When the House adjourned last night, I had made mention of the extraordinary importance of this debate and of the opportunity afforded thereby to members on both sides of the House of expressing their views on one of the fundamental questions of the day, one of the questions on which discussions in the past, have often resulted in estrangement, one of the problems that will have to be solved before the goal for which a large number of people are striving today can be achieved, namely, the eventual unity of outlook and composition of the Afrikaner population in such a manner that an ideal state of affairs in South Africa will be created. I said further that the discussion has led to a clarification of our standpoints and that there was one outstanding point which in my opinion we could at this stage assume and that is that both sides desire that the population should as far as possible be bilingual. I think that this point of view has now been cleared up. After the discussion that has taken place here, there should not be any doubt any longer as to the desirability of bilingualism. Whilst both sides of the House are now accepting the fact in good faith that both sides desire, as far as they are able to, to further the cause of bilingualism, let us for a moment consider the means of achieving this object. I think that I can confidently state that we on this side of the House, that the Afrikaansspeaking people, have given proof of their willingness to learn English. I think it will be generally admitted that it is not on the side of the Afrikaans-speaking people in this country that there is a lack of bilingualism. We are bilingual, and if it is maintained in this House that there are deficiencies on the part of the Afrikaans-speaking people with regard to their ability to be employed in the Public Service or to take part in the commercial and industrial life of the country, then we as Afrikaans-speaking people say: let the Government lay down a commercial and industrial standard of bilingualism and we as Afrikaans-speaking people will accept and will undertake to qualify ourselves for that standard. On our part we want to do everything in our power to comply with the requirements of bilingualism. The only condition we make is that the requirements imposed on us should be imposed on the whole of the population. There should not be a repetition of the discrimination made in the past and whereas we assume that this desire is felt on both sides, by English-speaking as well as by Afrikaansspeaking people, let these two sections henceforth prove that they are serious about this matter, that they seriously want to further the cause of bilingualism. I am therefore assuming that this is no longer a point at issue in our politics. Let then the English-speaking people in particular prove to us that the statements that have been made here in this House were made in good faith also on their behalf and that it is also their aim to further the cause of bilingualism. Education in itself is not an end. We do not send our children to school merely for the sake of going to school. Every parent, of every nation, consciously has the end in view of sending the child to school in the first instance, in the case of the more enlightened parent, so that it might gain more knowledge. The child goes to school to be trained in the first instance, not as a specialist in some or other subject but to gain more knowledge. If anyone of us had been content with the little knowledge that we gained at school or university, we would definitely have become very poor citizens. I think the first end in view should be that the child goes to school in order to gain more knowledge and secondly in order to gain knowledge which will qualify him to a certain extent for his aim in life, that is, to train him for his career. That applies in the first place, of course, to the child in the technical college who becomes an artisan; but also in the primary stage the child should be taught to acquire more knowledge. The third end in view is character-building. Those who have read Horace, will remember “pectora roborant.” In striving for these ends it is not exactly necessary that the child should be bilingual. Great nations in the world, the British, the Germans, the Americans, are not bilingual people. They make use of the one means of the mother language medium in order to educate children for their civic duties, as artisans and also to build their characters. Let us therefore assume that these important factors in the education of the child do not necessarily require the child to be bilingual. What is important is the building of character— “pectora roborant.” I wish, therefore, when I conclude my remarks, to emphasise the fact that the primary end in view, as far as education is concerned, should not be exactly to make the child bilingual, but to educate citizens of the country. But bilingualism is a requirement in our country and therefore we should provide for bilingualism in some other way. It should not really be the purpose of our education. We should be very clear on this point, or otherwise it will again be said in this House as it has so often been said here, that the purpose of education is to educate bilingual citizens. That is not the case. There is another important factor in our education in South Africa. It was mentioned yesterday in passing by the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Wessels), namely, that education also has a national aspect in South Africa. That is one of the fundamental truths that is not sufficiently realised. The child is a link in the life of the nation. The nation may exist for hundreds and thousands of years and the child is the link between the different generations and as the link in the life of the nation it should carry a message from the one generation to the other. It should be faithful to the past of its nation in order to be a good link with the future of the nation. In this debate we should not think that we have only to deal with the question of bilingualism. We also have to deal with the moulding of the child into a conscious citizen, into a conscious unit of its nation. In that connection the question arises as to the measure of agreement between this side of the House and the opposite side. We agree on the desirability of bilingualism. Do we also agree on the mission of the child in the life of the nation, that the child should be the link in the continuity of the nation’s existence, which should convey to future generations its particular philosophy of life? If we agree on this point, then our difficulties will be solved for all time. But it is just in this respect that we do not consider each other’s standpoint and it is just in this respect that neither in this House nor outside, do we adopt the same attitude as far as the child is concerned and the part it has to play as a link in the life of the nation. There are fundamental differences between the points of view of the English-speaking citizens and the Afrikaans-speaking citizens in this connection. Fortunately there are quite a number of fundamental conceptions on which we do agree. Let us now see in which respects we are of the same opinion and then endeavour to find a solution of the points on which we do not agree, but do not let us do that by using force or trying one to outwit the other. I have endeavoured to emphasise that in the past there have been fundamental differences and fundamental differences have arisen between the outlook of the English-speaking Afrikaner and the outlook of the Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaner as to what the ultimate destiny is going to be of the people of South Africa. The child is a part of that outlook. It is the messenger and the link and for that reason the child cannot take up a neutral attitude towards the philosophy of its nation. Let us therefore endeavour to be realistic in this discussion. We have the fortunate background that as fas as religious convictions are concerned there is no difference between the English-speaking Afrikaner and the Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaner; as far as ethical belief is concerned, there is not much difference. The difference we do find is in connection with the political and civic duties of the child. If we mean to be honest with each other and to determine the basic viewpoints of the two sections of the population, we should not fail to settle these difficulties’ in due course without having recourse to force and outmanoeuvring. The English-speaking citizens in South Africa have always stood for the preservation of the British connection. That has been their basic standpoint all along. There may be a few exceptions. As a result of intermarriage, names have no significance in this connection any longer and we trust that in due course the classifying of a person into the one or the other section of the population on account of his name will be completely eliminated. We have this difference in viewpoints—and have we taken it into account in this debate? Have we been sufficiently honest and candid to take into account our different interpretations, the actual interpretation of the fundamental standpoint of the two sections of the population and also our standpoint with regard to bilingualism? It is no secret in this House that the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population represents a most definite national standpoint which is comprised in its own philosophy of life and national philosophy. There are common factors with the English-speaking population, but in respect of this point it is clear to everybody that the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population has a very definite philosophy as to the position and the future of our people. We have our philosophy with regard to our own destiny and it is not connected to any existing empire or nation. Our standpoint is that the destiny of the Afrikaner people in South Africa is that a free and independent nation should live here in the future. In that respect we must necessarily and fundamentally understand each other. No nation expects its children to take up a neutral attitude towards its future. It would be a period of stagnation in the history of a nation if the children had to remain neutral as far as the future of the nation was concerned. I want to ask our English-speaking friends whether their children do not sing their national anthem in which the whole tradition of the nation is embodied, its past and its hopes for the future? In that song is embodied the wish and the prayer of the nation and its attitude towards its past and its future. Is it not the British child who sings his national anthem to his heart’s content and at the top of his voice, and with fervour also sings the song, “Britons never, never shall be slaves”? We Afrikaners appreciate that standpoint. But let us Afrikaners then also be credited with the fact that neither do we wish to be ruled by anybody in the world. We cannot allow our children to remain neutral in this respect. Whereas we have in our homes these ideals in view and whereas our English-speaking fellow citizens have their ideals, do not let us allow those ideals and idealism to remain as obstacles in the path of co-operation between the sections of the population, but let us allow the different sections of the population to realise their idealism in their homes and in their schools, always having a larger ideal of unity in view. We do not want politics in the school. Not one of us will approve of any attempt on the part of any individual, community or organisation to introduce party politics as such into education. But it is quite a different matter when one has to do with the idealism of the nation. That idealism should not be kept away from the school. Those are the fundamentals of the attitude towards life which have to be impressed on the children while they are being moulded into citizens at school. Is it expected from any nation in the world that its highest idealism should not be applied to the education of the children at school? And now I want to know, as one who is rather concerned about the future and one who wishes to do his share during the little time that he has left, to further co-operation between the English-speaking and the Afrikaans-speaking people so that faith in each other may be developed as a result of which one nation with a single philosophy and a single purpose may eventually be created in this country; now I want to know from the Government representatives and from the Ministers: what is the attitude of the Government towards the idealism of the Afrikaner people? What is the attitude of the Government towards the idealism of the Afrikaner people; are they prepared to allow that idealism to be embodied in the philosophy of the future; are they prepared to allow the child to become acquainted with it; are they prepared to allow that high idealism to be interpreted in history? If the Government accepts the view that a nation is at liberty to propagate its idealism, its inspiration and its philosophy through its children, then it should also allow the Afrikaner nation to do so and then there should be no objection to the interweaving of that idealism into the education of the nation. Then there should neither be any objection to a true interpretation of history throughout the school and then no attempt should be made to teach history in our schools as something without life, as a monstrosity. History is not a collection of facts; it is a representation of the life of a nation and as such the child should Obtain its inspiration from it and should not regard it as a lifeless thing. I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister what the standpoint of the Government is with regard to the idealism of the Afrikaner’s philosophy of life in that they wish to become an independent nation in future. I put these questions not in a party political sense, but from the point of view of the nation’s philosophy of life. Nowhere else in the world have I come across a more lifeless system of education than the one we have here in South Africa, where everything connected with the life of people, its language, its religion and its history, play such a neutral part in education. Everything that should inspire and animate the child, that should uplift him and build his character, has been taught in such a manner that it cannot be an uplifting factor in the life of the child. It is a question of taking into account in this debate the philosophy of life of the two sections of the population and the question we have to decide for ourselves is whether we are going to allow that philosophy of life to be furthered or whether we are not going to allow it? In the course of this debate, with which we have been permitted to continue, quite a few remarks have been made which are unfortunately misleading. I am not saying that they were wilfully misleading, but still they are misleading. In the amendment of the Prime Minister he conveyed the impression that when the Union was founded in 1909 the purpose really was to effect a fusion of the English-speaking people with the Afrikaans-speaking people. I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without protesting against that. I am not much younger than the Prime Minister himself. I also went through that part of our history. It is not a fact that the purpose of unification was to fuse the Afrikaner and the English-speaking people. I do not want to put words into the Prime Minister’s mouth, but if the argument is that the purpose of unification was the fusion of Afrikaans-speaking with English-speaking elements, then I want to say that that is not a correct interpretation of history.

Why do you make this accusation now?

I am not making an accusation. I am merely giving my interpretation of history as I see it. I wish to make it clear that I am not here to distort the words used by the Prime Minister or to put words into his mouth, but I want to say that it is not a historical fact that the purpose of unification was to fuse Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking elements. And in this connection I wish to quote a few remarks from the memorandum of Lord Selborne. The memorandum of Lord Selbome furnishes ample proof that the purpose of unification was not the fusion of Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking citizens. As a matter of fact, it would be a distortion of history to call it the main idea of unification. The idea of unification in South Africa is 50 years older than the agreement actually concluded in 1909. The actual founders of the Union of South Africa, or should I say the eventual founders of the Union, had nothing to do with it in the beginning. In the introduction to the memorandum of Lord Selborne, Mr. Basil Williams Says—

This memorandum furnishes a whole series of proofs that unification had not the fusion of the Afrikaans-speaking and the English-speaking citizens in view. To use this as an argument now is to give a representation of the facts which is not supported by history. The main reason was an econmic one. The object in view was to remove economic difficulties, and not to fuse the two elements of the population. When we therefore accept the fact that the unification was an economic and political action and did not have the ulterior motive of bringing the two national elements together, then we assume that the unification of the two elements of the population for which we are striving, is a matter totally independent from the agreement made at the time. One would then indeed be entitled to say that with regard to unification in Canada the idea was that the Canadians and the French should fuse. History shows that the idea was to remove certain administrative and economic difficulties. That was the cause, but the fundamental significance of the bringing about of Union was the opportunity that was afforded to the people of South Africa to build a new future along that road. Section 137 is one of the best proofs of the goodwill of the people at that time.

The view at that time was that the two sections of the population could not for ever live together without cherishing a single aim in life and that is why in Section 137 a good start was made in that it was an interpretation of the good relationship which could be developed to form the basis of the building of a nation. The building of a nation is rather a delicate matter. Nation-building requires special technique which cannot be left to any person; and it is definitely not the same as Empire-building; that is something we should bear in mind. If we in South Africa wish to build a single nation, we must not expect nation-building to mean Empire-building. It has afforded us the opportunity of creating a new idea, to direct the development of South Africa into a new channel and that is why I think it is rather tragic that better use was not made of that opportunity. Section 137 of the Act of Union was a sound principle. The first interpretation, the interpretation of the Select Committee of 1910-11, was also sound, but then we come to the period from 1910 to 1944, a period of 34 years, in which there has practically been no convincing proof that the intention was to further that spirit, to create that atmosphere between the two sections of the population, which should ultimately be our goal. We should be convinced of this fact that if we wish to achieve our goal we should first of all lay a foundation of mutual faith and such mutual faith can only be created when there is respect for each other, a mutual respect for the traditions, a mutual respect for the history and language of both sides. It has not proved to be the case in the course of Union. We cannot say with confidence that mutual faith has been created. If we wish to make a fresh start today with the nation-building suggested, with the national unity which is strived after, we should lay as our foundation mutual faith, mutual respect and one destiny, and then the way for the birth of a nation in future will be paved. I have no time to go into the misuse that has been made of this opportunity afforded by the Act of Union. For so many years now very little use has been made of the opportunity of creating that spirit and atmosphere in order to ensure unification. Instead of paving the way we have made it more difficult. But we wish to emphasise this aspect that whereas it is stated in the amendment of the Prime Minister that we are striving after national unity, we do not want to make any reproaches, but we wish to state it as the standpoint of this House that that is no new language to us; this is not the first time that those words are being used in such a way. We have become used to that kind of language during the past 25 years. We know of attempts since 1917 to further the cause of national unity. Since 1917 attempts were made from time to time to gain advantage for certain parties by concluding agreements with other parties. Then it is given the pretty name of national unity. One cannot mislead a nation in the long run. Nobody can tell us that the attempts that were made to effect fusion in 1920-’21 were attempts to secure national unity. Nobody can tell us that the attempts to effect fusion which have been made repeatedly since that time were made with the purpose of securing national unity. Where we are now trying to find some way of furthering the cause of national unity, do not let us for the umpteenth time make the mistake of trying one to outwit the other. Whereas the matter is to us a most serious one and whereas it is becoming clear that the means of securing national unity is through the education of the child, the school should play its part, but advantage should not be taken of this matter in order to further the interests of the one section to the detriment of the other section. And where we have scientific findings that such development can only take place by means of education through the medium of the mother language, do not let that be eliminated now for the sake of an additional purpose which should be effected by other means. I do not want to prophesy, but I do wish to make this statement—and I want to do it by way of warning to the Government—that where I am trying to convey the viewpoint of my people, I want to say to the Government that if they were to attempt to use our educational system for the purpose of checking the development of the nation, they would not only be making a mistake, but they will be placing an obstacle in the way of the development of South Africa. We want to co-operate; we want to strive after the ideal of a single nation in the distant future. Do not now restrict the development of the one section of the nation to the advantage of the other section. Give each section the freedom to develop. Create mutual trust, and mutual respect, and the ultimate goal will be achieved, not by means of political measures but through the creation of an atmosphere of mutual faith and respect which alone will be strong enough to be the foundation of a future nation in South Africa.

I am glad the Minister of Education is present today, for a change, to listen to this debate on this most important subject. I am also pleased at his presence because I want to deal with a few of his arguments on this matter, and I want to prove that the Minister of Education has completely confused the issue, and has done grave injustice to certain great personalities of the past. My participation in this debate is not due to any desire to pose as an expert on any súbject, and least of all on the subject of education—like the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) has done. Nor do I want to pretend that I am the only one to know all about this subject, as the Minister of Finance often gives the impression of wanting to do. I am only taking part in this debate as a man who has had some practical experience of this question, and as a man who belongs to that section of the population whose language, so far, has always been oppressed. In spite of this I believe in the English-speaking section being given every right and every opportunity, not only of preserving their language, but of using it as an instrument for the full development of the abilities of their young people. But what I am prepared to concede to the Englishspeaking section, I also demand for the Afrikaans-speaking section. We are a young nation, and on account of the fact that we are not a homogeneous nation we should not try to impose our will in regard to the future official language, or languages, of this country on any other section. We wouldn’t succeed in doing so. If we tried it, the effect would be the same as if we tried to ripen green fruit by pressing it. We should not lose sight of the fact that the two sections of the community, Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking, are not equally independent in regard to this question. The English-speaking section, at least, a very large proportion, still recognise the bonds, still adhere to the sentiments tying them to their mother country—England. It is only the Afrikaans section who are entirely independent in that respect. They have no bonds tying them, except the bond of love to their own country, South Africa. Any onslaught therefore, any imagined onslaught on our language,’ the God-given first birthright of any nation, can only have one result—bitterness and discord. All who mean well by the country and the nation realise that there is only one fertile and peaceful basis on which we can work out the country’s salvation and that is, one and all shall recognise and serve one and only one mother country, and that the two sections shall understand and respect each other. We are passing through abnormal times now. Never before has there been such a division, such discord politically, as there is today. Never before have we had greater discord as the result of abuse of power, than we have today. If we want to be honest, in striving for national unity between English and Afrikaans-speaking people, we should not at a time of Strees like the present—when we have our hands full in trying to prevent our being wrecked in a morass of political deterioration—raise an issue as contentious as the one we have before us. Hon. members will not take it amiss if we say that we do not believe the Government and its supporters when they put forward the plea of national unity. Is this the time to cast a bone of contention among the people and to make a political football of this issue and to raise it as an election cry and above all, to link it up with the outstanding source of discord between the two sections—the war? No, it would seem that political motives are behind this agitation. I shall deal with those later. We have had a number of very important debates in this House on a large number of important subjects—our participation in the war, native representation and so on—and this debate is just as important, if not more important, than the other debates, and what do we find?—that while this debate is proceeding there is a complete lack of interest among members opposite. There they are—hardly a dozen of them are in their seats.

They have gone to the races.

Yes, there are other things which possibly interest them more. They were full of this subject— they prate about the importance of bilingualism. They have a lot to say about it, but if we see what members on the Government benches have done, if we look at what they are doing now—we find that it amounts to very little indeed. Very few Government supporters are in their seats today, and yet we have been told that the Government intends forcing this subject through the House by means of their steamroller methods, with the aid of their tame majority behind them. During this debate we have often found the Government represented by only one Minister on the Government benches, and very often the Minister present is an English-speaking Minister, and the Minister of Education, who is also Acting Prime Minister, is more often absent than present in this House. And yet we find those people talking about bilingualism both outside this House on political platforms, and in this House—they have a lot to say about bilingualism in theory, but when it comes to practice they do nothing. There are some members on those benches who still have a sense of shame, and who would rather walk out than vote against their convictions.

Like the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp).

But the others who have such a lot to say about it, and who talk such a lot about bilingualism, keep perfectly quiet when it comes to giving practical effect to their principles. We had that experience in connection with the Board of Trade and Industries, and subsequently once more in connection with the returned soldiers’ board—and what did those members do? They passively allowed the Afrikaans language to be oppressed. Can we be blamed if we don’t take them seriously?

Where is Dr. Malan?

Although they have always been the fiercest opponents of bilingualism, they have now suddenly been converted. We don’t believe in the sort of love they are now suddenly showing for bilingualism. It reminds us of the snake’s love of the frog.

Our love is a practical one.

Yes, we know how practical your love is.

And the public have proved that they stand by us.

The loud-mouthed member for Witbank (Mr. H. J. Bekker) shouldn’t get so excited. I say again that we don’t believe in that kind of love. Before we can believe that they are in earnest they will have to prove it to us and so far they have not done so. We admit that there are some members on the Government side—and to my regret I must say not among the Afrikaans-speaking members—who mean well by bilingualism; the Afrikaans-speaking members over there make a lot of noise, but there are a number of English-speaking members who mean well by bilingualism, and they have actually approached us and said: “What do you suggest? What can we do to make this country more effectively bilingual?” Well, we can easily answer those members. This Government of course is known as the “Commission Government.” They are known for the fact that they appoint commissions for every possible and impossible enquiry. If there were no sinister motives behind all this agitation of theirs, why, then did not the Government appoint a commission of educational experts to go thoroughly into the whole subject and to make recommendations as to how the ideal of bilingualism could best be put into practice. If that had been done, the Government could have placed the experts’ recommendations before us and proposed the necessary resolutions and in that way something might have been achieved. And my second answer to hon. members who are in earnest is this. If we had a national Government I would say to them: “Come, you people who are in earnest. Put your shoulders to the wheel and help us on this side who have been fighting for generations for bilingualism, come and help us so that Clause 137 of the Act of Union may be given effect to in letter and spirit in every sphere of the community, from the GovernorGeneral right throughout the Cabinet down to the lowliest official. Come and help us solve this problem and let us see that all officials in the public service and in other public bodies carry out Clause 137 of the Act of Union.” I assume that among the English-speaking section there are people who are in earnest in their ideas on this subject. And now I want to suggest a test. I want to ask them this—if we, from this side of the House, propose an amendment which will be the logical consequence of the amendment proposed by the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, to apply that amendment to the 272 private English church schools—if we do that, where are they going to vote?

I shall vote for it.

No, they won’t vote for it, and a great many of them will walk out and prove that what they have been saying is nothing but political hypocrisy.

The hon. member must not use the word hypocrisy (huigelary).

Very well, I shall call it political “geveinsdheid.”

No, the meaning of the two words is identical.

They must prove to us that they mean what they say. They say one thing and they do the other thing. Hon. members opposite cannot take it amiss that we adopt such a strong attitude in favour of the continuation of the present system.

The public in the country knows exactly what you stand for— divisions that is what you are out for.

We are fighting for the continuance of the present system, first of all; because in studying the history of this language struggle, we find that one fact emerges clearly, and that is: that it is the Afrikaans-speaking section which has always made every possible effort to get its language rights recognised, and that in practice it has always been the Afrikaans-speaking people who have consistently been oppressed. The Afrikaans-speaking people want their rights recognised, and not only recognised, but they want them to be applied in practice. To this day we have to fight for our rights, even though in theory we prove certain rights. In the business world we know that we have to fight for the rights of the Afrikaans language, and hon. members know how hard we have had to fight in this House to get the principle of bilingualism recognised.

We have always had to fight to get our language recognised, and today it is recognised, and it is given practical effect.

