Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member for Durban Point lauded the United Party in his speech last night and told the House what a wonderful party the United Party is, there was a look of amazement on the faces of some of his colleagues; other colleagues of his looked at him very dubiously and hon. members on this side of the House, of course, completely disbelieved him. It reminds me, Sir, of a story I told my 10-year-old granddaughter. I told her the story of the princess and the golden ball. I told her that the princess was playing with the golden ball when it fell into a well and that she was very sad, but that a little frog jumped in and rescued the golden ball. She was so grateful that she allowed the little frog to remain in her room that night. When she awakened the next morning the frog had changed into a handsome prince. They were married and lived happily ever after. My little granddaughter looked at me very dubiously. I said to her, “Don’t you believe the story?”. She replied, “No, I don’t, and I bet the mother did not either.” As I say, Sir, we do not believe that story of the hon. member for Durban Point. What really brought me to my feet was the fact that the hon. member for Durban Point really excelled himself in vituperation. Contrary to what he usually does, he spoke about members on this side having reverted to primitive nationalism and having resorted to Boer and Afrikaner hate during the two by-election campaigns. He accused hon. members on this side of hate and intolerance. Mr. Speaker, I am going to deal with that, and I am going to do so by dealing with what I said in a speech at Brakpan on the 10th May. My remarks were distorted and twisted by the English-language newspapers, which attacked and vilified me, especially that muck-raker in South African journalism, The Sunday Times. As usual, the attack was under a pseudonym—the pseudonym of Hogarth de Hoogh. I do not know whether the hon. member for Kensington is responsible for that article. I do not think so, Sir, He still has a sense of decency and he knows that if he wants to attack his political opponents he can do it across the floor of the House. The editor of this newspaper, Sir, has the impudence to instruct the Leader of the Opposition as to what he should do in regard to his policy. He is much too big for his boots. He makes the most vicious attacks on people in public life. We need only recall the attack which he made on the hon. member for Orange Grove. I think it was a despicable attack, although I do not agree with that hon. gentleman’s political views. Then, Sir, there is also a vicious little twerp, who is the editor of an insignificant little newspaper in East London. His name is Donald Woods. I hope that he has a reporter in the gallery and that the latter will report what I say about this gentleman. Sir, this gentleman attacks and slanders his political opponents in a most scurrilous and malicious manner, but when he himself is attacked, in spite of haying the whole of the English Press at his disposal, he runs squealing to the courts for protection. Sir, these editors are quite safe in their offices with their doors closed. They dip their pens in vitriol and then slander their opponents, knowing full well that they will never be called upon to meet their opponents on a public platform face to face.

Fortunately, Sir, in regard to my speech at Brakpan, I kept my notes, and I think it is very essential that I should put the record straight. Heaven knows I am not a racialist, and I think hon. English-speaking members on that side of the House, who have known me for many years, can bear witness to that. As a matter of fact, national unity and co-operation between the two language groups have been a confession of faith as far as I am concerned, co-operation and national unity based on a common love of and loyalty to South Africa, whilst each group retains its identity and its pride in its language and culture. That has been my confession of faith throughout my political career. Sir, what I want to say here today I want to say in all sincerity, and I hope that hon. members on the other side of the House, especially the English-speaking members, will realize that what I say I mean honestly and sincerely. I said at Brakpan that the United Party and the English-language Press were conducting a scurrilous campaign of racialism, namely Boerehaat.

Nonsense!

That hon. member will have an opportunity of speaking in this debate. I said, Sir, that the same old tactics were being used at every election, namely to frighten the English-speakers with these terrible Afrikaner Nationalists and to stampede them into the United Party kraal. I have lots of cuttings here which I could quote to corroborate my statement that their tactics have been to frighten the English-speakers in South Africa with the terrible Afrikaner Nationalists, stampeding them into the United Party kraal.

Give us a few.

Mr. Speaker, need I remind the House of the attacks upon and the vilification and the ostracizing of English-speakers who became members of the National Party? I need only point to the late Mr. Trollip, my friend the Minister of Sport and Recreation, Harry Lewis, Senator Horwood and many others.

Wake up, Frankie.

Sir, that hon. member is really being very foolish. I think a member of his standing, a front-bencher, should know how to behave himself; he should make an effort to do so. [Interjection.] The hon. member can ask questions as soon as I have completed what I want to say I am always courteous enough to reply to any hon. member when he asks a question. I say that the usual tactics when an English-speaking person joins this party or supports the National Party openly, is that he is ostracized, he is attacked and vilified, and I pointed to the late Mr. Trollip and Mr. Waring and Senator Horwood and Mr. Lewis; and the Sunday Times, this very newspaper which I said was the muckraker of South African journalism, made a despicable innuendo when Senator Horwood was appointed a Senator, the Trollip/Horwood innuendo, as hon. members know. The tragedy is that the overwhelming majority of English-speaking people in South Africa do not read the Afrikaans newspapers. They never hear the other side, and they believe what they read in the English newspapers. When I spoke at Brakpan I dealt with and explained the origin of this “Boerehaat” campaign. I said that the Minister of Defence stated in a speech that there were certain elements in the United Party which hated the Afrikaner.

Nonsense!

I am saying what I said at Brakpan. Now, for heaven’s sake try and behave yourself!

Order!

I said that he had said that certain elements in the United Party hated the Afrikaner. This statement was fastened on to and distorted and both directly and by implication the English-speaking persons in South Africa were told that all the Nationalists accused all the English-speaking persons of hating the Afrikaners, which is quite untrue. The further episode in this drama was when my colleagues the Ministers of Bantu Administration and of Social Welfare spoke at Brakpan and pleaded for equality for the Afrikaans language.

Why?

Immediately they were accused of beating the tribal drum, and the most despicable cartoons were published in certain of the newspapers. I have one here, published in The Star of 27th April, depicting an atrocious Afrikaner Nationalist beating the tribal drum and on that drum the ox waggon is, of course, there, because it is the Afrikaner tribal drum, and he wears a top hat. They always associate the Nationalists and the Afrikaners with a top hat. They still remember the days of Paul Kruger.

That is Hoggenheimer.

That is Carel de Wet.

As I say, we were accused of beating the tribal drum. That is a caricature of the Afrikaner. Sir, it is really unbelievable that 60 years after Union we should still have to demand equality for the Afrikaans language, but when we do that we are accused of beating the tribal drum. Sir, we have never asked for the superiority of Afrikaans; we have only asked for equality. We have never taken exception to the English-speaking persons in this country when they demand equality for English. I say unequivocally that Afrikaans is not receiving equal treatment in South Africa. [Interjections.] Sir, there was a book published less than two years ago by a very well-known South African, not a supporter of the Nationalist Party or a member of this party. I want to make some quotations from what he said. He said—

He said further—

He said further—

He also said—

and this is less than two years ago—

He said—

A moment ago I referred to Senator Horwood and Mr. Waring. This is what he says—

The writer of this book, Mr. Speaker, is the political correspondent of the Sunday Times, Mr. J. H. Serfontein. [Interjections.] I hold no brief for Serfontein, but I say to those hon. gentlemen over there with a silly expression on their faces and their idiotic laughter that Serfontein is their supporter. [interjections.]

Order!

You just said it was a muckraker.

The Sunday Times is a muckraker. I am speaking now about Serfontein, who wrote this book and who is responsible for that. If hon. members can deny what Serfontein said, they are at liberty to do so. Why laugh and make themselves foolish? Why all this idiotic laughter? Get up and reply and repudiate Serfontein. I can quote many other instances too.

Do so.

I am going to. Who is that silly … I am sorry, Mr. Speaker.

Order!

Only a short while ago, on 22nd May, a report appeared in The Star of Johannesburg. It was a letter from the secretary of the Federale Raad van Skakelkomitees in Johannesburg, Mr. M. J. Kruger, under the heading “Equal Treatment for both Official Languages”. He invited the financial director of this particular firm, Mr. Pieter Soal, to contact the F.R.S. about a complaint he had received regarding the firm’s telephonist. He did not know it was a British immigrant. Apparently it was. I quote—

And this is what Mr. Soal said to the newspaper—

Apparently Soal can understand Afrikaans very well indeed—

What do hon. members say about this? Is this full equality? Is this the respect that should be shown to my language? [Interjections.]

I should like to put a question to the hon. the Minister. Can he tell us since when the official minutes and the official documents of the Pretoria City Council have been made available in both languages? [Interjections.]

It is a ridiculous question to expect me to institute an investigation in regard to the minutes of the Pretoria City Council

What about Natal? [Interjections.]

In the course of my speech in Brakpan I said … [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is the hon. the Minister of Community Development allowed to say to me that I am lying?

You said I was lying.

Order! The hon. the Minister of Transport may proceed. If hon. members exchange words across the floor of this House, it has nothing to do with me. I cannot control everything.

Mr. Speaker, if we demand …

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, has it not occurred before that when a member shouted unparliamentary remarks across the floor, he was called upon to withdraw?

It is becoming quite impossible for the Chair to control everything that is being said across the floor of the House. It is quite impossible.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the hon. Minister of Community Development clearly said “you are lying”. He said it across the floor of this House. [Interjections.]

Order, was it something that was connected with what was happening in this House?

Yes.

He said it a moment ago.

What was it about?

Mr. Speaker, it was about the official language in which the minutes of the Pretoria City Council appear …

Order! How can I control that? The hon. the Minister should rather withdraw those words.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order …

He said exactly the same to me.

Order!

Withdraw, you gentlemen are wasting my time.

Order!

Very well, I withdraw.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order …

But he has withdrawn it, man!

… must we accept now that it is permissible? [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, must we accept now that it is permissible for us to shout at one another across the floor of this House …

Order! It is not at all permissible to speak to one another across the floor of this House, except when it is done through the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I repeat that when we demand equality for our language and when we demand that both official languages will be treated on the basis of equality, and when we demand that South Africans should be bilingual, we are accused of beating the tribal drum and accused of conducting a campaign of “Boerehaat”. In my speech at Brakpan I said that the real racialists and Afrikaner-haters were to be found in the editorial offices of most of the English-language newspapers.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. Minister a question? I want to … [Interjections.]

Order!

Will the hon. member please sit down? It will only be stupid questions that he will ask in any case.

You are afraid.

I am going to make another quotation. This time I do not think that the hon. gentleman will laugh. Morris Broughton was a distinguished editor of The Argus for 11 years. I met Morris Broughton in the thirties at the home of a very personal friend of mine, Col. Jack Blaney, who became a Senator. I have known Morris Broughton for many years. He has never been a Nationalist and he has never supported my party. After he retired as editor of The Argus he wrote the book “Press and Politics of South Africa”. I am only going to make two or three quotations from what he has said in this book. If there is one man that knows what goes on in the editorial offices of the English-language newspapers, it must be Morris Broughton. He was the editor for 11 years, and I do not think that hon. members are going to laugh at him or are going to make disparaging remarks about him. He wrote—

He said further—

These are the English-speaking people—

He further says—

This at least can be accepted. During my speech at Brakpan I also reiterated what the Prime Minister said, namely that our policy had always been, under all former Prime Ministers, a policy of co-operation and national unit. The Prime Minister also said in a speech during this session of Parliament that even if not one English-speaking person voted for the National Party, that would still be our policy. What can be clearer than that? When we talk about national unity, it is not the type of national unity to be found in the United Party. In the United Party we have a bloc of English speakers with a few detribalized Afrikaners. [Interjections.] That is their brand of national unity. I repeat: It is a bloc of English speakers with a number of detribalized Afrikaners. [Interjections].

Order!

Mr. Speaker, Serfontein, who should know those gentlemen, says—

[Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, our policy, as reiterated by the hon. the Prime Minister this session, is a policy of co-operation and national unity, full equality and mutual respect for both languages and based on a common love and loyalty to South Africa, each retaining its identity. This is absolutely essential if we want to co-operate. Surely we must be given credit for being sincere; surely it must be accepted that we who love this land of ours above all others, believe that our survival depends upon this co-operation, that English-speaking persons and Afrikaners must …

Why do you not tell P. W. Botha? [Interjections.]

You have as little intelligence as an ostrich.

Order!

You have the mind of an ostrich.

Order!

It is more than you have.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, if this edifying spectacle has now ceased, I will continue with my speech. I say that it must surely be accepted that we who love this land above all others, believe that our survival depends upon this co-operation between the two language groups, that English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking must face the future standing shoulder to shoulder. Surely, we know, and we have known it all the years, that division and strife between and Afrikaans- speakers will be suicidal. We have no intention or desire to commit suicide. Mr. Speaker, I know those hon. gentlemen will not accept it; they are so prejudiced; they are so filled with detestation and hate against members on this side of the House that they will accept nothing.

[Inaudible.]

Order!

I cannot hear. If the hon. member makes a sensible interjection that I can hear, I will reply to him. What did he say?

Your party has not got half and half.

Half and half? No, we have 100 and 100, my boy. We do not believe in fifty-fifty; we believe in hundred-hundred. Everything we give you people, we want for ourselves. We do not demand anything which we are not prepared to give to the English-speaking South Africans. That is our policy; that has always been our policy. We have shown it time and again during the 24 years that we have been in power. I control the biggest organization in South Africa. It has 225 000 workers. Has any member here ever brought any evidence that I discriminated against an English-speaking employee? Of course they cannot do it. They will immediately run to a member like the hon. member for Durban Point and complain to him if I should do it. I challenge that hon. member, who has continual contact with railwaymen. and also that hon. member sitting at the back, to find out whether any English-speaking servant has ever been discriminated against.

What about Marshall Clark?

Marshall Clark was discriminated against not because he was English-speaking, but for various other reasons, amongst others because he was appointed above the heads of other competent officials for political reasons. That is why we discriminated against him.

In conclusion I can only plead that we must stand together, and now I am quite sincere. Let us stand together, not necessarily in the same political party …

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? What about an hon. member on that side telling us that Afrikaans-speaking members on this side are renegades?

I am not saying that the two political parties should stand together. Can the hon. member not understand that? I am talking about the two language groups and say that we must stand together, not necessarily in a political party. That is what I am saying. It is absolutely essential that we show a united front to a very antagonistic world.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister, who has just resumed his seat, has tremendous status in this House owing to his seniority, owing to his long years of service and also owing to the fact that he is probably the oldest Cabinet Minister and the only remaining member of the Nationalist Party Cabinet of 1948. We on this side, and I want to say this to the Minister this afternoon, have always had respect for him owing to the fact that he has this seniority and also owing to his political experience. However, this hon. gentleman rose to his feet this afternoon, and what did he try to do? He tried to justify a speech he had made at Brakpan, on which occasion he had said, and he repeated this this afternoon, that it is in fact the United Party which began with this Boer hate campaign in South Africa, that that was what we stood for because we supposedly do not want to accord complete equality to both languages in South Africa. All that the hon. gentleman then said was that they demand bilingualism in South Africa. He said that they demand this because their language, the majority language on that side of the House, is supposedly not coming into its own. But what makes the hon. gentleman think that we on this side, since there are Afrikaans and English-speaking persons here, and since the minority group in South Africa, the English-speaking persons, comprise 40 per cent of the population, can discriminate against 60 per cent of the population speaking the other language? Is it possible that an hon. gentleman can advance an argument like that in the year 1972? He also asked what the condition of Afrikaans would have been if the United Party had still been in power, that is, since 1948. I want to tell the hon. gentleman that if the United Party had been in power these past 24 years, Afrikaans would have come into its own to exactly the same extent as it has done in South Africa today. This is so because the United Party does not protect only one language in South Africa, but because we are prepared to protect both languages in South Africa. As long as there are representatives of both language groups in the United Party the guarantee will remain that both languages in South Africa will come into their own. Both will be protected to an equal extent.

What school are your children attending?

Oh please, Sir, there you have that simple question again: “What school are your children attending?” I could probably put the same question to the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, just as one could have put this question to people like Dr. Abram Jonker, who was a supporter of that party, and to a man like Dr. Eric Louw. Those people did precisely the same as many Afrikaans-speaking people are still doing today, people who are supporters of that party, who send their children to English-language school after the primary stage in order to make them properly bilingual. I take my hat off to such Nationalists. That is the reason.

