Mr. Speaker, I was saying last night that this Budget reminds one of the opening passages of “A Tale of Two Cities”. This is perhaps the best of Budgets. It is the best of Budgets because it reassured every member sitting in this House that there will not be a general election towards the end *of this year.

*This Budget is far too weak for that. No Government could risk going to the people with a Budget such as this. Sir, this is also the weakest of Budgets, because this Budget, described as a Budget which would bring relief to everyone, reminded one of a statement by Horace, who said this—

What did the public get out of this Budget, Mr. Speaker? In the first place the prospect of something was held out by the hon. the Minister of Finance when he said—

Then he went on as follows—

Sir, this reminds one of the statement which was made that the White areas would become more White after 1978. An ex-Cabinet Minister and ex-ambassador, Mr. Blaar Coetzee, said that he would stake his political reputation on that. Now I want to know how many members of the Cabinet would stake their reputations on the rate of inflation declining before long. How many of them are prepared to do that? Will the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs do so? He still has a reputation, but he will not do so. Nor will the Minister of Bantu Administration do so.

Sir, what concessions have been made to the general public in this Budget? They are taking half a cent on a packet of ten cigarettes. Then the Minister says that it is not convenient to deal with half a cent over the counter, so he takes another for himself. The one half cent goes to Rembrandt and he takes the other half cent. But, Sir, neither of those two neither he nor Rembrandt, needs that half cent. The hon. the Minister said that he would ensure that no unjustified price increase would take place. He said that his people who controlled prices, would ensure that no unjustified increases would take place. Has he seen Rembrandt’s balance sheet? Is he aware of the fact that Rembrandt’s 10c share is quoted today at 255c, and that the earnings per share, without that half cent, already stand at 28c? Is he aware of the fact that the share of the Rembrandt group, which is also a 10c share, is quoted at 360c at present? The earnings of each of those shares are 39c.

It is a good share.

The hon. member says that it is a good share. Of course it is a good share. Any share would be good if the Minister were to act towards it as he did in this case, and if he made the public pay. The hon. the Minister went further. You must remember, Sir, that he said that inflation would be curbed. He said that he would make a concession with regard to home-ownership. He did make a small concession with regard to transfer duty. The next day the attorneys raised their fees by more than the concession given by the Minister.

You do not know what you are talking about.

I know what I am talking about.

Ask Gray Hughes; he will tell you that it is not true.

Mr. Speaker, just try and ask one attorney to give evidence against another attorney! Sir, whom has this Government seen to? The mentally retarded children, the physically and mentally handicapped. Apart from them, no one gets anything. But I am still thankful for a few small things, Sir. I am glad the Minister has seen his way clear to try to do something to train labourers. It is done in an indirect way and I am thankful for that. I wonder whether the time has not arrived for this Government to give serious consideration to re-introducing the old pre-1948 COTT-scheme of the old United Party. I wonder whether the time has not arrived for that to be done, particularly when one has regard to the shortage of mechanics in our garages. We continually hear garage-owners saying that motor repair costs are going absolutely mad. They place the blame for that on the mechanics. Has the time not arrived for us to give our people technical training? We should have done it a long time ago. I hope the Government will give attention to this matter. Sir, Langenhoven has often been quoted in this debate, and I now want to quote what he said concerning people incapable of doing their job; in his poem “Leef en laat leef” (Live and let live) he said—

Sir, I hope that the hon. the Minister will make a note of this quotation and that he will take it into account the next time he presents a Budget. Sir, most people know —one need not be clever to know this— that inflation can be combated in two ways only. One can combat inflation by arranging a depression, but who wants that? But there is another way in which one can combat inflation and that is by producing more, but then the bosses must set the example, and the Government must take the lead and show the public that it is possible to save without any inconvenience to anyone. Sir, one thinks back to the good old days when a U.P. government was in power. At that time we had a Prime Minister who did the same job as the present Prime Minister. We had a good Prime Minister: this Prime Minister is a good Prime Minister, too, but in addition to his duties as Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of 1948 also did the work of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and did it for free. Not only did he do the work of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he also did the work of the Minister of Defence, also for free, and he made an even better job of it.

At times, Sir, this reminds one of a certain person, namely Gideon, who had to attack Jericho. He said to himself that if one had too many soldiers, one had to discharge some of them. He did that and took with him only 300 men who drank water in a certain way. I do not want to say to the Prime Minister that he must discharge all those in his Cabinet who do not drink water, but I wonder whether we do not have too many members of the Cabinet to perform the same duties. I think that we could very profitably appoint a commission in this country to investigate the amount of overlapping of portfolios that occurs in our Cabinet as a result of the fact that they have to administer laws which are unnecessary measures in some cases. I can think of a number of examples of Acts which contain obstructive restrictions only, which are nothing but an annoyance, which only cost money and manpower, and which solve nothing. I wonder whether we should not appoint a commission to see whether it is not possible to streamline the whole business a little by repealing some of these unnecessary Acts on the Statute Book.

Sir, another point I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister is the question of housing. We are grateful for the fact that the hon. the Minister has raised the limits for housing loans. Our Government officials get a 100% loan at present, but the people who are suffering today are the people in the private sector. Under prevailing circumstances they are simply unable to make the deposit of R4 000 or R5 000. Sir, you know how expensive it is to live under this Government. It is even shockingly expensive to be born under this Government, and the cost of living is so high that one is simply incapable of saving any money—certainly not a person with an income of R230 per month. A normal confinement in the provincial hospitals costs the mother R6 per day, a total of R48. In the private hospitals it costs R10 and R12 per day, a total of approximately R120. The baby’s clothing and other requirements cost R155.

You are a poor midwife; you cannot do arithmetic.

Sir, there are people who have other things to do than play the role of a midwife. We are not all qualified for that. I do not know what the qualifications of that hon. member are, but if he tells me that that is his line, then I leave him in peace. As far as medical expenses are concerned, I just want to mention that a gynaecologist charges R142 for a confinement today. It is expensive to be born today under this Government, but that is not all. We all know how high the cost of living is today. I just want to mention a few figures in this connection, in which the hon. member for Wolmaransstad will be interested. A farmer gets approximately 6c for a lb. of green beans. Yesterday tne price in the city was 12c per lb. For potatoes the farmer gets 16c per kg; in Cape Town potatoes are sold at 50c per kg. The farmer gets 1½c per cucumber, but in the shops they are sold at from 6c to 7c per cucumber. The farmer gets about 12c for a head of cauliflower, but in the greengrocers a head of cauliflower is sold for anything up to 40c. So you can see, Sir, how difficult it is to live under this Government, and that after you have started life under difficult circumstances. You cannot afford to be born, and once you have been born you cannot live and if you get sick … well, Langenhoven said: “From the time that sickness came into the world, one has not been sure of one’s health, and from the time that doctors came into the world, one has not been sure of one’s life.” To have a funeral today costs you anything from R200 to R900. I hear that Cabinet Ministers are buried free of charge. I do not know whether this is so. [Interjection.] That hon. Minister says that it is not true. So here we have another tax which the Minister can still impose. As a matter of fact, this is the only tax which I think the people would pay with pleasure. When one looks at the Budget and sees the circumstances as they are today, then, after 25 years, one feels like returning to the good old days of United Party rule. Let us take the facts. What was the position then and what is it now? Our public debt in 1948, under United Party rule, was R26 million in foreien debt and a further amount of R1 000 in internal debt, money we owed to our own people. What is the position today? Today we owe R502 million abroad and the internal debt is R6 504 million. It would be nice to go back to a United Party Government, when money was still money, and then I do not even want to refer to the fact that in 1948 there was £80 million, or R160 million, which we had readily available to lend to England to help her. Where do we stand today? The fact is that today there is inflation in this country as there has never been before. We stand under a tremendous public debt. There is fear and anxiety among our people. There is violence. Now is the time for action. We can consider the day when the United Party was defeated, a tragic day. Notwithstanding the attempts on the part of certain people to rectify the matter, not much progress has been made. If one thinks back to 1948 then one thinks that that coalition between the Nationalist Party and the Afrikaner Party was a mistake. Together they fought the United Party and they won by a few constituencies, but that was a mistake. Today, if the people of South Africa were to realize the true state of affairs, this Government, too, would not last very long. But, Sir, the Nationalist Party is again being too clever for us. They are unable to beat us one by one, and that holds time for the present, too, but now they have a few ex-Nats on the Sunday Times, who are stabbing us in the back. In that way they can remain at the helm, but in an open fight they cannot beat us. I think once the people has come to see the true state of affairs, how much could be done and how little was being done, the wastage taking place here, how much better an example this Government could set South Africa with regard to saving, better administration, peace and order, this Government would not last very long. I think the time has arrived … [Interjections.] No, that was only an hon. member trying to be funny. He did not succeed and did not try another time. I think that when the people realizes how much could be done, if we wanted to come together to do away with unnecessary legislation …

For example?

I shall say which unnecessary legislation. In this Parliament we passed an Act to establish church apartheid, but that has solved nothing. To date the Government has not applied that law once.

Are you going to repeal it?

I do not know of a single Act in this country which did our good name abroad more harm than that Act. However, it has never been applied. Why did we place it on the Statute Book? What did we want to achieve by it?

But now you are talking nonsense.

No, I am not talking nonsense. I am talking about the church clause.

Now you are just talking for the sake of talking.

No, I am not just talking for the sake of talking. There has not been a single instance of which I am aware, in which the church clause has been applied. At the nearby cathedral large notices are displayed stating that the church is open …

That has nothing to do with it.

But that was the purpost, because for what other reason was it placed on the Statute Book?

You do not know what that Act provides.

But that is how I understood it and that is how everyone else understood it. [Interjections.] No, what was the object of that legislation? Can the hon. Whip who is poking his nose into this, tell me?

Go on with your speech and talk more nonsense.

I know of no Act which has done us more harm. I was present when the Department of Information had visitors here from overseas and when one of the journalists asked whether that was a place for advertisements since he had seen those notices saying that the church was open to all races at all times. Mr. Piet Meiring, who was the Secretary for Information at the time, said that they could in fact have those notices there and that they could act in accordance with the notices. The journalist then asked why that church clause had been embodied in legislation. Mr. Meiring replied that the provision was not being applied in practice. The journalist then asked why we had such clauses in our legislation which caused us to have the reputation overseas which we had if we did not have any intention of applying these provisions. Now the hon. the Prime Minister tells me that I am talking nonsense.

And job reservation.

Yes, and job reservation. Here in the Cape we are in the fortunate position of having virtually no job reservation. [Interjections.] There are a whole number of Acts which the Government could profitably examine in order to determine the damage they do as opposed to the good which they do. I promise the Government one thing. All legislation which is necessary for the maintenance of peace and order in South Africa, will be supported by me and will be supported by this side of the House.

What does Mr. Harry Schwarz say about that?

I have nothing to do with Mr. Harry Schwarz. [Interjections.] I say that when we pass legislation for political reasons, as has happened in the past, we do South Africa no service. On the contrary, we are playing the fool with the people of South Africa. I believe that a good case could be made out for the revision of a large number of our laws in order to determine what problems they solve, what they require and to what extent we can get rid of them without doing any damage to good order in the country and to South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Pretoria District said, with regard to two hon. members opposite, that they had spoken lightly on their subjects. We can only say that the hon. member who has just sat down, spoke frivolously. Yesterday we saw him playing the role of the big joker. Today he said that there was no point in one attorney putting questions to another. He spoke about inflation and cigarettes and cracked jokes. He spoke about motor cars and mentioned overlapping between State departments. He spoke about funerals, housing, doctors’ fees, cost of living and job reservation. He left out practically nothing. One conclusion we did draw from his speech yesterday, is that he is truly very afraid of the Progressive Party. When the Progressives speak, he sees red, for he nearly lost his political life to them. Therefore we can understand his having something against the doctors. It seems to me as though Chris Barnard may cost him his political life. [Interjections.] We thought that he was going to speak on agriculture because he is a farmer, after all, and makes a point of speaking on agriculture in this House. Since yesterday we have been discussing agriculture in this House, but as yet we have not had any reaction from their side, except for three members who touched slightly on the matter. The hon. member for Gardens and the hon. member for Salt River pleaded for lower food prices and at the same time the hon. member for King William’s Town asked for higher prices.

Floor prices.

How can we reconcile these two approaches with each other? How can we reconcile the irreconcilable? One may imagine that they spoke lightly about this matter, but it was done with a purpose in mind. This has once again become clear from the speech by the hon. member for Sea Point. The United Party is playing a dangerous game, namely that of inciting the consumer and the producer against each other. I also deducted this from what the hon. member for Sea Point said with regard to the price which the farmer received for cucumbers and the price at which it was sold—he was trying to play off one section directly against the other. When they do this, they are doing something very dangerous. When we analyse what the hon. member for Salt River said about food prices, the impression gained by the public outside, must inevitably be that all is not well with the marketing system in South Africa. The question was asked why the consumer had to pay such high prices while the farmers received such low prices. He himself used the comparison that if he invited his friends to enjoy a small grilled steak with him today, he might just as well make them a gift of a case of whiskey. That was the comparison which he drew. In his speech he suggested—and I want to concentrate mainly on what he said with regard to meat—that there was a meat shortage in South Africa. In the second place he suggested that there were shortcomings in the industry and by means of his arguments he tried to create division in the ranks of those involved in the industry. In the third place he suggested that the price of anything else in South Africa might rise, but not food prices. To answer him on that: In the first place, with the exception of mutton, there is no shortage of meat in South Africa.

Is mutton not meat?

I will return to that point later. There is indeed a shortage of mutton, but it is more than compensated by the higher production of other meat. Some time ago in Bloemfontein the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture referred to the increase in meat production in South Africa. He pointed out, inter alia, that the total production of beef in 1968-’69 was 346 000 tons and that it had increased to 419 000 tons in 1971-’72. The supply of beef and pork increased while the supply of mutton decreased. In Landbounuus of 9th February, 1973, I read that statistics published by the Meat Board, showed that during the period January to November, 1972, an average of 168 585 head of cattle was slaughtered per month in comparison with the average monthly total of 150 420 during the previous year. This represents an increase of 12%. It was also pointed out that there was a decrease of 26% in the number of sheep slaughtered during the period January to November, 1972. But during the same period there was an increase of 6% with regard to pigs. Taken as a whole we therefore still have a picture of a larger supply of meat. Therefore there is no under-supply of meat in South Africa.

But you are completely wrong.

A second charge laid against us, is that we export meat. It is true that 31 189 million kg of meat was exported during the past year, but during the same period 34 640 000 kg of meat was imported. In other words, the quantity of imported meat exceeds the quantity of exported meat. By this we can prove that the supply of meat in South Africa is still increasing and that it is not as a result of an under-supply that the price of meat has increased so much. In the first place there is a higher consumption of meat here, and in the second place we are coming closer to world meat prices. We must not forget that South Africa is still the country with the cheapest beef in the world. I want to give another warning against the attempt to play the producer off against the consumer, something which we also saw last year. This holds true especially in respect of the meat industry, which is a very complicated industry. Last year we also mentioned this Mr. Civin from Brakpan who spoke of the “meat scandal” at the time, much to the embarrassment of Opposition members opposite, especially some farmer members opposite. We must remember that here in South Africa the producer is the consumer’s best friend. The closer these two groups are to one another, the better. The more effective the links between the two of them through the middlemen, the better. Why are hon. members opposite always playing them off against one another?

Last year I gave a carcass analysis here which is made in the trade every week, to indicate that the wholesaler in the meat industry received only 6% to 8% profit on his purchases and that the retailer took only 28% profit on his purchases. If this was reduced to single cuts, the prices sounded very high, but these were for the rarest and the tastiest cuts of the meat. If necessary, I can illustrate it once again, but for the moment I leave it at that. I now want to come to the findings of the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce following a recent investigation into the meat industry. I want to read their findings as it was reported in Die Burger of 15th February (translation)—

This is the finding of a committee of the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce which investigated the meat market. The report continues (translation)—

A further investigation by the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing into retail butcheries in Pretoria found that 22% of the retail butcher’s profit was lost in his distribution costs. That leaves him with between 2,7% and 4% nett profit. In the same investigation it was also found that approximately 41% of Pretoria’s retail butchers were suffering losses.

So who is making the profit?

It is very easy to say here that the farmer must receive more for his meat and to say in the same breath that the prices of meat should be lowered. I want to make another plea for us in this House to act responsibly and to bring together and to keep together the various sectors in the meat industry.

Finally, the hon. member for Salt River spoke here about the high food prices. If the hon. member, as businessman, was unable to make a cost survey and to make provision for it, Timoney’s Garage would no longer have been in existence today. He would have done better had he preferred to indicate to this House what was happening in the motor industry. It is an industry which he knows. But he preferred to put in an oar by dealing with meat prices. High costs must inevitably result in high meat prices. I want to plead for loyalty in the economy of South Africa. In this connection we may have regard to a country such as the Argentine which introduced a meatless week. Israel is another example of what a country can do if it is motivated and if it supports its economy loyally. For that reason I think that we in South Africa may be grateful for the fact that we still have such low meat prices at the present moment. When we look at the future of South Africa and make certain projections, we see that major challenges are awaiting us. We cannot always just cast an eye at the rest of the world. Listen to what the Chairman of the Australian Meat Board said—

Therefore we in South Africa have to rely on local production. Seeing that this is the case, the authorities, the consumer, the producer and the dealer have to co-operate in order to meet the situation in future. I can give hon. members projections of what we shall need, but unfortunately time does not permit. For example, we find that the average per capita consumption of beef in South Africa over the past few years was 24,8 kg. The per capita consumption of mutton is 10 kg and of pork 2,8 kg. If we accept the population projection for 1980 of approximately 28 million people and we make a simple calculation, we find that in 1980 we shall need: 3 155 000 head of cattle, 18 million sheep, and 2 million pigs. By the year 2000 we shall need between 4 and 6 million head of cattle, 36 million sheep and between three and four million pigs. This is a challenge which we in South Africa must take up. We know what the present position is and if we project this trend, we see that we shall have a shortage of 2 million head of cattle and 5,5 million sheep as soon as the end of 1980. There will not be a shortage of pigs. Owing to various factors, it is doubtful whether we will ever be able to make up the shortage of sheep. In the future we shall probably be able to make the best use of pork. As the hon. member for Bethal also mentioned, we can acquire beef by practising intensive farming methods, aided by the Government by means of good prices, the establishment of more slaughtering facilities and by sound agricultural financing.

You must not export maize, but use red meat; that is United Party policy.

Unfortunately my time has expired. In conclusion I just want to say that I am convinced that the South African farmer will take up this challenge. When I look at the past and see what the South African farmer has achieved in difficult circumstances—South Africa is a country where agriculture is a risky business— and if I see what has been done in South Africa to feed this country, I do not have the least doubt that the South African farmer will take up this major challenge and will supply our country with meat in the future. We cannot get this meat from any other place. When I look at the future again, I can assure the South African producer that he has a Government which will stand by him and which will help him with his problems in taking up this major challenge.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sea Point made certain statements which I cannot allow to go by unanswered. The hon. member talked about the high hospital fees but he omitted to tell us of the position in Natal where the United Party is in power. There is no point in trying to puff up things in this House. The hon. member spoke here of the good old days when the United Party was in power. I clearly recall those days when we had to stand in a queue to get half a bag of mealie-meal and when we had meatless days. That was when the United Party was in power. I do not believe that there is anyone in this country who longs back to those days when the United Party stood at the helm.

The hon. member also referred to the position concerning the public debt in 1948 and compared it to the position in 1973 under National Party rule. The fact is that the percentage of public debt compared to the gross national income is far lower today than it was in 1948. The way these people are puffing up the question of inflation in this Budget debate is something to make one sick. Hon. members are not well-informed in this regard in spite of the hon. the Minister of Finance having supplied a very clear explanation, last year and this year again, concerning inflation in South Africa. Last year we had demand inflation and we had to take certain measures to combat it. This year we have cost inflation and the problems associated with that. But these hon. members are puffing up inflation to such an extent that in the process they are very subtly laying the major part of the blame for the rise in the cost of living at the door of the farmer of South Africa. I have been paying close attention to what they said. Each time they mentioned the example of the increase in food prices as the reason for inflation and the rise in the cost of living. Those hon. members are driving in a wedge between the consumer and the producer of this country. The National Party, which has been governing the country for the past 25 years, has expressed itself very clearly with regard to this matter and will do so again in the future. This Government and this side of the House will continue to manage and govern South Africa in a very responsible way. We shall not allow a wedge to be driven in between the consumer and the producer in this country. We on this side of the House will continue to govern the country by having justice done to the consumer, the worker, the farmer, the mineworker and to every section of the population, also to the Brown and the Black people. We are not here to benefit certain sectors but to govern the country in a very responsible way.

The accusation has been made by the opposite side of the House that we are taking over United Party policy. It has been said that the high growth rate pattern we advocate has been taken over from them. They also say that the training of Bantu labourers is something which we have taken over from them. What are the facts? The fact is that at present there are about 40 members sitting on the opposite side of the House; there used to be many more of them. As regards this matter of growth which they have been advocating, growth is something they cannot even achieve within their own party; there they are shrinking. There are plus-minus 40 of them, and one could say that they are reasonably intelligent. They have been sitting here for 25 years. If each of those members had introduced one proposal per annum, more than a thousand proposals could have been introduced by the United Party during that time. I want to make the statement that they have had the fullest opportunity to make a thousand and more suggestions in the time they have been on the Opposition benches. When this Government takes action and implements certain schemes, such as the introduction of television, the training of Bantu labour, and immigration, another thing they cast in our teeth, it does so in a highly responsible manner, because then the time is ripe to take that action. It is not necessarily done because the National Party is taking over United Party policy. Sir, we are unable to accept this cry of the United Party. They had the fullest right to make so many proposals, throughout the years, but whenever they do make a proposal it is at the wrong time. In due course it is necessary for us in the interests of managing the country, to begin implementing some of those proposals which they have thrown at random over the floor of this House.

I now want to refer to the subtle way in which the United Party is driving in a wedge between the country dweller and the city dweller. This is not something which has started today. These people have stated their policy, and in terms of that statement their salvation lies in the cities. Through the hon. member for Bezuidenhout they said that when they came into power, they would amend the electoral laws in respect of the loading and de-loading of rural constituencies. I now want to ask those hon. members whether that is their policy. Let them stand up here this afternoon and say to the farmers of South Africa that they are going to remove the de-loading which exists in respect of the rural constituencies. This malicious and subtle attempt which the United Party is making, is not something which has started today. They are also, in the person of their leader, Harry Schwarz in the Transvaal, writing off the country areas for good. As far as they are concerned, the producer in this country is just a man who must supply cheap food, nothing more, while in reality he is the guardian of our soil, as well as all the other fine things which the hon. member for Wolmaransstad mentioned yesterday. We in the National Party called our farmers together at Wolmaransstad to talk to them. Two years ago the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also spoke at Wolmaransstad and the hon. member for Newton Park spoke at Riversdale. There they, too, spoke to farmers, but do you know what they said, Sir? I quote from a report in this respect—

Sir, is this not blatantly scandalous? I have here the terms of reference of the Commission of Inquiry into Rural Reform. Paragraph 2(1) reads, inter alia, as follows (translation)—

These people have disparaged the agricultural industry to such an extent—they no longer want to face up to the problems and challenges which exist in the agricultural sphere—that they go about unashamedly spreading gossip among the farmers in the country. [Interjection.] Yes, it is a fact. Here a blatant lie has been told to the farmers. Nowhere in any document of this side of the House has it been stated that 30 000 farmers must disappear from the rural areas. It appeared from the report of the commission of inquiry into agriculture that there was a large amount of our land which had become uneconomically small, and hon. members opposite then deduced, with reference, too, to what the hon. member for Newton Park had said, namely that 39% of the farmers supplied 3,5 % of the production, that 30 000 or one-third of the farmers should disappear from the rural areas. But, Sir, when it is election time, then these people concern themselves with buttering up our farmers; then they try to tell the farmers how unfairly they are treated by this Government, in order to gain the votes of the farmers. No, Sir, we are not going to allow these things, and we shall show up the United Party every time this kind of thing occurs.