Yes, but we on this side have fought the good fight and we are still fighting today, yet the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have contributed nothing to that fight. The hon. member for Witbank can be as noisy as he likes. The fact remains that it is this side of the House which has made its contributions. Yet now that the Afrikaans-speaking section has progressed in the way it has done, now that it is getting rid of the inferiority complex from which it has suffered, now that it is getting a say in this country, now that we have progressed to the extent of having a total of 1½ per cent. of our schools as Afrikaans single medium schools, now the Prime Minister suddenly, in spite of a very definite promise to the Church, makes an attack on these Afrikaans single medium schools and now he tries to destroy them. But the English single medium church schools are allowed to carry on in spite of the fact that the Englishspeaking section only constitutes a small minority of the population. I say that we are fighting for the continuance of the present system and we do so because educationally that system is sound. We have evidence of the soundness of that system from countries such as Switserland, Belgium and Canada, but we are all the more convinced of the soundness of our case because in our country the educational experts—if not all of them, at least the majority—are in absolute agreement that the present system should be continued. I also want to refer to other evidence in support of the soundness of our fight for this system, and I want to produce my testimony from the same source as that used by the Minister of Finance. He referred to the report of the 1906 Select Committee, and I should like, with your permission Mr. Speaker, briefly to set out the circumstances in which that report was produced. Hon. members know what the position was at the time. They know that Afrikaans in the Cape Province was not receiving justice. Certain petitions were presented to the Cape Parliament and a Select Committee was subsequently appointed to investigate and report on the matter. This report was made and the demands of the Afrikaners were found to well founded— the demands for justice to their language. The investigation did not go into the question of the language medium—it did not go into the question whether it was to be dual medium or single medium. If we study this report—and I want to use the same source as the Minister of Finance—the Minister of Education—as used in support of his contentions—we find first of all this recommendation by the Commtitee—

And then we get this—

But I want to get a little nearer to the Minister of Education seeing that he relied on the testimony of a relative of his in support of his contentions, namely Onze Jan. Now what did Onze Jan say? The following question was put to him—

And the reply to this question was—

He goes further still—

And he replied—

Is it necessary in this connection to explain what the position in Canada is? We have English and French communities there, and every section is left to itself there to work out its educational system as it pleases. They have separate schools there. They have what they call, the “Public Schools” and the “Separate schools,” and the parent can contribute to whichever school he wants his child to go. I need not explain the whole Canadian system. It is the same system as Onze Jan proposed when he suggested that is should be left to the parents through the School Committees to choose the language medium which would be best for his child. But the Minister of Education went still further. In his speech he emphasised what the Prime Minister had already emphasised in his speech, namely, that they were not advocating anything new and that they only wanted to revert to the system which used to prevail. The Minister said this inter alia—

And in order to strengthen his contentions he quoted Onze Jan’s reply to the question I have read. I should like the Minister of Education to give me his attention, if he would be so kind. He told us—and I can quote his words from Hansard, and I can also quote what he read to us—he told us what Onze Jan said. But I want to ask him why he has only quoted one part of the reply. Why did he do that? We know that Canada has this system, but we know, too, that there was another factor which also counted in Canada—religion. When that factor was raised’ in the Select Committee, to which I have referred, this question was put to Onze Jan—

And to this Onze Jan replied—

The Minister of Education only read out the last part, only that part which referred to religion. He said that he did not want our children to be divided in such a manner that a distinction would be made at school in regard to religion. Here we find that the Minister of Education twice quoted Onze Jan in Hansard in support of his contentions. I was sorry when going through the report to find that Onze Jan had not used the identical words which the Minister of Education had quoted. This quotation by the Minister of Education occurs twice in the Hansard Report, and he twice told the House that Onze Jan had used these words—

But if we read the report of the Select Committee we find there that he used these words—

To put it mildly, we must think that hon. members opposite who have not studied this report and who accepted these quotations of the Minister of Education as correct, now that they have had a little more information as to what actually appeared in the report, will have a totally different opinion about Onze Jan’s views, than they had when they listened to the Minister of Education. Take the background of everything I have been trying to reflect—it must be clear that no one, unless he is politically blind, can possibly understand why the Minister of Finance put the position in the way he did.

Ask him why he left out the word “Dutch.”

Well, I think that if the Minister can laugh about the way he represented this question to the House, “the last vein in his body” must have dried up. I say that against the background of everything I have tried to tell the House, it is clear to everyone who is not politically blind that the United Party and the Government are not honest in their intentions in regard to this question of bilingualism. Why have they suddenly developed a snake-like love for a bilingual child? I think we can find a reply to that in the last available figures of the Census returns. What do we find there? We have the fact that if we take the numbers of people over the age of 21 on the Voters’ Roll, 58 per cent. are Afrikaans-speaking. But if we take the figures of persons between 7 years of age and 21 years of age, we find a somewhat different position. In that age group there are two Afrikaans-speaking to every one English-speaking. If we take the class under 7 years we find that for every three Afrikaans-speaking, there is one Englishspeaking child. Remember that the Afrikaner is becoming more and more conscious of himself and more and more nation conscious and that he is gradually getting rid of his inferiority complex, and if all these factor are taken into account, hon. members may realise why this snake-love for bilingualism has so suddenly shown itself in the United Party. No wonder the Johannesburg “Star” let the cat out of the bag when writing about the newly announced policy of the Government—this sudden conversion of the Government—so far as bilingualism is concerned. The paper said this inter alia—

There is a political move at the back of this whole business.

Yes, because the Nationalist Party is a party based on racial lines.

Let me go on to deal with the arguments used by hon. members opposite. First of all we have had the doctrine laid down or proclaimed by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education when they said that they did not want a new system but that they wanted to revert to the system which was in force in those days. Here we have the report of that particular Select Committee which undoubtedly proves that the arguments they used have no foundation whatsoever. The second argument they used was that as a result of the present system, bilingualism is not being fostered but that in fact we are actually producing unilingual citizens. They said that it was the singlemedium schools which arfe the sinners. Is that doctrine borne out by facts? No, it is not. If we go to the heads of our Education departments, if we go to our teachers and to our public examiners and to the statistics, we find that they are all in accord that there has been tremendous progress since 1910 as far as bilingualism is concerned. According to the Census returns for 1936, 46.4 per cent. of all Europeans over seven years of age were bilingual as against 42.1 per cent. in 1918. Does not that show magnificent progress? In spite of this hon. members opposite say that we are going backwards. The arguments they use are not arguments against the present system. But let us refer to one of the few witnesses among our educationalists, quoted by hon. members opposite, to prove how ill-founded the argument used by the Minister of Education was. If we take the 1936 figures we find that 2.51 per cent. of the European families were bilingual. Dr. Malherbe in his book says that in the year 1943 23 per cent. our European families were bilingual. That shows a wonderful progress of 20 per cent. in seven years’ time. Is there anything left then of the argument that we are going backwards so far as bilingualism is concerned? Here we have one of their own witnesses stating that we are not backwards but that there is tremendous progress in this country as far as bilingualism is concerned. The third argument which has been used is that as a result of the present system the children of the two sections are being driven into two separate hostile camps. We again want to ask whether the facts go to prove that they are correct. Take the Union as a whole today. Any honest person will admit that as far as education is concerned Natal and the Free State are at the extreme ends and in the Transvaal and the Cape Province the position is practically identical. If we take it that here in the Cape Province we have 1,600 primary schools, we find that among those there are 51 English medium schools, 15 Afrikaans medium schools and no fewer that 1,534 parallel medium schools— those are the schools where the children are gathered together under one roof and not under separate roofs. But what do we find if we turn to our secondary and high schools? We find that out of 241 schools there are 34 English medium schools, 11 Afrikaans medium schools, nine parallel medium schools where the children are brought together under one roof, and no fewer than 187 dual medium schools—the very type of schools which hon. members opposite are pleading for today. Out of 1,841 schools we find 4.6 per cent. English medium schools, 1.4 per cent. Afrikaans medium schools, and no fewer than 94 per cent. parallel or dual medium schools. By far the great majority of the schools are of the very type which according to hon. members opposite should be established. I can only say that in the light of these incontrovertible facts the political nakedness of the Government Party stands revealed. They are not in earnest about this question of bilingualism. It is nothing but a party political move and what they are going to achieve by it is the very opposite of what they pretend to stand for.

It is a most peculiar phenomenon that the other side of the House which boasts of over 100 members in this House, and which pretends to be the great protagonist of bilingualism in South Africa, has been conspicuous in this debate by two things—the first is its absence and the second is its silence. We can, of course, appreciate it. To an honest man it is always difficult to use commonplaces, and as it is almost impossible for hon. members over there to employ any other kind of argument on this subject, one can quite understand that honest people on the other side of the House are experiencing great difficulty in pleading the cause for which they are supposed to stand. Seeing that we in South Africa have had an educational system which has been in force for twenty or thirty years, and seeing that this system has given general satisfaction—and when I say general satisfaction I mean general satisfaction—general satisfaction because in all those years very little use has been made by parents of the means placed at their disposal to express their dissatisfaction or to put a different system into force—in view of the fact that we have now had a system for 20 or 30 years which has given such general satisfaction, and in view of the fact that such a farreaching change has now to be introduced in that system one asks oneself what are the reasons for this far-reaching change which the Government intends introducing in our educational system? If we listen to the arguments used by hon. members opposite we perhaps do not hear the true reason, but we hear certain reasons advanced for the necessity for this change; and those reasons may be the wish to teach our children in South Africa, to instruct them more effectively. If it were a fact that our children in the past had not been taught in the most effective manner, a change might be necessary to bring about an improvement and to put right the defects in the present system. One object might be to achieve greater bilingualism in South Africa—as we are told—to make the English-speaking people more Afrikaans-speaking, or on the other hand to make the Afrikaans-speaking section more English-speaking, or perhaps the object might be to achieve both results. The object might be to try and create a better spirit between the Afrikaans-speaking section in South Africa and the English-speaking people, although I feel that every individual who looks át this matter sensibly will admit that the spirit between Afrikaans-speaking people and the English-speaking section has improved enormously in South Africa in the last 30 or 40 years. The argument may be raised that, by making changes in our educational system, we shall be able to create a better spirit between Afrikaansspeaking people and English-speaking people in South Africa than we have had in the past. I have mentioned three arguments which might have been used in favour of this very far-reaching change. Or possibly there may be political objectives behind this motion and I think if one takes the arguments advanced by hon. members opposite and analyses them as they stand and eliminates the sophistry and commonplaces in connection with those arguments, one will find that behind it all, in all its nakedness, the whole object of this proposed change in our educational system is nothing but an attempt to estrange the Afrikaner from his spiritual possessions, to try and make him take a different direction from the one he wants to follow and has been following, and try and make of him something which he is not and doesn’t want to be; to bring about this change in South Africa, not for any pedagogic purpose, not to bring about a better spirit between the two sections of the population, but merely to add a further effort to the many efforts that have been made in South Africa in the last 140 years to make loyal Imperialists of the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population of South Africa. Let us go into these questions a little further. The first reason might have been that it is desirable to educate the children in that way, nothing short of a blot on the good reputation of a number of honourable men. This was in quotation marks. I have taken the trouble to get the report of that conference of inspectors from the Minister, and if one reads that report, if words have any meaning, then that report is nothing but a confirmation of what the hon. member for Waterberg said. I want to quote some parts from the report of that conference to prove what I have said. The Minister of Agriculture in the first place said: “It should be understood that that conference of inspectors was not held to decide on the question of dual medium or single medium schools.” That is perfectly true. They were not convened to decide on that issue and consequently they could not take any formal decision on that question. They were merely convened by the Administrator to ascertain what was the best way of introducing dual medium, irrespective of whether they were in favour of dual medium or not. That was all they had to decide. But in spite of that they had a discussion about the question of dual medium. The Minister will find that out if he will take the trouble to go to the Administrator again and ask him—notwithstanding the fact that he wants to pretend that the hon. member for Waterberg was entirely incorrect in stating that these people had nothing to do with the question of dual medium, and notwithstanding the fact that he wanted to create that impression—if he goes to the Administrator he will find out that there was a very full discussion even though they did not pass a formal resolution, and he will further find that an English school inspector at that conference quoted a reference in favour of single medium education. This inspector was not an Afrikaans-speaking man but English-speaking. I don’t want to mention his name but the Minister can go into the question and find out whether what I am saying is correct or not. Here we have an English-speaking man giving a lecture against dual medium and he was supported throughout, but no formal resolution was passed because the matter had not been submitted to the conference in that way. Yet the Minister of Agriculture wanted us to believe that the hon. member for Waterberg had tried to create a wrong impression when he said that the unanimous opinion of the conference was in favour of mother tongue instruction. And I say that the Administrator goes further and that he casts a blot on the good reputation of a number of his officials. To prove the truth of what I am saying I want to go a little deeper into the report of this conference of inspectors. First of all I would like to deal with the contention that we must have dual medium schools because South Africa is becoming a unilingual country, or, in other words, because bilingualism is on the downward grade instead of on the upward grade. If it is on the increase there is no need to alter the system. Now this is what the conference said—

These are school inspectors, a conference of school inspectors, and that conference had to consider a change in the educational system because the Administrator had stated that people were becoming unilingual; it was a conference of English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking inspetors and they said—

And then they go on and they have to devise means for the introduction of dual medium. That was a duty imposed upon them They didn’t want to do it. The tried their best to fence and to put off as long as possible any decision. Why did they want to put it off? If it were a good thing they would want to introduce it at once. If it is a bad thing they will try and fence. They say—and it is very interesting that in terms of Ordinance No. 5 of 1921 of the Cape Province, and similar Ordinances passed that same year by the Free State and the Transvaal—any parent had the right to demand that his children shall be taught in both languages. The parent had the right under the Ordinance of the Cape, the Free State and the Transvaal to demand that his children shall receive instruction through the dual medium, and they (the inspectors) said that in spite of the fact that that right had existed in the three large Provinces for 21 years, not a single parent out of all the thousands of parents had ever demanded that his child should be instructed through both languages. They simply mentioned it in passing. That is the second bit of evidence to show that they did not agree with this dual medium idea and that they did not think anything of it; and then they said: “Well, if there is a feeling that the children in South Africa are not sufficiently bilingual, we, as school inspectors are prepared to make some suggestions how to make the children more bilingual.” And then they suggested how, in their opinion, the children could be made more bilingual. Did they in their suggestions speak about dual medium? No, not at all. In the suggestions they put forward to make the children more bilingual there was no word, and no recommendation in favour of dual medium, but it is interesting to know what they actually did propose—

That is our point of view. And then they go on—

In other words the child of every Union citizen must, from the very first standard be taught to speak the second language. Is not that our policy? But if one continues to read their recommendations one finds that what they suggest is almost tantamount to the motion which we have proposed in this House. They are in entire agreement with the policy which we proclaim in our motion. And they go on to say this—

We are in entire agreement with that. Their further recommendation is as follows—

Not theoretically but practically. That is what we are anxious to have. We want people to be able to speak the two languages in practice. Is not that the policy of the Nationalist Party? And these methods suggested by these inspectors, are they not the educational condemnation of the whole debate as carried on by hon. members opposite? But now they have been told that they have to introduce the dual medium, that it is their duty to do so. The Administrator doesn’t ask them for their opinion but he tells them that they must introduce it and now they try to do their best, not for themselves, but for the children of South Africa, and they therefore go further and they come along with a fourth recommendation—

They say that they do not want to introduce it at once but they want to make experiments. They want to take a number of schools and introduce the dual medium at various stages and to various degrees, and then to see what the result would be in order to ascertain—

That is what they want to ascertain. And then they go on—

They say that it is an axiom that you retard the child’s progress if you introduce the dual medium. They say that there must be retardation and they only want to see how that retardation can be made as little as possible. And then there is a third thing they want to ascertain—

The axiom is that it will be detrimental and they want to try to save the situation as much as possible. This was the unanimous resolution of English and Afrikaans-speaking inspectors. I notice that the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander) seems to be very much astonished. A lecture was read by an English-speaking inspector against dual medium. And then they go on to say—

Two things emerge from this report. In the first place that although the Minister of Agriculture tried to prove that the hon. member for Waterberg had been dishonest in referring to this meeting of inspectors as an attempt to confirm and to support his point of view, it now appears that if there was anything that was not clear or dishonest, it was—I admit, unconsciously—not on the part of the hon. member for Waterberg but on the part of the Minister of Agriculture. This meeting of inspectors from beginning to end, constituted a combination of the attitude adopted by the Minister of Agriculture and his whole party over there. Furthermore, this report of the inspectors—and inspectors in the past have to a large extent laid down the policy that should be followed in regard to education—I say in the second place this report goes to prove that this matter was not raised, i.e. the question of dual medium, on any educational ground but only for political purposes—and it has nothing to do with education in South Africa. There is only one other question which 1 want to put in this connection. Against whom is aimed this agitation which has been started throughout the country? It is not aimed against the English-speaking section. It is peculiar that it should be aimed against those people who are trying to become bilingual and against those people among whom we find the largest number of bilingual persons. If hon. members opposite really want to make people more bilingual, one would say to them “charity begins at home.” As we already are more bilingual than they are they should start with themselves and once they are as bilingual as we are, all of us together can do a little more. But the attack is not directed against those people who are unilingual but it is directed against that section of the population among whom we find most of the bilingual persons. I haven’t heard a single word from members opposite against the English-medium schools which will continue to be unilingual. But an attack has been made on the single-medium Afrikaans schools—though not a word has been said against the hundreds of unilingual English schools. In this connection the Minister of Education criticised the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) and I should like to say a few words in that connection. As the hon. member for Gordonia said that the Principal of Bishops was not in favour of the introduction of dual medium. The point he made was the same as I made a little while ago that these things are only to be applied to the single medium Afrikaans schools and not the English schools. The single medium English schools under the Government’s proposals will be allowed to carry on as in the past because they have no intention of carrying out that policy, and the Minister said this—

And then we had the comment by the Minister of Education on these words of the hon. member for Gordonia, as he put it—

It should be remembered that the hon. member for Gordonia said that the Principal of Bishops had stated that he was not going to make a change now and the Minister replied that what the hon. member for Gordonia had said was an almost shameless interpretation of what the Principal had said. I have here an extract from the “Cape Argus” of the 6th December, 1943. The headings are as follows—

This report reads—

And then there is a cross-head “Our Own Way” and under that we find the following—

But what are they doing now?

I am dealing with the reply which the Minister gave the hon. member for Gordonia when he accused him of a shameless interpretation of what the Principal of Bishops had said. And then the report goes on—

We advocate all these things. Learn the second language but learn it as a language but not as a medium of instruction. It may sound strange but I find none the less that on a serious question like this I am in entire agreement with the principal of Bishops. The next argument used by hon. members opposite is that we must have the dual medium here to create a better spirit between the Afrikaans-speaking and the English-speaking sections. If they go to the same school, if we have parallel classes, a good spirit will be created among them. If they play together a good spirit will be created—but only by depriving the Afrikaner of what is his own and for which he has been fighting for more than 100 years. As far as that matter is concerned there is one fact which we can place on record. I am not going into the question of whether it is right or wrong, whether there is any justification for it or not. I only want to recall the facts that this movement which hon. members opposite have started will be looked upon by the Afrikaner as an onslaught on his spiritual treasures. If we want to create a better understånding between the English-speaking and the Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa we can only do so by making everyone realise with certainty that he is not going to be persecuted or oppressed by the other section. In that way a better spirit can be created. It cannot be done if one section feels that it is being oppressed. That is not going to create a good spirit. It will only tend to worsen the prevailing spirit. And if we study our history we find that it is those very attacks on the language of the Afrikaner which have made the spirit between the English-speaking and the Afrikaans-speaking people in this country so bitter. We know that Slagtersnek occurred immediately after the attack had been made on the language of the Afrikaners. The feelings between the two races immediately after the second British annexation of the Cape were fairly good, but those good feelings were destroyed by the attack on the Afriakaner’s language. If we study the pages of history and we frame a table of the relations between the English-speaking and the Afrikaans-speaking people of South Africa showing the highest points and the very lowest points, we can study the lowest points, where feelings were at their very worst and we shall find that these periods of bad feeling always coincided with an attack by the British Imperialistic side of the spiritual treasures of Afrikanerdom. We can go right through our history and find that that is the position. When the Nationalist Party came into power in 1924 it did a tremendous amount to create a better understanding between English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people in this country. It did more than has ever been an Afrikaner of whom we are proud unto this day. He did a great deal for both languages, for Hollands and for Afrikaans. That doesn’t mean that I want in any way to detract from the old Scottish parsons who have done such a lot of good in this country.

We owe them a lot.

Yes, we owe them a great deal. They came here to help the “Boer” people. The great thing was that all those old Scottish parsons were bilingual When they came here they knew only one language, but all of them learned Afrikaans and afterwards they used to preach in Afrikaans. They were good Afrikaners and we are proud of them, and the example set by these old Scottish parsons nearly a century ago was indeed a very fine one. They were bilingual nearly a century ago, and I should like to put this question. What is the position today in regard to our English parsons in this countr? Are they bilingual? No, our English parsons here speak only one language. I am not referring to the exceptions, but we greatly resent the present situation after the very fine example which the Scottish parsons set nearly a century ago. We look upon this proposal of the Government as a factor which will lead to discord. Where we used to have peace and quiet we have suddenly had a serious explosion. Let me put it this way: the ship of education has been torpedoed. A bomb has been released in our midst with shattering effect. Our educational atmosphere used to be sound. The storm had settled down. But this action of the Government—pardon me for saying so—has in it the germ of malice. It came like a bolt from the blue and it disturbed our harmony and our peace. Bilingualism is being undermined and the progress which we had made before is now being stopped. It is causing agitation—very unnecessary agitation—it is causing fresh bitterness and the result is going to be a fresh outbreak of the racial struggle in this country such as we have never had before. I say that the undermining and subversive activity with which we are now faced is not the responsibility of this side of the House. The Afrikaans-speaking section of the population was in favour of the English language in the sense that we had accepted the English language. I feel—and I am convinced that all on this side agree with me—that we have accepted the English language as a second language, and I feel that we can never depart from that, but we have not accepted the English language as a language of South Africa; we have not accepted it in the same way as America speaks English although America speaks the language of America and not the language of England. We have accepted English in this sense—not as a language of England but as the second language of South Africa. And I feel that even if we become a Republic, and even if our English friends were to leave the country, we should still retain the English language, because it is a world language, and that is why our educational unions and our Afrikaans schools have always gone out of their way to teach the child English, and because of that we can pride ourselves on the fact today that our children do very well in the English language, even better than the English children. Who are the people who are agitating for equal language rights? We all do, except our English friends. The Afrikaners agitate for equal language rights; we agitate day in and day out; our teachers, our school boards, agitate for equal language rights; we insist on people knowing both languages. Are our English friends doing so too in their English schools? Do they insist enthusiastically on the English child learning Afrikaans? No, they do not agitate, they do not go out of their way to insist on the English child learning Afrikaans. They have suddenly been awakened now. It is a little late. I should like to prove that even in the past the Dutch churches used to insist that English, the second language, should be learned by our children. When I came to the Cape Province in 1903, it was the custom in nearly every Dutch church for the sermon in the evening to be preached in English. Did not the church set a very fine example there in trying to induce people to learn English? Did the English churches ever do it? No, when we went out of our way to learn English the English-speaking section used to shake their heads; and they practically ridiculed the efforts of the Afrikaans people to learn the English language, while they themselves didn’t move a finger to learn Afrikaans. We have two theological faculties. Hon. members opposite know that the syllabus of the Theological Faculties of Stellenbosch and Wellington is in both languages in spite of the fact that these two seminaries do not receive any Government subsidy. Half the subjects are taught in Afrikaans and the other half in English. There we have it again—this very fine example and not a solitary Dutch predikant who leaves the seminary is not entirely bilingual.

They have to preach a test sermon in English.

Can that be said of our English parsons? On one occasion I myself acted as interpreter to the Archbishop of Cape Town in the rural districts. And now we are suddenly told that this side of the House wants to place obstacles in the way of bilingualism. Yesterday an hon. member opposite said: “Our children are isolated today. Our children are being penalised. Our children know only one language; our children are monoglots, and cannot be appointed to the Public Service.” They have suddenly been awakened, and bilingualism is like a nightmare to them. Now that they find that they are kept back, that they cannot get positions in the Public Service, they are suddenly coming to their senses. Whose fault is it that they are not bilingual? It is their own fault, but there is something more behind this farce, and it is this, that the object of this whole business is to find work in South Africa for English boys. They came here as monoglots, and work has to be found for them now. Every unilingual Englishman—as far as I am concerned they are foreigners—is now to be appointed to the Public Service. They have suddenly come to their senses because they find that the Public Service is closed to these immigrants. Another course has to be found. Only recently in this House we had the same thing when we advocated the principle of members of the Board of Trade and Industries having to be bilingual. We found then that the Government side of the House would not comply with our request, and what was the result? Five of the seven members know only one language. They are people who come from other countries. We are suddenly told of their special knowledge. It is an indirect insult to our own people. We have ample competent men to appoint to the Board of Trade and Industries, but we are now told that these unilingual men are more competent. I say that it is degrading and intolerable. Even hon. members opposite don’t set a good example as far as bilingualism is concerned. I have never attended their caucus yet, but I believe they have elected a unilingual member of this House as Chairman of their caucus, and their procedure and their minutes are all in English. And then they talk about bilingualism while their own caucus is unilingual. And what does this proposal of the Government contemplate—nothing but a unilingual South Africa. The child has to be caught young and has to be influenced.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Hospital is given to making interjections and denials. I merely want to point out that what he has said in this House was denied by the Cape Town City Council. Even the Mayor of Cape Town denied it.