But the hon. the Minister tried to imply here that we started this Boer hate story and secondly, that it involves only the question of bilingualism. But I can understand the uneasiness of the hon. the Minister of Transport. What he was actually doing here was to make a covert defence of the hon. the Minister of Defence. That hon. gentleman, whose speech I have here, did not say a single word about bilingualism in his speech at Ceres, according to Die Burger of 20th March. What did he say on that occasion? This (translation)—

Not only hate, but “hate and despise”. In this whole speech of his not a single mention was made of bilingualism. Subsequently of course, because he realized that he had made a mistake, he ostensibly returned to the idea that this was all as a result of the bilingualism issue. For, Sir, this party has after all been in power for 24 years now in South Africa. If Afrikaans, and bilingualism, have not come into their own, is the Opposition to blame for this? Are not those people who in their education policy want to separate children and prevent them from becoming bilingual in South Africa to blame for this? If there are people who discriminate against the Afrikaans language, was it not the duty of this Government to point this out repeatedly? But was it not their previous leader who told us that with the establishment of a Republic there would be unity between Afrikaans- and English-speaking persons? Let me say today, and admit, that South Africa has made great progress in that direction. But that was only until Oudtshoorn, until the H.N.P. came forward with their propaganda. After all, they are the old pre-1948 model National Party. Because they had been forced back to that position the hon. gentleman came up with this idea of theirs that there was so-called hatred on the part of the United Party for the Afrikaner. That was the aim. The aim was that they had to outdo the Hertzogites. They had to show that they were the old Nationalists. They had to show that they had never departed from the course of the Afrikaner. That is the reason they started this propaganda. It is so transparent that any child can see through it. That is why they did it, so that they could come and tell us that it was all the fault of the United Party. I want to refer the hon. the Minister of Transport to his Brakpan speech. After he had made it. a report on it appeared in Die Transvaler the next day. After all, it was he who asked the H.N.P. to return to his party. Was it not the hon. the Minister of Defence who had gone to Oudtshoorn to make his speech a few nights before? Then Die Burger’s headlines were: “Mr. Botha says: Take one another’s hand.“ This speech received a good recommendation from ex-Senator Smit. who thereupon wrote a letter to Die Burger and said to the H.N.P.: “This is what we should do, as Minister P. W. Botha has said to us— extend to each other the hand of friendship”. This was the reason for the so-called Boer hate story which the National Party started. Sir, they were prepared, for the sake of a few votes, to mar relations between Afrikaans and English-speaking persons in this country. Let me tell them this: No one in this country will believe them any more when they speak of national unity in this country, because they have chosen one road, and they have chosen it quite clearly. It was very clear that that side of the House was in favour of Afrikaner sectionalism in this country, and nothing else. It means absolutely nothing to the hon. the Minister of Transport to rise to his feet here and say: “Let us stand together.” That is what he says, while he himself sides with those people who want to preach and promote only sectionalism among a certain group in this country. Let me tell him that he finds himself in a further dilemma: No one will believe him when he speaks of national unity; if he does not continue with this Boer hate story then the Nationalist Party will find that the H.N.P. will once again find new life in this country. That is their dilemma. Because they chose to be on the side of Afrikaner sectionalism they have done South Africa the greatest harm as far as the future is concerned. That there should be a feeling of resentment and regret and disappointment among English-speaking persons in this country I do not take at all amiss of these people, for these were people who were prepared to stand by the Afrikaans-speaking people in times of difficulty. These were the people who were prepared, together with the Afrikaner, to build South Africa, and that there should be that feeling among them today is the fault of those hon. gentlemen on that side. They will have to do everything in their power to restore this damage which they have done. Their Press are now, when it is too late, saying to South Africa: “You must please abandon this word ‘hatred’.” But, Sir, when the hatred story was at its worst, their entire Press, Die Volksblad, Die Burger, Die Transvaler and also Die Vaderland did everything in its power to boost this matter, namely that there was so-called hatred for the Afrikaner in South Africa. I repeat: Nobody will believe them in that respect.

The hon. the Minister said: “Look at the English-speaking persons on my side. Every time an English-speaking person joins us, the United Party has reviled and mocked them.” Sir, What is this now? To what extent are the Afrikaners on this side of the House not mocked? Sir, we do not mind; it does not make any difference to us how much they mock us.

Detribalized Afrikaners.

Yes, they talk about detribalized Afrikaners. He repeated this, and he was not only being scornful; he was being disparaging. But the hon. gentleman need not listen to me in this respect. Surely it is not necessary for him to listen to the English-speaking persons on this side when they mock the hon. the Minister of Sport. What did a man like Ivor Benson tell them? What did Blythe Thompson tell them? After all, those people were inside the Nationalist Party.

And Harry Lewis?

Yes, how did they feel? Did those people not tell the Government and the Nationalist Party that they did not feel at home in the Nationalist Party? But, Sir, see whether there are any Afrikaans-speaking persons on this side of the House who do not feel at home here. I shall tell hon. members why we are at home here. Because on this side of the House it makes no difference to us whether a person speaks Afrikaans or English. [Interjections.]

Because he is abandoning his Afrikanership.

Now the hon. gentleman is saying: “Because he is abandoning his Afrikanership.” Listen now, Sir, to this absurd argument. When any Afrikaner on this side uses his language when and where he wishes, it is said by that side that they are abandoning their Afrikanership—and that because they are doing it in this party. What nonsense it is not to say that one is abandoning one’s Afrikaans language and culture if one belongs to a political party which above all else stands for the creation of bilingualism in South Africa? I want to ask that hon. Minister, who once said …

May I ask a question?

No. That hon. gentleman once said that all Afrikaners are good South Africans, but not necessarily all English-speaking persons. Let me say something to those hon. members today, and I am not trying to teach them a lesson, Sir, That is the last thing I want to do. But let me say this to them: Those hon. gentlemen do not know the English-speaking people of South Africa. I have tried to explain matters, I do not know how many times—when talking to individual Nationalists and they had told me the same old story—that as far as most English-speaking persons in South Africa are concerned, the only difference between them and us was the language, and nothing else. In other words, Sir, there is precisely the same feeling of South Africanism; there is the same spirit of dedication to South Africa; there is the same spirit of tolerance that one finds among Afrikaans-speaking persons in this country. After all, those hon. members cannot have more experience of English-speaking persons than the Afrikaans-speaking persons on this side of the House. Sir, I know why they do it. You see, Sir, they are to a certain degree practical politicians; they know that 60 per cent of the population is Afrikaans-speaking, and all one has to do is this: Simply identify yourself with the Afrikaner, with his language and with his culture, and you will stay in power for all time. It is not in the interests of South Africa that they do this. No, they think in terms of how many seats they have. They are only concerned about how long they are going to remain sitting on the green cushions. The other reason for their starting this Boer hate story is because the people of South Africa are beginning to become more and more critical, and because the people of South Africa are becoming more sophisticated in their political views. It is because they did not take into account the fact that the people are becoming more critical and that the views of the people, particularly those of the Afrikaner, have changed completely, that they had to find a new emotional flame to keep burning within the National Party and so keep them in power. Sir, this story of the so-called hatred in the United Party was thrown up as a smokescreen, because they do not want people to discuss matters like the Agliotti incident; they do not want people to talk about the Minister of Transport, whose Railways showed a deficit of almost R40 million this year, and which in the new financial year will show another deficit of R40 million. Sir, they do not want us to discuss the lack of competence of this Government when it comes to agriculture. They do not want us to talk about the failure of their apartheid policy. They do not want us to talk about the fact that instead of having fewer Black people in our cities, we today find that there are more and more Black people in our White areas. They do not want us and the people to talk about the demands which are being made by the Black leaders, which they themselves created in South Africa. They do not want us to talk about the economic situation. They do not want us to talk about the fact that we have a Government in power which is taxing the public so heavily. They do not want us to talk about matters such as company tax which they have increased by 1 per cent per annum. No, these things they want to keep back from the people of South Africa. They do not want us to look at their record as a Government. That is why they had to say to the people of South Africa: “Look, there are a tremendous number of things which you can blame us for; we make many mistakes; there is the Agliotti scandal, etc., but, look out, if the United Party comes into power, your language and your culture are in danger.” Sir, this is simply the way it is, but what they do not take into account is the fact that the people will keep on being critical and that the views of the Afrikaner will change more and more. We on this side of the House know that it is merely a question of time, and then the people of South Africa will reject them and their ruinous policy and give their support to a political party which will in the first place bring true national unity to South Africa and which will govern the country with efficiency and competence; for that is the test which the people of South Africa put a Government to under modern circumstances. If hon. members on that side do not give attention to these two points, then all these Boer hate stories, which are built on figments of the imagination, will be rejected by the people of South Africa, and the voters of South Africa will vote for the United Party to an ever-increasing extent, just as they did in Brakpan.

Sir, I should like to raise a few other matters here, for I think that the people outside will deal with the hon. the Minister of Defence and others on that side concerning this question of Boer hate. I therefore want to confine myself to certain practical problems which in my opinion deserve the attention of this House. I want to concern myself with what the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and his Deputy have recently been doing with our farmers. I want to say at once that we on this side of the House have never viewed agriculture in isolation from any other industrial sectors. We have always realized that when sacrifices were called for and had to be made by the entire nation of South Africa, then the agricultural industry was never unwilling to do its share. But I must emphasize today that in the economic circumstances in which we find ourselves today, it is necessary, if we want to improve our balance of trade and keep it sound, to consider this agricultural industry of ours. With devaluation it was expected that we would be able to give agricultural exports a great boost. It is also a fact that South Africa internally is completely self-sufficient when it comes to its agricultural requirements, but when that situation is prevailing, we must see where the consumption of agricultural produce can be encouraged even further internally, or where it can be changed, so that we can render a far better service to South Africa by means of agricultural exports. If surpluses have developed and competition in a difficult world market is inevitable, those products can be converted into something else, which could either be used here profitably, or in turn exported profitably. If the possibility of surpluses exists—and it seems as if we may once again be entering such an era—in what capacity are we going to take the agriculturalists in South Africa into our confidence to prevent them from making fools of themselves in future?

I want to take the wheat industry in particular as an example. For years the prices of winter grain have been announced early, even before the season began, but this year the hon. the Minister of Agriculture saw fit not to do so. I want to ask the hon. the Minister: Is this going to be the procedure now, in the case of winder grain, to announce prices at the end of the season, when it has to be harvested, or is he going to announce the prices when the grain is planted? And when this happens at the end of the season, after the farmers have already incurred fantastic expenses, and perhaps expect a good or average crop, will the price of the product then be reduced? I think the Government must be warned, and also the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, that the financial position of the average farmer is so sensitive that it is not possible to gamble with it further. The same unenviable position in which the maize farmer finds himself today …

May I ask a question? If we export a bag of wheat at a loss of R4 per bag, what price should we announce now?

The hon. the Deputy Minister is asking as if I should know what the price of wheat should be under the circumstances. The hon. gentleman knows what the price is that he paid the previous season. Why is he not prepared to guarantee that price to the wheat farmer? That is all they want. But the hon. member must listen to my argument.

You do not have one.

The same unenviable position in which the maize farmer finds himself, is now staring the winter grain farmer in the face as well. This means once again that the more efficient one becomes, the more one is penalized, and when the farmer finds himself in financial straits, he is labelled as being inefficient and uneconomic. The same as the hon. the Minister is doing to the maize farmer. Because there is a surplus now, he wants to do the same to the wheat farmer, the winter grain farmer of South Africa. He already has this difficulty among the maize farmers who feel that they are being financially penalised. And now that hon. gentleman wants to do the same to the wheat farmers of South Africa. When interest rates remain high and profit margins are shrinking, it is alleged that the farmer must improve his managerial ability and lower his standard of living. The Government is not able to break the vicious circle in which most farmers find themselves. If you cannot get enough out of your farming enterprise you have to increase the size of your unit. When this is done with borrowed capital, and the farmer finds himself in a fix, it is alleged on the other hand that too much has been paid for the land, and that the net ratio as compared with capital assets of the farmers is too high. These are the replies those hon. gentlemen usually give us. Under this Government the farmer of South Africa simply cannot win. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity of entering the debate at this stage.

Discuss agriculture.

I do not want to discuss agriculture. What I do in fact want to discuss is the Boer hate, about which the hon. member who has just resumed his seat had so much to say. If one has suffered a very heavy defeat, one does not like being reminded of such a defeat. The hon. Opposition came to Oudtshoorn with great enthusiasm. They thought that after Brakpan they could come to Oudtshoorn and that they would conquer and overcome Oudtshoorn as well. However, the result is well known and it tells us that the stories with which they came to Oudtshoorn did not work out and did not produce the results for them which they expected. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat will still remember very well how tremendously enthusiastic they were, for they even had three candidates in the field. They even needed quite a few days to decide who their candidate in Oudtshoorn would be.

But I think that we should get our facts straight in regard to this matter. The hon. member for Newton Park said that we are protecting the hon. the Minister of Defence. I want to tell that hon. member that the hon. the Minister of Defence needs no protection. He is quite capable of holding his own. If we marshall our facts correctly, we shall see that the hon. the Minister made that so-called Boer hate speech in this House on 12th April, which was a Wednesday. On Thursday evening, 13th April, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, had an opportunity of stating his case before a large meeting in Oudtshoorn, as he was also able to do here this afternoon. He had a tremendous turnout. At the end of the meeting, when an opportunity was given for a motion of confidence, that member received a tremendous motion of no confidence. I want to tell him that in that audience there were not only Nationalists or Afrikaans-speaking persons. There were also English-speaking persons who voted for the motion of no confidence. I want to go further, and we must get our facts straight. Consequently I want to reply this afternoon on behalf of the voters of Oudtshoorn. On Monday evening, 7th April, the hon. the Minister of Defence addressed a very large meeting at Oudtshoorn. There he stated the policy of the National Party very clearly. At that meeting there was not only one or two English-speaking persons, but many. I saw with my own two eyes how they cheered when that hon. Minister spoke. At the end of that meeting we were given a tremendous motion of confidence. On 19th April we went to the polls, and we know what the result was.

What is your message?

I shall tell that hon. member what my message is. They referred to the people of Oudtshoorn as people from the “deep platteland”. On behalf of Oudtshoorn and its people, Afrikaans- and English-speaking, I want to record in this House this afternoon my strongest objection to our being labelled as people from the “deep platteland” by the hon. Opposition and its Press, or anyone else for that matter. [Interjections.] I just want to tell them that Oudtshoorn’s people, Afrikaans- and English-speaking, have taken cognizance of this and I challenge them to come to Oudtshoorn again and state their case in three years’ time, when another general election will be held.

This hon. Opposition, when it was unable to make the grade in Oudtshoorn, went to South Africa to say that Boer hate stories allowed the Nationalists to win in Oudtshoorn. I want to tell them this afternoon, and I want to remind the hon. member for Newton Park of this, that it was not the Boer hate stories which gave us the victory; it was because we went to the voters and stated our policy. We stated our relations policy, from which the hon. Opposition has, up to this stage of the debate, been consistently running away. They have availed themselves of this opportunity, and they did so very well, to talk about, as they call them, an “innocent” group of students who came to stand on the steps of the Cathedral. This afternoon they have seized upon this opportunity to come here and hide behind the Boer hate stories. I want to mention to them that when Oudtshoorn lay ahead for us, we spoke, and we went and stated our policy. I want to tell them this afternoon that I also did canvassing in Oudtshoorn. I also visited voters, and I want to tell them please to state their policy to their people, so that there is no need for me to do it. [Interjections.] I want to tell them that I visited United Party supporters in their homes, and that I asked them whether they knew what the policy of the United Party was. I was very honest, and I had that yellow pamphlet of the United Party in which everything is stated in black and white. I did not tell any lies, but I did tell them that the Party which they support wants, as soon as they come into power, to give the non-White peoples in this country representation in this Parliament. Those persons said to me: “That is not the truth.” When I showed them what I was reading from, these people were tremendously upset. That is why the hon. Opposition was only able to obtain 1 800 votes, and not the 3 000 which they had hoped to get.

You did not mention the guarantee.

Order! The hon. member for Durban Central must contain himself.

This determined the outcome in the Oudtshoorn constituency. We came to the political sphere, and discussed our relations policy. The relations policy of the National Party is very well known. We have never hesitated to state it to the country. We stated it at one meeting after another during that important by-election. We did not hesitate to hold meetings, while this hon. Opposition did not hold a single meeting in the provincial election in Oudtshoorn.

Not in Brakpan either.

In Brakpan they did not dare hold one meeting. We went and stated our policy, but once again we had to take cognizance of the fact that this hon. Opposition wants to create a power bloc in this House. That is what the voters of Oudtshoorn rejected. That is what the voters of Oudtshoorn did not want to accept, and this is what Brakpan did as well. They rejected it once again.

What happened earlier in the year …

I want to tell the hon. member who has so much to say that they have not yet won a single constituency and that they have not yet won Brakpan. In two months’ time they could not even maintain the decrease in that majority. The voters of Oudtshoorn rejected the relations policy of the United Party. How could it be otherwise? How can this relations policy bring about peace in South Africa if this Party does not even have peace among its own members in regard to its own policy? Every day there are people from among their number who come forward and say that the policy should be adjusted in this way and that a change should be made in that way. Eventually we are all casting about in the dark and do not know any more what the policy of this party is. I want to challenge them this afternoon on behalf of the voters of Oudtshoorn and tell them that they did not come and state their policy in Oudtshoorn. They must now avail themselves of this debate for that purpose, and forget about the Boer hate stories they are talking about. They must forget them, in this debate as well, and state their relations policy so that South Africa and its voters can know precisely what they want.

They have not yet made up their minds.

What we have rejected, is that power bloc. We have rejected it, for we cannot for one moment allow representation to be given in this House to the Bantu, the Indian and the Coloureds, to a total of 16, as the hon. Opposition has determined. We must go to the polls, and the White voters will decide who should govern this country. Suppose a party is voted into power with a majority of five seats. That party will not yet be able to say that it will govern this country because it has gained the victory, for that power bloc of 16 will eventually determine who will govern this country. This we have refused to accept.