Sir, this afternoon I should like to say a few words concerning the planning of marketing in agriculture. When we look at the agricultural industry in South Africa, we realize that we have a difficult agricultural country. We also know that in a free economy, where a farmer cannot determine what the rainfall will be and what the price of this product must be, the demand cannot always be adapted to the supply. Therefore the State must intervene on occasion in an attempt to ensure the bargaining power of our farmers and stability for the agricultural industry. Our farmers in South Africa, as in most other countries, have tried to develop their bargaining power through our agricultural co-operative societies. As far as the marketing of agricultural products is concerned, our leaders in agriculture have also seen our salvation in this. Compulsory co-operation did not succeed, except in the case of a few commodities. We had to handle other important agricultural products through our co-operative societies. Later we also had the Marketing Act which created the framework of the control boards which we have in this country. At present we have 22 control boards which control our various commodities and which handle approximately 80% of the production of South Africa’s agricultural products. For the most part the co-operative societies are in a very strong position in respect of the handling of these products, except in the instance of sugar and slaughter-stock and butter and milk powder. But, Sir, distribution costs and transport over a territory as large as South Africa, are matters which require heavy expenditure. The wide gulf between the price of the producer and that of the consumer also makes things difficult for us. We have a product which, in the main, has to be processed first, and as a result of these intermediate operations, the demand for the article of the producer is really a “secondary” demand. Sir, it is difficult for us in agriculture to investigate the requirements and the preferences of the market and to act in accordance with them, because we do not always have the necessary marketing research facilities. Therefore I am very pleased the hon. the Minister has appointed this commission of inquiry into the control boards. We should like to wish him every success. We hope and trust that this commission of inquiry will iron out the problems and any overlapping which does exist between the marketing boards and that it will be instrumental in developing the marketing boards which we have and which have served us very well up to now, into marketing-orientated boards, plus an umbrella body, the Marketing Council, which to my mind will have to be developed further as a body which can bring about the necessary co-ordination and which will in addition to that, be able to promote marketing, abroad as well. Whereas in the past the agricultural producer in South Africa was able to expand horizontally and vertically to meet the costs which rose year after year, we have now come to the end of that road and that possibility and the only way left to us is to make an attack on the market by means of a co-ordinated, united action and by investigating these systems of ours and formulating them properly for the future, and then I think we shall be able to give the farmer, too, his rightful share, because I am convinced that we have reached the stage where food will not become cheap again, neither in the world nor in South Africa. We as agriculturists will accept this challenge to feed the people. We shall reform and transform. We shall try to apply all these means we have to the best of our ability, but we shall also have to exploit the market which we have, as best we can, and the consumer in this country will know that we, who also regard him as a partner in our business, will do the best for him but we shall have to obtain from the market that which we are entitled to in order to enable us to perform correctly the task and the duty which we have in South Africa as agriculturists, to the benefit of the farmer as well.

Sir, I should just like to assure the hon. member for Heilbron and also the hon. member for Vryburg that they will receive replies to their criticism in regard to agriculture from hon. members on this side of the House who are qualified to deal with the question of agriculture. But I do not want simply to leave the question of agriculture, at that, particularly since the hon. member for Vryburg dealt with the question of food. Sir, nowadays food is something which is of intimate concern to all of us because we are all paying through our noses for our meat and other food. We have no intention at all of playing off the consumer against the producer.

You are trying to do it in a subtle way.

No; it is so subtle that even the hon. member for Heilbron can see it; you can judge for yourself how subtle it must be! No, the fact is simply that there is a gulf between the consumer on the one hand and the producer on the other …

And you are creating it.

Hon. members must not think that the consumer and the producer are not aware of it. But I want to say to the hon. member for Vryburg that he made an optimistic speech this afternoon; it is a speech which gives me great courage. He said: “You must not worry about the meat position; we have enough meat in South Africa”. The only think I am still worried about, is this: He must only make it possible for us to buy that meat! Sir, there is another deficiency which the meat question pointedly brings to the fore: it says that the farmer receives too little for his meat; it realizes the consumer pays too much, but he says numerous butchers are going bankrupt. The question which occurs to me now is this: If the farmer receives too little and if the consumer pays too much and if the butchers go bankrupt, who is making the profit? Where does the fault lie? Sir, I am not an agriculturalist, but it occurred to me, when I put this question, that the hon. the Minister for Agriculture has another designation as well, i.e. Minister of Agricultural Marketing, and then I was wondering how much attention he pays to this gap between the price the consumer has to pay and the price the producer receives. Is the hon. member aware of that gap? Because there is no doubt that the ordinary worker of South Africa today—and I am speaking of my own voters now—are carrying a tremendous burden when it comes to supplying food for his family. Sir, this is a fact—and hon. members opposite should admit this—that today meat has become a luxury item in the houses of many of the workers. I should like the hon. member for Vryburg and the hon. the Minister to explain to us who makes the profit if the butchers are going bankrupt, if the consumer pays too much and if the producer receives too little. After all, someone must be making a profit. Perhaps the hon. the Minister will be able to help me at a later stage when the agricultural debate has begun to hot up. I want to leave the matter at that as far as agriculture is concerned and should like to come back to the Budget.

Do you know, Sir, that once upon a time there was in South Africa a Minister of Finance who, on behalf of his Government, held the view that if the economy stood in the way of political ideology, the economy should be bent to enable political ideology to follow its course. I say that once upon a time there was such a Minister. I am not certain whether it is the present Minister, but there was a man who adopted that standpoint on behalf of the Nationalist Party. And over the years a violent struggle has been waged between the economy of South Africa on the one hand and the political ideology of the Nationalist Party on the other. I want to say today that it seems to me, although the burdens were heavy and the cost high, as if the economy is slowly but surely winning the struggle against the political ideology of the Nationalist Party.

The focal point of the conflict was on this very level of labour, because we all know today that 80% of the labour force in South Africa comprises non-Whites. The conflict came about in the first place because the industrialist, the trader and the economy of South Africa required more workers. However, the Nationalist Party said, “No, we cannot give them to you because our ideology demands that the Bantu be siphoned back to the Bantustans”. Mr. Speaker, I have no wish to recall the 5% speeches, the attempts which were in fact made to siphon back the Bantu. I do not want to speak about the year 1978. That year is just around the corner, and we know that nothing will happen. But the fact is that, as far as labour is concerned, the economy has won the struggle against the ideology of the Nationalist Party.

But there was a second point of conflict, a very important one. Through the years the industrialist, the trader and the mine-owners all realized that it is not only a question of numbers, of Black numbers. One has to train the people. For years this was a crying need in South Africa. I want to put it this way: Nowhere in the Western world is there a country where labour, the human product, is being wasted to the extent it is being wasted in South Africa. I think this is a shame we should never lose sight of as far as our human condition in South Africa is concerned. The applications to train the people were there, but the Government said, “No”. And suddenly the hon. the Minister of Finance came along last Wednesday and, like a thief in the night, included a little sentence in his Budget. In one sentence he said something which could radically change the entire labour position in South Africa for the next 20 years. He said it in just one sentence and then he kept quiet. Like a thief in the night this little sentence arrives. Sir, Die Burger describes that single sentence as a totally new movement towards a new sphere of policy as far the Nationalist Party is concerned, a level of policy in which the greatest statesmanship will be required. But the hon. the Minister includes it here, in a single sentence, so that the people of South Africa should not really realize what is happening.

I am glad to see the hon. the Minister of Labour is here, because if there is one man who took up a definite standpoint against the training of Bantu in the White areas, it is the hon. the Minister of Labour. Decisively, year after year, he stood by his standpoint and said in so many words “over his dead body would the Bantu be trained in White South Africa”. I shall read it out to him. I have plenty of time. He also went further and said that for political considerations he dares not train the Bantu because the White man is at stake. I do not want to be unreasonable. Perhaps I am interpreting the hon. the Minister incorrectly. But the hon. the Minister was pointedly asked the question in the Other Place why he did not train the Black worker in White South Africa— “What is the basic factor why you refuse to do so?” That is the question which was put to him. Then the hon. the Minister furnished a pertinent reply, and stated clearly and frankly, that this was the direction in which we were moving and in regard to the question, “What is the basic factor” which is stopping the Government from training the Bantu in White areas, that “basic factor” was the same as he had originally stated concerning the question of White control in South Africa, i.e. to maintain the control exercised by the Whites. However, here follows this interesting sentence, and I must quote it (col. 152 of 15th February, 1972)—

The hon. the Minister went on to say—

as far as its policy concerning the training …

But read the words used by the hon. the Minister.

But that is what I am reading here. These are the words as they stand here. I do not want to misquote the hon. the Minister. After all, he will probably take part in this debate at one stage or other, and then he will be able to say whether I made a mistake. His words are irrefutably recorded in column 152 of the Senate Hansard of 15th February, 1972. There is no doubt about that.

The hon. the Minister went even further. He said he was not allowed to train the Bantu in the White area, because this is an item of policy laid down and approved at the congresses of the Nationalist Party.

It is the foundation stone of their policy.

That is the point of view of the hon. the Minister of Labour. I ask him where he was when the hon. the Minister of Finance announced this training programme for the Bantu in White South Africa? What was he doing then? I know that the hon. the Minister is aware of that, and it is nothing new to him. I believe he made a great fuss when speaking about it in the Other Place and said it was a very good thing. However, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister when he changed his mind. What happened to the political reasons which kept him from doing so? What happened to the congresses of the Nationalist Party which told him he dared not train the Bantu since the future of the Whites was at stake? I put this question with the greatest respect and I would like the hon. the Minister to understand me as follows: If he stands by the principle as he put it in the Senate in 1972, and if it is a principle he values, how does he manage to sit in the Cabinet under this new banner? [Interjections.] To me it does not seem that the two are reconcilable.

However, I understand from certain circles that it is being said now: But now we are doing what you have asked; why are you so annoyed with me now? Sir, if I accept a man as a friend and he waylays me one day and thrashes me to within an inch of my life although I have given him no reason to do so and then he goes and calls the doctor to put me to rights again, how thankful would I be to him? I would not be grateful to him. All he did, was to let me know very clearly that he was not my friend and that I should be very careful of him.

The point I want to drive home is that I am not grateful to the Nationalist Party. No, I say to the people of South Africa that one cannot entrust to such a party the best economic interests of South Africa. That is a point I want to make.

The hon. member for Heilbron said that they did everything at the right time.

The National Party did.

Yes, I am referring to all the new plans the Nationalist Party took over from the United Party, such as immigration, and so forth. All these things were done at the right time. Can the hon. member tell me why they waited until now to start training the Bantu? For how long has the United Party not been pleading for the training of the Bantu? Does the hon. the Minister recall that my hon. Leader announced a few years ago that the requirements of South Africa and the requirements of all the levels of population in South Africa demanded a crash programme of the training of the workers? Does the hon. the Minister still recall how he himself at that time rolled those words “crash programme” like a stone-crusher over his tongue? Does the hon. the Minister still recall how he ridiculed this side of the House? He spoke of 20 million who had to be trained overnight. If the hon. the Minister had only made a start then, we would at least have had something today. What was happening in the years when our growth was 6% and higher and when we were in a position to make preparations for training? Under Nationalist Party rule those years were devoured by the locusts but now that we are in trouble, it is believed that we can train tens of thousands overnight so that the industrial requirements in South Africa can be met. After all, we know that this cannot be done. Let us put this matter in perspective. In passing, I might mention that the hon. member for Hillbrow came to this House with a private Bill. It was introduced with a view to making provision for the training of the Bantu in White areas. According to those hon. members the hon. member for Hillbrow made a very big mistake because he took a few ideas from the legislation of other countries. He took a few ideas from, among others, the legislation of Britain. That was one of the main reasons why his Bill was rejected. He followed Britain’s example and then we were asked what they can tell us. It was said that we just wanted to open the floodgates. Where are we today? The good years are past. Let us come back to the present. Let us see what Die Burger says in this fine article. Die Burger at least realized the magnitude of this new statement and then had the following to say about it (translation)—

One must realize that Die Burger chooses its words well, but what it really wanted to say was that this was obviously a new political field of policy. It meant that it is a brand new policy, but Die Burger went on to say (translation)—

Now I ask the hon. the Minister, where are the elevated principles, where are the political considerations, where is the ideology, where is the White man and where are the congresses of the Nationalist Party? They have all disappeared, they gave way to economic necessity. Now that party comes along and talks about high principles. Let us go further. What more does Die Burger say? They say (translation)—

It is for that reason that the Government is giving intensive attention to the position of the urban Bantu which will make very heavy demands …

In other words, Die Burger immediately links the idea of training to the urban Bantu and says (translation)—

Immediately prior to this paragraph Die Burger wrote the following (translation)—

This is not just a question of labour. One does not train in isolation. When one trains the Bantu, he becomes less transferable. When he becomes less transferable, he becomes more permanent and a more permanent Black worker is to the Nationalist Party what a red rag is to a bull. After all, they did not want this throughout the years. Surely, we know this.

That is what Die Burger said.

The facts are there and the Nationalist Press has noticed them. Train the Bantu, they say, and do not do so in isolation; this one cannot do. Then you will have all the sociological and political effects which may flow from this step the Nationalist Party is taking. Just see what they are doing now. I want to say immediately that the inter-departmental committee which was appointed, was appointed under the inspiration of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. That is the information at my disposal, but it may not be correct. I hope I am wrong, because I fail to understand what he has to do with the labour of South Africa. To me it seems as if this should have come from the hon. the Minister of Labour. Here we have an inter-departmental committee now. Who has representation on it? If my memory serves me correctly, the various departments charged with Bantu affairs and the Department of Labour are concerned with this matter. Are these, then, the only departments which should be concerned with that committee? What we are dealing with here is a major social and political question. The question which occurs to me, is whether this is all we are going to do about it. This is not only a question of erecting schools; the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance knows how to erect schools, but is the White worker being consulted? Do representatives of the White workers serve on the committee? Are the trade unions represented on the committee? Certainly not. Since we are dealing with a matter of such vital importance, it is not enough to limit this committee to an inter-departmental committee; it must go further than that.

Surely one has to consult trade unions. Surely, one has to consult the non-White trade unions, which do not include the Bantu. But what is more, one has to consult trade and industry. After all, one has to ascertain where the training is to take place. As the matter stands at present, the thing is half-baked in the extreme. The hon. gentlemen who raise such a hue and cry about consultation—have the Bantu been consulted on this matter? After all, they have the machinery at their disposal. They cannot tell me they do not have the machinery at their disposal. I am aware that the educationists of the Department of Bantu Administration are there, but what about the technical people? What about the people who are to train them in the trade? What happened to them? And this should not only be of an interdepartmental nature, but it should be a commission of South Africa on which the best brain power will serve because this concerns a matter which may have the most far-reaching results for South Africa, provided the matter is handled correctly, but which might also land us in enormous trouble if it is not handled correctly. I say that this should be a national commission.

But what will happen after we have trained the Bantu? Let us assume the commission is appointed and the experts have consultations and decide that we should train these people. Let us assume that the facilities and the money are available, and also the syllabus. Then one has to do with a trained Bantu in White South Africa and then certain questions arise immediately: Who is going to lay down what his wages will be? If he is a Transkeian, will it be the Transkeian Government, will it be the hon. the Minister of Labour, will it be the industrial councils or the wage boards? Who will pay his wages? We must remember that he is a trained person and in the first instance is competing with the Coloureds in certain spheres, and similarly with our Asiatics in certain spheres. He may, in the years ahead, and possibly sooner than we think, also compete with the Whites. We must therefore make provision as far as his wages are concerned so that the Bantu do not squeeze these people out. Who will determine his wages? It is not being determined. The matter is being dealt with inter-departmentally, a matter which lies at the root of the whole of the labour situation in so-called White South Africa.

Who does the hon. member think must determine it?

Just look at the fine question the hon. member puts to me. I know who must determine it and if the hon. member does not know it, then, after all, that may be one of the tasks he gives to the commission to investigate. He does not know, but he is satisfied to accept the matter.

But I am asking the question.

But, after all, the hon. member knows in which way something of this nature is determined in the normal course of events, because this is a new situation which is being created here. I shall be quite prepared to leave the question of wage determination to the commission of inquiry which I would like to see appointed.

But what is more, we cannot foresee a situation in South Africa where the Whites and the Coloureds will be organized in trade unions while tens of thousands of Bantu are trained but not organized. Does the hon. the Minister intend making provision for trade unions for the trained Bantu? If he provides for trade unions, will they be separate Black trade unions, and will we then have the situation where in one industry we may possibly have two conflicting trade unions? Or does the mind of the Nationalist Party work like this, that they will be granted trade unions, but that the whole matter will be controlled from the homelands? Would it just be an extension of the trade union movement of the homelands? We do not know and we seek light. We only know that here we are dealing with a powerful instrument, but we are not so sure how the Nationalist Party is going to control the matter.

I have already said that once one has trained him, one gives him a degree of permanence. Once one has given him a degree of permanence and one pays him a reasonably high wage, he will say that he wants his wife and his children with him because he is a trained and educated person. Once his wife and his children are with him, he will naturally want a house, and decent circumstances to live in, if I understand the human being correctly One does not just put a man on a lathe and turn out a trained worker. What one is doing is changing a person, one is making a true Western worker of the tribal Bantu. One will have to give him all the facilities which are necessary for that.

You want to give him the vote. That is the effect of your policy.

There is one final question I want to pose. I am searching for clarity because I realize that here we are dealing with a complete revolution in the thoughts of the Nationalist Party as far as the labour force of White South Africa is concerned. This they cannot hide away. And now I come to my last question: Who will exercise control over the tens of thousands of trained Bantu who are capable of giving the economy a tremendous boost and who will work to the benefit of both White and non-White in South Africa? Is the Minister of Labour to exercise the control, or the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development or the homeland governments?

You are living in a fantasy world.

No, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member’s problem is that he does not know his party’s policy. The philosophy of the Nationalist Party is based on the idea that the Black worker must remain a stranger, a temporary worker who is here today and gone tomorrow, a migratory labourer. But we are in the process of steering away from the whole idea of migratory labour and towards giving the Bantu permanence. The question which flows from that is: What does the Nationalist Party Government think the political results are going to be? How long will the trained Bantu, holding a key position in the economic machine of South Africa, be prepared to live in Johannesburg or wherever it may be with his wife and children, and to have to vote in the Transkei?

You want to give him the vote. Of that I am certain.

No, I am certain of nothing. The Nationalist Party is demolishing its own policy. I just want to put the matter in its true perspective. This single sentence was slipped in by the hon. the Minister of Finance. A few days ago Die Burger wrote an open letter to my Leader. It dealt with the question of the security of the country, the security of South Africa, the question of loyalty to our country. I want to tell hon. members oppositte and Die Burger today that, when it comes to the security of South Africa, when it comes to loyalty towards South Africa, they need never have any doubt where the United Party stands. The United Party always stands by the security of our fatherland; it is always loyal to our father-land. Today I want to ask Die Burger also to write an open letter to the Nationalist Party and it must read as follows: “Take the people of South Africa into your confidence, Mr. Prime Minister, and tell them what you think you should do at this stage concerning 8 million souls in White South Africa for whom there are practically no rights whatsoever. And if you are going to give them rights concerning labour, if you are going to give them civil rights, then admit, too, to the people of South Africa that you are throwing open the door to the total wrecking of the ideological policy of the Nationalist Party and to the end of the homeland policy.”

Mr. Speaker, I think that when that hon. member arrives home tonight, he will tell his wife: “Before I started talking, I did not know what I was going to say; while I was talking, I had no idea what I was saying, and, now that everything is past, I do not know what I did say.” One thing has become clear to me, and that is that he quarrelled, but I still do not know with whom. Another thing of which I am sure, and which was very clear, is that he enjoyed himself very much. But I shall leave the hon. member there for the time being. Later in my speech I shall come back to him.

At the very outset I want to say that so far not one single valid argument has been advanced by that side of the House to indicate why this Budget should not be approved. Many points of criticism were raised, points about which hon. members opposite may perhaps be very serious and which I do not want to belittle. However, those hon. members lost sight of one thing, namely that the hon. the Minister of Finance and the Government also have a right to expect, in all fairness, this Budget which is now before the House to be viewed against the background of the situation in which South Africa finds itself at present. The critic who does not do so, is acting unrealistically and his criticism is worthless. This is a factor which those hon. members are not taking into account.

Of course, there are many things which each of us would very much have liked to have seen in this Budget. If we merely consider the natural resources which are still awaiting development, infrastructures which our developing economy urgently requires all the time, the political mandate of this Government and flowing from that the mighty task of satisfying the national aspirations of such a great diversity of peoples within this country and of guiding each of them to its own destination, one wonders what this Budget could have looked like. Yes, one wonders what this Budget would have looked like if it had not been for the fact that regard had to be had to a stormy and dangerous world and economic trends over which we in this country have no control. That is the background against, which this Budget should be seen and judged by every patriotic citizen and this is also the background against which it is in fact seen by every patriotic citizen who forgets about his own personal convenience and makes it subservient to the interests of South Africa.

It goes without saying that such exceptional circumstances make exceptional demands on the Government. In the first place and at the expense of everything, they require this Government to take the necessary steps for safeguarding your and my person and property. And that is precisely what it does. They require this Government to provide the basic infrastructures for a developing economy of a young and growing country, infrastructures which older countries already have. At the same time it also has to create a climate in which you and I will not only earn enough to live on, but also be able to satisfy our human aspirations to greater economic prosperity. These things are done in this Budget in no uncertain manner. In fact, this is the outstanding feature of this Budget. In the light of prevailing circumstances it goes without saying, however, that such a climate can only be created on the basis of unavoidable, selective control measures and judicious tax levies. After all, people who are informed, know that one need not argue about this matter. These circumstances also require the Government to carve out, in the face of everything, a competitive niche for this young country in the world economy. One does not require any special knowledge of economics; one merely has to use one’s common sense to see that this is in actual fact being envisaged by this Budget.

All these things—and this is the point I want to make—one can only do if one puts South Africa first. That is the difference between this side and that side of the House. It has become very apparent from the debate up to now that the Opposition is not always able to see the interests of South Africa clearly. To the National Party there is only one criterion, namely what is in the interests of South Africa. In fact, that was the reason for its inception. That was why the late Gen. Hertzog was kicked out of the U.P. If it is in the interests of South Africa for us to move outwards, to conduct dialogues or enter into friendly relations with Black states, then we do so. If it is in the interests of South Africa that steps be taken against students in certain circumstances, then such steps are taken. In this way the National Party has taken every possible step to make the economy of South Africa sound and strong, even though these steps were unpopular and even though it often happens that in such a process some toes were trodden on. It took these steps because of its being in the interests of this country for us to have a strong and independent economy. This is the standpoint of the National Party, a standpoint which has its origin in the belief that the White people of South Africa is destined to play, on its own, a major role on this continent.

Because this is its standpoint, this Government has been able, over the years during which it has been its destiny to govern, to do wonders in South Africa and for South Africa. Just consider how the face of South Africa has changed under this Government. We have numerous dams and irrigation projects. Roads and power net works are spanning the Republic. Think of our airports. What progress have we not made in the spheres of transport, communications and broadcasting! Sir, think of the mighty Orange River project, the uranium enrichment process, our steel industries. Just consider the tremendous industrial action which is developing around border area and homeland industries. Then we have Richards Bay and the Saldanha-Sishen project—undertakings and projects which are symbolic of the dynamic role South Africa will have to play on this continent during the next few decades. It is clear that the National Party Government is engaged in important things. And, on top of that we have had to drag the Opposition along all the way. We have had to drag them along while they were kicking and groaning and grumbling all the time. We did this, we had no option; we inherited them. There they are sitting today, and with this side of the House they are picking and eating the fruit of sound government and getting fat on it.

Now, here we have a Budget which shows that the National Party is continuing along that way and which shows that this Government is engaged in important things. And now? Now we hear on the other side a squeaky voice saying, “But it will not work.” Yes, Sir, this Budget will not work, and do you know why not? Because we shall supposedly not be able to achieve more success now than we did last year. I do not want to use the word “desperate”, but this is the most halfhearted effort I have ever seen on the part of that side. They have, as it were, lost before they have even started. If we are supposedly not going to do better, surely it means that they would in fact be satisfied if we could merely attain the same success we did last year. And what success did we not attain! We know that at the end of 1971 things were not going well. A spirit of pessimism prevailed. But what did this Government do? It immediately took steps. Just think, for instance, of the Reynders Commission and the rapid implementation of its recommendations which proved to be such a big incentive that the exports of this country exceeded the R2 000 million mark for the first time. That was done by this National Party, and where do we stand today, after 15 months? Pessimism no longer prevails; confidence prevails at the moment. Now hon. members opposite are suggesting that there is no confidence in the economy of South Africa.

I want to ask them this: If there is no confidence, do they think for one single moment that such a giant in the European steel industry as the Austrian firm of Hoechst would consider entering into a partnership with Iscor? And then there is the British Steel Corporation which is considering to invest, along with other continental firms, no less than R1 000 million in this country. But do you think, Sir, that if there were no confidence here, the largest industrial concern in the U.S.A., General Motors, as well as the largest commercial bank in the world, would continue, in spite of pressure, to invest money in South Africa?

South Africa has great potential. Our greatest asset is our raw materials, and when we have regard to the increasing demand for and the growing dependence of industrial countries, especially those of the northern hemisphere, on the numerous raw materials which South Africa has, it is clear that in the years ahead South Africa will become an increasingly more important supplier of raw materials, especially to the new Europe. On the other hand, the pattern of world trade is in the process of changing drastically. All the indications are that the jingle of money is heard through ideological walls—a realization that ideology need not stand in the way of trade relations. This offers South Africa tremendous opportunities, but it also presents a major challenge to the worker and to every citizen in this country. The benefits we can derive from these assets and circumstances depend on the attitude each of us adopts towards labour and towards South Africa. I think—and now I want to come back to the hon. member for Maitland—that it has become necessary for us to ensure that labour is no longer used as a political football. I think it is time that the Opposition stopped their one-sided accentuation of what the labourers should receive, that they accepted their responsibility to South Africa and, at the same time, also impressed on the labourer what his contribution should be.

