—we cannot say at all how many—we shall have Indians and we shall have Coloureds. But let us limit ourselves to the Bantu. These same Bantu which they say will make war against us in future will sit here in their federal Parliament. Let us assume that there will be a Matanzima, a Sebata and a Luthuli. The hon. member for Orange Grove has fits at the idea of Luthuli becoming Prime Minister of Zululand. If they elect him, that is their affair. He has fits because he is such a terrible man. But they are going to allow the man who wants to destroy us to-day, who wants to make war against us, to sit in their federal Parliament. I now ask the hon. member for Orange Grove: He says it is impossible for Luthuli to become Prime Minister if he sits here in his Parliament under their federal system. I now ask him: Is he under their federal plan going to make Luthuli a second-class Member of Parliament? Is he going to say under their federal plan that certain people may become Prime Minister and other Members of Parliament may not do so? Is that part of his constitution? [Time limit.]

Mr. HUGHES:

I don’t think that the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) has done much to allay the worry of this side of the House as to what is going to happen if this Government’s policy is carried out. He says that he is prepared to deal with the worst that can happen and the worst that could happen, he says, would be that we would have about seven or eight hostile states around us. What he did not mention was this, Sir, that in our own country the majority of the people in our own country would be hostile to the Government and to our country. He did not mention that four-fifths of the population of the Republic would be Fifth Columnists.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Why?

Mr. HUGHES:

Because they would all be subjects of these foreign states. Are you going to intern the whole lot? What are you going to do with them? The hon. member referred to the last war. What did Governments have to do? In all countries which fought in the last war they had to intern foreign subjects.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Why should it be hostile states?

Mr. HUGHES:

The hon. member said that if the worst happens we would have these eight possible hostile states. I will tell the hon. member why they would likely be hostile.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Why?

Mr. HUGHES:

For the simple reason that the majority of the subjects of that country would not be living in that country. The majority of those people would be living in our country. And there must be clashes between our Government and the other Governments as to the way in which the subjects of those countries are treated. There is another important point. It is no good referring to Europe and say “They don’t have troubles there, so why should we have trouble here?”. They have had endless trouble in Europe. What about the Balkans, endless trouble. Where did all the war start? Why did the last war start in Europe? What was Hitler’s excuse for the last war? Because of the German minority in Sudetenland. And in our case they won’t form a minority but a majority. And there is another important thing when comparing us with Europe. We must remember that all these people living in this country, all the Bantu, are at present citizens of this country; it is their homeland and they have no other, and if they are now going to be told that they must become citizens of other countries, without even being consulted, what will the result be? They are not being consulted and nobody knows what their views are. The only people who have been consulted, as I said the other day, are the members of the Recess Committee in the Transkei. Now this Minister is the Minister responsible for administering the policy of the Government. As I said the other day, I don’t blame him necessarily for the policy of the Government, because I think it is forced upon him by the Prime Minister. And this Minister differed from the Prime Minister as to how the policy should be implemented. He differed, for instance, on what should happen in the Transkei, but he has given in. But he is the Minister who is responsible for administering the policy of the Government and although we have got nothing personally against this Minister, I will say that we are very disappointed that in this debate he has not yet dealt with some of the questions we have put to him, and for that reason I am compelled now to move—

To reduce the amount by R6,000 from the Item “ Minister, R10,000 ”.

I now come back to the point I made yesterday which the hon. the Minister has not yet answered. If the Prime Minister is right and it is impossible for the Africans and the Whites to live harmoniously in one country, how does his policy remove this threat of discord when it is admitted that there will always be at least as many Africans living in this country as there will be White people. The evidence is that there will be many more. But suppose they are equal in numbers as a result of immigration and that we build up our White population. The fact remains that you will still have a large number living in your midst, in the White areas, and if the hon. the Prime Minister says that it is impossible to live in harmony, how is his policy going to rid us of this discord?

Sir, the hon. Minister and the hon. member for Vereeniging are faced with the same problem of Africans living in this country, as are the Coloureds and the Asiatics. The hon. member for Vereeniging says that they are going to solve the Coloured problem by giving the Coloureds their own Parliament. When I accused the hon. the Prime Minister of wanting to abolish the Coloured representation in this House last session, he denied it.

Mr. VOSLOO:

He still denies it.

Mr. HUGHES:

Well, then the arguments of the hon. member for Vereeniging fall away. If they still are going to be represented in this House, then all the consequences must flow which flow from our federation plan. But I understand from the hon. member for Vereeniging and I understood from the hon. the Prime Minister originally that the Coloureds are going to have their own Parliament, that they are going to be a state within a state. Now I ask whether that is going to be the solution for the Africans living in this country as well? Are they also going to have a state within the state? With regard to the Africans living in this country there is some confusion amongst members of the Government as to whether all the Africans have to get to the reserves or not. Some say that is the policy, others deny it. For obvious reasons they are trying to deny it. The fact remains that these Africans living in this country are permanent inhabitants here, as the hon. the Minister said in the Other Place. Does the hon. member for Vereeniging or any hon. member want to deny now that there are Africans living in the urban areas who have leasehold rights for 30 years? When they want to impress overseas visitors, they go and show them houses where Africans are living permanently in the White urban areas. Are those people regarded as being here temporarily? Of course not. Are these people going to be consulted as to whether they want to lose their citizenship of this country or not? If they are doing so well in this country, as some of them are doing who are shown to overseas visitors, do you think they want to lose their citizenship?

I want to come back to this question of consultation again. When I spoke abont consultation the other day, the hon. the Minister said that he does consult with Africans in the urban areas. Now I know that his officials are in contact with the Africans. Obviously they are. But the hon. the Minister must know also that when officials talk to the Africans, these Africans no doubt tell them what the Africans think they would like to hear. I have seen it so often. When you talk to these Africans, they tell you what they think you would like to hear. And with all the banning that does take place and with these harsh laws which can be applied to so-called agitators, does the hon. the Minister think that any African talking to officials is going to oppose the Government’s policy? That is why I asked the hon. the Prime Minister about consultation in the Transkei too. The Recess Committee was consulted, or at least they were advised what to do. But while that emergency proclamation is in force in the Transkei, you are not going to get any public opposition to whatever the Government proposes.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Why not?

Mr. HUGHES:

Why not? What happened a few days before the Transkeian Territorial Authority sat? People were taken to gaol then without any trial.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

For opposing the constitution? That is not true.

Mr. HUGHES:

I did not say that. I am certain of this that they were not removed possibly for supporting the constitution. And I say further that if Sebata, Chief Sebata had not been the chief of the biggest tribe in Pondoland, he would probably have been deported as well.

Sir, I want to ask the hon. Deputy Minister whether he denies the facts which are given in this fact paper. This is a pamphlet given out by a Nationalist branch, the Merriman branch, and this is to influence English-speaking people.

The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

My article.

Mr. HUGHES:

Your article, yes, and then the facts given below. Now these are the facts: This pamphlet is a Nationalist organ. Who is it trying to mislead? Is it trying to mislead the English-speaking people? I will give you some of the facts as they are given here. This pamphlet says that an equal number of Transkeians are living outside as inside the Transkei. The hon. the Minister said that he did not say so. I take it that he denies it. [Time limit.]

The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINITRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) can make any proposal he likes, of course. That is the political game, and I do not hold it against him. But after the irresponsible statements made here by him, I feel that I must say a few words. In the first place, the hon. member accuses me of not having replied to their questions. I think that is not only an unfair statement but also a discourteous one, because I do try to reply to the questions put to me by every hon. member. But it must not be forgotten that a whole series of questions is put to me by many hon. members; most of the questions are exactly the same, and hon. members surely cannot expect me to reply to every question which is simply a repetition of previous questions. I still have to reply to a few hon. members, but here I have my notes. The accusation cannot be made against me that I do not try to give a proper reply on every matter that is raised here. That is an unfair accusation.

Mr. HUGHES:

I did not accuse the hon. the Minister of not replying to all the members. I said that we had raised certain important points and put certain questions which remained unanswered. I myself, for example, dealt with the question of consultation.

The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

Yes, but the hon. member stated that a number of questions had been asked to which I had failed to reply. It must not be forgotten that the whole of the debate which has been conducted here since yesterday afternoon by the other side of the House has testified not only to very great irresponsibility and very great ignorance but it has also been the greatest exhibition of the jitters that we have ever witnessed in this House. No important issues have been raised here since yesterday. This debate has revealed that hon. members opposite have the jitters. The one has been more jittery than the other. I have been making notes here since yesterday afternoon to see who should be awarded the prize in this debate of the jitters. So far the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) walks away with it. He was almost in tears. But do hon. members opposite really expect me to take them very seriously when they adopt this sort of method? Hon. members opposite are not addressing their constituents now whom they usually try to frighten. They may get some reaction from their constituents, but after all we are in this House at the moment where one can at least expect some measure of responsibility, Hon. members opposite, when they come along with these hair-raising stories, cannot expect me to start trembling and to burst into tears. That is ridiculous.

But then the hon. member for Transkeian Territories raised another matter. He again comes along with the statement with regard to Proclamation No. 400, knowing that is not so, that these people were intimidated and that the result was that they did not express their opinions openly and honestly in connection with the constitution of the Transkei. And then he mentions the case where we arrested four people. The hon. member asked a question in that connection to which I replied, and now he comes along and says that there we have a fine example of what the Government did. What happened there? I have the facts. What happened was this. At the Basea Mission Location there is a headman called Jinsa. He decided to ask the Government to rehabilitate his area. Nothing more. He wanted to co-operate in order to have his lands, his housing, etc., properly planned. What happened? These four heroes of the hon. member for Transkeian Territories went along and destroyed all his lands so that nothing remained. They went along and assaulted his wife and children, for one reason only, and that is because he had asked that his area should be developed. And now the hon. member comes along and accuses us. Were we to close our eyes and allow these things to go on? That is the sort of thing that is instigated by certain people in the Transkei and then the hon. member for Transkeian Territories comes and defends those people.

*Mr. HUGHES:

I did not defend these people.

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

The hon. member must not adopt such an unreasonable attitude. He mentioned this to show that we were committing such an injustice and instilling so much fear into the minds of the Bantu of the Transkei that they could not openly discuss the Transkeian constitution; that they were intimidated to such an extent that they simply said “Yes” out of fear that they would all be arrested. That is what the hon. member is doing. Is that the action of a responsible person? He is a responsible member. He occupies an important position on the other side, and I do not expect the hon. member to use methods of that kind. It does not behove him. I am very sorry that he was guilty of that sort of conduct. It will not increase his prestige amongst his own members. If we had acted unreasonably it would have been a different matter and then the hon. member could have used that method. But I could not close my eyes to this. And then the hon member comes along and says that there was not sufficient consultation. He says that the position is that only the officials are consulted and that these people are not openly expressing their opinion to the officials, that they are only soft-soaping the officials. The hon. member knows in his heart that is not the position. Of course there is consultation at all levels, with the officials also, and we have a very effective method of consultation. In the first place there is the Chief Bantu Commissioner who is continually in touch with the Bantu. And the Bantu Commissioners are continually moving about making contacts. I went even further and appointed regional Bantu commissioners in the Transkei so as to have better contacts. We have our Commissioner-General there who is also continually in touch with the Bantu. In addition to that it is always possible for these people to get in touch with me, and in fact they do so. They do not hesitate to do so. We also have a standing Cabinet Committee here with whom they can get in touch. The hon. the Prime Minister has encouraged them to do so. What is the position amongst the Bantu themselves? That is where the hon. member blames me. Amongst the Bantu themselves we have introduced this system of Bantu authorities, where they regularly meet in their own circle. They do not meet there in the presence of our officials; they make their decisions and submit them to the officials, or the official goes there at their request if they have anything to discuss with him. Then we have the regional authorities, which also meet from time to time, not under the supervision of the officials. They meet under their own chairman and their secretary. There they pass resolutions and submit those resolutions to me. Then there is the Territorial Authority, and they pass whatever resolutions they like. How can the hon. member level the reproach against me that there is no form of consultation? The hon. member ought to know that never before in the history of South Africa have we had such an effective system of consultation as we have to-day.

But I go further and I come to the urban areas. In the urban areas the position used to be that only the city councils consulted the advisory councils. I was not satisfied with that and I introduced the system whereby my officials also attended these discussions. But I went further and appointed a special official in all the important centres, who can also keep in touch with them and with whom they can get in touch. But we went even further. We had these advisory bodies which could meet from time to time and then submit their resolutions to me. They frequently do so. We have now instituted these Bantu councils which I hope will be functioning in the near future. There will then be even greater consultation. The hon. member says that I must create mixed boards, that is to say, boards where White and Bantu will be able to have round-table conferences. That sort of board serves no purpose. Our experience has always been that boards of that kind simply do not work. Why not? Because the moment the Bantu meets the White man at a round-table conference, the Bantu sits there with a feeling of inferiority. But then the hon. member comes along and accuses my officials because he says that the Bantu who come along to these meetings simply dance to the tune called by the few Whites who are present. That is the result. I want to show hon. members the reports of outstanding British officials who testify to the fact that is their experience. That is why it was recommended that the best thing to do would be to create boards where the Bantu can meet separately, where they can pass resolutions and transmit them to us, or for the official to meet them from time to time at their request or at his request. I challenge any hon. member on the other side to tell me how one can get a more effective system than this. One simply cannot. I can also tell hon. members that I am continually having consultations with the Bantu and with my officials to see whether we cannot make this system even more perfect. I want to say here at once that a few years ago the position was that many of the Bantu Commissioners had to spend about 80 per cent of their time in their offices. I do not believe in that. I had nearly 80 additional posts created. We appointed additional officials in the main Bantu centres, with the result that I am informed that to-day most of the Bantu Commissioners are able to spend at least 70 per cent of their time not in their offices but keeping in touch with the Bantu. That is how we have improved the system. How can the hon. member come along and make this absolutely irresponsible accusation here? Surely it is unfair and unreasonable.