I also want to tell the hon. members this afternoon that we are not ashamed of what the Afrikaner has accomplished and established in this country, that we are not ashamed of the enterprise which the Afrikaner has displayed and that we shall continue to display that enterprise. We are grateful to be able to say this afternoon that there are many English-speaking persons who have recognized this enterprise in the Afrikaner, and who support us in this struggle. I want to tell them this afternoon that we will continue with our policy of equal treatment for both languages, that we will continue to say that every language group in this country must be granted and allowed to have rights, and that they must be treated correctly. We do not want to deprive anyone of anything, and we do not want to prejudice anyone. We must all think and work together in the interests of this country and in the furtherance of the country and its welfare. That is why we referred in this House yesterday to students who came and stood on the steps of a cathedral, and who stood there and demonstrated. In one of the newspapers which supports them the following question was asked: What will the ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church say? Now I, as a former minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, say that we will not allow such things at our churches. I also want to say this afternoon that we should not hide behind the sanctity of a Cathedral if we want to allow such things. We must determine in advance what sanctity is and what sanctity is concerned with.

I want to conclude by saying that the voters of Oudtshoorn expressed their confidence in the National Party. The voters of South Africa will continue to do so. I want to tell the hon. Opposition that that majority of 4 848 could perhaps be symbolic, because twice 24 is 48.

Mr. Speaker, the speech of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn …

Was a very good speech.

…the hon. member who has just sat down, which is described by some of the less discerning in this House as a very good speech, proceeds on the assumption that Government Bantu policy has been successful so far. Unless one could take that assumption into account, one could not very well validly criticize the policy of any other party. I assume that the hon. member has just spoken, is ignorant of a recent statement by a very prominent Nationalist—I speak of Mr. Willem van Heerden—which appeared in Rapport of 28th May this year. Amongst other things, he said this. I am quoting from an extract which appeared in the Daily News of the following day—

A greater condemnation of the successful implementation of the policy of a party which has been in power for almost a quarter of a century, is difficult to find. There is no doubt that what he says is true. I have become increasingly concerned with the reports that I have read recently of the ferment, if not the open hostility, towards the Government which is becoming apparent at every non-White institution of higher education in the country. In addition to that, there have been utterances from leading Bantu politicians holding positions of authority in the various Bantu territorial authorities of this country, statements and utterances which, if made by a professor at an English-language university or if made by a clergyman of one of the English-language churches in this country, would have brought down upon the head of the person making that statement, at least a violent attack from the Prime Minister. if not a banning order under the security legislation of this country. Made as they are by persons holding office in terms of the Bantu policy of this Government, the Government remain silent, totally silent. It is time. I believe, to review the progress made, if you can call a steady decline in racial attitudes “progress”, in that period of nearly a quarter of a century which this Government has been in office.

The policy of apartheid is a policy of partition, the intention originally having been to move the bulk of the Bantu into their own areas so that states could eventually be created in which not only the political rights of the Bantu would be centred, but in which the majority of the Bantu would have their being and would find their economic fulfilment. There was originally a sensible acceptance that it was the physical presence of the Bantu in the White areas that constituted the problem; not merely a place where they exercised their political rights, but their physical presence. In the years that have passed there has, however, been an increasing conflict between the requirements of the economic progress in the White areas of South Africa and the requirements of Nationalist Party political philosophy, with the inevitable result that philosophy has given way to economics. The policy was changed to the extent that any idea of physical separation and large-scale consolidation was thrown overboard. It is now said that all that was required was that the political and civil rights of the Bantu would be exercised only in their own areas. To that extent the policy was changed. The magic year 1978 went by the board, and there came to be an acceptance that there would be an ever-increasing flow of Bantu to work in the White areas, together with an acceptance that young Bantu could bring their wives to the White areas. In the year 1972 what has the policy of separate development come to mean? It means, in practical terms, the spending of hundreds of millions of rand on roads, housing, sewerage and electricity in the White areas to provide accommodation for an ever-growing and increasingly more permanent Bantu working population in the White areas. It means the encouragement of the Bantu people to ask for independence in their so-called homelands at a time when these areas are neither economically developed nor geographically consolidated to the extent necessary to establish the basic requirements of a viable independent state. The question arises: What direction is this situation likely to take in the course of the next five or ten years? Let us be perfectly clear about where matters stand at the present time. The leaders of the two most numerous Bantu groups, Buthelezi and Matanzima, leading almost half the total Bantu population of this country, have made their respective positions perfectly clear. They have no intention of asking for independence unless certain conditions are met. Buthelezi wants vastly more land than the reserves of Natal consist of at the present time. I should be surprised if he will ever accept independence without Richard’s Bay. He has said as much himself.

What is your answer to that?

I will give you my answer to that?

May I ask the question properly? Would the hon. member mind to give us his answer to that claim for more land by Buthelezi?

There will quite obviously be additional land purchased for the Bantu in terms of the 1936 legislation.

Where?

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Do you mind my answering the last question before you put yours? There will quite obviously be additional land purchased in terms of the 1936 legislation. The principal difference between us and the hon. members opposite is that they believe that land should be purchased purely for the sake of creating independent states, creating nice, round geographical areas on the map which look like viable independent states. That is the sole object of the purchase of land by this Government. In Natal there is more than sufficient State land to provide the whole of the quota in terms of the 1936 legislation. There is no need to buy from White farmers one square inch of land in Natal to fulfil the requirements of the 1936 legislation. That is what I believe should be done and that is what the Natal Agricultural Union stands unanimously in favour of.

May I now put my question to the hon. member?

Please, if I have time when I have finished my prepared speech, I will invite the hon. member to ask me his question.

Now. Sir, I have indicated that I do not believe that Buthelezi will accept, indeed ask for independence, except under certain conditions.

I have indicated what they are, because he has said as much himself. Matanzima has stated clearly that he will never ask for independence unless he gets the East Griqualand farming area and Port St. Johns. Both leaders have explained that these demands are prompted by the Government’s policy of returning urban Bantu to the homelands and refusing the Bantu in the White areas any of the rights which flow from an acceptance of their permanence in those White areas. That is why they demand more land. The Government, in its turn, has made it quite clear that none of these claims by the Bantu leaders will be met.

What then is the outlook for the next five or ten years? I can see no likelihood whatever of the Bantu leaders asking for independence—none whatever. The Government cannot, as it were, turn them into the street, by just disclaiming sovereignty over those areas. Until these Bantu governments ask for independence, this Government is saddled with them and their increasingly outspoken utterances. These utterances will, to an ever-increasing extent, be directed towards redressing the grievances of the urban Bantu.

Now. Sir, what is the position of these Bantu leaders? They are hereditary chiefs, who already have and will retain the support of the tribal Bantu in the Reserves by simply demanding more and more White land. It is their support in the White urban areas which is problematical. We must remember that this Government has anchored the political rights of the urban Bantu to the legislatures of the Reserves, It is the votes of the urban Bantu which the Bantu leaders will increasingly watch; because it is only here that political opposition is likely to emerge. So, Mr. Speaker, what will be the likely direction of the political utterances of the Bantu leaders? They will be in the direction of an amelioration of the problems of the urban Bantu, the urban Bantu in the White areas. They will be in the direction of acquiring for those urban Bantu those civil and civic rights which anywhere in the world are claimed by permanently settled, urban communities. I mention a few of them, Sir: For example, the right to have ownership of your home; the right to have your family live with you; the right to educate your children where you live; the right to find work where you live; the right to live with or near your children when you are old and no longer working; the right to qualify yourself for a say, no matter how limited, in the authority which governs you. These are the things. Sir, which I bring under the term “civil or civic rights”. We shall find that the policy of separate development, far from insulating us from the pressures and the demands of the Bantu people in our midst, will to an ever increasing extent provide to the spokesmen of the Bantu people an immunity from Government pressure and control, which they would never have enjoyed had they not been artificially elevated into the position of leaders of embryonic independent states. Indeed, Sir, they are under Government policy in a uniquely privileged position. They can campaign politically and can utter the grievances of their people at mass rallies in our metropolitan urban areas without bearing any of the responsibilities inherent in the redress of those grievances. In other words, they will to an ever increasing extent, in my view, espouse the cause of the urban Bantu, voice their grievances, and gain their political support, whilst the White authorities will have to bear all the burdens of financing and administering the urban Bantu townships. What Gen. de Gaulle was forbidden to do in Quebec our Bantu leaders are encouraged to do in Soweto. Having got political rights and a voice in the affairs of South Africa—because the Bantu areas, urban and rural, are still South Africa, and their leaders are still South Africans—what pattern is likely to evolve for the future? There will unfold, I believe, a pattern very similar to that which unfolds in any country where you have ever increasing educational and economic advantages accruing to a group of people without commensurate civil and social rights. There will be ever increasing demands, backed up by political pressure from the Bantu leaders, for civil and civic rights for the urban Bantu in the areas where they live. And as those people become more permanently established with the passing years, so will it become more and more difficult for those rights to be withheld.

Similarly, in the social sphere, legal barriers will to an ever increasing extent be replaced by conventional or voluntary barriers, or they will disappear altogether. We have seen the beginnings of the process already in the field of what we call ‘foreign or international relations”, or what we call “international sport”.

I have attempted to show that despite the creation of the vast and costly edifice of apartheid, events in South Africa are likely in our lifetime to follow a course very close to that of any other similarly situated community elsewhere in the world. But there will be some important differences. In our internal relations the policy of apartheid will have left immense reservoirs of distrust and, in some cases, even animosity—I speak of internal relations, Sir—principally amongst those who are in a position to exercise most influence because of their education and their advancement. And in our external relations the policy of apartheid will have created for us barriers of isolation which it will take decades to break down.

Now, Sir, what was it all intended to achieve? To what end was all this effort, money and ingenuity directed? It was intended to ensure that White South Africa should be able to carry on indefinitely living out its existence with all the economic advantages which flow from being in a multiracial country, without ever making the slightest concession to the fact that South Africa is a multi-racial country, and that that fact demands a constant adjustment of attitude on the part of both Black and White. Mr. Speaker, how much better off would we all have been if all the thought and effort which has been directed towards the pretence of keeping us apart had been directed towards devising a formula aimed at easing the process of learning to live together. I say again, Sir, what was the original concept of apartheid designed to achieve? It was intended to achieve two things; firstly, to remedy all the problems of petty apartheid by removing from the White State the physical presence of the Bantu. You do not have to worry, Sir, about where a Black man will live, what school his children will attend, on what trains and buses he will travel, and who will play sport with him if he is living and working in a separate State. Those problems are automatically solved. Likewise, you do not have to worry about devising a formula to accommodate his political aspirations in your constitutional set-up if he is living in and voting for a Government in a separate State. In theory—and I emphasize the word “theory”—the original concept of apartheid had a philosophical and a practical merit, if one assumes that it was capable of implementation. If one assumes that it was capable of implementation, the theory was theoretically sound and it had practical merit. But when once the Nationalist Party placed economic development before the implementation of its philosophy, when once the magic year 1978 was thrown overboard, when once the party was prepared to compromise on the question of the removal of the Black presence from the White areas, the whole policy of apartheid was doomed, and South Africa was left with the worst of both worlds. I say that because in the White areas you have at the present time, and you will continue to have, all the problems of a multi-racial State— every single one of them—just as they would have been if the policy of apartheid had never been thought of. Indeed, Sir, I believe those problems have been accentuated because you have had no gradual conditioning of the Whites to an acceptance of this permanent Black presence. You have had the reverse; you have had them accept the myth that the Black presence is not there. In addition to that, Sir, you have in the Black areas all the problems attendant upon the creation of an embryo Black State in Africa, and at an ever-increasing tempo, plus the added factor that most of our Black States have still to be given their essential geographical foundations. As Willem van Heerden says, all we have done is to establish the principle of independent homelands.

One man, one vote and “beloftes”.

That is half a loaf.

You are nothing at all.

Sir, on the basis that a state of confrontation has arisen between the Black leaders and the Government, which I believe to be the case, or rapidly approaching the case, what is South Africa to do? There is only one possible solution in these circumstances. Politically and constitutionally there must be an immediate acceptance of the federal principle with priority at the level of a maximum devolution of power to the various races. Secondly, there must be an immediate acceptance by the electorate of South Africa of the principle of a multiracial federalist State with a gradual implementation of the consequences of that acceptance.

The electorate will never accept it.

Thirdly, the principle of White leadership should be maintained as the only vehicle through which a federalist State could be brought into being and effectively worked. I believe, Sir, that sufficient time has passed for the country and the world to draw the conclusion that the policy of apartheid has been an expensive failure. It has failed not only as a policy to be implemented by a Government—and I believe that we can say that with all justification, because we have had this Government in power for almost a quarter of a century, dedicated to this policy, a Government which claims that the policy has the full support of the electorate which backs it, and a Government with one of the largest parliamentary majorities, sustained over a period of time, that this country has ever known—Sir, not only has it failed as a practical policy, it has failed as a philosophy; it has failed as a theory which one can debate. When your policy has failed and the philosophy on which it is based has failed, then you must look for an alternative road, and the sooner the better. I have tried, Sir, to outline the alternative philosophy and policy which I believe is the only one which can replace the path which we have taken. I believe that that is the path for the future, and I believe that propounding that policy, and eventually implementing it, will be the service which the United Party can render to this country.

Sir, up to now this has been a disastrous Session for the Opposition. The hon. member for Newton Park made the accusation against this side of the House that it was running away from economic affairs. The hon. member, who is such a champion of the agricultural industry, devoted more than two-thirds of his speech to all kinds of nonsense. Then he went on to deal with the price of wheat and the interests of the agricultural industry, but I must say he did not sound very enthusiastic. I find it a pity that television has not yet been introduced here, because if the voters outside were to have seen him on the television screen today, they would definitely not have gained a favourable impression of him. Sir, the hon. member also referred to national unity and co-operation, and I should like to speak to him about that. The hon. member for Zululand will pardon me for not following him up, because I do not really participate in debates on Bantu affairs. But, with reference to what the hon. member for Newton Park said, I should like to express a few thoughts on national unity. When we speak about national unity, I want to put it to you that it is a matter which we should discuss coolly and calmly. It is not a matter about which we should work up emotions. Now I should like to give my views on this matter as objectively as possible. But before proceeding I should like to explain what I understand national unity to mean. In this regard I want to endorse the course advocated by a person such as the late Gen. Hertzog, and I want to lay this at the door of the Opposition on the opposite side who stabbed him in the back in those days. Gen. Hertzog put it as follows. He said (translation)—

He went on to explain that he understood Afrikaners to mean Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking people who were rooted in this country. It is important to know this. He defined this statement further and he put it as follows—

Of the Afrikaans language he then said the following—

Then he encircled these ideas of his by the following significant statement he made. He put forward this unequivocal standpoint—

That was the train of thought of Gen. Hertzog and because he firmly believed that he now had the basis for national unity, he i came forward with the great experiment of fusion in the thirties. [Interjections.] In his hour of crisis, after the years of sacrifice and abuse he had to live through, he pointed his finger reproachfully at those in whom he had had faith, and said—

Now, I want to say that the breeze which the United Party sowed in 1939 brought forth a tempest for them in 1948, one which is still raging over them. Gen. Hertzog said—

Now those on the opposite side of the House must not take it amiss of us on this side of the House for harbouring some suspicion when they offer us the hand of friendship and of co-operation. That attempt by Gen. Hertzog failed because he was left in the lurch by those who gave him false hope and created a false expectation. Mr. Speaker, it did not end there. In 1961 after we had become a Republic, the former Prime Minister, Dr. Verwoerd, again put this very clearly in the State President’s address of 1961. To me it is significant that these words were spoken in English. That was done because it was meant for the English-speaking section of the population. The excerpt from the State President’s address reads as follows—

It is as the Leader of the House said here this afternoon: We are not looking for political unity; political unity-and national unity are two different concepts. That was made very clear. And what has been the experience? It has already been mentioned repeatedly, and I do not want to enlarge on it any further. What has been our experience in this regard? I just want to refer to a few examples. I want to refer to the disregard of the other side of the House for that which is precious to the Afrikaner people. There was the opposition of the opposite side of this House when the hon. the Minister of Justice demanded that the two languages be given equal treatment in the hotel industry and that everyone be served in the language he spoke. In this regard we had opposition from the opposite side of this House. The hon. member for Durban Point objected to a departmental circular in which the Minister asked for submissions to him to be made in Afrikaans Even today it is still necessary to wage a struggle in order to see justice being done to Afrikaans in the English-language business world.