Sir, now I should like to ask: What is the standpoint of that side of the House in regard to the interests of South Africa? I am afraid they do not have a fine record. Were they not the people who would have nothing to do with South African-owned undertakings such as Iscor? Were they not the people who did not want to become South African citizens, who did not want South Africa to become a Republic? Sir, that side of the House still has in its ranks today people who are indifferent to the economic development of South Africa …

What rubbish!

… and who are pleased when things are not going well with our economy. That side of the House still has in its ranks today people who are indifferent to the security of South Africa.

Who?

Sir, I want to be fair. I do not want to label all of them with the same tag. I am aware that there are hon. members on that side of the House who are just as worried as we on this side of the House are.

All of us.

But unfortunately those voices are few and have become indistinct and faint amidst the noise of strange voices. I want to quote to you what was written by a leading journalist, who sat in this gallery for years, who knows the United Party through and through, and who knows them better than any of us on this side of the House, i.e. William Greenberg. I want to quote to you what he wrote in New Nation in 1970—

Now listen to this—

Continuing, he wrote—

In other words, the United Party’s endeavour to return to the Botha ideals was aided considerably by the fact that the party was purged from the Progressives and the Natal Federalists. And now we come to these significant words. Listen to this—

It is clear that in spite of that purging process some elements of those associations have nevertheless remained behind in the United Party. And what else did Mr. Greenberg have to say? Listen very attentively now. He said—

There you have it, Sir: “Historically it is not the Sap voice.” It is these strange voices that are driving the United Party to double talk and powerlessness and are contributing to making that party—I am sorry to say this—a mockery. If there is one hon. member who has unpleasant experience of those strange voices, then it is the hon. member for Yeoville. I want to go still further and quote the following—

Sir, as long as that side of the House pampers those strange voices, so long that side of the House will not be able to see the interests of South Africa clearly and will remain an amorphous and structureless party which, with the best will in the world, will not be able to make a positive contribution in this House.

Mr. Speaker, it was very noticeable that the hon. member who has just sat down made absolutely no effort to answer the speech of the hon. member for Maitland.

I answered him in one sentence.

He stayed away from it like a bull from a red rag. We expected him to get up and answer it. What did he do? He read here at length from an article written by a Mr. William Greenberg. Sir, I do not now whether you know who Mr. William Greenberg is. I certainly do not. And when it comes to reading from the news of an unknown journalist about the loyalty of this side of the House, how would he like if we start reading from known journalists about the loyalty of that side of the House? But we do not have to worry about reading it to them, Sir. They read it for themselves every day. For him to say that “ons staan onverskillig teenoor die veiligheid van die land”, is utter nonsense. We knew what our duty was when this country was threatened. We knew what to do. Nobody on that side of the House should accuse us of being irresponsible towards the safety of the State. He also told us about how the country was progressing. He mentioned the undertakings at Saldanha Bay and Richards Bay which was “symbolic” of the dynamic role played by the Nationalist Party. But what are the views of their own financiers and industrialists about what is happening in this country in regard to its development? What is the view of his own Minister of Finance? What is the complaint? That there is not sufficient growth. But then he comes and tells us with pride about all the Government has done. After all, the Government has been in power for 25 years. Surely it must do something in 25 years. Then he spoke about the confidence shown in South Africa by foreign nations, like the Japanese, the Germans and others. Why do they come here? They come here because we have the raw materials which they do not have. They are compelled to come here. Over the radio this morning we heard that the Japanese told Zambia that it did not matter what they thought; the Japanese had to come here because we had the raw materials which they needed. Irrespective of what the Nationalists are doing, this country must progress but the tragedy is that this Government is handicapping the progress of this country. The hon. member for Maitland dealt with changes in the Nationalist Party in regard to labour. It is common now to say that things are changing. Of course things are changing. When Mr. Harold Macmillan made his speech here 13 years ago, about the winds of change, little did we realize how truthful he was and how things were going to change. At that time Dr. Verwoerd was in the saddle and we all thought he had a tight rein. The Nationalists thought that he had the answer to all our problems. But now we see that the late Dr. Verwoerd’s philosophy has been blown away by the winds of change. The hon. the Prime Minister said in the No-confidence Debate that we should all learn a lesson from what had happened in Durban. He said that the Bantu were human beings with souls. Sir, that was not one of his brightest remarks, as if it was something new that he had discovered. But his speech was important in that it called for a change in the attitude towards the other races. The hon. member for Parktown, in introducing the debate on the Budget on behalf of the Opposition, mentioned the changes in Nationalist Party policy and claimed credit for the United Party as an effective Opposition because the changes which are being made have from time to time been recommended by us. This Government has accepted many of our suggestions, more than those enumerated by him, and it does so reluctantly, although a lot of these changes have nothing to do with their fundamental race policies, for instance the Orange River scheme, television and immigration. It has also gradually and unobtrusively, and as the hon. member for Maitland says “soos ’n dief in die nag”, made other changes which do affect its race philosophy. There is, for instance, the revival of the Cape Coloured Corps and arming them, manning our naval ships with Coloured crews, encouraging Whites to go into the reserves, etc. Our policies are gradually being taken over, for one simple reason, namely that they are realistic and practical. This is what distinguishes us from the Progressive Party and the Nationalist Party. The Progressive Party can pronounce utopian ideas which for a while will impress the immature and the idealist. It is easy for them to be extravagant in their criticism both of the Government and of the United Party or to make extravagant promises because they know they will never be called upon to carry out those promises.

The Nationalists on the other hand, offer the panacea for all our evils:Banish all the non-Whites to their own areas so that there will be no contact with the Whites and there will be no friction. That is the policy of “algehele apartheid”, but what has happened? The non-White groups have not been banished. They are still here with us, and for one simple reason, that there is nowhere for them to go, and if there was somewhere for them to go, what would happen to the economy of the Whites? It is realized that they have to be here, that we need them. Now we have more non-Whites in the so-called White areas than ever before. The year 1978 is gone; it is forgotten and gone with it is the Nationalist policy of apartheid. Sir, the Nationalist Party has our sympathy. It knows that things must change. Its problem is how to change this outmoded policy. It is in a cleft stick because it has committed itself to a policy of “algehele apartheid”. [Interjection.] Now they do not like “algehele apartheid”; yet it was their policy. They feel that there is loss of face when they have to change their policy or make concessions. However, every day people of different race groups meet and intermingle more and more in the economic field and so they get to know each other better. Indians, Coloureds, Africans are all mixing more and more and they are collaborating politically as well. There is more social mixing. There has to be if there is to be the dialogue which the Government desires.

Foreign Pressmen are now told that there is no rule to stop non-whites from going into hotels and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development recently entertained a number of Bantu from South-West Africa to a lunch in a posh White hotel. We commend him for that; there is nothing wrong with it. However, Dr. Verwoerd did not do it.

Things are changing. We now have mixed commissions and we have a mixed university council. There is more mixing in bodies which this Government never thought of allowing before. The hon. the Minister of Sport, who unfortunately is not here, said that when he went home from a mixed soccer match recently, he was overwhelmed by the obvious goodwill of everybody concerned. He said that there was so much goodwill among our people if handled the right way and if given a chance to spring forth. How true! But who has bedevilled that goodwill? Why was the hon. the Minister overwhelmed by the occasion?

He is a stranger in Jerusalem.

He looked upon that occasion as being historic. Where was he brought up? Is he a stranger in Jerusalem, as my hon. friend says? Does he not know that multi-racial games were played in South Africa before this Government started applying its group areas legislation? Does he not know that schoolboys here in Cape Town were stopped playing multiracial soccer together when the police went with instructions to stop them? Does he not know that there was multi-racial cricket played here? Who was it who stopped the soccer match being played between White and Black South Africans outside South Africa in Swaziland? Who was it? Which Prime Minister said publicly at Loskop Dam that Maoris would not be allowed to play in South Africa? Does the hon. the Minister not know that before the Nationalist Government stopped it, we had mixing in bioscope halls, in theatres, in restaurants and always in the churches? I was surprised to see the hon. the Prime Minister take exception today when my hon. friend, the member for Sea Point, mentioned the fact that the church clause was contained in the law. Of course there was a clause which entitled this Government to stop people from going to the same church. They never applied it, but they passed a law entitling them to stop it.

That is a completely different thing from what the hon. member for Sea Point said.

No, that is exactly what he said. The Nationalists will say that things are changing, but things are not changing; the Nationalists are changing. That is what is happening. These apparent changes which seem so momentous today were commonplace 25 years ago. What has happened in the last 12 months could have happened long ago if left to proceed naturally without hindrance by means of sanctions enforced by legislation introduced by this Government. The changes which are now taking place could have happened, I say, without fuss and bother and without incurring the opprobium of the whole world. We have lost 25 years in the field of human relations because of the advent of this Government. We have taxed the goodwill referred to by the hon. the Minister of Sport to almost breaking point. What we must now be thankful for is that there seems to be a lifting of this dark veil of prejudice so manifest in the Nationalist Party. I do not for one moment think that this change which is coming about is a voluntary action of goodwill. The changes have been forced on them. All around them they see the walls of apartheid crumbling and the concessions now being made, are only done to avert calamity. The Herstigtes, indeed, reflect the true sentiments of the Nationalist Party as it was in 1948 but Nationalist intellectuals and financiers cannot be ignored any longer. They see the light. Not only they are becoming more and more outspoken in their criticism, but so also are former administrators, and it must have been a rude shock to this Government to hear and to read the comments of “Die vader van groot apartheid”, Dr. Eiselen, on what he felt about the policy and how it has been applied to the urban Africans. It was hoped that the African chiefs would support the Government. Indeed, for a while they played along. After the publicity which has been given to their support it must have been galling now for the Government to find their erstwhile friends turning on them. When I think of the predicament of the Government now with regard to their erstwhile friends, I am reminded of the old limerick:

Things are changing, the mood of the African leaders is changing. They are now openly accusing the Government of malafides, of not carrying out the policy to its logical conclusion. It is reported in this morning’s paper that Chief Kaiser Matanzima has told his Legislative Assembly that his Ministers are now being tailed by the Security Police. While talking about Chief Kaiser, I asked the Prime Minister a question yesterday—unfortunately he is not here now, but I hope that somebody will reply on his behalf—whether he had received a request from the Transkei for full independence. He was very careful in his reply and said that he was replying to the question as it was put on the Order Paper. His reply was: “No.” According to newspaper reports, the Chief Minister in reporting to his congress before the opening of their Legislative Assembly, said that he had made it plain to the Prime Minister that they wanted full independence for the Transkei with the inclusion of Port St. Johns. We would like to know what has happened. After all, it cannot be an international secret between two Prime Ministers, because the Chief Minister of the Transkei has disclosed it to his caucus. I would like the Prime Minister to tell us now in this House what actually has happened, what progress has been made, what request has been made and what the answer has been.

I do not want to use this occasion to embarrass the Government in its relations with African leaders, but I want to discuss the Achilles’ heel of the Government’s policy, and that is the urban Bantu. We are about to see major changes and with the changes in their policy with regard to urban Bantu the whole edifice of apartheid is brought down.

It is all a question of labour. The hon. member for Maitland referred to the Budget speech of the hon. the Minister of Finance and I would like to quote again what the Minister said, because there seems to be some doubt on the other side as to what exactly he said. He said that “the raising of labour productivity is at present of cardinal importance in relation to our aim of faster growth”. He went on to say that “the Government is conscious of the great need of industries in the White areas for better trained Bantu industrial workers”. Then he went on to say that an interdepartmental committee had been appointed to go into this question. Over the wireless we heard that the Secretary for Bantu Education, who apparently is the chairman of this interdepartmental committee, said that a report had already been submitted to the Government. We would like to know what that report is and what the Government intends doing. You see too in the papers that the Federated Chamber of Industries is holding talks with the Government to bring about major changes in the African labour front. We want to know if this is so and what changes are contemplated. We pleaded through the years for training for Africans in the so-called White areas, but what was the answer especially given by the present Administrator of the Cape Province when he was Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration? He was adamant that if there was to be any training in any way for working Africans it would be done in the Reserves and nowhere else. Now we get this complete change. The Government is now compelled to revise its urban Bantu policy and to give it guide-lines, because they have to be guided, I intend giving our policy in detail for it to be adopted piecemeal. I do it willingly because it will be so much easier for us to apply when we take over the Government if this Government has done the spade-work.

There is one important difference between the Government and the United Party. Economic integration is a fact which necessitates the acceptance of a permanent Bantu urban population as an integral part of the South African economy. Although the United Party regards Bantu labour as essential to the national economy, it will not permit it to be integrated into the economy without regulation, guidance and control. It must be stressed that the United Party’s attitude on this subject is in direct contradiction to that of the Nationalist Party, which regards all Bantu resident in White areas as “temporary sojourners”, or so it has up to now. This is a fundamental difference between the policies of the two parties, the difference between reality and fiction.

The term “urban Bantu” can be interpreted differently. There are for example:

1. (a) Bantu who have lived in Bantu townships in the White area for several generations and are completely detribalized.
2. (b) Bantu who live in Bantu townships in the White area but who maintain their tribal affiliations and links with their homelands to which they hope one day to return.
3. (c) Bantu who live under urban conditions in Bantu Reserves and who work in the White industrial areas.
4. (d) Bantu who work as migratory labourers, spend part of their lives living in Bantu townships in the White area under urban conditions, but who return to their Reserves after the completion of their contracts.

In setting out the United Party policy for the urban Bantu I will define them as those who have acquired rights under section 10 of the Bantu Urban Areas Act, 1945. It is the policy of the United Party in respect of the urban Bantu:

1. (i) to provide separate residential, social and educational amenities for them;
2. (ii) to maintain influx control, but to administer the system in a realistic way so as to meet the demand for labour in a humane manner and to obviate hardships and grievances;
3. (iii) to give the urban Bantu a stake in the maintenance of law and order:

To give practical effect to this policy the United Party has committed itself:

1. (a) To abolish job reservation and to protect workers by undertaking that no changes will be effected in the labour pattern of South Africa without consultation with and the cooperation of the trade unions concerned, and by applying the principle of the rate for the job to avoid unfair competition.
2. (b) To arrange for the training, control and necessary safeguards for the efficient utilization of skilled and unskilled labourers.
3. (c) To arrange for the collective representation of Bantu labour in a manner to be determined after consultation with existing trade unions and organized management.
4. (d) To give urban Bantu councils the greatest possible control over their own local self-government;
5. (e) To accept responsibility for the provision of permanent Bantu housing in urban and peri-urban areas and to acquire the areas required for this purpose;
6. (f) To encourage, train and assist Bantu to develop and operate their own commercial and industrial undertakings;
7. (g) To take steps to improve Bantu health and other social services including old-age pensions and disability grants;
8. (h) To make elementary education available to Bantu children;
9. (i) To provide secondary and technical education facilities for urban Bantu in the White area, and to assist Bantu to gain admittance to universities by restoring their autonomy to these institutions;
10. (j) Immediately on return to power, to review with a view to repeal or amend where necessary, all discriminatory laws including those which apply to Bantu in urban areas.

As far as movement control is concerned—

1. (i) Influx control will be made less irksome through the wider and improved use of labour bureaux and aid centres.
2. (ii) Bantu migratory workers will not be required to return home every year.
3. (iii) The principle of “zoning” of certain districts from which Bantu workers may be recruited only for a specified area, will be scrapped.
4. (iv) Single Bantu women will be treated on the same basis as single men.
5. (v) The wife of a Bantu worker will be permitted to join her husband in a Bantu urban area provided that he is in permanent employment and is in a position to support his family, and suitable accommodation is available.
6. (vi) The United Party will restore the spirit of section 10 of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Act, and accepts that Bantu who obtain permission to enter a prescribed area in terms of section 10(1)(d) of the Act, may acquire rights of permanent residence as in the past.
7. (vii) A special form of reference book will be issued to Bantu qualified as permanent residents in a prescribed area so as to free them from pass regulations which constitute a continuous form of irritation and are largely responsible for the high rate of contraventions of the control system.
8. (viii) Bantu qualified as permanent residents in a prescribed area will be entitled to move to and seek work in, visit or reside in any urban area.
9. (ix) Facilities for urban Bantu (as defined) and others housed in Bantu township areas will be provided by Urban Bantu Councils (as the responsible local authority controlling those areas) under the control of the Legislative Assembly which we visualize in our federal policy.

Different arrangements and facilities will have to be made and provided for Bantu accommodated in the White areas as opposed to townships. The provision thereof should be left under the control of each local authority, which may decide for itself all such matters, including—

1. (i) whether to accommodate Bantu or not;
2. (ii) the type of such accommodation to be provided;
3. (iii) whether domestics should be housed on employer’s property;
4. (iv) provision of recreational facilities;
5. (v) provision of transport facilities.

I have stated in detail our policy so that the Government can study it. We look forward to seeing them taking it over step by step. Last year a committee of which I was a member, visited all the major Bantu townships. We had discussions with the leaders of the Bantu in urban areas. They were virtually unanimous in rejecting the Government’s policy with regard to the Bantu in urban areas. The injustices which they disclosed to us and the hardships under which they have to live, are shameful. They pointed out to us, too, that they do not regard themselves as being members of different tribes or ethnic groups; they regard themselves as being urbanized South Africans and their homelands are in the areas where they live. Many of them knew no other areas; they were born where they live now and had no desire to be linked to any homeland.

Did they reject their homelands?

Yes, they did reject the homelands. That is the point. The people who are permanently urbanized say: “Look, we know no other place. We have never lived anywhere else.” A doctor told us he said to his little son: “Let me look at you. What ethnic group do you belong to?” He said: “My parents belonged to two different tribes. My wife’s parents also belonged to two different tribes. I worked it out through my grandparents that my son has eight different ethnic groups in his blood.” Where must this fellow go? Where is his homeland, and what must happen to him? As I say, hon. members on the other side should go around and talk to these people in the urban areas. Let them go and find out what they think. They must not be guided merely by what the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development tells them. That is the trouble. We are told too often how the Bantu should think. We do not make enough contact with them personally to find out what their views are.

Which Bantu leaders did you consult?

I said we went to the large urban areas and we met and consulted with members of the advisory councils in the Bantu townships. They had been elected by their people and they represent the people within those areas. We did not go to speak to hereditary chiefs who wanted their positions protected. We went and saw the leaders who were elected by their people, living within the area. Another interesting thing is that they were not elected on an ethnic basis. I suggest to that hon. member, who is obviously interested as to how these people are thinking, to pay a visit to these urban areas and not just to the tribal areas. He should not only go to the reserves to see the chiefs but to find out how the ordinary common man amongst the Africans thinks.

That is why I asked you which leaders they were.

Surely, if they are elected, they are the leaders? Don’t these members of the Nationalist Party—I wouldn’t be surprised if they cannot—regard themselves as leaders of the Afrikaansspeaking people? Perhaps they do not.

Which areas are you referring to?

They were Pori Elizabeth, Soweto, Mdantsane and Langa in the Cape. That is where we met these people. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Transkei tried to give the policy of the United Party and has spoken in vague, general terms. The important thing is that there are fundamental issues at stake in the question of what policy shall be decided upon to bring about a stable future for South Africa. I will come to that presently and analyse the fundamental principles inherent in the United Party policy. I first want to deal with a few aspects raised by the hon. member for Transkei.

Among the issues which he stated as part of the United Party policy, is that they would restore the right of White universities to admit in terms of their own discretion any number of non-White students. In other words, he said that they would restore the so-called autonomy of the universities. What I should like to know is whether the United Party is in favour of a general mixing of White and non-White students at these universities. I want to challenge them on this specific issue, because when the Separate Universities Act was introduced there was a commission which made certain inquiries beforehand. The principals of the then Cape Town and Witwatersrand Universities indicated that they themselves would introduce certain measures of control to limit the number of non-White students at those universities. In other words, they want to show to the world that they are open universities and that they admit anybody. At the same time their hypocrisy prevents them from really making these universities open universities. This means that they will just allow a certain minimal number of non-White students to try and bluff the world.

Who said so?

This type of hypocrisy is inherent in the attitude which we have seen from those who believe in an integrated society. It is a hypocritical policy which does not do credit to the honesty and integrity of public life in South Africa.

The hon. member for Transkei also spoke of allowing the Bantu to have an undisturbed family life in the towns. If that is so, I also want to test their integrity.

Are you against that?

I am not against a proper family life, but our solution to that is to encourage industrial development, either on the borders or inside the Bantu areas so that the workers’ family life can be undisturbed in their areas and so that it will not disrupt society in the White areas. But, Sir, if the United Party want to ensure an undisturbed family life under their policy of relaxed influx control, then I want to know from them whether it is a matter of principle. I want to know from them whether they will be prepared to allow the tens and hundreds of thousands of Bantu from Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia and the Portuguese territories all to bring their wives and families with them. If it is a matter of principle, then no distinction must be made. But if they want to be expedient, then they must tell this House that their policy is one of expediency and is not based on principles.

Mr. Speaker, their policy is basically one of integration. Their policy aims basically at an integrated society in South Africa. In fact, in a pamphlet issued by the United Party in Umhlatuzana, there is a heading which reads: “United Party—one country, one loyalty.” In their newspaper Onwards there is another headline which reads: “U.P. want one loyalty.” In other words, their whole process of political development is in the direction of a single nation, a politically integrated South African society, a society consisting of a multiplicity of peoples and national groups within South Africa. That is their desire; that is their aim.

We believe that the greatest challenge to human endeavour in the Southern African continent is to find an acceptable and workable solution to the multitude of problems which can be grouped into the general category of “human relations”. This, after all, is not a problem singular to Southern Africa; it is exercising the minds of political leaders in all countries of the world. But South Africa, in microcosm, reflects the complexity of the situation. South Africa has a leading role to play in finding a workable solution to the complexity of this issue and I believe it is because our Government has already made considerable progress in proving that separate development has a better chance of success, in providing a basis for human understanding and cooperation between the different nations and peoples, that the powers that be, who, for politico-economic reasons, prefer to remould mankind into a pliable, non-national, non-cultural, non-religious human mass which can be more manipulable for materialistic economic exploitation, concentrate their efforts on destroying the concept of separate development.

There are fundamentally two approaches to the problem facing the world and South Africa. The one approach is integration and multi-racialism, or, as some prefer to call it, non-racialism, and in the South African context, the concept of one country with one nation in spite of the multiplicity of peoples within its borders.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? I should like to know from the hon. member where in the approach propagated by him here this afternoon the Coloureds fit in?

Mr. Speaker, I shall come to that. I am dealing with the general approach and the broad principles now, and I shall come to the details later on.

†In South Africa the adherents of this dogma of internationalism, of integration, are to be found mainly in the Progressive Party and in the United Party, with varying degrees and shades of conviction. But they are also to be found amongst the activist leaders of Nusas, the new Left, and possibly also the communists, but for entirely different reasons. A newly developing phenomenon in Southern Africa is a kind of Black Imperialism or economic vulturism. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I am referring to economic vulturism …

Order! The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central must exercise some restraint.

… because there is a new move afoot in which people want to reap where they have not sown. They want to take unto themselves things that they have not worked for. It is unfortunate that these elements in South Africa, these elements of integration, have powerful allies in the whole world, allies who are frequently the over-reacting victims of a massive worldwide propaganda campaign against the false concept of “Herrenvolkism” which swept parts of Europe some decades ago and which culminated in the Second World War. These allies of the United and Progressive Parties—the integration pushers— falsely believe that the policy of separate development of this Government is also based on the concept of “Herrenvolkism” and this possibly accounts for the voluble and vehement opposition to South Africa’s chosen way of life in world forums and even on the international playing fields. It is, however, important to note that there is no evidence anywhere in the world that integration, multinationalism or non-Nationalism has led to a peaceful social order on an acceptable basis anywhere in the world. There is certainly ample evidence to prove the opposite, to prove that multiracial Federalism or the artificial unification of multi-identities tends to lead to the disruption of the social order. I need only refer, for example, to the Central African Federation, where the federation concept collapsed completely. I refer to Cyprus which, a few years ago, the United Party held up as an example of their federal policy, and where the Turks and the Greeks are still not co-operating with one another. I refer to the Hindu-Moslem conflict in India, the Arab-Israeli conflict in what used to be Palestine, to Biafra in Nigeria and to the ruthless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Watusi in Burundi, the racial cauldrons of Harlem and Chicago. Integration is such a final and irrevocable step, which can only lead to an explosive situation, if the artificial unity which is thereby imposed on the parties concerned is not wholly accepted by all the peoples involved in such a process. There is ample evidence that the United Party is an adherent of this one-country—one-nation concept. I have already referred to the United Party pamphlet and the United Party newspaper which bear this out. Sir, the whole idea of the United Party’s federal Parliament is based on their belief in a one-nation concept, and basically their attitude is that all the peoples of South Africa, the non-White majorities and the White minority, must be formed into a single political unit, and it is for this reason that the United Party and the Progressive Party and the adherents of Nusas and other elements are basically integration-pushers; they are the people who want to bring about a single society in South Africa, and although it may be on a federal basis at this stage, it will eventually lead to a unitary basis and to a biologically consolidated people in future, because even on a world basis there is a tendency for federalism, for the devolution of power, to eventually lead to a centralization of power. If therefore the United Party wishes to concentrate political power in a federal Parliament, the tendency being towards a centralization of power, it must lead eventually to complete political power within the United Party’s federal concept.

You are talking absolute tripe!

