Mr. Speaker, on 14 April, during the Second Reading debate of the Appropriation Bill, I made the following remark whilst the hon. member for Houghton was addressing the House—

Obviously, I did not mean the remark seriously and I am sorry if I have embarrassed the hon. member. I withdraw that remark.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the privilege of the half hour. I think it is common cause that South Africa at the moment faces one of the greatest crises in its entire history. I think there is a growing public awareness of the dangers, but there is still a lack of active response to those dangers. It seems to me that the average citizen is looking for information and guidance, but has not yet realized that the remedies do not lie in the obsolete social order under which we live and the inadequate system of government to which we have become accustomed.

I think it is the responsibility of the hon. the Prime Minister to tell the people the truth and to give them a lead in this situation. Each time the hon. gentleman is to make a major speech, there is a sense of high expectation and it is invariably followed by disappointment and disillusion. Today the hon. the Prime Minister is here to defend his Vote and the policies which have led South Africa into the position in which it is. I believe he is on political trial today. [Interjections.]

One would not use such words unless it was clear that the emergencies which we face are likely to escalate and become more serious as time goes by. I think we must ask ourselves just how critical the situation is. What is it that brings the Kissingers, the Castros, the Podgornys and the Owens to Southern Africa? What is the urgency behind the message which was jointly delivered to the hon. the Prime Minister by the ambassadors of Britain, Canada, France, Germany and the United States of America? How serious are the threats in the Security Council and elsewhere against which these countries seek to defend us and what is the minimum help they demand that we should give? What is it that causes France, through its ambassador at the United Nations, to plead with our enemies for continuous dialogue, but at the same time warn that Pretoria must understand that they are calling upon it to undertake changes and a re-examination in depth of its policies? What is it that causes an American ambassador to the United Nations to have the consummate cheek to say that our Government is not legitimate?

Ignorance!

The present system of government and the repression which it is responsible for is not only humiliating to the dignity of people, but it is dangerous. The hon. the Prime Minister talks about removing all traces of racial discrimination. We know that he has a Cabinet Committee dealing with that matter. In this letter to Assocom he said that racial discrimination would be removed as fast as possible. How fast is that? When are we going to see the result? Still, we hear that the Immorality Act and the Mixed Marriages Act are not discriminatory. I think that it is time for the hon. the Prime Minister to take Parliament into his confidence and to tell us the truth about things. That is what Parliament is here for. We do not need to be told that certain aspects of our society are in disarray or that our system or order of government are no longer adequate for the changing times we live in. There is evidence for that all around us.

Let me briefly summarize the situation as I see it at the moment. After eight months of rioting and unrest there is a lull in the pattern of disorder in South Africa. I believe that we should deceive ourselves if we thought that was achieved as a result of social reforms and that it was not due more to repression. After eight months the commission of inquiry into the riots is still sitting. It is evident that we are not going to get a report this session. In the beginning of the session I pleaded for an interim report or submission of the report chapter by chapter, because I thought it so important. We also pleaded for the appointment of two commissions, one for the north and one for the south, in the hope that that would expedite matters. The Government has not seen fit to have regard to our plea. At the time of the riots at Paarl the Snyman Commission produced an interim report very quickly. Why is there no interim document before us yet as to what the situation is?

I have been talking about internal things. The population of our goals continues to increase. The number of people shot by the Police, excluding the riots, continues to escalate. It is not my purpose to blame the Police. [Interjections.] They react to situations with which they are faced and I do not blame them for what they are doing. However, it is my duty to ask why such situations exist. What is wrong with laws and policies that lead to such casualties? What is the position in the homelands? We know there is grave discontent not least of all in the Transkei, which has become independent and has achieved the highest pinnacle of its development. We know that one of the causes of discontent is the general land question. It is a formula for conflict because it contrasts on the one side the need to buy land for an ever-increasing population, with the inability of the State to continue to find it and to find sufficient money to buy it. There is a further formula for conflict and that lies in the inability of the homelands to create employment internally for their growing birth rate and the people entering the labour market annually. Not only is that a cause for conflict, but those people themselves do not have the opportunity to make their services fully available in the general economy of South Africa.

Then there is the citizenship question. There are the people who are attached to various homelands. They find that when that homeland becomes independent, they lose their South African citizenship whether they want it or not or whether they live here or not.

Far graver than these problems is the position of the urban Blacks. This was raised by the hon. member for Moorreesburg in the budget debate last week. We do not hear any suggestion of a solution coming from the Government. The matter was raised in the Other Place earlier in this session. The hon. the Prime Minister told them flatly “dat magsdeling nie die beleid is van sy Regering nie”. [Interjections.]

What is the alternative?

What is the alternative with regard to the urban Black people? These difficulties are perfectly underlined in the Government’s attitude to the Coloured people. The basic apartheid formula outlined by the hon. the Prime Minister when he addressed the Coloured Representative Council in November 1974, was rejected by the Coloured people. Not only is it rejected by the Coloured people, but the Theron Commission has made it absolutely clear that the Coloured people reject that policy.

In that same speech in November 1974, the hon. the Prime Minister indicated that he was awaiting the recommendations of the Theron Commission in respect of the future development of the CRC. It is now perfectly clear that the Government is not going to accept the basic recommendation of the Theron Commission in respect of political representation, because that commission recommends that the Coloured people should be represented at all levels of government. That is the one recommendation the Government is not going to accept. It is perfectly clear that the political machine envisaged by the hon. the Prime Minister, is not acceptable to the Coloured people. There is nothing in the White Paper, which has been issued after all these months, to make that machinery more acceptable to the Coloured people.

The hon. the Prime Minister is standing by his statement he made in the Other Place. He said: “Hierdie kant van die Raad onderskryf nie magsdeling nie.” What is he pinning his hope on? He is pinning his hope on the Joint Cabinet Committee and he says that it will be successful provided there is the necessary co-operation from the Coloured Council and, of course in the case of the Indians, the Indian Council. Nowhere has any attempt been made to suggest that that Joint Cabinet Committee will have any executive powers other than what its members have as members of the Representative Council for the Coloureds and this Parliament. The hon. the Prime Minister likes to paint this picture to look very attractive. He said it gives the Coloureds access to the body which controls the executive power, which initiates legislation, which initiates the budget and which in great measure originates and formulates policy. He then went on to say in the Other Place—

What is this “seggenskap” which the hon. the Prime Minister is talking about? Can it ever be anything more than the giving of advice without the power to see that that advice is implemented? The hon. gentleman is very vague when it comes to this business. He wrote a letter to Assocom which was published on 17 April in which he said the following—

Then, of course, the hon. gentleman says no more about it in his letter and he goes on to deal with economic issues. What does he mean by “participation in decision-making”? Is it only by virtue of a consensus or are they ever going to have the right to take decisions and enforce their implementation? The hon. member for Moorreesburg pleaded in the House only last week for Coloureds and Indians to be given the same sort of rights as White people. He said that the same formula should be applied to them when he spoke about the Cabinet Committee which is going into the Westminster system. I know that I am going to be told that the Cabinet has a Cabinet Committee and that the committee is going into the working of the Westminster system. I am also going to be told that under the Westminster system one cannot make provision for executive power to be given to these people, but what does the hon. the Prime Minister have in view?

The Cabinet Committee has been sitting for some time and I should like to know what consultation there has been with the Coloured and with the Indian people on these very issues. When are we going to get a report on these issues? I want to warn the hon. gentleman that the present position is utterly unsatisfactory for the Coloured people and I also want to tell him that while he delays dangerous frustrations are growing. One cannot help having some sympathy with those seven members of the commission, including Prof. Theron herself, who expressed doubt as to whether the Government has correctly understood the philosophy underlying their report. I must confess that when I see their approach to matters of this kind, I doubt whether they have accepted or understood the philosophy underlying that report. What did those seven people call for? They called for a form of blue-print with clear guide-lines for the future co-existence of South Africa’s population groups. Where is that blue-print? Is that not the reason for the problem that we have in our internal relations at the present time?

While we have this problem in our own internal relations, our economic situation, in real terms, is declining and we are getting into a state of economic emergency. The budget had the merit of inventiveness, but the message behind the budget is that we cannot afford many more budgets like this one. The thrift of the people is being abused, their savings are being seized in order to fuel State expenditure. We know that we have to spend a lot on defence and that is fully justifiable, but the Government is weakening the very sources from which it is getting its revenue, because the process that it follows is the direct route to State socialism in South Africa. That is the road on which it is. It is steadily diverting investments from the private into the public sector and it is harming the entire economy and the manner in which it could be developed. We have a declining rate of growth and an increasing population rate. The economic development plan makes very grim reading because of the simple reason that our growth rate is not keeping pace with our population growth rate and Black unemployment is more serious than it has ever been. The hon. the Prime Minister has spoken about that unemployment but up to now he has not been able to measure the extent of that unemployment. Now we hear that there are going to be certain sample surveys to determine what the Black unemployment figure is. Hopefully, who knows, one day they may realize that their remedies cannot be reconciled with their fundamental race policies. You see, Sir, those same policies are at the root of the Government’s failure to develop the free enterprise system by allowing the Black population to participate in it fully. I know the Government fears Black socialism and I know it says it is not moving in that direction, but for the Whites it is developing a form of socialism while it is denying the Blacks the opportunities of having the full advantages of the free enterprise system.

Can you tell us how you want to do that?

I shall certainly tell the hon. the Minister how I want to do it. I believe that we shall have to remove the restrictions on labour, on the use of capital, on the planning and development of our country, and make that available to all races in the same way. I have set out, in the document which I have here, certain of the steps that are needed. It will mean the elimination of job reservation. It will mean equal pay for equal work and responsibility. It will mean freer movement of workers to the areas where their skills are in greater demand. It will mean acceptance of the principle of free and compulsory schooling for all. It will mean vast plans for job training. It will mean crash systems of training of labour. We have said these things so often to the hon. the Minister. All he does is sit there and shake his head, and the position gets worse and worse all the time. One thing is clear, and that is that of the various options open to us, the one that I believe the Prime Minister favours is total military resistance to defend the present system. That is going to cease to become an option unless we have a strong economy to back it, and the Minister of Finance is rapidly getting us into the position where it will not be an option any more.

Sir, I have spoken about internal affairs and the economic situation. What about our international position? Look at where we are landing. Even our traditional allies in the Free World appear to believe that they can only save us by using compulsion against us. This disastrous trend has led to an external crisis of confidence which is reflected by the unwillingness of our traditional trading partners to lend us money or to make further investments in South Africa. The hon. the Prime Minister acknowledged that in his letter to Assocom. We know that the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is at a low ebb, largely because the London market, our traditional investors, are beginning to regard the risk element as being too high in South Africa. The directors of various foreign companies are continually visiting South Africa to decide whether they should further invest here or whether they should disinvest.

I challenge you on that.

I had a suspicion that the hon. gentleman might challenge me, Sir. I have here the hon. the Prime Minister’s letter to Assocom—

That is what the hon. the Prime Minister had to say, and then the Minister of Finance challenges my statement! He had better have it out with the Prime Minister. There is a loss of private confidence, and added to this we find developing overseas a tendency to say in advance that in respect of South West Africa the West will not accept as authentic decisions reached by the Turnhalle conference. We find ever more pressures upon us for the acceptance and recognition of Swapo. I raise these matters because they are symptomatic of the sort of thing that is going on. We may find ourselves in the sort of position in which Rhodesia finds itself at the present time, where conditions have been laid down in advance as to the sort of settlement the outside world will accept. I was interested to note that the Prime Minister said, only a few days ago—

I accept that. I hope that is still the position. I hope the present visit of Dr. Owen to South Africa does not mean that our position is going to change in that regard. I also hope that the hon. the Prime Minister will tell us today what he believes are the solutions that can be offered in respect of Rhodesia.