*Mr. HUGHES:

What consultation has there been with the urban Bantu in connection with the Transkeian Territory?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

There we have one of the things which the Prime Minister advised the Recess Committee to do, that is to say, to build up contacts with their people in the cities, to consult them.

*Mr. HUGHES:

But what consultation has the Government had with them?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

Mr.Chairman, there we have an example of, I do not want to say irresponsibility but sheer wilfulness. The position is that the Recess Committee of the Transkeian Territorial Authority is in the same position as a Select Committee of this House. [Interjections.] No, wait a moment. Those three members on the other side are carrying on a conversation now when I have to reply to the debate. They are not listening at all, and then they come along with the reproach that I do not reply to their questions. They are holding a caucus meeting now and when the meeting is over they will start asking questions. They are apparently consulting one another. When they have finished their consultation I shall go on with my reply. I can tell the hon. member that Recess Committee did its work in the same way as a Select Committee of this House does. In other words, they would hear evidence. That was also the procedure of the old Bunga. That committee had the right to invite anyone to come and give evidence. In fact it was advised to do so. This matter rests in their hands, and the method that they followed was the method followed by a Select Committee. Hon. members opposite now level the reproach against us that we did not convene a meeting of the people of Langa in order to consult them. That is simply ridiculous.

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Were there representatives of the urban Bantu on the Recess Committee?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

No, because the Recess Committee was chosen from the members of the Territorial Authority. There were more than 40 members. May I ask hon. members whether, when this House appoints a Select Committee, it chooses members of the public to serve on it? That is what the hon. member insinuated. What logic can there be in the allegation made by him?

Mr. HUGHES:

Will the Minister admit that the urban Bantu living in the White areas are the responsibility of this Parliament as citizens of this country who are represented by this Government?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

The position is simply this that to-day those people are in these areas and they are citizens of the Republic of South Africa. But it has been stated perfectly clearly that the Transkei as an area will link up (“skakel”) with the Xhosa of the Transkei. What sense would there be in this Parliament appointing a Select Committee to resolve this issue? That Recess Committee followed the procedure which has been recognized for years, which is recognized in this House and which is recognized in every civilized parliament. Yet hon. members opposite come along and level the reproach against me that a different method should have been followed. Surely that is quite unreasonable. Surely we cannot ignore the elementary principles of procedure. We cannot get away from the fact that those people proceeded according to the recognized procedure of the democratic system, and it is ridiculous, and not only ridiculous but dishonest, to say that this House should have seen to it that the urban Bantu were represented.

*An HON. MEMBER:

But was it not the duty of the Government?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

I say that is ridiculous. They had their Select Committee, and they were even advised to make proper contact with the urban Bantu. Hon. members must not come along with that type of accusation.

I want to deal for a moment with the speech of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). The hon. member has again come along with accusations in connection with hte so-called banished persons. The hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) has replied to her speech so effectively that it is not necessary for me to go into all these points again. The Act ot which she referred is a very old one and it was later on embodied in the 1927 legislation. It has been in force all these years and every Government has made use of it. But the hon. member creates the impression here that it is this cruel National Party that has done this thing again. [Interjections.] That is the impression that the hon. member creates. She says that there is no such law in any civilized country in the world. She knows that is not so and that this Act has been in force all these years. Let me say perfectly clearly that I do not like making use of this Act. But there were numbers of cases where we had to take steps. In one case we acted under proclamation. I can also say this, Mr. Chairman, that every case is reviewed every year and that I receive a full report from my officials. In taking steps against these people we do so in a very humane way, with the result that very few of them are banished. We have allowed most of these people to return to their own area but on condition that they do not resort again to the methods that they used previously. What are those methods? For the greater part these are people who are being used by the Liberals, the Communists and persons of that kind to create chaos in those areas where these people want to co-operate with us. Here I should like to mention the names of attorneys in particular who can only make a living by doing this sort of thing. I am thinking, for example, of a certain Mr. Muller. Let me mention some examples. There is the case of Matlala. The position there is this. There is some difficulty in connection with a chieftaincy. There is one section which has been instigated to institute litigation against the legitimate chief. The case has not yet been settled. It is a small section, but there is friction between this section and the other section. The clashes were of such a serious nature that the Chief Bantu Commissioner very seriously advised me that I would have to make some plan, at the request of the majority of the Bantu, to remove that group to some other place. They said that if this was not done immediately, murder would be committed on a large scale. Is that what the hon. member wants?

Mrs. SUZMAN:

No.

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

Let me also say that before that report was received from the Bantu Commissioner, a few people had been murdered already.

Mrs. SUZMAN:

Why do you not arrest the guilty persons?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

It became necessary for me to act immediately. We talked nicely to those people. Some of them were impudent because they had been instigated by certain Whites. In order to prevent them from being murdered, we had to remove this small group of people. In my own mind I was convinced, as the Chief Bantu Commissioner was, that if these people were not taken away immediately, every single one of them would be murdered. They were then taken away and those people are grateful that we saved their lives. We cannot bring these people back until peace has been restored in the tribe. We will do everything in our power to restore peace We have the mischief-makers there who take a delight in creating chaos which culminates in murder.

Mr. SUZMAN:

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether eight years has not elapsed since these people were banished, and whether peace has not yet been restored in the tribe?

The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

When peace has been restored and the difficulty with regard to the chieftaincy has been restored, all those people will be brought back and assisted. But let me just say this to the hon. member. There are numbers of people who were sent away and who came back. They realised their own folly and to-day we are getting the greatest possible co-operation from them. They were not forced; they came to us of their own volition and said to us, “We are sorry we did these things; we were misled by certain Whites into making fools of ourselves and now we want to co-operate.” I had the case the other day of three persons who fled to Basutoland. They found things so bad there that they begged me for permission to come back. They are prepared to put it in writing that they will not be guilty of that type of thing again. For my part I said that I did not want anything in writing; I was prepared to allow them to come back at once. I do not believe in ill-treating people. Whenever I can do anything for the Bantu, within the limits of our policy and as far as it lies within my power, I do so. The hon. member cannot make that type of accusation against me. She referred to the case of another Bantu who was punished for his role in the Pan-African Movement. He was Sebukwe’s right hand. And he is a Basutoland Bantu. We said that we were not going to allow him to come back to his former pastures. He comes from Basutoland, which is said to be a nice place, and he can go back to it.

But, Mr. Chairman, the question arises why the hon. member stood up here to raise this sort of matter in this House. I shall tell you why. There are certain elements such as the Black Sash, for example, who take a delight in doing this sort of thing….

Mrs. SUZMAN:

Thank God for the Black Sash.

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

They visited all these camps. The other body is the Institute of Race Relations. The hon. member is acting on their behalf in this House. [Interjections.] And then she comes here and holds it against me when I take steps, for humanitarian reasons, to preserve the peace. We must preserve the peace to prevent people from being murdered. Just think how many lives we have saved by acting in this way. But that is not what the hon. member wants. I repeat that I do not like making use of this Act, but there are certain cases where I have no alternative but to do so.

The hon. the member for North-East Rand (Brig. Bronkhorst) quoted from a pamphlet of mine. I admit at once that I issued that pamphlet; it is my pamphlet. Now I suppose he will say that “the chickens have come home to roost.” The hon. member is still a newcomer in politics. This is a matter of principle; we have no right to use the money of the Whites in order to give everything to the Bantu on a platter. In those days it was a case of dispensing largess on an unheard-of scale. In that way we will never uplift the Bantu. I myself visited quite a few sites where they were constructing dams, and do you know what I saw there? A number of White young men were working there from morning till evening, while the Bantu on the site were holding parties. Not a single Bantu was working there. I said to the official concerned at the time, “Look what is happening here.” He told me not to worry about it because the people working there were poor Whites. That was the attitude that they adopted. I said that was wrong; that if a dam was constructed for them in that way, they did not appreciate it. I objected to it and I said that it was a waste of money. The hon. member referred to the construction of houses. I myself visited some of these places and there I saw the poorest houses that one could possibly get and which had cost £600 or £800 to build. To-day we are building those houses at a cost of £400. In Zwelitsha I went into houses myself which used to be built at a cost of £800 to £1,200. Those houses were built by Whites. They were standing empty; there was not a single Native in those houses. We objected to that.

*Mr. S. J. M. STEYN:

What about the small bulls?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

I shall come to the small bulls.

*Mr. S. J. M. STYEN:

And the cock?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

I shall tell the Committee about the cock in a moment. There we found the same phenomenon. The officials brought the bulls and left them there, and do you know what happened? An official who had seen this himself told me this. The Bantu brought out his Bull, one with long and thick horns, and put the two bulls together and said, “What nonsense is this on the part of the White man? Look at my bull; it has much longer and much bigger horns.” There were many cases where these animals were no longer bulls when they came out there. That was the result. But now I come to the cock. What did they do? In spite of all these efforts they were not building up the quality of their livestock, and we objected to that. To-day we have the necessary co-operation because those things are being done in the right way. To-day they appreciate these better bulls, and the demand for thoroughbred bulls is so great that we can scarcely meet it. I can assure hon. members that to-day we are getting results with those bulls. They no longer come back as oxen. A great contribution is being made to-day towards the improvement of the stock, under good supervision.

The hon. member for North East Rand (Brig. Bronkhurst) said a very ugly thing here. He is one of those who said here that we had the Transkeian constitution adopted under the threat of police action, etc. Let me say at once that I did not expect that sort of thing from the hon. member. He owes more to South Africa. If that were a fact, if he could prove it, then I would say that he had a case, but he simply came along like some of these newspapermen who do not have the decency to tell the truth and made a wild allegation here. I do not say that this applies to all newspapermen but there are some of them who do that sort of thing. We have the same thing in Umtata and I am sorry that hon. members are following their example by using this house as a platform to proclaim those things to the world. That is not fair towards South Africa and it is not fair towards the hon. member’s own country. I think the hon. member should refrain from doing that sort of thing. Let him criticize us and criticize us strongly but do not let him attack his own fatherland unreasonably; his fatherland is worth more than that.

The hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) has also expressed certain fears with regard to the Ciskei. I want to tell the hon. member that he has no cause to feel uneasy. The boundaries of the Bantu areas have been laid down by legislation. We have said time and again that this rounding-off process will take place on a basis of absolute frankness with the Bantu public and the White public so that no injustice will be done to the Whites or to the Bantu. But this is a basic principle which has been accepted by all parties. Yesterday we were told for the first time by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that they reject it. He no longer accepts this process of consolidation. I want to state the position perfectly clearly insofar as this matter touched upon by the Leader of the United Party is concerned. I challenge the Leader of the Opposition to mention the name of any reputable economist or official who is prepared to say that the development of the Bantu areas is possible without proper consolidation of these areas.

*Mr. S. J. M. STYEN:

The Prime Minister said so.

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

He did not say so. He said that his policy was that these areas should be consolidated, perhaps not into one block. But they will be in such close proximity that we shall have no difficulty in administering them. May I just remind the hon. member for Albany that in the Ciskei there is a Territorial Authority with a number of isolated areas and that they are administering those areas themselves. They meet at King William’s Town and discuss their common affairs. They are co-operating very well and there is no difficulty. That is what we are going to have in this case. I say again that any person who alleges that the Bantu areas can be developed without proper consolidation, simply cannot be sincere about the development of the Bantu areas. One cannot develop those areas properly unless they are properly consolidated. If they are not consolidated the Bantu will reproach us as far as those areas are concerned. They say that these isolated areas are nothing but labour camps. The hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) will know that in many parts of Natal those black spots are nothing but labour camps. There is no development there. It is a basic principle that there must be consolidation. Sir, the hon. member for Hillbrow stood up and expressed his concern about Port St. Johns. He wants to know how I can tell those people at this stage that Port St. Johns will remain a White area in the long run. He says that is a matter which is in the hands of the Bantu. I just want to point out that in about 1870 Port St. Johns was sold by the Bantu to the Whites. Port St. Johns is not situated within Bantu territory. It is clear that there is no intention of handing it over to the Bantu. The hon. member now comes along with this type of scaremongering and says that the Transkei will want that harbour. Anything is possible. Ghana would also like to have Cape Town. Then they want to know what is going to happen to Kosi Bay and Sordwana Bay. We have often said in the past that there will be a White corridor to Sordwana Bay and that there will be a White harbour. It has often been announced in the newspapers also. But the hon. member for Hillbrow is an expert in this art. He frightens people by saying that the whole of the Makatini Flats will be given to the Bantu. Surely the hon. member knows that is not correct. The national Party does not simply put up the white flag, but hon. members opposite have capitulated entirely. They say that these states will have to take over now.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

May I asked a question? Do you deny that eventually you are going to have Bantu states?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

I think I should start keeping a record of the number of times I have had to reply to that question. And that brings me at once to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher), who was also very gloomy. It is probably very dark in his part of the world. I have always said that I am convinced that these states will not easily develop towards full independence. [Interjections.] I still say that these people have so much sense of responsibility that I am convinced that it will take many generations perhaps before there will be independent states. What the Prime Minister stated was that if it was within their power to become independent and if we had to choose between independence for those states on the one hand and the whole of South Africa eventually becoming a black state on the other, our choice would be that they should rather become independent and that South Africa should remain White. [Interjections.] In my younger days I often had to wear on my back a board with a donkey drawn on it and the words “Don’t speak Dutch,” written on it. I feel like making a drawing, with the words of the Prime Minister written on it; “What you have been given is not an independent state at all.” But faced with this inexorable choice which is before South Africa hon. members opposite simply cannot understand that, even if one repeats it a thousand times. I want to make an appeal to hon. members opposite not to do this type of thing. They have again come along to-day and said, “There you have the Transkei as an independent state, and it will be followed by all these other states.” They are trying to scare the public by suggesting that these independent states are already an accomplished fact. They constantly create the impression that these independent states have already been created and that they have their own constitution. But all that has happened so far is that a form of self-government has been given to the Transkei. But we have this encouraging phenomenon that one of the members of the Transkeian Territorial authority who was not very well disposed towards us and who is probably a supporter of the hon. member for Transkeian Territories, stood up and said that it must be clearly understood that if it became necessary to fight for the interests of the Republic of South Africa, they would fight shoulder to shoulder with us. [Interjections.] I think what the hon. member over there has just said is an ugly thing. It is not a question of playing at politics. That shows the type of mentality that we are dealing with. I have just told the Committee what a Bantu said, and immediately the reaction is, “You are going to arm them.”