The hon. member must confine himself to the question before the House.

The hon. member feels very hurt about it but he has been publicly stigmatised as a man who doesn’t speak the truth.

The hon. member has not obeyed my ruling.

If there is one man in this House whom I, if the Chair would allow me, would stigmatise as a coward, it is he because he says something here and runs away.

Order, order.

Afrikaans sounds too Afrikaans for the Imperialistic section; it isn’t sufficiently red, and that is why it has to be exterminated. Afrikaans is an inferior language in their estimation—it is the language of the conquered, the language of slaves. In the Sons of England the spirit of “Down with Afrikaans” prevails. They want one language only. Fortunately, this powerful section on this side of the House has opposed this pernicious tendency: were it not for that, our schools would long since have been unilingual.

Tell us about the diamonds.

Tell us who is the biggest coward in the House. The imperialistic spirit is being revived by this proposal. Hon. members opposite who are Afrikaansspeaking refuse to realise it. They are blind to what is their own. That is the spirit which prevails over there and it is a breach of faith towards the Afrikaans-speaking section. British domination is again being perpetuated by this measure. We shall never forget the spirit of a Lord Milner.

Who was he?

If we take the word “Milner” into our mouths we feel inclined to spit it out. What he aimed at was to exterminate our language, our morale and our traditions. Thanks be to Providence that he didn’t succeed. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) painted the Prime Minister as the great champion of bilingualism. Yet, at one time the Prime Minister did believe in the Afrikaner nation and the Afrikaner language. That was when he wrote “A Century of Wrong”—when he was a Boer general. But the Prime Minister has lost those ideals and today he has cut adrift from his own people and he completely ignores them. He has abandoned his people—he has denied them—and where is he today?

Not in your nest.

Where is the Prime Minister today?

You tell us.

I must warn the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) not to continue interrupting.

Fortunately in my part of the country I have become accustomed to the noise of crows. The Prime Minister’s seat is empty in this country and in the House. Today he wears the Judas crown of a Field Marshal. Has that crown been accorded to him by this House? In his eyes the British Empire is everything and his people are nothing.

The hon. member must come back to the question before the House.

We appreciate British friendship. Friendly gestures are appreciated by us and have always been appreciated by us. We are equally willing to hold out the hand of friendship, but hon. members opposite have always withheld then hands in regard to language and other questions. We are in favour of co-operation, but who disturbs our unity? We appreciated what William Stead did when he defended the Afrikaners in the second War of Independence against the libellous attacks which appeared in the English newspapers. He contradicted those statements in his “Review of Reviews” and he declared that those allegations were untrue. And when our children were dying in the murder camps it was Emily Hobhouse who put out her hand and we have never forgotten it, and we shall remember her as long as there is an Afrikaner nation. The dual medium plan of education is a challenge issued by the other side of the House. It is the other side of the House which has challenged us and has cast this bone of contention and this bomb among us. We pray for an amicable settlement. We want co-operation, but we refuse to allow the Boer people to be destroyed. Our sons and daughters will fight to the last. The first step this Government took was to plunge us, against our will, into a British war, and to disarm the Boer people and to arm the natives and the coloured people.

The hon. member must come back to the question before the House.

That is what they did and today they come forward with another bone of contention and they want to torpedo our children or our language, and thereby our nation. In that way they hope to bring about our downfall. Haven’t they done enough by throwing Union citizens into gaol? Feelings of deep resentment were caused as a result of the Government’s action in that respect. And now, at a time like this, they try to torpedo the Afrikaans language and to sabotage our culture and our national soul. Do hon. members opposite want a second Ireland here? Is that what they aim at? If they continue in this way, we shall be like the Irish; we shall not fear death; we shall fight for our rights. You can expect us to lay down our lives on the plains and the gallows to the very last man. We shall lay down our lives for our ideals and for our people. You are going to create a second Ireland in this country and you will find the same spirit here as prevails among the Irish. Is it necessary, is it really necessary for hon. members opposite in these stirring times when feeling is running so high, when this side of the House has so often had its susceptibilities hurt, is it really necessary for the Government to select this time to introduce a measure like this? Could they not have waited until feelings had simmered down? No, they know they have a majority, but let me tell them that he who has the power and avails himself of that power to oppress the other side is not a man, and is not a hero. Knowing that they have the majority they are systematically hurting and offending the Afrikaner’s innermost feelings. I beg of you to leave us alone and not to interfere with us at a time like this. Do not humiliate us; do not hurt the susceptibilities of our children and our teachers. We on this side have not neglected our duties. The other side has done so, but not we. Do not at this stage force anything on to us alleging that you want to encourage us to become bilingual, because the Afrikaner is actually learning the second language. It is the other side which in the past has neglected its duty and hasn’t learned the other language. We have been true and faithful to our duty in every possible respect. Search your own hearts and you will then see where the blame rests. It doesn’t rest with us hut with hon. members opposite. Hon. members cannot blame us for being suspicious, because it is they themselves who have made this difficulty which aims at our destruction as a nation, at the destruction of our language and our traditions, yet I want to assure the Government that in spite of its attitude, we on this side of the House, and those we represent will learn the second language. We are going to learn it because we have adopted it as a language of South Africa, not as a language of England, but as a language of South Africa. The English language will stay in this country, we give you that assurance. We are going to learn it but we also beg of you to do your share towards learning the second language.

We are doing so.

Afrikaans is our mother tongue too.

Your assurances are like empty vessels. You cannot prove that you have ever done anything. But this side of the House can produce evidence. It is hon. members over there who today are faced with difficulties on account of the numbers of boys and girls belonging to their side who know only one language. Stand up and follow our example, and we shall accept the hand of friendship of the English-speaking section. If you do as we are doing, this bone of contention in regard to our language will disappear for ever.

May I with all deference put this question to hon. members opposite: Are they so lacking in moral courage as not to take any further part in the debate on this comprehensive and important motion? Is that perhaps because the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) or the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) or other hon. members on this side of the House have delivered addresses that have rested on such sound scientific foundations that hon. members opposite are not in a position to provide an answer to them. It is clear to me that the propositions that have been presented by this side of the House in connection with this motion cannot be answered by hon. members opposite. I am glad to see that the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) is present. I want to reply briefly in connection with the speech which he delivered a little while ago in this House. I do not want to launch a personal attack on him, and I shall endeavour to be as concise as possible. He has posed here as an educationist of the first rank, and I want to ask him this Will he admit that if there is one educational principle on which all educational experts agree in all respects, it is the principle of unadulterated and undiminished mother tongue education. He also supports the supplementary medium of which this motion makes mention. Hon. members opposite are now the great champions of the second language as a supplementary medium, and it is nothing else than, rending and a falsifying of genuine mother tongue education in the country. All educationists will admit that mother tongue education can only become an accomplished fact when it commences as a medium of instruction with the preparatory classes in the primary schools and is continued, unadulterated and undiminished, throughout the intermediate schools right up to the highest educational circles in the country. If we introduce a supplementary medium to replace the mother tongue, then we do not have that unadulterated and undiminished mother tongue education. It was in truth an insult to the intelligence of this House when the hon. member for Bethal (Mr. Fourie) stated here that education in the mother tongue implied education in the mother tongue up to Standard IV, that is education up to Standard IV with the child’s mother tongue as the medium. No, if you do that you are on the other hand contributing to the rending and disfiguring of mother tongue education insead of pleading for unadulterated education in the mother tongue, as the term is understood by educationists. The hon. member for Vryheid has attempted to gloss over the alteration in reference to the Voortrekker High School in Maritzburg. Before I go further into that I want to ask him whether that is the way in which he will set a crown on the Afrikaans medium schools in our country. Why is he not willing to put into practice in regard to Afrikaans medium schools the sound principle of development of a school? He has allleged here that there were 800 children in the school, and that it had consequently become too big. But is that a reason why some of these children should be taken away and transferred to an English medium school? No, the ideal course of development of such a school is that when the Voortrekker school has expanded to such an extent that it has 800 children, and in the opinion of the authorities has become too big, then a Lower Voortrekker School and a High Voortrekker School should be brought into the picture. That is the ideal course of development of such a school and it is what we would have expected. If the numbers are still too large, why not then establish an Afrikaans medium boys’ school and an Afrikaans medium girls’ school as two separate institutions? Why not set the crown of development on those schools in that way? Why, when the school becomes too big should a part of it disappear, and disappear moreover in an English medium school? The hon. member stated further in his address that the Voortrekker School asked as far back as twelve months ago for the erection of additional class rooms, but that this request was refused because Natal had already decided to introduce the dual medium. He appeals to the Education Ordinance of 1942, I think Section 12 of that Ordinance, under which Natal was supposed to have decided on dual medium education. The hon. member read out Section 12, and he intimated that it was required there that both official languages should be used as mediums of instruction. We know that it was provided in that section that as from 1943 the second language should be used in Standard II for teaching a subject, and from the following year in Standard III also for a subject with a minimum of 2½ hours a week and a maximum of four hours per week. That is no dual medium that is provided for there, and yet it is what the hon. member appeals to.

The dual medium existed long before this section.

But the argument was that the dual medium schools in Natal were based on this section in the ordinance, and I maintain that that is not the case because it only provides that 2½ hours a week will be used to teach one subject in a class with the second language as the medium of instruction. The hon. member of course knows what the procedure is even in connection with that.

I ought to know.

I know also. I am acquanted with the procedure that is followed in the Natal schools with reference to this matter. In those periods the child does not learn “geskiedenis” or “aardrykskunde” but “history” or “geography.” The period can be three-quarters of an hour or half an hour, and just at the beginning or at the end of the period five minutes cap be clipped off, and in that way this provision of the ordinance is in practice rendered abortive. No, this proposal and this procedure in Natal is a violation of the whole position in the superlative degree. Let us be honest in regard to the interpretation that is given there in reference to the dual medium. Let us be honest there and admit that the educationists are at one on the point that it is an erroneous educational principle to teach a child a language in that manner. We cannot teach a child by giving him a lesson through that language for half an hour a day in history or geography. That is not the sound educational method. The sound educational method is that of instruction by way of object lessons. The hon. member for Vryheid will acknowledge as a teacher that we should make the language lessons objective, and if we teach English or Afrikaans to the children in that way we shall make them bilingual. I was fortunate to receive half of my education in a single medium school. But we took care as we do not take care today, that the children in those schools learned both languages, and I think that I can perhaps deliver a speech here in English today just as well as the hon. member for Vryheid. We know that the teachers in languages in the single medium Afrikaans schools apply thorough methods, to teach the children how to talk the second language. There are, for example, conversational lessons to teach the children to talk the language properly, and it is done in an objective manner. For instance, we lay a table and teach the children such terms as : “Dinner is ready,” “Will you have another helping” and so on and so forth. That is the way to make a person bilingual. That is the sound educational method to teach the second language. It is not reasonable to come forward with a dual medium such as is suggested in the proposal that has been brought forward by the other side which violates all sound educational principles. It was further argued that the object of this system of dual medium schools is to try to obtain racial peace in South Africa. I can tell you this, that it will not bring racial peace in South Africa; you will see racial war in South Africa and not racial peace. I should also like to say this to the hon. member on the other side.

Business suspended at 1.0 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

When business was suspended this morning I was engaged in drawing the attention of the House to the way in which the other side of the House were pleading for a sort of system of education that would contribute to the destruction of sound educational principles. I was also engaged in dealing with the hon. member for Vryheid, but seeing that he has not put in an appearance I will leave that matter in abeyance and later when he takes his seat, I shall direct one or two thoughts to him. I want to state here very clearly and without mincing matters that after we listened to the speeches of hon. members on that side of the House, after we had seen how these people came with their winged words of bilingualism and national unity, the question involuntarily occurred to us whether that side of the House were honest in regard to the educational system that they are here advocating.

Yes.

You say you are honest about that; then I want to tell hon. members opposite that they are launching a very sly and cunning offensive in order to obtain bilingualism ; under cover they are carrying out an assault on the single medium school in this country, and these dual medium schools that you are advocating represent nothing else but the pernicious policy of anglicisation of Lord Chales Somerset and of Milner. The only difference between the attack that was made at that time and the attack that has been made today is that then the enemy of the nation entered the lists with vizor drawn, bent on total anglicisation, while precisely the same attack has been made today but the enemy keeps under cover. These dual medium schools for which that side of the House are making such enthusiastic propaganda are, we maintain, nothing else than an extension of that pernicious policy of anglicisation. It is a sort of educational policy that they are advocating to the misleading accompaniment of those high-sounding words “national unity” and “bilingualism.”

Are you not in favour of bilingualism?

Yes, I am all for bilingualism, but I am not in favour of setting up a false idol of bilingualism. The Nationalist Party stands for bilingualism, and you also stand for bilingualism. Why are we arguing over matters on which we are agreed? If you only put into practical effect this policy of bilingualism over which you theorise, there will be no differences between us; but the difference is that your bilingualism is a political trick because the people know that in the past you did not profess bilingualism. We are not against bilingualism. We differ from that side of the House in regard to the methods that should lead to the realisation of that bilingualism, and the difference between that side of the House and this side of the House is that they come along with a pernicious political trick to promote that policy, whilst we present a policy that is based on sound pedagogic principles. This is again a clear proof that that side of the House are not honest in their intentions about bilingualism, and that they do not honestly contemplate a sound educational system in this country. Here I want to peer into the future and to prophesy that this pernicious policy from that side of the House will in the first place be dashed to pieces against the languageconscious parents of this country. Not all of us are parents of the stamp of the hon. member for Potchef stroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) who believes that you are educating your children on right lines when you send them to an English medium school to receive their education through the medium of a foreign language. That period of anglicisation is past for South African parents.

You should not discriminate.

I am only discriminating between the superlative policy that we represent and the policy of the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Prinlsoo) who knows only the one word “discrimination.” Let me put it in this way to that hon. member.

Where is your child?

The hon. member asks where my child is. My child had always been in an Afrikaans medium school, and if that hon. member calls that in question there is something wrong with his eyes and also his intelligence. I shall be glad if the hon. member would now cease his frivolous interjections and then he also may learn something. If that hon. member really posesses national pride and national sentiment, then he will stand up like a man and break a lance for the Afrikaans single medium school.

I have done more than you have.

I maintain that this pernicious policy of dual medium schools will in the first place dash in vain against the language-conscious and national-minded parents of this country, and in the second place it will be smashed when it runs against the organised corps of teachers in South Africa. The teachers also figure in the intelligentzia of the country, and I am convinced that speaking through their congresses, they have unequivocally expressed themselves in favour of the single medium schools; and I have the right to affirm that that pernicious policy of dual medium schools will batter itself in vain against the stone wall of the organised corps of teachers in this country.

Is that a threat or a promise?

It is not a threat; it is the truth. I am also convinced that this policy of yours, because you do not mean it honestly in regard to the education of our children, will be smashed to smithereens against the nationally conscious child in this country, and I want to tell hon. members that it was very striking to my mind, that a member on that side of the House belonging to the Jewish persuasion, yesterday stood up and made use of the Afrikaans language to launch, as it were, an attack against Afrikaans medium schools.

We on this side can all do that.

I shall not waste time on that hon. member, because he is a very monotonous subject. That side of the House will not convince us merely by using Afrikaans in our debates that they are genuinely in favour of bilingualism. One can avail oneself of that medium and still disseminate an unnational spirit in this House. One of Israel’s prophets in this House stood up and had recourse to the Afrikaans language to try to deliver a death-blow to Afrikaans medium schools. Let me ask this of the Jewish members: Will they admit that they have a synagogue? Will they admit that, after their children leave the Afrikaans or English school medium in the afternoon, they then go to the Synagogue to learn Hebrew? Why is a Jew today still a Jew? It is because he still clings to that Jewish language, because he has respect for his synagogue, because he has respect for his language, because he has respect for his traditions and his destiny. I want to say this to the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) and other Jewish members on that side of the House, you get today the red-English Jew, the white Dutch Jew, the black Abyssian Jew, and there is the Japanese Jew, But under all circumstances, the Jew remains a Jew? Why? Just because he clings to that synagogue, because he clings to his church and his language and his traditions. Accordingly I think it was very unseemly of them to stick their nose into the sound, ideal educational system in our country. If they use the Afrikaans language, which is a national medium, and they want to stick their nose into the ideal educational system of our country, then in my opinion they are doing something which is quite uncalled for. I want to say with all respect, that I think this pernicious dual medium policy on the part of the Government benches will also crash in ruins against the church. Now I hope hon. members opposite will have no further observations to make if we talk about the church of our people. That is the church in which the Afrikaner ideals have always been preserved in their pristine purity. It is the church that has numerous points of contact with our people, and which exercises manifold influences on them. The church is the greatest foster-mother of public opinion. As its influence permeates you obtain a sound national conscience, and the national conscience does not support the side of the dual medium schools but of the single medium schools. I want to say to members of the Dutch church on the other side that the church has taken a line which we follow because our fight for our language is a fight for our culture, and our struggle for our language and our culture is interwoven in the fabric of our national life. Let me bring that home clearly to him. We have seen that the Afrikaner organisations on the whole have ranged themselves under the banner of the single medium school because our national school is pot a foreign adhesion but something of national growth.

A Nationalist Party outgrowth.

Yes, at one time the hon. member was also a Nationalist. Let me ask the hon. members opposite whether in France the children are educated through any other medium than their mother tongue, or whether the English schools do not use the English language as a medium? Why then cannot the Afrikaner child be educated through the medium of Afrikaans in the Afrikaans schools? Throughout the world it is acknowledged that the mother language is the proper medium. I want to ask hon. members whether they will admit that there is a difference between the English people and the Afrikaner people. They must admit there is an Afrikaner nation with a separate Afrikaans intellectual world, a separate Afrikaans national ethos, just as there is a separate French nation with a separate French intellectual world and a separate national ethos. So also are the Afrikaners a people apart. They differ from the English people. The Afrikaans people do not reside in London but in South Africa. Accordingly, I want to make an appeal to hon. members; if they admit that in England this is considered a sound educational principle, a national principle, they should also be willing to acknowledge it for South Africa. We do not want to have an Imperialist educational system.

What does the constitution say?

I will tell you what the constitution says: That my people will be recognised as a separate cultural entity, that the two sections of the people shall develop alongside each other as separate cultural entities, and that they will extend mutual respect to each other. But the constitution that you want to have is an unnational constitution. Our nation is a separate nation, with a separate individualistic outlook, a distinct character and atmosphere. Accordingly, we also demand our separate schools; we demand a sound ideal system of education under which the people may be educated on sound national principles. But let me ask hon. members opposite what a sound, ideal, educational system comprises.

Dual medium.

I should like to tell you this, that a sound ideal system of education must take into consideration the questions: Who are you; what do you know, and what can you do? In other words, a sound educational system has as its object the promotion of the moral, the intellectual and the social development of the child.

Hear, hear.

Some people hear, but do not understand, and then you have the case of those people whose intelligence is centred in the ear instead of in the head. I want to return to my argument, and that is that a sound system of education envisages the model and ideal objective of the moral, intellectual and social development of the child. A system of education that takes into consideration a true objective produces as a result a balanced personality that says “no” to what is wrong and “yes” to what is right. But what is the great mistake that you are making? Instead of the other side of the House being honest and coming with an ideal educational policy for the country, they parade with over-emphasis an idolisation of bilingualism. In other words, they are emphasising bilingualism to such a degree that it will contribute to the general enfeeblement of the ideal object, a sound and noble educational policy for our country. I repeat that if hon. members are in agreement that a sound educational policy has not merely bilingualism as its object, then they will realise that our standpoint is the right one. They want to elevate bilingualism to the plane of an objective. That you cannot defend on sound pedagogic principles.

How is it that you are in favour of bilingualism if you are against it?

The hon. member is all at sea. He cannot draw the distinction between bilingualism and a single medium school as a means of promoting bilingualism. The hon. member has not got the brain capacity of a babe to enable him to distinguish between the means and the end. That is precisely the ground over which the battle is being fought. That is precisely what we envisage. We have the same object in view, namely, bilingualism. But what is the price that you desire we should pay for bilingualism? The price is too high. The price that is demanded is that we should sacrifice our self-respect. If you present a supplementary medium policy, a dual medium policy, then you will have destroyed the most powerful medium of communication that has been made available to the Afrikaner child to acquire knowledge. If hon. members trample underfoot the principle of mother tongue education, they will be doing violence to the most potent channel of communication for a child to acquire knowledge, and thereby they will be destroying the greatest medium of communication for the transmission of knowledge from generation to generation. Can they provide a substitute for that channel; they offer as a substitute the dual medium, a degenerate instrument in the hands of the child. I have not much more time at my disposal, but I see the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) in his place, and I would like to direct a few words to him. I do this with no idea of being personal. I want to confine a few terse remarks to him, and I will immediately quote from his speech. He said—

With all deference, I want to tell the hon. member for Vryheid that I do not grudge him being described as an educationist. I admit that he has done some study in that direction, but when he delivers such an address which is a violation of all that is sound in education, he must not describe himself as an educationist of the first rank but rather as a sly, political jackal. Let me say with all deference to the hon. member for Vryheid that when a child is backward in a subject because it has been taught through a foreign medium, that child is not only retarded in respect of that subject. But it is also retarded in character and in intellectual development. I want to ask the hon. member for Vryheid this: will he admit that the mother tongue, Afrikaans, is the most powerful means of acquiring knowledge, and that in addition it is also the most powerful means for character forming. Knowledge and character are the key words of sound education, of all education. Now hon. members want only people who are bilingual. They attach no importance to morality, or character, or individual development; or whether these things are hampered or not. This is a violation of all sound pedagogic principles in which the hon. member for Vryheid is floundering about in confusion. I make an appeal to the hon. member for Vryheid. He is one of the members on the other side whon is honest in his ideas in regard to bilingualism. He indicated that by the way in which he acted a few days ago. He then defended our side, but unfortunately he did not come here and vote with us. He spoke, and brought to the notice of his side of the House that if they did not follow the advice proffered from this side of the House, then all their talk about bilingualism was nothing more than idle chatter. I also want to say that dual medium schools also represent a violation of the conception of continuity in education. I think it was the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (District) (Mr. Hayward) who said that we should look to the family. The hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) laughs when I talk here about a serious matter. Let me say here that I have frequently to laugh at the hon. member, but the hon. member sat together with the hon. member for Vryheid and myself as Nationalists the Students Parliament, and in those days the hon. member still possessed a sense of decorum, and did not make a practice of interrupting a speaker. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (District) urged on us that we should take home life as our example. There you have fine co-operation. I do not know exactly why he has taken that parallel. Is the dual medium a continuance of the education in home life? If you state that the national life is based on family life, then the dual medium is an absolute violation and a tearing to shreds of the conception of continuity in the educational sphere. It is the school that is nourished by family life, and consequently school life must be a continuation of home life. In other words, there must be continuity between the simple home life, school life and the national life; but with your policy you are engaged in launching an attack under cover against every sound conception of nationoal life. With your dual medium policy you are going to undermine the same national philosophy of life of the child and of the people. You are doing this and you will accomplish it by this satanic method of the dual medium school. My time has almost gone ….

You have done your best to keep the debate going.

The hon. member will have plenty of opportunities to take part in the debate. There are one or two hon. members who constantly interrupt. When other members are talking I always have the decency to sit quietly if I do not agree with them. One learns that at a single medium school. Otherwise I go quietly out of the House. But I do not behave like those hon. members that are dragging the character of the House into the mud. They will get every opportunity to talk on this subject. I want now to sum up shortly why I am opposed to the dual medium school. I am opposed to the dual medium school, because in that school no opportunity is given to cultivate a love of country in the child. In the dual medium school we have no opportunity to inspire the child with untarnished patriotism. You really cannot do it. In the second place, I am opposed to the dual medium school because we cannot promote anything there but a spiritual colourlessness. I would like to explain what I mean by spiritual colourlessness

It is something like members on the benches opposite.