I think the time has come for the hon. the Prime Minister to tell us what the options are that are open to South Africa under the policies followed by this Government. I believe there are three. The first is the one I believe the hon. the Prime Minister will follow, and I say this as a result of his New Year speech and what he said in the Other Place earlier this session, i.e. to maintain the present social order and the present system of government and reinforce and defend these by full military means. There is a sort of emotional appeal in that stubborn attitude. It is an emotional appeal which will have some effect upon the patriotic members of our community. However, I think it is the duty of Parliament to look behind that attitude and to see whether we can maintain that position, because what does that mean? It means nothing more nor less than the full mobilization of our economy, the full mobilization of our manpower, or the greater part of it, for military purposes, and that means a further decline in economic strength, a sharp reduction in the production of essential civilian goods and a shortage of things like housing, education and essential facilities. It could also involve a total cutting off of foreign investment and foreign loans. It would almost certainly involve a cutting off of the supply of sophisticated military equipment and even spare parts. It would certainly involve economic action against us by the outside world, and we certainly have to face up to the fact that Black Africa would tend to be united against us on our northern borders. Under such circumstances we cannot rule out the possibility of internal disorder. Already we are hearing talk of members of the Irish Republican Army teaching Black men in the arts of urban terrorism. I think that we want to have a good look at this before we decide that that is the only alternative we are going to adopt in South Africa.

However, there is a second alternative, and that is to come to terms with the West. That is not something that any of us here contemplate with equanimity because we do not allow interference in our internal affairs from outside, and we shall be faced with the fact that there will be pressures put upon us and demands made upon us—as is the case at present with Rhodesia and South West Africa—which we are not prepared to contemplate. I therefore believe that the only option is the one in respect of which the hon. the Prime Minister has not been prepared to give us a lead up to now, and that is so to change our social order and our system here in South Africa that all sections of our community want to defend it, want to work for it, want to protect it and are prepared to put their lives in issue for it.

25 million people!

There are many things that could be done, things which would improve the situation immensely. There are, however, many things that are not being done. I believe the Government is trying to do too much itself and is not giving private enterprise the chance to develop and do those things it ought to be doing. Let me give just one example of this. There is a shortage now of 170 000 houses in the Black urban areas. After we have built the 89 000 houses now planned for the next five years, we are going to find in 1982 a shortage not of 170 000 but of 200 000 houses. The Government and the taxpayers cannot do it all. Unless the Black man enjoys the fruits of the free enterprise system and is developed to the point where he can place himself in a position to afford these things from his own earnings, we are never going to get past this sort of situation which we are faced with in South Africa.

We called for a four-point programme. We have called for the removal of legitimate grievances. We have called for the strengthening of our economy and the development and extension of its privileges to all races in South Africa. We have called, Sir, for the removal of those things which make us a fertile breeding ground for communism in South Africa. There are many things the hon. the Prime Minister can do. Few Prime Ministers have been in as strong a position as he is in.

What has happened? He has preferred to remain silent in the face of grave threats. He has preferred not to take us into his confidence in regard to mounting pressure from the outside world. When he has spoken, he has expressed the dogmatic determination to maintain the very policies that have brought South Africa into this disastrous position. Now he has brought home as Minister of Foreign Affairs a man from overseas whose every statement has shown that he realizes the seriousness and the truth of the state of affairs I have described today. Is it the hon. the Prime Minister’s intention that this man, a new-comer to his Cabinet, should say the things and advocate the changes which the hon. the Prime Minister apparently does not have the courage to do himself? I believe that the situation and the state of the nation are far too serious for such evasions of responsibility. We want to know from the hon. the Prime Minister today exactly what the situation is and what his plans are for the future.

Mr. Chairman, in the time at his disposal the hon. the Leader of the Opposition covered a wide field, touched on many matters and referred to various national problems. I shall return to certain of those matters in the course of my speech. He said at the start of his speech that the hon. the Prime Minister was actually standing as a political accused in the dock today and that he, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, was acting as prosecutor. I want to say at once that it was something of a sham court session that we had to watch here today. I shall come back to that as well.

When the hon. the Prime Minister replied to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition during the no-confidence debate he asked candidly whether they had not experienced any differentiation or discrimination in respect of certain things affecting our way of life in South Africa. Whether it be housing or residential areas that are at issue or education or even the fact that they state they are going to bring the Coloureds back to Parliament on a common roll, we are still waiting for an answer. And then they are the people who come and make accusations here! We shall never be given those answers. We had further proof of this. When the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs asked the hon. the Leader of the Opposition how the Black man was also to be absorbed in our capitalist system, he mentioned a number of steps here. I am not an economist but I watched with interest as the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs continually shook his head at the host of obscurities that were offered as solutions. And then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition believes that in this way he will extricate us from the dilemma in which we find ourselves!

As I see it, a spirit of dejection and pessimism radiated from what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had to say.

He is selling out.

I said that in the no-confidence debate as well. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition opened that debate with “a closing-down sale”, and that still holds good. There is a spirit of dejection and pessimism prevalent among them. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must not blame me if I refer to this now because in the situation we are faced with at present, in the political situation in which the UP—I do not really know what its name is at the moment—finds itself it is a reality of our political life in South Africa. After all, one can now understand the frustration of a party that has sat in opposition for almost 30 years. One can understand this, and one can also understand its looking as it does, there on the opposite side. After all, it is really no joke to sit in opposition for 30 years and then to try, as those hon. members would now have us believe, to save South Africa. I shall return to this. Besides the period of time those hon. members have been sitting there in opposition, we also have the salvage attempt that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has launched in order to save the UP. I shall not go into it in full detail. All I ask is: How in Heaven’s name can one save South Africa by establishing a new instrument if one does not give that instrument real substance, if one does not formulate clear policies by means of which one can give direction to South Africa’s future? Merely establishing a new instrument is not going to do any good at all. The most important thing is the policy by means of which one seeks to give substance to that instrument and in that regard we have not heard anything new from either the hon. the Leader of the Opposition or any spokesman on that side since the beginning of this session. We have not yet heard any new statements on policy from those hon. members. What do we see? The separate components of a shattered Opposition. The rescue vessel—or “vehicle” if you like—now has to be built up from these. But what are they? They are separate components of various models and the components do not match. They do not fit. There is no way one can build up a new salvage instrument with those components. No attempt to bring all the incompatible elements together and then to give direction to South Africa’s future can succeed. Apparently that hon. leader and all those hon. members have never heard of the crux of the matter in politics, among other things, viz. that if one wants to get a political body together with any hope of successfully surviving the political struggle in South Africa, the crux of the matter is “bring together those things which, through inner conviction, belong together”. But they have never heard of this. [Interjections.] Although those hon. members are making all that noise, hon. members will have noticed that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not say: “I and the people sitting here with me will tackle the job.” He cannot speak on behalf of the people sitting around him but the hon. the Prime Minister could stand up right now and say: “I speak on behalf of all the people on my side; we are in this together.” We did not hear words like these from that side. How can one go forward into the future without a united conviction of this kind? One cannot do it.

Allow me to refer to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself. There are few leaders of political parties who receive as much advice from as many quarters as he does on what to do—even advice on when to stand down. Hon. members probably remember the article in The Sunday Times: “The 13 Reasons why Graaff must go.” It is quite interesting that they decided on 13. Apart from the advice from outside, there are few political leaders who have been shown as much disloyalty from within their own ranks as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has. When the great salvage attempt came to light at the congress, what did the hon. member for Bezuidenhout say? Hon. members should listen to this. The article reads—

That article appeared on 20 August 1976. What appeared in The Star of 25 February this year?

Why do you not also discuss the country’s problems?

I shall come to that. It is a national problem that we are dealing with at present. There is a very great national problem sitting opposite. [Interjections.] I quote from The Star—

That is what he said.

And he is still sitting here!

But listen to the disloyalty that he displayed just after that. We must remember that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had received instructions to create a new instrument. What did the hon. member for Bezuidenhout say just after that? He said—

Apart from that judgment, it is not only the veterans who are turning their backs on the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. Great and small are joining in; even the hon. member for Pinetown. Listen to what he had to say—

He said that about Sir De Villiers Graaff and that is what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is doing at the moment.—

I want now to warn the hon. member for Pinetown, that young member who is sitting at the back there. He wants them to revert to the 14 principles of ex-judge Kowie Marais. But then he also says that those 14 principles are forcing them to move towards the PRP. But what do we read in The Sunday Tribune of 23 January of this year? We read the following—

The hon. member for Pinetown must watch out. One of these days he will have to believe in 31 political principles and he will have to defend them. [Interjections.] There has been talk of a salvage attempt. If South Africa needs a salvage attempt—this is, in fact, the message the hon. the Leader of the Opposition brought to Parliament at the beginning of the year—I want to tell the hon. member … [Interjections.] [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I rise to give the hon. the Deputy Minister the opportunity of completing his speech.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. Whip for the opportunity he has afforded me of continuing my speech. If a salvage attempt is necessary for South Africa’s benefit, then I have to point out to hon. members who will be able to make that salvage attempt. The salvage attempt will be made by the leader of the Government, the hon. the Prime Minister, and the people supporting him. Let me also say why and how this will be done, Mr. Chairman. Firstly, the salvage attempt will be made by the NP. What did the hon. the Prime Minister once say? It was this—

Whose words are those?

If the hon. member had opened his ears and listened, he would have heard me say they were the words of the hon. the Prime Minister. How is the fort to be held? Firstly, this has to be done through unity among the Whites in South Africa, both English and Afrikaans speaking. The present Prime Minister has made it his special task to bring about co-operation and understanding between the two language groups and to instill into everyone the fact that all of us are to have only one loyalty and one love, and that is towards our only fatherland. [Interjections.] This does not mean, however, that the cultural and historical differences that exist among the various groups are to be done away with. Every group has things that belong only to its own culture, but there is also a common cultural heritage. As far as loyalty to South Africa is concerned—not political divisions—I recently heard a concept that I like to a certain extent, namely, “an Anglo-Afrikaner nation”. If such a thing ever emerges, the hon. the Prime Minister will have been one of those to make a contribution towards it by creating a common loyalty to South Africa. [Interjections.] More must be done in this regard but there is too little discussions of it on the Opposition benches. I did, in fact, hear about this a few days ago from the hon. member for Maitland. He said there were so many matters on which the Whites in South Africa could reach consensus because they were an indispensable factor in Southern Africa. There is too little discussion of these things on those benches. If the hon. Opposition wants to embark on a “salvage attempt” for South Africa, then it must regard this principle as a cornerstone of such an endeavour.

I want to say something about our position in Africa. At one time we may perhaps have stood aloof towards Africa, its problems and events on the continent, but the leader of the National Party has given us back our rightful place in Africa—if I may put it that way. We have demonstrated our willingness to speak with Africa and to share in the events in Africa. We must continue to search for this because in the present situation as well, particularly if we consider the situation in Zaire, it is essential that the non-communist countries on the continent stand together in order to ward off the common dangers that threaten us. The Prime Minister has declared that he is ready to do this; he is always prepared to speak. His doors are open and he is prepared to go in search of the community spirit that exists so that we may oppose the enemy that is threatening our future in South Africa. Just as circumstances have forged Anglo-Afrikaner unity in Southern Africa, so, I believe, will circumstances in Africa and the infiltration of communism eventually bring together those African nations that are anticommunist to repulse the infiltration of Marxism from the continent. This is a major objective we must strive for; then we shall save South Africa.

Now I want to say something on the issue of giving substance to the living conditions of the non-Whites in the political order in South Africa. It is no mean task today to ensure civilized living conditions for all. It is not easy to provide housing and all the related amenities such as social services and facilities, particularly if there is a shortage of money. But we must go on trying to satisfy those needs. We shall have to try to strike a balance between development within the White areas and development in the homelands. We must make greater provision for this and raise our standards. These are the matters that are discussed here. I thrashed them out with the hon. member for Sea Point in a debate in the House. In that debate they praised me for certain things I had done but today they are once again harping on the same old string.