Sir, in direct contrast with this, the National Party believes in the policy of separate development.

*That policy of separate development of the National Party basically has its roots in the Christian-National outlook on life of the Afrikaner. It is an outlook which, on a Christian basis, does not begrudge any person the right to retain his own identity, and which is aimed, at uplifting the separate identities and at helping them to help themselves. It differs fundamentally from the other approach to racial differences, the approach which reared its head in Europe in previous decades. There is no question of the policy of the National Party, which is based on the Christian-National outlook on life, seeking in any way to prejudice any of these groups. In fact, it seeks to build up and benefit each group.

Sir, since it is a fact that for three centuries South Africa has been developing according to a certain pattern, it is necessary now for the National Party to give attention to this vital problem which is cropping up in South Africa now. Until the National Party came into power there was a completely different pattern of life in the whole world. When the National Party came into power in 1948 there were four independent sovereign states in the whole of Africa—South Africa, Egypt, Liberia and Ethiopia. Today there are approximately 46. Completely new circumstances prevail all over the world. The former colonies of Britain, France, Belgium and other countries have gone and each of them has acquired independent status, a development which is also making its influence felt on South Africa. The hon. member for Transkei said: “The world does not change; it is the Nationalists who are changing.” Sir, one finds in the United Party that element which the Sunday Times calls the “verkrampte Mafia”, the verkrampte Mafia which is opposed to all change. But the National Party is aware that the world is changing, and the National Party is a vigorous, thinking party which takes into account, at all times, the problems as they change from time to time in an attempt to find new solutions to those problems. It is because the National Party is a young, vigorous party that it is also taking into account these changed circumstances, which have arisen from 1948 up to the present, in an attempt to find a solution.

The hon. member for Transkei says the circumstances do not change, but surely he himself stated what changes had taken place since the speech made here in the parliamentary dining room by Mr. Macmillan. He has therefore contradicted himself, but that is after all typical of the members of the United Party. Not only do they contradict one another in the same debate, but one also finds that one and the same speaker contradicts himself in the same speech. Sir, what is necessary in this country …

Is a new Government. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Aliwal North must restrain himself.

… is that a definite attempt be made to solve the problems of multi-nationalism in South Africa in an honest, sincere and well-meaning manner. There we have one matter which I feel should perhaps receive attention.

We have now made a fairly great deal of progress in regard to the policy, the development of that policy and in giving recognition to the final borders of the Bantu homelands.

Do they accept them?

This matter will probably be brought to finality during the course of this session, but even the creation of final borders still offers no solution, for it is a fact that at the moment there are inside the Bantu homelands approximately 55 000 young male Bantu who are ready to enter the labour market every year. In the whole of South Africa there are approximately 90 000 members of the male Bantu population who are pouring into the labour market. But the starting-point of the National Party is that there must be separate development and that the Bantu homelands must be developed. It is absolutely essential that this manpower should not continually be absorbed by the White areas, which is what the United Party with its relaxation of influx control wants to have.

That has already been said by Tomlinson.

It is essential that this manpower be utilized for the development and the expansion of the infrastructure in the Bantu areas themselves. I want to suggest that the possibility be investigated, in conjunction with the leaders of the Bantu homelands, whether an attempt can be made, as was done in the case of the Coloured cadets, to have these young Bantu render national service for a year for building up the Bantu homelands, to use them, as is done in Israel under the kibbutz system of voluntary helpers, to build up the country. I adopt the attitude that one should set about developing the infrastructure of the Bantu areas on the basis of general planning, in conjunction with the leaders of the Bantu homelands, and according to a definite pattern, that these people should be provided with accommodation and food and the necessities of life, but that they should render service to their people, that they should be used for building roads and developing the development potential in their areas and that, as is the case with the youth brigade in Malawi, some of those young Bantu should be involved so that they may develop a pride in the development of their own area. That is what is essential. The main object should not be to allow these Bantu simply to pour into the White economy all the time, for that does not solve the problem; it merely creates more problems.

The Opposition falls into the category of people who believe that the Whites should be able to get an unlimited amount of work out of the Bantu in order to build up the economy of the Whites. What is essential, what is a requirement, is that the Bantu peoples, each in its own area, the Xhosa and the Zulu and the Venda, must develop a pride, a purpose and an aspiration to make a positive contribution to developing their countries into truly national units. That will be the next step to which attention will have to be given, and that can only be done through obtaining the co-operation of the leaders of the Bantu homelands. I am convinced that it will in fact be possible to obtain this co-operation, for this is something which they, too, should realize is essential for their areas.

It is interesting to note that the leaders of KwaZulu and the Transkei are also talking about a federal system now. In the recent no-confidence debate of the Transkeian Parliament Kaiser Matanzima spoke about a federal system, and he invited the Whites to become a member of this federal system. Now I want to put this question to the United Party: Would they be prepared to join this federal system of Matanzima and Buthelezi and to co-operate in it on their terms? Would they be prepared to be a party to it?

No.

The hon. members say “No”, but what they should in fact be aware of is that if they should ever be in a position to carry their federal system into effect, they would not be dealing with a lot of passive Bantu who would simply accept their system. After all, they would be dealing with a majority of non-Whites in their Parliament who would make demands. Would they yield to those demands? After all, they are always yielding. They also yielded before, when there was pressure in regard to the representation of Bantu in this Parliament. The Leader of the United Party, Sir De Villiers Graaff, admitted in this House that they had yielded to pressure. He admitted this in 1967, during the discussion of the Prime Minister’s Vote.

That is not true.

At that stage that hon. member was still a greenhorn and not yet a member of this House. South Africa has a tremendous task to fulfil, and we cannot afford to be petty in our approach. We have a positive task to perform and the Opposition is continually being nothing but an encumbrance.

Come up to date!

The National Party has reached such an advanced stage of development that it now has to ignore the United Party and simply has to carry on as if that party does not exist, for it is a matter of impossibility to make any progress on this road of development of South Africa while being handicapped by this perpetual encumbrance.

Mr. Speaker, I find that this is one time when I really sympathize with the Nationalist Party, because they must have had quite a problem on their hands. The problem, of course, was what to do with the hon. member for Klip River. They knew, of course, that they could not possibly let him loose at Umhlatuzana where there is a very, very important by-election, and so, as there had to be a certain amount of face saving, I think they said to the hon. member that he should come along here, that they would let him into this debate and he should then tear the United Party to pieces. What a pathetic attempt the hon. member made! I think that this hon. member has been the biggest embarrassment ever to the Nationalist Party. We know that in Klip River he barely scraped home with a majority of 234 votes. I say that the hon. member for Klip River has been kept here in Cape Town for a very, very good reason. He tried very pathetically to tear the United Party to pieces but I do not intend spending any of my time in replying to him, except for one thing. He did try to create a very, very wrong impression here in regard to our policy for the universities. The hon. member should know that under the policy of the United Party all universities will be autonomous and it will be up to the university authorities to decide whom they will take in and they will decide purely on academic qualifications and not on the colour of a student’s skin. I leave the hon. member there.

*Before I go on I should like to avail myself of the opportunity to react to what was said on Tuesday by an hon. member on the opposite side of the House. When by colleague, the hon. member for Rosettenville, referred in the course of his speech to the strikes in South Africa, the hon. member for Langlaagte, who I am sorry to say is not here, by way of interjection repeatedly said: “Yes, and you are glad about it.” We on this side of the House of course reject that allegation with the contempt it deserves. I take this amiss from the hon. member for Langlaagte because by making that interjection he suggested that hon. members on this side of the House sympathized with illegal strikes. I believe that that hon. member owes this side of the House an apology. And with these words I want to leave the hon. member for Langlaagte there.

During the no-confidence debate early this session I listened attentively to the speech made by the hon. the Prime Minister. In the course of his speech he said something, and because I believe that the words he used are particularly significant, I should like to quote them again (Hansard, col. 346)—

Then the hon. the Prime Minister went on, and said the following—

I have said already that these were very significant words. I want to say at once, too, that we on this side of the House fully agree with the hon. the Prime Minister that there are lessons to be learned from that situation. I believe, too, that the hon. the Prime Minister, when he uttered those words, was fully aware of the explosive nature of the Bantu wage question in South Africa. We on this side of the House also believe that the matter is very serious, and that we will have to do everything in our power to improve the position. The series of strikes that occurred in South Africa and in South-West Africa during the past twelve months, for example the strikes of the Owambo in South-West Africa, the strikes of the Zulu dockworkers in Durban, the strikes of the Putco bus drivers in the Transvaal, the Bantu dock-workers here in Cape Town and the medical doctors in Soweto—just to mention a few—show us very clearly that the non-White workers in South Africa are slowly but surely realizing that in spite of all the existing laws they have a very great power in their hands as a result of their strong and important position in the economy of this country. I believe, too, that those strikes have shown that the non-White workers in South Africa are prepared to use that power in order to improve their economic position. Hon. members will realize that apart from the strikes I have mentioned the statistics show that during the period 1959 to 1969 more than 30 000 Bantu took part in illegal strikes. The majority of these strikes, and this is very significant, took place during the past three years. Furthermore I find it very significant that through nearly every strike the strikers succeeded in improving their position considerably. I believe that we must accept that a significant new factor in the political life of South Africa is taking shape. To my mind the non-White workers in South Africa are realizing today that in spite of the legal position with regard to strikes they have the power to influence the economy of the country simply because they represent two-thirds of the labour force in South Africa and because without the labour the country cannot manage. From this two thoughts arise. If we take it that our non-White workers have reached such a stage, i.e. that they are able to use their labour force to wreck the economy of the country, the time has definitely come to create new machinery for the workers and the employers to consult and negotiate with one another.

We are facing the fact today that the old restrictions have become completely redundant; in fact, they have actually become a real danger. In reality the old restrictions deprived the non-Whites of the right to make their claims within the discipline of trade unions and within the discipline of the orderly machinery of the Industrial Conciliation Act. The second thought arising from this is that if the position is as we know it today, how much worse will it not be in, say, ten or 20 years’ time. Projections of our population increase indicate that our present population of 21 million people will within the next 25 years increase to 60 million. This of course means that if we want to feed everyone in South Africa and if we want to maintain decent living standards, our gross national product will have to be tripled in the next 25 years. It is obvious too, that our gold is an asset which is diminishing at present and the increased production will therefore have to come from the side of industry. This amounts to our having to use larger numbers of non-Whites in more skilled jobs. We will have to do that not sporadically or in secret, but openly, and in their thousands. I wonder whether the Government truly realizes that within 25 years our non-White labour force will not form only two-thirds of the total labour force, but will be closer to nine-tenths of that? This will mean that 90% of our labour force will be unorganized and without channels for negotiation. I do not believe it is necessary for me to stress the explosive nature of such a situation. It seems as though the Government does not realize what a tremendous weapon such a situation would place in the hands of the non-White workers. It is a power which has gradually and nearly unnoticed become continually greater in the hands of the non-White workers of South Africa. Whereas the non-Whites used to be virtually unaware of this, and are only now realizing this great power, this realization may in time assume great proportions. This is where the danger lies to South Africa and all her peoples. I may give you the assurance that, whether we like the idea or not, our non-White labour force will henceforth become the explosive agent in South African politics. That is why I repeat that the hon. the Prime Minister’s words should always be kept in mind and that we must all do everything in our power to combat this problem.

†Mr. Speaker, in the time left to me I want to come back to the old question of Bantu wage levels in South Africa. The more one thinks about the labour problem, the more one realizes that what we have in South Africa is not so much a labour problem as a colour problem. It is obvious too that colour prejudice interferes at almost every level with the natural evolution of a highly trained, efficient and well-paid labour force in South Africa. I think it is common knowledge that we on this side of the House have pleaded consistently over the years with the Government for a greatly accelerated training programme, a programme to train the unskilled Bantu in South Africa so that they can take up positions as skilled workers when we need them. We also pleaded with the Government that this programme should be co-ordinated and integrated into an over-all manpower plan for South Africa. Unfortunately for South Africa all these pleas over the years have fallen on deaf ears. One can only hope that, after the strikes which we have had during the past year, the Government will now heed our plea. After all, we must not forget that strikes are illegal, costly and very dangerous. I want to say that when one examines the Government’s record in respect of its handling of the whole question of Bantu wage levels and the proper use of Bantu, labour in South Africa, one cannot be confident that at this late hour they will remedy the position. We know, and the hon. the Prime Minister has told us, that there are lessons to be learnt from the recent strikes. I want to remind hon. members on that side of the House that in the past 25 years while they have been governing this country, there have been many occasions on which the Government should have leart lessons. So, Sir, I say that I am not very confident that the Government, even at this stage, has learned the proper lesson. I listened with a great deal of interest to the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Finance. It was interesting to hear him announce the appointment of an interdepartmental committee, but what shocked me was that this committee was to investigate the desirability and practical feasibility of pre-service training and in-service training. Can you believe that in this year 1973 with a Government that has been in power for almost 25 years, we have to listen to the hon. the Minister of Finance saying that at this stage we are merely going to inquire into the desirability of training non-Whites?

I wonder whethere the hon. the Minister will give his attention to the hon. member who is speaking?

You keep quiet.

Mr. Speaker, may I say that I leave it to you to keep order in this House and not hon. members opposite. I am making an appeal in courtesy to the hon. the Minister.

Sit down.

The hon. member for South Coast should realize that I cannot make anybody listen.

This, Mr. Speaker, is done at a time when South Africa requires increased productivity more than almost anything else to combat the inflation which we have. That is why I wonder how one can possibly be confident when at this late stage all we have before us is a suggestion by the Government to investigate the desirability of doing what should have been done 25 years ago.

I think it would be very interesting to go back a little to see what in fact the Government has done in regard to the whole question of Bantu wage levels and the proper usage of Bantu labour. We know that over the past decade this whole question of Bantu wage levels has received a great deal of attention. It has received attention from well-meaning people, from certain enlightened employers and, of course, by various public bodies. On the Government side we have had the Government Bantu Board which was created, we were told, to uplift and safeguard the interest of these thousands of Bantu workers working in the White industrial areas of South Africa. It is indeed strange that everyone seems to agree that there is this urgent need to improve the present deplorably low wages that are being earned by our lowest-paid workers in South Africa. We know that all the sentiments are there, and we know that all this lip-service is being paid. But when you examine wage movements over the past 10 years you find that real wages for the Bantu have improved hardly at all. It is absolutely true that in relation to the ever-increasing cost of living and the continuous new demands that are being made on the purses of the Bantu workers, it is no exaggeration to say that the lowest-paid Bantu workers today are getting wages which can only be described as starvation wages.

But I want to go back a bit further. We all remember only too well the Bantu bus boycott in Johannesburg in 1957, and at the same time the impact of the recent strikes about which the hon. the Prime Minister spoke so feelingly. We know, too, that unfortunately for South Africa the lesson of that particular time was not learned. Complacency set in and in no time at all we all just carried on, believing quite incorrectly that the non-White worker had no real power and that they did not have to be consulted and that they would accept, as in the past, any dispensation we choose for them.

Mr. Speaker, you well remember too that this bus boycott was embarked upon by the Bantu because of a one-penny increase in the bus fare between Alexandra and Johanesburg, and how this grim protest of thousands of Bantu trudging almost 20 miles a day in all kinds of weather, showed the more privileged sections of our community how badly the Bantu in South Africa were being paid. For a time, I must say, there was quite a bit of consternation. We find that in Johannesburg everybody was so concerned that individual members of the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce set up a committee with the very fine-sounding name of the Association for the Improvement of Wages and Productivity for the Bantu Worker. As a result of this boycott even the Nationalist Government was stirred, because we find that in Parliament the then Minister of Labour announced that he had drawn up a preferential list of 45 unskilled occupations for investigation and report by the Wage Board as a matter of urgency. Sir, when you look at the position, how sorry it is, because you find that despite all this consternation, wages for Bantu workers in South Africa still remain deplorably low. If you examine the Government’s record in this respect, all I can say is that it leaves a lot to be desired. The record shows that two years after the then Minister of Labour had announced his list of 45 occupations and had asked for an urgent investigation by the Wage Board, the Wage Board had in fact investigated only 11, and in the case of only seven of them determinations binding employers were published. To make matters very much worse, we find that even those determinations brought no relief whatsoever to the Bantu workers. As a matter of fact, they barely kept the status quo.

Naturally, after all this fuss and after all the lip service that was being paid to the ideal of raising wages for our Bantu workers, everyone, including the unfortunate workers, believed sincerely that a general increase in wages for South Africa’s lowest paid workers was imminent. The Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce lent emphasis to this belief because they— and I must say this to their credit—took over the burden of the increased bus fares as a temporary measure. But very soon all this was forgotten. We fell back into the same old rut and we find ourselves today in the position where we have had a series of strikes. When you open your newspaper, Sir, you find almost every day that there has been another strike. I do not for one moment believe, as the hon. the Minister of Labour wanted us to believe, that these strikes were activated by agitators. I do not believe that. I believe that these strikes have been taking place and are taking place for the very same reason that caused those thousands of Bantu in Johannesburg to strike. As I have said, they went on strike because they could not pay a one-penny increase in their bus fares. There is no doubt in my mind that this shame of starvation wages in South Africa can be overcome in a reasonably short period of time, if the Government and commerce and industry would only face up to their respective responsibilities squarely. I say this advisedly because there is absolutely no valid reason why organized employers cannot take positive action to increase the wages of their lowest-paid workers to allow these people at least to live above the poverty datum line. I want to go further, Sir. By the same token there is absolutely no excuse why the Government cannot legislate for a living minimum wage if—and I say this advisedly—the employers’ associations do not face up to their responsibility. Sir, I believe, too—and this is very important —that we here in Parliament should be compelled to pay a great deal more attention to the whole question of Bantu wage levels in South. I say this because we must remember that the Bantu workers are limited by a number of restrictive laws and regulations, and we know that they cannot use the trade unions, not because they are hostile to trade unions, but because the Government makes it impossible for them to join trade unions.

Are you in favour of it?

Sir, hon. members opposite know what our policy is in connection with trade unions. We must remember, too, that unlike the White workers, the Black workers of South African cannot retaliate; they have no power to remove legislators who enact bad laws. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the speech by the hon. member for Johannesburg North is a very significant one. The hon. member began by speaking about strikes. He said that the Bantu labour force in South Africa was dynamite, and as a result certain important changes must be brought about in South Africa. Next he spoke about wages in South Africa and came to the point where he wanted to advocate something with regard to trade unions for the Bantu, but he was unable to finish. We can guess what point he wanted to make; he need not tell us; we know where he was heading. But the most important question is this: To whom was he advocating that change which he advocated here today? As far as wages are concerned he knows very well what the situation is in South Africa. No employer is limited in respect of the wages which he may pay to his workers; he is free to pay his labourers, White or Black what he likes; he can make their wages as high as he likes. The plea of the hon. member was not made to this side of the House; we must see it against the background of the struggle which is being waged in the United Party between the Mafia and the liberalists.

Order! The hon. member may not use the word “Mafia”.

I withdraw it. Sir. We must see it against the background of the struggle between the verkramptes and the verligtes in that party. A few minutes ago, the hon. member for Transkei gave us an annunciation of their policy. Sir, it is my firm conviction that the plea delivered here this afternoon by the hon. member for Johannesburg North, which, in fact, he converted into a threat, by saying that we were dealing here with dynamite and that problems would arise if a change was not made, was really directed against his own party as a threat, because two very important things emerged from the explanation of their policy given by the hon. member for Transkei this afternoon; both of these things are known to us; they are old stuff. The first is that they are going to relax influx control and the second is that they will give the Bantu the right to own land in South Africa.

And to belong to trade unions.

Yes, and to belong to trade unions. The United Party has now come up with a new federal plan. The want to give self-government to the homelands which are to be taken up into a federation in the end. It is clear to me, from that section of their policy, that they want to wreck the homelands, and therefore their whole federal policy is a fraud in respect of the Whites and in respect of the non-Whites. Sir, I should just like to remind them of what the Sunday Times, their erstwhile friend, said of them when they were still good friends, before the break occurred.

Do you believe the Sunday Times?

Yes, I believe the Sunday Times with regard to this matter. In respect of this matter the Sunday Times is talking the absolute truth, where it says—

Then they go on and they quote Mr. Colin Englin and they say that they agree with his summing-up of the United Party when he said—

Sir, for that reason I do not doubt that what the hon. member did here this afternoon formed part of that fight within the United Party. He is turning that federal policy of the United Party into what they really want it to be. Sir, the United Party started their race relations policy in 1912 with apartheid—I mentioned this here last year—and they gradually moved towards the left. The verkramptes, under the influence of the liberals, gradually allowed themselves to be swayed until they arrived at their old policy, where they said they wanted to give the Bantu, the Coloureds and the Indians representation by Whites in this House. That was political integration, but now they have gone a little further with this new federal policy of theirs and said that the Bantu and the Indians and the Coloureds would be represented here by their own people. In other words, the liberals have progressed another small step. Sir, there remains only one more thing which that party must do in order to arrive at the final, logical conclusion of their policy and that is to say that they want a Black majority government in South Africa. That is all that remains, particularly in the light of what was said this afternoon by various speakers opposite, viz. that we must regard South Africa as one country with a population of 20 million people.

But you know that that is untrue.

They want to relax influx control; they want to give the urban Bantu the vote here and they want to give those urban Bantu representation in the federal Parliament along with the others. Sir, I tell you, as far as that section of their policy is concerned where they say that they want to develop the homelands, they only say that to get the verkramptes in their party to accept this new policy so as to enable them eventually to take the last step to arrive at that Black majority government. Various hon. members on that side of the House, such as the hon. members for Sea Point and Maitland and Transkei—the hon. member for Transkei went even further—said that the policy of the National Party used to be total apartheid and that we had now abandoned that. Sir, the policy of the National Party is territorial apartheid. The hon. member for Transkei said that the date 1978 had been forgotten. Other hon. members also mentioned that date. By that they wanted to imply that we said that in 1978 there would be total apartheid, then there would be no more Bantu in the White areas.

What did you say?

Now I want to tell the hon. member what was said, and that is that the number of Bantu in South Africa, in the White area, will increase until 1978; it will show a tendency to rise until 1978, and after that it will level off. Now I want to tell hon. members that what they are saying, that we are not heading in that direction, is not correct. Not one of them made any attempt to prove that statement, or to motivate it. Why do they listen to what other people say? Why do they not give proof?

But we see what is happening.

Sir, you must just take a look at what has been happening in South Africa. You must see these census figures in their true perspective. Then you will see the tremendous success the National Party has achieved. Sir, it is magnificent to see how the National Party has succeeded in its policy of having the Bantu from the urban areas of South Africa return to the homelands so that they may sell their labour from the homelands here in the White areas. It is a fact that the total increase of a population is ascribable to two things; to the natural increase, i.e. births, and to migration. If we look at the increase of the Bantu in South Africa from 1960 to 1970, the total increase, and let us assume that there were no Bantu immigrant from elsewhere, although there were in fact a number of them, then this means that the Bantu increased from 10,9 million to 15 million from 1960 to 1970. Their numbers increased by 37,7%. In other words, the natural increase in the Bantu population in South Africa was 37,7%, but I shall round it off to 38% to have a handy percentage. That means that within any particular area in South Africa the increase in the population, in this instance, the Bantu population, is ascribable to those same two factors, namely natural increase and migration, i.e. inflow or outflow. In other words, if the inflow of Bantu into a certain particular geographical area exceeds the outflow from that area, that means that the total increase of that population in those 10 years must exceed 38%. But if the outflow exceedes the inflow, with the same total increase, then it must be smaller. If we now act on the assumption that we can divide South Africa into areas, with a natural increase of 38% as a basis, then we find that in all the areas in which the increase between 1960 and 1970 exceeded 38%, there was a larger inflow then there was an outflow, and where it was smaller, the outflow was larger than the inflow. That means that in the White area of South Africa the Bantu increased from 6,8 million to 8 million, an increase of 1,2 million, or 16,8%, whereas the natural increase was 38%. In other words, in the White area of South Africa there was a far larger outflow of Bantu than there was an inflow. In the Bantu homelands, on the other hand, the numbers increased from 4,1 million to 6,1 million, an increase of 70%. In other words, there was a much larger influx. But now we must go to the rurban areas, the areas which those hon. members are talking about and to which, according to them, the influx is still in progress. Then I can tell you that in that time, from 1960 to 1970, the Bantu population in the Vaal Triangle increased by 32%. In other words, it was lower than the natural increase. In Pretoria there was a decrease in the total Bantu population. The population decreased. In 1970 there were less than there were in 1960, in fact 6,1% less. In Johannesburg the Bantu population increased by 24%. In East London it decreased by 22%. It is as a result of our policy that it dropped. In Port Elizabeth it increased by 33%. In the Western Cape and the Cape Peninsula it decreased by 19%. In not one of these large urban centres did the increase in the Bantu population exceed the natural increase; in other words, the outflow exceeded the inflow. What is important, however, is that we should look at what happened in these areas in the time between the previous two censuses—in other words, between 1951 and 1960, so that we may see what these percentages which I have mentioned, really mean. From 1951 to 1960 the total number of Bantu in South Africa increased from 8,56 million to 10,9 million. This gives us a percentage of 27,76. If we apply the same principle in the areas in which the increase exceeded this average of 27,76%, that means that the inflow was the greater and in the areas in which the increase was below the average, the outflow was the greater. The position is then as follows in the seven large urban centres in which the average increase was 27,76%. Between 1951 and 1960 the Bantu population of the Vaal Triangle increased by 156%. Whereas it was 32% between 1960 and 1970, it was 156%, in the previous 10 years. I say that this fact is extremely significant. This is an absolute achievement which the National Party has brought about. In Pretoria the Bantu population increased by 43% in this period. This must be compared to the average of 27% and also to the fact that it decreased by 6,1% over the latter period of 10 years. In Johannesburg the Bantu population increased by 31,5%. In East London the Bantu population increased by 42,6% and in Port Elizabeth by 71% while the increase in the Western Cape and the Peninsula was 29%. In Durban it was 18,7%. It is therefore an unmistakable and undeniable fact that the National Party Government has succeeded in arresting the inflow of Bantu to the urban areas and in bringing about a greater outflow. We cannot get away from that fact.