Now you are talking twaddle.

Members on that side of the House must have regard to this fact, that the difference between the Afrikaansspeaking and the English-speaking people of South Africa is not only a difference of language. There is a difference of language, of religion and of philosophy of life.

That is not so.

I want to tell that hon. member that there is a big difference in the philosophy of life. The Afrikaner adheres to the Christian national philosophy of life. He has only one loyalty, and not your communal creed. The interjections and noise that emanate from hon. members opposite are only designed to smother our arguments. Furthermore, I maintain that the dual medium school is not in a position to bridge the great difference that exists between the two sections of the people. I want to tell you this, that when we institute a school that does the child harm in respect of his language, his religion and his outlook on life, we are doing him harm in that sphere of his life that possesses emotional and educative significance. All that he will carry away from the dual medium school is an arid intellectual development without that national feeling that is so necessary.

Now you are talking absolute nonsense.

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) says that I am now talking nonsense. He is an older man than I, and let me tell him with all respect that imperialists such as he have tried for a hundred years and more to obtain racial peace in this country by throwing the English-speaking and the Afrikaans-speaking children into the one educational melting pot. The result has been not racial peace but racial war. In conclusion, I condemn the dual medium school because it is like the hon. member for Hospital in the sense that the hon. member is a pathological phenomenon in the political world just as the dual medium school is a pathological phenomenon in the educational world.

We should very much like to see one of the stout heroes on the benches opposite who have been causing such a hullabaloo stand up here and put his standpoint before us.

We do not want to waste time unnecessarily.

We would like to see them standing up here and attempting to try to disprove the indisputable reasons that this side has provided. But they cannot do it, and so they are sitting there quietly. Not a word escapes them. They are tonguetied. There is no answer they can give. They have over there the hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Mr. Clark), who is sheltering behind Afrikaans-speaking people in this House. Why does he not stand up and make it quite clear what his standpoint is instead of developing sound rugby in the Transvaal. He is actively smashing up everything that has an Afrikaans spirit; it all has to be destroyed. If one of them had the manliness to stand up we would readily give him the opportunity to advance his standpoint and to reply to our arguments. But instead of doing that they just sit there on the opposite benches, obstreperous with their interjections and their bellowing. In the Boer War the hon. member for Pretoria (East) took cover behind the blood of the Boers, and now in this House he is skulking behind Afrikaansspeaking members.

On a point of explanation.

Do not be too cowardly to make a speech.

On a point of explanation, the statement made by the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Klopper) is entirely untrue.

What is it?

I absolutely deny what the hon. member has said.

Don’t be too cowardly to make a speech. You only bark on the other side.

That is because we hear so much nonsense from your side.

I ask hon. members opposite to have the courage to rise in their seats …. [Interruptions.]

I want to ask the hon. member to come back to the motion.

I want to do that. [Interruptions.]

I must ask the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) not to continue with his interjections.

May I asy your protection against the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow).

I also want to ask the hon. member for Hospital not to continue with this sort of interjection.

It has been stated here by way of interjection that certain descendants of the Scottish ministers who came out to our country are not with us in this matter. In this connection I should like to read out a few words—

That is from one of the descendants of a man who came out here and made himself a citizen of South Africa.

Is he an Afrikaner?

May I invite the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Robertson) to stand up here and deliver his address. We shall guarantee him an opportunity. Why is he dumb? Why does refuse? He must not look in advance for loopholes. The writer of these words is the descendant of a Scot who became a citizen of South Africa. His name is William Nicol. I feel also that a wrong has been done to the Hervormde Kerk; and although I am not a member of that church, I feel that it is only just that the position of that church should be clarified. One of the delegates on the Church Commission is the famous Prof. (Dr.) C. H. Rautenbach who shortly after this fight had flared up, wrote the following—

He is not famous.

Hear what Prof. (Dr.) Rautenbach has to say on this matter.

He is just talking for himself.

No, he is talking in the name of the church.

I deny that absolutely.

It appears me that the hon. member is out of touch with his church. This is what Prof. Rautenbach writes—

The will is there. No one else can triumph over that will, not even the British—

That is still the case today—

Dr. Rautenbach goes on to say—

I hope that that is enough for our hon. friends opposite.

I repeat that he spoke for himself only.

I will dispose of that hon. member presently.

Haven’t you got anything to say yourself?

The hon. member for Hospital is like a south-easter. When he opens his mouth it just blows. He is the stupidest man that I have ever heard in this House.

The hon. member must not indulge in such personalities.

The hon. member has brought it down on his own head. Never before in my life have I come across such an unintelligent man. I spoke here about the Hervormde Kerk. I believe that the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Prinsloo) is also a member of that church.

Now you are telling a lie.

He is a member of the Gereformeerde Kerk. Well, the Gereformeerde Kerk, the Hervormde Kerk and the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk are all in agreement over this matter.

No, ikona. You are now talking about matters in connection with the church that you know nothing about.

I do not know whether the hon. member is using his mother tongue when he remarks “ikona.”

He is tri-lingual.

The member of the Herformde Kerk who represents the church on this Inter-Church Commission is no one else than Prof. (Dr.) H. P. Wolmarans of the Herformde Kerk. As regards the Gereformeerde Kerk, I shall now give the hon. member his medicine. From the Gereformeerde Kerk there is no one less than Dr. P. J. S. de Klerk.

Is he an O.B.?

What do you say about Dr. P. J. S. de Klerk? For the edification of those hon. members, I would like to read out what the churches resolved—

1. (1) This assembly of representatives of church councils, school commissions and governing and other bodies express the definite conviction that the mother tongue medium school must be maintained on religious, intellectual, educational, national and cultural grounds.

The three churches associated themselves in that resolution. It continues—

1. (2) This congress finds that on all grounds than can be taken into consideration in connection with the organisation of our school education, the decision is in favour of the mother language school, that is to say the single medium school.
2. (3) This congress refers to a commission of twelve the question of enlightening the Afrikaans public on the matter.

And the members of that commission are members of the three Dutch churches, the great representative Dutch churches in this country, and those churches are represented on that commission. We blow hot and cold over this matter. Let us now be sober—

Political propaganda.

Listen again to the south-easter! Let us think calmly and soberly over this matter. If those friends on the benches opposite are convinced in their hearts that they desire bilingualism in this country—we desire it—let them produce the same results that we have produced within our single medium schools, and then the problem will be solved. It is not necessary for us to employ untried measures. In the efforts that we have made in the last 30 years we have given to our fatherland and to the people of South Africa a bilingual Afrikaner. We have delivered the goods. We do not only profess that our feelings are in favour of bilingualism; we do not only profess it, we practice it. We produce a bilingual citizen, but we produce him in pur manner. We produce him not only as being bilingual, but as a man with culture and a man with character, a man with a positive philosophy of life, and a man of principle. We do not only provide bilingual people, but we provide a good bilingual citizen. We do not only profess the policy of bilingualism, but we place a reward on bilingualism. The hon. members opposite are eternally babbling about bilingualism, and they are constantly attaching a reward to bilingualism. Let them stand up in this House and introduce a motion, and accept it, that no member of any board, or of any commission, or of any public body shall be appointed unless he is bilingual. They are not able to do that; they are afraid to do it, because they will exclude themselves. We profess a policy of bilingualism, and we are doing everything in our power to promote bilingualism. We have doubts about you, and you will not take umbrage if we call in question your earnestness in this matter. The means that we have created, and the methods we have fashioned, and with which we have experimented, to which we have devoted much time for a period of more than a quarter of a century, have appeared to us to be a good means and the best means to produce a bilingual citizen. If you desire anything else, if you want dual medium schools, we have not the slightest objection to that so long as you confine it to your own children. But leave out my child and myself. Leave my children out. Do what you like with your child; and let me do what I like with my child. If English-speaking people feel that a dual medium school is the best for them, I do not wish to raise any objection to that. Let them prove it, but leave us out of the picture. We have fashioned the means with which we are content. We have created a medium which complies with the requirements of the State. We have everything that we desire. From you all that we desire now is to allow us to remain in peace and calmness so that we can gradually develop this medium. We are entirely willing to extend and to strengthen the edifice. We are entirely willing to make those children who pass out of our schools even more bilingual than they are today. We are entirely willing to ensure that in the second language they will be just as proficient as they are in their own language; but exclude our mother-tongue school. That is our property. That is what we have acquired for ourselves. We will not allow you to lay hands on that. We have furnished enough proofs from this side, proofs that you cannot refute; we have brought all the proofs that are necessary to convince a fair and honest person that mother-tongue education, not only in South Africa but throughout the whole world, is the only medium, and the best medium, to equip children for life. We have brought the proof to them, and they cannot challenge that proof. They dare not even stand up and attempt to refute it. They dare not do it and they cannot do it, and if a speaker stands up and ventures on that he will be overwhelmed with the evidence of the experts.

The hon. member used that argument before.

I think it is necessary to emphasise it, because it will not penetrate into the minds of those hon. members unless it is repeated two or three times.

Two spoonfuls for each child.

As a little nation we have conducted a very uneven struggle over a very long time, over a period of more than a hundred years, and for the greater part of that time the struggle has been fought over our mother-tongue; and although we have waged that fight against unequal odds, against overwhelming odds, against the greatest Empire of the time, with a great and ancient culture behind it, and a worldwide national language, we have delivered the proof that it is not possible to eliminate our language from our hearts, or from our tongues, or from our national life; but now hon. members on the benches opposite, or the Government, come along with another plan. They come now with a plan to damn our language, to obscure our outlook, to confuse our thoughts. They ought to know—their educationists can tell them that—that the dual medium school has not contributed to the furtherance of our own language, but to the furtherance of lingual hybridism. You are not going to promote bilingualism by means of the dual medium school, but you are going to promote this hybridism.

Hermaphroditism!

You are going to encourage hybridisation in the country. You are not going to do a favour to the one language or to the other. From that school you are not going to get a citizen who is going to be the asset to the country that he ought to be. If you want to instruct a child in the unknown, that is to say if you want to teach him a subject and want to bring the intelligence of the child into contact with what is still unknown to him, it is difficult enough through the mother-tongue in the case of the normal child, and he has to learn fairly rapidly to keep pace with the annual grading. But if on top of that you impose on him an auxiliary burden, and you try to bring the unknown into contact with the intelligence of the scholar through another unknown factor, that is to say the medium of instruction, then that child must necessarily suffer in regard to the subject in which he is receiving instruction. You know, of course, that it is impossible to bring the unknown to the intelligence of the child through something that is unknown. All that we ask is this. Leave us alone to use the known thing, that is to say the mother language, and to educate our child with that, for in that way we can bring to his intelligence the maximum of knowledge in the minimum of time without unnecessary loss of energy, without loss of time and without waste of money. In any case it is not only that you are rendering more difficult the school work of the child by the employment of an unknown medium to bring the subject to his intelligence, you give him during the period of his school years—especially seeing the great majority of children leave school before they attain the sixth standard—an inadequate store of knowledge through the medium of a foreign language. You are doing the child an injustice, and the child leaves the school with inadequate equipment. He suffers in respect of the knowledge to be acquired, and he suffers as the result of a defective development of his intelligence. Not only does he suffer from a deficiency in that respect, but he suffers moral damage. We know that it is a recognised fact throughout the whole world—it is such a well known fact that it is scarcely necessary to mention it—that the mothertongue is the only medium by which you can interpret your mind and your heart. There is no other medium. You have no other, medium to communicate with your fellow men; you have no better medium to interpret the secrets of your heart and your mind to posterity than your language. And I want to put this to you : Show me the proportion of people who have succeeded, through a foreign medium, in reaching the heights and in giving treasures to humanity such as a Milton or a Vondel, a Göethe, and a Cilliers have given to the world. Show me the genius who could have done that. Tell me their names, and I want to tell you this: In our English medium schools in which we grew up, there are numbers of Miltons and Vondels and Shakespeares of ours who have been strangled at their birth because their mind has been formed in, and forced along the channel of, a foreign and unknown medium, a medium that is strange, to them. The people cannot sing the song of their heart in a strange language. We are deprived of many of our finest talents, which in the past we could have developed in order to contribute to a mighty culture and language. We may not permit this further in the future. We are going to cling to what we have. It is our very own and we have struggled and sacrificed for it, and we are going to cling to it till the last breath.

The hon. member has used the same argument over and over again.

Now it is flung back at us that in our republics where we had the right and the power to make a stand that there should be only one medium for education, the official language, we permitted in our magnanimity other mediums of instruction to be used in certain schools for the educating of children. Yes, we did allow that. They had the option. We did not try to force our language down people’s throats. We gave them a free choice. That was done, and today it is hurled as a reproach at us. One sometimes feels that hon. members opposite will seize any weapon to fight us. But what do we find today? We have advanced 50 years, and what do we find in the territories where the British Flag flies? Do we find that it is permitted that our language should be used? What is the position in Rhodesia? Is it permitted that our language should be used as a medium? Oh, no! The only medium of instruction for all children in all subjects in all schools in Rhodesia is English. There is no choice, no compromise. That applies not only to adjoining territories; even within the Union there are private English medium schools that would rather instruct in a foreign tongue from outside South Africa than give instruction in Afrikaans. They are allowed the choice. If they should choose a foreign language, we have no objection to that. Allow us also the right to choose. Our choice is the mother tongue medium of instruction. And not only do we want mother tongue instruction, we want mother tongue schools. We were greathearted in the days when we had the right to forbid any other language in our territory. We were largehearted enough to allow other mediums, but you do not get that feeling reciprocated in territories where the Union Jack flies. Even in South-West Africa under the old German Empire it was permitted to Afrikaners to have their own schools under their own school committees and their own supervision, and to use the mother tongue as medium. But in the British Empire under the Union Jack we do not get that.

This is the third occasion on which the hon. member has used this argument.

We are anxious to solve the question peacefully. We also want to develop our schools in a peaceful way. But we want to say this to hon. members opposite, that if they join battle with us we are not afraid of the fight. We shall not shrink from it. It would grieve us if the fight flared up but we would have no regrets. We stand prepared for that, and we are better armed than ever before. When we look back to the period of 1902 we feel stronger than ever. At that time our republics had to surrender, and we had to give up our liberty and our land. We lost the war, but we won the peace in so far that we preserved our soul and our language. Today an attack is being made upon our language, and upon the soul of Afrikanerdom. That is the continuance of the struggle of 1902. Listen to what the plan of the British Empire was at that time. This is what was said by Mr. E. B. Sargent, the Director of Education in the Transvaal and the Free State during the Three Years War and afterwards—

Just as in 1902, you unfortunately still get Afrikaners who are helping the conqueror, who place themselves in the services of the conqueror, to assist him, and to rob us of that which we still held in 1902. We are not going to shrink from the struggle. We shall join issue. Remember, action evokes reaction. You cannot expect that we should continue just to guard ourselves and to defend ourselves. You cannot accept that year after year and generation after generation—I have almost said century after century—that we should just defend ourselves. In the past we were continuously merely on the defensive. You cannot expect that we shall always remain on the defensive. If we are driven, and forced, and compelled to adopt a counteroffensive, our fellow citizens must not resent that. The time has come when we have lost patience in face of the incessant inroads and attacks on our language and our nationhood. If a frontal attack does not succeed, then they attempt a veiled flank attack. We shall not flinch. Fortunately we have the experience of the past, and we are on Our guard. In the past we learned not to allow ourselves to be misled. If we had not attained maturity in the past we could easily have stumbled in the pothole. I want to say to hon. members opposite that they can go ahead and launch their continuous offensive against us. These incessant attacks are going to provoke counter-attacks. Our advice to them is: In heaven’s name leave well alone. We have been told that we may not speak in the name of Afrikanerdom. We know that the whole of organised Afrikanerdom stands at our side in this, consequently we say to the other side that they must leave this alone. Do not start this struggle, because it will only lead to great division, and you are going to get the two sections of the people at loggerheads in every phase of their lives. Keep us out of this. Why are you starting this struggle? We shall carry on the struggle; the Nationalist Party will stand in the van, and we shall carry on the fight to a successful conclusion. In the past we were prepared to sacrifice a great deal and we shall still be willing to sacrifice. But there is one thing that we must not be asked to sacrifice, and that is our soul. And in this matter they have joined in battle against our soul. You will probably not only bring us in violent resistance to you, but you may compel us to resort to measures that we are not anxious to employ. With these few words and thoughts I trust that the matter will not be taken any further than the debate in this House.

When after thirty years of Union we have to stand up here in the House and fight and continue to fight for the rights of the Afrikaans language, then I should like, in the first place, to bring to the notice of hon. members opposite that one feels disappointed over the fact that the interest displayed by them is so great that there are only a few members present on the Government benches. That indicates perhaps how little they are interested in this matter from an educational standpoint.

That argument has already been used by previous speakers.

When I see from a newspaper which I have in front of me, that twenty years ago a start was made in Johannesburg with evening classes where Afrikaans was used as a medium of instruction, then I feel that if we now are faced with an attempt from the other side of the House to push into the background this medium of instruction of our people, through which our children are instruced, then we must rise and protest. It is not only us who advocate the mother-tongue medium; English-speaking people throughout the length and breadth of South Africa choose the single medium school as far as the great majority of them are concerned. The majority of the single medium schools in our country are single English medium schools. Why if the single medium schools are to disappear are the English schools to be allowed to continue? Is the object to uproot one type of school, but to let the other carry on? Where did the fight begin? It began in a newspaper of the United Party. I think the start was made in the newspaper of the Minister of Education, and he was supported by the “Rand Daily Mail”, while later he received the support of the other newspapers, and last year no one less than the Minister himself began to advocate the cause of the dual medium school. That was also done at congresses of the United Party, and the fight was waged not only over the schools but much further. The fight in this connection is aimed at all educational institutions in the country; also at universities and technical colleges. If we look at the undesirable development in recent times, the attempts that have been made in connection with the medical faculty of the Pretoria University, then we cannot do otherwise than feel that the undesirable element is also actively penetrating there. In the past every effort was directed towards destroying the Afrikaner in the long run by destroying his language and his culture, using the medium of education. If we go back into history we find that in 1809 Maj. Collins wrote as follows—

In 1811 Sir John Cradock forced English medium education on the Afrikaans children. Lord Charles Somerset superseded the Dutch schoolmasters by English schoolmasters. In every respect he endeavoured to make English the medium of instruction in the country. But in those days the Dutch Church stood as a bulwark of the Afrikaner, and offered stubborn resistance against this effort to deprive the Afrikaner of his language. Seeing that the church did that in those days and achieved success, and seeing that the church is now on our side in the strugle, and seeing that today a great and united Afrikaner dona has joined issue in this struggle, we are going to battle away until we have achieved victory. That British policy of superseding everything that is Afrikaans by English was continued by Lord Milner. During the period after the Second War of Independence, he deliberately persisted in that policy. We hear today that we want to introduce politics into this matter. But what did Lord Milner say? He said that the greatest political achievement that he could possibly attain would be the anglicisation of the Afrikaans child. They roundly declared that if they succeeded in that then the British Empire would triumph here, and then their policy of making everything British could be carried fully into effect. We know that Milner was thwarted by the C.N.O. schools. The Afrikaner took up the cudgels. When the Boers had no choice in regard to the public schools, when they had to accept them, they started the C.N.O. schools, and we know what results those schools achieved. We know that those schools were the forerunners of the safeguarding of the Afrikaans language. This proposition of the Government’s is a great threat to the Afrikaans language; but it is also a fact that, if the Government goes on with these dual medium schools that they want to force on the Afrikaner people, we shall be again compelled to establish our own C.N.O. schools to retrieve the position. That is how we feel over the matter, just as I have stated. We feel that this attempt is nothing else than an attempt that is aimed against the Afrikaner and the rise of the Afrikaner, as we have regarded it in recent times. The Prime Minister has himself admitted that he wants to go back to the Education Act and the education policy that he laid down in the Transvaal in 1907. Here in the House the Prime Minister had in his hands the report of the Select Committee of 1911, and he told us that he wanted to go back to the good policy of that report. When 30 years ago, as a child, I for the first time set foot in the schoolgrounds, not three minutes elapsed before I had a big board inscribed with the words “Dutch donkey” dangling from my neck. I had not the right to speak my own language there, and I had to write 100 lines “I dare not speak Dutch”. When I pleaded that I could not write, instead of writing out the lines I got a thrashing and I received a thrashing almost every day because I spoke my language. I came from a home where my parents impressed on us that we should use the Afrikaans language with the greatest purity possible, so that we should not learn to talk a half-baked language. When I look back to those days to which the Prime Minister would like to return, then I think of the days when I had to carry the “Dutch donkey” board, and when I received thrashings because I ventured to speak my own language. That was round about the year 1914, and how can hon. members on the benches opposite stand up here now and say that they want to go back to the Committee of 1911? I describe that Committee as the infamous Committee of 1911, and I think that even that description is hardly strong enough for it. At that time was it not a case of politics and racialism to treat me in that way and later to make me write out 100 lines, “I dare not speak Dutch”? At that time was it not a case of politics and racialism to treat me in that way because I spoke the language that I had learned at my mother’s knee. But now that we are standing on our rights we are told that it is political agitation. I recently spoke to a famous foreigner. He was a prominent Britisher, and I discussed this question of the dual medium school with him. I told him what my experience had been, and his reply to me was, “And you still talk to me”. He told me that if he was an Afrikaner he would never, as long as he lived, have wanted to talk to a Britisher, and that in his heart he would have hated him. He said that he could fully realise why there was still racialism in South Africa, and the only matter of surprise to him was that there was not more racialism. And then we have to hear from the Prime Minister that we must return to the sound policy of 1911. I can only say to him that we will protest against that and fight, even if I am the last man to do it. If my children had to undergo the experience that I underwent 30 years ago then I feel that, if the Prime Minister wants to return to those days, I shall have to start a rebellion here on my own. If the intention of the United Party and of the Government is genuine in connection with the dual medium schools, why has it been necessary for them to give all these assurances to the English teachers in Natal and elsewhere that they will not be penalised because they do not understand Afrikaans? A campaign has also been launched in the “Natal Mercury” that too much pressure should not be exercised’on teachers who do not understand Afrikaans when the system of dual medium schools is introduced. But while that campaign is being conducted by the “Natal Mercury,” and while the assurance is being given to those English teachers that too much pressure will not be exercised on them the Prime Minister took it upon himself to state on the 22nd February—

Then he goes on to say that if that is so they are not qualified to teach English to children from the platteland. But the Prime Minister informed us that this is what was told him. It was startling to me that the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa should come into this House and base an argument solely on what had been told him. The machinery is in existence that would have enabled the Prime Minister to obtain the relevant information. It is possible for him to test the facts, and we do not expect him to introduce an argument solely on hearsay. But what is the argument? If Afrikaans teachers, according to what was reported to the Prime Minister are not proficient enough in English then legislation has to be introduced to alter our system of education that has been in force over the last twenty years; but to the English teachers in Natal the assurance is given that too severe a pressure will not be exercised on them. Where can the justification be found for the Government adopting a standpoint such as that? No, the crux of the matter lies in this, that the United Party and the Government perceive that there is a glowing national fervour of Afrikanerdom in our country. The sentiment of the Afrikaner is growing and is becoming stronger, because the Afrikaner is using his own language, because he has been taught to develop a national pride. Is it racialism for a people to develop national pride? If a Britisher has national pride, if a Frenchman has national pride, or even if an American has national pride, then we are told from all sides that this is something beautiful and something that must be encouraged; then we pay homage to it. But if the Afrikaner child is proud of the language that he has learned on his mother’s knee, if he has love for that language and excels in it, and if by means of it he developed so that he can achieve high distinction in the country, then we are told that this is racialism and that something must be done to trip up the Afrikaner. We can go to our universities and to our educational institutions throughout the length and breadth of the country and we find that the Afrikaner excels as regards English even if he has been educated in a single medium Afrikaans school. If it is to be our new policy to herd our children together in the same school, as indeed it must be the policy if we are going to have education through the medium of both languages in our schools, in order to accomplish racial peace, then I should like to ask hon. members what is going to happen in regard to the appointment of teachers when there are two groups? It is going to cause endless strife and friction, and it will also occasion racial discord. The children will hear about it at home; they will take it with them to school, and we can fully expect that they will come to blows and that the fur will fly. That is the sort of co-operation we shall get; that will be the racial peace we shall achieve. What is going to occur when it comes to the election of school committees? There will be racial discord and an election on racial lines instead of the friendly procedure which is often followed at present. We shall find that dissension amongst the parents and also amongst the children. I say that we are engaged here in preparing the ground and making it fertile for the production of racial discord if we proceed with the system which has been handed to us by the Prime Minister. This step is being taken by the Government under the cloak of a desire to eliminate racial strife in the future. What is going to be effected is the very reverse. The other day the Prime Minster used the argument that the Afrikaans child must receive the opportunity to make himself proficient in English so that he could take his place in trade and industry. Well, if in Cape Town we go round to the big stores it is simply scandalous to see the helplessness of the unilingual assistants in those shops. They have an extremely poor knowledge of Afrikaans. Then the Prime Minister comes along and says that he wants to eliminate racial strife by teaching the Afrikaans child English. It is simply a case of “Heads I win and tails you lose.” It is high time that trade and industry learned the second language and it can do that through the medium of appropriate single medium schools where provision will be made for acquiring the second language. No, this type of argument that is introduced by hon. members on the benches opposite does not hold water. Every one of those arguments that have been adumbrated by hon. members opposite and also by the Prime Minister are arguments behind which something is concealed. If I must go back to my own experience as a young child then I want to say this, that my parents are Afrikaansspeaking. My father is a born Nationalist but even after the experience that he had during the Second War of Indepeendence from British “loyalists”, and in spite of my own experience as a schoolboy, my father has always stood pat by this that every one of his children should take English right up to the B.A. degree at our universities. You may say, Sir, that this is an exceptional case. But the Afrikaner does pay heed to his child qualifying in English. But we find that the Prime Minister and his Government are no longer content with that. Now suddenly we must have dual medium schools so that all the children may be brought together. We must achieve so-called racial co-operation by grouping unrelated elements together under the same roof. We cannot do this simply by driving such groups together under the one roof. A sheep is not a goat and a goat does not become a sheep simply by driving them into the one kraal. Then there is a further point. Conclusive proof has been furnished that this side of the House realises the importance of bilingualism. Conelusive proof has been furnished that the Afrikaans-speaking section of the community realises the importance of bilingualism, and that in fact is not open to question. Still that is not our primary object. The primary object is not to produce a person who knows a whole lot of languages. The cultured person is not the person who just knows a lot of languages. If that were the case then those European guides who talk seven or eight languages are the most cultured persons and the most intelligent persons in the world, and I think if you enquire into the matter you will find that the so-called Cooks guides are amongst the least cultured people in the World.