We are experiencing problems, however. There is one major problem. If we want to save South Africa then we as well as the Opposition will have to devote some attention to this problem. Numbers are going to hamper us in South Africa. We shall have to devote attention in a far more scientific and forceful way to the question of population increase because we cannot continue to bear the tremendous onus of increasing numbers if the burden of our economic expenditure is to remain, in the final analysis, chiefly on the shoulders of the White section of the economy.

Why do we not make it possible for other groups to bear their share!

You need not fuss about that; I shall deal with it. We must also remember—or at least certain people should also bear this in mind—that the senseless damage to property when some matter is at issue and riots break out, will get us nowhere because with the meagre sums at my disposal I have to rebuild facilities instead of being able to add to existing amenities by means of those funds. I do not want to elaborate on this any further. I have already emphasized in this House that there are three persons or bodies that will have to pay if we continue to employ Blacks in larger numbers in South Africa. Those three persons or bodies are the State, the particular individual who has to be housed, and the employers, because there are complementary services that have to be provided. It is not simply a question of employing a work unit.

By means of our homeland policy, we have laid the political foundations for political participation by the Blacks in the White heartland. But more attention will have to be devoted to the political fulfilment of these people. That political fulfilment must not be directed at the political bodies in the White area of South Africa. There will have to be greater liaison with the homelands. This fulfilment is directed more towards the homelands. We shall have to ensure that within our political institutions—which we may perhaps have to establish because our circumstances are so unique—there will always be a healthy interplay between homeland and White area. By this I do not mean only the urban Blacks; I am referring to the Blacks in the country districts as well. We must set to work in a practical fashion and find ways of ascertaining whether or not we can bring this about. Then we shall be saving South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, hon. members on the other side of the House are at least predictable, because when they are in political difficulty and the country is beset by problems, they tend to play party politics. For half of the speech of the hon. the Deputy Minister he could do little more than play petty party politics. All the derisive comments he has made about the party to my right will not add one jot or tittle to the goodwill or the good fortune of South Africa. Here is a man charged with the most sensitive of portfolios, that concerning the urban Black. He should have been telling us what he was going to do to improve the situation in Soweto. He came with generalities and talked of unity, but not unity of South Africa, but unity only of the Whites within South Africa. He talks of loyalty, but he does not say—as the hon. member for Johannesburg West says—that loyalty to South Africa must transcend the bounds of race and colour. I want to ask him whether he agrees with that.

Of course.

At least we have an admission from the hon. the Deputy Minister that loyalty in South Africa must be shared by Black, White and Brown alike. We are all South Africans. Let us be clear that one will not get loyalty to South Africa from the Black or Brown citizens if one denies them the elementary right of citizenship of the country to which they are supposed to be loyal.

Today we meet against the background of international tension, tension which has continued for some time, against the background of an economic down-turn and internal uncertainty, which are caused by a number of factors which are common ground amongst all parties, i.e. the question of the East/West power politics, the events which have taken place in Africa beyond our borders and over which we have no control, and the problem of Russian imperialism in South and Central Africa. But we in these benches hold that whatever the external circumstances which contributed to South Africa’s present condition, a major contributing factor has been the failure and the collapse of the Government’s policies on a very wide front. This is evidenced by speeches made in this House. The speech of the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Affairs indicated his uncertainty. Then there are speeches made by the hon. member for Johannesburg West, speeches made by the hon. member for Moorreesburg and speeches made by the hon. the Minister of Information. These are speeches of people who are becoming increasingly concerned, although they are Nationalists in “murg en been”, that the policies of their Government are failing. During the course of the Second Reading of the Appropriation debate we saw a very clear picture that whatever the intention of the Government may have been, its economic policy had failed. It had failed to curb inflation. It had failed to provide increased employment. It had failed to provide growth and it had failed to attract the necessary foreign capital. This is confirmed by the hon. the Prime Minister himself in his letter to Assocom. He says—

That is the position with regard to our economic policy. While a rescue operation is taking place, the economic policy, in terms of its objectives, has failed. The events which took place in the cities of South Africa last year indicated that as far as the Brown and the Black people in the cities are concerned, the Government’s policy has failed to provide a basis for peaceful and orderly development amongst the millions who live and work in our cities. The Government’s declared policy is to eliminate race discrimination and to do all in its power to move away from race discrimination in South Africa. This policy was stated with considerable vigour almost 2½ years ago. This process has been so painfully slow in its implementation that it has very often had counterproductive results. These counterproductive results have been aggravated by the fact that right-wingers within the NP, who are committed to the policy of petty apartheid and who have openly proclaimed that if the Government gets rid of the policy of small apartheid, they also have to get rid of their policy of big apartheid, have been doing their best to try to retard the progress in South Africa away from race discrimination. During the course of the debate we will analyse various aspects of the failure of Government policy in greater detail.

Another aspect which concerns us at this stage does not deal with policy, but with the strategy which appears to be developing amongst Government members and in the Government to deal with the problems of South Africa. During last year there was a general question in the minds of most South Africans not only as to what Government policy is, but also as to what the Government’s strategy is. We had the painful silence from the hon. the Prime Minister, and we had the inaction on the part of all the other hon. Ministers, other than the hon. the Minister of Justice, of Police and of Prisons. More and more people are now beginning to realize that the Government has evolved a strategy, but what worries us is that the strategy appears not so much to be geared to the need for making urgent changes in the social, economic and political fields, but rather to the increasing militarization of South Africa, the increasing mobilization of all our resources and the total control by the Government over all aspects of life in South Africa. This appears to be the dominant thrust of the strategy which the Government is starting to develop. This type of strategy has two built-in dangers for South Africa, although in the short term it can perhaps tip the scales of power in the favour of the authority in South Africa.

Firstly, it is self-generating. Once one starts on the process, the process will feed off itself. It will create a situation in which we shall not have the resources available to us to make the necessary social and economic changes, to build the houses, to build the schools and to see that there is an infrastructure for the development of the Black people of South Africa. At the same time it will create a climate in which it is going to be ever so much more difficult to bring about political change. For this reason we believe that if you embark on this strategy which is primarily directed in this direction, you are going to create a situation in which we will not be able to survive as an orderly society. The second danger built into it, is that the application of a strategy of this kind, taken to its logical conclusion, will be completely incompatible with the maintenance of even the form of democratic government which we have in South Africa. If this Government is going to pursue this strategy—we shall return to this during the course of the debate—it will be taking us away from even our concept of parliamentary democracy in the direction of out and out authoritarianism. And so, such a strategy which we see unfolding before us, without bold imaginative reforms which are so lacking in Government policy, will not secure our survival; instead, it will increase the conflict situation in South Africa and we are going to find ourselves in a position where there will be no room for negotiation with the Black and Brown people who share this country with us.

I want to look at one or two aspects of Government policy which we believe have failed or are in a state of dissolution. The first one is the field of foreign policy. Here, in spite of the highly, I think, skilful attempts of the former Minister, Dr. Hilgard Muller, I believe the Government has failed and has failed dismally in the goals of its foreign policy.

That is nonsense!

The hon. member should listen. The hon. the Prime Minister will concede that the twin objects of a foreign policy are, on the one hand, to have friends who will co-operate in times of peace, and, on the other hand, to have allies who will assist one in times of war. These are the twin objectives of any sensible, objective foreign policy of any country. When one looks on the numbers of friends who will co-operate in times of peace, they are becoming fewer. Even our traditional friends are starting to turn their backs on us. When it comes to allies who will assist us in times of war, we only have to take into account that dramatically chilling statement of the hon. the Prime Minister on New Year’s eve, when he once again used these words—

What a dismal picture! [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I merely rise to afford the hon. member for Sea Point an opportunity to continue with his speech.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. the Chief Whip for his gesture.

We must look at the situation which obtained only a year ago. When we discussed the Prime Minister’s Vote in 1976 soon after the hon. the Prime Minister had returned from Israel, he did not indicate to us that a situation was developing where we would be on our own. What did he say about Africa, for instance? He said that Africa, in spite of the initiative he had taken was not dead at all, but definitely alive.

I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister whether the upward tendency of that graph has continued. Can he tell us whether he has been visiting? Has he had direct association with countries in Africa in the way in which we had association with countries in Africa in years gone by? When one looks at the West and where he suggests that certain of those people will not even sell us arms, were we subject to a communist onslaught, we must bear in mind what else he has said. He also said, however—

He is right. It has changed to an ever-increasing extent, but it has changed in the wrong direction. Can the hon. the Prime Minister honestly say to this House, and to the people of South Africa, that our relationships either with Africa or with the West are better than they were last year when he predicted that they would improve? The Prime Minister has failed, and I believe that we now find ourselves, if not in a desperate situation then certainly in a very dangerously exposed strategic position.

May I also, in passing, ask the hon. the Prime Minister whether in the course of this debate, he will tell us about the progress being made in the Joint Council of Ministers set up with Israel. A year ago the hon. the Prime Minister came back and said that a pact had been signed and that there would be a joint committee comprising Ministers of South Africa and Israel who would meet at least once a year. It would be reassuring to know that that arrangement is in good shape, that that arrangement is working and that there have been meetings during the past year in terms of the statement made in Jerusalem just about a year ago.

It is the question really of our relationships with the West which is of prime concern. It is no use wishing this away. We are an integral part of the trading community of the West. Granted, we trade with other countries as well, but in the main it is with the West, as the other super power, that we have to see ourselves having a long-term relationship. We must therefore ask ourselves, and the hon. the Prime Minister must explain to us why, in spite of the important trade relationships which exist, in spite of long-standing cultural and other associations, in spite of our important mineral resources and in spite of our important strategic position, the hon. the Prime Minister has to tell South Africa that if the communists attack South Africa, we will stand alone. The West will neither be on our side, nor will certain of those countries sell us arms. The hon. the Prime Minister owes it to South Africa, not merely to tell us the truth, but also to tell the reason behind this and what he is going to do about it. It is no use responding in the way that the hon. the Minister of the Interior did the other day. He reflected an annoyance with statements coming from overseas. Heaven knows, I think most South Africans are entitled to be annoyed, from time to time, at the obvious superficiality of the statements coming from overseas. Some statements are indeed offensive. I believe that the statement that we are an illegitimate régime is an offensive statement to the people and the State of South Africa.

What does the hon. member for Pinelands say?

I also believe that the constant reference to majority rule, as someone else’s answer to our problem, is totally unhelpful in the solution of the problems of South Africa. We have made this quite clear. However, it is no use being petulant. Being petulant is not going to get us anywhere. The hon. the Minister of the Interior’s speech the other day was not the speech of a man of confidence. This was the speech of a man who is a defeatist. He was a defeatist He had given up any hope of coming to terms with the West. That was a speech of a defeatist, or was it the speech of a man like Mr. Andrew Young who talks too much without weighing up the meaning of his words? Here was a repudiation of the West. Apart from the political side of the issue in South Africa, I find it fascinating that this reproach of the West should have been made at the very time that the British Foreign Secretary was in South Africa, when one of the key figures of the West was in South Africa trying to assist in resolving the problems of Southern Africa. It was at the very time when in Zaire, by some means or other, countries like France were finding ways and means of assisting President Mobutu Sese Seko in his struggle in the Shaba province. It was at the very time that the Western countries were trying to prevent a show-down in the Security Council over the South West African issue. The hon. the Minister, however, just brushes all this aside and makes a petulant speech saying that unless the West keeps quiet we shall look for support in other places. I should like to know from the hon. the Prime Minister—in the absence of the Foreign Minister—whether the speech made by the hon. the Minister of the Interior was a speech of policy made on behalf of the Government. Was it a speech made on behalf of the Government? Does it actually reflect the South African Government’s foreign policy? Was it and is it South Africa’s foreign policy, or is it the foreign policy of the hon. the Minister of the Interior? I believe that the hon. the Prime Minister has told us the realities. We are on our own. However, I believe that we have seen a negative, defeatist response from the hon. the Minister of the Interior. I call upon the hon. the Prime Minister to tell us, during the course of this debate, not only how bad the situation is but also to tell this House and the people of South Africa in realistic, practical terms what he is going to do to repair the détente policy.