*Mr. S. J. M. STYEN:

Will you allow them to fight with us?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

That is the sort of statement by those hon. members that hurts one. [Interjections.] Here we have what was said by a Bantu, a Bantu who is not only well disposed towards us. It only goes to show how the United Party’s unfair propaganda is repudiated, namely that the Transkei is already entirely independent and that the Bantu in South Africa want to break away from the Republic and that South Africa has already been cut up from end to end. I say that it is reprehensible on the part of the responsible member of this House to make that type of remark. I know already what the hon, member for Port Elizabeth (West) is going to do. He will go back to Port Elizabeth and say that Bantu have offered their services and that the Government is going to arm them. I mention this just to show the spirit on that side. I want to tell the hon. member for Hillbrow once again that our policy is that as far as possible the areas in Natal should be consolidated in co-operation with the Territorial Authority. [Interjections.] It is impossible to consolidate them into one block, but I think it is possible to consolidate them into three blocks or possible more. But the hon. member must not create the impression that we are giving away Kosi Bay and Sordwana Bay. After all he knows that is not so.

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) is also guilty of this sort of scaremongering, but he has made no contribution to this debate. Reference has also been made by another member to Basutoland, he has pointed out that they are getting their own constitution. If the hon. member knows the Basutos he will know that there are very few Basutos in the Republic to-day who will not give you the assurance that they have a home somewhere in Basutoland. When Basutoland held a Parliamentary election sometime ago, it became clear that the Basutos here were still attached to Basutoland. In Johannesburg a very big percentage of them voted. There are Basutos here who have never been to Basutoland but who voted because they feel at home there and because they have interests there; that is an assumption on my part; I cannot prove it. We find this phenomenon amongst Bantu therefore that they always retain some connection or other with their homeland, and they will tell you that they regard it as their homeland. In Pretoria we have a very fine example of Bantu who have never gone back again to their own territory, who were born in the cities and whose children were born there, but as soon as a child reaches the age of one month, he is taken to the family in the reserve where he spends at least a certain time so that this link can be retained. Hon. members opposite have not put up a. very strong case therefore. One must take into account the Bantu psychology, and that is what we are doing.

*Mr. TUCKER:

What about the Basutos on the farms in the Free State?

*The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

The hon. member knows that the Basutos who work on the farms remain citizens of Basutoland. That is also the policy of Basutoland. One hon. member has asked, “What about the Bantustans in the Transvaal?” I have replied to that question repeatedly. We have the following national groups in the Transvaal: We have the Tswanas. They have their own areas and those areas will be consolidated as far as possible. Then we have the North-Sotho, who are concentrated particularly in the vicinity of Sekukuniland; there are numbers of black spots there and our policy is to consolidate them as far as possible, but that will not be possible everywhere. There will perhaps be one main block in the North, but the problem there is not such a difficult one. Then you have the Venda in Soutpansberg, who are linked up with the Tsongas. I have tried to unite them, but we find that the Tsongas prefer to be on their own, so there will have to be two blocks. These areas are intertwined, but we are trying as far as possible to consolidate those heartlands. I want to give the assurance again that we are only buying land which is adjacent to the large blocks. We are proceeding with the process of consolidation therefore and we are proceeding with the clearing up of blackspots. This is a lengthy process, of course, but there too, we are making more rapid progress now. Then there are the Territorial Authorities and the Regional Authorities which are helping to consolidate these areas. I readily admit that this is a lengthy process, but those are the lines along which we are working. Sir, I think I have now replied to all the questions. I say again that I am very disappointed in the quality of this debate. I thought this debate would present the Opposition with a fine opportunity to set out their federation plan as clearly as possible, but except for the Leader of the Opposition, who only touched upon a few points here and there, not a single member on the other side ventured to talk about their federation plan. I can quite appreciate the sense of frustration of many of the younger members over there. They had to talk about something. They did not have either the courage or the knowledge to talk about their federation plan In such a party it is the younger members in particular who are always in the forefront in stating their policy clearly, but hon. members opposite did not do so. Not a single member stood up and did what we did in the old days, and that is to state our policy in season and out of season, so much so that we gripped the imagination of the public to such an extent that to-day after 15 years we are still in power. [Interjections.] The hon. member wants to know about the Sauer Commission. Yes, in 1947 that Commission was appointed to work out this plan of ours in greater detail so that it could be published in pamphlet form. [Interjections.] The summary of the Sauer Report was published, and I could deal with it point by point. Hon. members must not come along with that story therefore. But they have not even published a pamphlet, and not one of them has had the courage to say a word in favour of their federation plan. No wonder this was a funk (“bewerasie”) debate because hon. members opposite are frustrated. No, a party which lacks the courage to state its case positively and to suggest an alternative policy is doomed to go under. That is why the speeches which have been made from those benches are deadened speeches; they lead nowhere and they are of no value. They are a party of travellers heading for nowhere.

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

Before I get on with my speech I want to tell the hon. the Minister that there were two questions put to him by the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes), one dealing with consultation, which he attempted to answer, but the other he did not answer. The question was this, that where the Prime Minister says that the Whites and the Bantu cannot live together in harmony in a multi-racial state, how does the Minister make that agree with his own policy which is accepted as leading at any rate to an equal number of Whites and Bantu living in the Republic? If we cannot live in racial harmony in a multi-racial state, how can we do it otherwise? What virtue is there in the Minister’s policy which makes it possible? Perhaps the Minister will reply to that later.

I want to come back to the objection the Minister took to my quotation yesterday from the Digest. I was not quoting from the Digest. I told the Minister I was quoting from an American book, which quoted what the hon. the Prime Minister had said as reported in the Digest. I looked it up to see whether the quotation by the author was correct and I found that it was, but that it did not go far enough. I say that the damage is being done overseas, not by the English Press or by the United Party, but through the fact that the statement quoted from the Prime Minister is quoted with approval overseas. If that quotation was taken out of context, the Minister should not blame me for it. He should direct his remarks to the author of this book. But there is another point. There is this repeated statement about the traditional policy which is being thrown overboard. I think that when we are dealing with this particular matter we do not have to worry about the Sauer Commission and all the other statements which have been made. Let us go to the late Dr. D. F. Malan and what he wrote to the Rev. Piersma. He said—

Theoretically the object of the policy of apartheid could be fully achieved by dividing the country into two states, with all the Whites in the one and all the Blacks in the other. For the foreseeable future, however, this is simply not practical politics. Whether in time to come we will reach the stage where some such division, say on a federal basis, will be possible, is a matter for the future.

On a federal basis. That is the reply to the question. What has the Minister got to say to that? He was a follower of Dr. Malan, and that is what Dr. Malan had to say about a federation.

But I move on. I want to deal with this question of the boundaries. I know the Minister and the hon. members behind him are very cagey about it. The truth is that no one knows where the boundaries will be. Why does the Minister not tell us? Why does he not say that he does not know where the boundaries will be? He said this afternoon that in the case of Zululand he thinks there will be three separate areas, but it may be more. I understand that recently he said it might be five or six. What did the Minister have to say in the Other Place? I am quoting from our Hansard of 28 March 1961, Col. 3789—

In the first place every economist of note throughout South Africa is of the opinion that if we do not properly consolidate the Bantu area we may as well go home, as far as the Bantu areas are concerned.

In so far as Zululand is concerned, we can just go home. The Minister says that if there is not proper consolidation, then as far as the Bantu areas are concerned we may as well go home. We are reaching the stage in regard to Government policy that there is hardly a single statement made by any responsible member of the Government which is not contradicted by another member of the Government. The Minister runs away from all the questions we put to him. [Interjections.] After the publication in the Digest, after the preparation of their maps, and after speech after speech was made by the Prime Minister and other Ministers, the Minister says to-day it is very doubtful whether we will ever reach the stage where these people will have sovereign independence. The Minister of Finance not long ago said that if apartheid took a wrong turning we could retrace our steps. To-day the same Minister says, just the other day, that we have reached the point of no return. Now we cannot retrace our steps. We are concerned, in the interests of South Africa, with where those steps lead, and I am going on record now as telling the Minister that this is what we fear, and it will come to pass. The Prime Minister is not concerned with the members of his Cabinet or with the members who sit behind him. The Prime Minister, as an individual and a man, will take South Africa to damnation, but he will carry out his policy. He does not care what happens to South Africa, so long as he gets his way. [Interjections.] He will let the Bantu states get their sovereign independence, whether his Minister of Bantu Administration supports it or not, and if the Minister stands in his way, he will go out on the ash-heap. As long as the Nationalist Government keeps this Prime Minister, he will try and give effect to the idea of independent Bantu states. He has not a leg to stand on, neither in this Parliament nor outside South Africa, unless he gives effect to that plan, and cost what it may to South Africa, he will carry it out. I repeat that he will wreck South Africa, but he will not go back on his policy. The Minister says these states will be divided because they cannot be consolidated, and we will allow them to remain as separate pieces. When I asked him yesterday how can the Bantu Authorities administer these separate pieces like Zululand, he said it was easy.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

Evening Sitting

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

When business was suspended I was dealing with one or two matters arising out of the speech of the hon. the Minister. I want to go on for a moment to deal with one aspect of his policy and that is in regard to the Orange River scheme. When that scheme was first mooted in this House, I then referred to the question of labour and the policy of the Government in regard to that labour. I hope that the hon. the Minister will give us his viewpoint in regard to Bantu labour in so far as the development of the Orange River scheme is concerned. As it happens, Sir, if Bantu labour is to be used to the best advantage on that scheme, housing will have to be provided for those Bantu people on the scheme. The crisp point is whether the Minister’s policy envisages the use of Bantu labour and whether it will be migrant labour or whether that labour will be provided by Bantu who are permanently settled in towns to be established in conjunction with the scheme. [Interjections.] I am asking the Minister to tell us what his policy is in regard to this matter. The Government has announced this plan, and for its development, as I see it, it will require a large labour force. The hon. the Minister may tell us that the Government has no intention of employing Bantu, has no intention of employing Asiatics or Coloureds. He may tell us that their immigration policy is such that they would like to bring multitudes of White immigrants to come and work as unskilled labourers on the scheme. I do not know.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN:

The hon. member is out of order.

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

Mr. Chairman, I will not go further than that. I think, I am in order to ask the hon. the Minister as far as his policy is concerned, seeing that we anticipate that it will be Bantu labour and seeing that his policy is to have migrant labour and seeing that his Department is concerned with the housing of Bantu under certain conditions, whether he will shortly give us his views in regard to that particular matter. I say this, Sir, because once again it is going to be of immense importance to us in determining what is to be the future of the separate independent sovereign states to be created as Bantustans. Is it their citizens who are to go and work on that scheme which I understand is to develop over a period of 20 years or more?

I just want to say this that in connection with the development of these Native states, particularly when we take the Transkei as a model, and we see the steps that are being taken there under the advice and the guidance of the Government, that the Minister is putting his officials in a completely impossible position. In so far as there is difficulty to-day or the difficulties that may arise hereafter, the hand of the Government is the official. And I think that the official is placed in a completely impossible position as far as the Transkei is concerned, particularly the senior officials. Because if there is a break-down anywhere the people who are going to be blamed and who are going to be put into that impossible position, will be the officials who are acting as the hand of the Government. They are negotiating with the Bantu to the best of their ability in terms of the Government’s policy as they understand it. If a break-down occurs they are immediately blamed. I am emphasizing that because I want to say again that the hon. the Prime Minister is determined to go on with this policy of creating a separate Bantustan. Neither this Minister nor any Cabinet Minister nor any of the back benchers can stop him. It does not matter what the cost to the country is, he will go on with it. It does not matter what it may cause in the way of ruining South Africa. The buffer is the White official between the Government and the emerging Bantu states which are now being created. Indeed, Sir, I say this: The Prime Minister has now set the bomb. He has set the constitutional bomb here in South Africa, but he leaves the timing mechanism in the hands of the Bantu leaders. He is not determining the pace at which this development is to take place; he cannot do it. He may think that he is controlling it at this stage, but, Sir, he has put the timing mechanism for that constitutional bomb in the hands of the Bantu leaders. He is taking the reference books from the Bantu leaders and by keeping those reference books in his pocket he thinks that he is controlling the setting of the time-bomb. Because he has the reference books of the Bantu leaders in his pockets does not mean that he is controlling the bomb. That constitutional bomb will go off, Sir, and only when it goes off will South Africa realize where the blind following of the Prime Minister has led South Africa. It will have led South Africa to what will then be so apparent that everybody will wonder how we ever got into that state. I repeat, neither the Prime Minister nor his Government will determine the pace at which these Bantu states will progress. The Prime Minister has set the bomb but the Bantu leaders will set it off.

*Mr. FRONEMAN:

The previous speaker has tried to make two points. The first related to consultation and the second to the number of Bantu in the White areas. I first want to say a few words about consultation. The hon. the Prime Minister as well as the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, the hon. the Deputy Minister and various members on this side of the House have already explained repeatedly to the Opposition what procedure was followed: It is this: Last year the territorial authorities appointed a commission. This commission reported to the territorial authorities and said that they were only advised by the officials. A law will now be drawn up which will be submitted to this Parliament. I do not want to chase up a bogey, Mr. Chairman, but I want to say this. I am very disappointed at the attitude adopted by the Opposition in this House towards this matter. Not only am I disappointed but it seems to me that they really are not worthy of the confidence which the Government has placed in them. I want to point out, Sir, that the Transkei has hitherto always been governed by way of proclamation, proclamations which have been issued by the Government, or rather by the State President as the supreme chief of the Bantu. The present constitution of the territorial authority was also issued by way of a proclamation by the State President, If this is the reaction which we are to have from the Opposition, I wonder whether it will not be best for us to ignore them. The consultation about which they are complaining is a consultation which has taken place at the highest level When these proposals by the Bantu of the Transkei are submitted to this House, to the Whites of South Africa, that will be the culmination of the consultation which they are still denying exists. If they do not want it, then I think the best will be to introduce a constitution once again by means of a proclamation by the State President.