I also want to mention another very important figure. When we speak of the homelands, we ask what the increase in the homelands was between 1960 and 1970. The average increase was 38%. In Lebowa the increase was 121%. The Machangaans increased by 112% and the Swazis by 125%. In the case of the Tswanas it was 128%. Of all the homelands there was only one in which the increase was below the natural increase of the Bantu in South Africa. That was the Transkei in which the increase was 25% while the average increase was 38%. We need not doubt, therefore, that we are implementing our policy successfully in practice. This is the factor which makes those hon. members feel most uneasy. That is why members such as the hon. member for Johannesburg North and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and Mr. Harry Schwarz, together with the Sunday Times, are getting desperate to throw these old men out. We must be stopped. [Interjections.] Yes, because the Sunday Times says it is now or never. They say that if the National Party is not removed from office now, this situation will never be improved. That is quite true, of course. If they do not stop us now, we shall bring about the final implementation of this aspect in practice, and then they will never be able to stop us.

We should also take a look at what would have happened had the United Party governed from 1948 on. At what figures would the numbers in those urban centres have stood then? From 1936 to 1951 the Bantu population of Johannesburg increased from 240 000 to 490 000. That is an increase of 103%; in other words, an average of 6,9% per annum.

But that was the time of the industrial revolution.

If the Bantu population had increased at the same rate from 1951, the Bantu would have numbered 1,3 million instead of 800 000. In Johannesburg alone, if the United Party had been in power, there would have been 500 000 more Bantu than is the case at present. In the Western Cape there would have been 300 000 more. So we may continue. Hon. members will see that the actual number of Bantu whom the National Party has moved to the homelands and whom would have been here in the White areas if nothing had happened, would have been 1,3 million.

But what would they have done here?

I shall tell the hon. member. Now the hon. members of the United Party and the hon. member for Houghton say that we must do only one thing and that is to abolish influx control.

Who said so?

I beg your pardon, I do not want to offend hon. members; they want influx control measures to be relaxed. On that they all agree. They say that the influx control measures must be relaxed; then miracles would take place in South Africa. They say that that is all that must be done. Now I want to say that the economy of South Africa grew by something like 4% per annum in the forties, by something like 5% per annum in the fifties, and at an average of 6% per annum in the sixties. If their theory is sound, that means that the influx of Bantu into the White areas should have shown the same trend. It should have shown an upward trend from the forties to the seventies in line with the economic growth. What has in fact happened? From 1936 to 1946 the number of Bantu in these seven urban centres which I mentioned to hon. members increased by a percentage of 5,3%. From 1946 to 1951 the number of Bantu increased not by 5,3%, but by 4,8%. From 1951 to 1960 their numbers increased by 4,3%, and from 1960 to 1970 by only 0,5%. In other words, the increase in the number of Bantu over the periods which I have mentioned showed the following downward trend: From 5,3 % to 4,8 %, from 4,8% to 4,3%, and from 4,3% to 0,5%. That is where those hon. members made the biggest mistake of their lives. There are other factors besides mere numbers which play a role in the economy. There are factors such as productivity and foreign influences which also play a role in the economy of a country. There are factors such as industrial peace and labour stability which promote the growth and production of a country. Those hon. members do not understand these matters. The hon. member for Johannesburg North referred to strikes. Actually he is not in a position to talk about strikes. The record of the United Party is far too poor for that. That is one of the factors that caused South Africa to have such a poor growth rate in their time.

Now their voters are going on strike.

I think the hon. member for Johannesburg North wants one thing and that is that certain other members in the party’s leadership on that side of the House should start a small strike. Then things might go a little better with them. I want to give hon. members a few statistics. In the two years 1946-’47 the number of shifts lost in South Africa as a result of strikes was 751 000 for Whites …

Legal or illegal?

That does not matter. What does it matter whether they were legal or illegal? The effect is the same.

There is a very big difference.

I am telling hon. members that the number of Bantu in the urban centres of South Africa is not the only factor which influences economic growth. Whether a strike is legal or illegal, the effect on the economy remains the same.

There is a big difference.

The hon. member does not want to hear these things. The number of shifts lost as a result of strikes from 1946 to 1947 was 751 000 as far as the Whites were concerned and 839 000 as far as the non-Whites were concerned. The average number of shifts lost for those two years was 37 000 for the Whites and 419 000 for the Bantu. But let us take the first three years of National Party rule. How many shifts were lost then? Only 56 000 in respect of Whites and 35 000 among the non-Whites, i.e. 18 000 per annum for the Whites and 11 000 per annum for the non-Whites instead of 400 000 among the Bantu and 375 000 among the Whites. Hon. members may say that it is only a short period which I am using here, but I can tell of what happened from 1938 to 1947. In those years 807 000 shifts were lost among the Whites and 975 000 among the Bantu, an average of 80 000 for the Whites and 97 000 for the Bantu. That was in the days of the United Party. From 1948 to 1957, a corresponding period of ten years, a total number of only 74 000 shifts were lost among the Whites, an average of 7 400 per annum as compared to 80 000 per annum under United Party rule. The figure for the Bantu was 11 000 per annum as compared to 97 000 in the days of the United Party. Therefore, the threat about which the hon. member told us today does not constitute a threat for us, because we are implementing our policy. Because we are achieving success, why should we change direction? It is he who is in the process of bringing about a change in his party in order to achieve his ultimate aim.

Last year we saw what happened to the United Party and I want to tell them that in recent times a certain tendency has been apparent to me, particularly since the time of their dismissal by their leader, the Sunday Times. Since their dismissal by the Sunday Times, it has been possible to detect among them a reasonable improvement, because now they are using their own heads. This of course, causes further confusion. Previously the United Party followed the Sunday Times too slavishly. Last year at a certain stage, after the Sunday Times had been telling them for years to change their policy in the direction of further integration, and when they were a little slow and could not bring matters to a head, the Sunday Times took them by the throat and said, “Now it is time for you to act”. So they did that and came up with this new policy. However, the Sunday Times was not satisfied and told them to kick Marais Steyn out. Faithfully, and with military precision, they kicked him out. Then the Sunday Times went further and said that they should bring in Harry Schwarz. They did that but nothing happened. Then the Sunday Times began to write that they should co-operate with the Progressive Party and give Helen her seat. It said that they should give Colin Eglin Sea Point and Ray Swart …

Why?

Yes, the Sunday Times wrote that. The hon. member for Port Natal was so quick off the mark when the Sunday Times said that, that his feet slid from under him. He began to negotiate with the Progressives who had been defeated in Natal. The hon. member for South Coast took the matter so seriously that he just resigned as leader of Natal. Another U.P. supporter here in the Cape, Bamford, jumped up and said that he would oppose the hon. member for Simonstown, that he must also go. Another one in Natal also made an attempt. They carried out the orders of the Sunday Times to the letter. Now, however, their leader has dismissed them and now they remind me of a young fellow who has been jilted by his girlfriend. Every now and again they state here in this House that they take no notice of the Sunday Times. They walk right past the girlfriend, or when they meet her, they turn their heads the other way and pretend they do not see her. However, they are waiting for the day when the Sunday Times will come back to them. They want it. If they ever become reconciled again, they really must never again be so servile. In this connection the hon. member for Hillbrow has had the best experience. At one stage he was hailed as a potential future saviour of the United Party, just like the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. On one occasion when the hon. member made a speech to collect money, the Sunday Times wrote as follows about the hon. member: “Everything about Dr. Jacobs’ speech was out of tune with the evening. I hope the guests, however, on reflection will realize that Dr. Jacobs is not a reflection of the new United Party that has been born on the Rand. He is still a hangover from the past”.

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that from time to time the Government side introduces a comedian to give a good performance. It is quite clear that the Government benches thoroughly enjoyed this little bit of fun and by-play that went on over the last few moments. However, I would like to remind the hon. member who has just sat down, that in the early sixties another well-known politician, if I may compare the two, also staked his political reputation on the year 1978. He, too, brought out many sheets of figures, innumerable percentages and remarkable comparisons to indicate the strength of his argument that the number of Bantu that will flow into the labour circles of South Africa will reach a climax and in 1978 will begin, magically, to vanish. Well, we know what happened with regard to this particular politician. For the sake of the hon. member who has just sat down, I want to say that I hope time and circumstance will treat him a little more lightly than it treated that politician. The question of 1978 has long disappeared from the boards. No member of the Government has had the audacity or the impertinence to even dream of talking about the disappearance of the Bantu in 1978. I should like to give a few figures just to illustrate my point. It is interesting to note that in the year 1911 to 1936 the annual percentage increase in the Bantu population in South Africa was 1,9 in S.A. whilst their increase in the urban areas during that period was 3,5%. In the period 1936 to 1960 their increase in S.A. was 2,1 % whilst their increase in the towns, in the urban areas, was 4,3%. To give a further indication of the growth in the population: In 1960 the Bantu employed in the White area of South Africa numbered 2 342 371 excluding over half a million who were employed on the mines. The figure now is well over four million. In the manufacturing industry alone the figure rose from 308 500 to 616 000—they practically doubled their numbers. There can be no doubt about the fact that the Republic of South Africa, in order to continue with its growth and with its development and expansion, hungrily demands one important source of labour, namely the tremendous reserve of Bantu labour which is available in this country. It was correctly pointed out that the number of Bantu employees will continue to increase. At last the Government has woken up to the fact, as was rightly pointed out by my hon. friend, the hon. member for Johannesburg North, that you cannot just continue to allow considerable numbers of unskilled workers to be employed in the country if you want growth. You must subject them to some measure of training. So we find a first glimmer of hope, a first realization of the true situation, in the Budget of the hon. the Minister of Finance where he talks about training. In fact, he camouflages the training, which is really a form of apprenticeship, by calling it pre-training and in-training.

Pre-service and in-service.

Yes, pre-service and in-service. This is a form of apprenticeship, but the terms are camouflaged, it really has the import of training people to be artisans to be able to take their place and help satisfy the demand which this country continuously experiences in order to enable growth to continue. In the type of Budget that has been presented by the hon. the Minister of Finance, one would normally look for a certain tend in Government policy, a certain philosophy on the part of the Government, in respect of the future of South Africa since the economy has now for a considerable number of years been bent to fit in with a certain ideology, but in this respect we have been disappointed.

As I have said, the only glimmer of reality which we have had is this one issue raised by the hon. the Minister of Finance with regard to labour. I admit that it is one of the most important and vital factors that there are, namely this whole question of labour. Labour is the most vital factor in order to assist the hon. the Minister with his growth. But, there are other factors which we find signally missing during the whole of this debate, namely those which would lead to better understanding, goodwill and harmony in a country such as South Africa between the various nations as they are called, or in more understandable terms, between the various races, colours and peoples who inhabit South Africa. Here we must look at certain other important factors namely, an understanding which will enable all our peoples to live together with a common loyalty to South Africa and its future and a common desire to defend South Africa against both external and internal threats. We know that many countries in the world have been undermined by the disloyalty of their own people. If we want to have internal security properly preserved and if we want to feel secured in regard to our borders we will have to realize that we must bring about a sense of contentment amongst all people in this country. These peoples must feel that they enjoy a common destiny in South Africa. They are entitled to enjoy the good things the country can offer in order to partake of its wealth and development to which they are making such an important contribution.

Whilst the hon. the Minister of Finance and those on his side of the House who have spoken in the Budget debate are looking for continuous growth and the development of the wealth of South Africa, they should not ignore the human wealth which we have in South Africa and which is perhaps the greatest and the most potent factor towards our safety for the future and our success materially, morally and spiritually. It is that objective that I should like to approach in this particular debate.

I want to take as my first point the question of the urban Bantu. The hon. member for Transkei elaborated a policy in order to indicate to the House what the viewpoint of this side of the House is in regard to the position of the urban Bantu in this country. The Government is well aware of this problem. The Government has been cajoled by its newspapers over a number of years to pay more attention and to take cognizance of the urban Bantu and its significance and importance in the Republic. It has also been cajoled to take notice of the fact that a great deal of unrest can come unless this matter is looked at from a normal point of view and adjustments are made which will relieve the country of the growing tension of which we are all aware and which gave rise to some of the strikes which we have had recently. In addition we will have to go into the various reasons that motivated and prompted these strikes.

Rapport of 23rd January, 1972, had quite an interesting comment to make in regard to this question. This is very similar to comments made by other Government newspapers on the matter. It reads—

Sir, I do not think that any Government newspaper could place the position more clearly and more strongly before the country, and bring it to the attention of the Government of the day more pertinently thas this newspaper has done.

Where are you quoting from? From Rapport?

Yes, I am quoting from Rapport of 23rd January, 1972. I want to say that this question of the urban Bantu is not a new one in South Africa. One hon. member on the other side tried to indicate that we on this side have suddenly decided to have a completely integrated society and that we have changed our policy. He said that we wanted to see a completely integrated multi-racial country. Sir, that is a lot of nonsense and they know it very well. The hon. member for Klip River, who talks a lot of nonsense as it is, was certainly talking utter nonsense when he made that statement.

For just over 300 years we have been in contact with non-Whites in this country. We as Whites probably have more experience as a result of our association with the non-Whites, than any other people in the world. We have lived together over these centuries and a certain traditional way of life has come into being. The traditional way of life of social separation, of residential separation, has always existed. All that has now occurred is that this Government came along and, because of some complex which assailed it, became a catalyst, and through a series of laws not only tried to entrench something which already existed, but also began to drive a wedge between the various peoples of this country. As a result of all this they have created the very unrest which we are experiencing today. They have been obliged to add law after law to close loophole after loophole in this peculiar madness of apartheid, which they conceived as a slogan for political power. They know today that it is a lot of nonsense. Let me make one point very clear indeed. The Government has to realize once and for all that in the presence of the White community of this country, we have settled Black populations. They are settled in areas which have been traditionally set aside for them by Governments in the past, of which the United Party was one of the most eminent. These areas were established for them.

Like Cato Manor?

Cato Manor was not an established Bantu settlement.

Order! The hon. member for Klip River may not make any remarks from a ministerial bench.

These people have grown up in established areas, and today we have a number of cities in this country which have been fully developed in every way from a communal point of view. They have social, recreational and medical amenities. They have a family life. These and other factors have contributed towards making them properly regulated communities. Because the Government adheres to its policy of “temporary sojourners”, which is a complete myth and fallacy, we find that a tremendous amount of unhappiness and unrest is caused.

The Government should once and for all acknowledge this important fact of the permanence of the Bantu in those specific areas to which they have been allocated. Virtually, as our own United Party federal policy indicates, they have communities of their own. It is no good hon. members laughing, because this is a fact. They have communities of their own. After all, a community of 850 000 Bantu probably goes to make up one of the largest towns in the whole of South Africa. A community of that size is no mean community to consider. They have developed normally as all other human beings develop. They have developed as business people; they have developed as parents, and they have developed as people who have a responsibility towards each other as a community; they have developed as responsible workers, and we have had no strikes of any significance on the Rand yet simply because of the sophistication of the workers in those settled townships on the Witwatersrand.

Sir, once the policy is accepted that the urban Bantu is a permanent, settled member of the community in the Republic of South Africa, then we will start moving ahead and we will find that all this enormous administrative machinery which has been built by the Government through legislation and otherwise will not really be necessary to set at rest the subconscious fear in the minds of Whites as to what might happen with the Bantu in our midst. Sir, the hon. member for Transkei has set out our policy here. I just want to draw the attention of hon. members to certain aspects of urban Bantu life. Take the question of the urban Bantu councils which took the place of the advisory boards. The Act, in terms of which these urban Bantu councils were created, contained certain provisions which enabled the Minister, if he so wished to give additional powers to these councils after consultation with the local authority concerned, but nothing has happened in that regard, and there is a sense of complete frustration in the minds of members of these councils, as the hon. member for Transkei, who has met these people and talked to them, has pointed out. There are people on these councils who have made a financial success of their own particular undertakings. They are elected leaders.

We have attended meetings of the urban Bantu councils and we have found that there is a complete sense of frustration there. They can do nothing for themselves. They have no opportunity of making any contribution towards the improvement of their own conditions because everything must be done by the recognized administrative organization, which is the urban local authority.

Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education, who is responsible for the administration of urban Bantu affairs, will have a lot to do with these new Bantu administration boards. Here he will have a great opportunity to enable these settled Bantu areas to have proper councils which can develop along the lines of a local authority. Sir, let us give them a sense of responsibility. We will then be surprised to see what they can achieve, not only for themselves, but as integrated cities in the metropolitan areas. We will find that they will discharge their responsibilities as ably as any other local authority, because they have the means to engender capital and they have the ability to administer their own affairs. They have family traditions behind them; they have a code. They are not different from other people, but no opportunity is given to them.

We met some leaders from New Brighton and Kwa Zakhele in Port Elizabeth. Some of them were gentlemen of venerable age who sat down with us at a table in the Port Elizabeth City Hall and said to us that it was the first occasion on which they had had an opportunity of talking to White leaders, to White Members of Parliament, and to discuss their affairs with them. They were deeply grateful for this opportunity. They said, “We do not want to live with you; we are perfectly happy to live with each other; we do not need White neighbours; we are quite happy to pursue our own way of life, but we want the opportunity of playing our part in regulating our way of life; we want to have the opportunity of assisting in the educational life of our children; we want the opportunity to run our own affairs, under the supervision of the authorities of the country, whatever they may be; we want an opportunity of self-expression as human beings.”

Sir, that is what is required; that is one important, vital aspect that is missing in the present set-up. The Johannesburg city council, nearly 20 years ago, took the first steps towards the establishment of a proper urban local Bantu authority, which, under proper guidance, could deal with its own affairs. Sir, take the question of education. What has happened recently? You have newspapers running special fundraising schemes called “Teach” and raising hundreds of thousands of rands in order to alleviate the pressure on classrooms in these various townships.

It is the saddest reflection on our civilization and on our standards in this country that we have to turn away hundreds of little children from schools, the most frustrating experience any child can have. It makes such an indelible impression on their minds that they eventually become the victims of circumstances in society which may lead them to joining gangs, to lawlessness and to other unpleasant things which help to erode rather than to build up society. I think the hon. the Minister should give an account of that aspect.

Take the question of pass laws, to which the hon. member for Transkei referred. We say that where you have a permanent urban Bantu resident, he will carry an identity card which will identify him. He should have the opportunity of moving around to any other area where he can sell his labour in the best market. Then he would be saved from the unpleasantness because he will have a different status in the country. He will not be arrested because he has no pass.

Do you want to abolish influx control?

Influx control has nothing to do with an individual carrying a certificate of identity showing that he is a permanent resident of the Republic of South Africa. If he wishes to move to Germiston or to Springs where there is accommodation for him in a settled area for uran Bantu, there is nothing wrong with that.

Or to Cape Town?

Yes, or to Cape Town, as long as there is a settled area for him, so that he can there sell his labour.

And stay there permanently?

That has nothing to do with influx control. Influx control is for the migratory labourer, the labourer who seeks to come in from the homelands. In that respect, as was pointed out, the labour bureau system will be expanded and the man will come in only to meet the demand for labour in a properly regulated manner. We make it perfectly clear in what he said here—

Sr, this is another manner in which you can help industry and commerce and not leave it in an unsettled state. In any case, just dealing with that particular point, the Government knows full well that the moment you begin this training scheme and a person becomes semi-skilled and of value to industry he will not leave. The employer will not permit him to leave. He will then immediately become part of the respected and settled permanent urban Bantu. Then it says this—

That is what I also say—there must be regulation, guidance and control in accordance with the demand for labour in the country. Does the Government not realize that its own physical planning scheme has played a vital part in hindering development in this country? After all, if the hon. the Minister of Finance wants growth, and he has the labour with which to provide it, the question of inflation will begin to disappear because he will have a very much wider market. He will have an easier market for export and he will have a very much better demand market in the country itself. The unit costs will come down through greater production by much better skilled labour, and the slack in labour to which the hon. the Minister referred will be taken up. All these factors will take place provided that the Government realizes that it has to deal with the urban Bantu in an entirely different way.

In regard to the question of family life, this is a question which has cropped up time and again and the Government has constantly been on the defensive in this matter. Let me draw their attention to what takes place in many other countries of the world. We believe, and it is clear from our policy, that if a Bantu worker were to come into the Republic and to a permanent job, could earn a living sufficient to enable him to support a wife and family, and could obtain accommodation, then he should have the right to bring in his wife and family to where he works. Let me give you the experience of an administrator in one of the big cities of this country who said that the very fact that the Bantu worker cannot have the peace of mind inherent of family life, is a disturbing aspect of his productiveness. This is a scientific statement made from scientific observation.

What about the mines?

Seventy per cent of the mineworkers come from foreign countries; the remainder come on contract.

I know that.

The remainder have come traditionally on contract since the early days of mining and that aspect is now beginning to change as well, because the mines just recently have announced that they intend to build much more accommodatio for their workers. What happens when a man who works on the mine and knows his job thoroughly goes home? He comes back to the job. He is not a man they want to lose. He only goes home to his family but he returns afterwards. That just leads me on to another aspect which I can illustrate immediately. Look at the thousands of man-hours lost in mileage and travelling in order to carry out the policy which the Government has at the moment.

Do you want the foreign workers …

I never talked about foreign workers. Foreign workers are foreign workers. We never invite the foreign workers and they have to go through other procedures if they want to become permanent settlers in South Africa. They have to apply to the Department of Immigration.

May I ask a question? Do you want the foreign workers to bring their families here? Do you regard the workers from Lesotho as foreign workers?

As far as we are concerned he is a foreign citizen and he probably does not want to bring his family here. [Interjections.] That is nothing extraordinary. If, on the other hand, he is happy to live in South Africa and the Department of Immigration permits him, he will be inclined to bring his family here. There is no point in bringing his family here if he remains a foreigner. I do not think that was a very sensible question to ask. [Interjections.] I want to take this point further and I want to make it clear. In our financial set-up today, because of the Government’s peculiar ideological attitude, hundreds of million of rand are being wasted on pursuits which in the end will bring us no value at all. There are enormous numbers of officials who are employed to regulate every movement of the Bantu. There are the enormous number of buildings which have been built. There is the tremendous administrative set-up, all of which could be diverted into infrastructure of the homelands. One of the hon. members—I think it was the hon. member for Klip River— pleaded for the homelands to be developed. He even pleaded that a young man should spend at least one year of his life to work on the land. However, you can do nothing in the homelands without infrastructure. This Government has done nothing from a point of view of providing infrastructure of any value. They have spent maybe R60 or R70 million and maybe they have spent R100 million, but this is a pittance in this type of work. Here they are spending hundreds and hundreds of million rand on …

Where do we spend hundreds of million rand?

Everywhere.

The whole Department of Bantu Administration and Development spends those amounts on all sorts of things. There is no country in the world with our peculiar set-up. We spend most of our lives not building up a country, but being concerned about what happens to certain workers and to certain communities because they are not White. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, it is becoming clearer and clearer that the leftists and the English-language Press are bringing more and more pressure to bear on the United Party. We heard pleas from them today, such as the plea made by the hon. member for Jeppes, in which the request was made that the Bantu be allowed into the urban areas on a family basis. Those hon. members are the people who advocate the admission of Bantu on a family basis, and at the same time they promise that if they should come into power, they would do away with the Group Areas Act. Where are those Bantu going to be accommodated? Where are they going to own property, unless it is among the less well-to-do sectors of the Whites? On the Witwatersrand there is a town council, the town council of Sandton, which is an exclusively U.P.-controlled town council. Do the hon. members know what their executive committee decided? They decided that no clerks or typists may live in Sandton. That is the recommendation made by that town council. Clerks and typists are not good enough for them. It is those people, the people of Hillbrow, the people of Houghton, the people of Parktown and the people of Sandton who are able to buy their apartheid, while the ordinary White person will have to be satisfied to live with non-Whites in one residential area. The hon. members are living in such a fool’s paradise that one finds it astonishing. One expects a group of people who ought to be fairly well-informed, who should at least have developed to some extent, not always to read something false into a statement. When a speak of a statement, I am referring to what the Minister of Finance said when he announced the appointment of a inter-departmental committee which will go into the better utilization of non-White labour. They immediately read into that that the National Party is going to do away with its policy of work reservation. If that is what they expect, there is a great disappointment in store for them, because the National Party is definitely not going to abandon its labour policy in respect of Whites and non-Whites. I want to make it very clear to them now that our policy in respect of the Whites is that we have in the first place given them an undertaking to the effect that we will ensure that they will not be replaced by non-Whites. Last year a few firms on the Witwarersrand dismissed Whites and employed non-Whites in their place. The hon. the Minister of Labout acted immediately by instructing those employers to re-employ the Whites. What would the United Party’s attitude be in such a case? They would not have acted in that way. In fact, under their régime incidents of that type would occur on a large scale because the Whites cannot rely on any protection on their part. It was, after all, the hon. member for Yeoville who said last year in the Railway Budget debate that the White worker in South Africa was being over-protected by the National Party Government. The second item of policy is that the National Party Government will not allow Whites and non-Whites to do the same work, shoulder to shoulder. The third is that we will not allow a White to work under a non-White here in White South Africa.