What is he going to do to establish real communications with Africa? What is he going to do to see to it that we become recognized once again as an integral part of the Western world?

So much at this stage for foreign policy. May I touch on another matter which is also of cardinal importance to the internal situation? I refer to the question of the Coloured people. Surely the unrest situation last year throughout the Western and Eastern Cape and the evidence already placed before the Cillié Commission is enough to shock any Government member out of the complacent belief that Government policy is succeeding. Government policy has failed. In the field of political rights for Coloured people the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. members on that side have no policy. For 30 years the Government has toyed around with Coloured political rights without finding a solution. They appointed a multiracial committee which made recommendations. That has now been rejected and what do the Coloured people have? A committee of White Cabinet Ministers looking into the question of political rights for Coloured people and, as an after-thought, the Government White Paper says: “We have decided that we will consult with Coloured people at an appropriate time.” This is the best the Government can do.

I must ask the hon. the Prime Minister, in relation to this examination, what in fact is taking place as far as the Coloured people are concerned. He says there is a Cabinet Committee looking into departures from the Westminster system. We believe we are entitled to know who the members are of that Cabinet Committee. Secondly, who are the advisers to the Cabinet Committee looking into the question of Coloured rights? Thirdly, as far as the Coloured people are concerned, what are the terms of reference? I put this question because the Theron Commission recommended that one must take into account the possibility of departing from the Westminster system in order to give the Coloured people direct political representation at all levels of government, while the Government has appointed a Cabinet Committee to investigate ways and means of seeing that Government policy is carried through as far as the Coloured people are concerned. I ask the hon. the Prime Minister what the terms of reference of that committee are. Are they the recommendations of the Theron Commission or are they as stated by the hon. the Minister of Defence towards the end of last year?

Finally, concerning the Coloureds, I want to put four questions to the hon. the Prime Minister. What is negotiable as far as the NP is concerned? Will the Government allow or consider the possibility of Coloured people sharing a Parliament with White people? Is that negotiable? Secondly, is the Government prepared to allow the Coloured people to share part of Parliament, in other words, one of the Houses of Parliament, with the White people? Either of these involve a degree of sharing of power. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, although I do not want to anticipate the hon. the Prime Minister, I can simply say now in reply to the last question raised by the hon. member for Sea Point that the policy of the NP is very clear and that the answer to his questions is “no”. However, I do not want to anticipate the hon. the Prime Minister. At the beginning of his speech the hon. member said that we must talk about serious national affairs. The hon. member for Yeoville also quickly asked: “Why are you not talking about the problems of the country?” Let me immediately put a question to the hon. member for Yeoville: In the Yeoville constituency there are more than 22 000 Black workers who are working there lawfully in flats.

That is untrue.

Is the hon. member for Yeoville prepared to open the Yeoville swimming pool to all races? [Interjections.]

I shall reply to that.

I ask once again: Is the hon. member for Yeoville prepared to open the Yeoville swimming pool to all races?

There are not 22 000 Blacks in Yeoville. [Interjections.] I have no objection to sharing a swimming pool with a Black man.

What do you say, Colin?

Order!

Mr. Chairman, my question to the hon. member was very clear. There is a second question which I want to ask. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Yeoville must contain himself.

I want to direct my second question to the hon. the Leader of the PRP. I see in the Press that Mr. Buthelezi’s Inkatha organization has issued a document consisting of 17 points—a statement of belief. I also noticed in the Press that the PRP and that organization held discussions based on that statement of belief. I should be pleased if the hon. the Leader of the PRP or one of the hon. members of his party would be prepared to tell the House later in the debate how far the discussions have progressed between the two organizations and what interest a White political party has in forming an alliance with a Black so-called cultural organization which issues a statement which is nothing but a political document, from point 1 through to point 17.

You are an inciter and a racist.

This is a question to which we on this side of the House would very much like to have a reply. More specifically, I should also like to talk about another matter in more detail …

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: May the hon. member for Yeoville say that the hon. the Deputy Minister is an inciter and a racist? [Interjections.]

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

I withdraw it, Sir.

I want to exchange a few ideas in support of the hon. the Prime Minister whose Vote is being discussed now, on the question of human relations. The issue in South African politics, as formulated by our adversaries abroad and the political opposition in South Africa, is no longer centred around the concept of “apartheid” or “petty apartheid”. The starting point now is an attack on everything which is or may be discriminatory.

The goal is majority rule in South Africa, based on the fact that the Black man will form that majority government. The PRP accepts majority rule as a starting point while the UP realizes that majority rule is their goal. The concept of “discrimination” is now being elevated into a overriding factor which is to either avert or hasten the so-called judgment day, and unless changes take place night and day, South Africa is doomed. Any reference to possible change, whether made by the hon. member for Hillbrow or whoever, is met with a chorus of acclaim virtually amounting to hero worship by some people. This is our situation in South Africa today. The Government realizes the seriousness of the matter and is in fact fully aware of the fact that, with our plural community, we are part of a changing world and that we cannot withhold from a developed person his rightful place in the sun. That is why we have the declared policy of the Government as regards moving away from all forms of discrimination.

All forms?

It is not a new standpoint. It is not a standpoint decided upon a year or two ago. The hon. the Prime Minister had already stated it in those terms years ago. He said—

Furthermore, the hon. the Prime Minister said the following in a speech at Bloemfontein—

The Government’s standpoint is positive. We are always being asked: What is being done in connection with doing away with discrimination? As if the future of South Africa is determined by that alone, whereas in fact the future of South Africa depends on the mutual improvement of human relations. This is a very much wider concept than discrimination alone. And with regard to this matter, the Government has done more in the past six years alone than all former Governments in South Africa. I have drawn up a list of more than 30 things, things of real importance which were done by the Government over the past few years, not only to remove discrimination or relieve tension, but in general to carry out its policy in accordance with its basic principles in terms of which human relations are improved, mutually and otherwise. These things do not go unnoticed by responsible people. According to the questions asked by the Opposition, these things appear to go unnoticed, but this is not the case. I refer to one example. Dr. George Fuller of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, was on an extended tour through South Africa in 1975. What did he say subsequently in an important lecture published in the USA? He said—

†I wonder whether the hon. member for Pinelands would dispute any of these?

This is being said by Black, Coloured and Indian people—

This is being said by Indian people. Why do those hon. members not laugh now? Why do they not burst out laughing now? [Interjections.]—

He goes on by saying—

This is not being said by Government supporters—

[Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I stand up to give the hon. the Deputy Minister an opportunity of finishing his speech.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. Whip for this opportunity.

Can you tell us who this person is? To us he is anonymous.

I shall let the hon. member for Houghton have the document. I have it here with me.

*This man goes on, Mr. Chairman … [Interjections.]

But who is that man?

The hon. the Deputy Minister has given you the name of the institution and of the author!

The name of this person is Dr. George Fuller of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. He goes on by saying—

*He concludes with the following—

This is not the voice of despair which we heard from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition during the Second Reading debate of the budget. What did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition say at that time?—

After all, this is not so. The hon. the Prime Minister, the Government and the State have already done a great deal and have also achieved a great deal. This is what I tried to point out here. This is also apparent from this document. Unfortunately I do not have enough time to read it in its entirety. In my opinion, the question which can also be asked of the individual in the community, is whether he is contributing his share towards this matter. This is the question which I should like to discuss this afternoon. There is a great deal of goodwill among the various population groups, goodwill towards one another and within each group. That goodwill must be promoted, not from a paternalistic viewpoint, but as civilized people act towards one another. There are still too many people who think that a master/servant relationship is real communication. Opinion formers must speak to one another and when we exchange ideas with one another as opinion formers, we must know what we are talking about. We must also see to it that we learn to know one another. I am speaking to the individuals in society now. How many White opinion formers are there, within and outside the political arena, who do not know the name of a single non-White opinion former in his immediate surroundings, for example a principal or clergyman? There are many opinion formers who boast of the number of people which they know overseas, but who do not know a single opinion former in South Africa. Unfortunately there are too many people who do not know what a non-White residential area looks like, but nevertheless they are always talking about these people’s circumstances.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question?

I should first like to present my own ideas. The conversation to which I referred, concerns individuals in society in particular. It is a conversation which must be held in a realistic way by opinion formers who have both their feet on the ground. There is no point in our talking at cross purposes to one another from a distance at symposiums and summer schools or idealizing about consensus and systems which will never work in practice. We must achieve an understanding with one another and not consensus. In this way everyone in South Africa will form a clear idea of his particular place in the plural South African set up. The main issue is not colour, but also matters such as values, culture, religion, etc. In the process it is necessary to take note of the fact that the White man will at least be entitled to determine his own place in his own country according to his own culture and outlook on life.

It was the White man who with his pioneering spirit and desire for self-reliance, brought the Christian civilization to South Africa, and he made an important contribution towards the Christianization of other peoples in South Africa. Practically everything which can be utilized by the world, has been created by the White man with his initiative, drive, organization and economic ability. However, unfortunately the position today is that the role of the White man in the world and in South Africa is not getting the attention it deserves. It has become fashionable only to consider the Blacks and Coloureds and to disregard the White man. The NP is not prepared to do this. The NP strives to f ive everyone his rightful place under the South African sun within the plural community of South Africa and to create order through separation instead of chaos in a forced unity.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister raised a subject which I do not necessarily want to deal with. In the course of his speech he referred to a speech which was made by the hon. the Prime Minister and in which reference was made to “op ’n ordelike wyse wegskram van diskriminasie”. What I want to speak about is the report of the Theron Commission and the White Paper on it. If ever the Government received a document which indicated how that should be done in an orderly, phasing fashion, the report of the Theron Commission is such a document. Yet, it was not accepted, as should have been, by the Government. The hon. the Deputy Minister also quoted a long article by a Professor Fuller, an article published way back in 1975, long before the country was subjected to the riots, unrests and the various other problems that we are facing at the present time. I wonder if that hon. gentleman’s ideas would not be very different now from what he wrote at that time.

I want to address a few remarks to the hon. the Prime Minister in connection with the Erika Theron Report and the White Paper that was tabled in the House early last week.

Tell us something about your yellow paper!

I will tell the House all about it because I am very proud about it.

If the hon. the Minister would pay attention to our recommendations and follow the route we have indicated, I can assure him that his task as Minister of Coloured Relations would be far easier than it is now. I can assure him that his relationship with the community he serves in this House would be on a far better basis. For that reason I am glad he has that report there, because we in these benches are proud that we have been able to publish it.

I believe that the tabling of the Government’s White Paper in this House was an event of great significance, not only to the thousands, or perhaps millions of Coloured people who have been waiting for the Government’s reaction to the findings of the Theron Commission, but also to our friends in the West, because they want to see what the reaction of the Government is to a report in which I believe they have displayed great interest. It is further of interest to the White electorate of South Africa, because I believe that at this stage in our history the White people, in their relations with the Coloured community, are prepared to take a great step forward if they are given the right kind of leadership in this regard. They are waiting for it. The hon. the Prime Minister has probably read the RAU report. If one studies that report, one sees a clear indication that the White electorate is prepared to take a great step forward. This report is significant in that it states the Government’s reaction to what I consider to be a valuable and unique document covering the sensitive field of race relations in this country. It also indicates what the Government intends to do in its relations with the Coloured population group in the years that lie ahead.