Mr. Chairman, I now come to the second matter, namely the allegation that there are more Bantu in the White areas than in the Bantu areas. I just want to give the figures which I have here regarding the number of Bantu in the Transkei. I have the figures issued by the Bureau of Census and Statistics: There are 1,384,673 Bantu in the Transkei at the moment. Of those Bantu who are Transkei Bantu, that is to say Xhosas, there are between 800,000 and 900.000 in the rest of the Cape. Let us make it 900,000 to be on the safe side. In other words, there are more than 400,000 more Bantu in the Transkei at the moment than there are Bantu working outside the Transkei. There are approximately 500,000 to 600,000 Bantu in the Ciskei and of course there are also Ciskei Bantu outside the Ciskei area in the White areas. As far as the Transkei Bantu are concerned, there are 400,000 more in the Transkei at the moment than there are outside the Transkei. I do not know on what the allegation that there are as many Bantu outside as there are inside the Transkei is based. Sir, I want to point out that of the Bantu in the White areas approximately 1,000,000 are foreign as well; that is to say they are not Bantu from our Bantu areas. There are approximately 10,000,000 Bantu in South Africa. If we deduct 1,000,000 foreign Bantu, there only remain 9,000,000 Bantu in South Africa. If we put the number of Bantu in the Bantu areas at 5,000,000 or 6,000,000, there is no such thing that half are outside and half in the Bantu areas, as hon. members have alleged. That is the position as far as the figures are concerned.

Let us now state the position once and for all. We acknowledge that in the White areas there are Bantu at the moment, but we say they are here to work. They have their homes elsewhere. I do not know now often we must repeat this because it simply makes no impression on hon. members opposite. Let us take the case of the Bantu of Basutoland. They were registered as voters in Basutoland while living permanently in the White areas. Yet they allowed themselves to be registered there because they felt that was their homeland. Because they regard Basutoland as their homeland they had themselves registered there to vote for the Basutoland Council.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Those who are temporarily outside.

*Mr. FRONEMAN:

Not only temporarily but even those who are here permanently. Their constitution only refers to “permanent”. When they had themselves registered they described themselves as Basutoland Bantu, in other words, they themselves felt drawn to their homeland and they did not keep to the letter of the law as laid down by their constitution. We are not going to give them such a constitution but we say they belong there. Not only those who are temporarily here, but we say that all who feel that is their homeland can go there to vote. Once they feel themselves drawn to their homeland, then they will be given their citizenship rights there and they can enjoy all other rights relating to citizenship there. The rights which they are given here will be the rights which a worker has here namely to be able to live here to do his work. We do not say that is already the position today. We must still rectify what the United Party bungled over all the years. Over the years the United Party allowed a system to develop in South Africa under which Bantu settled permanently in this area. We must still unravel this bungled position; we must, as they say, “unscramble the scrambled egg” which they made. We admit that this is a factual position which exists, but through the implementation of our policy the position will arise that they will all have their citizenship rights in their homelands and they will exercise them there. We shall have the migrant labour system. [Interjections.] It is not as ridiculous as hon. members are trying to make out. Allow me just to remind the hon. member that there are 300,000 foreign Bantu working on the mines under the migrant labour system. They work for 18 months on the mines and then they return to their areas. There are even foreign Bantu living in houses, which are of a fairly permanent nature, Bantu who are employed in the industries, and even they go back to their areas. I am only referring now to foreign Bantu. In Houghton and in a few other Rand suburbs there are foreign Bantu who return to their homelands annually for a so-called holiday, but they actually go back to strengthen their ties with their homeland.

I want to emphasize that the Natives in the White areas feel drawn to their homelands and that in the course of time they will return to their homelands.

I want to come back once again to this racial federation scheme. I just want to analyse something relating to the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition at De Aar. [Time limit.]

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

I want to get back to the hon. the Minister. I am sorry that my hon. friend has again started his foxy tricks. I am sorry that as a leader on that side he has again given evasive replies when we gave him specific examples and put questions to him about them. I am sorry the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) is not here now. The hon. member for Randfontein said this afternoon that the Prime Minister’s policy right from the start was to have complete territorial apartheid—the establishment of eventually independent Bantu states in South Africa. He was very specific about that and read quotations to support his statement. I repeat that the hon. the Minister, by his evasive replies this afternoon, has again started his foxy tricks. My hon. friend will remember that after the Sauer Commission of 1946-7 he told us that apartheid was something different from the traditional segregation. That was contained in the statement. Then shortly after that followed this: It is nothing else but segregation (Mr. Havenga and Mr. Louw). Compare, e.g. the Burger of October 1952: “Apartheid was the establishment of homelands for the Bantu where they can eventually be the masters just as we are the masters in our own area.” (Dr. Verwoerd). Then immediately follows: “That was sound and ideal in theory, but cannot be implemented in practice” (Dr. Malan). Then we get: “ The only way out is the policy of the National Party of separation and of apartheid in the sense that the Natives must live in their own areas and merely come to the cities temporarily as workers.” And on that follows: “You will not be able to quote anything to show that I stand for total territorial apartheid.” That is what the former Prime Minister, Mr. Strijdom, said. “In his perpetual domination (baasskap) over the Bantu,” Mr. Strijdom said on 8 February 1955, Hansard, Col. 824. Thereupon follows his Christmas message in Dagbreek and Sondagnuus: “Maturity and independence will be opened to them.”

*The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

Is that from Dagbreek?

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Yes, does the hon. the Deputy Minister not know that Dagbreek at that time had an English supplement? He is a Nationalist and he does not know that! “This Government will … continue to lead you (i.e. the Natives) along the road of self-development and to maturity” (the Suidwester, 22/12/1954). That was again taken from the Christmas message of Mr. Strijdom in that paper. Here is another one: “The White man will have to do his work himself” (Mr. de Klerk and Dr. Eiselen). And then again: “The National Party was never in favour of economic apartheid” (Mr. Steyn, Kempton Park, 8/2/1960). That is the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) who said so, Sir. That hon. member who always has so much to say. “It is perpetual domination,” but then again, “Now I say it is an insult he (i.e. the late Dr. Smit) gives the Natives”, when he said that the United Party wanted to exercise perpetual guardianship. I am sorry the hon. the Minister of Transport is not here, because he said: “We are opposed to total apartheid.” “I never was,” he says. Now I come to the spokesman-in-chief, Sir: “How many times have we said in this House that the Native will be helped and guided in his own territory towards full political and economic nationhood in every aspect of life?” That is what Mr. de Wet Nel said on 12/4/1950, Hansard, Col. 4097. And then, as against that: “‘Total apartheid’ is simply not practical politics” (Dr. Malan to the Reverend John Piersma).

I ask you, Sir, who is one to believe? Here the hon. the Minister says to-day: “The hon. member for Hillbrow is not fair; I expect something better from him.” The hon. the Minister is full of cunning tricks, but he says: “I am disappointed in the hon. member for Hillbrow. Can he not see that these people will only get self-government?” The hon. the Minister has studied history and he knows that in the case of any state which receives self-government, the next step, right throughout the world, is independence. [Interjections.] I am not addressing that goat from Cradock!

*The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN:

Order!

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

I withdraw it, Sir. You, Mr. Chairman, know history. You know that when any State is given self-government the next inevitable step is independence. The hon. the Minister admitted to-day that he can no longer consolidate Zululand as he promised to do.

*HON. MEMBERS:

Where did he say that?

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Surely the hon. the Minister admitted it to-day! He said this afternoon that in all probability there would be three areas, and perhaps five. That is what the hon. the Minister said this afternoon, and he also said it last week, and it was after that Tongaland asked to be allowed to join Swaziland, the people of their own race; they may also join up with another foreign state, Portuguese East Africa, where there are also Tongas. We now have this dangerous territory in North-Eastern Natal, North-Eastern Zululand, which not only adjoins two foreign states, but whose inhabitants are also closely related to the Tongas. I again want to point out that in this area we find Kosi Bay, the Kosi Lake, the valuable Sibaya Lake, Sordwana Bay, the Makatini Flats and the Pongola Dam. Whatever the Minister does, and whatever evasive replies he gives, that area will in terms of his policy become independent. Whether it becomes independent separately, or whether it becomes independent as part of Zululand, makes no difference. They will eventually control that area and they will also control the Ndumu Game Reserve. Now I say to the hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. Martins), who is not here now, and the hon. member for Vryheid (Mr. D. J. Potgieter), whose constituencies adjoin that area: You have not the courage to get up and tell the Prime Minister: Do not sell our country! You have not the guts to do it! [Time limit.]

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) has accused the hon. the Minister this evening of being devious. I call this House to-night as my witness that I accused him this afternoon of scaremongering in Northern Natal. He accused the hon. the Minister and me too of intending to sell the whole of Vryheid, knowing that it is not true.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

Mr. Chairman, may I on a point of explanation …

*HON. MEMBERS:

Sit!

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

He must withdraw that.

*The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN:

Will the hon. member tell me what he said, please?

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

Yes, Mr. Chairman. When I said that to the hon. member, he said that he had never said so. That is not true …

*The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN:

What did the hon. member say about “knowing that it is not true?”

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

Knowing that it is not true. He said the hon. the Minister and I were selling out the whole of Vryheid to the Bantu.

*The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN:

I think the hon. member should withdraw the words “knowing that it is not true” in that regard.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

Then I withdraw them, Mr. Chairman. He denied that he ever said so. I then told him that he said so here in this House and he denied that as well. I now want to quote his statement to him. On 27 May 1959 (col. 6714) he said—

And the member who represents Vryheid, Vryheid which is in great danger of disappearing completely from the map under the set-up of the Minister’s, is working towards that end. Have hon. members on the other side forgotten that it was the Minister’s intention, up to a month or two ago, to purchase more land there: In Nqutu, Nondweni, Metzelfontein, right through as far as the borders of Scheepersnek? In other words, it is the Government’s intention to palm in the whole area of Nongoma, Babanango, Metzelfontein, Ngotsche, Mhalabatini, Nqutu, for the Zulu people.

I now say, Mr. Chairman, that is an untruth …

*Mr. GREYLING:

It is a lie.

*THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member knows he cannot use that word.

*Mr. GREYLING:

Mr. Chairman, I said that quotation was a lie.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

That is an untruth; no such plan has ever existed. I have never helped in its implementation. It was not the intention of the hon. the Minister. It was the plan of a United Party leader in Vryheid.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

[Inaudible.]

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

A United Party leader in Vryheid made that proposal and I was the person who stopped it at that meeting. I now challenge the hon. member to appear with me and discuss this point in public in Vryheid. Mr. Chairman, at Nqutu the late Mr. Piet Taljaard, a prominent leader of the United Party, made this proposal and I then stopped it and convened a second meeting. That is what happened, but the hon. member has improperly (wederegtelik) obtained the minutes of a farmers’ meeting which they have not yet even approved of, and has used those minutes here to make political propaganda and to tell untruths.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

[Inaudible.]

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

Sir, he is wasting my time.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

On a point or order, Mr. Chairman, should not the hon member withdraw the word “improperly”?

*The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN:

Order! It does not refer to something which happened in this House.

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

He is lying.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

When I told the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Mitchell) that he would not set out his policy …

*Mr. F. S. STEYN:

On a point of order, may the hon. member say that the hon. member for Vryheid is lying?

*Dr. STEENKAMP:

I withdraw it, Sir.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

Coming from the hon. member for Hillbrow I take no notice of it. When I told the hon. member for South Coast to-day that he would not set out his policy because he did not want to hang a millstone around his neck, he denied it. On 16 February 1959, the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) made this interjection—

What we want to know is what is your policy?

*Mr. Mitchell:

No, I refuse to hang a millstone around my neck at this stage.

*Mr. MITCHELL:

Read it from the beginning; read it properly; do not be dishonest.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN:

Order! The hon. member for South Coast cannot accuse the hon. member for Vryheid of dishonesty.

*Mr. MITCHELL:

I say he must not be dishonest, Mr. Chairman…

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

Mr. Chairman, if words have any meaning …

*Mr. B. COETZEE:

On a point or order, Mr. Chairman, if the hon. member for South Coast is saying that the hon. member for Vryheid must not be dishonest, the implication is that he is dishonest. I have been called to order on a previous occasion when I made such an implication.

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

I want to repeat this. The hon. member for South Coast can look it up again; it appears in the Hansard for 16 February. In a speech which the hon. member for South Coast made, the hon. member for Vereeniging made this interjection—

What we want to know is what is your policy.

Then the hon. member for South Coast replied—

No, I refuse to hang a millstone around my neck at this stage.

The hon. member forgets what he said last year. When I accused him of saying that it was the policy of the United Party that the Bantu should only be a temporary guest in the White areas and that he should go back to his own areas, he denied it; until I read it to him verbatim in this House. But that is his old trick. You know, Mr. Chairman, an ordinary hitch-hiker eventually is no longer very particular. He rides anything from a luxurious American motor to a swaying donkey cart and if he has to thumb for longer than he likes, then the direction is no longer of importance. It does not matter in which direction he goes, as long as he can ride. This United Party has now become a habitual hitchhiker. They get into any car, any vehicle, and their company and their thoughts are determined by the company and the thoughts of the driver, or the owner of that car. In other words, they sell their soul for the sake of a ride. They are now once again on a political vehicle. During the past 14 years they have boarded every possible political vehicle and ridden, spoken and thought in every possible political direction. In this new role of theirs they have now really become a danger to South Africa. They have tried to break South Africa in any way whatever and now they want to try to destroy South Africa in advance by converting the goodwill of the Bantu into hatred and suspicion. The colour problem to-day is the burning issue in South Africa and because they cannot get into power, they now want to destroy South Africa in three ways. The first is by trying to hand South Africa holus bolus over to the non-Whites through a multi-racial federation, and if they cannot achieve this, they want to destroy the goodwill which this Minister and this Government have created amongst the Bantu, the confidence which they have gained. They want to create hostile Bantu homelands in South Africa in advance. And if they cannot achieve that, then they want to go to extremes, and I am now referring to the hon. member for North East Rand (Brig. Bronkhorst), and they want to destroy South Africa through a shock from outside. [Time limit.]