The hon. member for Newton Park asked why we were running away from economic affairs. I am very glad the hon. member for Newton Park is in the House. Now I want to challenge the Opposition to say at least something about the Budget and the taxation proposals. In the economic sphere things are going so well for the country that the Opposition is running away from that. Things are going well in the economic sphere, firstly because we have a good, strong and stable Government. Secondly, things are going well with the Republic of South Africa in the economic and financial sphere because we have a good Minister of Finance. We have an extremely capable and dedicated Minister of Finance, He is a man with vision, courage and a sound, balanced judgment. He is the man who has guided this country through deep waters to a haven of peace and quiet in the monetary and financial sphere. He is the man who, last year, pronounced the prophetic words when he said: “1972 may possibly be a golden year for the Republic of South Africa. Now that the gold price has increased so fantastically, it is literally going to be a golden year for South Africa, The signs of a golden year already exist. In the first half of the year they are already perceptible. The fiscal and monetary measures announced in the Budget are already bearing fruit for us. From the May edition of Tegniek I now want to read the following (translation)—

The Standard Bank Review endorses this by saying—

The latest opinion poll of the Bureau for Economic Research of Stellenbosch confirms the about face there has been in the attitude of businessmen, and the latest economic indicators also point to an unprecedented recovery. The confidence in South Africa’s economy does not prevail in South Africa only, also abroad confidence in South Africa’s economy has increased. At the moment so much foreign money is pouring into the country that some observers are becoming concerned about the position. The country’s reserves of gold and foreign exchange show a sustained increase; already they exceed R600 million. There are those who expect them to reach the R900 million mark by the end of the year. Our export endeavours seem to be bearing fruit. We also read that in the first quarter of this year exports increased by 16,3 per cent on those of the final quarter of last year. Exports are anticipated to be 24 per cent higher in the second quarter of this year than they were in the first quarter of this year. Even a person such as Dr. Hüpkes, an economist of stature, says, after he has made calculations, his conclusions are that the inland revenue of the country can increase by not less than 10 per cent. These achievements have been possible because the man at the helm, our Minister of Finance, has guided our country through deep waters to a safe place.

At the moment there is also a revival on the Stock Exchange. Significant sales are made on the Stock Exchange in contrast to the poor conditions of the past few years. When one speaks about the Stock Exchange, it is significant that there were many people who did not heed the warning issued by the Minister of Finance a few years ago when he said, “Take care not to have your fingers burnt on the Stock Exchange.

Are you buying shares now?

Wait a moment. Therefore it is significant to me that the Minister is of the opinion that the downward trend on the Stock Exchange has now reached its end. What is also significant, is the fact that the Minister expects rates of interests to drop in the foreseeable future. This view is also endorsed by other bodies and persons. In this regard the Standard Bank Review says—

The prophets of doom on the opposite side who even said devaluation was an act of bankruptcy, today have to admit shamefacedly that they are completely out of touch with what is going on in the country, and that they do not have that special sense to determine and evaluate economic tendencies in the country. That is why I make the statement that the criticism levelled by the Opposition at this Budget is belied today by the results already achieved in the first few months of this year.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Virginia, who has just sat down, indulged in a paean of praise for my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance, which I do not begrudge him at all, and took a very optimistic view of the economic future of South Africa. It is perfectly true that much has happened in the area of finance and economics during the past three and a half months. The price of gold on the free market has risen steadily up to very nearly $60 an ounce. Prices on the Stock Exchange have surged upwards fairly rapidly. Our gold and foreign reserves, I should imagine, stand at something of the order of R700 million at the moment as against plus or minus R550 million in December, 1971. Imports for the first four months of 1972 were R920 million, compared with R962,3 million for the same period in 1971, some R40 million less. But figures can be very misleading. I am a little bit nervous of these import figures, because it would seem to me that a great deal of the drop in import figures is due to the fact that capital goods are ceasing to come into the country. This only means that there is less demand by our industrialists for capital goods to go for more production.

We ought to look at these things a little more carefully to see more than that which we find on the surface. Exports for the first four months of this year were R595,5 million. They bettered the figure for 1971 of R466,2 million by R129 million. This is very good. Fortunately we have had an amazingly good agricultural season. There is also a spirit of optimism in the air and the psychological backlog of 1971 has to some extent been demolished. We welcome these things; we welcome this move away from the unhappy days of 1971 created by this Government. We were concerned last year with the Governments’ inability to really assess the economic situation, an assessment which was clouded by distortions in the economy caused by a multiplicity of controls. We are equally concerned this year that the Government may well be misreading the signs once again, that it is being mesmerized, as perhaps other people are, by numerous illusions.

The chairman of the U.D.C. Bank said last week—

There is a lot of truth in this. I believe that to get as true a picture as possible, we must look at the take-off point, December. 1971. The growth rate of our gross domestic product in real terms had continued to drop from 6,8 per cent in 1969 to 4.8 per cent in 1970, to 3,7 per cent in 1971. Our real gross domestic product on a per capita basis had declined from 2.1 per cent in 1970 to 1 per cent in 1971. The crude trade gap had reached R1 349 million, 35 per cent bigger than in 1970. Government spending had increased by some 20 per cent over 1970. Output per man-hour which had declined in 1970, declined further in 1971. In the manufacturing sector production was only up by 2,1 per cent, and employment by only 3,3 per cent. All three national Budgets, the Railways, the Post Office and the Central Government’s Budgets, showed large deficits against estimates. The consumer price index as at December, 1971, showed an increase over the figure in December. 1970, of 7 per cent. In short, what we had in 1971 was a large deficit on our current account balance of payments position, a fall in growth rate and a rising rate of inflation. As was said by the Chairman of the Handelsinstituut at its annual general meeting in May last—

This was our position, our take-off point in December, 1971. The Government could obviously not allow this state of affairs to continue. So, we had the devaluation of 12,28 per cent and the intensification of import control. Then came the deficit Budget for 1972-’73 to stimulate the economy. We had a sharp drop in Government spending, the raising of the bank credit ceiling, and an overall so-called programme of action. These steps were all designed to indicate the intention of the Government to move away from its dampening down policy of 1971 which led us into the position we found ourselves in in December 1971.

I have dealt with some of the whys and wherefores, because they are important to us in trying to assess what future trends might be. At the moment there is a fairly wide divergence of opinion on the precise course the economy is likely to take over the next 12 to 18 months. Perhaps the events of yesterday are a little too close to us to be seen in proper perspective and to have an opportunity to crystallize; but a consensus of opinion is beginning to develop in a number of areas.

It is generally accepted that neither productivity nor investment is rising at the moment. In spite of efforts in the Budget to restore credibility, in spite of massive devaluation, in spite of heavy import control. and in spite of Budget concessions industry is just not responding. While opinions vary as to whether or not there is substantial spare capacity in the economy, there is general agreement that firms are at present not ready to commit any spare capacity because orders are presently slack and profit margins are being squeezed. This is the factual situation under the sort of ice-cap of optimism which has spread throughout the country. There is little improvement in the building industry. The difficult, if not serious conditions in the motor industry and in the furniture industry have been acknowledged by the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs. Last week he reduced the initial deposit on hire-purchase sales and lengthened the instalment payment period. Why? Because the economy has not reacted to the hon. the Minister’s Budget to the extent that obviously the Government would like it to have done. Therefore it has had to take off the screws again and to lift the lid of the damp-down policy of 1971 a little more.

The hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs never ceases to amaze me. He is perhaps an even better stop-go exponent than the hon. the Minister of Finance. For some two years he has been restricting both the motor trade and the furniture trade by making their selling conditions, both as to deposits and as to terms more difficult. He has also allowed the hon. the Minister of Finance to make life more difficult for them by increased excise and sales duties. What has the result of this been? The result has been that both these industries have gone through very bad times, as anybody who had any knowledge of these two industries whatsoever would have expected. Then to try belatedly to change the direction of these industries and to improve the position, the hon. the Minister of Finance announced in his Budget that a minimum down payment on cars would be reduced from 40 per cent to 331 per cent. But what happened? How effective was it? It was so effective that 2½ months later the down payment has been further reduced to 25 per cent and the term extended from 24 months to 30 months. The down payment on light commercial vehicles has been reduced from 40 per cent to 331 per cent. To try to resuscitate the furniture industry, the down payment has now been reduced to 10 per cent and the instalment period has been increased from 24 months to 30 months.

What staggers us is the apparent inability of the Government to be able to assess the consequences of its actions. This is what frightens us. Its assessment is always wrong. It is forced to backtrack time and time again. No sooner has an assessment been made and decisions made as a result of those assessments, than the Government has to change its policies. Company profits which have been announced recently are not in the main encouraging and company failures, unfortunately, have spread to some of the biggest companies in the land. I will be the first to admit that this is probably the back-lash of the events of 1971, but it does illustrate the absolute and vital necessity of the Government having a proper understanding not only of economic conditions in the country, but an understanding of the consequence of any action it takes. What is causing the greatest concern, the greatest fear in the country, is what we are seeing at the moment as the beginning of another situation as we had in 1968-’69.

What was that?

The money illusion and the high rate of inflation on the one hand, with poor performance in the real economy on the other hand, led us eventually to a repetition of the 1971 situation. It is the old story of the cycle, in the years 1968, 1969, 1970. 1971. from the top right down to the bottom. You see, Sir, the economy is beginning to float again in the sea of liquidity. Funds are flowing in from abroad and we are all very grateful that this is the case. They are encouraged to come in by high yields, relatively high interest rates, and once again fears about the dollar and fears, perhaps about sterling. We appear to be at the bottom of a cycle of an increasing money supply, a rising stock market, a strengthening balance of payments position, a movement towards high cost-push and demand-pull inflation, a strong upward trend in the cost of living and very soon, a new bout of wage demands. This is the repeat of the 1968-’69 position. These are signals calling for constant adaptation of policy. The hon. the Minister failed to make these adaptations in 1968 and 1969. and it led to the debacle of 1971.

There are particularly two areas which require constant watching: Import control and exchange control. The way import control and exchange control are handled, plus proper utilization of labour, will determine our economic success or failure over the next few years. The efficiency of handling them will determine the rate of inflation, which will be the dominating factor, as the hon. the Minister knows, in our economy. We are probably only now moving into the stage when the full effect of devaluation is going to be felt when the full impact of import control is going to be made. Industries will be exhausting their stocks of raw materials and will have to replace these stocks at much higher prices. Stocks of imported consumer goods will become in short supply and disappear from the shops, removing the price discipline of importations from locally manufactured goods. New machinery and equipment and the replacement of existing machinery and equipment are going to be considerably more expensive. We have a variation today of some 24 per cent in our currency values to those which we had prior to devaluation. At the same time, our bumper agricultural crop, the hardening of commodity prices abroad, plus the higher prices in terms of rands, as a result of devaluation, will add to domestic liquidity, and therefore to the total monetary demand in the economy.

What does this mean? The overall effect is likely to be as was summed up in a recent economic survey of the Standard Bank—

Mr. Speaker, the objective which we would all want on both sides of the House is a steady upward trend in the GDP, the only difference between the hon. the Minister and ourselves is the question of degree, plus inflation control at an acceptable rate of some 2 per cent to 2½ per cent. Well, we are not going to reach this objective if we continue the way we are going, and if we do not realize that the factors that influenced the economy in the cycle of 1968-’69 still remain with us. How many of them have been eliminated? The hon. the Minister of Finance did take a few hesitant steps forward in his Budget speech. In so far as it was a statement of intent, he assumed, as in fact he did in 1971, the overall responsibility for the total economic policy of the Government. Mr. Speaker, the $64 000 question is: Is the hon. the Minister of Finance once again going to be frustrated by his own colleagues, as he was frustrated, for example, in 1971 by the hon. the Minister of Labour?

I only have time to deal with one component of our economic policy where I believe the objective of the hon. the Minister is being obstructed, and this is on the question of import control. In the previous debate we had this session I said that devaluation and import control were incompatible. The hon. the Minister interjected and said: “We all know that.” Correct; we all do know that. But what has happened and is happening to import control in the meantime? Simply intensification of import control at the end of last year. We have had a number of statements, both from the hon. the Minister of Finance and the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs. In substance, the statements boiled down to this: Import control is not intended as a permanent instrument of protection for local industries. Industrialists, however, will not be left unprotected against foreign competition. Adequate protection is essential to promote confidence and growth in the economy. Customs tariffs must remain the principal instrument of protection. The Government’s commitments under GATT, entered into, of course, by that wicked United Party Government, prevent the present Nationalist Party Government from extending effective tariff protection to industries. Import restrictions will have to be retained, until we obtain the necessary freedom under GATT. The Government does not like import control, and the position will be reviewed in May. Finally, the last factor in this story as regards the intensified restrictions imposed on the 25th November last—the Government will give consideration to possible relaxations when the current balance of payments position shows a significant improvement. This is the credo of the Government in so far as import control is concerned.

But two criteria have already eventuated. Firstly, the month of May has come and gone. Secondly, the current balance of payments position has shown a significant improvement. I think probably the period of benefits from the leads and lags would seem to have ended, and there is now a steady flow of new capital into the country. What have we had from the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs? Is he now frustrating the hon. the Minister of Finance? On Friday he issued a statement on import control, couched in terms that at first blush seem to indicate that the hon. the Minister was relaxing import control. This is the way in which it was reported by some of the newspapers. Of course, the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs was doing nothing of the kind. If anything, he was tightening import control. In November there was an import permit issue of 20 per cent in respect of general merchandise and textile piece goods for sale in shops, as well as 15 per cent for clothing, based on the 1969 imports. In what is in fact the second round of permits for 1972, the hon. the Minister has made a further issue of 10 per cent for general merchandise, bringing the total issue to date to 30 per cent of the 1969 imports. There was a further 15 per cent for textile piece goods to make a total issue of 30 per cent of the 1969 imports in that category, as well as an additional issue of 10 per cent for clothing, bringing the total issue to date up to 25 per cent of the 1969 imports. So, permits issued for these three categories are 25 per cent, 30 per cent and 35 per cent of the 1969 imports. This is not relaxation, Sir; this is rigid control. That is what we are facing at the moment, particularly in view of the fact that the increase is not automatic—importers have to apply for this increase—and in the statement issued by the hon. the Minister there is a warning that any new permits issued must sparingly be used because it could not be indicated with any certainty at this stage that it would be possible to make further permit allocations in respect of consumer goods later in the year. In other words, there is a possibility that this is the last round, and there may be no further issues in August of 1972. What has become quite clear, is that the Government has become wedded to a policy of import control of imported goods with all its implications. I want to know from the hon. the Minister, when he replies to this debate, whether he subscribes to this policy. Now, we accept that this will afford protection to local industries, but will it induce greater productivity? Will it create more job opportunities in the most productive sectors, and will it create greater efficiency? If not, we are playing with fire. If not, it is back again to our Square One. Is the hon. the Minister being forced into this policy by his colleagues? We have acknowledged before, and I acknowledge again, that in certain growth industries, in some intensive job industries, and in some export intensive industries, continued protection might well have to be given. Like the hon. the Minister, we believe in protection by tariff, but if this is not possible, we go along with import control, but only in hard core cases and not general import control. I am speaking of hard core cases requiring special treatment. You see, Mr. Speaker, the danger of import control as we are operating it now and as a philosophy, is that we set the 1968 cycle in motion again, and what is this cycle? A rising liquidity, excessive spending, a rise in prices, more wage demands, rapid inflation, more and more controls, moves to damp down the economy, and back to December, 1971—and I doubt whether the hon. the Minister wants to go back to December, 1971; we certainly do not.

We also found trouble on the Railways and with the fiscus. I wonder what the hon. the Minister of Transport says about this import control. He is already in deep enough trouble with his Railways, as a result of the high volume of low-rated export traffic, which is his main traffic. He is also denied the high-rated traffic from imports. What is his position going to be? An increase in railway rates, another cost inflation factor created?

And what about the hon. the Minister himself? His revenue is going to fall, because he is going to lose customs and excise duties. Mr. Speaker, we all acknowledge that devaluation is both a challenge and an opportunity, as the hon. the Minister has rightly said. If we take the opportunity, if we accept the challenge, if we adapt our policies quickly and intelligently to meet ever-changing circumstances, then we have enough strength in this country of ours for it to give to us freely of its bounty. But if we read the signs incorrectly, as we have done so often in the past, if we ignore the signals that are coming out of the economy day by day, if we are without a full understanding of the ultimate consequences of the actions we take, if we do as we have done in the past, namely too little too late, then it is the policy-makers, the Government, who will have to be blamed if there is any fall in the strength of our economy. I hope there will be no need for this, but of one thing you can be assured; if the policies the Government is going to follow bring with them a high rate of inflation and further rises in the cost of living, then the well-being and the security of every single person in the Republic of South Africa will be placed in jeopardy. With our racial structure, the low standard of living of many of our people, the wide gap between the haves and the have-nots, South Africa cannot afford to make economic mistakes. One profound thing the hon. the Prime Minister has said in this House is this: The one thing he fears is economic recession in South Africa. There is no need for any recession in South Africa. We have a good take-off point, as a result of devaluation, to strengthen our economy, but we shall only do so if the Government sees factually what is happening, digs down beneath the outward signs which sometimes are so misleading, and acts intelligently, strongly and quickly, remembering what happened in the last cycle of 1968-’71. If they do this, South Africa can prosper; if they do not, we shall run into the same trouble again.