If one studies this White Paper carefully, one comes to the conclusion that the Government does not in any way intend to deviate, depart from or modify its policy of separate development in relation to the Coloured people. I think one must accept that as a fact. If this is so, I believe it is a tragedy for South Africa, not only in respect of our internal relations, but also in respect of our external relations. The Theron report, with its hundreds of pages of well motivated and well substantiated propositions, indicates in no uncertain terms that the Government’s policy, in its present form and based on its philosophy of separation, cannot, irrespective of how it is restructured, fulfil the legitimate aspirations of the Coloured people. Having served on the Theron Commission, and having experienced the feelings of the Coloured people, their great loyalty and degree of patriotism to this country, I say that one can only justify any disappointment the Coloured people may manifest in so far as the White Paper is concerned. We are justified in expecting them to be deeply disappointed.

Of course one welcomes the acceptance by the Government of many of the recommendations. I did not count them and therefore I cannot say how many there are; there may be 155 or 160. Those that are accepted—I think the hon. the Prime Minister will agree with me—all fall within the framework of the Government’s accepted policy with perhaps one or two exceptions. I am prepared to acknowledge that these will considerably and materially help the well-being of the Coloured people, which is something for which one must always be grateful. This is, however, not what the Coloured people wanted or what they were looking for. What they want—I say this pertinently to the hon. the Prime Minister and to the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations—above all else is the elimination from the Statute Book of all those measures, statutory and otherwise, which impinge on the dignity of the Coloureds as a group or as individuals or which in any way deprive them of the citizenship rights in their fatherland which they share with the White people in this country. It is in this particular regard that the Theron report has a message for Parliament, for the people of South Africa and, above all else, for the hon. the Prime Minister of the country. I believe that that message is that those processes of separation, at almost every level, which have characterized the Government’s policy in respect of the Coloured people, should be taken no further. In fact, the time has come to reverse that process in an orderly, sensible and phased-in manner. That is what the Theron Commission had to say. As I have said earlier on, if one studies the RAU report, the time is ripe for the hon. the Prime Minister to institute these measures. This message has been conveyed to the Government by way of certain major recommendations. It is in those recommendations that the message and the philosophy of the Theron report stand. I want to refer to some of these major recommendations. I want to indicate how significant they are and I want to express my regret that the Government has not seen its way clear to accepting these recommendations. The first one I want to deal with is recommendation No. 4 of the Theron Commission. It says here—

In coming to a conclusion to make this recommendation, the Theron Commission did not do it lightly. There was a long debate and all the pros and cons were weighed up. Yet here we find that the Government is summarily not prepared to accept that recommendation. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, early in 1949 I sat in this House for the first time, as a visitor on the gallery. That was when the late Field-Marshal Smuts sat on the other side of the House and when Dr. Malan sat on this side of the House. On that occasion Field-Marshal Smuts complained that the NP was going to use the coming provincial elections to play politics. In his reply Dr. Malan pointed out that it was in fact Gen. Smuts who had been the first to say that they were going to use the provincial elections virtually to undo the result of the 1948 election. Furthermore, Dr. Malan issued an invitation to Gen. Smuts on that occasion, asking him and his party to co-operate in removing the relations problem in South Africa from the political arena …

On the basis of apartheid.

… to use separate development and the acceptance of the identity of the different race groups as a basis for developing a dispensation which would serve the interests of South Africa. I need not point out that that invitation was refused Field-Marshal Smuts at the time. However, it did not end there. The following decades showed us that the then leader of the UP and his successors had missed the train and that they had stopped contributing to the development of the various race groups in South Africa and particularly of our non-White race groups. Nor was this all. In one election after another, the electorate of South Africa gradually broke down that party until they are sitting there today, specifically as a result of this problem and as a result of that invitation or opportunity that they had, but did not use. There they are sitting: three small parties with about six or eight leaders!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition again referred to this matter today, and particularly with reference to the report of the Theron Commission and the White Paper that deals with it. In spite of what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said and in spite of what the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central said, the overriding impression one gets of the White Paper is that the Government agrees in broad outline with the majority of the recommendations of the commission and accepts them. Time and again the refrain is that the Government accepts the recommendations. Now and then there is an explanation. Now and then there is a correction because the motivation of the commission is not quite correct.

Every time it concerns the most important recommendations.

I shall react to that comment later on. In the main therefore, it amounts to an acceptance by the Government of the commission’s report. However, the hon. member wants to know what the position is with regard to the most important issues. What are the most important issues? There is a great difference between what the Opposition regards as the most important issues, what the people in the Government benches regard as the most important issues and what the Coloured people regard as the most important issues. A number of members on the other side—including the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, as well as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central—keep on harping on constitutional development. However, what do the Coloured people say, according to the inquiry, what do they consider to be the most important issue? [Interjections.] According to the report, however, I find that they say that that is not the most important thing to them. The hon. member would do well to consult pages 449 and 450 of the report with regard to these issues.

The inquiry in this regard was conducted in detail and in my opinion this facet of the inquiry is one of the best contained in the report. According to this, the Coloured people regard housing, land, public facilities and services as the most urgent facet of their life in South Africa. The improvement of their financial position, higher wages, etc., take second place. The combating of crime and social disruption comes third, while political and citizenship rights come fourth on the list.

To me this is very important, and therefore I must point out that the hon. the Leader of the PRP as well as the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition come back to this every time as if this were the most important issue. However, the Coloured people say that there are other priorities which are very urgent to them. With regard to the things that are important to them—in other words, the things the report emphasizes—the Government is always in favour of the implementation of the recommendation. The Government accepts this or that recommendation, but naturally within the limits of the financial capacity of the taxpayer of South Africa. Unfortunately the fact remains that the contribution of the Coloured people themselves is still relatively small and that, in terms of the contribution they make, they cannot finance these things from their own resources, and they cannot merely say that if the Government is not prepared to do it, the CRC will do it or they will do it themselves. Such a thing is simply impossible. This is one of the practical, hard realities which the Government must keep in mind.

I want to accuse the hon. Opposition as a whole of creating this slanted impression every time because they have become so politically impoverished, because they have never yet succeeded in making a real contribution to the relations problem of South Africa or in offering an alternative policy or a solution. They have never been able to make a contribution that would appeal to the imagination of the electorate of South Africa or even the Coloured people. I think it is very important that the hon. members should take note of this, but I want to go further and say that the Government does not evade the important issue of the constitutional development of the Coloured people either. In point of fact, it is this Government that has guided and helped to promote the constitutional development of the Coloured people over the years. We admit that it is at an early stage, an initial stage, but just think what a long way the White people in South Africa had to come on the road of their constitutional development. It was a road lasting more than a century, a century and a half, before they actually became a sovereign nation. Do we now expect the Coloured people to be integrated into our political structure and our developed economy within one decade and to assume a responsible opposition there? Surely the hon. members opposite and their predecessors were the ones who saw to it that the Coloured people gained hardly any political or administrative experience.

You have been in power for 30 years.

I should like to proceed and draw attention to what the Government is doing with regard to the constitutional development of the Coloured people. I might point out that it was in fact this side of the House, this Government, which took away the representation of the Coloureds by Whites in this House. I admit that. I had my doubts, which I did not express at the time. However, I regarded the matter as follows: Its place will be taken by another dispensation, and what has in fact taken its place? Its place has been taken by a dispensation under which the Coloured people acquired a broad franchise and in terms of which they have been able, on the basis of a broad franchise—not a qualified franchise as the PRP suggests—to begin participating in the government of South Africa, even if it is only government of their own affairs. This is a very, very important step that has been taken. Let me also point out that the commission admitted that it was not qualified to submit detailed recommendations on this matter. Moreover, the Government could not accept this recommendation as it stood. First of all, it was a recommendation from a relatively small majority. I am now referring to recommendation 178 of the report, the last recommendation.

Page?

I do not have the time now to give the page number. The hon. member can look at recommendation 178. A minority of the commission voted for that recommendation.

That is a fact.

I say this because immediately afterwards, people qualified their viewpoints, contradicting one another. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central also explained what he wanted. Some members of the commission, and especially the Coloured members, said that to them, the recommendation of the majority meant direct representation in government bodies. In actual fact, the terms that were used were so wide that the Government could not possibly accept such a recommendation, while quite a number of the members of the commission also made a different recommendation. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Piketberg, a colleague of mine on the commission, asked what the Coloured people believe is the most important matter, whether constitutional development or other things. He tried to indicate that in terms of a report received by the commission, it may be those other things. I think he will agree that the commissioners themselves, including the Coloured people serving on the commission, in the final instance know that the political dispensation is the most important facet of the whole thing. When the Coloured people reacted to that inquiry, the immediate things that were worrying them were whether they had a roof over their heads, the facilities available to them, the street scenes where they lived, and the schooling for their children. Those were the immediate things about which they were worried, and therefore they reacted in that way. However, the ultimate solution of the political dispensation for the Coloured people is the most important issue at this stage. The hon. member knows that as well as I do.

I want to take the matter further. When I spoke earlier this afternoon I made it quite clear that, judging by the reaction to the report, what the Coloured people are looking for, above all else, concerns those things which impinge on their dignity as a group and as individuals in South Africa. I said that the major recommendations of the Theron Commission deal with that particular matter, the question of enabling them to take their place as worthy citizens in their country. I really believe that these people are in every sense great patriots and that, provided the recommendations of the Theron Commission are carried out, they will be on our side at the final countdown when it comes to defending ourselves against aggression from any quarter.

The hon. member tried to show that the proposal in respect of the constitutional issue was not a majority proposal. Of course it was! If the hon. member refers to the report—I do not have it here—he will see that the majority recommended it. He cannot get away from that. The point that is important, and the point I want to put to the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations, is that according to the recommendations there should be direct representation for the Coloured people at all levels of Government. Apparently the Government is not prepared to accept this. They refer to the fact that there is a Cabinet Committee which will investigate this matter, but at this moment in time the hon. the Prime Minister is in a position to accept that, whatever political dispensation is ultimately arrived at by the committee, the Coloured people will be afforded direct representation at all levels of Government. We in these benches accept that proposition, as is indicated in the report, the White Paper of the UP published in green and gold. It is there for everybody to see.

It is a yellow paper. Please tell us what you left out there.

Yes, I shall deal with that. The hon. the Minister is worried about the fact that there was a minority report concerning the Immorality Act. I am prepared to concede that.

Tell us what the extent of the support for that particular recommendation was.

There was division, but there was a debate and eventually the majority favoured the recommendation I have quoted.

Let me move on to another major recommendation of the Theron Commission, a recommendation of which the hon. the Minister should take account. I refer to recommendation 153. In that respect let me quote from the White Paper—

The hon. the Minister cannot quarrel with that. I read further—

1. (a) daarvan afgesien word om die Kleurlingbevolking as ’n gemeenskap te beskou wat kultureel anders is, en kultureel van die Blanke bevolkingsgroepe onderskei kan word;
2. (b) die kultuurbevordering enbeoefening binne dieselfde organisatoriese opset en saam met dié vir Afrikaansen Engelssprekende Blankes in Suid-Afrika behandel word.

That means that the Theron Commission recommends that there should be a bringing together at the highest level, not in an underhand way, but at the highest level, of those who belong together.

According to qualifications!

Qualifications can be applied, but at the higher level there will be a coming together of people who belong together. I say to the hon. the Prime Minister that the finding of this commission—the hon. member for Piketberg will bear me out—is as reported. This is how the commission found it. This is the way the Coloured people expressed themselves. I believe any other commission investigating the same thing would come up with an identical recommendation.

I now come to another field. Let us take group areas. What do we find there? I quote (page 7)—

To what recommendation are you referring now?

No. 5. I quote further—

The commission talks about “kontakgeleenthede”. I quote further—

What happens with that recommendation in the White Paper? What does the Government accept? It accepts that industrial areas can be opened, decontrolled, for the Coloured population or any other population group. But where the matter is the most serious and where it can affect the Coloured people most effectively, is that the central business districts of the big cities must be opened up. The Government has not reacted to that That is not going to happen. I think the hon. the Prime Minister will agree with me that there are hundreds of Coloured people who are excellent in the shoe trade and who can have their own small shoe shops, who can have their own barber shops, who can have their own fruit shops, etc. This is denied to them by the Government in the central business districts.