Mr. TUCKER:

On a point of order, the hon. member has accused the hon. member for North East Rand (Brig. Bronkhorst) of something which is tantamount to high treason. and I want to ask whether he is permitted to do so.

*Dr. CRONJE:

During this debate I have heard more “cock and bull” stories from the hon. members opposite than usual. Let us start with the “cock and bull” story of the hon. the Minister. He has tried to justify the pamphlet which he issued by saying: “Yes, of course when the bulls which the United Party bought for the kaffirs (as he called them at that time), were taken to the Native areas the kaffirs looked them up and down and then decided their own bulls had much thicker horns and they would obviously chase these bulls away, and then they did something to the bulls which were bought for them”. The hon. the Minister should know better. He should know after all that those bulls were only bought for bull improvement regions and that in those bull improvement regions the officials had to approve all bulls which were used. How does this question that the bulls which were bought were driven away by far inferior bulls come into the picture? This is the type of story which hon. members opposite tell us all day. If the hon. the Minister really wanted to turn a bad pamphlet into a good story, then I could have given him a far better story. He has probably already heard of the United Nations bull which was sold to an undeveloped country here in Africa. When it arrived the bull did not do its duty at all; it neglected its duty shamefully. United Nations officials then went and spoke to the bull and said: “Look, you are letting the United Nations down terribly by not doing your duty here”. He then said to them: “But who are you to talk; I am only here as an adviser, just as you are”. That would have been a far better story.

But I want to come back and see whether we cannot get away from the “cock and bull” atmosphere, and whether we cannot do something more constructive. This debate hitherto has cast more obscurity than ever before over the principle of apartheid. I heard the best exposition of apartheid when I came to Parliament at the beginning of 1958. Then the hon. the Minister of Finance justified apartheid by saying: Economic integration leads to political integration and political integration leads to social integration. That was the basic principle, as I understood it at that time, and I assume that this is still the basic principle of apartheid. If that is so and if there is any sense in apartheid, one should surely start with economic apartheid, and not at some other stage. It is economic apartheid which leads to all these other things, according to hon. members opposite. But what has actually happened in respect of this policy under this Government’s régime? Economic integration is continuing unabated—if the hon. the Minister does not believe me, I can just give him the figures to show how economic integration has proceeded from 1951 to 1960 because in a city like Johannesburg for example the Native population has risen from 465,000 to 622,000, an increase of nearly 30 per cent: in a city like Cape Town from 50,000 to 65,000, once again an increase of just under 30 per cent; in Durban from 157,000 to 204,000; in a city like Pretoria it has increased by 66 per cent. That is what has happened. That is the actual position. On the one hand we have ever-increasing economic integration, but the whole policy of this Government boils down to political apartheid. They cannot achieve economic apartheid, and now they are starting at the next stage with political apartheid, because by their own logic they should have stated with economic apartheid. What do we now find? They have removed the Native representatives from this House. We find them on the point of giving independence to the Transkei. It is merely a question of time before all the other areas will apparently be given independence as well. The position is that the less Natives there are in the so-called Native homelands, the more political rights they are to be given there. That is what it amounts to. And what is the result? Because they have started at the wrong place, they have this fiasco. If I may put it in this way, the hon. the Minister has the bull to which he has referred by the tail instead of by the horns. He is starting at the wrong place. Look at the foolish results this policy will have, if one does not have economic apartheid and one starts with political apartheid! If an election should be held to-morrow in the Transkei and it should take place on the basis of the franchise for all male Bantu, we shall have the fantastic position that the major part of the election will have to take place in the so-called White Republic. Where have we ever found before in the world that a country holds its election in another country? That is what it amounts to. And if they go on and they create all the other independent states in South Africa, it will be a fantastic spectacle if they hold an election on one day. In the White Republic of South Africa we shall have more Black voters voting in South Africa than there are White voters. If we have a White election and a Black election on the same day, the Black election will be a much bigger affair than the White election. This policy has such ridiculous results and it shows how foolish it is to start with apartheid in the political sphere if one cannot achieve economic apartheid. I repeat that if apartheid is a serious alternative policy for the problems of our country, then the Government should start with economic apartheid. Then they should really follow a policy which will at least result in the foreseeable future in the majority of the Bantu living in the so-called homelands. Otherwise the whole thing becomes a farce, for the reasons I have already given. Does the hon. the Minister realize what the scope of the problem will be if he really starts making a serious attempt to send the Bantu back to their homelands? If I am to give the House an idea of the scope of the task entailed if the Government should honestly try to implement its policy, I can do no better than to ask once again: Why are the Bantu streaming into the White areas on the tremendous scale which we have found over the past 14 years in South Africa? The answer is quite simple. The answer is that our population in South Africa, if one includes all its peonies, is increasing at a rate of approximately 250,000 per year and of that number 150,000 are Natives. And where is all the investment taking place to provide this growing population with food, clothing and accommodation? Nearly all the investment is taking place in the so-called White areas. That investment totals R1,000,000,000 per annum. That is the tempo at which it is taking place. If hon. members opposite really want to get the Natives back to their so-called homelands, and as I have said only on that basis will their policy make any sense, then they should follow a policy which will ensure that a large proportion of the investment, a massive proportion, is moved from the White areas to the Bantu areas. That is the only possible way. Just to give the Minister an idea to what extent investment will have to be transferred, he can just look at the increase in the population. If 150,000 of the total increase of 250,000 per annum are Natives, it means that if the Minister from now on wishes to confine all the increase in the number of Natives to the so-called Bantu homelands, he should transfer at least half of all the investments to the Bantu homelands. What is the Government’s record in this regard? When one starts with such a policy, then the first authority who should start such investment is the Government itself. Because one cannot develop an area if the Government does not first create the essential public services by means of Government investment. What has been the record of the Government over the 14 years? [Time limit.]

*Mr. SMIT:

For the past two and a half days we have had the opportunity to compare the policies of the Government and the Opposition as far as the handling of our main problem at present is concerned, namely the problem of our Bantu. The Government is being accused of having deviated from the course which we have followed for all these years. No, Mr. Chairman, I do not think any case has been made out to substantiate that allegation. On the contrary, the National Party, the Government of the day, has proved that no matter what circumstances may arise, which it cannot foresee in advance, its policy is based on such foundations that it has been able to keep to its adopted course— despite circumstances which have perhaps in fact forced it to move more rapidly along this road—but it has been able to keep to its original course.

But there is after all another party in Parliament, namely the Opposition, and we must also see what it offers. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said at a meeting at De Aar a few days ago that the United Party had three objects. He said that the first long term object of the United Party was to create a feeling of security and safety amongst the Whites; the second was to give hope and the prospect of just treatment to the non-Whites and to restore confidence in the White man: the third was to gain the approval and support of responsible world opinion.

Let us start with point No. 1. How is the United Party giving the White man in South Africa who also feels or is starting to feelthe dangers which the White man is feeling elsewhere in Africa, a feeling of security? I want to say to-night that the United Party, forced by the circumstances prevailing in the present-day world, is propagating a reckless policy, which it wishes to persuade the voters is a conservative policy, but which in fact is most reckless and dangerous for the White man. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said at that same meeting at De Aar—

It is now the policy of the United Party that the Bantu should be represented in the Central Parliament by the Whites.

But listen to this—

But if the United Party wants to convince the Bantu with its racial federation plan …

and it is obvious that if he wishes to achieve success with the policy he is presenting to the country, he must convince the Bantu as far as his racial federation plan is concerned—

… after Dr. Verwoerd’s wild promises of self-government and independence, the United Party cannot permanently withhold representation of the Bantu by their own people in Parliament.

In other words, he is saying: I do not eventually want to let the Bantu be represented by their own people because I regard it as morally right, but because Dr. Verwoerd’s announcement of the independence of the Transkei has forced me to do so. This was his argument. I now want to ask the hon. members of the Opposition this: If this is what is driving the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to announce their policy of racial federation under which there will eventually be Bantu representing the Bantu in this Parliament, if this is being done as a result of the promises of the Government, what guarantee do we have that in a year or a few months they will not say: As a result of the wild promises of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and her comrades-in-arms who are no longer here, the United Party now sees that this plan which it envisages for the remote future, as he put it, will have to be implemented in the immediate future. There is another point. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in this House yesterday—

The Minister was prepared to be a member of a community in a Commonwealth in which the closest links would exist between the Prime Ministers of the Black states and those of the Republic. Once there were independent Bantu states, there would also have to be Black ambassadors in the Republic and White ambassadors in these Black states. If the Minister was prepared to meet them on that level, what objection could he have to them being represented by their own people in Parliament?

You see, once again the same type of argument. Although he says: “In the remote future,” and although some of his members say “I cannot see it happening”, he realizes that his policy must eventually result in Blacks representing Blacks in this Parliament. But now he wants to hide behind the Government and say: As a result of the Government’s policy of independent Bantu states, They will have to receive Black diplomats here, and what objection can there then be to Black members in Parliament? Mr. Chairman, I maintain there is a very big difference. I see nothing wrong with receiving Black diplomats to represent the Black states here. But it becomes a horse of quite a different colour if the Black man is to represent the Black man here in this Parliament, in view of the Black man’s numbers which will eventually be decisive. It is not because he is a Black man that we do not want him here, but because we realize that his numbers will result in the White man having to disappear from this Parliament in the long run under that policy of racial federation. I therefore say that this racial federation which the Leader of the Opposition is presenting to the outside world as a conservative plan, is in essence a most reckless plan, a plan which has the least possible chance of succeeding in giving the White voters of South Africa a feeling of safety and security.

But how will the United Party’s federal plan succeed in giving the non-Whites a feeling of confidence in the White man? I am confining myself to-night to the Bantu alone, because we are discussing the Bantu Affairs Vote to-night. This plan of theirs is saying to the Black man: Look, to those of you who live in the urban areas we are giving a measure of local self-government and representation in Parliament by a few White members on a separate roll. To those of you who live in the reserves we are giving a lesser degree of local government and you must know that you will have to be satisfied with an even smaller measure of representation in Parliament. Is the United Party going to succeed in gaining the confidence of the non-White with this type of nonsense? Are hon. members opposite unaware of the fact that throughout the world the demand is “one man one vote ”, and that one can only gain the confidence of the Black man if one gives in to that demand?

*Mr. J. A. L. BASSON:

But you are then giving it to them?

*Mr. SMIT:

We are giving it to them in their own areas, but hon. members opposite will have to give it to them on an equal basis here in the White man’s areas in order to satisfy them. In other words this long term object aimed at gaining the confidence of the non-Whites is also an object in which they will not succeed.

The final point is: That the approval and support of responsible world opinion must be gained. Mr. Chairman, will the hon. the Leader of the Opposition succeed in gaining the support of responsible world opinion by means of this racial federation plan which says to the non-Whites: “Stand back awhile and wait, we shall see when we shall be able to give it to you.” Will they gain the support of world opinion if they tell the Coloured: You who live here in the Cape and in Natal can come back onto the Common Roll, but you who live in the Transvaal and the Free State, must remain off that Roll?” I ask hon. members what is moral about such a policy? And how does the Leader of the Opposition think he is going to gain the confidence of the three groups?

*Mr. J. A. L. BASSON:

May I ask you a question? What morality is there in a policy which gives the Cape Coloureds representation in this Parliament …?

*Mr. SMIT:

Mr. Chairman, if I were to reply to that you would call me to order because we are discussing the Bantu Affairs Vote. But I therefore say that no matter how the members of the Opposition have tried to make out a case to the effect that the policy of this Government is dangerous and that their policy is a conservative policy, the policy of racial federation in essence is an extremely dangerous policy for the White man in South Africa.

Mr. TUCKER:

Mr. Chairman, this has been an interesting debate in which we have had exposed to us over these last two days the utter failure of the Government Party in respect of Native Affairs. Sir, nothing could show that more clearly than the speech of the hon. member who has just sat down, and innumerable other speeches of his fellow-members, who, knowing that this is a Budget debate where the Government must answer for its policy, have sought to confine the debate to the policy of the United Party. They have thereby exposed the fact that they have no confidence whatsoever in the policy of the Nationalist Party and that they are completely lost and have a case put against them which they cannot answer and which they seek to avoid. I regret to say that it is not only some of the less distinguished members of the Government party who take this attitude, but the hon. the Minister himself. Over the last several years, Sir, we have seen a change. In the first place when we said that inevitably the consequence of the policy of the Nationalist Party would be a series of independent states in South Africa—whether it was said in this House or whether it was said on the political platforms outside—we were described as “verdraaiers” and by all sorts of names. We were told that we were not telling the truth and that was not the policy of the Government. Dr. Malan himself gave the lead and other prominent members, like the late Mr. Havenga, also made it clear that they would have nothing of these policies. But the hon. the present Prime Minister has been one of those who has been completely consistent. At one time he was a voice crying in the wilderness but he has stood by his policy of separate states. Now during this debate and during the elections campaigns which have passed, member after member on the other side of the House has not been prepared on the political platforms of this country to stand up for what is the policy of the Prime Minister.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

I challenge you to mention one single member.