Just like the Minister’s interpreter.

No, the real lack of bilingualism is not to be found on this side of the House. The real lack of bilingualism is not to be found amongst the children from the schools that we champion. We envisage that the child should have a knowledge of a pure language, whether it be Afrikaans or English. But if a child has today to sit in a class where he learns his history lesson in English, or where perhaps for a quarter of an hour he learns his history or chemistry or biology in one language, and then in the following quarter of an hour changes over to another language, is it possible in such circumstances to cultivate a desire for lingual purity. The result will be that throughout South Africa we shall talk like the people in certain parts of this country at present. I do not want to say in what parts, because then certain hon. members in this House might chase me out of it. But there are parts of this country where Afrikaans and English and the native languages are used in a hopeless jumble. I myself heard a farmer in the course of a short sentence, employ words from the three languages.

That must be from the Grahamstown district.

It is not far from that district. We on these benches want to eliminate that sort of thing. We want to talk a pure and a proper language. We Want our children to cultivate purity of language, and to be sensitive to the language; and you cannot cultivate sensitivity to a language if you have to gain acquaintance with it like a parrot through a foreign medium.

Just look at the warm interest that is displayed in this debate by the benches opposite. The one Minister is sleeping and the others are absent.

The importance …

Why are you complaining; it is better to read your speech in Hansard.

If the educationists in the Union of South Africa realise that it is so important to introduce a dualmedium school for the education of the child, what type of educationist advises the Government? What is the value of those educationists when they recommend a system that no educationist in any other country of the world recommends?

That argument has already been used.

The point I would like to make is this that if this is the advice that the Government has received from its educational experts, then it will have to change its educationists and its experts, and obtain advice from others, whose advice is accepted throughout the world.

I can assure you that they receive just the opposite advice; I know.

We espouse the cause of the single-medium school because you can only acquire a thorough knowledge through the medium of your mother tongue, and you can only educate yourself as an individual through the medium of that language that you know best.

That argument has also been used frequently.

We shall presently all be asleep.

Well, if two more of you fall asleep then you will all be asleep on the opposite benches.

The Right Hon. the Prime Minister has declared that he wants to return to the old system of education that was recommended by the Select Committee of 1910-’11. I want to ask hon. members whether that policy did not bring about racialism in the country. Do they want us to return to that ridiculous “ Whiteside’s History of South Africa”? If the Prime Minister wants us after these past 30 years to go back in our educational policy, I may as well ask him why he does not go back 30 years with his motor car. I can assure him that if he does that he will find that his motor car will not be so out of date as that educational system of 30 years ago. The historical development of a country is part of the country itself and of the people. It is an integral part of South Africa. Similarly the Afrikaans language is part of this country and of the people. When the first persons stepped ashore here in 1652, those Hollanders who came to establish a colony, they soon realised that they were encountering new conditions, and that they were coming into contact with new races; they had new climatic conditions, and an entirely new environment in a new land. They recognised that if they were going to make history a new language was necessary, and that language developed spontaneously. And to maintain today that we must acquire our knowledge through the medium of a foreign language is ludicrous. If we would accept the policy of the Prime Minister, then I ask the Government and hon. members opposite, where are they going to obtain the properly qualified bilingual English teachers from? It is generally known that the teachers who have a defective knowledge of the second language are not Afrikaans-speaking teachers but the English-speaking teachers. It is the English-speaking teachers who do not know the second language. That they do exist is conclusively proved by the assurance that has been given to them by the Government and by the Government papers that they will not be expected to become bilingual within a definite period. It should have been unnecessary to have given that assurance to any member on this side of the House: it should have been unnecessary to give that assurance to any Afrikaansspeaking teacher. That is proof that these people do exist, but I do not know of a single case, and I have not seen in a single newspaper mention made of such an assurance being given to the Afrikaans-speaking teachers, simply because it is unnecessary. This is of course, conclusive proof that the Afrikaans-speaking teachers are bilingual. It is not necessary to give them a similar assurance, notwithstanding the fact that the Prime Minister has stated in this House that the knowledge that teachers in the Transvaal have of the second language is comparable to the knowledge of a child that has passed Standard VII in an English school. No, this all rests on something that has not been divulged to the people of South Africa. Education is something more than the bare injection of a little knowledge through the one or the other medium. Education ought to represent the development of one’s personality.

That argument has also been used before.

Langenhoven once stated that learning, in the head of a fool, is just as dangerous as a razor in the hands of a monkey.

That has not been said before.

That is what we are afraid of; that is the greatest danger for South Africa, that we shall place a knife in the hands of a group of monkeys—

That argument has not been repeated before.

May I ask the hon. member what he means by that? It is a reflection on the Chair.

We cannot, by means of compulsory measures, force the people to love one another. You can take a horse to the water, but you cannot force him to drink. I want to repeat; the fact remains that the defective knowledge of the second language is not to be found in the ranks of the Afrikaners. If hon. members on the benches opposite are in earnest as far as bilingualism is concerned, why don’t they take steps to make themselves bilingual? Why don’t they emphasise that the Cabinet Ministers on their side of the House ought to be bilingual? Why do they not urge that the members of boards, and committees and commissions that are appointed, as well as our officials, should be completely bilingual? There is the solution to the problem. If we continue as we are doing today, and unilingual persons are continually to be appointed to important posts, then I maintain that no matter what system we introduce, we shall never have bilingualism. If we take care that all persons that are appointed in the public service are bilingual, if we bring this bilingual policy into full effect, then we shall solve the problem.

You must nevertheless admit that the three Saps over there on the benches opposite are bilingual.

It is going very far when you tell the Afrikaner that he is making political capital out of this matter whenever he pleads for bilingualism. It is a matter on which the Afrikaner feels to the bottom of his heart, and it is a matter on which every nation feels very earnestly, if it has any sentiment for its language at all. You can oppress and trample down the Afrikaner. You can murder his wife and his child, but that national feeling, that inward urge to be Afrikaners and to remain Afrikaners will continue to exist; you cannot murder that; and even though this amendment is passed by the House, because hon. members on the opposite side of the House are not permitted to talk though they are allowed to vote, I maintain that you are not going to kill the Afrikaner spirit by it. We shall carry on, and we shall keep marching along the road which we have now trodden for two centuries, and we shall fight for the rights of our own language.

Before I call on the next speaker, I want to direct a warning to hon. members in reference to the speeches made by the last two speakers. I hope that it will not again be necessary to bring the rule to the notice of hon. members.

May I point out that hon. members opposite work in shifts, and consequently it is necessary to repeat arguments when a new shift takes over.

Move the adjournment!

We desire to submit to your ruling, Sir, but I should just like to say that it is very difficult for a speaker to continue with his speech when you keep telling him that he is using an argument that has been used previously.

The hon. member is, of course, acquainted with the rule that an hon. member is not permitted to repeat an argument which has been employed by a previous speaker. That is a clear rule of the House.

Being a new member I am not thoroughly familiar with the rules of this House. The Chairman has had to call me to order on a few occasions but I hope I shall be allowed to say a few words On the matter now before us. I am deeply disappointed at hon. members on the Government benches taking so little interest in this debate. Their benches are empty and it seems to me that the few members who are on the other side are asleep. It is most disappointing when having to report to one’s constituents to have to tell them about the three or three-and-a-half members on the Government benches who have taken an interest in this debate. Let me refer to a few points. Some people have been referred to during these discussions, for instance, Dr. de Klerk, a man I highly respect. He is one of our most respected predikants, a man of great merit who has done his utmost for his country and for the State. The hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Prinsloo) accused him of being a member of the Ossewabrandwag. That has nothing to do with this question. We are dealing here with the language question and not with parties. I was also glad to hear Dr. Rautenbach’s name mentioned. I am proud of the fact that he was referred to and that hon. members placed on record the fact that he was putting up a great fight for our language, because he is a man who was born and bred in Marico. I am proud of the fact that he is a champion of our language and the traditions of our people. I have a lot of railways workers employed in my constituency, and they are all Afrikaans, and those men have been to single medium schools. As far as I know the only English-speaking man there is the stationmaster. These men work very happily on our lines there; they are perfectly contented and the stationmaster told me personally that he is satisfied with his staff. It does one good to see that people who have had their education in a single medium school are giving satisfaction. They know both languages. The stationmaster also told me that he could speak the second language if he was addressed in it, but in actual fact he was really proficient only in the one language. But they work very well together. If you go to the big Ford Garage in Cape Town you find a lot of Afrikaners employed there — I believe there are between 25 and 30 of them— and I understand there are only three Englishmen employed there. The Afrikaners have been educated and trained in a single medium school in the rural districts. They have come to town to find work here. I am sorry the Prime Minister is not here today, but when moving his amendment he made these remarks in the course of his speech—

There he casts the blame on the teachers and the pupils. I have come to this big town and I meet Afrikaners here who speak both languages and their employers are satisfied with them. There used to be vacancies in the Public Service, and I remember the days when our former member of Parliament asked me to see if I could find a few people whom I could recommend for employment in the Public Service. These men were obtained and they are public servants today. Are these men in the Public Service not bilingual? Are they not doing their work properly. I am convinced that they do their work well. I do not believe that a solitary Minister, or a chief official can complain that the men who have been taught in single medium schools are unable to do their work as they should do. I therefore appeal to the Minister of Education to allow the single medium schools to continue. The reports of the inspectors tend to show us that education is going on satisfactorily. It is regrettable that 20 or 24 years after the establishment of Union we should start our quarrel afresh. But the people who have started that quarrel are not those who have had their schooling in single medium schools. They know both languages—at least the Afrikaans-speaking ones do. Today we find the trouble started by people who haven’t actually grown up in South Africa. It is people who have been imported into South Africa who have started the trouble and they want to tell us what we should do. I sincerely trust the Minister will reconsider the position and will allow the schools to continue their good work.

When the Prime Minister moved his amendment to the motion of the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) he laid great stress on the fact that this was one of the most important subjects the House could ever have had brought before it, and yesterday one would have thought that the Prime Minister had been correct in his statement, because a large number of speakers on both sides of the House got up to make their contributions to the debate. Today, however, one finds that only one side of the House is taking part in the discussion while the other side keeps perfectly silent, so much so that one can arrive at only one conclusion and that is that members opposite have no replies to our arguments.

The hon. member must come back to the motion before the House.

I submit to your ruling. When the hon. member for Hottentots-Holland (Mr. Carinus) addressed the House he made certain statements which cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. He said that the provincial elections last year constituted a reply to what we have had to say on this subject. He said that the electors of this country had given their answer. I should like to ask who are the people best able to judge the most suitable methods of educating the children with a view to achieving the best results? Are not the ones best able to judge those who have reached a certain standard of education. I want to ask the member for Hottentots-Holland how many members of his party would have been returned on this language issue had it not been for the coloured voters who supported them and who, I am sure, cannot speak with any authority on educational questions?

What about the Transvaal and the Free State?

The Free State gave judgment against the Government. In the Transvaal the election was fought on the war issue and not on the language question. We had a by-election at Zoutpansberg and there the language question was the issue, and there was a by-election at Wakkerstroom and there too the issue was the language question. Wakkerstroom gave its reply.

Bredasdorp also gave its reply.

That was because this side of the House didn’t put up a candidate, and as long as the coloured vote prevails there the Government will be able to hold that seat. Take away the coloured vote and the United Party candidate will never get in. That also applies to Caledon.

One moment you say that the meat scheme was the deciding factor at Wakkerstroom, and the next moment you say it was the language question.

If the meat scheme had been announced earlier you would have had a double Wakkerstroom. The hon. member for Hottentots-Holland made the statement that our educational system had been a failure for the past 25 years. Imagine Compare the position today with what it was 25 years ago. Take this question of language. What do we find? 25 years ago thousands of people could not be attended to in their own language in any Department of State or in the Railway Department. Today, however, one can be attended to in one’s own language in these departments. Our Public Service is bilingual, and we know that from 70 per cent. to 80 per cent. of our public servants are Afrikaans-speaking. That fact goes to prove that the Afrikaansspeaking section of the community is bilingual. If a unilingual official is found in the clerical division of the railway service he is English-speaking and not Afrikaansspeaking. And what is the reply of the experts to the statement of the member for Hottentots-Holland? They say that the general knowledge of the two languages has improved considerably. We were told this morning that the Conference of Inspectors had declared that the knowledge of the second language had progressed very materially. Our census figures also prove that a much larger proportion of the population is bilingual than was the case in the past. And now the hon. member tells us that the future demands bilingualism. There is no difference of opinion on that point. South Africa’s future demands that every boy and every girl shall be bilingual. But where we differ is in regard to the methods that should be adopted to secure the best results in that direction. The arguments used not only by private members opposite but also by Cabinet Ministers has been contradicted and disproved by expert witnesses who have been referred to here. Then the hon. member for Hottentots-Holland made a very unsavoury charge. He stated that Opposition members wanted their own children to be bilingual but that they did not want the children of the people on the Platteland to be bilingual. Anyone adducing such an argument has not read the motion of the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart). That motion contain this—

Those are the words in which the position is explicity stated, viz.; that every school must give instruction in both languages and that the child must pass his school-leaving examination in both official languages. The motion of the hon. member does not provide that only Government schools are to give instruction in both languages but especially mentions private schools of which there are so many in Natal, and which are not referred to in the Prime Minister’s motion. To tell us here that we want the children of the less well-to-do people to be unilingual is nothing short of an undeserved slander on this side of the House. But whence comes this great interest in bilingualism which we suddenly find among hon. members opposite? As the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) said here this morning, there has been no agitation, on the part of the parents, or on the part of the school committees, or on the part of the church in favour of this amendment of the Prime Minister. On the other hand we find that since 1939 this question has been raised at every congress of the United Party. It must be perfectly clear to everyone who is not blind that the United Party has dragged this whole question into the political arena. In 1940 the United Party Congress at De Aar passed such a resolution. In 1941, the United Party Congress in Cape Town also passed a similar resolution. It is the United Party which has dragged the language question into politics. No requests in That direction were ever made by the educationists. No, it was nothing but a party manoeuvre to deprive the Afrikaner of his rights. The hon. member for Kimberley District (Mr. Steytler) told us that we should no longer talk about the language question, because, so he said, the language question had been solved and all was well. In 1936, however, the United Party stated that the Governors of the Broadcasting Corporation need not be bilingual. But what hurts us on this side most is that some hon. members on the Government benches have become champions of dual medium schools and that those very people used to sit on this side of the House and used to fight on our side for the language rights of the Afrikaners. We realised in those days that the only solution of our language difficulties in South Africa was mother tongue instruction. Do people’s feelings become petrified if they sit on the Government benches? Once they sit there they seem to want to speak the language of the conquerer. The hon. member for Kimberley (District) this morning in an interruption remarked that we were racialists. I would like to know if he was a racialist when he was a member of the Nationalist Party. Let me remind him of General Hertzog’s words—

Does he agree with General Hertzog? The hon. member for Hottentots-Holland went further and said that the Opposition was making use of organisations which were dear to him to play their political game—meaning the churches, the cultural organisations and the teachers’ associations. If the church passes a resolution in favour of mother tongue instruction, it remains true to itself, because throughout the years the Dutch Church had been the champion of the Afrikaner’s language. If the teachers’ organisations, which are organisations of experts, advocate mother tongue instruction, they remain faithful to their convictions and to their national traditions and to the knowledge they have acquired as educational experts. If the cultural organisations advocate mother tongue medium they are loyal to themselves because they look upon the language of the nation as the soul of the nation. We contend that the church is true to itself. What was the position here in the Cape Province? The first school in which Nederlands was used as medium of instruction was established in 1878 by the Church of Cape Town. That was the old Normal College. And it stood where the Roeland Street gaol stands now. We have said before that what grieves us so deeply is that members opposite who used to stand with us as champions of Afrikaans have now become the champions of dual medium education. We go further than that and wé say that time and again the game of politics in South Africa has been for the weaker to divide the stronger, and when the stronger has been divided we get a crowd of spineless Afrikaners who have grown weary along the course of Afrikanerdom. They go over to the other side and as soon as they get there they become the greatest opponents of the very interests for which they used to stand. We say that those Afrikaners have become spineless and have grown weary on the path of South Africa, and they are the people who today make the most violent attacks on us, and not only on us, but on our children and their children. They are attacking the generations that have passed. History in days to come will record the deeds of those who today have to fight for the rights of the Afrikaans language. But what is more noticeable is the anxiety which the United Party is showing today about bilingualism. And what is particularly noticeable is that that anxiety has revealed itself more particularly since the outbreak of the war. If the teacher teaches the child history in class he is accused of bringing in politics; the teacher is accused by those who do not look at things from the same point of view as he does. The fact that the teacher teaches history as it is lays him open to the charge of bringing in politics. That is what these spineless Afrikaners, who have grown weary on the South African road are doing. They are the people who are raising this cry that politics is being introduced into the schools, simply because history is being taught as it should be taught. It is particularly at the present time when the war is on that the United Party wants these dual medium schools. They are not merely fighting a war about language, they are also fighting their war about other subjects. This spineless and dispirited crowd of Afrikaners take it amiss and accuse us of dragging in politics if we teach history and teach the children what happened in the days of the Voortrekkers. Do they ever attend any congresses of cultural organisations? Do they attend Dingaan’s Day celebrations? No; but they blame us if we portray these events in their true colours. We say that those people have been turned into gargoyles who stand in the way of Afrikanerdom. And now I want to ask this question. Is this amendment of the Prime Minister going to create a better spirit in South Africa? Is it going to bring the Afrikaansspeaking and English-speaking sections closer together? I make bold to say that this motion is going to drive them further apart than they have ever been, and a more bitter struggle will develop than we have had in this country for years. The methods pursued by the United Party constitute an attack on the Afrikaner and his language. It is an attack on a system of education which has made the Afrikaner into a nation conscious of itself. It is an attack on the Afrikaner because they realise that the young, the rising generation, which is being educated under this system is not only bilingual but consists of Afrikaners conscious of their Afrikanerdom, inspired by national pride—a generation which will never forsake its country. In these Afrikaans medium schools Afrikaners are being educated who are nation-conscious and who realise that our salvation lies in a free republic in South Africa, separated from the British Crown, so that we shall not have any need to place the language of another country before our own; so that we shall let our language come into its own and see to it, at the same time, that we are bilingual, because we have two languages in our country, a country whose people should stand shoulder to shoulder to foster the Afrikaans language and the cause of Afrikanerdom.

I was a teacher for twelve years. After that I was the parent of schoolgoing children. Perhaps it would be useful if I dipped into my experience to throw light on this matter. My eldest daughter went to a pure, single medium Afrikaans school, the Oranje School in Bloemfontein. That school was established by President Steyn to ensure that at any rate the daughters of the Free State would grow up with a genuine Afrikaans spirit, and that they would thus be in a position to become true Afrikaans mothers. That school is a lovely jewel that was bequeathed to the Free State by the late President Steyn, and to my mind it is one of the tragedies of history that the son of such a father is today helping to break down the beautiful handiwork and the monument that his father erected; I refer to the Minister of Justice. I say that my first child went to a single medium school, where she received her education solely through the medium of Afrikaans. My other two children went to what hon. members on the opposite benches will regard as a dual medium school. One went to the Grey College School at Bloemfontein. Our hon. friends opposite will regard that as a dual medium school. It is a peculiar fact that my daughter who went to the single medium school is regarded by me today as being completely bilingual. I consider her to be as bilingual as I am. She is perfectly at home in the use of both official languages, and she can switch over from Afrikaans’ to English without the slightest difficulty. She is a product of a single medium Afrikaans school, and in my estimation she is perfectly bilingual according to our conception of the term in South Africa. As to my other two children, who went to a dual medium school, the curious thing is that I cannot give them a certificate they they are quite proficient in both languages. They can read English. They read a lot of English. They understand English well and they write it correctly, but they are not at home in the use of it. I do not want to labour that point too much, but I want to make this deduction, that a single medium school does not produce unilingual people; and the second deduction I want to make is that a dual medium school, in the form that hon. members opposite would like to see it, does not produce bilingual people. In my own home I have the proof that a single medium school can produce a perfectly bilingual child, and the dual medium school has shown, in my case, that it cannot produce a bilingual child. Now, we come to a second point that has been mentioned from the benches opposite, namely, in how far are the dual medium schools going to succeed in bring the two sections of the people together, to understand each other, and to respect each other. My experience tells me that it is going to have just the opposite effect. The moment people’s emotions are worked up you find it reflected immediately in the school. I was a teacher at the Grey College School in the troubled years of 1914-’15, and during that period the Grey College School was divided into two camps that were just as hostile to each other as the three parties in this House.

We are not hostile.