I should now like to deal with the question of education.

We have had that!

That is not so. If it is so I shall be very glad if other speakers can indicate how this can happen. It is certainly not in the White Paper. I now quote recommendation No. 94—

The Theron Commission made the recommendation that Coloured students, where the university is agreeable to accept them, should be allowed at any university. Why did the commission make a recommendation like that? It is because it is believed that at that level of education, the tertiary level, it is vital that there be contact between White and Coloured students. What the Government has done, however, is to break down the contact between White and Coloured in South Africa to the extent that the hon. the Minister has even to appoint a “skakelkomitee” to bring the White and Coloured population groups together again. I welcome any kind of consultation; any kind of consultation is worth while. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to continue with my argument about recommendation No. 178 in connection with the constitutional development of the Coloured people. I want to agree with the hon. member that when the commission discussed this recommendation and voted on it, the majority of members voted in favour of this recommendation concerning the political issue. But I can only conclude, and this was also my opinion at that time, that it was a convenient agreement on that occasion to ensure a majority. Afterwards members of the majority group came forward to explain themselves. Perhaps some of them became a little fearful of the recommendation they had made. Others realized that they had not quite understood what they had supported. Afterwards—that we find on page 525 of the Erika Theron report—the Coloured members, Mr. Arendse, Dr. Arendse, Dr. Beets, Mr. Feldman, Mr. Rabie and Prof. van der Ross, had the following proviso recorded—

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central, too, gave his own explanation, an explanation in which, inter alia, he repeats the request that the federal plan of the UP should be considered. The hon. member has every right to produce his little plan. However, I merely want to point out that in voting for a majority recommendation—as contained in recommendation No. 178—the members were really divided and did not know what they were voting for and what they were really seeking. Now the question arises: How can the Government, who must deal with this recommendation, accept it as a guideline when the majority of the members of such a commission support such a recommendation, but subsequently produce three or four different provisos with regard to that matter? Their attitude was, in other words, as clear as mud. On the other hand, the minority group in the commission felt that it was a matter which, on account of their lack of the expert knowledge required, they could not investigate properly, and that they could not submit a detailed recommendation on it to the Government either.

Furthermore, I want to point out that even the recommendation as it was originally formulated—the recommendation that had the majority support of the commission—contains a contradiction in terms. Paragraph (a) of that recommendation recommends—

However, when we look at paragraph (c), we see the following—

On the one hand a direction is given. That is in paragraph (a). In paragraph (c) it is stated that they accept that the system must be changed. How can one give a direction of what must be done on the one hand, and say on the other hand: “No, the whole matter must be changed”? In actual fact, there is only one matter among all the recommendations which received the consistent support of the majority as well as the minority. It is a matter on which we were really unanimous in our whole approach. This is that the system of government that is based on the Westminster model will have to be changed and adapted to South African conditions. The Government has accepted and acknowledged this as the one important premise which was laid down by the commission and from which it can proceed.

To me and to the NP, as well as to the Government, it is very important that in any approach to this problem—and it is a very serious and urgent problem—we should have regard to the fact that we cannot simply transplant the British system of government to South Africa and believe that it will work. I think the UP also acknowledged this in the years when it was in its prime. For that reason they did not grant the Blacks and the Coloured people the representation that the Whites had in this Parliament. There were various reasons for this, and the obvious reason is that these people did not have any of the knowledge, appreciation and understanding of the system that the European had.

In addition, the system is very closely connected with the economic dispensation under which it functions, and if there are population groups that fail to make the necessary contribution and to accept responsibility with regard to the economic stability of the country, they are actually a danger to the system. Gen. Smuts said at the Empire Conference in Britain in 1921: “In South Africa we are based on a system of inequality.” In other words, the UP and the NP have acknowledged over the years in their approach to the matter that there are differences of development and ethnicity in South Africa which we must take into account. Only a foolish Government would ignore this. I can promise that the hon. the Prime Minister and the Government will not be so foolish as to ignore these hard realities in the future. They are very important, and therefore the Government has decided to accept in principle the recommendation with regard to a modification of the Westminster system and to use that as a starting point. Surely it cannot be expected of the Government, which has a mandate from the electorate of South Africa and which has enjoyed a growing support throughout the years, now to entrust the matter to people who do not have the responsibility and the mandate that the Government has. It is the Government’s responsibility to proceed from here in the most responsible way, in the interests of South Africa and of all the population groups. I am convinced that the policy of separate development, which takes the factors of ethnicity and the differences in the level of development of the various population groups into consideration, can be accommodated within the broad framework of a new policy. I am convinced that the goodwill exists in South Africa today—with a few exceptions the Opposition, too, shows the goodwill for this—to grant a greater say to the population groups in the interests of South Africa, a real and important say in the government of the country. However, this must be done subject to the proviso that the right to govern itself is basically the right of every people, of the Bantu peoples and also of the Coloured population group. They do not want to be called a people and in more than one regard they are not a people either. That is the basic premise.

What is happening at the moment, in Government circles and through the work done by the Cabinet Committee in this regard, proves to me that the Government is taking this recommendation seriously. The Government cannot handle the recommendation in any other way than it is doing, because it cannot disassociate itself from the mandate given by the electorate of South Africa. Even if the Coloured members of the Theron Commission say that they want direct representation and dictate how and where they want it, the Government must realize that it represents the White population group, the population group that bears the responsibility, not only for orderly government and especially orderly development in South Africa, but also for the economic stability of South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to take part in the debate on the particular point mentioned by the hon. members for Port Elizabeth Central and Piketberg, except to say that it is satisfying to know that the Government realizes that recommendation 178 of the Theron Commission is of such importance that they have decided to appoint a Cabinet Committee to investigate the relevant matter and that this Cabinet Committee is prepared to listen to the opinions of experts and is apparently also prepared to listen to the opinions of all political parties who want to make recommendations in this direction. I agree with the hon. member for Piketberg that this is, after all, the responsibility of the Government. However, I believe that this is also an opportunity for all political groups in South Africa to find the most satisfying solution for proper political liaison and consultation with the Coloureds.

I would also like to raise certain matters in regard to the Coloureds with the hon. the Prime Minister.

†I want to raise these points because I think all of us have recently noticed a quite disturbing trend in the relations between Coloureds and Whites. There is, first of all, a tendency amongst Coloureds of all political persuasions to club together. We have seen attacks being made on the Government in the past. Now we find that this is no longer the case. However, all Whites in South Africa are grouped together when it comes to criticism from certain Coloured leaders. One has the feeling that many Coloureds today reject any form of reconciliation, dialogue or compromise with the Whites. For that matter they seem to think that no White political party can offer them anything. Therefore one finds that there is a movement afoot amongst Coloured people to find common ground with the protagonists of militant Black power in South Africa. Even certain moderate Coloured leaders argue that unless they put up a real united front against everything the Whites have to offer, except of course full citizenship within a fully integrated society, they will not be doing a service to their own people. The Coloured’s reaction to the White Paper is a case in point. Very few Coloured leaders had anything good to say about the White Paper.

As far as the public media are concerned, they have not even reacted to the positive recommendations that could lead to a vast social and economic improvement amongst the Coloured people. Steps that would assist in promoting the establishment of a strong leadership class in all spheres amongst the Coloureds are also ignored by some of these leaders. All these factors which assist in building up their status and their economic, social and the educational levels, will be hampered by a backlog. We all admit that. All these factors are overshadowed by one question and certain related questions. One will find that all Coloureds are asking what their political future is in the country of their birth and what say they will have in order to receive their slice of the cake.

*The hon. member for Piketberg is correct when he says that the Coloureds are worried about their socio-economic position and that politics is the least of their worries. However, this matter is a very important one. The fact that the Government is not in a position to give constructive answers spoils the position of and also to a large extent the relations between White and Coloured.

†There is a clear attitude afoot that unless the Whites give answers, and satisfactory ones at that, the Coloureds will remain unco-operative and will reject anything that we offer them as examples of White paternalism. I am saying these things not because I agree with them, but because I believe it is no good hiding a fact. Amongst the advanced Coloured group there is a tremendous suspicion about anything that resembles separate development or apartheid, and it has everything to do with the many negative aspects of apartheid as South Africa has applied it from the beginning, since 1948. I would be prepared to admit that there could be an element of jockeying for position in Coloured politics as well, but the remarks made by Dr. Bergins earlier this year, when he said: “Coloureds must break with the Whites this year and we must reject separate development in all its forms …”, also to my mind indicate this leader’s frustration. He cannot sell something, despite his goodwill towards the White people, in which his own people have become deeply disappointed. Even the CRC as an instrument for community government and for self-administration is undoubtedly regarded by the Coloureds as an instrument and a form of apartheid.

I also want to admit that a great deal of the arguments which take place between Whites and Coloureds, still take place in a very friendly spirit, but we are all concerned as to how long this will be able to take place in South Africa and as to what can be done about removing suspicion and simultaneously to allow for the legitimate aspirations of the Coloured people to be fulfilled. I think we cannot ignore the strong desire amongst the Coloureds to be politically free. One has to agree with that sentiment. Therefore the first step should be to get it out of our minds that we are inevitably on a collision course between White and Coloured and that we naturally have conflicting interests. I do not believe we have conflicting interests between the White people and the Coloureds. Goodwill and co-operation exists between Whites and Coloureds in many other spheres than merely politics or outside the political arena. Animosity at a personal level is, to my mind, infinitesimal. The Whites have never shown more willingness, within our means, to direct and to help with the upliftment of the vast masses of Coloureds amongst us. It would not be a bad thing for some Coloured leaders to show some understanding for the tasks that we as Whites have in South Africa and not always to look upon the so-called privileged position of the Whites as something which we have not planned for and for which we have not worked. No group of people ever advanced itself without bringing others along with them on the ladder of life and progress in this country. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, in the course of my speech I shall also touch on certain aspects discussed by the hon. member for Newton Park. However, I want to agree with the hon. member in his reference to what the Whites have done for the Coloureds, and, in the second place, with the appeal he made to Coloured leaders to come forward and to do their share. I want to state this afternoon that it is extremely disappointing to listen to the controversy which has arisen around the Theron Commission report and the White Paper, since it serves no purpose whatsoever. This controversy about the Theron Report and the White Paper does not serve the Coloured population, nor does it serve White/Coloured relations or South Africa in any way.

The Government was being honest when it appointed the Theron Commission. It appointed the Theron Commission in the interests of the Coloured population. The commission was appointed because the Government wanted to discover three things. Firstly, the Government wanted information about the progress which the Coloured population had made since 1960. Secondly, the Government wanted information about the problems which exist. Thirdly, the Government wanted to learn how the Coloureds could be helped to develop further. Therefore it must be stated very clearly this afternoon that the Government definitely did not appoint the Theron Commission to draw up a new policy for the future of the Coloureds. These are the words of Prof. Theron, the chairman of the commission, as quoted in Rapport of 17 April—

I can only agree with the professor if she means a policy for the future in regard to the development of the Coloureds. However, if she means a political policy for the future, this is not true at all. Nor was there any question of the announcement of a master plan with time-tables and priorities as Prof. Theron and Die Transvaler made out. In appointing the Theron Commission there was no question at all of a blue-print which would be published, as was alleged by the seven members of the commission who spoke over the weekend as well as by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. The idea was to identify problems and also to help the Coloureds in their further development.