Mr. TUCKER:

Right I will give the hon. member one name. Even the hon. Minister to-day made it clear that this question of independence is something vague that you must not worry about—it might happen at some indeterminate time in the future.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Mr. TUCKER:

The hon. member should not say that I should be ashamed of myself. I would be ashamed to be a member of a party which is running away from the declared policy of its leader. Mr. Chairman, the policy of the Leader of the Nationalist Party, and he puts it clearly, is that he is prepared to face up to the fact that his policy means independence. The hon. member for Vereeniging even to-day told us in the end that it might lead to a series of independent states. But what has been the main theme in this debate is that the Government is not prepared to stand by that policy, but I want to say to the hon. the Minister that much worse than that, he has not been prepared before getting the money voted for his Vote, to take Parliament into his confidence as to what are in fact the intentions of this Government. I put it to the hon. the Minister and I put it very straightforwardly: The people of the Transvaal would like to know what are the policies of the Government in respect of Bantustans in the Transvaal. I mentioned, Sir, that we know where the main Native areas are but the hon. the Minister found it very difficult to answer my questions. I am sure that the hon. the Minister in his heart does agree with me when I say that the reply that he gave to me in respect of the questions which I put, is utterly unsatisfactory. If he were to attempt to put such a case before the courts it would be held to be void for vagueness. Sir, the people of the Transvaal are entitled to know, as are the people in the other parts of South Africa, what is actually the intention. Is it not time that we in South Africa can meet each other on the true facts of the situation and the true aims? And here I may say, Sir, that I am proud to be a member of the Opposition party, the next government of South Africa, because we have put perfectly clearly before this country what our policy is. Let me say at once that it is not free from difficulties. We know the difficulties of the South Africa scene. All the hon. members in this House know that we have not only an enormous responsibility, but we have an enormous challenge which lies ahead. Has the time not come that just as this side of the House has said quite straight forwardly exactly what its policy is, so that the people may judge …

HON. MEMBERS:

When?

Mr. TUCKER:

Sir, my honourable Leader in the debate yesterday and in his speech at De Aar, to which reference has been made, made it perfectly clear. I challenge the hon. the Minister to deny that he himself in his heart believes that the end result of the Government’s policy is a series of independent states. The Transkei is easy to deal with; great difficulties exist in Natal; there are very great difficulties in the Transvaal: tremendous difficulties in the Free State. The hon. the Minister cannot attempt for ever to shield behind the idea that the Government will settle the problem in what they refer to as “White South Africa”—that is the area outside the Reserves—and he and his party cannot for ever shield behind the idea that the Natives permanently in those European areas can vote in the territories from which those people came. I challenge the hon. the Minister in regard to the position in the Free State, the first country that I can remember. Even in those early days, and the hon. the Minister knows it, the persons there of Basuto stock did not regard themselves as part of Basutoland. They were permanently established in the White areas.

The MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

They paid their taxes in Basutoland.

Mr. TUCKER:

Some of them may have paid taxes there in terms of a proclamation of the British Government under the Basutoland constitution. Those who maintained roots in Basutoland in terms of the Act were registered there and voted there. Those who were not so registered, were not entitled to vote. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that according to my information and to my knowledge well over half of the people in the Free State who are known as Basutos have lost all links with Basutoland, and their permanent home is in the Orange Free State.

I come to the position in the Transvaal. Let the hon. the Minister come with me during the recess to the Native townships outside Johannesburg. The hon. the Minister will agree that many of the Natives who are there are detribalized—true some of them still have relatives in their original areas whom they remember, but many of them are of mixed stock; those persons will tell him that they have completely lost their tribal links with the various territories. They regard themselves as a permanent part of the population of the Republic of South Africa. Is it not time that the Government should drop the scales from its eyes and look the facts in the face? You know, Sir, I don’t believe that we will solve this problem until we do.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Hear, hear!

Mr. TUCKER:

I am glad to hear that. Then we will all admit that there is a very large proportion of the Native population which has lost all its tribal bonds, which is within White South Africa. I should imagine that it might easily be as high as 30 per cent of the total Native population—I place it low. So far as those persons are concerned, it is utter nonsense to compare them with the Italian workers who go to France. Although they work in France, they remain Italians and return home each year. The hon. the Minister knows that a very big proportion of Natives born within the boundaries of what the Government refers to as “White South Africa”. are mixed stock of one or two or three of the various Native tribes of South Africa and have never lived in the reserves. [Time limit.]

Mr. B. COETZEE:

I want to put a question to the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker). The hon. member has been talking about the Xhosa and those people inside the urban areas. Now I want to ask him whether he considers the Basutos in South Africa to be South African citizens.

Mr. TUCKER:

A large number of them are, under our own laws.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Is he going to give them in general the same rights as other Africans? I am now referring to the Basutos from Basutoland.

The hon. member went further and said that it has been denied by the hon. the Minister this afternoon that your Bantu homelands can develop into independent territories. That has not been denied by the hon. the Minister. What has been denied by the Minister are the absolutely ridiculous propositions put by the Opposition, like the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) who said that to-day we are on the eve of the independence of the Transkei, the complete independence.

An HON. MEMBER:

Are you not?

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Of course we are not. Whoever said that?

Mr. HUGHES:

The Prime Minister.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Whenever did the Prime Minister say that we are on the eve of independence? We are at the beginning of a process. [Laughter.] May I ask the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross), who is laughing, whether we are on the eve of the independence of Basutoland? That is the position we are confronted with that we get all these sorts of accusations. They imagine a lot of things, and then they come and attack the Government on that. What the hon. the Minister said this afternoon is this …

*Mr. ROSS:

What did the Prime Minister say?

Mr. B. COETZEE:

There is no difference between what the hon. the Minister said this afternoon and what the hon. the Prime Minister said before. They said that it would depend on what these people were capable of doing. There is nothing that will eventually stand in their way to gain complete independence. Does that mean that in a year, or within two years or three years or ten years or 50 years that will happen? It depends on their development.

*Mr. ROSS:

Will you tell us?

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Of course I can’t tell you, just as little as I can tell you when Basutoland will be independent.

*Dr. CRONJE:

In less than ten years?

Mr. B. COETZEE:

The position is simply this that we have to see from now onwards how they will develop, but they can develop to full independence. We will certainly not make the mistake that was made by Britain in thrusting independence on people. That mistake we will most certainly not make. Whether it is going to take them ten years or 20 years or 50 years, we will have to see how things develop. My prophecy is this, namely that we are not going to be pestered by demands for independence, just as England is not being pestered by demands for independence by Basutoland. Why should we be pestered by demands for independence by the Transkei? The only people who are pestering for independence are the agitators which are supported, protected and sympathized with by the Opposition. Those are the only people who are clamouring and pushing for independence. Who are there in the Transkei who want independence? Where are they? Matanzima does not want it; Sabata does not want it; nobody wants complete independence at the moment. The only people who want independence are those whose minds have been poisoned by Arendson and by the agitators from Natal and by Patrick Duncan and those people. They are the only people and they are the people who are being protected by that side of the House. Members on the other side have asked this side of the House many questions. Let us now ask them a few questions. In the first place, I should like to ask the hon. member for Germiston (District)

An HON. MEMBER:

You will get no answer.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

No, he will give an answer because he is a very courageous and honest member. I should like to ask him whether he admits that his leader, with reference to his party’s federal system, has said that only in the near future will the Bantu be represented by Europeans, but eventually they will be represented by Bantu.

Mr. TUCKER:

That is correct. We recognize that as an eventual possibility.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

If that is so and the Bantu is going to be represented by Bantu in this House eventually, I should like to ask him whether the Zulus could be represented in this House by Luthuli?

*Mr. TUCKER:

That is something for the Government of the time to decide.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

And yet we are required to-day to say when the Transkei is going to get full independence. If I answer that by saying that it is a matter for the Government of that time, will it not also be satisfactory? Why is it that the Opposition cannot be satisfied with that? But here is another important point. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), said that there was a large body of opinion in the United Party—I do not know how large this “body” is, but as far as I can understand from him, it is a “very large body of opinion”—who believed that the Bantu must be represented, under the United Party’s race federation plan, by Bantu in this Parliament from the beginning.

*Mr. TUCKER:

With the consent of the voters.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

If it is to be with the consent of the voters, will they have a referendum in order to decide that point? That is all very well and good, but I should like to ask a few questions about this referendum. Who will be the voters in this referendum? There will be a common voters’ roll for Whites and Coloureds, and a separate voters’ roll for the Indians. Is that correct?

Mr. TUCKER:

Yes.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

And a separate voters’ roll for the Bantu. When we had the referendum not so long ago about the creation of a Republic, they demanded that not only the Whites on the Common Roll should vote, but also that the Coloureds on the separate roll should vote. Now, I should like to know this, namely that when they have a referendum to decide on the extension of the political rights of the Bantu, who will be allowed to vote in that referendum? Only the Whites and the Coloureds on the Common Roll?

Brig. BRONKHORST:

Only the existing electorate.

Mr. B. COETZEE:

Why only the existing electorate? That referendum is not going to come to-morrow; it may only come in ten years’ time. Are they going to use this year’s voters roll for that? That referendum could only come in five or in ten years’ time and if they are then in power there will be four voters’ rolls, namely a Common Roll in respect of the Whites and the Coloureds, a separate roll for the Northern Coloureds, a separate roll for the Indians and a separate roll for the Bantu. But when there was the referendum for the Republic, the hon. member for Germiston (District) demanded that not only those on the Common Roll should vote, but also those Coloured people on the separate roll. Now, if they have this referendum to decide on the extension of the political rights of the Bantu, are they going to allow only those on the Common Roll for Whites and Coloureds to vote, or will they allow the Indians also to vote? And also the Bantu? [Time limit.]

*Dr. CRONJE:

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat always reminds me of the story of a Czech writer. He tried to point out how difficult it was for a stranger to be accepted in Britain. He pointed out that the difficulty encountered by a stranger in being accepted was that when he came there he spoke English too badly. Thereafter, however, he makes a thorough study of English until eventually he speaks English too well, and then the British still do not want to accept him. That is also the trouble with this hon. member. First he was not a good enough Nationalist, but now he is more national than the Nationalists. To-day he is more extreme than the greatest extremist here. It is for that reason that he is still further away from a Minister’s bench than he was a year ago. If I can give him any advice, it would be to be more moderate.

*HON. MEMBERS:

Answer his questions.

*Dr. CRONJE:

I just want to quote a few examples of what the hon. member has said. The policy which he himself favoured for years, viz. a separate voters’ roll for the Indians and a separate voters’ roll for the Bantu, he now suddenly finds ridiculous! He says historical processes are being set in motion here but that we will have to wait and see how fast that process develops. Does the hon. member really consider that the fate of the Transkei will in future rest in the hands of the Whites only? How can he then say that “we” must now wait and see, unless of course he includes Kaiser Matanzima. The fact is that the progress of the historical process no longer rests in the will of the Nationalist Party.

When my time lapsed just now, I was suggesting to the Minister that if he was really serious in regard to apartheid, he must first bring about economic apartheid: then he must first ensure that the overwhelming majority of the Bantu do not live in the White areas, but in their so-called “homelands”. I also told the Minister that the reason why the influx of the Bantu to the White areas still takes place on such a large scale, in spite of the so-called policy of apartheid, is because all capital investment takes place in the so-called White areas. There will therefore have to be a massive transfer of capital investment from the White area to the Bantu area. And the Government must in the first place initiate the transference of this capital investment. The Government must, in other words, provide the public services for any fast economic growth in the Bantu area. But what is the record of this Government in this regard over the past 14 years? If we take last year as an example, we see that the Government spent 12,000,000 on capital expenditure in the Bantu homelands, whilst the total capital expenditure in the Republic of South Africa was approximately R300,000,000—in other words, 4 per cent of the capital expenditure of the Government was in respect of the Bantu areas. The plan is to increase this amount this year to R25,000,000, or 8 per cent of the total capital expenditure. If we look at the services on which this amount will be spent, we see that the greater proportion of it goes to combat soil erosion—something to which we are not opposed, of course—to improve agricultural methods, etc.—in other words, not things which will increase the carrying capacity of those areas. What is the Minister’s plan for the next five years? It is to spend R114,000,000 in the Bantu homelands. During that period at least R1,500,000,000 will be spent in the White areas! Where does the Minister think the population will go then? With this unequal capital investment, will it flow from the White areas to the Bantu areas? No, because if the Minister wants to have that, the expenditure in the Bantu areas will have to be increased tremendously. Nor is it a matter only of investments made by the Government, unless of course this Government has a plan for converting the economy of the Bantu homelands into a communist or socialist economy. But if they want to create the ordinary capitalistic economy there, there must also be large-scale private capital investment in those areas. The only practical way of getting private investments there on a large scale is, as industrialists like Dr. Rupert see it, to allow the White capitalist to invest money there in partnership with the Bantu. Unless one blinds oneself with unpractical visions, every member of this House must surely realize that for generations to come the Bantu will not have the necessary capital formation to enable them to develop their own areas. The amount of money which they themselves can make available will amount only to a few million rand, perhaps. As against that, what amount is necessary to bring about even moderately fast development in the Bantu areas? The hon. the Minister can form a picture of the problem with which he is faced if he looks at the Digest of South African Affairs of April 1962. It refers to the investment of R3,000,000 in one year made by the capitalist in the border areas, and says further—

The assistance granted last year to seven industrialists to establish border industries involves a total investment of nearly R3,000,000 and the employment of 72 Whites and 1,239 Bantu.