In his judgment of the Budget proposals the hon. member for Parktown chiefly discussed certain fragments. Sir, it is a fact that for the past few months our detailed scrutiny has focussed the Government’s monetary and fiscal proposals and economic policies. Initially I want to make the general remark that it appears to me as if the hon. member for Parktown and his colleagues totally neglected to judge the Budget proposals and the Government’s economic policy in terms of macro-economic objectives. We have repeatedly had evidence here of the obsession of the hon. member for Parktown and others with growth. Sir, no one will dispute that growth is a very important economic objective, but in our specific circumstances, and in our specific South African society, I immediately want to say that growth ought to be disciplined. In my opinion the hon. member and his colleagues reveal in their judgments a complete lack of financial discipline. Sir, there is a fundamental difference between the approach of hon. members on that side and hon. members on this side in respect of the economic policy that must obtain in our country. I immediately want to repeat an old truth by way of emphasis, i.e. that when we judge growth as an economic objective we cannot do so in a vacuum; we must see it against the background of the growth potential of our country and in the light of our labour position, our available infrastructure, capital and raw materials, etc. I think the hon. member agrees with this argument, but there is one important argument the hon. member does not want to agree with, i.e. that our growth rate in this country must also be determined against the background of the social, economic and political structure of this country. When the hon. member says that in this country we actually need a “retreat from apartheid”, what is he actually saying? He is then alleging, as he did again this afternoon by implication, that there is an unlimited reservoir of labour which, if it were not for the restrictive thinking of the Government, would be available to be employed immediately in our economic life. Sir, of course the labour situation, the availability of labour and the quality of labour are tremendously important factors in the development process in our economy. Of course I agree with the hon. member that one of the most important production factors specifically lies in the labour potential, not only because of the role it plays in this development process, but because the labour potential consists of people, who frequently react in an organized fashion to specific situations and to political events in the social framework in which they live. My complaint against hon. members opposite, in this particular context, is specifically that they merely see the available labour as a cog in a production machine, that they do not see the labourers as people who have to live in a specific social structure and that they are prepared to ignore these other factors completely. There they are revealing, in ray opinion, a completely wrong understanding of the South African situation. It is easy for the hon. member for Parktown to come along and say that the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration is responsible for our not having maximum utilization of available labour, but, Sir, has he ever referred to the dualistic composition of our labour potential? Has he ever regarded its dualistic elements, with a monetary economy on the one hand and a primitive economy on the other? I want to reiterate, and this is correct, that our economic prosperity depends to a large extent upon the available labour and the employment of that labour. But if one looks at the mass-unrest in the world the question arises as to whether the prosperity that people have obtained really serves the purpose it is supposed to serve.

Let us just for a moment analyse the labour situation as it exists at present. According to estimates the labour force in the seventies will increase by 190 000 workers per year, 40 000 of whom will be Whites. It will be the Government’s task, in the first place, to create the necessary employment opportunities for these workers, but our ability to do so will also be determined by the availability of sufficient trained White workers in this country; this means being able to staff the top structure in the professional field. That is why the hon. member reveals a total lack of understanding in connection with the resultant twofold problem we are faced with, because on the one hand there will always be sufficient employment opportunities for Whites, but on the other hand, giving the other mass of people employment will depend on an increasing number of top-structure White managers. Therefore it is no use talking in abstract terms about the utilization of labour, and therefore I want to tell the hon. member that our standpoint continues to be that when one is speaking about this specific aspect one is speaking against the background of a specific social and political structure that must continue to exist in our country. When the hon. member then says that as far as they are concerned we need a “retreat from apartheid” he is revealing, in my opinion, the basic point of departure of hon. members opposite, i.e. that they are prepared to sacrifice all these things for ephemeral, short-term and fancied short-term benefits at the expense of long-term stability which we ought to make the prime objective in the economy. I want to say that we will have to realize that in future the strategy against our country will increasingly be aimed at its internal security and stability. One would expect all hon. members in this House to be prepared to co-operate in perpetuating and reinforcing that stability. It is true that a sound economy is one of the pillars on which this stability must rest, but my accusation is that the whole trend of thought of hon. members opposite is not that the economy must serve a purpose, but that the economy is a purpose in itself. I want to warn against this. If we do not do this we lapse into a blatant spirit of materialism, as hon. members opposite are doing.

There is another important aspect I want to refer to—I want to ask whether the hon. member does not realize that this is one of the most important facets of government finance, that it must be keyed to macro-economic objectives and the effect this has on the country’s economy as a whole. In this specific connection—and here I think the hon. member will agree with me—a Budget is seen today as an important stabilizer that must ensure our stable economic growth. I want to emphasize that there must be properly disciplined economic growth. In the formulation of this stabilizing fiscal policy it is consequently of tremendous importance for a proper analysis to be made of the present and the expected future economic conditions in so far as it is possible to make that evaluation.

Be a little more concrete.

I shall do so. I shall at least be more concrete than you were yesterday evening. On the grounds of this diagnosis the Government can then determine a fiscal policy and employ the available instruments. What are these instruments, and how have they been employed in this Budget? I now want to be concrete in terms of the hon. member’s request. The first is a change in the composition and extent of the State’s expenditure. I allege that in the present circumstances this has been done with the Budget proposals and the fiscal policy that has been proposed. The second is a change in the method of financing Government expenditure. I hope this is also concrete enough for the hon. member for Von Brandis to understand. This applies particularly in respect of the change in taxation rates, which again have been adapted in the present circumstances specifically to fit in with the evaluation of the circumstances. Also in respect of a change and the percentage of Government expenditure that has to be paid out of the Revenue Account, chiefly out of taxes. The hon. member for Parktown criticized this, but it has obtained a place and been incorporated in these Budget proposals. Lastly there are also the sources and the conditions of government loans to finance capital works, for example whether they will be negotiated locally or abroad, or whether they will be paid out of revenue. Therefore I want to tell the hon. member that in these specific circumstances the hon. the Minister of Finance formulated his policy as a stabilizing instrument within the estimated and expected circumstances.

What is the basis of the criticism of the hon. member for Parktown and other hon. members? The basis is the deviation of the economy—and let me say that the hon. member for Parktown must concede, in all fairness, that he cannot judge the economy according to the 1968-’71 period and lift this out of the overall pattern. But what does the hon. member chiefly say in his criticism? He says that the deviation in our economic activities is attributable to the steps the hon. the Minister of Finance took. But is the hon. member for Park-town totally unaware of the fact that according to calculations, which were made by the economists of the Reserve Bank, we have had nine smaller conjuncture variations in South Africa since 1945? The hon. member ought to know, after all, that these variations in economic activities are inherent and belong to the structure of the capitalistic economy. But in their opportunistic drive the hon. members want to create the impression, as he tried to do again this afternoon, that these variations are attributable to the action taken or not taken by the Government in specific circumstances. But what is strange in his approach is that he wants to ascribe all the recessions or downward trends to the Government, while ascribing all the upward trends to the private sector, particularly the important upward trends. But that is surely untrue; the opposite is true. Was the period of economic progress in the sixties, which was unequalled and unparalleled, not specifically the result of the climate the Government created in the specific circumstances? But why I object to this attitude is because there is no acknowledgement, on the part of the hon. member and his colleagues, of the interpretation of the circumstances and of the means being employed to act within the context of these specific circumstances. I think the hon. member will agree with me that it is the Government’s responsibility to discipline the economy and economic activities within given circumstances when there is overspending, when there is inflationary pressure. when there are balance of payments problems and when there is unwarranted overspending. But what has been happening in the past few years, to which the hon. member referred. Is it not specifically true that in the past two years the Government has responsibly placed the emphasis on the right spot? The hon. member will agree with me that it is important that the emphasis in the economic policy must shift according to the circumstances prevailing from time to time. The hon. member for Parktown, now and in his previous speech, has evidenced no understanding whatsoever of the unfavourable effect on the South African economy of the policy change in the U.S.A. on 15th August, 1971. Let me now say that any person who speaks about the South African economy, particularly during the 1970, 1971 and 1972 period. without having an understanding of the unfavourable effect exercised by events abroad, is not a very responsible person. He does not. in any case, have a sense of proportion. [Interjection.] Oh, please, Sir, in this country we do not have an inherited or testamentary economy. Any economic policy in this country must inevitably be sensitive as far as the foreign sector is concerned—and the hon. member confirmed this in his speech. In that connection the hon. member will agree with me. The hon. member knows that the foreign sector, and events abroad, exercise an enormous influence on the South African economy as a result of international trade and the net inflow of capital into our country. Therefore I ask the hon. member, when one is formulating a fiscal, monetary of economic policy, to have an understanding of those factors that influence it. How are we affected by international trade and the inflow of capital?

What are the characteristics of our trade? The first characteristic, which the hon. member will agree with, is a greater inclination to import. This is an old truth and has been mentioned here before. Our imports, as a percentage of our gross domestic product, represented 21,2 per cent in 1971. But let us look at the import set-up and the effect it has. In 1927 consumer goods represented 20 per cent, and intermediary and capital goods about 34 per cent and 45 per cent of an import package of R2 888 million.

Let us look at our exports in that specific connection. Our export of goods in 1971 totalled R1 481 million, including the net gold production of R918 million. The export of goods, together with the net gold production, represented 17,6 per cent of our gross domestic product. Now, the hon. member knows, as I have already said, that a large part of our imports consists of intermediary and capital goods. The hon. member knows that on a long-term basis the import of these goods makes a tremendous and important contribution to the development of the Republic’s industrial and export potential. It is true—and the hon. member is correct—that it is important to bear in mind that South Africa must pay considerably more for the imports, apart from the price increases of goods in the countries of origin since the readjustment of exchange rates. However, this is not the only side of this picture. On the other hand the more expensive imports afford a considerable measure of protection to the private manufacturing sector’s local competitive ability. This also applies to the inflow of capital which exercises an influence on our local economic policy. It goes without saying that in the process of formulation one would take note of certain trends in the economy. And which of these trends had to receive attention in the Budget proposals? And what attention was given to them? I think hon. members will agree with me that one of the most important is the already existing greater tendency towards spending and the local demand for goods. The second is the relatively lower growth rate in local production in general and in the industrial sector in particular. There is another important tendency, which the hon. member apparently does not accept, i.e. the existence of surplus production capacity in our industrial sector. What the hon. member does not accept either is a less rigid labour situation in our country. There he is correct; we are always being threatened by relatively high inflation. What was the balance of payments position prior to the Budget? That was one of the matters that had to receive attention in the Budget proposals and in the fiscal and monetary policy. Lastly there was the effect of import control and devaluation of the rand. All these factors were taken into account in the Minister’s policy statement. A policy had therefore to be formulated against this background. Firstly, it had to be the promotion of an economy that consisted at that stage of the stimulation of economic growth, a curbing of the pressure of inflation and the improvement of our balance of payments position. The hon. member has stated before that the hon. the Minister and his colleagues were gambling with a lot of uncertainties in their Budget proposals for the Railways and the Post Office. I want to say that it is strange to hear that view from the hon. member for Parktown. I find it strange because for years the hon. members were prepared to gamble with a higher growth rate without regard to the growth potential and without realizing the socio-political and the stability implications of this. I want to tell the hon. member that it would be difficult for us to obtain a more calculated and more responsible shift of emphasis as far as policy is concerned than we have had. The emphasis has shifted to stimulate stable growth. Therefore I believe that the hon. the Minister, disciplined in his proposals, has specifically aimed at activating the economy’s growth, that we must counteract the inflationary force and that we shall thus give our economic life a shot in the arm. I find that with a view to economic growth the choice of the steps in the given circumstances has already had the favourable effect which the hon. member for Virginia referred to. The effect has been to change a depressive attitude into a spirit of relative optimism. Therefore I also believe that the relatively low spending in the Government sector, where spending has increased this year by 6 per cent in comparison with 20 per cent last year, will also have a favourable effect and make a valuable contribution to the economic stability as one of the most important economic objectives we must strive for. The hon. members opposite, and the Press that supports them, have always advocated an economic policy that could bring them short-term benefits and serve vested interests. As yet they have evidenced little understanding or acceptance of National interests. I want to say that in the complex South African society it is irresponsible to look through spectacles tinted with visions of vested and group interests.

I should not like to analyse the hon. member’s speech any further. In summing up I just want to allege that the Budget proposals are in accordance with the trends in our economy to which I referred, that in the fiscal policy the available instruments are being effectively employed, more to realize stable growth, to ensure foreign balance of payments stability and to supply employment for our people with due regard to the dualistic composition of our South African social structure.

Mr. Speaker, we have already got to know the hon. member for False Bay in this House as a swaggering, worthless member. He did not disappoint us today either, since he made a swaggering, worthless and largely unmotivated speech.

You are being rather presumptuous for a back-bencher.

In the first place, he charged the hon. member for Parktown with allegedly having dealt fragmentarily with the Budget as he had allegedly dealt only with certain fragments of it. Then he spoke of macro-economic objectives which ought to have been discussed, and said that things ought to have been seen in that light. Now I want to ask him where the overhead policy is which reveals the macro-economic objectives of this Government. Surely there is no grand overhead plan from which we can deduce what the hon. the Minister of Finance has in mind. The one year he makes certain financial arrangements and the next year he makes completely different ones again. There is no consistent policy or and during statements of policy and objectives with a view to long-term planning. It is on this very aspect in particular that I want to concentrate in my speech.

†First of all I should like to say that it is my belief that after 24 years of its administration, the Government faces in this debate an imposing charge sheet, because, in the first instance, they have rent asunder the fabric of justice for all. They have manhandled the principles of fair and frank government and they have broken the terms of the social contract to govern the people only for the benefit of the people. They have taken charge of a very healthy country and a healthy people with perhaps the greatest potential in the world today. We have great manpower resources and potential in the world today. We have great manpower resources and potential. We have great mineral resources and potential. We have great power potential, not only electrical and steam but even nuclear power. We have at our disposal still untapped resources in this regard. But they have mismanaged all these so badly that growth today is still lagging behind and is lagging dangerously behind. In fact, the whole economy is in jeopardy. That is the charge-sheet that this Government is facing.

Furthermore, this Government claims to protect us again terrorists and communists, but who, might I ask, protects us against the Government? Who protects us against its incompetence, its arrogance and its ham handedness generally? There is only one answer: The only protection that we have is the ballot box. That is Where we must go and that is what the people of South Africa today must make use of to protect themselves against the arrogance and authoritarianism of this Government. My charge is that they have disregarded the potential of our people. They have lavished on our labours and they have scorned it. They have squandered our resources, because they have failed dismally to plan our future adequately.

The Government’s whole Bantustan policy, parallel development—or whatever euphemism you wish to use—is quite irrelevant to any problem facing South Africa today. What are the real basic needs of a people before anything else? Before anything else. I venture to say, the basic needs of a people are food, shelter, security, education and a future. A people who are hungry, who have no housing and no future, are not a people who can attain great heights in any sphere of activity whatsoever. History abounds with proof that economic prosperity is a precondition for the flowering of all that is great and worthwhile in human existence. There has been one great society on this earth that did not, before anything else, attain economic prosperity and economic security. That is the very first pre-condition, because it is only when economic security and prosperity have been attained and assured that the arts flourish and philosophy and law are debated and a great people and a great culture became truly great. That is the reason why we on this side of the House are always concentrating on economics and economic matters, because this is the first priority in South Africa if we want South Africa to become a great country and a great society. We know it has the potential to become that. That is why we concentrate on economics and economic problems, because we realize its great value. It is not, as is sometimes scurrilously thrown at us from that side, a sense of materialism; it is exactly …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “scurrilous”.

But Minister Schoeman used the word “scurrilous”.

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

Order! Is the hon. member for Durban Central questioning my ruling?

I was only pointing out that the hon. the Leader of the House used the same word …

In connection with the Press, if the hon. member had listened closely, and not in connection with hon. members. The hon. member for Florida may continue.

I am arguing that it is not done out of a sense of pure materialism as is sometimes unreasonably thrown to our account by hon. members on that side of the House. It is because we realize that before anything really great can be established in South Africa, we must have economic prosperity. After all, all of us in South Africa are the descendants of pioneers and we have a great pioneering spirit. I think that that spirit has civilized the whole of South Africa. That pioneering spirit must live with us and we must carry this pioneering spirit not only to the physical ends of South Africa which has been done, but we must use it to build a truly great, strong and truly noble society here. I believe that this can be done. Therefore, our first priority is not Bantustans, but economic prosperity and security for people of all races. We must ensure that the greatest possible measure of economic prosperity is built into our system.

The present economic difficulties are multifarious and much vaunted. The previous speaker, and those to come. I am sure, are going to deal with them. I am more interested in the future than in the past and today even more interested in the future than in the present. The main question which bothers me, which bothers hon. members on this side of the House, and which I believe bothers the majority of people outside this House, is how the Government is going to prevent a recurrence of the present economic difficulties. One wonders what plan this hon. Minister has got to ensure that such a situation will not arise again? We already see a buoyancy in the economy and we hope that the short-term benefits of devaluation will not be short-lived, that we will be able to build on this and that we will be able to make something permanent of it. But then something has to be done now. After all, we have previously seen economic prosperity of this country. It is not something new. But what was the result of the economic prosperity we enjoyed? The result was eventual devaluation, because this Government could not handle a boom. This Government has proved itself incompetent to govern South Africa while there is economic prosperity in this country; that is the greatest problem. We hope that we are going to right the economy and that everything will be all right again, but we now know from experience that this hon. Government cannot handle such economic prosperity.

They come with the argument that inflation was brought about by influences from outside, and that they had absolutely nothing to do with it. They say that completely outside influences brought about inflation because most Western countries suffer from the problem of inflation. But then I put the opposite to them. At the time South Africa was experiencing economic growth, the rest of the world was also experiencing economic growth. Is it then not also because of outside influences that we grew? How can they claim credit for the one and not for the other? I think the problem is that they have never been able to control the South African economy, that they never had the South African economy in their hands. That is the problem. That is why the whole thing ran away with them when we had a boom. I want to ask the Minister how the Government will ensure economic prosperity, stability and equanimity. We believe that this can only be done through long-term planning.