When this bulky report appeared, a report with 178 recommendations, the Government decided that the report should be referred to the various Government departments in order to obtain expert advice. After the White Paper had been laid on the table, it was criticized on 14 April by Die Transvaler as being—

Prof. Theron, the chairman of the commission, criticized it as being—

I allege that one cannot read the report and the White Paper separately, but that the report and the White Paper complement one another. Indeed, the White Paper is an absolutely essential complement to the report. If one reads the report and the White Paper together, one becomes aware of the immense field of activity which there is, a field of activity in the interests of the Coloureds themselves. However, one is also made aware of the fact that this field of activity needs manpower. It is in this connection that I agree with the hon. member for Newton Park, because this is the opportunity for Coloured manpower and Coloured leaders to come forward and enter this field of activity in an attempt to do something positive in the interests of their own people. When one reads the report and the White Paper together, one becomes aware of the money which is required in order to do all these things and one also becomes aware of the planning which will be needed. Above all, one becomes aware of the fact that enthusiasm is needed in order to carry out these things.

More so than the report, the White Paper points out the positive aspects. The White Paper shows us very clearly what has already been done over the years and what is being done at this stage. That is why I cannot understand the fuss.

There were 178 recommendations, but if one also takes subsections into account, there were 220 recommendations. Of the 220 recommendations, 166 have been accepted unreservedly or subject to qualification, 31 have been rejected and 23 will be decided on at a later stage. The White Paper clarifies matters where the commission itself was very, very much divided. The commission presented a report to the Government in which there was a minority report or abstention on the part of some members for practically every recommendation. These things had to be processed and that is why the White Paper has been submitted. It gives us clarity. I also want to indicate something this afternoon, and I am not doing so in order to criticize the commission at all. I have a very great appreciation for the work which they did. Since the chairman of the commission says: “Dit is ’n oorversigtige amptenaarsverslag,” I just want to add that I found 11 recommendations in which there are deficiencies. I cannot mention them all because I do not have the time. However, it is said: “Die kommissie het oorbeklemtoon en die kommissie het veralgemeen.” In connection with another recommendation it is said: “Daar was ’n mistasting deur die kommissie begaan.” In regard to another recommendation we have the following: “Die feitelike situasie is nie volkome reg vertolk nie.” And another recommendation: “Daar was nie volkome duidelikheid by die kommissie gewees nie.” The following is said regarding another recommendation: “Daar is geen getuienis of motivering nie.” I could continue in this way. In regard to another recommendation the following is said: “Die feite is nie gekontroleer met die administrasie van die VKR nie en daarom word die aanbeveling nie aanvaar nie aangesien dit op ongegronde aanvaardings gebaseer is.” In regard to a further recommendation, the following: “Die kommissie het gefouteer.” I am not mentioning these things to criticize the commission at all. I am just mentioning them to make it quite clear that the report and the White Paper are not in opposition to one another. People must not use the report to try and embarrass the Government and in this way to discredit the White Paper. I say once again that the report and the White Paper must be read together, and if we do so, we will be able to use and process all the information provided in them in the interests of the Coloured population and it will be possible to carry it out in this way.

That is why I believe that all the criticism of the White Paper is extremely unfair and unfounded and I should like to state here this afternoon that this report of the Theron Commission does not embarrass the Government at all. However, it is also clear from the White Paper that existing problems are receiving urgent attention. I am thinking, for instance, of recommendation 15, which deals with the procedure according to which business premises can be made available to prospective Coloured businessmen. The White Paper says the following in this connection—

In other words, here we have clear evidence of the honesty and sincerity of the Government and of its endeavour to eliminate all these existing problems which are preventing the progress of the Coloured people. The White Paper is also clear evidence that the Government is serious in moving away from discrimination without forfeiting identity. We can take a look at recommendation 6 on separate facilities. There the Government replies as follows, and to me this is the essence of the matter—

I emphasize the words “vlot verloop”. We must not shout out every day that we should move away from discrimination. The Opposition must not come here every day and say: “You must remove the restrictions, you must remove these things at once.” In moving away from discrimination there is the danger that we may let loose the hell of racial friction in our country, and we will have to watch out for that. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, virtually all aspects of the political situation in South Africa and affecting South Africa are traditionally discussed on the hon. the Prime Minister’s Vote. However, I do not want to join in the debate on the Coloured aspect this afternoon. There is an old saying which goes—

However, I am afraid that we cannot apply this to our Opposition Parties. We have heard absolutely nothing new or original from the Opposition Parties during this debate, as was the case during the no-confidence debate and the Second Reading debate. One must ask oneself what the reason for this is. One of the main reasons, probably the most important one, is the lack of original leadership in our Opposition Parties. I am not making this statement because I want to give offence to the leaders of the two larger Opposition Parties, but because it has been my own observation in the short time I have been in this House and because one can also make the statement on the basis of an analysis of the achievements of the various parties.

Analyses of leadership go back as far as the time of Aristotle and Machiavelli, but only during the past 30 or 40 years has an attempt been made to abstract the key elements of leadership. These days one may say that concensus has more or less been reached on the following aspects of leadership: Intelligence, sound judgment, honesty, courage, insight, imagination, responsibility, justice, humility and a sense of humour. I think one may add the following in the South African situation: knowledge, faith, enthusiasm and hard work.

When one measures the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition in terms of these standards, one cannot, in the first instance, neglect to say that he, as the leader of an Opposition party, works very hard. The hon. the Leader is already working on a new party once again, on a new alternative Government. Nor can one say that the hon. the Leader is unimaginative, because I believe that the hon. the Leader imagines that the new party to be founded, may possibly be able to work. Basically the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition is also a very humble man. After all, he was prepared to remain no more than the leader of the Opposition over the past 20 years while his party had no hope of becoming an alternative Government. In fact, his only concern was to establish a good Opposition, to use his own words. I do not want to digress on how just the hon. the Leader may be, as the hon. the Leader of the IUP may possibly resent my doing so in view of the way in which he and his group left that party.

I believe that there is one aspect in respect of which the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition has been a successful leader. On the credit side, one can at least say that he was the president of the Parliamentary Cricket Club for 10 consecutive years. I do not believe it would be cricket if I were to continue to measure the leader in terms of all these elements of leadership. However, one necessarily asks oneself why the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition has made his party lose its way in the political desert. I think one may say, to begin with, that it was due to a lack of insight, a lack of insight as to what the electorate of South Africa wants and looks for in a leader to lead it. Furthermore I should say that since 1970 the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition has probably lost his sound judgment to a certain extent and at the same time, lost some of his best people like the present Minister of Indian Affairs amongst others. The hon. the Leader of the official Opposition made one fatal mistake, however, and that was when he allowed co-or collateral leadership in his party. We need look at the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. Shakespeare once said the following about leadership: “When two people ride on a horse, one must ride behind.” The hon. the Leader of the official Opposition forgot this Shakespearian pearl of wisdom on leadership. Two people cannot sit on a horse side by side: one must sit behind, one must hold the reins.

When did you read Shakespeare?

I believe that the time has come for the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition to show that one characteristic of a good leader, viz. sound judgment, a characteristic which the hon. the Leader has neglected for so long, and say good-bye to politics.

Mr. Chairman, I shall not devote much time to the leader of the PRP, because that hon. leader has four political defectors on his side, the four political hands-uppers who are with him at the moment.

Squatters.

One of them is the great patriot who is now prepared to legalize the Communist Party in South Africa, should his party come into power, or does the hon. member not want that? The assistant leader of the hon. member for Yeoville is prepared to do so.

That is entirely untrue.

Is the hon. member against it?

It is untrue.

The hon. member for Sea Point has some good qualities of leadership, but, as you know, Mr. Chairman, Langenhoven said the following about a political leader—

Unfortunately the hon. the leader understood the latter part only, and at the moment he is enthusing about a policy which has not yet been formulated. In enthusing about a policy which he did not formulate, the hon. member has become completely colour blind. Of the whole spectrum of light and colour he can see two colours only, namely black and brown. Furthermore, the hon. member does not have faith, and that is why he will not be able to lead the Whites in South Africa, because if one does not believe in the Whites of South Africa, how can one expect the Whites to believe in one and in one’s leadership? Even if one has co-leaders too, and one has a so-called bait for the Afrikaner, in the person of the hon. member for Rondebosch, how can one believe that people will support one? One must fail because one can never succeed when the English idiom of “too many chiefs and too few Indians” is applicable to one. This can never succeed as regards the PRP. However, there is also some good news for the hon. the leader of the PRP, and that is that the hon. member for Houghton and the hon. member for Yeoville have decided that the two swimming pools in Sea Point and in Yeoville are to be thrown open. At least the hon. member has the prospect of becoming the president of a swimming club even if it is at Graaff’s Pool.

I do not think anyone will expect of me as a junior back bencher, with my limited intellect and limited ability, to endeavour in any way to make an analysis here of the greatest leader South Africa has produced. However, I should like to give the hon. the leader of the PRP this bit of advice. Up to now the PRP has always been feeding on the scraps of the UP. This is a fact. I just want to tell the hon. the leader of the PRP that even in the animal kingdom, the leader of the animals is not a scavenger. If the hon. the leader of the PRP were to think at any stage that it was his calling to be the leader of South Africa, he would have to take the example of the lion of the animal kingdom and of the lion of the NP. This is what we expect of a leader. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I listened attentively to the criticism expressed by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. leader of the PRP and other hon. members on the opposite side. Most, if not all the points of criticism raised by them have been replied to, if not in full then in part, by hon. members on the Government side. In the first place, if I were asked what the foundation, the basis of the criticism of the two hon. leaders was, you will agree with me, Mr. Chairman, that what it amounted to was that the Government either had no policy, or that it had in fact failed with the policy it did have—that all we were left with were the shattered remnants, to use the favourite words of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. Let us analyse this for a moment. An accusation which has been made in all earnest is that the Government does not have a policy.

It is because the Opposition parties adopt that standpoint that they find themselves in the miserable position in which both those parties find themselves. That is why they find themselves in the miserable position of either not having the courage to nominate candidates in by-elections or, if they do nominate candidates, of having to suffer the humiliation of forfeiting their deposits. Never before has an Opposition party, or Opposition parties, been in such a situation in any country in which the party system obtains. If those hon. members suggest in all earnest today that the Government does not have a policy, I put the following question to them collectively: If that is the case, why did they initially make an attempt to come together? They did make such an attempt—Graaff with Eglin and Eglin with Graaff. They tried to do so through the mediation of a certain gentleman by the name of Marais. That was why they both appointed representatives to hold a consultation with Mr. Marais to try to establish whether they could come together. What motive did they have, and how did they justify it to their followers? They said that they were compelled to do this because they wanted in that way find an alternative to the Government’s policy. They said that the policies of their own parties did not offer the voters an acceptable alternative. They said that they wanted to come together in order to find an alternative in that way, an alternative not only as far as their parties were concerned, but an alternative as far as their policies were concerned as well.

Surely it would be foolish of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to want to disband his party only to have it continue under another name. Surely the hon. the Leader of the Opposition does not want to tell me that he wishes to publish a notice in the news paper to say that the United Party is deceased but that the same UP is functioning under the control of Mr. Gerdener. Surely that is not what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to tell me. The whole object of this escapade was to try to find an alternative policy because they had arrived at the conclusion that neither of these two parties had a policy which was acceptable to the voters of South Africa. They did not arrive at that conclusion alone, of their own accord. The electorate also caused them to gain that impression, in no uncertain way. It was most clearly demonstrated to them by the results of elections. If hon. members therefore allege that the Government does not have a policy, surely their casting about to such an extent in an effort to find a new policy or to establish a new party makes no sense.

But I want to tell those hon. members that they are going to all that trouble in vain. They will not be able to find an acceptable policy for the voters of South Africa unless they are prepared to accept the realities of South Africa.