The Minister of Finance stated in his speech that he did not want to have divisions (afkraaling) and I maintain that during periods of national emotion the children hive off into two separate groups. They do not associate with one another. They do not want to mix. That is my objection to the dual medium school, namely, that moments of national excitement in the life of the people are accompanied by strong racial differences. I want my children to grow up with a love for their own folk. In the Oranje School my daughter did not imbibe hatred towards anyone. She only learned to love her own language, love her own country and her own people, without any feeling of hatred or revenge towards anyone in the world, and that she has retained right through her life, with the result that she was prepared to learn English on a footing of equality with the English-speaking people. But what happened in respect of the other children in moments of national agitation? They break off into two camps and they refuse to learn each other’s language.

That is what happened.

Is that the position today?

I do not want to have that. The proposal of the right hon. the Prime Minister is not going to hasten the day of racial peace in South Africa. His proposal is going to delay that day. I look forward to the time when the two sections of the people will be able to work together for the construction of a united nation in South Africa. There runs in our veins the best blood of Europe. Together we can accomplish great things. Should it ever happen in the history of South Africa that every Englishman and every Afrikaner reaches out for his rifle to defend his country, on that day a nation will have been born.

Now you want to make war.

That day is coming. But as the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) has stated, you are not going to get that by trying to force the fruit to ripeness. You are not going to achieve that by forcing the people. You cannot nail people together. You cannot take two planks and nail them together and then say that you have one nation. A nation must grow, and it is only in that moment when the whole of South Africa, English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking, feels that the land is in deadly peril and the two sections resolve to stand shoulder to shoulder, only then will a united nation be born.

The Saps are now awake.

I have shown that a single medium school does not produce unilingual citizens, and a dual medium school does not necessarily produce bilingual citizens. I am now going to cite an instance of that feeling that exists among certain people that an Afrikaner child ought to go to an English school so that he can round off his education. In South West Africa once there were two children in the same school, in the same class. The children revealed the same ability in class. They competed together for a place in the class. They plodded on in that way, shoulder to shoulder, until they reached Standard VI. Then the parents decided to send their children to schools in the Western Province. In one case the parents sent the child to a single medium Afrikaans school in Cape Town. I do not need to give the name of it. In the other case the parents said the child ought to learn to speak Englisk very well, and they sent it to an English medium school in Cape Town. Both schools have more or less the same status, and the same prestige in the Western Province. The lad who went to the Afrikaans school—his mother tongue is Afrikaans—passed his examinations every year with honours, and he is today in Standard IX; the other lad, who was sent to become acquainted with English, has not yet passed Standard VII. I am prepared to give the names of the schools and the names of the children to anyone who is interested, and would like it confirmed. Both the boys had passed Standard VI when they left South West Africa.

The one has more intelligence.

No, they were in the same class and in the same school, and they always competed for the same position in the class. Here you have the proof. The one that has gone to an English school had to compete with those children on an equal footing, with the result that he fell behind, and the upshot was that he lost confidence in himself and developed an inferiority complex.

But nevertheless he improved his English.

That is all that counts!

That child developed an inferiority complex which will hamper his development throughout his life, and which will kill his personality. He has no longer any confidence in himself ; he has an inferiority complex. He is handicapped for the rest of his life; while the other child has gone to a place where he is at home, where his development is going to be continued, where his personality can reach fruition, and where he will acquire self-confidence. That child has started life aright; the other has made a false start.

What about our students in France and Germany?

I am talking now of the child who had passed Standard VII. From my own experience as a teacher and a parent I can affirm, seeing it is alleged that the dual medium school can furnish us with bilingualism, that that is not the case. In Bloemfontein there are two big schools. There is the Grey College and the Central High School; a survey was made amongst the merchants of Bloemfontein, and they stated that the children who came from the Central High School learned more quickly to be perfectly bilingual than the children who came out of Grey College; and the reason is this: If a child learns one language well he then acquires a sense of language, and the moment he has that sense of language he can learn the second language quicker and more easily.

And follow the example of Noel Coward!

I believe in bilingualism. I should like our country to be bilingual, because I believe it is the only manner in which we can have racial peace in the future.

We agree.

I believe that a man who is unilingual is only half a citizen. I should like to see every citizen of South Africa in a position to be able to use both languages.

Their Ministers are only semi-Ministers.

You should be able to use your own language as you do your right hand, and the second language as you do your left hand; and my experience has taught me that the single medium Afrikaans school produces a child who adapts himself the quickest to the national life. The child who is really educated is in a position to do that. Over there the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) is sitting. He has studied pedagogy. The object of education at school is to equip the child in such a way for life that he will fit into the social complex as soon as possible. Society in South Africa is bilingual. The child in the single medium school, because he can develop in the shortest possible time every talent that Providence has bestowed on him, and not only his own talents but his soul itself develops and develops quickly. He has powers of application that surpass those of the child whose development is hampered because he is forced to acquire his education through the medium of a foreign language. Let the hon. member for Vryheid deny that.

The experts differ about that, you will admit.

Now the hon. member is saying that the experts differ. Here the Administrator of the Cape Province called all the experts together, all the inspectors. They are not political partisans. Of course there will be amongst them men who are Nationalists. It is indeed a fact that the more highly educated an Afrikaner is the better Nationalist he is. On that account I presume that amongst the inspectors there were also Nationalists. But there were also English-speaking men, good English-speaking men. Now I want to say this. We have heard this morning that the Minister of Agriculture gave a wrong reflection of what occurred at the conference. We know that certain resolutions were taken. I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister: Will he stand up and say that the Government is prepared to act on the recommendations of that conference? If he does that we, as Nationalists, will accept it wholeheartedly. You will eliminate a bitter language struggle. These are teachers, educationists, people with knowledge and experience. They have made the rocmmendations. That is all I ask of the Minister of Education. They attended a confereence, they did not attempt to make political capital. They came together as teachers, and discussed matters that reached to the roots of everything in South Africa. They came here and they made certain recommendations. We say to the Minister and to hon. members opposite : Accept this. Then there will be racial peace and co-operation. If not then I maintain that the policy of the Government is not based on educational principles, and that it has only one object, namely, to force political views on young South Africa in a real spirit of Nazism. All that they will get in South Africa is a political school through and through.

Was Gen. Hertzog wrong?

Here you have these educational experts. If their recommendations are accepted you will, have a school that is based on sound pedagogic and cultural principles. If you refuse to do that, then we say that you have only one goal, and that is to give South Africa an out and out political school. What is going to be the result of that?

Was Gen. Hertzog wrong?

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) does not care one iota what becomes of South Africa, but there are responsible people in the House on this side and on the other side. I assure you that the moment you impose a political school on South Africa against the deep-rooted conviction of Afrikaans-speaking South Africa, the result is going to be ….

Strife!

No, not that; but the moment this Government falls and another government comes into power, then the school system will be reversed. Do you want to introduce the American system here, and do you want a change in the school system with every change of Government? Do you members on the benches opposite believe that Afrikaans-speaking South Africa, if it sees its children suffering damage, is going to allow this to stand for a moment longer than they must endure it? As soon as there is a change of Government a change in the school system will be effected, and I ask you what is going to become of South Africa in the future if every five years our school system is going to be revolutionised from top to bottom.

That is just nonsense; that will never be done.

I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister—is he going to assume the responsibility to impose a political school on South Africa? This is a matter that can only be settled by both sides in a spirit of friendliness. Then alone can you put through anything of the sort. And then we have to take cognisance of the educational experts, not only of those people who are academic pedagogues, but people who have grown up in the school, and who know the child, and who know South Africa. They foregathered here and they said that they thought that we should do so-and-so. We should accept that on both sides of the House. Then we shall have a school which will function uninterruptedly in the future. That is all that I ask of hon. members. I think that we all mean well. My children have gone through their school days, but I have to think of their children. I do not want to have racial strife in South Africa. We know that after the war the strength of every citizen in the country will be required to weather the storm and stress of the post-war period, and I do not want to see our forces divided and to see us opposing each other in a hostile way. There are the recommendations of the people who grew up in the world of education. If you are content to abide by them, then you are on a sound educational foundation, and you will receive the co-operation of all who are interested in education. But if you continue on your present road I tremble to think what the future of South Africa will be.

After I had listened to the speech of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, and after I had read his amendment I was carried back to the days of my childhood when at school we were forbidden to talk Afrikaans or Netherlands on the play-fields. Those of us who are old enough will recall the years when we had to carry a board suspended from our necks if we dared speak Afrikaans. We had to ignore our own language.

What school was that?

All the schools here. What was the object? To give me and other children a good education? Or was the intention to make an Englishman of me? And I must say they nearly succeeded in that. Even today, when I look at the letters I wrote when I was a young fellow, I fear my children may say to me that if some development or another had not occurred I would have been well on the way to becoming English. They attempted to do that at that time. But thank goodness! they did not succeed. Men arose who showed us the right road and who gave us to understand that in order to develop into good citizens of the country we must at least have a love for our language, and not be ashamed of the language that is our own. For the Prime Minister to come here and tell us that the education he then enjoyed was dual medium education is, as my leader has stated, to state that his memory is very short. Even your examinations in Dutch was drawn up in English. I still remember the text of the examination paper : “Dutch Grammar—Write an essay of not more than 50 lines on any of the following subjects: Woltemade, the Voortrekkers, or Somertyd”. The whole thing was written in English. It was in that manner that Dutch had to be acquired in those days. If men had not arisen to see to the interests of the Afrikaner we should all have taken the path that unfortunately a number of our friends on the benches opposite have taken, or the path that they are now preparing to take. What is remarkable in this matter is this, that whenever the subject crops up for discussion, it is not the Englishmen on the benches opposite or throughout the country who commence an agitation and who fall upon us and attack us, but is is our own Afrikaansspeaking people, and especially those who have already belonged to every political party, and who in the future will join every new political party that appears on the scene ; they are the people who make the fuss. Those who were Nationalists and later on Roosites and later still belonged to all kinds of political parties, they are the people who mainly assail you when you make a stand for your language, whenever you want to give the children the best. I cannot omit to refer to something that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (District) (Mr. Hayward) has stated. I do not think the hon. member was right in delivering an attack on certain organisations. Seeing that there is no one in this House from Steytlerville, where he comes from, to defend them I should like to do so. He has stated that politics have been dragged into the schools. In what way? May I remind him of the days when we voted together and when we were accused by the English-speaking section of dragging in politics. Does he remember the days when we tried, and when we succeeded in throwing the Saps out of the school board? Today he comes along and states that we want to drag the schools into the political arena. May I remind him of the movement amongst the Saps under the slogan of “Catch them young!” The hon. member has stated that politics are beeing dragged into the A.C.V.V. It is lamentable that an Afrikaner who belongs to the Dutch Church should bring such an accusation against a body that has done so much good. But the difficulty in respect of that hon. member and others is this, that if there are Nationlists who take part in such a movement then it necessarily savours of politics. Those people who are doing a noble work and an excellent work in the interests of the country are stigmatised in that manner.

Do you know what is going on in Steytlerville?

I know very well what is going on. All the newspapers in the country are political newspapers, but one likes to read the news sent up from the various towns and districts. If a teacher sends the news then it is political, but if the wife of a teacher is the secretary of the S.A.P. then it is all right. Then everything is “above board.” If he is present at the nomination of the Sap candidate it is not politics. If his wife is secretary of the Sap Party there is nothing wrong with that. But if a teacher openly admits that he is the correspondent of “Die Burger” then it is all wrong. But what can there be wrong in the sending of news about the different places, news that we would all like to see. No, I am sorry that Afrikaners on the other side are so inclined to attack in the first place the Dutch Church, and organisations that are connected with the church. It is not the English-speaking people, but our own people, who are doing that. I can tell you what is happening in the platteland towns in my neighbourhood. Take a place like Willowmore. The school committee is comprised of seven members, and if we wanted to we could place seven Nationalists on the committee with a great majority. But what did we do? We appointed to the committee the minister of the Wesleyan Church. The minister of the English Church, a member of the Jewish community, and four members of the Dutch Church. Has that been done in a place like Cape Town? If a Dutch minister were to contest an election for the school board in Cape Town he would be knocked out. He would have to be nominated to the school board by the authorities otherwise he would not get a seat. In Kimberley the Dutch predikant was thrown out at elections. That is the way we have dealt with matters in the past. We have followed that course because we felt that it was in the best interests of bur people, but was that reciprocated by the other side? I am not an educationist, but nevertheless I have read reports that have been written by educationists, and they all admit, even Dr. E. G. Malherbe admits, that bilingualism has made progress. Over a period of seven years there has been an increase of 20 per cent. That indicates what has happened in the past, and what is now in the best interests of the child.

The dual medium.

If a person wants to become an engineer is it a question of the dual medium, or is it a question of his capabilities as an engineer? If a person is learning geometry is it a question that he should learn English because he is learning geometry or is the object that he should understand geometry?

Both.

Educationists tell us that the subject must be taught him through the language that he best understands.

What happened in the old Free State days?

We received our education in our time through the medium of English, with Nederlands taught to us as a subject. The result was that later we had learned neither English, nor Nederlands, nor the subject.

What was the position in the old Free State?

The hon. member should not talk about the old Free State. He referred in this House to what Gen. Hertzog had done there. It would have been better had he not done that, because it brings back to our minds that at that time when Gen. Hertzog’s education laws were introduced in the Free State the hon. member went to London to look for help to oppress the Free State in that connection.

That is untrue.

That hon. member must not talk here about Afrikaans. It is abundantly clear that in the case of hon. members opposite it is hot a question of them wanting to do what is best for the children. We know that Prof. Grey said—I think it was he—that the children are going over to the Nationalist Party, and now they must do something to see whether these children can be brought back to the fold. They believe that now they will in this way be able to make our children English. Let me say clearly to the other side, that we do not want to make our children English, but we want to make them good Afrikaners. We want them to be taught what is best for them. I will admit that it is possible for instances to occur where children who have passed the School Higher or the Matriculation are still unable to talk the second language fluently. Nevertheless I want to say this that if you take a child who has passed through school in a platteland town such as Willowmore or Steytlerville, and put him with an Englishman who cannot talk or understand a word of Afrikaans, that child will converse with him in the sense that he will understand everything that the Englishman says, and he will be able to make the Englishman understand everything he wants to say. Possibly he will not talk English grammatically; but he will readily make him understand in English what he wants. Now we have to listen to the other side stating that our children are backward in English. That reminds me of what Dr. Wilcocks, the Dutch minister at Prince Albert, said when he was one of the persons who was sent by the Provincial Administration to institute an enquiry in regard to mother tongue education. In East London the question was put to him: “But if education is imparted through the mother language does not the danger exist that all the children in Prince Albert will only know Afrikaans, while all the children in East London will only know English.” His answer was that “as far as Prince Albert was concerned he could give them the assurance that all the children who passed the Matriculation would be able to talk both English and Afrikaans, and that as for East London the people of East London would have to answer for themselves.” The children of Prince Albert can all make themselves intelligible in English ánd understand English, but can the corresponding thing be said of the children in East London? I am not an educational expert, but we know that we cannot learn a language through another subject, that we can only learn the language through the language itself. It has been stated time and again on this side of the House, and I should like to repeat it now, that we want bilingualism in the country, and if the other side are really in earnest over it I should like to make this suggestion to the hon. the Minister of Finance. Let him introduce legislation to the effect that after five or ten years no person can be taken into service unless he is bilingual, that he will not be employed in any State department, in any public office, in any shop or in any place which the general public visit, if he is not bilingual, and then you will see how quickly the people will become bilingual. We on this side are prepared to agree to that, but are the members on the benches opposite prepared to agree? We are not afraid of that. In 1910 it was laid down in the Constitution of the Union that officials in the Public Service should know both official languages. Is it not disgraceful that after 34 years of Union we still have to complain about bilingualism? Are there any members on this side of the House who cannot understand and talk both languages? No, there is not one; but what is the position on the other side? We look after ourselves. My children do not hear anything else but Afrikaans in their home. They go to an Afrikaans school, but they do not take second place to anyone if it is necessary for them to converse in English. The position is that we are doing our best to teach our children English ás well as possible. On our side we say: Fix the standard that is necessary for English; fix it as high as you like, so that every child who succeeds in his schoolleaving examination will have to attain that standard, and we shall have no objection to it. I believe that at the moment the position is this, that a child does not need to pass in both languages to succeed in the examination.

It is only in the Free State that the position is different. There they have to pass in both.

In the rest of the Union the child can fail in either English or Afrikaans, and he can still pass his examination. If the fear is that we in South Africa are not going to become sufficiently bilingual then fix a standard for the School Higher and the Matriculation and make it obligatory for the children to pass in both languages.

Now you are talking for the wealthy man.

No, we are talking here for the platteland where many of our people are poor.

You want to get their vote.

Yes, the poor people on the platteland will vote for me, but if it was not for the coloured vote in Kimberley (District) the hon. member would not be here. Every time I have stood for Parliament I have stood for the constituency in which I reside, and I shall be prepared to do that so long as I live. I challenge that hon. member to stand for the constituency where he lives. There is another matter that I would like to mention here. We have submitted from this side of the House that members of commissions and committees should be bilingual. Members opposite took strong exception, to that. Do they believe then that there is not an adequate supply of bilingual Saps in the country to enable them to fill the vacancies on such commissions? I should have thought that there are enough bilingual Saps. No, many other things are concealed behind this amendment of the Prime Minister’s. When we go to a country like Rhodesia we find they are following the same course of trying to anglicise the people. We have the instance in Rhodesia where the church built a school at a cost of £3,000 in order to educate the children through the medium of Afrikaans. They were prevented from doing that. Education has to be provided through the medium of English. Is that fair? They simply want to make those children English, and that is the ground on which we now are fighting. In Rhodesia two half hours a week are devoted to Afrikaans.

We are talking now about the Union.

That is the standpoint of the English-speaking people, but so long as the Nationalist Party is there, and so long as it has vitality we shall try to prevent that, and we shall fight to ensure that Afrikaans comes into its own. We on this side of the House say we want to give the best education to the child, and we appeal to the experts. We appeal to those people, who say that the mother tongue is the best medium. Then, in heaven’s name, learn the second language better; set it on a higher standard, but do not do these things under the pretext of bilingualism.

I merely propose to interpret my personal experience to the House. I am of course a man who has grown up on the platteland. I am not one of those distinguished men of learning—in their own opinion—who are sitting on the benches opposite. But I would like to assure them of this, that I have not forgotten the grey past. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (District) (Mr. Hayward) stated that we wished to forget the grey past. If we forget the grey past then we would have had no language in the country. We do not forget those days when the English wanted to kill the Dutch language. We do not forget the days when they eVen used the Afrikaners to kill the Dutch language. They are today engaged in doing that. The people who fought the hardest against their own language were the Afrikaners themselves. The English are good diplomats. They have always tried to divide the Afrikaner people, and they are doing that again today. Where are the English on that side who can give us a lead? No, they will not rise in their seats. A Jew stood up here to tell us what we should do. I would like to tell that hon. member that the Afrikaans-speaking people and the English-speaking people in this country are not going to allow themselves to be dictated to by others as to what they should do. We have previously had this attempt to kill the Afrikaans language, and the English-speaking people must not take it amiss if we discern in this attempt the venom of the past. We have a language today of which we are very proud, and every Afrikaner ought to be proud of the language that we have built up in the course of the last thirty years. What have the English done to assist in building up that language? Have they at any time stood up to defend the Afrikaans language? Has any of the hon. members opposite stood up to protect the Afrikaans language? Here we have the old political trick of divide and rule. At Steynsrust we have established the Paul Kruger High School. It is an intermediate school. What was the position there? When we gave it the name of the “Paul Kruger High School” the English and the Boer Saps would not send their children there. They sent their children away to English schools, and what is the result today? My children who went to that single medium school are today bilingual. They are just as bilingual as any of the hon. members opposite. I challenge hon. members opposite to say that my children are not as bilingual as they are. The Afrikaner in this country knew that he had to learn the two languages, and we assisted our children to learn the other language as well. In my own home we also talked English. But I ask those hon. members whether any of them ever talk English in their own homes? In the past whenever an Afrikaner married an English lady the home language was English. No, let those friends there first set right what they did in the past. Let them first prove that they are serious about this. They are afraid that in the future Afrikaans will become the language of the country. The English on the other side have not even attempted to provide a national anthem for themselves in this country. They sing “God Save the King”. We Afrikaners have a national anthem of our own. We sing “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika”. Canada also has her own national anthem. They do not sing: “God Save the King”; they sing “O, Canada!” Let the English prove to us that they have progressed thus far in their loyalty to South Africa and then We will begin to believe them. What have the Australians done? Today they speak their own type of English language. The Australians have changed the English language. They have made it phonetic. They have made it Australian. The Americans have done precisely the same thing; but here we still have the slaves of the Empire, the slaves of English domination, and everything that the Boer has built up has to be trampled down and torn to tatters. Let the English first furnish proofs that they are with us. It does not help to offer lip-service only. If the English really are so concerned over bilingualism why do they not try to speak Afrikaans in their homes? Why do they not read Afrikaans books? No, I shall tell you what there is behind all this agitation. They are afraid, because they see that for every book that is written in English in this country a hundred books are written in Afrikaans. I declare that the man who touches the language of the people, the man who touches the church of the people, knows that he is touching the heart of the people, and we feel that those who are tampering with our language, and even those Afrikaners who are sitting there who have become. English Jingos—I do not say that they are all English Jingos, but there are Afrikaners who today are helping to kill our language— I say that anyone at all who does that is looked down upon by us with contempt. I feel that anyone who lays hands on the language that we have fashioned in this country, the language that in the past has always been trampled down, the language that has been forged in the misery and sorrow of the past, is playing with fire. They must not meddle with our language; if they touch that they are touching our hearts. Every Englishman in the country ought to be proud that there is an Afrikaans language. One hon. member told me that when he and his wife were in France, once when they were conversing in Afrikaans an American who had been listeing to them came across and asked : “What beautiful language is that you are talking?” They told him it was the Afrikaans language. Then the American said: “Hold fast to your language. We are sorry that we have not built up our own language. We have remained slaves to the English language.” When we think over what has happened to our language in this country then everyone on the other side ought to be proud of the progress that has been registered by the Afrikaans language. Is this not something of which we may rightly be proud? Afrikaans is the only language that has been built up in the last 500 years. There is one member in this House who on every occasion brings in the name of the late General Hertzog. When he talks of General Hertzog he is referring to the man who gave us that, Afrikaans language. We stand by him. He made a nation of us. The late General Hertzog stated—

I am sorry to have to say so, but it is sheer hypocrisy on the part of my hon. friend opposite.

The hon. member may not say that.

Then I shall say that he is dissembling. That man has done more to kill the Afrikaans language than any other person. No, I say that those hon. friends on the benches opposite should help us to improve the educational system if they consider that is necessary. They must not come along with this political trick. In the large towns parents have not yet realised that these people are not the friends of their children. Through hatred of the Afrikaans language they have never allowed their children to learn Afrikaans. Now that the Afrikaner is establishing an ascendancy they have become jealous, and they want to kill the Afrikaans language. Let them see to it that their children learn the Afrikaans language. As soon as they do that they can approach us; but to be always evincing hatred of our language, and to be always talking with contempt of our language will not carry them any further. First we were told that Afrikaans was a kitchen language. At first they were so sorry about High Dutch; though previously they had declared that High Dutch was a foreign language. They have sought to combat everything that the Afrikaner has done in this country. Are not those hon. members opposite ashamed to be the agents of people who want to suppress our language? I speak here only as a practical man. Now and again I too read some history, and I know that in other countries where you have more than one language they have come to the conclusion that the best medium for education is the mother tongue. In Switzerland they have three languages, but the people stand together like one man. I recently met a Swiss lady who informed me that at the commencement the medium is the mother tongue, and then later on the children learn the other languages as well. The people of Switzerland stand as one man although they speak three languages. Why is it that we cannot have that in South Africa? Take Belgium. In Belgium they also have two languages but there is no division amongst the people. There again they have mother tongue education. Why then cannot we also have mother tongue education in South Africa? The reason is that the Afrikaner must not be allowed to be master in his own country. There is no one who can say that my children are not bilingual. There is no one who can say that in my home I do not speak English; I use both languages in my home. In that way every Afrikaner does his best to learn the second language too. I would like to tell hon. members opposite that if they continue with this agitation against our language they must expect us to fight them tooth and nail. My children who have the blood of Dutch-speaking and of Afrikaans-speaking forbears in their veins are Afrikaners to the marrow of their bones. They have been taught that they are Afrikaners. My wife’s father is an Englishman, but he told his children: “England was not good enough for me, and so I came to South Africa. This is my fatherland.” My father was a Hollander and he said to his children: “Holland is no longer good enough for me; South Africa is my fatherland. You have been born here, and this will be your fatherland.” If my children whose grandparents came from Europe can become Afrikaners, why cannot others whose families have been here for 200 years not become Afrikaners? We hear today that some Afrikaners pride themselves on the fact that they are of French descent. They do not say that they are Afrikaners; they want to be French. They are ashamed to describe themselves as Afrikaners. I am not ashamed of my origin. Afrikanerdom was born out of the blue blood of Europe. I think my hon. Leader will say that when he was in Norway they told him that the Afrikaner people could be proud of the fact that the best blood of Europe ran in their veins. We are proud of that, and we shall never betray our language and our church in South Africa.