Any individual, group of individuals, company or other business enterprise wishing to have financial success must set its long-term objectives and must establish ways and means and a policy towards those objectives. This is surely equally true for an entire country. Our whole socio-economic structure is daily becoming more and more involved and we must ensure that an effective balance and interplay among all the factors of our communal life, namely, political, social, economic and the factors within the economy itself are maintained. In these days this calls for thorough planning. not only economic planning, but, I believe, socio-economic planning as well. But, and this I want to say very strongly, planning and regimentation is not synonymous. Planning must be indicative and incentive and must protect free enterprise through the security and prosperity it brings and not strangle it through controls and regulations which we have seen too often from this Government. Furthermore, planners must maintain the closest co-operation with employers, employees and entrepreneurs alike.

In the light of what I have just said, what has the Government done? It has instituted planning, but, I dare say, on an unplanned basis. Small planning bodies proliferate throughout each department of our monolithic state bureaucracy. They abound throughout our provincial administrations and local authorities. That is only in the public sector; in the private sector we equally have planning bodies. We are being overrun by planning bodies with no correlation, co-ordination, co-operation, rapport or even communication, inter se.

How can you have planning on an unplanned basis?

All their activities taken together do not amount to a comprehensive or even a comprehensible whole. This cannot constitute long-term national planning. To pose one question: Taking into account the population increase and what the total population of South Africa will be in 1980 and if it is our objective to house everybody by 1980, I wonder if this Government will be able to tell me how many bricklayers we will need to build all the houses. This is obviously a basic question. How many artisans are going to be needed? If they can tell me how many artisans are going to be needed, they should also surely be able to tell me how many new schools and how many new teachers there will have to be to be able to train those artisans. These are the basic questions which must be answered before one can plan. I am of the opinion that nobody can give us the answers to those questions.

The Department of Planning is even worse, because its activities are more like scheming than true planning. They are scheming how to make the unworkable work, because all work is done from a preconceived hypothesis. Thoroughly detailed social and economic planning is not to be confused with the so-called planning of the present Government, because we have no use for ideological planning. Planning must be based purely on social needs and economic realities which have been scientifically ascertained. Another result of the whole situation, which is in fact characteristic of the present Government’s planning, indeed of the Government administration as a whole, is the bureaucratinization of our lives.

At present we are threatened by the rule of bureaucrats and dictatorship by the experts. To an extent, one might argue, it would be unavoidable in the haphazard type of administration of this Government; but the social life and structure of today and the stresses and strains of our society today are becoming so involved and intricate that experts I think necessarily abound as specialization increases and bureaucrats flourish, to mend the fabric of this gargantuan structure. Unfortunately, understanding of today’s true problems in most cases go beyond the comprehension of the layman. Vastly intricate measures to deal with these problems are virtually all drawn up by experts in every conceivable field. The problems and their solution are therefore getting beyond the control—and this is the danger—of our normal democratic institutions in the present type of system. Adequate technical information, the details and the background are not readily available to our democratic bodies, and not soon enough. Therefore we find that on some of the most important matters concerning our future and our communal life in this country we have no meaningful debate. I believe that this results in the fact that effective government is done by generally unknown experts in what one might almost call “secret backrooms”. No control is possible over them. Their deliberations are in the nature of the matter secret, unknown and inscrutable—their confusion is not. I think economic and technical measures, such as those which are going to be taken concerning our environment and pollution, are vital for our future and communal life in South Africa and which, out of the technical nature and the way matters are handled at present, are not adequately subject to democratic control. This is why I say that there is no adequate control over these matters through the normal democratic process. I think matters are going to become worse; because after all, South Africa is still a young and growing country. We must learn from the mistakes of others.

Other countries have had the same sort of experience and I think we can learn very well from their mistakes. I believe that we can now, being relatively, at the beginning stages of our greatest development, create a planning system which can be adequately subject to democratic control, whilst being effective and streamlined. Every field and facet of planning in our national life on every level must be inter-related and correlated, each segment with the other and eventually integrated at the top. The experts and planners in their deliberations must be brought out of the backrooms on to the public platform and into public debate.

On these general guide-lines we can have, not a technocratically controlled society under the cloak of democracy, but a true democratically planned free enterprise South Africa.

The hon. member for Zululand has indicated why it is important to maintain an unfragmented South Africa and what the solutions of the United Party are in this regard; the United Party foresees a federal South Africa. Such a system as I have out lined would fit ideally into a federal structure, where you have a devolution of power, but where everything, in other words the local content, is a priority. Everything at the top, however, is correlated and brought together. I believe that this would be the greatest safeguard for our future because, after all, we are now busy building the future South African society and we must determine the structure of that society. What is more important is that we are also busy determining the values of that society, the aims of that society and the ultimate process of that society, which I am convinced must be a federal process.

I am of the opinion that the main difference between that side of the House and this side of the House is that we do not believe in a fixed structure, a fixed pattern, into which the whole of our society must be pressed as hon. members opposite do. We do not want to fit society into a certain static structure because, after all, one of the great commentators on federalism, C. J. Friedrich, has said—and I think this is generally accepted today—that federalism is not a situation, it is a process; it is something which dynamically evolves all the while it exists, and this is what we want for South Africa, Mr. Speaker—not a Utopia, not an absolute solution in absolute terms. When we are talking about the relations between people, this is the basic problem which has existed since the original sin, and we are not going to have a solution, but we want a process through which the forces of society can be channelled, a process which will ensure the rights of all groups and which will ensure that all groups, instead of working against each other, will work for the benefit of each other. Sir, this is why I believe that South Africa can no longer afford to sit with hon. members on that side within the ruins of their policy. They have tried to build a city at the side of the road of South Africa because they have tried to give a solution; they have tried to create a static structure; they have tried to build a city at the side of the road instead of travelling on, and they are now sitting within the ruins of their policy …

On the ash-heap.

…and they have dragged the rest of South Africa with them into those ruins. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is still trying to put a few bricks on top of each other to create the impression that something is going on, but he has not got any mortar. That is why the whole structure is shaking and I believe that we can no longer afford to sit in these ruins with hon. members on that side, because the United Party knows and sees the road for South Africa, and it knows how to travel that road, and whilst we point to the ruins to which this Government has led us, I believe that we are at this moment showing the people of South Africa the true road of South Africa and we invite them to walk this road with us.

Sir, I think the hon. member for Florida, speaking quite pathetically, condemned himself in the words he addressed to the hon. member for False Bay at the start of his speech when he said that in making his well-thought-out speech, the hon. member for False Bay had adopted a swaggering and haughty attitude here today. Sir, if there has ever been a naïve demonstration of haughtiness and swaggering, then it is what we had from the hon. member for Florida. I watched the hon. member for Parktown to see what his expressions and reactions were while the hon. member for Florida, quite authoritatively, swung into action on economics. I am glad that the hon. member for Park-town does not have any hair on his head, for they would all have stood on end with excited fear, because the hon. member saw that a new full moon had appeared on the horizon of the United Party to speak on economics. But the hon. member for Parktown was quite justified in very soon adopting a calm attitude once again when he noticed what the quality was of the contribution made by the hon. member for Florida. Sir, what I found terribly amusing, was the sceptic and laughing manner in which all the other members of the United Party sat listening to what the hon. member for Florida had to say about the economy.

Sir, we have now come to the end of a session of Parliament. We are dealing here with a Third Reading debate on the Appropriation Bill, a debate which has taken up considerably more than 100 hours, and if we have to make summaries and give main impressions, I think you will agree with me, Sir, that at the end of this Session of Parliament the United Party are in a far greater state of confusion than they were at any stage during this Session. If they have ever been in a state of confusion, if they have ever found themselves in a political maze, in a far greater state of confusion than was the case at the beginning of the Session, then it is now. Today we once again found proof to that effect here, inter alia, from the lips of the hon. member for Zululand and other speakers. I shall come back to the hon. member for Zululand in a moment. At the outset I just want to say the following about him: Amongst other things, he spoke here of “large-scale consolidation thrown overboard” by our side. I wrote the hon. member a note, asking him to let me have his exact words, but the hon. member was so carried away with his speech that he wrote back to me that he thought he had said this and that.

I did not have my notes here.

Yes, and he could not remember what he had said. But the hon. member did at least confirm in his brief note that he charged us as the National Party with having abandoned the consolidation of the homelands, with having thrown it overboard. Sir, what a cruel irony is it for the hon. member for Zululand to have to say this on this very day, this very day on which I announced to the Press and the public the proposals of my department on the consolidation of Northern Natal, where this hon. member’s constituency is situated.

He does not know it.

Yes, perhaps he does not know it. It was broadcast and will appear in the Press. Sir, these are not decisions taken by me or by the Government on this matter; I want to state this very clearly; these are the proposals made by my department in regard to Northern Natal, and after we have received the reactions to it, the Government will take its decision on the matter. But a cruel irony attaches to the fact that the hon. member made such a foolish statement here, after we had, in the first instance, come forward during this Session with the Ciskei proposals, which were adopted by this House, and after we had on this very day made this announcement in regard to Northern Zululand. Sir, to the dismay of the hon. member I want to tell him that before long more announcements of similar proposals will be made in respect of the rest of the country.

Interim proposals.

No, not interim proposals. It is the party opposite that is suffering from “interim”. Sir, the hon. member for Zululand also said here today that even more land would have to be surrendered than had been laid down in the 1936 Act. I shall come back to this thought, because this is one of the things on which a Babylonian confusion prevails in the United Party at the moment. In the third place, the hon. member said—and this is a rather significant admission—that there was merit in the thought, in the philosophy, as he calls it, of political say for the Bantu in the homelands, but he claimed that the economy had wrecked our policy and that we were now believing in a myth, namely that there were no Bantu in the White area. Sir, we do not believe in a myth. If there is one party which founds its policy squarely on the real facts of South Africa, the reality of multi-nationalism in South Africa, then it is this very party. We are not trying to wish together and to forge together and to force together an artificial unit out of totally unassimilable people into one biological unit, or, if it is not a biological unit, into one political unit in this central Parliament. Unlike the United Party, we do not indulge in such wishful thinking. Now, I say that during this Session the United Party has proved to us that it finds itself in a bigger political maze than it did at the beginning of the Session. Yesterday we witnessed a search for policy in the ranks of the United Party. Everybody in the United Party has now become a “leading Opposition thinker”. This is the latest name which the hon. member for Von Brandis, for instance, was given the other day—“a leading Opposition thinker”. I suppose it is necessary to have “leading Opposition thinkers” since the leader as the policy-maker is not one. In the newspapers supporting them we read from day to day about the one “re-think” after the other. The hon. member for Wynberg had a “rethink” in Natal. There she underwent a whole metamorphosis, and then they imposed silence upon her here, so much so that she has already started thinking about retiring from politics, and that on the eve of the reins of government being assumed by their party, as they ostensibly believe. It is a very serious manifestation of frustration which leads to something of that nature. The hon. members themselves would be well-advised to have a little “re-think” on these matters.

There are three points in particular in regard to which the United Party have recently, in their own minds and also in the editorial offices of their newspapers, been engaged in a “re-think”. I want to mention and deal with these three points hurriedly. In the first place, we have the 16 representatives in Parliament. We know now how they take fright at it. It gave them a tremendous fright during the two by-elections, and it is attributable to those two by-elections we had that they are now having a “re-think” about the 16 representatives.

But the second topic in regard to which they have had such a tremendous “rethink”, is the acquisition of territory for the Bantu of South Africa. It started with our Ciskei proposals, and if one is now going to have a double “re-think”, it will be pursuant to our proposals which have now been announced in regard to Northern Natal. At first we heard from them that the 7¼ million morgen was the maximum that was to be purchased. Then again we heard, “No, they may buy more than 7¼ million morgen for the Bantu of South Africa”, especially if such land is situated near the cities and the industrial complexes, as the hon. member for Transkei said, and this afternoon we also heard this from the hon. member for Zululand. But we also heard of other alternatives. This was particularly the case in the vicinity of the constituency of the hon. member for Albany, where people came and said to us: “Don’t buy any more land for the Natives; instead of doing that, assess the value of the land and give them the money, or give them the interest on that money, but for heaven’s sake, just do not give the Bantu any more land.” This “re-think” has now swung from nothing to more than the 1936 quota. I should like to know whether more alternatives are not going to be suggested as well; I would not bet a sixpence or an empty bottle of whisky on them.

The third point in regard to which there was such a tremendous “re-think”, is the question of the form of the federation. Previously we always heard them talking about a race federation. Apparently the racist approach of the United Party to this point is fading away at the moment, but now we only hear of the federation all the time. The reference to “race” has now been omitted. Originally they wanted to federate races, and now some of them want to federate territories, as is the case with the hon. member for Von Brandis, whilst others want to federate races and territories. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout admitted in the House that he recognized the existence of peoples, and when one deals with the Bantu, peoples are totally different from races, for the Bantu consist of one race and a number of peoples. But he has even started to recognize peoples, and so a Babylonian confusion prevails among them, and I can understand that a “re-think” is necessary, extremely necessary.

Is the hon. the Minister’s confusion not really between “Babylonian” and “Babel?”

I thank the hon. member for the assistance he has just offered me. What I mean, is that there is a Babel of confusion, and now I am not referring to the Babel down in the Southern Free State.

I want to deal quickly with the hon. member for Transkei, with reference to what he said recently in a Press statement on the land question. The hon. member said that since confusion prevailed “he wants to clarify the confusion”. This “confusion” prevailed nowhere else than in the United Party itself; i.e. after our Ciskei proposals. At the time the hon. member said that even much more land could be purchased, at places such as Langa and Soweto; land could be transferred to the Bantu and they could obtain ownership there; he spoke about much more than the 1936 Act quota, but a short while before that the same hon. member had said from his own bench here in Parliament that it was not even necessary to purchase all the land mentioned in the 1936 Act, and the hon. member for King William’s Town said the 1936 Act merely laid down a maximum and it was unnecessary to acquire everything. In the space of a few weeks they went from less than the 1936 maximum to an area exceeding that maximum, and today, of course, we heard from the hon. member for Zululand again. I want the country and the public of South Africa to take very good note of the fact that at present the policy of the United Party is to surrender much more land to the Bantu with a view to land-ownership than was laid down in the 1936 Act, and that they want this to be done near the White cities and major industrial complexes, i.e. near places such as Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg, and so forth, even if it is true that some say that we should not give them land, that we should give the money. Then the hon. member for Transkei referred to the “urban and rural areas”. In other words, this is not only in the urban complexes such as Cape Town and Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg, but also in the rural areas. I want to tell the hon. member now that he should tell us without mincing matters—I think this will take something of a “re-think”—that if wants to grant the Bantu land-ownership of plots in the urban areas, what they mean by the rural areas. Do they want to allow the Bantu to get even more Black spots and to purchase farms in the rural areas? They must tell us.

I did not say that.

I have the report here. Here I have his statement. Time does not permit me to read out all of it, but he did refer to the “rural areas”.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member should not bother me now. He will get a turn; he can “re-think” in the meantime, and then he should give us clarity on that point, for it is necessary. As I have said, the hon. member came forward with the very drastic idea that they now wanted to grant more land than was laid down in the 1936 Act, but at the same time the hon. member said that consolidation of the homeland areas was not essential, not under their policy. But today the hon. member for Zululand levelled the reproach at me that we did not want to promote consolidation. Who are we to believe in a party in which such confusing statements are made? It is a Babel of confusion. It looks more like Egyptian darkness to me. When they say consolidation is not essential, I recall that in their own race federation policy they said the race federation policy had a “geographical content”. What does that mean? Does it mean a few hundred spots all over South Africa, or will their geographic content no longer be meaningful if it consists of a few consolidated units? I think it is very necessary for them to have a “re-think” on this question. In that article of his the hon. member told us that the Bantu were entitled to everything the Whites had, and that they would not use the 1936 Act for keeping the Bantu out of the homelands. I ask the hon. member, and I ask the hon. House, to read the 1936 Act, please. Then they should tell me what its main objective is other than trying to keep the Bantu in the homelands and out of the White areas. The delimitation of additional areas and even the labour tenant system are dealt with in that Act. Numerous other matters are dealt with in it too. Everything is aimed at trying to increase the number of Bantu in the homelands. Now the hon. member says that they are not using that very objective of the Act.

That is not right.

I want the hon. member to remember that the people outside are not as stupid as that. The people outside will realize how the United Party are blatantly undermining the basis of this 1936 Act in the “re-thinking” they are engaged in at the moment.

Now I want to refer to the hon. member for Von Brandis. I simply want to interrupt myself, as the former hon. member for Standerton used to say. I want to interrupt myself by saying that the hon. member for Von Brandis dealt with such a host of points in that recent speech of his that I shall really not be able to do justice to all of them in the space of the remaining few minutes that I have at my disposal. Really, it is pathetic that The Cape Times described his speech as a “carefully worded speech”. I must tell hon. members that it is by no means worded carefully enough for a person with a diplomatic background, and this came, no less, from a “leading Opposition thinker”, as he was styled.

Thinker?