Tell us about your town council.

A great deal has been said about strikes. I also want to say something about the strikes. We frequently read in newspapers of persons who were the begetters of babies and who subsequently denied paternity. These strikes among the non-Whites are those hon. members’ baby, but they are now denying paternity. They want to blame this Government for it. It is those people who have repeatedly recounted how the non-Whites are being wronged in South Africa in respect of the work they are able to do, where they are able to work, where they are able to sell their labour, and in respect of the wage they are being paid. They are the begetters of those babies, and now they are accusing the National Party of this as if it were the National Party which was guilty of this.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Mr Speaker, I should like to refer to one aspect which the hon. member for Jeppes touched upon here and waxed quite lyrical about here, i.e. “common loyalty”, in other words, one people, one nation and one loyalty to South Africa. He said we should build up a nation of Whites and non-Whites here, with one loyalty to South Africa. I think I understood him correctly. I now want to quote to the hon. member a statement made by his leader on 11th September, 1968 to the Daily News. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said (translation). “I am sick and tired of the misrepresentations by the Nationalist Party of the United Party’s standpoint. I want to establish this beyond all doubt, and I want to tell the Prime Minister and his Party, once and for all, that when the United Party speaks of national unity, it is referring exclusively to a White South African nation.”

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member said he was quoting from the Daily News but this is an English-language newspaper, while the hon. member quoted in Afrikaans.

I do not know whether the hon. member is always capable of understanding Afrikaans, but I assume that he is. Surely this is quite clearly a translation; if the hon. member wishes to take the trouble of looking it up, he can tell me now whether what I have quoted is wrong. What I read out, is typical of what we get from them, i.e. this double talk. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must now tell the hon. member for Jeppes whether he is wrong in regard to loyalty, common loyalty and one nation here in South Africa.

Previous speakers had a good deal to say about the wage gap which supposedly exists between the wages of Whites and of non-Whites. Again I want to make it clear, and this has been said repeatedly on previous occasions, that this Government cannot be held responsible for this situation. This Government laid down minimum wages, but no maximum wage has been laid down in respect of non-Whites. However, I shall tell them where the whole cause of the problem lies. It is those capitalistic supporters of theirs who want to have their cake and eat it, who want big profits, but at the same time cheap labour as well. When the strikes came, it was supposedly the Government’s fault. However, I want to say that it has always been the standpoint of the National Party that the standard of living of every population group here in South Africa ought to be raised. Our past history proves this. Let us think back to the position of the Whites in South Africa. What was the position of the Afrikaner, the White worker, under the United Party regime? They were nothing but the hewers of wood and the drawers of water here in South Africa. Our attitude is that the standard of living of the Whites should constantly improve. I now want to quote to those hon. members statistics from Market Research, Africa of last year. In respect of a whole variety of items such as refrigerators, radios, washing machines, freezers, telephones, movie cameras, tape recorders, slide projectors as well as beauty preparations for women, there is no one other Western country, among countries such as France, Britain and Germany, which can hold a candle to South Africa when it comes to the percentage of Whites who own such luxuries here in South Africa. Is this supposedly a White nation here in South Africa with a low standard of living? Let us now consider the standard of living of the non-Whites. I want to say at once that there is in fact a difference between the standard of living of the Whites and that of the non-Whites here in South Africa, but it is a standard of living which has been determined by history. However this has never prevented the Government from improving the standard of living of those non-Whites as well. When hon. members opposite refer to a standard of living, they see it only in terms of higher wages. What about the millions of rand which are being spent by the Government on housing for the Bantu, the Coloureds and the Indians? What of the millions of rand which are being spent in respect of social services and the education of non-Whites here in South Africa to maintain, in that way, a high standard of living here? Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that the United Party in its time played no part in the education of the non-Whites; it was the responsibility of a few churches to provide the Bantu in South Africa with education? In respect of wages, this Government has always endeavoured to ensure that non-Whites in South Africa receive higher wages. I have here in front of me the Financial Gazette of July, 1972, and in this the average monthly wage for the first quarter of 1972 is given. I should like to mention—and I am going to deal with each population group separately— that this Central Government paid the Whites an average monthly wage of R312, while the Natal Provincial Administration paid an annual amount of R324. As far as the Coloureds are concerned, the Government paid them R159 while the Natal Provincial Administration paid them R120 monthly. Please take note of this. As far as the Indians are concerned, the Central Government paid an average wage of R221 per month, while the Natal Provincial Administration paid R108 per month. The Central Government paid the Bantu R57 per month, while the Natal Provincial Council paid R48 per month. This is the U.P. province which is held up to us as a model province. This is what is held up to us as the province in which the United Party wants to implement its so-called policy. That is not all. Let us take the Johannesburg City Council. Hon. members will recall that there were problems in respect of bus drivers. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition had a great deal to say here about the wage gap between the Whites and non-Whites. Then a certain Mr. Oberholzer, the Leader of the United Party in the Johannesburg City Council, one of their men on the executive committee, had this to say (translation)—

He also said that the City Council was employing 20 000 non-Whites and that a “rate for the job” policy would cause economic disruption, and that it would take decades to eliminate the wage gap. These are the people who are in a position to eliminate that wage gap, but they do not see their way clear to doing so. We have now heard figures here relating to what is happening in Natal, in comparison to what the Central Government is doing. Do they now want to come and tell me that they blame this Government for the fact that the non-Whites are not receiving a decent wage from the Central Government? Surely their policy is this: Move the wages of the Whites down and the wages of the non-Whites up; after all, one then has the “rate for the job”. That “rate for the job” is their policy. According to Mr. Oberholzer, if we had to have the “rate for the job”, it would cause economic disruption. Let us take another of their loyal supporters in the person of Anna Scheepers. She is President of the Garment Workers’ Union of South Africa. This is one of their own people, a United Party supporter. What did she have to say? I am quoting from the Sunday Express—

Mr. Speaker, this is the “rate for the job”. This is the position according to the policy of the United Party. This is their “rate for the job” policy. The United Party advocates the admission of non-Whites to the trade union organization in South Africa. They want non-Whites to have the right to negotiate for what wages should be paid. Now those hon. members must not say that Anna Scheepers is not a loyal supporter of theirs. I have with me here a clipping from the Daily Mail of 30th November, 1972. Here I read: “Scheepers rejects United Party offer of seat”. The report went on to say—

The retiring president of the Garment Workers Union turned down an offer for her to stand as a United Party candidate for Parliament.

According to this brief report she said—

That is the wagon they want to hitch a ride on. But there are many of them in the Opposition benches who are using the United Party as “the best vehicle” to the Progressive Party. We need think only of candidates whom they have already nominated. What of the Barnard brothers, Dr. Chris Barnard and Dr. Marius Barnard? Without consulting the hon. member for Sea Point, that seat has already been promised to Dr. Marius Barnard. And who is he? I have here an article which appeared in the Sunday Times under the headline: “Staunch Prog promises to aid Barnards”. And do you know who the person is who made these promises? It is Prof. Simmy Bank. I am quoting a passage from the Sunday Times of 10th December, 1972, as follows—

Do you see there the unholy alliance between them and the Progressive Party? For that reason I say that there are quite a number of them who are hitching a ride on the United Party wagon but who will ultimately end up in the Progressive Party camp. The hon. member for Wynberg, for example, told the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that she was resigning as shadown-Minister because their actions against the students were opposed to her views on the matter. What did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition do with her? He took her on his lap and comforted her even more. Then there is the hon. member for Bezuidenhout who made his Progressive speech during the no-confidence debate on so-called petty apartheid, in which he accused us of allegedly being White jingoes and rude Whites. He carried on dreadfully about doors and the fact that Whites and non-Whites have to use different doors. But those hon. members are always vague about a matter. They never want to deal with the specific realities. He referred to the doors of lifts, post offices and shops. Let those hon. members tell us tonight, for the purposes of the record, what kind of doors should all be held open. Let us hear from them whether these should include toilet doors? Should the train doors be thrown open? But among themselves they have different doors for toilets. They do not even allow Harry Schwarz to share the same toilet with an ordinary U.P. supporter. These are things which cause friction. Mr. Speaker, a few years ago the Opposition called in American experts to help them fight elections. The experts told them: “Stay away from policy. Do not talk about policy. Attack the leaders. Commit character assassination as far as you can.” We see the hon. the Leader of the Opposition went on another trip to Europe last year. According to the newspapers he went to study electioneering methods there. Do you know with what advice he returned? “Use double talk as much as you can so that you can satisfy everyone.” He said this for the sake of those on the left and the right wings, seeking refuge in the United Party, and hitching a ride on this “United Party vehicle” to the Progressive Party. Sir, these are the people who are so concerned about so-called petty apartheid now. Do you know what happened during the election in Klip River? I have here the Sunday Tribune.

Is it the Sunday Times again?

No, let us read some of your newspapers as well. The headline to this article read as follows: “Labourers lose Klip River vote battle”. Do you know what it was all about? It was all about cloakrooms, toilets, for non-Whites near to a White house. The report quoted the hon. member for Durban Central, the hon. member who worked so hard there during the election. It reads as follows—

Those are the United Party people. And then he went on to say—

And do you know what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said here? “That argument we reject; that story of friction must be prevented.” But these are the people, Sir, who got in first. Do you know that they went to look for a photographer to take a photograph of Mr. Pyper standing next to that ablution block, for he wanted to make it his endeavour to have it removed?

Now I ask the hon. member for Bezuidenhout: If he is a man of his word, if he is a man who has the courage of his convictions and if he believes that these points of friction should be eliminated, he must tell the hon. member for Durban Central that he is a White jingo and that he is a rude White, for he is after all the person who made objections. But do you know, Sir, this is that double talk of theirs. When they get amongst the voters, and the idea is to catch votes, they are the greatest advocates of this so-called petty apartheid.

The pettiest of petty apartheid.

Yes, the pettiest of petty apartheid, according to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. Sir, there is another hon. member who is sitting on this “United Party vehicle,” namely the hon. member for Hillbrow. He is sitting on that “vehicle” on his way to the Progressive Party. What did he say here? He said this (translation)—

Now the hon. member for Orange Grove should listen to this. The hon. member for Hillbrow said that this was a Government which determined where those Bantu may live. He then went on to say—

He concluded by saying—

And what did the hon. member for Houghton say about this when she was asked by the hon. member for Langlaagte, by way of an interjection: “And how did you like the speech made by the hon. member for Hillbrow?” She then replied—

Sir, what he said was real Progressive Party talk. But I can understand the hon. member’s attitude; I can understand why he has suddenly become so progressive, for he is after all one of the men who became alarmed at what was happening; he saw what happened to the hon. member for Yeoville. The hon. member for Lichtenburg told us here about that fund-raising campaign at which Mr. Harry Schwarz was present and at which the hon. member for Hillbrow had to make the welcoming speech. He had to introduce the Leader of the Opposition there, and then Stanley Uys told him that he had a hangover from the old guard. Sir, that was when he became alarmed. For 15 minutes he stood there boring the people by heaping syrupy praise on the Leader of the Opposition, so much so that Stanley Uys then told him that he had a hangover from the old guard. The Sunday Times was tired of his conservatism and his namby-pambiness. Sir, hon. members of the Opposition must not turn up their noses at the Sunday Times today, for what do we read in the Sunday Times of 6th September, 1970? The headline here reads: “Praised the Sunday Times as watchdog.” What did the Leader of the Opposition have to say here? He said—

I told the Leader of the Opposition that. I had read an article on Alsatians. An Alsatian trusts its leader as long as it has faith in him, but as soon as it loses faith in him, it turns on him and savages him, and I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that that “watchdog”, that Alsatian, has him by the throat at the moment. The Opposition can say what they like, the Sunday Times is winning the fight against them.

And Die Burger is helping them.

That same “watchdog” of the Leader of the Opposition, the Sunday Times, now has the entire United Party herded into a crush-pen, a crush-pen to the left, and at the head we have Harry Schwarz, just as one has at the abattoirs a Judas goat leading the sheep to the slaughter, one after the other, which then goes back to fetch the others. It has already led the hon. member for Yeoville into the pen; his throat has been cut, and now it is coming to fetch one United Party member after another, to lead them to the slaughter as well. Sir, it surprises me that the hon. member for Yeoville has not yet said a word about their federation policy. They left him in ignorance. He dare say nothing about it. He is the person who stated on 18th July, 1972, that the United Party gave an undertaking to the effect that Bantu, Coloureds and Indians would have representation in this Parliament. That was on 18th July, 1972; at that time the hon. member for Von Brandis was already speaking enthusiastically about this federation policy, but Harry Schwarz and company did not take the hon. member for Yeoville into account. I can therefore understand his attitude. Sir, just look at the two photographs I have here. This photograph of Harry Schwarz was taken on 25th August, 1972. If you look at this photograph you will see that he is looking at the embarrassed smile of a man who has already realized that he is not going to win the fight, and the same afternoon this second photograph was taken. Just look what the hon. member for Hillbrow looks like here. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to have to spoil this convivial atmosphere, but I feel that we should devote our attention to more important matters. Sir, when I was listening to the contributions made here by the hon. temporary member for Boksburg and by the hon. member for Lichtenburg and by the hon. former member for Umhlatuzana, I really began to feel that we were arguing in a vacuum here. Sir, we are supposed to be discussing the important question of racial affairs in South Africa, but what are the contributions that have come from that side? They have just repeated all the old clichés used over the years. Sir, we are engaged in this House and I say this with all the seriousness at my command—in discussions that are becoming increasingly academic and irrelevant. It seems to me that hon. members, particularly on Government side, are concentrating so much on ultimate objectives that they do not see the abyss yawning at our feet. They are so obsessed with an ultimate aim that they pay no attention to the practical problems which have to be dealt with at this moment. Sir, we are in great danger in this Parliament of being isolated from the great trends of our times. We are mulling over arguments of the past. Who of us can say that real inspiration emanates from this House; that we are seeking real solutions to the essential problems of the country and that we are inciting the people outside to greater deeds? Sir, that is not the case.

What we do not realize is that there are quite a number of other factors that are affecting the South African situation. There is a new generation growing up which has completely different sets of values, which has a new approach to problems, and which is in fact seeking new solutions to old problems, people who are looking for positive political guidance, and. Sir, what do they get from us here? But there are other influences, local influences as well as ones from overseas, which are going to hold up to ridicule all these well-planned political blueprints we are so proud of. Sir, in South Africa itself there are economic factors which are going to influence the political situation in South Africa, which have placed us on a course from which we shall not be able to deviate. For years we have thought of the Bantu worker merely as a worker, as an economic asset, but this situation has changed completely. He is no longer just a worker; he has become a consumer, and that is opening up a whole new dimension here in South Africa; it is initiating a whole new process which is going to change the very essence of our society; and what we as politicians often do not realize is that we shall only have marginal control over this movement. There all kinds of new forces abroad which are going to make their influence felt here as well—international sport, the so-called Polaroid experiment—forces which are going to change things in this country completely. On the home front we are dealing with strikes at the moment on a scale we have seldom experienced before. The non-White leaders in South Africa are beginning to make statements which are only an indication of the tremendous frustrations which are building up there. It is absolutely essential for us to desensitise the situation, to direct this energy into positive channels. If we do not do so things will come to a head and future generations will blame us and revile us for our stubbornness and shortsightedness. Instead of looking at these problems, what are we doing? We are conducting sterile arguments and we do not realize how little time is left to make these essential adjustments.

Sir, I want to tell the Government that what is essential at the moment is statesmanship. The times are too grave for this kind of politicising. We dare not merely follow public opinion any longer; we must begin to take the lead. We can no longer afford the luxury of all these visions that are dreamt up, adorned with all these semantic embellishments. We must get our feet on the ground again and we must deal with and try to solve some of these fundamental problems that exist at present. I am telling you, Sir, our priorities have become warped and we must get them straight now, for time is getting short. I say there is only one factor that is in our favour. I believe that a consensus is developing throughout South Africa of people who say that they are tired of this arguing and that they want the practical problems that exist to be solved.

In the limited time available to me I can only refer to a few of these fields. They naturally cover the whole range and all the aspects of our national affairs, but I want to refer to only a few of them, to a few topical matters which I believe we should tackle now, instead of talking about all these aims on the horizon.

The first field at which one looks, of course, is the social and cultural field. Here it seems to me that there are two principles at stake. The first is that every group in South Africa has the right to retain its own identity if its wants to.

Hear, hear!

Now you must listen to the second principle. That is that there must be fields in which every person must have the right of personal choice of action. What has been proved to us over the years? That enforced separation is just as unrealistic and impractical and incapable of implementation as enforced integration. Sir, the day when Prof. Chris Barnard took the heart of a non-White woman and transplanted it into the chest of a White man, apartheid received its death-blow. At the International Games in Pretoria at the moment, at the multinational games, or whatever you like to call it, we are burying apartheid, and it is right that this should be so, because this is the capital of South Africa and it is symbolic that it should happen there. But if we accept that every group must have its own cultural and social facilities to enable it to realize itself fully, we must also accept that where we are unable to provide facilities of the same standard for other groups we must be prepared to share them. Sir, what thinking man in South Africa can justify the fact that the Nico Malan Theatre is set aside for Whites only? Surely we know that this is wrong and that it must be changed. When we come to the universities—and I shall mention just a few examples—-it is right that Stellenbosch should decide which group of students it wants to serve, but if we accept that right, we must also accept the right of the University of Cape Town to open its doors to whom it likes. It is right that there should be restaurants and hotels to serve Whites or non-Whites only, but then we must also accept that there must be hotels and restaurants which will open their doors to all groups. We must get away from this dichotomy. South Africa is not only black and white; there is also a grey section which will grow larger.

But let us move away a little further, to ordinary civil rights. Surely there is no one in his senses in this hon. House who would pretend today that all these millions of Bantu who are in our so-called White areas are only temporary sojourners here. After all, we know that this is not so. After all, Sir, we know that they are permanent, and there is nothing that you or I or anyone of us can do about it. The moment you accept that they are there as a permanent unit, you must grant them rights accordingly. All over the world it is accepted that every person has a right to land-ownership and home-ownership. How can we deprive the Bantu living in Soweto and Langa and those areas of the right to own their own piece of land? Surely this is an arrangement which no thinking South Africa can tolerate any longer. And if you accept that he is there permanently and that he can have his own house there, how can you deprive him of the right to have his wife and his family with him there? But that is what we are doing, separating them and forcing them apart. Sir, how would you and I as Whites react if we were subjected to that arrangement? And if they are there permanently, you must give them the school facilities and the advanced technical training there.

Harry has got you, hasn’t he?

To tell them that they may have technical institutions in the homelands is not only stupid, after all, it is not only cynical, but it is extremely dangerous. What have we been doing in South Africa over the last 25 years? We have been digging trenches to separate the various groups from one another. But I want to say this. We must start building bridges at once to try to preserve what little goodwill is left. Sir, the Government is in such a strong position that if it were to take these steps to which I am referring, it would not only have the support of the Opposition, but it would have the approbation of all thinking people in South Africa. [Interjections.]

May I ask a question? I want to ask this question merely to develop the argument. When one comes to rights of ownership and family rights, does the hon. member mean that we should then give them political rights as well?

That is a stupid argument. The Deputy Minister has an absolute obsession with political rights. I shall come to that. I just want to say that the Government is in such a strong position that it can take all these steps, but it is afraid and it is always looking back to see who is going to attack it. All that the Government has to do is to accept the reality of South Africa and to discard some of its illusions. Surely one is not asking any Government to make a sacrifice by doing that. We who are legislators here should not ask stupid questions of this kind, which illustrate exactly what I have in mind in respect of the Government. On every occasion when we have legislation before the House which concerns all the race groups, I believe that we should just apply a simple formula. We should merely ask ourselves the simple question To what extent can we change this legislation we are discussing here to reduce colour discrimination; to what extent can we draft it in such a way as to eliminate colour discrimination? If we should do that, I think there would still be hope for us, and then we would probably prevent the eventual blood-bath.

†I want to return to the economic field. In the economic field surely our objectives are exactly the same. We have two objectives. First of all we want to make South Africa economically strong and secure. The second objective is to increase the living standards of all our people. Within these parameters, within this framework, I believe there is an immeasurable amount that could be done right away that would have the consensus of all thinking South Africans. Perhaps, in the limited time at my disposal I can refer to some of them.

To begin with, we must spend far more on education in this country and more particularly on the education of the non-White people. As far as the Black workers in South Africa are concerned, it is at the moment estimated that 60% of them have had no education at all and less than 5% of them have gone beyond Std. 8. All the studies of productivity indicate that a man after five years of education is 50% more productive than a man who has had no education. Think of the immense potential here, how we could improve productivity in South Africa by investing in our human material. Here the hon. the Minister of Finance has a large bonanza in the form of additional revenue which comes from selling gold at a premium price. If only a portion of this were to be devoted to the education, particularly of the non-White people, the dividends for South Africa would be fantastic.

In the second instance we must provide better industrial training to our non-White workers. That is why we welcome the tentative steps included in the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech. However, why is this necessary? Why must we appoint a committee to find out what ought to be done when everybody knows what should be done? Had these steps been taken five, ten, 15 years ago, think of the immense dividends that South Africa would have reaped.

In the third instance we must destroy this illusion that job reservation protects the position of the White worker, because it does nothing of the kind. All that it has done, is that it has created a shortage of workers, it has placed a ceiling upon the occupational development of the non-Whites and it has been one of the main causative factors of inflation. That this position is realized, is borne out by the fact that even the most right-wing of trade unions have now rejected job reservation and have said that they accept the principle of the rate for the job. What is the Government waiting for? Obviously, what we must do is to work rapidly towards the stage where there will be equal pay for equal work, for equal qualifications, for equal responsibility. That is the only way in which you can develop in a modern industrial society a competent and a well motivated work force.

In the fourth instance the Government must accept the principle of industrial representation for Black workers, because if they do not do so, one can foreshadow a long period of industrial strife in this country which will have a spill-over effect and which will seriously jeopardize peaceful race relations in South Africa.

In the fifth instance we must now do something positive about the economic development of the Black homelands. Everybody in South Africa would agree on this score. We must increase their economic carrying capacity. Can you realize the incredible situation that we have reached when Dr. Anton Rupert can establish major enterprises in Malaysia but he cannot do it in the Transkei? Our priorities are all warped. When people in the Transkei want bread, they are given the vote and when they want jobs, they are given flags and national anthems.

We must in the sixth instance also revise our whole approach in respect of the border area scheme. I cannot understand the Government’s thinking here, because they want to develop these Black homelands to independence. By having border areas, they prevent exactly this, because they siphon away from the homelands whatever limited human skills there might be. The purchasing power is transferred from the homeland to the White area and the taxes which accrue to the country accrue to the White exchequer and not to the homeland. This makes mockery of the whole concept of independent Black states. How can any economic activity of real value develop there when it has to do so in direct competition with White industry which is sited 50 miles away? The answer is so clear: What we need in South Africa is a bigger economic cake because then every group can have a bigger slice of it. If every community had a bigger slice, they could make a bigger contribution to the fiscus. Then there could be a more equitable distribution of taxes. Then we could engender a whole new process which could take South Africa to great economic heights.

Now I want to come to the political field. This hon. Deputy Minister who was so loquacious a minute ago has now seen fit to leave us again. I think that in the political field too we have been obsessed with franchise rights and ultimate objectives, but in the process we are neglecting some of the steps that ought to be taken immediately, right here and now.

What are those steps?

Government always occurs on three levels and when you think in terms of political rights you must first of all think of government at the local level. In a place like Soweto we have probably 600 000 to 800 000 people living there and they have an embryonic form of government agency in the Urban Bantu Council. However, we do not give it any real powers and we do not give it any “punch”. Surely if you want to train people in the acquisition of administrative skill, this is where you must start. These are definite steps that the Government could take here and now but they are lethargic about it. They do nothing about it.

Then you move up to government at the ethnic or at the regional level. Again it seems to me that there is common ground. We all stand for the maximum degree of self-government at the regional and ethnic level.

What about the common roll?