There ought to be no difference of opinion on the subject now under discussion. We feel that it is one of the most important things affecting our country. Personally I have always been of the opinion that when one talks about education, especially in reference to schools, the matter should be dealt with on its merits and political views should be kept in the background. I have always been under the impression that when the education of a child, whether Afrikaans-speaking or English-speaking, was brought up for discussion we should lay our political differences absolutely to one side; but now we are finding in this House that the problem cannot be discussed on its merits at all. I shall give the reason why. At their political congress the party on the other side of the House brought up the subject of dual medium schools. It was in the first place entirely out of place to talk about the matter there, because lower education falls under the provincial councils; but a member of the Cabinet was the person who had most to say on the subject during the congress. I took particular notice of what he said. No fear was expressed over bilingualism as such— there was no fear that the Afrikaans child would not be able to speak English, or that the English child would not be able to speak Afrikaans; but what was the big reason why the single medium school should be destroyed? They said that the English medium school was the breeding ground of nationalism, that children we incited against the United Party, that children were stirred up and that they were prevented from living in peace with their companions. I do not want to go into that; I merely say this, that to attempt to argue here on the merits of the case is a farce. That party on the benches opposite are firmly resolved, because they have a mandate from their political congress, to abolish single medium schools. Is it not curious that when we discuss a subject of such great importance, whether you are a Nationalist or a member of the United Party, or a member of the Labour Party or a Vicar of Bray—like the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) is it not curious that not a word escapes the other side. Still more remarkable is the fact that hon. members opposite have made up their minds, so that today there are only four United Party members in the House who participated in the debate on this important question. That indicates that people on that side of the House are not prepared to lend an ear to our arguments, but have settled beforehand that the single medium schools must be abolished. I would like to say a few words but the hon. member for Hospital unfortunately is not here, and I do not like to attack him in his absence, but I want just to say this that we take these remarks from the source from which they come. Later on should he come into the House I may be able to say why, but in the meantime I shall leave the matter there. I would like to return to the question; and I want to discuss this question on its merits and not from a political angle. There is at the present time in South Africa a stronger feeling amongst the Afrikaansspeaking people than amongst the English-speaking people to build up an Afrikaner nation in South Africa, and there is a difference between us and the other side, because we are more in earnest than the other side about building up a nation here.

You don’t say!

I will not include all of them, but it is undeniable that the English-speaking people, and a large proportion of hon. members opposite, do not have that feeling towards our country that we have for South Africa. I know what I am talking about. The hon. member who addressed the House before I rose (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) is in the position that he uses the English language in his House as well. I myself am married to a lady from Scotland. I was not even married here; I was married in Scotland. Will you allow me, Sir, to mention something personal. Do you know what seems to her the most peculiar thing? She grew up in Great Britain, but the strangest thing to her is that over there the people never worry about the Union Jack or about the King in that capacity; they never stand up from respect when “God Save the King” is played in the cinema; whereas in this country people who have been no further than their backdoors are more concerned over these things than the people in England. She has frequently come to the House to listen to debates, and what has been her impression? In passing I may say that she understands Afrikaans just as well as I do; and she says that what she finds strange is that she has never heard an Afrikaans-speaking person on the Government benches standing up and pleading for anything that is Afrikaans or that affects a fellow-Afrikaner. I think that is really what you do find in this House; that is the general spirit. I have listened with interest to the discussion in this House on this mattér, and have observed that with the possible exception of the hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Mr. Clark)—he interpolates something now and again but he dare not speak —it is really only the Afrikaans-speaking members on the other side who are eternally imputing motives to us because we stand for single medium schools. I had the privilege of having parents who could pay for my education, and consequently I know something of the subject. I have always been connected with school boards and school matters, and I take interest in educational facilities. There was a time when I held a different opinion about a teacher than I have today. I used to think that when a man did not know what to turn his hand to he became a teacher. But I have changed my opinion, and I regard a teacher as one of the principal, if not the principal factor in connection with the cultural life of the nation. Where did I gain that idea? I have had the privilege of studying in other countries as well, and there I observed how the English-speaking children in Scotland were educated in their schools. Do you know what struck me? It is this, that when the children were taught history or when they were being educated, the teachers told them what excellent people the English are. They we told their history just as it is. They were told of the wonderful heroes of their nation —all quite plainly. They were told that they were head and shoulders above any other children in the world, and that child grew up as a good Englishman and a good Britisher. I do not find anything wrong with that, but now I want to ask hon. members opposite to try for a moment to judge impartially. If teachers in a South African school stood up and told a mixed class—we are talking now of the dual medium—the true story of Slagtersnek, for instance, what would happen?

Why not?

What would be the result? They would admit it was true, but then they would ask why stir up the past, and they would add that it generates feeling between the Afrikaans-speaking and the English-speaking people. I do not know whether you noticed that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (District) (Mr. Hayward) spoke about politics in the schools in connection with lessons in history, how the children are told about the wars of the past and that sort of thing. Why not? Why should we not tell our children the history of our land, just as in England the children are told the story of their land? But if you have a teacher here who tells the history of the country and he does not mince matters with the children, then as sure as the sun shines a petition reaches the school board complaining of the teacher talking politics in the school. If a teacher stands up in a mixed class and tells the children that Afrikaans is their mother tongue, and English is their mother tongue, it may be said that he is indeed speaking the truth, but it will not be intelligible. This is dragging politics into the schools. I know what I am talking about. In Somerset West if a teacher taught history in this way a petition would reach the school board about him simply because he was teaching history as it really is. I do not want to talk about the merits of dual medium and single medium schools. I think I have shown that the matter has not been discussed on its merits here. The United Party members say one thing, and we as Nationalists say another. It is a political matter here. That is the last place where anything of this sort should be discussed; the last place where it should be discussed is the congress of the United Party. But if we want to be friends in connection with schools and to understand each other well, if we want to pull together, I should like to give an illustration in which my leader was concerned, and I hope that he will not take it amiss. I think that the Leader of the Nationalist Party and the present Prime Minister attended the same school together. They had more or less the same teachers; and from the school they passed on to the same university; and where today can you find people who differ from each other more than the Leader of the Opposition and the present Prime Minister? The notion that sitting together on the same school benches conduces to a better understanding subsisting between people is nonsense. I know of people on the other side who, when they attended an Afrikaans school and were at the university were Afrikaners; but with a change of environment they changed their opinions. Sitting together on the same school benches has nothing to do with the matter. You must have backbone, and while I am talking about this I want to mention something more. If hon. members on the other side are really in earnest I would like to ask them to go back a bit and recall the days when the wireless service began in South Africa. Hon. members on the benches opposite say that they are deeply concerned about bilingualism. It was proposed that half of the “A” programme should be Afrikaans and the other half in English.

We approved of that.

I hope that the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. H. J. Bekker) will stand up and tell us they approved that. His side of the House were bitterly opposed to it, and consequently the “A” programme and the “B” programme were commenced. They would not entertain the idea of Afrikaans echoing in their homes. They did not desire English and Afrikaans to come into their homes; or why, otherwise, were they against it? Let hon. members opposite give me the reason. Can they reconcile that refusal to allow Afrikaans to be broadcast in the homes of English-speaking people, with this motion that has been proposed by the Prime Minister. Now, during the war when it has again been mooted that Afrikaans should be broadcast over the “A” programme the English-speaking people of Cape Town protested against it by writing a number of letters to the newspapers. No, this proposal on the side of the Government is not meant seriously. But there is a big reason why it has to be brought forward; it is the same political reason as why it was mentioned at the congress of that party. Hon. members opposite know that the younger generation, even the English-speaking people, are more national-minded than previously. There cannot be the slightest doubt about that. What was the result of that? We see on the other side of the House more and more attacks being made on the Dutch church, more and more attacks being made on our teachers, and more and more attacks being made on our schools. Why? Because, notwithstanding all the efforts that have been made by the opposite side of the House, the young Afrikaner is growing up prouder than ever before of the fact that he is an Afrikaner. If a child grows up to be proud of being an Afrikaner, then you can do what you like because it is obvious that he has national fervour. That does not fit in with the opinions of members on the other side. They do not want an Afrikaner nation to grow up, and to be built up, that is inspired with a national spirit, and that is proud of the Afrikaner nation. No, they want to have people who are semi-Britishers, who stand under two flags, who support a dual citizenship, who sing God Save the King, and now and then sing “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika” as a blind. That is the sort of person that they want. That is the way in which we must read the proposal of the Prime Minister. That is the attempt that hon. members opposite are making. If we visit the schools in England we find that history is taught to the English child as it ought to be taught. The child is inspired with love and pride for his history, but here in South Africa if the teachers in our schools attempt to teach the child history in such a way that it will inspire in him love and pride in his history, the accusation is immediately brought against him that he is dragging in politics. Our children have to be deprived of that inspiration in school, but in spite of those efforts that are being made we find that the young Afrikaners are still developing pride in their nation. I shall tell you why. But that is the reason why members on the benches opposite are so concerned and why we have now been faced with this proposal. Why is it that we say an Englishman is a good Englishman, and why do we find here in South Africa that some of our own people go over to the other side and attacks things for which they have fought? I shall tell you why. In the course of being educated the child is fitted for life and the various parts of his education are like links in a chain. The British child is formed, and all the different links are formed in the chain of his life, and when he comes to the link of love of country and pride of the race the teacher unfolds his history to him and teaches him simply in that way to develop love of country and pride of race. That link is well forged. When however we come to South Africa we find that a child receives his religious instruction at school. He is moulded culturally; but when the Afrikaans child comes to the link of love of country and pride of race—when it comes to instruction in history and we want to dig into history to strengthen that link for him, then the work of the teacher is stigmatised as politics and racialism. The child himself feels as soon as the teacher comes to those subjects that he has to be colourless and undecided, that he has to be indefinte, because he is always afraid that he will offend some of the children and the parents of some of the children. What should be a big link in the child is fashioned weakly for fear of allegations of politics and racialism. It is not formed as in the case of the Englishman overseas as the strongest link of all. I am emphasising this point because I want to point out that this proposal of the Prime Minister’s is an attempt to enfeeble still further this influence in the school life of the child. When the child goes out into the world these links have been formed in the chain, and we know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Now it happens in life that there is a pull on that chain. I am not making any reflection on members of this House, and I am only citing an example. A person sees a chance perhaps of winning a seat in Parliament if he is a Sap. The tug on the chain is stronger and stronger, and sooner or later the chain breaks at its weakest point. The link that represents love of country always breaks first, because we have not had the opportunity to strengthen it during the school life of the child as in the case of the child from oversea, who has received his training there. This attempt that is being made by the United Party is a further political attempt to weaken love of country, to weaken that link in the child’s life. I will take another example from overseas, and that is the example of Scotland. The only occasion when a Scot will tell you straight that he is a Scot is when you first tell him that he is an Englishman. In their schools they are educated in English. I know what I am talking about because I was there long enough. They have been totally anglicised. Whether it was good or bad in their case, I let it rest at that. The fact is that they were anglicised. But here in South Africa the Afrikaans section of the community, or far and away the greater proportion of them, are determined that they will not be anglicised. We are descendants of people who came to South Africa, not with the intention of being anglicised or being made Hollanders, but of building a South African nation here. It does not assist matters for hon. members opposite to advise us now that they are suddenly converted to a policy of bilingualism. Here is the Minister of Labour going by. If I ask him whether we should only have bilingual people in the Cabinet, he would immediately answer: “No, because then you will be leaving good men out of the party.” If members on the benches opposite are concerned over our children and consider that they should be bilingual, let them then have the first anxiety with reference to their own children. What right have the members of the benches opposite, however seriously they feel it, to be anxious about my child? In my absence the hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Friend) asked where my children are at school. He of course wanted to hint that because I am married to an English lady my children are in an English school. My children are in an Afrikaans medium school. My home language is both languages. My children are being educated at school in Afrikaans, and the spirit in that school and in that home is Afrikaans. Let me say this to some of those members on the other side who are English-speaking, that they should give up this sort of political hypocrisy by intimating that they are worried over our children, while the fact is that the fault is with their children. My son is ten years old, and I challenge some of the English-speaking members opposite to speak better English than he does.

You are proud of your children.

I am proud, just as I am proud of any person who comes to South Africa and adopts it as his fatherland. My little son will speak English with you, but he will not sing God Save the King. His mother is Scottish, but he is here in South Africa and he is an Afrikaner. He will not sing God Save the King but Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, because that is the national anthem of his country.

I just want to say a few words in regard to this matter. That we on this side are concerned about the Afrikaans language, is not to be wondered at, because we realise that we are a conquered nation, and we know that one of our revered presidents, President Steyn, said—

When we remember that, we can understand why this side is very perturbed about this threat to the Afrikaans language; because we could never have a nation without a language. I am not going to enlarge on what the experts said or what they are supposed to have said, or what they did not say, because that has nothing to do with the matter. This whole affair is a political game. That is what is at the back of their minds. They are concerned about the approaching end of the United Party. That is all they are concerned about. They are not concerned about dual medium schools and things of that kind. Let us look at the position before the Second War of Independence. At that time, when I went to school, the position was that we had to take all our subjects in English. I learned High Dutch for about one hour per week. It was not said at that time that it was racialism. I still remember what happened in Calvinia. When I spoke Afrikaans during the course of the week, a board was hung round my neck on Friday, bearing the words: “I must not speak Dutch.” I also remember that if I again transgressed the following week, the board was hung a notch higher, and the words were changed to: “I am a donkey.” I remember those things very well.

Were you such a dunce?

That was the British fairplay we got. That was our punishment for speaking the language which we learned at our mother’s knee. When we spoke our home-language, we had to carry a board bearing the words: “I am a donkey.” Let me say this to the hon. member who made that interjection. There was an English-speaking woman in South Africa who said that when the English-speaking people heard the footsteps of the Russian soldiers in the streets of London, they would realise for the first time what they had done to the Afrikaans child. Bearing in mind the growing power of Russia, the English people must beware lest the same fate befalls them. I want to ask them how they would feel if the Russians were in the position of being able to say to their children that they will not be allowed to speak English. Would they be satisfied if their children were forced to say: “If I speak English, I am a donkey”? They must beware; history has a knack of repeating itself.

Your leader advocated communism.

I shall not allow myself to be put off by that foolish remark. The Prime Minister is worried about the Afrikaans child all of a sudden, about the innocent “bloedjies” (little souls), as he called the Afrikaner children. He fears that the Afrikaner child, when the great industrial development takes place in the future, will not be able to get employment because he does not know the second language. He is concerned about them. But I want to put this question to hon. members on the other side. What role did the Prime Minister play in the development of the Afrikaans language? Let hon. members on the other side get up and tell me whether the Prime Minister is a member of any Afrikaans cultural society. Does he belong to any Afrikaans cultural organisation? Can they do so?

I can do it.

Did the Prime Minister ever address an Afrikaans society? He has never done so, but I know of many cases where he addressed the Jewish Board of Deputies and the Sons of England. The hon. member cannot mention a single case where the Prime Minister addressed an Afrikaans society.

He was the only Minister who attended the Voortrekker Centenary at Pretoria.,

Is that any reply to my challenge that they should prove that he belonged to a single Afrikaans organisation? Has he ever taken part in the Voortrekker or Helpmekaar movements? We are now told that he did, at any rate, attend the Centenary celebrations. Then I want to ask them ….

Carry on.

The Prime Minister has written many books. I want to ask those hon. members whether he ever wrote a book in the Afrikaans language. He wrote “Die Eeu van Onreg” in the Dutch language, and what happened? He banned it so that his own people could not read it.

Let them have it !

That taught you to write.

That side of the House is now concerned about bilingualism all of a sudden. I want to ask them who are the bilingual people in South Africa and who are the unilingual people.

The Boltmans are bilingual.

There are twelve Ministers in the Cabinet. Is there a single Afrikaans-speaking Minister who is unilingual, or is it the English-speaking Ministers bearing the names Stallard and Clarkson and Madeley who are unilingual?

Unfortunately that is so owing to single medium schools.

Just imagine; there are four unilingual Ministers in this Cabinet. They attend Cabinet meetings and then decide that they are concerned about bilingualism and that they must have dual medium schools so that the people can become bilingual ! Then I want to ask those hon. members, who are the bilingual members in this House? Is it the members on this side of the House or the members on that side of the House? The bilingual members are on this side. Let the hon. member mention the name of one Afrikaans-speaking member on this side or even on that side who is unilingual. Is it not the English-speaking members who are unilingual? They sit in this House and they cannot understand a word of the proceedings. They might as well be in Moscow or Rome or Paris.

But we want to rectify it now.

These are the people who want to preach to us; they tell us that they want to make the South Africans bilingual. They now say that they want to rectify it.

It is a little late.

Let us see who is unilingual and who is bilingual in the Civil Service. Can hon. members on that side mention the name of a single Afrikaans-speaking person in the Civil Service who is unilingual? Can they mention the name of anyone in the Railway Service who is unilingual? Can they mention the name of a single Afrikaansspeaking person in the police force who is unilingual? No, they cannot do it because every Afrikaans-speaking person is bilingual. These are the people who are concerned about bilingualism all of a sudden.

It is hypocrisy.

Can you make a good speech in English?

I do not want to discuss the question of bilingualism, because that is not the reason why they came forward with this policy. What is the reason? They are afraid of young South Africa. That is what they fear. When one looks at the returns and one sees what a man like Professor Gray wrote in 1942, when he analysed the results of the last election, one finds that he used the following words—

And what is the conclusion he arrived at? He says—

That explains their concern. I want to ask hon. members on the other side who are so loud whether they are not the people who accused us of dragging this question into the political arena?

Definitely.

Just listen to that; the hon. member says “definitely.” He says it is definitely this side which dragged this matter into politics. When the Federation of the Churches saw the Prime Minister, he is reported in “Die Suiderstem” of the 20th August, to have said—

He went on to say—

The Prime Minister made an appeal to the Churches and he said—

It is the same Prime Minister who made this statement on the 24th September when he made an appeal in connection with the general provincial election. The hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) now says that it is this side of the House which dragged this matter into politics. Just listen to what the Prime Minister said on the 24th September—

You cannot wait until that stage is reached and then only form the United Party! He went on to say—

Here he intimates that once the children in South Africa are grown up, and it is then sought to form political parties, it will be too late and the struggle will have been lost.

And you start with the children while they are still young.

He went on to say—

Hear, hear.

I said that they were concerned about the future of the party. The Prime Minister now says we must build up a united nation in the schools—

That is what the Prime Minister said on the 24th August. Who dragged this matter into the political arena? I want to say this to that hon. member. I know he is more likely to believe his own Prime Minister than me …

You are telling me.

Here his own Prime Minister comes along and admits that they dragged this matter into the election. I say, therefore, that they are not concerned about bilingualism. That is not their object. I want to quote one further passage. In the same statement on the 24th September he suggested that we intended teaching our children only one language. He said—

The Prime Minister knows what happens in the Afrikaans single medium schools where the child is taught English as well, and knowing that, he deliberately misrepresents the position and says that we want our children to be taught one language only. I say therefore that this question has nothing to do with bilingualism. It is nothing but politics. The Minister of Transport made a statement in Durban during the election when he spoke of the language medium. He spoke of the scarcity of bilingual persons, of people in high positions in regard to whom he was so concerned, when applications were made, and yet the very same Minister was instrumental in having confidential letters written in his department, in which he told the heads of departments that the claims of unilingual persons should not be overlooked; and he told them that notwithstanding the fact that there were suitably qualified bilingual persons. I say that this matter has nothing to do with bilingualism. It is a political game. Then I just want to deal with the last statement, a statement which was made by the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation. He is not as careful as the Prime Minister, and he is not as diplomatic as the Prime Minister. On the 20th September he held a meeting at Salt River and, inter alia, he made the following statement—

That, according to the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation, was the reason why they introduced this policy, namely, that the teachers did not correctly interpret the history to the children. As far as he is concerned, that is sufficient justification for the introduction of this policy. I just want to say that those people with the history of Empire builders in South Africa have reason to be ashamed of their history, because if the history teacher is honest and wants to teach the child correctly, he will have to tell him of the attempted political assassination of the Transvaal by Jameson; he will have to tell the children that Jameson was handed over to President Kruger, that President Kruger handed him over to what he regarded as a just England; and what happened to him? Some years later the man who attempted political assassination of the Transvaal, was back in South Africa and he was rewarded by the English-speaking people by being made Prime Minister of South Africa. But the child must not be taught these things. They are ashamed of their history. If the history teacher is honest he will be allowed to tell the children that 4,000 citizens fell in the Second War of Independence, but he will not be allowed to tell them that during the same period 26,000 women and children lost their lives in the concentration camps.

You want to foster racialism.

If that hon. member’s nation committed certain deeds which led to racialism, he must bear the consequences. They have never asked pardon for their misdeeds. The statement of these hon. members that they are concerned about bilingualism, does not hold water. They are concerned about their own party, about the rising young South Africa. Young South Africa, whether they carry on with this policy or not, will, as Wakkerstroom proved, see to it that an end is put to the United Party.

Thirty-four years ago it was laid down in the Act of Union that we want bilingualism in our country, that the Afrikaans-speaking national section would learn the English language and that the English-speaking national section would learn the Afrikaans language, and that we would respect one another’s language. Since that time the Afrikaans-speaking people in this country have learned English and have done their best to become bilingual. A great many English-speaking people have also attempted to learn Afrikaans, but there is another section which has definitely refused to learn the Afrikaans language. The question arises, what was the attitude of hon. members on the other side? What has been the attitude which the Government side adopted all these years in regard to the principle of bilingualism in South Africa? Not only were they indifferent, but they actually helped to prevent this country from becoming a bilingual country. The question arises why the United Party, after all these years, is now so concerned about the people becoming bilingual. Are we really to believe that after thirty-four years they are realising for the first time that the country should be bilingual? I can mention numerous cases where the old South African Party, the United Party, definitely opposed any attempt to make the country bilingual. Only recently we saw that a man like Mr. Heaton Nicholls, at present Administrator of Natal, openly stated on a platform that the attitude which the English people in Natal adopted towards Section 137, was that Section 137 was a concession to the sentiments of the Afrikaans-speaking people, but that in actual fact the language of this country would be the English language. That is the attitude which he adopted. That is the attitude which Natal adopted, and it was openly stated. Moreover, at the congress held on the 14th October, 1932, Mr. Nicholls, in the presence of the Prime Minister, stated that after obtaining certain concessions, they were satisfied. If they had not obtained these concessions from the United Party, they would have offered the strongest opposition, and he stated that as a result of these concessions Natal, as far as its provincial matters were concerned, would remain English-speaking unilingual. There was not a single word of protest from the Prime Minister or any member of the South African Party at that time. The question arises why the party is apparently so anxious today to follow a policy of bilingualism. I do not want to go too deeply into that. We are convinced that there are certain motives behind this movement. The motive is not that every citizen should be made bilingual, but it is a political movement to safeguard the party’s future.