Yes, not “speaker” but in fact a “thinker”. In that speech of his the hon. member for Von Brandis revealed more than anything else that the United Party with its Bantu policy is a sorry party. The hon. member said, amongst other things, that they did not believe in any mixed unitary state. If that is the case, what is their race federation? At the same time he said they believed in a stable, democratic community, but apparently this is not a mixed unitary state. That speech of the hon. member contains more contradictions than I have ever found in any speech. I read through it very carefully, and I should like other hon. members to approach it that way as well. He said quite a number of very important things in that speech, and then he said at the same time that the United Party could not give a blueprint of its policy for the future, as this was impossible. Then the hon. member simply delivered himself of a lot of things.

Like your Coloured policy.

The hon. member for Von Brandis is one of these people, and he said this in that article, which stated that the Bantu had to be persuaded to accept things other than extra land. He does not want to give them the full 1936 quota; he wants to give money or something else in exchange for it. The hon. member for Transkei, on the other hand, said we had to give more than the land granted in terms of the 1936 Act. Now, one still finds people who say that confusion does not prevail, that they are not blowing hot and cold and that they are not at loggerheads as far as their policy is concerned.

The hon. member did at least pay the National Party one major compliment, and I want to thank him for that, just as I thanked the hon. member for Wynberg the other day for the same good things she said. The hon. member said good things had been accomplished up to this stage and that they should not be abandoned. After 24 years of National Party Government I think that hon. member will have to agree with me that those good things to which he referred are achievements attained by us on this side of the House. The hon. members opposite opposed in this House everything that could be ascribed to us as achievements and tried to block them outside this House. The hon. member also said in that speech of his that the statements he was making there, were aimed at safeguarding race groups and rendering the race bomb harmless. I am pleased that he has admitted that their policy, the race federation policy, is a bomb and that they are now “re-thinking” in order to get away from their race federation policy, and also that they now want to pursue a policy of federal systems with various possibilities. As I said a moment ago, they have various systems for their race federation. Some say that races must be federated and some say that areas must be federated. Some say that both must be done, and then they are also talking about communal councils. They are also talking about South-West Africa. The hon. member also said that South-West would be persuaded to join the federation. I want to ask the hon. member why we should still be subjected to hearing him tell us that South-West will have to be persuaded to join the federation. Are the members representing South-West not sitting in this Chamber already? Has South-West not been incorporated politically into this Parliament already? Do they first want to take South-West out of our political system, detach it and then persuade it again to join the federal system? It would seem to me as though such things are possible with the United Party. The hon. Senator Horak has already announced that under their race federation policy they will also invite Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland to join it. This has already been said. I suppose they will also go so far yet as to ask the four provinces of our country to join the race federation. Now I want to know how they want to achieve this. After all, as it is those four provinces and South-West Africa are integrally interwoven in our political system in South Africa. What does the hon. member mean in this “carefully worded speech by a leading Opposition thinker”? No, there must at least be better thinking than that.

The hon. member also said he believed that the territorial concept was the stronger and had to be emphasized much more. In other words, he is not very pleased with the race concept, with race federating. No, he talks about the territorial concept. Very well, that may be sensible; I do not know. He also said a few other things. He said it was in fact sensible to have the non-White groups represented here in Parliament. But. he said, should this appear to be prejudicial to us, we would have to take that matter into reconsideration, “then we must rethink”. Do the hon. members of the Opposition want the people of South Africa to regard them in all earnest as an alternative Government for whom they may vote at a next election if they continually want to “re-think” on such basic things and have an alternative to everything? And then, after all these things, they still say: Although we have so many possibilities, an alternative to everything, we also want to add that we do not have a blue-print for the future. And then they want to go to the polls with that. In that case, as I said a moment ago, there ought not to be any members who will differ with me if I say that at this stage, as far as its policy in regard to relations amongst peoples is concerned, the United Party finds itself in a much bigger political maze than it did at the beginning of this Session or at any stage during the past number of years and the period of almost 20 years during which I have been in this House of Assembly. We are all looking forward to that congress which is going to be held this year.

Would you not like to attend it?

The hon. member wants to know whether I would not like to attend it. If the hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to invite me as an honorary visitor, I must admit that I shall consider it.

The hon. member for Von Brandis also said in that speech of his he admitted that the National Party was justified in having a fear of being overwhelmed in this Parliament by the non-White representatives who could be here. This is what he said. But I want to remind the House that not so long ago the hon. member for Yeoville asked me from his bench whether we had so little faith in our own policy that we could not accept that the representatives of non-Whites in this House could also support us in this House. My reply to him was —and I repeat it today—that we never wanted to have the support of the representatives of non-Whites in this House, because we did not want them here. What is more, we do not want any support from them there, because it would be wrong for non-Whites to be the balance of power between two White political parties in this House or outside this House.

That is out of context.

No, it is not out of context; it is quite in context. I am merely pointing out the contrasting comments of the one “leading Opposition thinker” as against the other: The hon. member also said that our political policy would not be any good because it would not be possible to put it into operation. It would not be possible to put it into operation? Only recently we witnessed this once again. Last week it was announced that the second Bantu homeland in South Africa was becoming a self-governing territory within the Republic, namely Bophuthatswana. I may also tell the hon. member that I signed the last set of proclamations for the Ciskei today. They are on their way to the State President. The Ciskei is also going to be granted self-government this year, probably at the beginning of August if everything can be attended to before that time. During the course of this year the North Sotho, too, will be granted self-government in the same manner. Therefore we hope to have in South Africa four self-governing territories on the model of the Transkei by the end of this year. The others are competing with one another as to which of them will be the next one. And then that hon. member said our policy could not be implemented. I want to remind him at the same time that this year we put forward the extremely important and very striking and imaginative proposals in regard to the consolidation of the Ciskei and the other territories to which I referred earlier on today. Then the hon. member still says that our policy cannot be implemented.

Dr. Eiselen says so too.

What a “leading Opposition thinker”!

What does Dr. Eiselen say?

Mr. Speaker, that hon. member is committing slander by appealing to Dr. Eiselen. If that hon. member at his best knew as much about our policy as Dr. Eiselen does at his worst, it would be good for that hon. member. The hon. member told us that we could not implement our policy successfully. In that case, why are those members still quarrelling about our policy amongst themselves? The hon. members of the United Party are quarrelling amongst themselves about whether the good things in our policy should be accepted and whether the inevitable should be accepted. That is what the hon. member for Wynberg recently said in Natal. She said that the good things in our policy, the inevitable, what we established and what was good—such as the three or four things she mentioned—had to be accepted by the United Party. Then they gagged her because of that. Then they made her take a dislike to politics because of that. Is this proof that we are struggling to implement our policy, or are they the people who are quarrelling amongst themselves about accepting certain aspects of our policy as inevitable and as good, even within the framework of their race federation plan? I think the hon. member did himself a disservice through that article which he wrote, a greater disservice than the hon. member for Florida did himself this afternoon through his little speech.

That must have been a good speech if it made that impression on you.

Mr. Speaker, in the few moments I have left I just want to say that the United Party is a pathetic party. It finds itself in a bigger political maze than has ever been the case before, and this is so because it does not want to realize the futility of its own efforts—how futile it is for it to deny and reject multi-nationalism in South Africa. The United Party should stop talking about a race federation. I notice that to a certain extent they have already started to break away from that racist bias of theirs. We are not dealing with the Bantu as a race in South Africa as far as the political statements are concerned. Nowhere in the whole world will hon. members show me a country which has established a government for itself on the basis of race; this is done on the basis of a people, the cultural unit. It is on that basis that our policy is adapted to realism. As long as the United Party does the futile thing of disregarding this and of denying and disregarding the aspirations of the Bantu peoples, they will, in the political sphere in South Africa, sink down in a bigger maze and in a bigger desert.

As against that the National Party stands out as a party accepting to an increasing extent the multi-nationalism of South Africa, modelled on the lines of the real facts as we experience them every day in regard to the various Bantu peoples in South Africa. That is why one people after the other are getting this political self-government and forming their own governments and designing their own systems in the Bantu homelands, by means of which their citizens who are in the White areas are also integrated politically with those people and even feel physically attracted to those homelands, to such an extent that they want to move there.

Mr. Speaker, one can quite understand why a Minister of Bantu Administration and Development should get so agitated in this House and confine his entire speech to dealing with the policy of the Opposition. One can quite understand that when one realizes that his own policy has collapsed around him in ruins. Not only is this said by this side of the House, but also by the deepest thinking people that support the Nationalist Party at present, as I shall presently show. He said several things which I want to answer shortly, before I revert to the whole question of the failure of his policy and the policy of his Government.

Dealing with our attitude towards land, we made it perfectly plain that we do not propose that land should be made available for Bantu in order that it may be ruined under the practice of communal grazing, and so forth. We said in regard to that land that we can well visualize using that land on an individual basis of ownership, because then the Bantu would use that land productively and not as now. For the rest, in regard to land, we have stated that in the urban areas and in areas surrounding our urban areas where at present there are acres and acres of housing schemes for Bantu people, growth will take place and we have said that other areas of a like kind will grow where they will have houses and in many cases ownership. He also referred with great pride to the fact that in this very year there would be four Native authorities which will reach the stage which the Transkei has reached today. So often do we hear from him of this constitutional development and how he is rushing from one authority to another and conferring greater powers on them, but this does not mean that it is solving anything. Indeed, the very opposite is clear. Some members on our side referred him to the great father of apartheid. Dr. Eiselen, in this regard, and let me remind the hon. the Minister what Dr. Eiselen said in regard to this aspect. He said:

But the hon. the Minister is rushing ahead and thinks that by moving to this conclusion he will have done a service to the Native people and to South Africa. It is one thing to set up constitutional authorities, but it is another thing for them to be of service to the people of this country. Let me remind the Minister, and I will dwell upon this later, that already in these areas which are most advanced we have a considerable confrontation with the Government. I will return to this during the course of my speech.

Lastly the Minister said that he did not want the support of non-Whites in this Parliament. But what this party’s press organs have been saying, and he himself, I think, before, is that he would not secure the support of any of these peoples for his policies in this House. This is a most important admission, because when the hon. members opposite tell us that the Bantu peoples are all in support of their policies and that no support can be found for our policies, what more acid test can you have than the test as to how the representatives of those peoples would use their vote if they had it in this House? It is obvious and quite clear that if by a quirk of fate this great heaven was removed from them at the last moment and the United Party came into power before they achieved it, then if indeed it was such an attractive proposition, one can be quite certain that they would wish to use their vote in this House in order to secure this heaven at the earliest possible future date. Consequently, this is the most …

It is not compatible with our policy.

This is not the question. This is not the point. The hon. the Minister is endeavouring to avoid the point. The point is that he says that these people want his policy of independence and other policies. If they were given the chance to say so in this House, his side now tell us that they would not vote for these heavens which they are promised. That is the point, and it is time he remembered this when dealing with this question.

I am going to leave the hon. the Minister there. I want to come back shortly to the hon. the Minister of Transport and the speech he made today. I do so, partly because I want to correct something upon which I think he misunderstood me, and partly because I would like to say a very few words about it before getting on to the main thing I do want to say in regard to the Nationalist Party’s Bantu policy. I interjected while the hon. the Minister of Transport was speaking that in our party you had a fifty-fifty situation. I was meaning by that that you had in our party 50 per cent of the support coming from Afrikaans-speaking people and 50 per cent from English-speaking people. This is what is so vitally valuable to the people of South Africa. That party opposite at one time enjoyed a certain amount of English-speaking support, but because of its bad and indifferent policies, that support drained away, with one result, which we saw of course at Oudtshoorn. But this party can offer, not only the sanctity of its utterances of fair play to both sections of our country, but the complete equality of its support and of composition of its public representatives amounts to a guarantee thereof, This is a most significant matter; because hon. members opposite can try as much as they like, but they will be tugged at by the claims and the other strains of party-political advantage in this regard, as has been shown only so recently at Oudtshoorn.

The hon. the Minister endeavoured to pass off the speeches of the hon. the Minister of Defence and others on that side in this House and other places as merely defending and standing up for the Afrikaans language. This was not so, Mr. Speaker. I would like to have seen the hon. the Minister of Transport speaking more strongly to some of his Ministers in this regard. Had he done so, I would have been more impressed with his plea for national unity. I do indeed know him as a completely bilingual and fair-minded man, and I should think he would approach matters in this way. But there are plenty of colleagues on his side who do not have the same approach and whom he, by his speech today, did not adequately check. If we had had more of that, one could have thought that there was more repentance on his side now in this regard; but I am afraid that without that background, we are not so impressed.

He also referred, but only in general terms, to alleged injustices to Afrikaans and seemed to suggest that some of them came from this side. He quoted none of these instances. He should know that his Government has been in power for 25 years—it cannot therefore be from the Government sector that any of this comes. He did not cite any private institutions who were responsible for this and give any examples. I do not see how he can possibly place those at the door of the United Party.

But, Mr. Speaker, I can give countless examples where, in my view, there has been an injustice done to the English language and so forth, but I do not spend my time doing this, because I stand for tolerance in these matters. I believe that we must be tolerant in these matters. I will give a couple of examples of cases where I know how hon. members opposite would have reacted had it befallen to them, and I will start with Oudtshoorn. In this great victory at Oudtshoorn we had a candidate standing who was using a poster, one of his main posters, which used completely wrong English. How many elections have I not fought where, if there has been a mistake in the Afrikaans used by the United Party, we have been told that this is because the United Party people have no time for Afrikaans. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn is a man from Oudtshoorn, and his poster read, “Badenhorst from Oudtshoorn”, but you do not say that in English; you say, “Badenhorst of Oudtshoorn”.

“Badenhorst for Oudtshoorn”.

You did not read correctly.

No, I have a photograph of that poster, because I was interested in it. Sir, the point is that it would never have occurred to me to take that matter any further because I believe in tolerance. I believe that there should be the greatest measure of tolerance. I believe that the two language sections should be careful not to hurt each other, even in matters of humour. I believe that perhaps each language group should direct its humour against itself, rather than across the language line. That is perhaps going a bit far, but I believe that we should be very careful in this regard out of concern for people’s feelings.

Sir, there are countless examples that I could give. How often when I phone a Government department is the call not answered in Afrikaans? It is not always answered in Afrikaans, but very often, but I do not object to that; I say to myself: “Let us have tolerance.” What do I hear from national servicemen? I have been told by English-speaking national servicemen whom I have asked what language is used in the army camps: “Dit is alles in Afrikaans.” But I do not raise these matters. These are Government departments, Mr. Speaker. This is not a case where some immigrant working in a hotel cannot speak the sort of Afrikaans that you might wish to hear. Take some of the Select Committees of Parliament. Countless of our members get most of the documents in Afrikaans. Do they object? These are Government departments. The hon. the Minister and other members opposite base their alleged case against the United Party on the fact that some person in a hotel, who is probably an immigrant and possibly a German, does not address them in Afrikaans. What control has the United Party over these people? But I do not believe in bringing up these matters. I do so now under some provocation because I do not see why the hon. the Minister of Transport in this debate had to make a speech that was similar to the speech that he made in the election campaign. I believe most sincerely—indeed, it is so obvious that one need hardly state it—that in a country which finds itself in our situation we need the greatest measure of national unity, and this whole party is a 50-50 party, as far as its supporters and its public representatives are concerned.

We are a 100-100 party.

That is a childish interjection.

Your ratio is 98 to two.

Mr. Chairman, I want to come back to what I regard as a future question, as indeed this other one is, too, and that is the Nationalist Party’s race relations policy. I am sorry that the hon. the Minister has departed, but his Deputy is here. I should have liked to talk to the hon. the Minister as well. Sir, a further year has passed since this Parliament was prorogued last year, and one year at this period of our history is a precious period of time, and I believe that today we are no nearer to a solution of our race relations problems than we were a year ago. Indeed, I believe that we are further away from the solution. I believe that in this past year further goodwill has drained away. I believe that in this past year tensions have been rising and can be seen to be rising between the various race groups, including—sad to relate—the English speaking and the Afrikaans speaking. There have been growing confrontations too numerous to mention.

Many of these institutions, of which the hon. the Minister was boasting a moment ago as representing tremendous achievements by the Government, are institutions which are certainly underlining the very differences which exist between us. One has only got to think of the statements by the leaders of the two main Bantu groups, the Zulu people and the Xhosa people. Chief Buthelezi says that if all the land that the Government is going to give them is the land as set out in the 1936 settlement, then this policy is a fraud. The Government, on the other hand, says, “That is all the land we are going to give them”. Chief Matanzima says virtually the same thing; he says that he is not going to ask for independence unless he can have certain White areas to which he has laid claim. Sir, there is an absolute confrontation between the Government and these new bodies brought into being by the Government and about which the Minister boasts. This is nothing to boast about. Take the Coloured people. We cannot be happy with the trend in regard to the Coloured people either. I do not, however, propose to elaborate upon that now. I say, Sir, that there are many people on the Nationalist side who agree that the Government has no policy whatsoever in respect of a major part— perhaps the major part—of our problem. I refer here, of course, to the urban Bantu. There was a long time when hon. members opposite were convinced that the Bantu would disappear from our White urban areas. The permanence of the Bantu in our urban areas was never foreseen or taken into account in the policies of hon. members opposite. Their whole policy was constructed on the basis that the Bantu would not be permanent here.