I do not think that the hon. the Chief Whip is with me at all; there is a complete lack of empathy between us. When we come to the Bantu homelands we have many arguments as to whether they should be independent or not. I am suggesting to this hon. House that we might not have very much choice in this matter, in any case, because right at the present time the Government is keenly anxious that the Transkei should become independent, but they are not accepting this independence and they would be stupid to accept it under the terms that prevail at present. What sort of situation would arise if one of these homelands did demand its independence? We would be faced with four alternatives. We could, firstly, do what the French did in North Africa. When their colonies wanted to become independent, they went in and ripped out all the telephones and then they said: “Now you are on your own.” Secondly we could do what Britain has done in regard to Rhodesia; we could impose boycotts and sanctions. Thirdly, we could do what Russia did with regard to Czechoslovakia. That is to send your troops in. But what Government in South Africa would accept one of these three alternatives? Therefore we are in any case left with the fourth and the last alternative, which is to bargain with them and persuade them that it is in their interests and in our interests to remain part of a bigger South Africa. If you have done this at the local level, and if you have taken some of these steps at the regional, communal and ethnic level, then nobody can deny that you require machinery at the national level to provide the cohesion and the synthesis of all this activity. Here we might disagree as to the method, and perhaps we should not be too ambitious. Dr. Verwoerd a long time ago thought in terms of a multi-racial council. Thinkers on the Nationalist side like Mr. Dawid de Villiers have actively propagated this idea. The Prime Minister has established a multi-racial advisory council for South-West Africa, and if he can do it there why can it not be done here? I believe that that will not go far enough and I think that South Africa will inevitably be forced towards the establishment of a full federal council. But let us at least start somewhere and let us not argue about the ultimate end-point to such an extent that we neglect to take the steps that must be taken now. If the hon. the Prime Minister were to establish a multiracial consultative council of this kind, the whole of South Africa would support it. This kind of development I say right here and now is essential to defuse the racial bomb, because if we do not do that it will not augur well for the future.

My time has nearly run out and there are so many other fields one can talk about. There are new steps that ought to be taken as far as the application of the rule of law in South Africa is concerned, steps that ought to be taken to prevent the kind of arbitrary administrative executive action that we have grown accustomed to in South Africa, steps that ought to be taken to extend full citizenship rights to all our people. I cannot unfortunately develop this theme at the moment. What I am trying to suggest is that there is change in South Africa and that the whole situation is moving while we tend to stand still. Unless these adjustments are made now and unless they are made quickly and unless we stop all these airy-fairy discussions we have here in Parliament and come down to fundamental issues, I can see the future generation really taking us to task on this.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Hillbrow reminded me of the fellow who went to listen to a ventriloquist. When he returned that evening they asked him what he thought of the ventriloquist, and he said, “Oh heavens, terribly boring, but I almost killed myself laughing at the little man on his knee.” Just so did the little man on his knee amuse me this evening. The hon. member spoke for almost ten minutes on how we had to get away from all the rummaging and shouting, and then he came up with a few suggestions. He said that we had to solve those practical problems. Then he made two statements: Firstly, every person in this country had to have the right to his own identity, and then we said, “Hear, hear!” to that; secondly, it had to be possible for him to exercise that right in the field of his own personal choice. Then the hon. member said that the non-Whites were integrated in the South African economy and therefore they also had to have the right, since they were with us on a permanent basis, to bring their families with them when they come here. They also had to be allowed to own land. Just after that the hon. member did ask though, that they be given their own special local town council in Soweto. But, surely, these are the people who are supposed to have the choice to earn their own living and to choose where they want to live. After all, why should they all live in Soweto? Why should they not be able to live in Houghton? And why should they not be able to live in Yeoville? Why should they not be able to live here on the slopes of the Tygerberg near De Grendel? Why do you not carry through your arguments to their logical conclusion? The hon. member comes here with arguments typical of those which a fresher would use in front of a group of students, such as: If Chirs Barnard transplanted the heart of a non-White into a White person, who and what would that person be then? After all, those arguments are typical of the kind advanced by first-year students. Why does the hon. member not pursue his arguments to their logical conclusion? Why does he not determine his priorities properly? Then, typically, he followed the lead given by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who made such a terribly wonderful speech about the Nico Malan Theatre. As far as that side of the House is concerned, the Nico Malan Theatre has become nothing but a political cliché.

What does Blaar Coetzee say?

It does not matter to me what Blaar says. Blaar can say what he likes. I want to ask the hon. member a question: Has the Joseph Stone Theatre in Athlone, which is at the disposal of the Coloureds and where the Eoan Group regularly stages its productions, ever been fully occupied?

Only 20%.

Only 20% of that theatre is occupied. For hon. members this question has become nothing but a political cliché. Then the hon. member also referred to the South African Games. This is a completely logical consequence which must flow from the policy of multi-national development. Only two principles are involved. One of them was mentioned by the hon. member, namely the right of the individual to preserve his own identity,

That is a Nationalist principle.

That is a Nationalist principle and we accept it. The second principle is the right of every person in this country to represent his people on the highest level if he is capable of doing so, and that is exactly what is happening at the Games. There is no question of any mixing. The matter involved is sport. Every person who is represented there, is there because he is the best representative of his people in that field. That is why there is competition. That is all. There is nothing more to it.

Then there is the other popular cry in respect of the economic side of affairs, namely spend more on education. That is a very popular cry. There is no one who would not raise that cry if it were raised purely as a cry. The hon. member for Johannesburg West—what happened to the United Party in Johannesburg West?— pleaded movingly for this in his maiden speech and everyone was in agreement with his plea. But there again, priorities must be determined. I challenge hon. members: What other government in the world has done as much for its non-White people in respect of education as the National Party Government has done over the past 25 years? The hon. member is an educationist and supposed to be a psychologist. After all, he knows that the necessary teachers must be trained. Surely one does not buy teachers at the supermarket; one does not just open a school. After all, one must have teachers for that. This is not something like instant coffee. Yes, the hon. member for Hillbrow may turn his back to me; he looks better that way. Now the hon. member tells us that we must give the people a local representative in Soweto. Is he living in such a fool’s paradise that he can think that one can give a group of people like that local government only and think that they will always be satisfied with that? Those people will have to be assimilated in some way or other. Can hon. members imagine that such people can be assimilated? How are they to be assimilated if one accepts the absolute permanence of these people in the heart-land of the Whites? How are they to be assimilated? Are the Bantu to assimilate the Whites, or are the smaller group of Whites to assimilate the Bantu? Come now, you are a practical person; how can that happen? Can two million people assimilate 16 million people, or are those 16 million people to assimilate the two million? What must happen?

Little Fourie says that he thinks he could.

I should like to know from the hon. member how one is to assimilate the Coloureds in accordance with Nationalist Party policy?

The problem with that side of the House lies in the fact that they are not anchored in the history of South Africa at all. There is a world of difference between the Bantu, who are historically settled in their homeland, and the Coloureds, for whom another solution must be sought.

Now the hon. member for Hillbrow goes on to ask why it is not possible to constitute a mixed council with which we could negotiate. I am not referring to Adv. David de Villiers, who proposed a council of this kind. Now, there is something which I do not understand. Why did the hon. members, with their newly announced policy as stated by their leader, also appoint a White Parliament above the mixed council? How does that work and how am I to interpret it?

Then we come to the way in which the hon. member concluded. He said that a change is taking place. Then he proceeded to talk about “the rule of law”. The hon. member spoke of change. Certain newspapers have also been speculating recently about changes which will come. Strangely enough, the newspapers responsible for these speculations were mostly the English-language newspapers, because it suited them. They maintained that the Government could go no further and that the policy of the Government had collapsed. The whole idea of this attempt on the part of the English-language Press to speculate on the possibility of change—actually the idea was to suggest a coalition—was to serve the interests of the United Party. Now I want to tell the newspapers that they need not concern themselves about the change which will come. To my way of thinking, that change is already taking place rapidly. I want to tell you that that change is well on its way. It is my humble opinion that after the Schlebusch Commission, politics in South Africa will never be the same again. I want to tell you why, Mr. Speaker. I think you will agree with me that for the first time since South Africa became a Republic, that side of the House, the United Party, or at least four of their members, to whom I take off my hat, showed the first signs of patriotism. [Interjections.] I have never yet doubted the bona fides of those people and their good intentions for South Africa. At any rate, that goes for most of them. But even this afternoon there are members on that side who, as soon as reference is made to their patriotism and their good intentions towards South Africa, refer in their turn to the war, which ended 30 years ago. I say again that for the first time since South Africa became a Republic, those people have evinced signs of patriotism. They are the people who always tell us “justice must be seen to be done”. It does not help to pay lip service to this idea. They opposed the Republic; they opposed the flag; they opposed the South African National Anthem. Only the other day I read the speech by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition which he delivered in this House after Dr. Verwoerd returned from the Commonwealth Conference in London and in that speech he accused Dr. Verwoerd of treason. I repeat: For the first time members on that side, or four of them at any rate, have really given proof of their patriotism. I accept the bona fides of the other members. [Interjections.]

Order! If hon. members want to carry on a separate debate, I shall have to take steps against them.

I am grateful for what happened here yesterday afternoon, because the future of South Africa is at stake. Yesterday afternoon that side of the House joined us in attacking the hon. member for Houghton. They did so to such an extent that we almost had a feeling of unanimity in this House. But, Sir, out there the situation is not the same. The situation is not the same in the case of their leader in the Transvaal. I refer to a report in The Cape Times of 22nd March, 1973. In that report he said—

The entire argument is that the United Party does not support the report of the commission of inquiry, the so-called Schlebusch Commission. Harry Schwarz is trying to make out a case to his Young Turks in the Transvaal that it is only this parliamentary group of the United Party which supports that commission. Harry Schwarz very clearly ranges himself on the side of the Young Turks, and those people signed a petition in favour of Nusas. By doing that they support the ideals which Nusas supports, and which this Commission condemns. It is a charge against the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that he does not state his standpoint. He issued a statement which reads as follows: “We (that is he and Harry Schwarz) are in full agreement.” Concerning what are they in agreement?

Why should there have been an agreement?

Yes, as the hon. member for Carletonville says, why should there have been an agreement if these people were of one mind, and if Harry Schwarz were also one of those for whom South Africa comes first? Harry Schwarz is of the same calibre as the hon. member for Houghton, who is not here this evening. They are people who, the day on which South Africa finds herself in difficulties, have some other refuge.

You are talking absolute nonsense; it is disgraceful.

Those people who are being defended by Harry Schwarz are people like Philippe le Roux, who has already taken to his heels, but there are more of them still sitting in the Opposition benches.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? [Interjections.]

The hon. member is not prepared to answer a question.

The hon. member asked questions just now. He can speak himself; he is wasting my time. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Turffontein must accept that and must not say that he is afraid. The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw them, Sir.

Sir, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has a duty to tell us where he stands. He still has an opportunity in this debate to tell us where he stands.

Where does Theo Gerdener stand?

Theo Gerdener has nothing to do with this. Do not display your stupidity even further. I shall tell you where my leader stands at any time of the day or night, you cannot do the same. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition owes us this explanation, because the future of South Africa is at stake here. In the eyes of the Press and in the eyes of South Africa, there is doubt about where he stands. We must know; for us it is a serious matter that we should know where he stands when South Africa is threatened. South Africa, or let me rather say the Republic of South Africa, wants to know where he stands. We know that he fought for South Africa when South Africa still formed part of the British Commonwealth, but we want to know where he stands in respect of the Republic of South Africa. Hon. members of the Opposition came here and announced a policy of eight non-White Parliaments.

I want to ask them where those people are to whom they referred, because they do not acknowledge the concept of multinationalism. Where are the people who have to elect those Parliaments? The United Party does not recognize multi-nationalism, or do they recognize it now? If they recognize multi-nationalism let them then take a step further for the sake of patriotism. Let them then recognize the homeland government which already exists.

Sir, this is no longer Nationalist “policy”; this is a fact. If they do so, then we can have a meaningful debate in this Parliament concerning the best way to develop these homelands, and what we have to do with the urban Bantu as hon. members opposite call them, etc. Hon. members opposite must not come here with nonsensical statements, just for the sake of cheap politicking, to serve as lightning conductors, as Harry Schwarz did in Durban when he intimated that he would give his consent should the Prime Minister want to bring together a group of people to discuss the solution of our non-White problems. Sir, the Prime Minister will talk to any person, as he has already talked to all the Bantu homeland leaders; he will talk to any person in this House or any other place—and I am not compromising the Prime Minister now—provided that person accepts the policy of multi-nationalism and our homeland policy.

Sir, I would like to register on behalf of the members of the commission recently referred to by the hon. member for Smithfield a very strong protest indeed that that hon. member has tried to make some kind of cheap political capital out of something which has brought together both sides of this House on an issue which is of grave concern to all the people of South Africa. For the hon. member to come here and to try to make some sort of political capital out of it, when he knows as well as everybody else in this House that the United Party stands solidly behind the members of that commission and the findings that they made, is absolutely irresponsible. That hon. member is doing a very great disservice to his country by behaving in that fashion. Sir, the hon. member is like all Nationalists. We have been speaking here tonight like the Bourbons, people who forgot nothing an learned nothing. We have been speaking here like people who have been governing for 25 years and who have not even seen what has been happening in our country. The hon. member appealed to us to recognize the reality of the Bantu Governments in the homelands. Why will that member not recognize the reality of the Bantu population living in the urban areas? Where is the absolute crux of the problem which White South Africa faces today? Is it in the homelands or in the urban areas? Until this Nationalist Party Government recognizes that in the urban areas is the crux of the future of White and Black South Africa, we will not even get to square one. We will not have started to solve the problem that faces every single one of us—Nationalist Party, Progressive Party, White and Black.

Sir, this is the problem that we have on this side of the House: How can we get the Nationalist Party to face reality? When, if ever, will they come down to the facts and begin to shape their policies around the one central fact that there are some 4½ million Black people living in our country on whose shoulders is carried the whole economic effort of South Africa and without whose efforts the wheels in this country would turn slower and slower until they grind to a total and complete and absolute halt?

Will you accept the challenge of reality?

Sir, we accepted it long ago.

Do you accept the realities?

Yes, we accept the realities. We base the whole of our policy on reality, which is far more than that side ever does. Sir, I must say that one of the few pleasures I had out of this debate was to listen to the hon. member for Boksburg speak here today. It is always a pleasure to hear a Nationalist Party member make his swan-song; it is a great pleasure. The city council of Boksburg, if I am correctly informed, held an election recently in which six members of the Nationalist Party and six members of the United Party were elected. They had to draw lots to find out who would be the mayor, who would be the chairman of the management committee and who would be the chairman of the licensing committee. With all three lots the United Party was successful. I am telling the hon. members that the luck has changed against them. They are against lotteries. That is why they are against it. But I can say this with a great deal of confidence, that the hon. member for Boksburg is one of the members on the other side whom we will be very pleased indeed to bid an affectionate goodbye and to wave to him as he tiptoes down the steps here for the last time.

One of the problems we have in this House is that it has become fashionable on the other side for hon. members to adopt the pose of jokers. They are all jokers. What we need are aces, but they are all jokers. They sit there like the old man of the mountain. You will remember the old man of the mountain, Sir, the man who had hired assassins whom he sent out to do his dirty work and assassinate people whom he did not like particularly. The hon. members opposite are using the paid agents of the Sunday Times to do that work.

Here we get quoted to us all the time, right, left and centre, the quotations of the Sunday Times. They say, Sir, that politics makes very strange bedfellows. I must say that to see those hon. members opposite in bed with the Sunday Times, really makes me sit back and think. You have hon. members opposite drawing attention to the alleged tensions in our party but we stand here on this side and look at hon. members opposite and we think with affection of some of the members who used to be in that party not so long ago. We think of the bright and shining and cheerful face of the ex-member for Innesdal and we think of Dr. Albert Hertzog who used to be there. But of course what happened was that these were the old roosters of the Nationalist Party who flew out and then in the course of time the chickens came home to roost, but they found that the Nationalist Party had moved the tree, so they missed the tree and could no longer find a nest in the branches. What happened was one of the most extraordinary things we have seen in our time, namely an organization in Pretoria which has been making the life of the hon. the Minister of Sport miserable over the past couple of weeks, an organization with the most interesting initials of VAAUTS, an organization of ladies who apparently have some very strong objections to the multi-racial games which have been going on.

You are the only one who takes notice of them.

I am very pleased to see that the hon. the Minister of Sport has survived. He is not in his place, but I hope he has survived the attentions of this group of people who have been making his life so very miserable. And then we have had quotations, where the hon. the Prime Minister was quoted with approbation. I do not want to read anything sinister into it. I wish to agree with the hon. the Prime Minister who said some time ago that he would not sleep well at night if there was a long down-turn in employment among the Bantu population. He might well say with Caesar—

Because I think if ever there were a serious down-turn in employment among the Bantu population, there would be very few of us who would sleep secure in our beds at night. It is the task of this hon. Minister and of the Nationalist Party Government to see, by the way in which they direct the economy of this country, that that sort of condition does not come upon us. But I believe that they have done a very poor job indeed over the last couple of years to see that the necessary growth is maintained and to see that conditions are created whereby employment can be provided for a constantly expanding population. Sir, once upon a time in our lives, in a more spacious and gracious age I must confess, we looked upon certain things as being fixed and unalterable, things like time for instance. Once upon a time, time was regarded as being an absolute thing, as something that could not be altered. But we learnt recently that time is a variable thing and changes in proportion to where you stand within the galaxy, and this, I like to think, is what has happened to our country. Time is accelerating; time is catching up on us, time is foreshortening. The time we used to think we had in which to solve the problems which face South Africa, White South Africa and Black South Africa, is getting shorter and shorter and is becoming distorted.

There is one thing in which I agree with the hon. member for Fauresmith. He said South Africa was changing, was changing so fast that many of us in South Africa today do not realize what is happening. We still do not know how many of the things which once we thought of as being unalterable and immutable have, in fact, changed. The whole basis of the White man’s position in South Africa and in the economy has changed as a result of what has happened over the past couple of months. This is something which we will not reverse.

Did you hear the hon. member for Transkei?

I heard what the hon. member for Transkei said. We are in total agreement. What he said was that the Nationalist Party changes. They are changing, they are beginning to catch up with what was the reality about 25 years ago. They are just about starting to switch on to what used to happen in the old days. What I am trying to impress upon them is that things are happening much, much faster today and that the old positions which we used to occupy are positions which very, very shortly we will not be able to occupy.

I want to suggest in all seriousness that South Africa is experiencing a revolution now. Right now we are undergoing a revolution. It is a revolution of expectation; it is a revolution of hope, it is a revolution which is changing the status of people; it is a revolution which is undermining and has undermined the position which the White man occupied in South Africa. I want to put it like this: Where you could have said in the old days that we had a pass which dominated the countryside and which was our protection, the Black people today are through that pass and they are now coming down on our side of the hill. I take it quite as seriously as that. What is happening is that there is a social and economic change going on among the Black people in this country which is changing their whole life style permanently. Again this is the reality.

The hon. members on the other side who deal with Bantu Administration must only recognize the fact that it is changing the whole life style of Black South Africa. Here are people who were tribal people, as has been said by one of the hon. members on the other side. They had their place in society, they had their security, they had their place in the family in the tribe, in the vastness of the reserves. However, today we have them being swept up at an increasing pace, taken out of their tribal society, put down in an urban, industrial money economy where the whole style of their life changes, the whole pattern of their life changes. They are becoming people who are becoming Westernized, they are becoming Europeanized to the extent that their values are becoming the values by which we have stood through all the centuries. It is something which is permanent; it will not change.

Has Japan Westernized?

I believe that the key to the whole situation is the fact that money is power and the money power at the disposal of Black South Africa today is growing and growing and growing. They are becoming a more and more important factor in the whole relationship between White and Black in this country. This is something we can never alter, something we can never put back. It is a characteristic of revolutions that they make permanent changes. These are not things that are simply going to pass away. These are not things which we can shrug off by saying that in a couple of years or ten or 20 years, they are going to disappear. We are embarked on a programme and a process which is going to continue and which is going to accelerate. If we look at revolutions which have happened in other countries, like Britain and Russia and France, we shall see the truth of what I say, that the changes that take place are permanent changes. They have revolutionized the life style of the people. They have introduced totally new factors into their way of life which are never got rid of and from which they will never, never turn away.

The standard of Oxford is not what it used to be before the war, either. [Interjections.]

I want to make the point that this revolution need not be violent, but it can be harnessed. It has to be harnessed for great, positive, constructive purposes. It is the task of the Government, whoever the Government is, to harness the revolutionary changes that take place in this country in order to make sure that what comes out of this is constructive and is permanent and is something which will be of benefit to the Black people who are changing and to the White people who are bringing about the changes. What has happened over the past 25 years? There was something that can be described as a mass folk movement.

Yes, the United Party was on the run.

A mass movement of Black people moving past the whole might, the whole power, the whole façade of the Nationalist Party, moving from the rural areas into the urban areas. It was said of the people in East Germany that when they took the road into West Germany, they were voting with their feet. This is exactly what has happened in our country. Black South Africa has voted with its feet. It has moved out of the rural areas in numbers which represent at least a third of Black South Africa. They have voted with their feet and moved out of the rural areas in which they were established into the urban areas and to a totally new way of life. What can we do? How can we harness a revolution? What can be done? Let us face one thing: If it goes wrong, if it escapes the harness and breaks out of control, White South Africa and Black South Africa stand to lose everything they have gained over the past hundreds of years of association that they have had with each other. If you want to harness a revolution, you have to make it a middle-class revolution and you have to make it respectable. One of the hon. members who spoke previously said that we should face up to reality. The policy of the United Party is deliberately designed to make this change middle class and to make it respectable. It is designed to give Black South Africa something to protect; a property, a home, some status, in short, something of their own so that they themselves will see to it that law and order is enforced, that revolution does not take place because they themselves will have an interest in maintaining the status quo from which they are benefiting in that they can see a future for them and doors opening for their children into a future which will be immeasurably richer than the one they themselves might be experiencing at the present time. I believe that this is one of the tasks we have. We have to look upon this revolution as being capable of being harnessed. That is the way in which I believe it has to be done. Surely, as a sensible, practical and constructive people—and I include the hon. members on the other side although I may well be thought to be flattering them; but a bit of flattering helps the medicine go down—we must realize what is happening, we must be realistic about this matter. They have to join with us in realizing that this is a problem with which we are faced in South Africa.

The year 1978 is as dead as the dodo. There has been one political reputation wrecked on that rock and I have not noticed any other Nationalist Party member putting his reputation on that rock. I am quite sure that they will not. Perhaps the hon. the Deputy Minister may like to do so since Blaar was brave enough to do so. On the other hand, I think this hon. member may have learnt something since then …

Then he went Rome-ing.

No amount of juggling with percentages, as we have had here this afternoon, is going to persuade anybody at all that this in fact is not what has happened. In fact, we can say that the Government has made a valiant effort to prove that the Black population in South Africa is not really there. They are not really there. Those 800 000 people in Soweto do not really live there; they really live somewhere else in a homeland. However, for the time being, while we live in the condition in which we are, they will actually be staying there, they will go on working, they will have children there, they will raise families there, they will die there and they will be buried there. Really, in terms of the Nationalist Party’s policy they are not really there. One of the little jokes that they try to perpetrate and try to put across us is the question of rezoning certain areas. In Durban, for instance, you have the township of Kwa Mashu where, I believe, some 125 000 Black people are living. By purchasing White ground and by joining that up to the nearest adjacent Bantu area, you have succeeded in repatriating 100 000 or 120 000 people. This is a magnificent policy. It is happening all over the country. If I really were to tell hon. members the whole story, it would take the rest of the evening and I cannot spare the time. This is happening and this is why you may get some sort of increase in the absolute numbers of Black people who live in the homeland areas, in the Bantu areas …

Kwa Mashu is not in a homeland.

It is proposed to be.

It is not yet; but it will be. Do you deny that it will be?

It is not a bad idea.

Do you deny that it is going to be? If there was a homeland anywhere near Soweto they can join the two up and repatriate 800 000 Black people and it will be a real success. I do not know why the hon. the Deputy Minister does not consider it, because I am sure he can make a plan to do that.

As far as I am concerned, this whole policy of apartheid of the Nationalist Party is a paper tiger. It is something which they have drawn with figures, sketches and all kinds of words, their multi-national games. It is a multi-this and a multi-that. It is all words which used to have a certain meaning once upon a time, but which today have a different meaning attached to them for the political purposes of the Nationalist Party. This is the kind of smoke-screen and façade they are trying to put up in front of the people of South Africa and then try to bluff them, and not only them, but also the outside world. This is something with which they are really succeeding to hide the fact that they have no real policy to put before the people. But really, underneath all this, lies the grim reality that they will not face, namely that White and Black in South Africa are tied inextricably together, they will never be separated and their whole future depends on mutual understanding, mutual co-operation and mutual sharing. The problem we have in this country today is to find out how to share. How does the White man who has such a lot share with the Black man who does not have such a lot? How do we make this kind of transfer? How, when we are facing an economic and a social revolution, which is happening now, do we avoid the complications of a political revolution which would upset and destroy everything that Black and White in South Africa have gained, are gaining and expect to gain out of the profound changes which are taking place in our country? I think this is the one thing that we have to face and which we have to see very clearly indeed.

Pottie, do you understand that? [Interjections.]