The hon. member should not repeat previous arguments.

I want to point out that in his amendment the Prime Minister utters a threat towards the provincial councils and especially the Free State. He says—

The Government will do this in consultation with the provincial councils. We know the arrangement which was made at that time, namely, that education, primary education, at any rate, would rest with the provincial councils. The Union Government as such will have nothing to do with it. That was one of the rights given to the provincial councils when Union was brought about. What right has the Government to say by means of an amendment in this House, that it will ensure that certain educational principles are given effect to in consultation with the provincial councils? I say that this represents a serious threat to the provincial councils. In the event of their refusing to give effect to the policy of the Government, they may be victimised by withholding their subsidy, or in some other way. The Government will bring pressure to bear on the provincial councils to carry out its policy. The Prime Minister is discriminating. In 1932 we had the secession movement in Natal. Natal wanted to break away from the Union; She did not want to be a member of the Union. What was the reason? The reason was that unilingual officials could not be appointed in Natal, and, in the second place, that unilingual officials were not promoted under the Nationalist Party Government. Natal protested because Section 137 of the Act of Union was being applied. The Prime Minister and Col. Reitz went to Durban and met the S.A.P. Congress at Pietermaritzburg on the 14th October, 1932, and they made an appeal to Natal not to secede but to remain with the S.A. Party in order to help to defeat the Nationalist Party. They succeeded in persuading some of the Natal members of Parliament to come over to their side, but Mr. Heaton Nicholls refused, and according to the Natal English newspapers, he went to his hotel to write out his resignation. He wanted to break away from the South African Party. Mr. Holland and a few other Natal members followed him, and a memorandum was then drawn up by Mr. Holland. It was submitted by them to Mr. Nicholls. He read it and said that if the Prime Minister accepted it as the policy of the South African Party and gave effect to it, he would withdraw his resignation. The Prime Minister accepted it at the public meeting. His speech was reported in the “Natal Mercury” of the 14th October, 1932. It was a notable speech. The Prime Minister, through the eight points of the Holland memorandum, promised Natal, on behalf of the South African Party, that Natal could make its own appointments and its own promotions as far as provincial administration was concerned. The Provincial administration was to be completely independent of the Public Service Commission. That was done because Natal objected to the maintenance of bilingualism in the provincial service. Education in all its branches, including technical education and higher education and university education, in terms of the statement of the Prime Minister, was entrusted to Natal. But the Prime Minister went further and resented the fact that the Union Government was interfering with provincial affairs in Natal. Read that notable speech of his. He expressed strong views against any domination on the part of the Union Government in connection with provincial affairs in Natal. He advocated that the Provincial Council should have complete control, and he went so far as to say that the Union Government should not have the right of veto as far as provincial ordinances were concerned. He stated that he had fully considered the matter before adopting that attitude. He stipulated that provincial affairs should stand apart, that the Union Government should have nothing to do with the matter. But now that he is in power and at the head of affairs, he wants to force his will on the Free State, the will of the Union Parliament. Now he introduces an amendment of this nature which seeks to violate the rights of the Free State. It is a threat to the Free State and other provinces which do not want to carry out his policy. I should like to know what the attitude of the Acting Prime Minister is. Is he going to endorse his leader’s attitude in connection with provincial councils; is he going to allow pressure to be brought to bear on the provincial councils to carry but this policy? The Prime Minister is discriminating between the two sections. Now that he is in power he is going to bring pressure to bear on a province like the Free State which refuses to accept this policy. It does not meet with the approval of the nation; it does not meet with the approval of the Provincial Council; and he will only be able to carry it out by means of compulsion. Is the Prime Minister going to go to the length of bringing pressure to bear on the Free State? Does he forget how he acted towards Natal? His statement is on black and white. He resented the fact that the then Nationalist Party Government interfered with so-called provincial matters, although the Nationalist Party was only confining itself to the Act of Union and applying Section 137. In the presence of the Prime Minister and the whole congress. Mr. Heaton Nicholls got up and stated that after the acceptance of the Holland memorandum he knew that Natal, as far as provincial matters were concerned, would remain unilingual. The very same man is appointed as Provincial Administrator in these days and then we are told that they are so concerned about bilingualism. We believe that they are motivated by political considerations, and that that is the only reason for this step.

At the conclusion of this very long and interesting debate in regard to one of the most important matters to be discussed in this House for many years, I want to express my gratitude, in the first place, to my colleagues for the manner in which they conducted this debate. Their speeches showed their deep conviction, and that they made a thorough study of this matter. They showed that what they said came from the bottom of their hearts, and they spoke the Government Party on the other side to a standstill. Throughout the whole day not a single member on the other side spoke, notwithstanding the fact that serious revelations were made here today in regard to misrepresentations, not only by members on the other side but by Ministers. Nevertheless they did not have the courage to get up and to take part in the debate because they had no reply to the speeches which came from this side.

They were completely overwelmed.

Exactly. We recently spoke to a highly-placed personage from New Zealand. He told us that before he came here he imagined that the Nationalist Party represented the uneducated section of the population, that they wore long beards and smoked stinking cob pipes. But, he stated, he discovered that the brains of the House of Assembly was on the Opposition side. This debate clearly proved that. It is not possible for me to reply to all the speeches. I just want to make a few comments in passing in regard to certain statements which were made here. Before doing so, I want to take the strongest exception, in the first place, to a statement which was made here by a Jewish member. The Jews in our country are mainly to blame for the racialism which exists between Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking people. They foster racialism for their own gain, because while we quarrel, they are making money out of us. The hon. member for Pretoria (City) (Mr. Davis) stated that the Leader of the Opposition never spoke English in this House and that that was proof of his contempt for the English language. I take the strongest exception to the inference that one shows contempt for the English language when one speaks one’s mother tongue in this House. I speak my mother tongue because I want to do so, because I love it, because I am more at home in it and as a matter of principle, and that does not detract from the fact that I may have the highest respect for the English language. This side of the House has constantly shown that not only do the members on this side know the English language, but also English literature and history. That is more than can be said by members on that side, and I think the Jewish members in this House should refrain from accusing us of despising the English language because we choose to speak our own language. On the contrary, it would be more correct to say that the fact that there are members on his own side who cannot speak Afrikaans, is evidence of their contempt for the Afrikaans language. I do sometimes speak English in the House. When I spoke English on a previous occasion, the comment of an English newspaper was that “Mr. Swart spoke in perfect English.” I am not ashamed of it, but I do not want a Jew, when I speak my mother tongue, to tell me that I should speak the other language, least of all Jews who were born in Poland.

He was bom in Pretoria.

No, he was not.

I know.

I just want to say in passing that the hon. member for Bethal (Mr. Fourie) made the strange statement yesterday that when we spoke of mother tongue education, we were using a technical term, and that it meant mother tongue education up to Standard IV. Has anyone ever heard such stupidity?

No, we spoke of the home language.

He said that mother tongue education meant education in the mother tongue up to Standard IV.

No, that is a misrepresentation.

I heard it personally. He said that mother tongue education meant education through the medium of the mother tongue up to Standard IV. I am sorry that many of the hon. members on the other side are not here at the moment, because I wanted to test their sincerity in this matter. The hon. member for Hottentots-Holland (Mr. Carinus) spoke of his great love for the Afrikaans language and assured us that he stood for the rights of the Afrikaans language. That hon. member is the member of a Government Commission which is functioning at present, but which writes letters of this kind to an Afrikaans firm.

They ask the firm in question to give evidence before the Commission of which that hon. member is a member, and they write to the firm as follows—

That is the member who now speaks of his love for Afrikaans, and who does these things when he has to maintain the Afrikaans language. The hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Dr. L. P. Bosman) announced a new system. He is not in favour of dual medium schools either, but a sort of “cocktail” medium. He wants the child to be taught history through the medium of English on Wednesday, Afrikaans on Tuesday, English on Wednesday, etc.—a different language every day.

First Bosman and then Bushman.

That is why I say it is a cocktail mixture. Just imagine the child having to do that. But what do we find now? The hon. member comes here and makes fun of a letter which was written to him by a youngster of 17 years, a messenger who had worked for him.

He did not make fun of it.

He held that child up to ridicule, and I challenge him to ask his colleagues on the other side to write a letter in Afrikaans. Let him go to his own Minister, let him go to men who are advocates and who are well-educated people and ask them to write a letter in Afrikaans.

He did not make fun of the child.

He read the letter to the House. He should have started with his own colleagues. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) made a great fuss about the dual medium. When he was in the Orange Free State and an attempt was made to compel the English children to learn Dutch and the Afrikaans children to learn English, he went to London to invoke their assistance. He wrote a letter in the “London Times” in which he stated—

He invoked the assistance of Downing Street in order to prevent a foreign language from being forced down the throats of the English children! The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. McLean) accused the members on this side of racialism. He has been in this country for thirty or forty years, and he has held the Afrikaans language in such contempt that he has not learned it to this day.

You quoted those accusations from Van der Heever’s book. It is wrong and you know it. You killed Gen. Hertzog.

The hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) told us that they would deal with the church.

On a point of personal explanation; I did not say that. I deny once and for all that I said that I would deal with the church. I said that if the church differed from us on this point, we would not allow the church to dictate to us.

I wrote down the hon. member’s words while he spoke, and he stated that if the church persisted in its attitude towards mother tongue education, they would deal with the church. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) mentioned the name of Dr. Coetzee.

I did not say that he supports our attitude.

When I asked on which side Dr. Chris Coetzee stood in this struggle, the hon. member tried to create the impression that Dr. Coetzee supported their attitude.

On a point of personal explanation, I referred to Prof. Coetzee, and I did not say that he supports the policy of this side of the House. I quoted him as a witness in connection with Dr. E. G. Malherbe’s book.

To make the matter perfectly clear, I just want to quote a few words from the book of Dr. Coetzee. He wrote—

That is his opinion.

So much as far as certain private members on the other side are concerned. I now want to deal with what was said by a few of the Ministers. I am sorry the Prime Minister is not here today. He is celebrating his birthday at “home.”

That is cheap.

No, he costs the country a great deal of money. The Prime Minister made this statement that he denied that we had received our education in the past through the medium of one language only. He said it was the policy in the past to use both languages as media of instruction. We then asked him through which medium he had written his examinations. He could not mention one subject which he wrote through the medium of any language other than English. If that was the policy in the past, why do we know nothing about it? Why were we only taught through the medium of one language?

You are still in the dark.

Let that hon. member tell me which subjects he wrote in any language other than Englsih, if he did write examinations.

I passed my examinations as well as you did.

Very well, in that case the hon. member will be able to tell me which subjects he wrote through the medium of Nederlands or Afrikaans.

The Taalbond examination.

I am very glad to hear from the hon. member that he was allowed to write an examination in High Dutch through the medium of High Dutch. But he cannot mention any other subject. Then I should like to come to the Minister of Education. The hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) made a revelation today on which we ought to get an explanation from the Minister of Education. We should like to know from him why he left out the word “Dutch” when he read the statement of “Onze Jan”? Why does he quote a sentence and then omit the key word from the sentence? Where “Onze Jan” spoke of “every Dutch child” he only read “every child”, which gives the matter a completely diffferent colour. When I read a document in this House, I do try to read everything in it; I do not omit important words. It gives the matter a completely different colour. Then I want to deal with another matter which was raised here by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) in connection with the attack which the Minister made on the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie). We know that the hon. member for Gordonia is very sensitive, and he was hurt when the Minister accused him of a shameless misrepresentation, when, in fact, he was perfectly correct in what he said, as was proved by the hon. member for Humansdorp. I think the Minister ought to get up and apologise to the hon. member for Gordonia for having made that charge against him, when, in fact, what he said was nothing by the truth. No, that is not fair. The Minister of Agriculture was also taken to task today by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) in connection with what he said in regard to the hon. member for Waterberg concerning the conference of inspectors, and it was proved that he was wrong and that he had made certain statements which were not correct. The hon. Minister stated that the hon. member for Waterberg had made certain statements which were not correct, and when the true position was revealed here, not one of them said boo or bah. Their lips are sealed. They have not got the courage to reply.

What is the use of replying to you?

Oh yes, I notice they did say boo or bah, but that was all they said. In this debate something else came out which was aptly put in the winged words of a Government supporter, the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp), when he said: “I am tired of lip service on the part of the Government in regard to bilingualism”.

Misrepresentation?

We repeat that. We are also tired of the lip service of the Government to the cause of bilingualism. In my opening speech I put that as a test, and I put that test again, I repeat that if the party on the other side is really in favour of bilingualism, they should accept this test—the test which was accepted by one Province, namely, the Orange Free State, that all the citizens of the State ought to be bilingual citizens and that arrangements are made in the schools to ensure that by means of examinations. We want to put this test in the examinations : students who write public examinations, the Junior Certificate and Matriculation as well as other examinations, must pass in both languages. They are not prepared to accept that test, and I say that if they do not accept it, they are only paying lip service to the cause of bilingualism. We know just what they would do, even if they were to accept it. The law would be applied to one and not to the other. One national section will be told to make a pretence of using the two languages. But why are they afraid of this test? We say that that test should be put in every examination. In the Junior Certificate and in the Senior Certificate examinations the candidates should pass in both languages. The objection of the Minister of Education was that that would only apply to a small percentage of the students. Well, we also have Standard VI. Why do they refuse to do it?

Why did you first limit to Matriculation and now you want to include Std. VI? You have never said so previously.

I say Std. VI because the Minister stated that only a small percentage took Matriculation.

The curriculum was laid down by experts and not by you.

Oh, thank you. The hon. member for Bethal (Mr. Fourie) said that I did not allow myself to be dictated to by experts, and apparently the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) does not agree with him. Well, well! But that does not matter. All I want is the test. We in the Free State insist on all children knowing both languages, and we want that to be done in the other provinces as well. The fact that hon. members on the other side are not prepared to accept this test, convinces me that they are not being sincere, that they do not intend giving effect to it, that they do not intend ensuring that we really get bilingualism. The hon. member for Potchefstroom said that he was pleading for Afrikaans; he pleaded for bilingualism, and he told the House that bilingualism was safe in their hands. They have no right to say that they stand for true bilingualism. How can they say that they stand for equal rights for the Afrikaans language, that they stand for mother tongue education? The children of the hon. member for Potchefstroom and of the hon. member for Bethal attend English medium schools.

And how many children of members on the other side attend English medium schools?

Mention their names. You cannot do so. The children of the hon. member for Bethal go to an English medium school, and nevertheless he says ….

That is not so; I know that that is not correct.

It is of no avail denying it. He himself did not deny it. What is the use of hon. members on that side speaking of a predilection for their mother tongue when they refuse to prove it in practice. Their own children do not attend Afrikaans medium schools.

That is not true. The children of the hon. member for Bethal attend a dual medium school.

And what language do they take?

I can only tell you this, that my youngest daughter has just written to me to say that she took her major in Afrikaans.

Yes, as a subject but not as the medium.

Now it is coming out.

The trouble is that hon. members do not understand the difference between medium and subject. Now I can understand why they adopt this attitude. They do not know the difference between the medium of instruction and the subject. I just want to say a few words in regard to the hon. member for Vryheid. He was one of the leading lights of the Natal “Saamwerk-Unie,” a body which advocated single medium schools. But his political outlook has forced him to reject Afrikaans and to renounce his past.

Do not believe that; he has seen the light.

This is nothing but an attempt to obscure the issue of bilingualism. They pretend time and again that their party is in favour of bilingualism, and they accuse us of being opposed to bilingualism because we want either English or Afrikaans as the medium of instruction—either one or the other. In this House they are trying to obscure the truth; this debate has made that very clear.

They are trying to bring about a sort of eclipse.

Hon. members had a great deal to say about the past. The past is all very well, but I am more concerned about the future at the moment. But since the hon. member for Potchefstroom and also the Prime Minister referred to the past, I want to make this statement. They said a great deal in connection with the commission of 1911, but what does the Transvaal Ordinance of 1911 say? It provides for mother tongue education up to Standard IV.

What did Gen. Hertzog say?

Beyond Standard IV the choice is left to the parents. They can choose either the Dutch medium entirely or the English medium entirely or both languages as the media of instruction. I have before me the Act and the instructions which are given to the parent, and here it is stated that beyond Standard IV the parent can choose for the child either exclusively English as a medium of instruction or High Dutch; or English as the medium for some subjects and Dutch as the medium for other subjects. And then there is this question: “Do you elect High Dutch or English as the medium of instruction for your child?” That was the choice. That was the very thing which the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) advocated in the Free State.

And what is the position today?

Here I have the legislation. Do they now speak of the commission of 1911? Here it is stated that the choice was left to the parent, and if the parent did not wish to elect, the child could be taught in the language which he or she understood best.

Yes, and Parliament itself decided that.

Exactly. What are they quarrelling about? I wonder what would happen if the Government were to give effect to this policy? I am speaking as a Free Stater, in the first place, since the most difficult position will arise in the Free State, because in the Free State a fixed policy was accepted in connection with language education. Although we have single medium schools, bilingualism is compulsory. Our policy was accepted and agreed to by the Provincial Council, by the Education Department, by the Church, by the teachers and by the parents. What I want to know is this. Is the Government going to compel the Free State to abandon the policy which it has followed up to the present, against the wishes of the Province, against the wishes of the people of the Free State, against the wishes of the Church? Will the Minister tell us whether he proposes to force this policy on us? I ask him to reply to that. I want to ask what has become of the solemn promise which the Prime Minister gave when the deputation of the Churches approached him under the leadership of the Rev. A. F. Louw, the Acting Moderator of the Cape Church, and one representative of each of the Provinces, in regard to the question of education? We know that at a later date we got a statement in connection with what Gen. Smuts had told the deputation. I have it here [translation]—

The other language will be introduced gradually. What becomes of all the stories we heard; that the children would sit on the same school benches and play together? What does the promise of the Prime Minister amount to? No, they want to change the character of the Afrikaans schools. Here we have the assurance of the Prime Minister to the deputation of the Churches [translation]—

He stated that he wanted to go further into the possibilities of using the second language at a later stage when the pupils had made more progress, but he stated explicitly that the Afrikaans character of the schools would not be tampered with. Hon. members on the other side have spoken of racialism in the schools. Let me quote what was said by Capt. Howgrave-Graham, an ex-teacher, a member of the Provincial Council in the Transvaal—

He is as much an extremist as you people are. He is just as “red.”

And are there no “reds” on that side? The Government benches are full of them. He is English-speaking, and that is his experience and his own evidence. No, they do not want to hear their own witnesses. I want to know whether they are going to compel the Free State to accept these things. They often speak of conciliation in this country. But I want to say this —there will be no conciliation if these things are done. There will be no conciliation if you continue on this road of oppression; if you compel the Afrikaners to do things which they do not want to do and which they regard as unsound. The hon. friend may laugh and treat the matter lightly. I say that we were rapidly reducing the ill-feeling which existed between the two races, but this thing is going to cause a thousand and one pinpricks; and it is bound to aggravate the position in the future. In view of this, one is interested to read what was said a few days ago by the Right Hon. the Prime Minister in London. He spoke of the British constitution to which he adheres.

You should listen to this. This is London calling.

He stated—

When we discuss this matter today and we hear statements of this kind, we ask ourselves what happened in the history of our country. Here the Prime Minister speaks of “fairplay and justice.” Ask the countries which stood under England whether they experienced “fairplay and justice.” Ask the people in Ireland; ask the people in India; ask the people in South Africa whether there was “decency and fairplay and tolerance.”

Hypocrisy.

Call up the spirit of William T. Stead; ask Campbell-Bannerman; ask Ramsay MacDonald; ask Emily Hobhouse; ask these people whether that was their experience. Did they witness “decency, fairplay and tolerance”? Here he states—

We want to live our lives freely. We want to develop as a nation with our own traditions and our own language. We also want to say to the English-speaking people in this country: “We do not want to interfere with you.” We have never made an attack on English single medium schools.

Nor have our Governments done so.

We allowed them to develop freely, without any restrictions. Today they want to use force, they want to dictate to us that our children should learn this, that or the other subject through the medium of English. I had almost forgotten some of the bitterness which I experienced in my schooldays when I was compelled to take every subject through the medium of English. I still remember the day when I first went to school; I remember how I cried because I could not understand a single word. We were beginning to forget these things. We were compelled to take every subject in English, and that planted the seed of hatred in our hearts. Today I find that both my children are happy in their Afrikaans-medium schools. I am told that my daughter is doing very well in English in the Oranje School. I am told that they are happy in those schools where they take every subject through the medium of Afrikaans. But the Prime Minister now wants to force my children to take all their subjects through the medium of English. Is that the freedom of which he spoke? Is that the freedom which you give your fellowcitizen to live as he pleases? No, that is oppression and nothing else. I want to make an appeal to the Minister on the other side to prevent this thing which we dread, this struggle into which we will inevitably be plunged. In spite of all your Somersets, in spite of all your Milners, your Smuts’s, your Barlows, your Tighy’s, your Steenkamps, you will not force us to submit in this matter. You will unleash a struggle which will last for many years. Bring your steamroller. Perhaps this is a rod with which we are to be punished. But that rod may help us to make the Afrikaner conscious of what he ought to be and what he wants to be. All these attempts to oppress the Afrikaner will fail. We have had a debate here in which this side of the House has clearly put and advocated its case. We have fought hard for our rights. We are being opposed by people who speak our own language. They want to force something on us which we do not want. I adhere to my motion. This motion claims for Afrikaans-speaking people and English-speaking people the right to be educated through the medium of their own language; and the right to say to both national sections: “You must be bilingual. We shall see to it that you learn the other language as well.” The other side does not want to accept that. They do not really want bilingualism. Their attitude is this: “You will not be allowed to receive mother-tongue education; we do not say that you must be bilingual. We shall carry on with that policy and we shall have unilingual citizens.” I accept the amendment of the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink.) But we can never accept the amendment of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister.

Question put : That all the words after “That” down to and including “higher education” in line 5, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided :

Ayes—36 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bremer, K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw, E. H.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Serfontein, J. J.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Swart, C. R.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Tellers : J. F. T. Naudé and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—74 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Madeley, W. B.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Pieterse, E. P.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Raubenheimer, L. J,

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Solomon, B.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard. C. F.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sullivan, J. R.

Tighy, S. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Waring F. W.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Wolmarans, J. B.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Question accordingly negatived and, the words being omitted, the amendment proposed by Mr. Brink dropped.

The substitution of the words proposed by the Prime Minister put,

Upon which the House divided :

Ayes—73 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Madeley, W. B.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Pieterse, E. P.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Solomon, B.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard. C. F.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sullivan, J. R.

Tighy, S. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Waring, F. W.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Wolmarans, J. B.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty

Noes—36 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bremer, K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw, E. H.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Fieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Serfontein, J. J.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Swart, C. R.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Tellers : J. F. T. Naudé and P. O. Sauer.

Words proposed to be substituted by the Prime Minister accordingly agreed to.

Motion, as amended, put and the House divided :

Ayes—73 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hpfmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Madeley, W. B.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Pieterse, E. P.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Solomon, B.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard C. F.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sullivan, J. R.

Tighy, S. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Waring, F. W.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams. H. J.

Wolmarans, J. B.

Tellers: G. A. Friend en J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—36 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bremer, K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw, E. H.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Serfontein, J. J.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Swart, C. R.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Tellers : J. F. T. Naudé en P. O. Sauer.

Motion, as amended, accordingly agreed to viz. :

It therefore, with a view to serving these objects, expresses the advisability that the Government in consultation with the Provincial Authorities, considers the amendment where necessary of the educational laws and regulations and the revision of the educational machinery of the Provinces so as to give effect within a period of five years to the following principles:

1. (1) That the child should be instructed through its home language in the early stages of its education career;
2. (2) that the second language should be introduced gradually as a supplementary medium of instruction from the stage at which it is on educational grounds appropriate to do so; and
3. (3) that such changes should be introduced in the system of the training of teachers as are necessary to make the ideals of bilingualism and of national unity in the schools fully effective.