In other words, an investment of R3,000,000 by the private investor provided work for just over 1,200 Bantu. The hon. the Minister can himself choose to what extent he wants to stop the flow, i.e. the flow from the Bantu areas to the White areas. If he wants to stop it completely, he will have to find work every year for an additional 75,000 Bantu, and calculated at the cost necessary to create one additional post to-day, it may be said that an expenditure of about R150,000,000 per annum will be required for that. But supposing the Minister does not want to go so far, but wants to provide work for about 20,000 Bantu, as recommended by the Tomlinson Commission —apart from the 300,000 for who work must be provided in the border areas—it would still mean that an investment of approximately R50,000,000 a year would have to be made. Has the Minister any plans to incur expenditure of this order within the foreseeable future? Where will he find it, if he is not going to allow private capital to be invested there? The hon. the Minister is honest and sincere, but I do not think he realizes how serious the economic problems are. Unfortunately there must be an economic foundation for all his visions. One may dream as much as one likes, but as the great economist Keynes stated, “economic realities break through all political fallacies”. That is basic. Economic realities eventually destroy all political misconceptions. And that is what will happen in regard to the Bantustans. The hon. the Minister will of course ask: “Yes, but what about the development of industries in the border industries?” The Minister himself said that the Bantu are a proud people. Does he therefore think that we can solve our problems by making the Bantu drawers of water and hewers of wood for the Whites in the border areas? Does he think we can solve it by providing for the Bantu to come and look for work with the Whites in the border areas, where they will still be subjected to all the discriminatory measures which will apply to the rest of the country? Does the Minister not realize that under those circumstances they will be just as dissatisfied in the border areas as they are to-day in the White cities? All that the development of the border areas will amount to is the shifting of economic integration of White and Black from the big White industrial centres to new centres. It offers no solution. If the Minister really intends it seriously, then he should submit a programme to the country of economic development. It is surely possible to indicate to what extent investment will be necessary to provide a certain amount of employment. He knows for how many Bantu he will have to find work in the Bantu areas if he wants to stop the inflow to the White areas. Therefore he must submit a programme to the Government, instead of the vaguenesses we have hitherto had, when he referred even to R600 which one Bantu took out of a tin and R300 which another Bantu had hidden in a blanket. As against that, the Minister must think in terms of hundreds of millions. If apartheid is to be implemented, it will require an economic revolution in South Africa. It will require something which we have never before seen in the past. It requires the transference of capital investment from the White areas to the Bantu areas. Until such time as the Minister comes to light with such a programme, we cannot take him seriously. If one looks at what was achieved during the past year as the result of apartheid, one sometimes wonders whether Macbeth did not have apartheid in mind when he said: “A tale told by an idiot—full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

*The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

I should have liked to deal with the argument of the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje), but I actually got up to deal with two allegations which have repeatedly been made here and to add further proof than has already been adduced, inter alia, by the Minister himself and by the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder), to prove how inaccurate those two accusations were. These two allegations are, namely, the allegations of the Opposition—and sometimes they even ridicule it—that total territorial apartheid was our policy but that we have now abandoned it, and the allegation that particularly before the election we did not want to admit that if it were to lead to complete independence for the Bantu, that should be allowed to happen. However, before I proceed to prove it, as hon. members opposite insisted, I first want to express my sympathy with the hon. member for North-East Rand. In 1958 he opposed me in an election: we both acted chivalrously towards one another, and both of us still remember amusing little anecdotes from those days. I want to sympathize with him because when a moment ago he made an interjection in regard to a question put by the hon. member for Vereeniging concerning the electorate which would be able to vote in the race federation plan of the United Party, he was told by his Whip to keep quiet.

*Brig. BRONKHORST:

That is not true.

*The DEPUTY MINISTER OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT:

The hon. member now finds himself in a hard school and he still has to learn when he can open his mouth and when not to do so. Therefore he has my sympathy. But let me now return to the two matters I have already referred to. Hon. members opposite ask where the so-called Sauer Report on apartheid is. Now I should like to quote from the Election Manifesto issued by the National Party in 1948. The following words appear in paragraph 2—

The complete report of the Commission on racial matters …

i.e., the Commission of which the present Minister of Lands was the Chairman—

… is in the hands of the leaders of the party.

Then a summary is given of it. And remember that this document, i.e. this Election Manifesto, is of more importance than the so-called Sauer Report. Let us now see what this document says in regard to the question as to whether total territorial apartheid was ever the policy of the National Party. I quote—

The policy of the country should be drafted on such lines that it will promote in a natural way the ideal of eventual total apartheid.

In the same connection I want to quote from a speech by the former Prime Minister, the late Adv. Strijdom. But note that we have never said that total territorial apartheid or segregation is the policy we immediately want to apply. In Col. 5612 of Hansard, 1956, the late Adv. Strijdom said the following—

As we have repeatedly stated in the past, that would be the ideal solution, namely total territorial segregation or separate areas, and therefore one cannot blame people who advocate it and strive to achieve it, even though one perhaps thinks that this is an ideal which cannot be fully realized and that for this reason it will not be a practical policy … For this reason, as we have repeatedly stated very clearly in the past, we cannot under present circumstances announce or apply a policy of total territorial apartheid. What we are doing in fact is, by means of our policy and by means of certain measures, to guide matters in such a direction and to lay such foundations that in future, if we so decide, it can be developed in such a way that Whites and non-Whites will be territorially separated and kept apart to such an extent that the Whites in their area, in regard to the number of Natives who may be sitting there, will not be in danger of being swamped by their numbers, but on the contrary will be able to maintain themselves and their domination.

This stated the position very clearly. But I want to read a third quotation, of what was said by the present Prime Minister a few days after he became Prime Minister. In Hansard of 15 September 1958, the following words of his are recorded—

The ideal of total apartheid gives one a direction. We have clearly stated—Dr. Malan said it, Adv. Strijdom said it, and I repeatedly said it and say so again now— that the policy of apartheid is steadily moving in the direction of continued and everincreasing separation. The ideal must be total separation in all spheres, but everybody realizes that this cannot be put into practice to-day; everybody realizes that one cannot achieve anything like this within a few years, or even for a long time to come, and that South Africa cannot in the near future attain such an ultimate goal, but everybody also realizes that if one has such an objective, which is held in view clearly, one can test one’s deeds to see whether one is leading the country further along that road …

Surely that is a very clear statement, and I therefore do not know why hon. members want to pretend that we ever said anything which is different from what is contained in these three quotations, namely that total territorial apartheid is an ideal and an object in the direction of which we move. Adv. Strijdom on another occasion put it this way, namely that if the voters in the future find that they can apply it in practice, then we should not put obstacles in the way to-day, as would be the case if the policy of the Opposition were to be applied.

The second point raised and which I want to deal with now is that of the complete independence of the Bantu areas of which we, according to the Opposition, become afraid every time. I again want to refer to the Election Manifesto of 1948 to prove our standpoint in this regard. On page 3 it says—

The Native reserves must become the true fatherland of the Native.

In regard to the system of Bantu self-government which will be introduced, this document says on page 4—

Under this system the Native will eventually find expression for his political aspirations in the reserves instead of having political rights in the White areas.

It is therefore quite clear what the object is— it can be complete independence. But let me quote from the Transvaler’s report of the party congress in 1957. The concluding words at that congress was spoken by the present Prime Minister, who was then still Minister of Native Affairs, and read as follows—

Therefore basically the position is that whilst the White man sees his homeland in the White area in which he, inter alia, wants to be the only land-owner and he alone wants to have political domination and determine how the economic and social life will be regulated so that his White heritage will not be threatened, in the same way the Bantu must be able to see his homeland, his fatherland, in his areas where he can strive to achieve the fulfilment of his aspirations and his political ambitions.

It is quite clear that none of us have ever evaded the question. On 16 October 1961, i.e. shortly before the last election, the Prime Minister in a brief election message said the following—

A White Parliament therefore at the same time means the establishment of similar separate institutions in the course of time for every racial group as and when they develop to that extent.

The position has been put very clearly, therefore. I should now like to know what hon. members are quarrelling about. [Time limit.]

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

I should like to have a few minutes for the purpose of replying to the hon. member for Vryheid (Mr. D. J. Potgieter) in regard to the quotations which he made from Hansard on many occasions and particularly in regard to the quotation he made this evening. I want to say at once that the hon. member quoted the interjection by the hon. member for Vereeniging, namely—

What we want to know is what your policy is …

as referring to the policy in regard to the Bantu. That is the context in which it was quoted by him this evening. He put the reply in my mouth as relating to our Native policy. But all that the hon. member quoted is this the interjection by the hon. member for Vereeniging already referred to and then my reply—

No, I refuse to put any millstone round my neck at this stage

From this the hon. member for Vryheid deduces that I refused to put a millstone round my neck in regard to our Native policy. But it is nothing of the kind! I should like the hon. member to give the full quotation. But let me quote from Hansard the part which the hon. member did not quote and I do this in the hope that this will be the last occasion on which we are going to hear of this particular matter. In Vol. 99, column 874 the following has been recorded as having been said by me—

This question has to-day, unfortunately, become pure politics, so when we are asked “what is our policy” let me be quite frank on this score. Who can tell what damage can be done to South Africa and what stage of deterioration in the relations between Black and White will have been reached by the time this hopeless experiment of the Prime Minister has failed because that is the time when we will be called in to put matters right. Mr. Speaker, no man can tell how far the damage will go.
Mr. B. Coetzee:

What we want to know is what is your policy.

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

No, I refuse to put any millstone round my neck at this stage.

The Government is in control and this is Government policy. I have said that it is a false façade we have built up for no other reason than to try and give a nice picture to people overseas … if this experiment fails I say without doubt that the Minister will put in another £500,000 or another £5,000,000 of public money which will go down the drain and I challenge him to deny it.

When I said this I was speaking during the Second Reading debate of the Bantu Development Corporation Bill and it was the policy in relation to that which was being discussed. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Vryheid cannot get away from that fact. Just before I read the title of that Bill, and that was the Bill I was speaking about when I referred to our policy. What the hon. member for Vryheid was, therefore, doing all along, Sir, was to give another interpretation deliberately of what had been said. I want to go further and say that the remark I made was reported in the Press as a remark relating to our Native policy and the Burger was the only newspaper who took the trouble of publishing a correction. And yet the hon. member for Vryheid comes along and quotes that question from the hon. member for Vereeniging and only one line of my reply over and over again. I hope we have had enough of it. He is as bad as the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Muller) who cannot be trusted even to quote honestly from a copy of Hansard.

*The MINISTER OF LANDS:

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. The hon. member for South-Coast said that the hon. member for Ceres could not be trusted to quote honestly from Hansard. I submit that is entirely irregular.

The CHAIRMAN:

The hon. member should withdraw that.

Mr. D. E. MITCHELL:

I withdraw that, Mr. Chairman.

*Dr. JURGENS:

I just want to come back for a moment to the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) with his cock-and-bull story. The jokes he told were very feeble ones. I want to say something about the cock in which the United Party puts its faith to assist them to regain domination of the manure heap. This cock is the race federation plan of the United Party. However, it is only a half-hatched egg, because the Leader of the Opposition himself admitted in his speech at De Aar that details of this plan still have to be worked out in consultation with the various population groups. I want to warn them not to put too much confidence in that cock, because the egg is rotten already. This federation plan is not the orderly advance which they favoured at all; it is more of a wild gallop towards complete integration. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must surely think that everybody in South Africa is a fool who cannot see through his vaguenesses and contradictory statements. We can also sit down and add two and two and judge, from the little they had to say, what will happen if this plan is applied. If we consider all these points in their plan, we see that this plan will lead to a multi-racial country. For example, they want to develop the reserves with the help of White capital, which would mean that there would be no area which would be just White or just Black, but everything would be multi-racial. Furthermore, they also want to repeal the Industrial Conciliation Act with reference to job reservation and trade unions. The workers will then all be treated on an equal basis and Coloureds, Indians and Bantu will be treated on an equal basis with the Whites. They also want multi-racial trade unions, with the result that these trade unions in the course of time will become increasingly dominated by the non-Whites. Let us see what he told the world in that same speech at De Aar in regard to politics. The pass laws and influx control will be applied particularly to provide work for work-seekers. Bantu women will be exempted and the system of exemption for men will be reintroduced. Then also the Suppression of Communism Act will be examined to ensure that the liberty of people will not be restricted without recourse to the courts. That makes the road towards political integration so much easier for them. It gives them the right to agitate as much as they like for the multiracial state which the Leader of the Opposition and his followers want to propagate. He is also going to repeal the Prohibition of Interdicts Act, because that is also unfair towards the Bantu. They must be given free rein to propagate Bantu domination and Communism as much as they like. Then the Whites and the Coloureds will again be put on to the same common voters’ roll in the Cape and in Natal. The Coloureds in the Free State and in the Transvaal will be placed on a separate voters’ roll in the beginning, and they will have the right to elect their own representatives. In all the provinces the Bantu will be represented by Whites in this House and in the Senate, but the urban Bantu will be represented in Parliament on a separate voters’ roll. They also say that the reserve Bantu will have to recognize the authority of the Central Parliament, in which they must definitely be represented. In other words, the Natives in the reserves, as well as the urban Bantu, will be represented there. He admits, because Dr. Verwoerd is supposed to have made promises of self-government to the Bantu, that they will also be compelled to give representation to the Bantu, but he adds that this is to prove to the Bantu that their federation plan is a fair and honest one. I do not know why he shelters behind the Prime Minister. Is he not man enough to say what his plan is? I shall be glad if he has the courage of his convictions and announces his policy and takes the blame himself for what he propounds. The Indians must also be recognized as a settled part of the population and they must also be given representation in Parliament on a separate voters’ roll. What the Opposition is propagating by means of their federation plan is nothing else but complete integration. But if we see how much further their integration still goes, if we look at the social sphere, they announce that the Coloureds must be recognized as forming part of the Western group and therefore they must sit in Parliament and must not be made subject to work reservation, nor must the Group Areas Act be applied to them. Residential segregation must be achieved in other ways. Is that not absolute integration? He pleads also for the repeal of the Group Areas Act and that the Bantu in the urban areas should enjoy property rights. In other words, the Bantu must be able to own property in the cities and the Group Areas Act should not be applied to the Coloureds and they can live where they like. Then he is also going to repeal the Separate Universities Act. In other words, they work together and live together and sit together in this Parliament and in the other councils, and he again wants to allow the children of those groups to attend the universities, and I am sure he will also allow them to attend the same schools as the Whites. In addition to all this social inter-mingling he propounds, he says further that he is prepared to repeal the Immorality Act also, and of course he will have to do so. [Interjections.] That stands here, and when the hon. member for Houghton proposed it, the United Party energetically supported her. [Time limit.]