I must ask the hon. member not to strain the capacity of other members on the other side. [Interjections.] One of the problems we are faced with is the one of rural poverty. We have been hearing a lot of talk from this Nationalist Party about development in the homelands. We are hearing a lot of talk about the agency basis. We hear about a development bank which is going to be instituted and about all kinds of things the Government is trying to do with concessions, and so on, to be able to take development to the borders of the homelands. But this does not alter the fact that in 25 years the poverty of people in the rural areas and of the Black people in the Reserves has been getting more and more crushing, that they have been able to make less and less progress economically in all the years that this Government has been in power. What is happening is that this Government has been crucified on its own dilemma, because they have to seek for funds with which to develop the rural areas and they have to get those funds from the power-house of industry, which is the White urban areas, the home of industry which is serviced by Black labour. If they want to develop those areas in the homelands, they have to draw off and suck out so much money and so much development capital from the central economy that they will find themselves in grave difficulty to keep that central economy going. I can see absolutely no kind of progress being made in those rural areas, I have said it on many occasions and will say it again now, that one of the key things that White South Africa has to face is the rural poverty in the Black areas, the rural poor. What has happened over the past couple of years in spite of everything this Nationalist Government has done, in spite of all their laws and in spite of everything they have tried to implement, is that the door to urban industrial employment has been opened to the rural poor. That is what has saved White South Africa, because if you pen up those people, the rural poor in these areas where there is no hope whatever, then you are looking for the most grave and serious trouble that White South Africa can ever have. I have mentioned before what Mao Tse-tung said, and I know hon. members get a little bored hearing me repeat it, but it is as realistic, as pertinent and as applicable to what happens in South Africa today as ever it was. He said that the Chinese communists by gaining control of the countryside, will inevitably conquer the world. He said, once they had gained control of the countryside, they would squeeze the towns into submission. If you look at the problem of the rural poor, the poverty of the people in the homeland areas, you cannot fail to realize that White South Africa has a problem and that we have not even started to scratch, we haven’t even got to square one, we have not yet started to face up to the implications of that particular problem. Luckily, the door is being opened to the rural poor to come out of those areas and to come into the towns, to vote with their feet and to get in with the new scene, the new development that is taking place in industry. That hon. member for Pietersburg is laughing at me, but I think he is at one with me that this is what has been the salvation of White South Africa up to this time. An extraordinary development has been this: In many revolutions that have taken place in the world, it has been the conservatism of the countryside that has been the main support of the Government which has been threatened by revolution. You can go back to any revolution you like and you will see that it is true. In the revolution against Charles I, it was the countryside that supported him; in the revolution against the Bourbon kings of France, it was the countryside that supported the Royal cause; but something has happened in our time which is probably one of the most significant things that has happened in history, and that is that in the Russian revolution, when you would have expected the peasants to be in support of the endangered monarchy, Lenin took over the ground in the name of the State. He took over the land and promised to give it to the peasants. I know, and I think we all know, that we are dealing with people who are fermenting trouble in our country who were not born yesterday. They know the lessons of history. They know what happened in the revolution in Russia. I believe that we face a very grave danger in this country in that the many people crowded together in those areas will not all be able to find employment in the urban areas. When they start to look over their fences at the fair, green fields of the farmers, I believe we will have something going against us in this country which can be very serious indeed. I have said before in this House, and I want to say again, that in three revolutions in our time the slogan “Land and Freedom” has been used with great effect, namely in China, in Vietnam and by the Mau Mau in Kenya.

You are sourmouthed.

Mr. Speaker, I am not sour-mouthed; I am merely laying this before the door of this Government because something must be done about it. It is not a problem from which I am excused. I am as much in the problem as that hon. member. Every single one of us in this House is involved with this problem; not one of us will ever escape it. My problem is to get the Government to look at it realistically, to recognize the problem and then to try to take some kind of action to overcome it. We heard an interesting suggestion from the hon. member for Klip River in this regard. He said there should be calling up of the young men every year and that they should form a kind of job corps which would work in the homeland areas. That is an interesting idea. It is of course part of the Bantu tradition that a group is called up every year for service. However, there is also a school of thought about the development of backward areas which says that if you do not have money to invest in development, you can invest in the lives of the people. It was followed in Soviet Russia where, by absolutely ruthless dedication to development and investment of the total lives of the people, Soviet Russia, by 1957 had become the first nation in the world to put a sputnik in orbit. This was achieved by an absolute forced investment of the lives of the people. I do not suggest that this is something which should be followed in this country but certainly there is the germ of an idea. It is not for me to praise the hon. member for Klip River, but I must say that if we as a people in this country can see the germ of a positive constructive idea, we should seize it and try to put some practical kind of application on it. I think the time has become very late indeed.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Mooi River has spoken of many things and, amongst others, has committed the same mischief with which he has charged us, namely that of cracking jokes. He caused some mirth in his own ranks but nowhere else. But there is one matter on which I agree with him, namely that we are at present living through a period of change and revolution in South Africa. Since the Schwarz revolution last year in the Transvaal they also became aware of change and revolution in their ranks, but the revolution to which I wish to refer is not their revolution and it is also not the revolution to which the hon. member for Mooi River referred here tonight. It is a revolution, a change which has been brought about in South Africa by the National Party over 25 years. It was done under the guidance of the National Party. In the course of 25 years we have created a new face for South Africa. What did we have? What did we inherit when we came to power 25 years ago on 26th May, 1948? And incidentally, we shall be celebrating that occasion on Saturday, 26th May, this year at Goodwood and you are all invited to attend. What did we inherit when we took power 25 years ago? We inherited a South Africa still suffering from colonialism and subjected to the ideas planted in us by colonial powers. We had a South Africa divided into horizontal strata. We had a South Africa in which you had a superior group, the White group, below that a Brown group and below that group a Black mass. That was the horizontally divided South Africa which we inherited. We have committed a revolution. We have taken South Africa and have changed its face in 25 years. Instead of this horizontal division we have now a South Africa divided vertically between the various races and peoples of South Africa. That is the National Party’s revolution and its contribution to the building of a new South Africa and to the change which is taking place in South Africa today. That was the task of the National Party over the last 25 years. I can see that the hon. member for Mooi River who has just spoken has not appreciated this one iota. He does not understand the position. He does not understand the change which is taking place in South Africa today. He still speaks in terms of the old colonial situation. He still thinks in terms of the old colonial situation. He still thinks in terms of the Black masses moving to the cities and forming a certain layer or group with certain limited rights in those cities. He still thinks in those terms. But that we have avoided as I shall point out presently.

In these 25 years of National Party Government we have brought about a new South Africa and we shall take it further during the next 25 years. During the 25 years that we have been in power, the party over there has been in opposition and will remain in opposition. Mr. Speaker, they sometimes call themselves the alternative Government. That is an over-statement, of course. The only alternative that I see in their ranks is that they have in their midst a possible alternative Opposition. Sir, over these 25 years of National Party Government, we have had occasion to lead and guide this country; we have had occasion even to form their thinking, to assist them in coming to terms and to grips with the realities of South Africa. We have led them and guided them, as stated by the hon. member for Fauresmith earlier this evening. We have taught them what it means to honour one’s flag. We have taught them what it means to adopt one national anthem; we have taught them what it means to accept South African citizenship solely. They have followed us in these matters.We have guided them. We have made political history over these 25 years. We have taught them what it means to have a Republic. They have accepted it, and we honour them for following us. Now, Sir, we come to the crux of the matter. They must also follow us in this concept of multi-nationalism in South Africa. It would seem as though they are following us—rather hesitantly, I agree—but it would seem as though they have seen the first light as far as this matter is concerned. We are indeed grateful for the fact that they are seeing some light on this subject and I think the further we goad them, the harder we hammer them perhaps, the more they will accept this situation as well, just as they have accepted the other situations.

*Sir, just take the question of the Coloured vote. Only last year, during the Oudtshoorn election, which was held at this time of the year, they were still adhering firmly to the principle that the Coloureds should have representation in Parliament. This year they have accepted our policy that this Parliament should be a purely White Parliament. Again they have followed us, and we are grateful for the fact, for we know that if we can find common ground we will be able to work out together the common future of all the peoples of South Africa, and that is what is important to us: The future of South Africa, and not necessarily the future of the National Party or the United Party. We want to ask them to think and think again about these matters. Just take the question of the Bantu homelands. Voices are already being raised from their ranks in this regard—not like the hon. member for Mooi River who talks about “the rural areas of South Africa”. Sir, it is not only “rural areas”; it is in fact the heartland of certain Black peoples in South Africa, and this concept is already being accepted to a certain extent in their new federal policy; it is already being accepted to a certain extent, as we heard with gratitude this evening, by the hon. member for Hillbrow when he said here that every nation should have the right to realize its own identity. That is the principle of Bantu homeland development; it is the principle of multi-nationalism, in which, I said, they are displaying a little spark of interest. This idea of multi-nationalism, this concept of multi-nationalism, in South Africa, is the concept on which we should find common ground to build the new South Africa of the future. We have led them step for step in the past, and they followed us, and I predict that we will lead them step for step in this respect, too, until they accept this concept and will work together with us on the development of this idea of multinationalism in South Africa. As I said a moment ago, we already have this idea of communal councils which they have made an integral part of their federal concept. When I look at the speech made here earlier this year by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, I note that he mentioned certain communal councils. I am quoting what he said (column 42 of Hansard of 5th February, 1973)—

You can see, Sir, that he has already half-grasped the concept, but not quite—

So this idea of communal councils already forms the basis of their new policy. They still have to take it a little further along the road along which we are leading them. By the way, Sir, it is interesting to see that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition speaks of communal councils for homelands or groups of homelands on the one hand and the urban Bantu on the other, but he leaves four million people completely disfranchised, namely the rural Bantu who are living in White South Africa on farms and smaller towns. He said nothing about them. He is not creating a communal council for them. He is creating no opportunities of political expression for them. I wonder how the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is going to deal with this matter. It appears to be another oversight in this concocted policy of theirs.

But there is one thing against which we should guard in all earnest and with all the responsibility we have as members of this House, this Parliament which determines the destiny of South Africa, and that is against the consolidation of Black Power in South Africa which can lead to only one outcome, Black Imperialism. This is a situation to which the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Organizations has already referred. On page 15 of its report that commission states as follows (translation)

What is involved here is far more than opposition to the policy of the governing party. It even involves the artificial partitioning of the entire population into Black and White polarities, and the fomenting of a confrontation between these two polarities.

This is a situation which we must try to avoid at all costs, and we honour and respect the Opposition to the extent to which they accept and endorse this section of the report. The question now is this: Is this not the situation which should be counteracted with every means? And the next question is: Is their policy of an ethnic federation not in fact going to have the opposite effect in South Africa? In reply to the first question I want to say that the members of the Opposition have to a reasonable extent said to me: Yes, it must at all costs be counteracted. It was said by the members who are serving on that commission, but was also implied in the reaction we had in this House yesterday. On the basis of what was said by the Opposition here in the House, I would say the answer is: “Yes, it must be avoided at all costs.” On the basis of what their Leader in the Transvaal said, I am not so certain of the answer, for he dissociates himself from certain findings of this commission, and certain ideas about taking the matter further. He is not so certain that he is going to accept this entire matter in that way, and I think he feels himself a little compromised in this entire situation. He feels that he should echo the sentiments of the Opposition in Parliament and defend them, but he does not really feel very much like doing so. For that reason I say that on the basis of what has been said by the Leader in the Transvaal, he is not prepared to deal with this situation as it should be.

I come next to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, who has now been placed in a very difficult position, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Fauresmith. He agrees; he says he does not differ from the hon. Leader in the Transvaal. On the other hand he does not differ either from the hon. members here in Parliament. I have the feeling that he is compelled, under the specific circumstances in which he has been placed by the Press and by his own leader in the Transvaal, to say yes and no at the same time. And that worries me, because we cannot follow this course towards stopping a growing confrontation between Black and White waveringly. The National Party is decisive. The National Party says “yes”, it must be counter-acted, for consolidation of Black Power can go only one way, and that is militant revolution as preached by the recently banned persons referred to in this report we have before us, a revolution which, as in the case of others in Africa, could lead to only one outcome, and that is a military dictatorship in South Africa. Black aspirations are a fact we must face up to. Black aspirations in the political field, black aspirations in the cultural sphere, Black aspirations on the educational front, Black aspirations as regards the raising of standards of living, are facts which we cannot argue away, are facts which we have to accept as a responsible Parliament, as a government of the day, as an opposition of the day. The era of colonialistic White paternalism is rapidly coming to an end, and we can no longer place our reliance on it. The horizontal division of South Africa is giving way to a vertical division, the revolution we are bringing about. Instead of Black submissiveness, Black acceptance of a subordinate position, one can have only two solutions, one can have either Black Power, which has to be avoided at all costs, as we have already said, or we can have its equivalent but not quite its equal: Black Nationalism as expressed in its two manifestations of African traditionalism or the so-called négritude which took root in French Equatorial Africa in particular.

I say that we find African traditionalism in our homelands in particular. The Black négritude, the fruitful négritude, as I shall call it, we see in particular in the approach of some of the Black African leaders, such as Senghor of the Ivory Coast and other Black intelligentsia. We have seen Black Power raging through the United States of America, where in 1967 it led to outbursts and Stokeley Carmichael, one of the champions of that movement in America, saying (translation)

I ask myself this question: If this is the approach of Black Power, what is the situation going to be if we have a federal council as the Opposition envisages it here for South Africa, a federal council in which this group solidarity first has to be formed in order to compel rights in South Africa from the Whites? We had this in the United States, and it led to the uprisings of the summer of 1967. After that Black suddenly became beautiful and fashionable. The mere fact of being Black became the least common denominator in that situation; that is to say, Black Power was built up around Black awareness, Black pride, Black identity with its manifestations of Afro-hairstyles and African-inspired garb. If I remember correctly, I saw one of our Bantu homeland leaders in this House one day in the same garb.

Are you opposed to it?

No, not at all. I am not at all opposed to it, but I am opposed to it in so far as it is a manifestation of Black Power which is not only nationally oriented, but Black Power which wants to act universally, even internationally and wants to make its violence felt internationally.

But you created it.

You are talking absolute nonsense.

We must be careful because Black Power manifested itself for the first time in South Africa last year under the guidance of the SASO movement, the leaders of which were banned this year. That same movement was responsible for a book which was published under the title “Essays on Black Theology.” This appeared under the auspices of the well-known University Christian Movement, but members of the SASO movement participated in its publication. Extracts from that book read as follows: “We define Black theology as the theology of liberation. Black theology seeks to commit Black people to the risk of affirming the dignity of Black personhood. It calls upon all Black people to affirm with Elrich Cleaver: ‘We shall have it on earth; the earth will be levelled by our efforts to gain it’.” Here is a further extract: “We may live by the grace of God, but we do not live by the grace of the Whites.” This type of thing is also manifesting itself in South Africa and we have, inter alia, the statements of the Zulu leader, Mr. Buthelezi, when he officiated earlier this year at a function and the following report was written about it: “He said he identified himself with America’s Blacks.” I shall return to this idea that Black Power is on the move internationally. I read further: ‘What they deplore, we deplore too.’ He emphasized that in calling for a federation of KwaZulu and the Transkei, he was setting up a goal of Black solidarity for his people.” We must take cognizance of this movement under these circumstances which are developing within the Republic of South Africa.

Nowhere has integration ever succeeded, either partially or completely. Nowhere has it ever led to a properly integrated community. All that it has led to is that Black people who have been integrated have formed a certain stratification within the community, precisely what the hon. member for Mooi River advocated here this evening, i.e. that they should form a stratification, without identity as regards cultural ties and without identity as regards national ties. This stratification can lead to only one other situation, i.e. the creation of a great Black proletariat in South Africa. Black Power is revolutionary. Black Power has an international dimension.

My question is this: How will the United Party policy be able to stem this movement? For what does the United Party say? It says it is not creating any homeland freedom and it is not creating any ideal of freedom for the peoples in the homelands. It is giving no means of expressing national feeling; it says to them: You are only involved in a communal council, and you may take care of a few of our local needs.

In this entire situation the United Party therefore creates either a White Parliament on the one hand which has to remain sovereign at all times, and will keep the power in its hands and will make of this federal council a farce, or on the other hand, if it does want to give the federal council meaningful powers, the United Party itself says that the Whites are able to and will retain a majority in that federal council. If they do not say that, the Leader of the Opposition must rise to his feet now and tell me they foresee the day when the Blacks will come into power in that federal council.

What meaningful powers are there for the Black man in this situation? What meaningful opportunity is there for giving expression to his Black Aspirations in this situation which is being created for him by the United Party? Incidentally, what meaningful powers are going to be given to them in this federal council? I think of one aspect, for example, which has not been made clear to me: We must, after all, have a Cabinet, a Ministry. Who elects that Cabinet or Ministry? Is it the White Parliament or is it that federal council of theirs which they want to establish? Who is it who will bear this responsibility? If it is the White Parliament, then I say again that they are robbing the Black man of meaningful powers because he can never be in a position to serve in the Cabinet, he will serve only in the federal council.

This United Party policy of federation is partial political integration. The United States of America has taught us that the more rapidly one proceeds on a course of integration, the sooner one has a polarization of opposing White and Black Power and the sooner one has a confrontation between these two polarizations. Therefore, political integration must be avoided at all costs. It will only lead to conflict. It will lead to confrontation, to frustration and to other situations which should preferably be avoided. I foresee that within the federal council which they want to create, common interests will be created among the Black peoples of South Africa so that the fact that they are Black, the fact that they are non-Whites, will be the decisive and cohesive factor. That alone will serve as a stimulus to this Black Power movement in South Africa.

Opposed to that there is the other form of giving expression to Black aspirations. We have experienced this as Whites with our White nationalism in South Africa, and this Black nationalism can emulate. It is a means of expression of which we know the significance, because we ourselves have followed the course of Nationalism in South Africa. Black nationalism can be positive, it can be ethnically elevating, it can make a contribution to the upliftment of that nation, and it can make a contribution to the proper serving of the interests of that nation within the framework of its homeland. In contrast to Black Power, one finds a healthy Black Nationalism where Black nations develop a homeland of their own within the framework—and this is very important—of their own territory. Then one has the development of Black Nationalism, or if you grant powers of government to these nations on the basis of segregation or separation, you find the development of positive Black Nationalism.

Black Nationalism will also offer its challenge to the Whites of South Africa, and I shall be the first to admit this, but we can confer with Black Nationalism because we have over many years learnt to speak the language of Nationalism. In terms of our policy of sovereign freedom for the Black Nations of South Africa, there is no damper on their development, no damper on their aspirations, no damper on their opportunities to govern themselves. Unlike the subordinate communal councils which the United Party wants to establish, there is an opportunity here in terms of which they can be led to their own sovereignty. In terms of our policy there need be no conflict with a White majority, clinging desperately to a tiny majority in the federal council. These are the common grounds which we still have to bring home to hon. members of the Opposition. We must still bring home to them the concept of multi-nationalism for South Africa. I know that I have spoken idealistically this evening, that I have not touched on the practical problems, and I know that there are situations which are going to create problems for us, but for heaven’s sake discuss the problems with us and how we should solve them, but not the principle. Let us thrash out the principle amongst ourselves, the principle of multinationalism and the creation of opportunities for Black aspirations. If we do not do this, I am afraid we will find that this Black Power movement to which I referred will play an ever-increasing role in South Africa. I want to say in all humility that we have taught the Opposition what it means to cultivate national pride within the framework of this Republic. We have taught them what we mean when we say that we want to make our country economically strong. We told them what we mean when we want to make the homelands independent. We have told them what we mean when we plead for the security of our state. They have followed us and now we ask them, in regard to this matter, to follow us to the end. In this way we will find common ground to make South Africa safe for us as Whites, and for all the other peoples in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, in a way I think the contribution of the hon. member for Bellville can be summed up by his closing paragraph, where he invites us to discuss with him the problems which will arise but not the principle. This has been the downfall of this Nationalist Party’s policy. Was it not the hon. the Prime Minister who a little while ago in an interchange across the floor, told us that the Bantu embryo states, as this Government likes to view them, had two choices only? The first was to accept independence and the second was to remain here. Let us consider the conditions under which the hon. the Prime Minister gives them those two choices. There is, in the first place, the choice of independence on the terms of the Nationalist Government and not “selfbeskikking”, self-determination, as they have been trying to say over the years. If they reject that, what is the alternative? It is to stay in South Africa under the heel of the Nationalist Government. While I am showing the hon. member for Bellville the courtesy of replying to his contribution to the debate, I would appreciate it if I could have his attention. I would appreciate it if his attention is not distracted by the hon. the Chief Whip of the Nationalist Party. Sir, I must lodge a complaint …

The Chief Whip is telling him where he went wrong.

I want to lodge a complaint. This is happening too often during debates in this House, especially on the part of members on that side of the House.

You are talking nonsense! It has happened more than once on your side.

We had the instance here just now when the hon. member for Hillbrow tried to speak to the hon. the Minister of Finance, who was engrossed in conversation with the hon. the Minister of the Interior. The hon. member for Hillbrow could not get his attention. The hon. member for South Coast had to raise a point of order to try to get the attention of the hon. the Minister of Finance. I believe there is a certain amount of courtesy due to all members of this House.

Not to you!

That is fine! I am quite prepared to stand up for myself. It does not matter if that hon. member says it does not apply to me.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I am here under your guidance. If you are prepared to allow that sort of thing to go on, I must accept it.

Order! The hon. member must proceed with his speech.

Yes, Sir. As I was saying, the hon. member for Bellville has shown this evening the pathological fear that he and his colleagues have for the Black man in this country. I want to invite that hon. member during the recess to leave these shores, this protected haven which he inhabits and which is protected by that magnificent mountain of yours, and to come into the Republic with me and meet these Black people of whom he is so afraid. Let him find out that these are, indeed, loyal citizens of this Republic, that these are people who have the interests of the Republic at heart. I want to say that, if this was never shown in any other way, it was shown during the strikes which took place a month ago and during those which are now taking place. If it were not for the goodwill which we, the Whites in this country, received from these Black people, we would have faced more than an explosive situation. I wonder if the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, who is sitting across the floor, agrees with what I say. I sincerely hope he does, because I believe he knows a little more about these Black people than the hon. member for Bellville.

He is keeping quiet.

He does not answer; but that is all right. What did the hon. member for Bellville say? He said the United Party policy will cause a polarization between Black and White. I deny this categorically but I want to ask him what is happening today. What is happening in this country today after 25 years of Nationalist rule? What is happening today with the policy of separate development, as they like to call it? It is creating exactly this very polarization which the hon. member was talking about. I believe it will not happen when they are taken into our councils and when we sit and discuss our problems together around a table.

You are living in a fantasy world.

The hon. member for Transkei told this House a little earlier that we went around and discussed matters with representatives of the urban Bantu people in this country. Their biggest and most bitter complaint against this Government was the lack of dialogue, the fact that they never make contact with the White man other than through an official. I am not denigrating the officials or the part that they play. But when you are dealing with the elected representatives of the Black people in these urban townships who are trying to do the best for their people, you find that they come up against a wall because they can make no contact whatsoever with their counterparts on the other side of the colour bar. The hon. member for Bellville goes further and says that the consolidation of Black power can only lead to revolution. There are Black aspirations in many a sphere. Our policy has been one of co-operation throughout, but his policy is one of divide and rule. The hon. the Prime Minister confirmed this when he said that they only had two choices, i.e. to go out and be independent or to come back and be here under the conditions of the Nationalist Party.

Let us deal with this development of Black nationalism. This Black nationalism, Black power, of which the hon. member is so afraid has been expressly fostered by this Nationalist Government. Have they not created this Black power in this country? I do not mean it in the same way as the hon. member for Bellville who said that Chief Buthelezi has now received a platform and is associating himself with Black Power in America. I deny that. I do not believe he is. What Chief Buthelezi is saying to the Government is this: You have promised certain things; now keep your promises. If anything is going to do White South Africa harm in the eyes of the Black man it is when that Government is unable to fulfil the promises that have been made through the years by the late Dr. Verwoerd, the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development.

What has been promised that has not been given?

This is unfortunately not the time to debate exactly what has not been given.

You are not prepared to honour your own legislation.

What has that got to do with the question put by the hon. member for Pietersburg? The hon. member for Pietersburg asked me to name an instance where the Government have not kept their word. What about the land issue?

The what?

The land issue; don’t they understand it ! Every single Bantu leader is at odds with this Government in regard to the land issue alone, apart from anything else.

You made the promise.

We made a promise? The 1936 Act?

Yes.

Carry out the promise in terms of the 1936 Act. Day to day we sit anxiously waiting for the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development to produce a plan showing the borders. And what happens? The hon. member for Langlaagte (who is not here) who is the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission came to Natal to show all the people of Natal a map, a proposal for the consolidation and for the giving over of the extra land in terms of the 1936 Act to the Zulu people. What happened when we went to the meetings and asked to have a look at the map and asked questions about it? We were told then that it was not an official map. It was repudiated entirely by the hon. member for Langlaagte and the whole of the Bantu Affairs Commission. It has been repudiated at public meetings. We were told that it was the brain child of a civil servant who happened to be sitting there taking notes. Is this the sort of Government we have that hides behind a civil servant? Then that hon. member says we must honour our promises under the 1936 Act! The hon. the Deputy Minister went off the other day, I believe, to speak to Chief Buthelezi again about certain proposals for consolidation. We do not know what they are. Where is the map?