Indeed, Sir, apartheid can be said to have been designed to avoid the very existence of the Bantu in the White urban areas, but this has failed completely. The Bantu in the urban areas are more numerous now than ever before. I believe that the most interesting thing about the Budget of the hon. the Minister of Finance is that this Budget is the final admission that the Government has stopped trying to achieve what their policy set out to achieve in that respect. I will come back to this point later on. Sir, there are countless Nationalist verligtes who are saying that they have no policy in regard to the urban Bantu. I could quote countless numbers of them and perhaps I shall do so. But the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration completely ignores that whole issue and spends his time—he thinks successfully —in attacking United Party policy. He should be doing some thinking on his own policy. Indeed, all members of the Government should be doing some rethinking on their policy, starting from the ground up.

You are asking too much.

Sir, let us look very briefly at the history in regard to this aspect of the permanence of the urban Bantu. We were told that the ideal was complete territorial separation and that you should ideally be reducing the numbers of Bantu in the White areas. I may say that conceivably, if you could get all the Bantu out of the White urban areas, the idea of sovereign independence might make some sense. But then in the ’sixties the cry arose that “Ons bely apartheid, maar ons praktiseer integrasie”. That cry arose in the middle sixties. Then we had the classic statement from the hon. the Minister of Labour. I am so sorry he is not here, so that he could correct me if I go wrong in any respect. What did he say? He used words to this effect, that “by the development and prosperity of South Africa the opponents of apartheid would try to destroy apartheid”. That is the effect of what he said in about the middle ’sixties. I believe it was at about that time that we got these various last-ditch efforts from the Government to give some content to their apartheid. You will remember, Sir, that we had the five per cent reduction of Bantu in the Western Cape annually. We had the Physical Planning Act, and how drastic, we were told, that was going to be in what it would do. We had the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development himself talking in this House precisely three years ago, and these are some of the things he was still able to say in those days. He said in column 8379—

That was the sort of thing he was telling us three years ago, and the hon. the Minister of Health was assisting this aim at one stage by doing his own washing up. I do not know whether he is still doing it.

I am doing it this year because my wife is not here.

Then above all, I believe that the hon. the Minister of Finance was pulled into this great last-ditch effort. I believe that his Budgets were designed to buttress and support this whole last-ditch stand on apartheid. Sir, you will remember very well how for several years the hon. the Minister of Finance used to read us a lovely lesson about a lucky party with a great ideology. He used to tell us, when he came with his Budgets in those days, that this party had an ideology and this was so important, but we did not understand it. It was those words and the framework of his Budget in those days which were undoubtedly designed as a last-ditch effort to achieve the very same aim that the Physical Planning Act and the five per cent Cape reductions and everything else was designed to do. In this year of grace, I suggest that also this barrier has been thrown down. The five per cent reduction in the Western Cape has completely gone. I asked the Minister of Bantu Administration for the figures in this regard and the increase in Bantu labour in the Western Cape in the last two years, for which figures are available, was of the order of 30 000 or practically 25 per cent. We know that the Physical Planning Act has been watered down and emasculated until it really means nothing now and finally this year, under the pressure of events, we have seen the Budget of the hon. the Minister of Finance also trimmed and tailored to meet the new situation and sharing in the abandonment of the whole policy. I do not pretend to be a financier or a man of financial affairs, but it is quite obvious that in the middle 1960s the idea was to use our high exchange reserves and gold supplies to allow imports freely and thus damp down to some extent our industries. There may have been other factors involved to make them decide that this was a good course, but basically, it was the hope that by damping down our own factories, you would draw fewer and fewer people into the metropolitan areas, and so you would support the Physical Planning Act and these other measures. Now what do we see? We see now that this policy has gone out of the window, and as the hon. member for Park-town said not long ago, in fact there is now a tight import control and there is the promise of adequate, more than adequate, protection for local industry; in other words, they are now reversing that policy and accepting the inflow of Bantu labour into our industries on a big scale I was saying that there are countless “verligte” Nationalists, some of the best thinkers on their side, who accept that the Bantu is permanent. I think Rapport can claim the honour of having had the courage first to come out with such statements. They asked: Who still believes that the Bantu is not permanent in our urban areas? Several others have followed and I salute them, because it is not so easy to speak up in this regard. So many of them, amongst whom we find Adv. De Villiers and I think I am right when I say even “Dawie” of Die Burger, say that the Bantustans at most can be only a slight help in the question of their policy. I say that they have no policy for this most important section of our population, the urban Bantu. They have no policy other than a blank denial of rights. They are “van burgerlike regte verstoke”—that is the way it has been put so classically by the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. Then there were one or two fearful little steps this Session, little steps in regard to family life which we welcome. There have been little steps towards relaxing the availibility of houses in the Bantu urban townships and we welcome this too. But how belated they are and what goodwill has it not cost us that there has not been proper accommodation all these years? Basically there has been no policy for them and there is no basic rethinking to be seen.

I must hurry to a conclusion. The economy has been throttled and our growth per capita is tragically low. Hon. members can read what Mr. Oppenheimer has said in the annual report of the Anglo-American Corporation. It was quite tragically low for us to be among the back-runners among the Western countries when it comes to income per head of population, it is too pathetic for words. I hope the hon. Minister of Finance will keep his eyes open and that he will talk to us about this figure in future, and not about the general growth rate Where our great and fast growing population and its high birth rate have such an effect upon the situation. I said that if one could have got the Bantu back into the Bantu areas, there might have been a case for sovereign independence. As it is now there is none whatsover. They are only dangerous. Therefore the answer is more and more seen to be the answer of a federation. Our policy is a race federation, and it also has the geographic aspect in it too as it has been stated so often. This is the answer to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. More and more people are coming around to this. Our principles are so well known for that federation that White leadership shall be accepted and protected in the interests of Western standards among all races. The non-Whites must have a say in matters of mutual concern and a predetermined share in Government. Through the introduction of our federal elements there will be a real measure of protection to each individual and to race groups. Above all, there must be human goodwill as Chief Buthelezi said: “Why can my staff not drink a cup of coffee in a pleasant friendly way with me …” or words to that effect. I say that this growing Nationalism negates that. We must realize that with their growing awareness of civilization, the Bantu people will more and more appreciate that in terms of our civilization they are suffering indignities. This will mean more and more that they will not be prepared to tolerate those indignities. The sooner, therefore, that we get to this appreciation, the better.

Sir, in conclusion, another year has passed, another year of precious time has passed and we are no nearer to meeting this need for goodwill, to meeting this need of all our people to proceed in harmony.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Pinelands spoke about bilingualism; he spoke about the multi-national aspect—in other words, about their federation policy. He will excuse me if I do not reply to him immediately as far as that is concerned, because in the course of my speech, which will actually be dealing with the same matters, I shall come back to what he said at the start.

I have sat through this Session, as in the case of the previous one; I have spoken very little, but I have listened a great deal. I was almost always in my seat. That is why I want to give a quick summary today of what I have witnessed during these two Sessions and during the two elections that preceeded them. Throughout we had an absolutely striking continuity. I now want to tell the Opposition frankly that in the elections, as in these two sessions, we have had common gossip-mongering and character assassination. I regret this; it was truly characteristic of these two elections and of the two Sessions. What it all amounted to was nothing less than character assassination and gossip-mongering. Those hon. members were of the opinion that they achieved some success with that in the elections. That is why they continued with it on such a scale.

The second aspect that constantly revealed itself during this session is the scandalous disparagement of Afrikaner sentiments and Afrikaner feelings. Now those hon. members will again say: There he is starting with his racism again. No, I want to tell them that they are the ones who are the racists. We have always had a policy, all these years, of co-operation on the basis that our English-speaking friends may speak nothing but English as long as they put South Africa first, and that we, as Afrikaans-speaking people, are completely Afrikaans; we are prepared to respect and value each other in our diversity. What did we witness here? We saw people of Afrikaans extraction, with Afrikaans surnames. being used, even in last year’s election. There was. for example, the hon. member for King William’s Town who said that his father taught him that we should not be so terribly Afrikaans and that we should throw our Afrikanerhood overboard, because then the English would also stop being English.

Oh, no, please; he did not say that.

Oh. did he not? That hon. member was sleeping at that moment. I know that he sleeps quite frequently in this House. Perhaps he was also asleep at that moment. If he had been awake he would have heard it. He may also go and read it himself in Hansard. This year we have had a similar instance. They said at the time that he is a young man and that we should be a little forgiving as far as he is concerned. But did we not again this year see the hon. member for Sea Point stand up here and did we not hear him say, with great bravado, that he wanted to repeat what the hon. member for King William’s Town had said? Yes, two Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaners are used to discredit Afrikaans sentiment and tradition. I now ask anyone in this House to bring me an English-speaking United Party member who has already said: Please do not be so English, because then the Afrikaners will not be so Afrikaans either. I do not expect this from them. They are a self-respecting people, a self-respecting component of the South African people. But why do they use Afrikaners to make such statements in this House? Of course it would upset the Afrikaner nation and cause discontent in its ranks. Of course our hon. Minister of Defence can say that there are those on that side of the House who hate Afrikaans.

But I want to go further and say that we have English-speaking people on this side of the House. Has this House ever heard them say that one may not be English if one wants to be a Nationalist? Of course not; they are self-respecting people, people that we also respect. We say to them: Retain your identity; just be good South Africans and endorse the policy of the National Party. I want to say here today. with the utmost firmness, that the disparagement of Afrikaner sentiment and Afrikanerhood has been one of the characteristics of the past session. And frequently … I do not know whether I shall be allowed to use the word, and therefore I shall rather say that they frequently make use of Afrikaners. But. Sir, a further characteristic of this session was the way in which the hon. gentlemen on that side have incited the Coloureds and Bantu. I am perhaps using a very strong word, but in their speeches there was talk of “frustration” and “where can the people be satisfied”. It has now become necessary for us to ask each other a few relevant questions. We believe that South Africa is a multi-national country. The hon. the Minister, who spoke before me, again stated this very clearly. The National Party does not hesitate to say this anywhere. I have tried repeatedly in this House to get a reply from the United Party to the question of whether they believe that South Africa is a multi-national country.

Multi-racial.

Multi-racial— there it comes; but it is not multi-national. Thank you very much, there is now an hon. member who has the courage to say it. If South Africa is not multi-national, do they then accept the Progressive Party’s standpoint? There can be no other standpoint when a party believes that South Africa is not multi-national. The party states in its constitution, its programme of principles (translation)—

Is that the Progressives?

Yes. Do those hon. members acknowledge that?

Quote our constitution.

No. Because the United Party conceals certain aspects, I want to know from that party whether this is not so. Of course they cannot say no, because the hon. member has just told me that they only believe in one people. These individuals also say that there is only one people. In their explanation of this policy they also use the following words (translation)—

I now want to ask those hon. members: If they believe that there is only one people in South Africa, how could it be otherwise? There can surely be no greater immoral aspect in the world, if there is only one people, than to have first, second, third and fourth class citizens that cannot jointly constitute the Government of this country. They surely know that is their policy. They do, it is true, have a retarded policy with which to reach their objective, but matters will be speeded up a great deal once they come into power. The hon. members surely know that they have to say exactly the same things as the Progressive Party. They say there is one people, and if there is one people there can only be one Parliament, and if there is only one Parliament all the voters must be given equal treatment in that Parliament. After all, we are living in the year 1972 and cannot go back to old ideas. The National Party, on the other hand, has a very clear standpoint. It says we are not one people. We are different peoples and therefore we can be separate. Therefore each people has its own Parliament; that is why we are giving each of the Bantu peoples a separate homeland where they can develop themselves into a people. And we are going to help them. That is our policy.

You want to split the country up into different countries.

No, this is not a country made up of different countries. it is multi-national, and each people gets its own territory. We say that we shall keep the Coloureds on a parallel path with us in this country on the basis of their being a separate people.

Sovereign apartheid?

The hon. member does not know what he is speaking about. If he has the time I should like to discuss Coloured affairs with him. Unfortunately I was not present this year.

Parallel development …

Of course they are being developed by a parallel basis. Why not? The Coloureds have control of everything in the world that relates to Coloureds. The Whites have control of everything that relates to Whites. What is wrong with that? If some matters perhaps do overlap at some spots, they surely know that this is settled by authority. This is not authority that rests on conquest or other aspects, but authority that rests on achievement. What can be more ennobling and less frustrating than the policy of the National Party? It is surely a fine policy; it is surely an honest policy, a policy with which the party can look the world in the face and say “I am not afraid of you.” But then the hon. members opposite must come along and tell us what their policy is. They must consequently tell us whether their policy is that of the Progressives, that of the National Party or no policy at all. Unfortunately it is no policy at all. It is a mere obsessive fantasy from time to time. I cannot neglect to refer to the conduct of the hon. Opposition. The results of those two elections, one after the other, completely stunned them. They tried to follow the same path here in Parliament as they followed in the election. They thought it was wonderful. Then came Brakpan No. 1 to take them further along that path and give them greater courage. Then their big mouths betrayed them, as they have so many times in the past. The Opposition then sat in this House as if they could be taking over the Government the next day or the day after, speaking uninterruptedly of how they were going to constitute their Government when their turn came to do so.

And then came the great slide.

That is where they made the mistake of their lives. The people never realized that in actual fact there was such a possibility, and I also think there never really was such a possibility. However, they presented it so realistically that the people probably believed in such a possibility. The people consequently turned, and then we had Oudtshoorn. It was a result such as we have never had in any year in any by-election. Clearly and unequivocally it was apparent that the people did not want them as an alternative Government. Then came Brakpan No. 2 and what happened? Exactly the same thing. The people of South Africa told them that if their mouths are really that big and if there really is a danger of their obtaining a United Party Government, they would vote the United Party completely out of existence in that election. That was the moral of this Session. Immediately afterwards we heard the United Party growing more silent. I have been sitting here now for a long time, but I have not heard any Opposition speaker even once speaking of “when we are in power” and “when we come into power”. Of course not, because it would be foolish of them to say so now. The people would laugh themselves to death.

During this Session we also had a situation that caused one great anxiety, i.e. the conduct of some of our youth in South Africa. It was the conduct of young people who were bent on trying to overthrow the existing situation and the existing order by means of anarchism. I like our young people very much, and I have a great deal of respect for them, but I think that if they are mislead they must be set right. It is consequently the unmistakable duty of a Government and an Official Opposition, if it is a responsible Official Opposition, to tell those young people that these things cannot go on and that if they allow them to go on, very strong action will be taken against them. They must be told the way a parent would tell his own child: “My child, I love you very much, but if you continue as you are now doing I shall have to take very serious action; I will have to be very strict with you.” Then we had a debate here, a debate that was absolutely shocking for the way in which the Opposition acquitted itself of its task. It was an absolutely “yes, but” attitude, a sloppy policy. If they think the country will consider them, with so much spunklessness, as an alternative Government, I want to tell them they are being very funny and that they have very strange ideas. We could still, if we wanted to become liberal, regard the Progressive Party as an Opposition, because we at least know where they are heading. They are taking us straight to our ruin, and they say as much. But those hon. members are also taking us straight to our ruin, but they do not say so. That is the difference between the two. With the two Opposition parties we are on exactly the same road, but only one of them tells one, while the other one tries to conceal it and to mislead the people into believing the things that suit them.

I now want to refer to an argument used by a very prominent member of that side of the House. I am referring to the argument of the hon. member for Durban North. He says the young people came to him. He then took a certain pamphlet and asked them: “Do you know about this pamphlet? These are ugly things you are stating here, not so. You are now surely advocating complete anarchy.” He says those young students then said: “But we know nothing about that pamphlet.” Sir, what does this mean? It means one of two things: Either those students told him a lie, and he was soft enough to swallow it; or, alternatively, those young students are not acting on their own behalf, but at the instigation of forces backing them up, people who are not young people at our universities, but who are engaged in anarchy by egging the people and the youth on to commit that anarchy. Otherwise, how did they chance to know so exactly what the youth would be doing, where to be with their pamphlets in order to distribute them? Come, the hon. member for Pinelands can tell me. In other respects he is a friendly man. Does he not think it possible that those people knew that the students would be taking such action at that moment? They have nothing to do with each other. They are completely aloof from each other. But the moment those students came to stand here in Parliament Street and demonstrate, those people were on the spot to distribute pamphlets of that nature. A wonderful combination of circumstances! A wonderful naivety on the part of the Opposition, particularly on the part of a legal man like the hon. member for Durban North, to accept without any more ado that those people did not know what would happen! They did not know of that policy. I am now prepared to leave it to you to accept one of the two statements. Either the young people knew about that, and told lies, and now strong action must be taken against them; or the young people did not know about it and are under the whip of agitators that are not students, but foreign agitators who are disrupting the order in South Africa and abusing our boys and girls at our universities. If that is the case, has this Opposition not obviously proved itself too weak as a Government for this country?

But. Sir, I feel very heartsore about their conduct in connection with our Police. Today those people are positioned on our borders to protect us against terrorists. Sir, some of them have already given their lives. Some of them have already died for this country there on the borders. Others are still there, subject to great dangers every day. I think we owe them some thanks.

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