*Mr. STREICHER:

The hon. member for Geduld (Dr. Jurgens) has again tried to distract attention from the policy of his party by making the statement that the policy of the United Party will lead to social integration, attending the same schools, etc. How many times must we on this side of the House still say that it is not the policy of this party to break down the social conventions and traditions of South Africa? But I should like to come back to the statement which has just been made by the hon. the Deputy Minister. He quoted from the policy they published in 1948, where it is stated that the policy of the country should be drafted in such a way that the ideal of eventual total apartheid will be promoted in a natural way. The United Party does not dispute that is the policy of the National Party. We have always pointed to it, but on every occasion we have been accused of not putting the correct policy of the National Party before the people, and last night I quoted the hon. Minister himself where he denied that it was the policy of the National Party to have independent states in South Africa. But the Deputy Minister has made a further admission. He said it was the policy of this Government and its ideal to have territorial apartheid. If one wants to achieve that, one must have apartheid in all spheres, and is it not the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) who again stated in this debate to-day that they denied nothing during the election except that it was not their policy to take the non-Whites out of the White economy? [Interjections.] The hon. member said so, but now the Deputy Minister himself says that it is their policy to continue to get territorial apartheid in South Africa. If one wants to have territorial apartheid in South Africa, one must also later have economic apartheid, and then we cannot keep the Native in our White economy. I want to ask the hon. member for Vereeniging or any other hon. member to tell me that it is not their policy to take the Native out of the White economy. Now they keep quiet. Of course that is the logical consequence of their policy, in the course of time to take the Native out of the White economy, and they will begin with the Western Cape. The hon. members for Parow and Moorreesburg and Malmesbury are the three people who want the Natives to be removed from the Western Cape. The hon. member for Parow said a few weeks ago that it should become an obsession with Nationalist to remove the Native from the Western Cape. The hon. member for Malmesbury said it would be a crime to establish new factories in the Western Cape, and where is the Western Cape? It is a line drawn west of Colesberg down past west of Humansdorp. Everything west of that line is the Western Cape. Is it their policy to remove the Natives from the Western Cape? Does the hon. the Minister agree with the hon. members for Moorreesburg and Parow? And if that is the policy for the Western Cape, what about the other areas in South Africa? Why should we be selected? Why should factories not be established in this part of the country? Why should the farmers here not be allowed to use Native labour, whilst in the other areas like Bloemfontein and Kimberley they can in fact make use of it?

*An HON. MEMBER:

But we have the Coloureds here.

*Mr. STREICHER:

But surely the hon. member knows that there are not enough Coloureds to do the work. He surely knows that an industrialist who wants to bring a Native into the Western Cape must obtain a permit, and if there is someone else who can do that work he cannot bring in that Native. This is what the hon. member for Moorreesburg said in an interview with the Cape Times—

I believe that the present policy of limiting the numbers of Bantu who come into the Western Cape must be changed in emphasis by beginning the process of returning the Bantu to their homelands. The ultimate goal must be the elimination of the Bantu from the Western Cape, and I regard this as practical politics and not something merely to be left to future generations.

The hon. member says it must be done now. If that is the policy they want, and it must apply also to the Orange River scheme, as was stated either by the hon. member for Malmesbury or the hon. member for Moorreesburg, that no Bantu should be allowed there, then surely it is the policy of this Government to restrict the economic development of this province in order to apply their policy. The hon. the Minister must realize that he cannot in regard to that policy apply it just to the Western Cape. In our agricultural economy there are 800,000 Natives who are economically active on our farms. There are almost 3,000,000 Native families on our farms throughout South Africa. In the Western Province there are approximately 100,000, who are economically active there. Is that the policy of this Government? That is the very reason why we have Natives here, because there are not enough Coloureds to do the work. And they cannot escape from the consequences of this, that the same policy as the one they were to apply to the Western Cape must also be applied to the rest of South Africa. [Interjections.] That will lead to a great disruption in the Western Cape, and the other areas will have to follow, and as soon as the Natives have all been accommodated in their own areas … [Interjections.] Port Elizabeth will not be affected by it for some time, because I said that the line runs west of Port Elizabeth, but the hon. member for Somerset East could easily be affected by it. As soon as these Natives are sent back to their own areas where in the course of time they will be given independence and self-government, the problems for this country will begin, and the greatest problem will arise because the Government wants to remove the stabilizing influence of the White men from those areas. As soon as we have that, the labour problems will begin. Have the Pondos not told us already that they want to share in the profits made by the mines? Has a resolution not been taken now by the Territorial Authority in Umtata asking the Government to do something so that the Natives working on the farms should be paid more? Does the Minister want to tell me that he wants to make the economic, industrial and agricultural development subject to the demands of a foreign nation? In the same way that they make demands in regard to the mines, they will also make them in regard to the factories.

*An HON. MEMBER:

Do you refuse to grant it?

*Mr. STREICHER:

The hon. member asks whether I refuse to grant it. I will not refuse to grant it as long as it promotes the development of South Africa, but I am not prepared to allow the workers of a foreign nation to dictate to us how we should regulate our economic life in this country. But the hon. the Minister has not yet given us a reply in regard to the borders of these areas. [Time limit.]

*Mr. LABUSCHAGNE:

I should like to put a few questions to the hon. the Minister before this debate comes to an end. The first point is this, that it was generally accepted that the number of morgen of land to be purchased in terms of the 1936 Act was situate in the released area. Some months ago it became clear that probably an additional number of morgen will have to be granted in the four provinces, and that caused quite a lot of consternation to organized agriculture and other affected people. We were under the impression that the settlement of 1936 provided the final limits as to what would be required to grant the Natives the 7,250,000 morgen which were promised to them. It has now become clear from a conference of agricultural unions, at which a member of the Native Affairs Commission was present, that probably another 900,000 morgen or more would be required, in addition to what was promised at the time, and that has caused quite a lot of concern, and therefore I should be glad if the Minister would explain the position. I myself am not sure whether it is not meant to be State land, like the land between Swaziland and Mozambique. But if we could get clarity on this point, it would be much appreciated throughout the country.

The second point I wish to raise is in regard to the conditions in the North-Western Cape, and it was clearly stated by the Minister and by the then Minister, the present Prime Minister, that there was a surplus of land available to the Bantu in those areas, whilst in other parts of the country there was a shortage. Now the position is that as the result of the survey made by the Department for their five-year plan, some concern has been caused because in those released areas, where the Government told the farmers that they should carry on their farming operations in the usual way in those released areas, where there is no shortage of land, and that they should carry on their farming as if there were still 20 or 30 years’ time before that land will be required, surveys are now being made which to a certain extent cause anxiety. I want to ask the Minister to explain his policy in that regard. I also want to direct a request to him. Whereas in Vryburg there are large areas of land which are already demarcated areas, but which are still uninhabited, mainly as the result of the shortage of drinking water, I want to ask the Minister whether he will not consider, instead of allowing that land to lie there idle, rather making it usable by means of a pipe-line from the strong water sources available in that area, like the one at Heuningvlei, thereby providing drinking water for these dry areas where the Minister cannot obtain water by sinking bore-holes, and that he will supply this water rather than take the land of those farmers who are farming and producing there to-day, and so increasing the existing great scarcity of land. There is a great lack of land to-day and the young farmers find it difficult to obtain land. I ask whether the Minister will not consider this, and whether it will not be more economical and more to the advantage of the country rather to develop and to make productive that land which is lying there unproductive to-day, than to purchase large areas of land from the farmers and to let large pieces of land lie there unused. I want to ask the Minister to discuss it in consultation with the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services and Water Affairs and to consider whether the time has not arrived to take the water from the Vaal-Hartz scheme which has already been brought to the town of Vryburg a little further down to the Molopo, where there is very little water. I humbly want to submit that it will be a great step forward if these two Ministers could co-operate in considering such a scheme. I just want to say that under present-day circumstances, this will not cost much if cement pipes are used, because from a certain point the water will flow through gravitation, and pumping will cost very little. I want to submit this to the Minister for his consideration, and I want to ask him also to give an explanation on the other point I raised so that these people will have more clarity and feel more satisfied. I also feel that he should perhaps amend his policy in regard to black spots and to extend it, so that whereas in the past it was determined by the district boundaries, it can now be done on a wider basis, because I feel that the clearing up of black spots is hampered to a large extent and rendered almost impossible because we insist on land being exchanged for other land in the same district, where sometimes land is not available, whereas it may be available in an adjoining district. [Time limit.]

Mrs. SUZMAN:

I was very interested to see hon. members going at each other about their politics, race federation on the one side and total apartheid or not total apartheid on the other, and I must say that I always get the feeling in this House that members completely insulate themselves from what is going on in the rest of the Continent of Africa. How anyone can imagine that a handful of White men sitting in this House can determine the fate of South Africa. I do not know. They must be dreaming. The whole of the Continent of Africa is changing rapidly, and as an African remarked to me recently, and not one of the agitators referred to by the Minister: “We Africans are not worried: time is on our side.” Hon. members would do well to remember that.

I want to raise a matter with the hon. the Minister, who enjoys himself on his little forages into the countryside and getting decorated with very fashionable leopard-furs, and I want to ask him if he realizes what is happening in the urban areas, in regard to the Africans in the urban areas who are also under his care. Sir, people in this House talk about “hul eie gebiede” and the United Party talks about “predominantly White areas”. I want to tell hon. members that there is no such thing in South Africa as a “predominantly White area” or “eie gebiede”, because if one looks at the Population Census of 1960, where the whole of the country was divided into 276 magisterial districts, there is not a single district in which the non-Whites do not out-number the Whites. The hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) tells us about industrial development and how Government policy has reduced the numbers of Bantu employed in the industrial areas. Well, the over-all employment figure, the percentage, might have been reduced, as appears from the figures he quoted, but if we have a close look at this census report we see that not a single metropolitan area which was surveyed has had its over-all number of Bantu reduced. There is one town which has the singular distinction of having a smaller Bantu population in 1960 than it had in 1951, and the hon. member for Brakpan can take credit for that. I will not give the reasons for it. but that is the only town in the Republic where it has happened. Not even in Cape Town, where there is a deliberate policy of getting people out of the urban areas, which has been carried on now for the last few years, has the Government succeeded in reducing the total number of Africans, and there has been a visible increase, even greater than the natural increase which is about 2 per cent per annum. I want to say that these figures must in any case be an under-estimate, because when an official census is taken it must be quite obvious to everybody that there are thousands of illegal residents in the towns who are not going to declare themselves on a census, so that we can be quite sure that these figures can be increased by a considerable amount. So this whole idea of predominantly White areas is a myth. It is a fallacy and a figment of the imagination of the Government.

What I really want to raise with the Minister is this question of the endorsing out from the urban areas. I do not know whether the Minister or his Deputy has ever visited the Bantu Commissioners’ courts in the urban areas. If they have not, I would advise them to do so, and perhaps they will be shocked at the way in which the influx control laws are administered. Every two minutes, on an average, somebody appears before the official to be endorsed out of the area, for being illegally in the area, and I have sat in these courts and witnessed it over and over again. No attempt is made to solve the problem. They simply stamp the man’s book “Endorsed out of the Area”, or they fine him R10, or send him to gaol for two weeks, but that does not solve the problem. What happens to all the thousands of people who are endorsed out of the areas? 26,000 of these people have been endorsed out of Cape Town, although it has not affected the overall increase in the Bantu population in the Cape. But 26,000 were endorsed out since 1959, according to the figures given to me in this House. What happens to those people? It is no good sending them out if they have nowhere to go, and thousands of them have no legal place to which they may go. They cannot go back to the reserves, because they have no sustenance there; it is impossible for them to live there. And it is an absurd situation to send them back, because many of these people left their homes 10 or 20 years ago and have nowhere to go to. There is case after case of people endorsed out who do not have the money to leave and do not know where to go to. I know the Minister’s officials deal as humanely as they can in many cases with these people, but the law is there and they are limited in what they are able to do. The Minister cannot simply say that they must go back to the reserves, and sending them to the White rural areas is no answer either. We are developing a problem of displaced persons in this country of the greatest magnitude. They are people who have nowhere to go. Take the case of Cradock. The hon. member who represents them should be paying more attention to the people in his constituency than to the animals there. There a big problem exists. Last winter an official visited the area at their specific request and found that they had nowhere to go. They are in the position of being perpetual, illegal squatters, who are given 24 hours to clear out of an outspan, but they have nowhere to go. The inhabitants of Cradock are in an acute position in regard to this. They have formed special committees and have appealed to the Minister, but nothing is done about the position of displaced persons in the rural areas. Sir, the Minister must tackle this problem of the displaced persons in the rural areas, because the farmers dismiss their labourers—and this has happened in the Fish River Valley—and endorsing people by the thousand out of the urban areas has not solved the problem. Something should be done about these people. Closing one’s eyes to the position does not solve the problem. I hope the Minister will devote attention to this matter now and do something about these displaced persons. [Time limit.]

*Mr. D. J. POTGIETER:

I just want to reply to the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell). He is still suffering from the same malady, of always forgetting what he said a year before. He accused me of having misquoted him, but the hon. member has forgotten that in that same speech he asked this House not to regard that relevant Act as standing by itself, but in conjunction with the whole policy of the National Party. In Col. 920 he said this—

I submit that this Bill cannot be regarded as standing by itself. It cannot be regarded in vacua. … This Bill must therefore be read in conjunction with the announced policy of the Government of dividing South Africa into various states.

He asked for it himself, but now he accuses me of having mis-quoted him. It is that policy in regard to which we asked him what it really meant, and then he said that he did not want a millstone around his neck.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

AYES—38: Basson. J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Cadman, R. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford. A.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Swart, H. G.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren. C. M.; Weiss, U. M.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and N. G. Eaton.

NOES—64: Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, H. T. van G.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labuschagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M.K.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, M. D. C. de W.; Niemand. F. J.,; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, D. J.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; van den Berg, G. P.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van Eeden. F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Niekerk, M. C.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Zyl. J. J. B.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vosloo, A. H.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: J. J. Fouché and P. S. van der Merwe.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Vote No. 26.—“Bantu Administration and Development”, as printed, put and agreed to.

It being 10.32 p.m. the Deputy Chairman stated, in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (4), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave asked to sit again.

The House adjourned at 10.34 p.m.

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