What is the basic difference in point of departure between this side of the House and that side of the House, excluding the six hon. friends over there who still have to decide where they stand? What is the basic difference? The hon. members opposite see a problem in the realities of South Africa instead of accepting the realities in South Africa. What are the realities of South Africa? No political party that does not take these realities into account and that does not formulate its policy to take these realities into account, will be successful. If one refuses to see South Africa as a country in which different peoples are living and simply continues to arouse expectations among people as though they were all one and as though there were no differences in language, tradition, culture, point of departure and outlook on life, one will fail and continue to fail. Let the hon. members of the UP examine themselves honestly now and ask themselves whether this is not the reason why they have in fact failed. Is it not true that when they also believed in this principle to a certain extent, they were reasonably strong, so strong that they made themselves believe that they were an alternative Government? But I am not doing my hon. friend an injustice if I tell him today that he has become completely irrelevant in South African politics. He has become completely irrelevant because he lost sight of the realities.

What are my hon. friends in the Opposition doing? I listened to them objectively this afternoon, and apart from four specific accusations which were made by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central and apart from the statements made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and to a certain extent those made by the hon. member for Sea Point on foreign affairs, which I shall deal with in detail tomorrow—these are delicate matters which I do not simply want to deal with now across the floor of this House—surely there were no other specific accusations. There were only vague words, and more vague words. Expectations were aroused, expectations which hon. members on that side are not prepared to satisfy. The same applied in regard to the speech made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout in this House a few days ago. The hon. member expounded his philosophy on what is meant by discrimination and laid his accusations at the door of the Government and exonerated himself—and I assume his party as well—of being guilty of this kind of thing. I should like to test the courage of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout on the basis of the accusations which he levelled at the Government in his speech and on the basis of the statements he made when he said (Hansard, 14 April 1977)—

He also spoke of doing away with measures which discriminate on the ground of race or colour. I want to test this on the basis of the general statements which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made here today, with reference to the various levels of government which are being discussed here and with reference to the recommendation on which the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central harped, viz. direct representation on all three levels of government.

If an Opposition professes that they wish to do these things without any discrimination—to put it in that way—and without drawing any distinction whatsoever, surely it is not true.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana told me across the floor of this House—we know this is true—that it was not the policy of his party in Natal to admit Indians to city councils. Is that correct? I am now asking the hon. member for Bezuidenhout whether he agrees with this form of discrimination which is inherent in the policy of the UP, viz. not to admit any Indians to this first level of government, the municipal level?

It is not true. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Durban Point can participate in the debate, but I am quite prepared to enter into dialogue with him on the question of whether this is the policy of the UP.

We have never said that no Indian participation will be allowed on the first level of government. [Interjections.] It is a subtle misrepresentation of what the hon. member said.

No. The hon. member then has the right to withdraw or rectify the misrepresentation. I want to ask the hon. member whether it is the policy of the UP that Indians should have representation in the Durban City Council.

They will have representation on all levels of government. [Interjections.]

Is municipal government one of those levels?

In the federal system it will be. [Interjections.]

I shall have to reconcile myself to the fact that I made a mistake, if the hon. member for Umhlatuzana tells me that it is in fact the policy of that party that Indians should have representation on the same city council on that level together with the Whites.

I shall be speaking in this debate and shall deal with that subject specifically. [Interjections.]

It is very clear to me that the hon. member does not want to discuss it with me.

I shall deal with that subject specifically.

Perhaps the hon. member for Durban Point wishes to discuss it with me and I shall base my argument on that. What are the facts of the matter? I want to state, and I challenge the hon. member for Umhlatuzana to deny this when he participates in the debate …

I shall be speaking in this debate and shall deal with that subject specifically.

I challenge him to deny, when he speaks, that what I am now saying is correct, viz. that it is not the policy of the UP that Indians and Whites should serve on the same city council in Natal. If that is the case, I want to ask the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, if the hon. member for Umhlatuzana denies my statement, to tell me on what grounds he is still a member of that party.

I want to ask a second question: If the criterion laid down by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is correct, why does he belong to a party which, just like the party on this side of the House, does not believe that Whites, Coloureds, Indians and Blacks should attend the same schools? Then there is no logic whatsoever in making the accusation on the one hand and following a policy on the other which has precisely that result. If it is true that the policy of the NP has failed, the question arises why, according to hon. members themselves, it became necessary for them to disband their party, why it became necessary for them to establish a new party and even why it became necessary for them, until a spanner was put in the works, to conclude an alliance with the PRP.

As far as the NP is concerned, we take cognizance of the fact that South Africa is a plural society and that there are various communities and various peoples living in South Africa, and we are facing up to the problem which emanates and emerges from that plurality. We have identified the problem, and what is more, we have to the best of our ability tried to find ways and means, a modus vivendi, to allow all the various peoples to live here in peace.

That is where you have failed.

Let us see whether we have failed. If we have failed, surely it would not be true that the non-White communities are economically better off today under this Government than they have ever been under any Government.

But all the people are; the Whites as well. [Interjections.]

I am sorry. I cannot argue on that professorial level. [Interjections.] The hon. member must therefore pardon me for not reacting to that. Not only are they economically better off; the fact of the matter is—I must place this on record—that the Coloured groups and communities in South Africa have facilities at their disposal today which they never had under any previous Government.

There were no aircraft either many years ago.

The facilities I am referring to are those which have existed in South Africa over the past few decades. I could quote many examples in this regard. Nor should it only be said that they are economically better off and that they have more facilities at their disposal. The fact of the matter is that it is precisely as a result of the policy of this Government—hon. members can find the proof of this in the Theron report itself—that opportunities have been created for people of colour in South Africa which never existed under previous Governments.

I want to go further. In spite of the criticism which hon. members on the opposite side level and in spite of their complaints about the policy of separate development of this side of the House, it remains a fact that there has never before been such an opportunity in South Africa as there is at present for people of colour to do things collectively. It is a fact. [Interjections.] I can quote examples of this. Sport was also practised in South Africa in the time when the Official Opposition was in power. Foreign sportsmen came to South Africa then, too. The Indian, Coloured and Black sportsmen we have in this country today, did not come out of a clear sky yesterday or the day before yesterday; they have been here all these years. However, the Opposition never afforded them any opportunities whatsoever to compete internationally.

However, there was no prohibition either.

What is more: Even in South Africa the Opposition did not afford them an opportunity of competing on an inter-group basis. The fact of the matter is that it was the Government that did this. The fact of the matter is that it was the Government with its policy of separate development that did this.

But the Government changed its policy. [Interjections.]

Order!

Hon. members on the opposite side referred to the Erika Theron Commission report, a report containing many recommendations. What criticism have we had so far from hon. members? In the first place there was the criticism of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central on recommendation No. 4. However, the hon. member omitted to mention that recommendation No. 4 was supported by eight members and opposed by seven, while three abstained from voting. Consequently it was not an amendment which was supported by the majority of the members who served on the commission.

Nevertheless it is a majority recommendation.

I am saying that it was not a recommendation which was supported by the majority of the members on the commission. But I want to point out to the hon. member that recommendation No. 4 dealt with a particularly sensitive matter. Over the years, whenever I spoke to people, I went out of my way to discuss this aspect with non-White leaders and parents. But I have never come across a single Coloured or Indian parent who asked me to repeal the Act in question. The parents who are concerned about their children, who are seeking a future for their children and who respect their children, do not ask for this provision to be repealed. Nor do they see any humiliation in it. I have not yet encountered a single parent who suggested this to me, and over the years I have discussed this matter a great deal. As far as I am concerned, the Government’s policy is based on the sociological aspects which flow from such marriages, and that is why the Government adopted this standpoint. I make so bold as to say that the people who argue against it are arguing solely on political grounds and not on moral or sociological grounds.

Out of all those recommendations the hon. member, in the 20 minutes which he had at his disposal, chose only four. He is the expert on that side, but he referred to only four recommendations.

Owing to the time factor.

No. The hon. member had 20 minutes. In 20 minutes, however, he mentioned only four, including recommendation No. 153 on the pursuit of culture. Apparently he did not read the reply to that in the White Paper. The White Paper states that one should not deprive an individual of his own cultural development. One should, instead, encourage his own cultural development. The White Paper does not state that one should make these people keep their distance. The White Paper states that there may be collective cultural assets, but the White Paper also wants to inculcate a pride in each individual, a pride in each individual in his own cultural assets. Have the hon. members not yet learnt that their policy in respect of the Afrikaner in the distant past failed precisely because they did not have such an approach?

The hon. member also referred to recommendation No. 5. The largest portion of that recommendation has been accepted by the Government and is being implemented.

In all respects!

No. In a certain respect it is not accepted. I shall tell the hon. member what portion thereof is not accepted. The White Paper states very clearly (page 8)—

All the Government is saying is that it cannot accept it “sonder meer”. In respect of recommendation No. 5(a) the Government made it very clear that it accepted this recommendation in its entirety. In respect of (b) it has said that it cannot be accepted “sonder meer”. It is also stated what amenities have already been created and what amenities have to be created. I quote (page 8)—

If this is the only item of criticism which hon. members are presenting under my Vote, I ask myself what all the fuss in respect of the Theron report is about.

I come now to recommendation No. 178, which has already been dealt with in detail by the hon. member for Piketberg. I want to say in all fondness and friendliness to members of the Theron Commission—today is not the first time I am saying this; I said it when the commission began its activities and even before there was any question of a report—that I made it very clear to the commission that the Government was not appointing the commission to prescribe a political policy to or to find one for it. I made it very clear—in this House and outside this House—that the congresses of the party would formulate the policy of the NP. I do not wish to join issue now with people who worked for years and for whose work I have appreciation. However, my advice to the members of the Theron Commission is this: You took a few years to bring out a report, and then brought out a report. Do not turn the report into a personal matter now. Do not level charges at the Government now through the chairwoman of the commission. She said that it seemed to her as though the Government did not understand the underlying philosophy of the report. Has she not perhaps asked herself whether the recommendations which were not accepted, were not accepted precisely because the Government does understand the underlying philosophy accompanying the report? I am prepared to argue that standpoint of principle with hon. members throughout the debate under this Vote.

If hon. members ask me what the fundamental policy of the Government is, my reply is that what it is based on is that various population groups will live in various residential areas, that they will have their own community life in those residential areas, that they will exercise their own community rights in those residential areas, that their children will go to different schools, schools which are suited to the nature and traditions of each community and that, when the States creates amenities for population groups, it has to create them for all groups. And if it does not have the money to do so and is only able to create one amenity, it must be prepared to establish that amenity for all the various population groups because it is State money and the State is creating that amenity.

When it comes to private people who create amenities, the State will have to make an evaluation on the basis of the area in which those amenities are situated and the State, as it has already done, will allow various peoples to share in those amenities if possible. However, the State will not force any private individual to throw his amenities open to all if he does not wish to do so. The State is fully aware that a need for certain amenities exists in the cities and larger towns. This has also been stated in the Theron report. In a short time the State has already done a vast amount to establish amenities for the various population groups, and shall continue to do so.

In the short space of 30 years!

No, Sir, it is not the short space of 30 years. When the party on the opposite side was in power, they did absolutely nothing about it. They did not even want to consider the problem. They did not even try to identify the problem. We, however, faced up to the problem. We have been doing so over the years, and not only from today. As long ago as the days when I was Minister of Justice the first hotels in which people of colour could be accommodated were established. Previously that amenity had not been there—and that was a very long time ago.

So I can continue and point out one amenity after the other which we have created. If the hon. members on the opposite side say that there is ill-feeling between the population groups in South Africa today, I would say that I am aware from my own experience that there are people outside and within this country who wish to stir up unrest between population groups. We have had this in the past, and we shall encounter it again. If the PRP levels the accusation at me that there is not a good relationship between the Government, including myself, on the one hand and the Black people on the other, I want to say that it did not escape my notice that the hon. member for Sea Point started off on a very ambitious note at the conferences which he held with the Black leaders at the Jan Smuts airport. The hon. member began with eight. At present he only has two left. The others do not even take the trouble any more to accept his invitations to go to Jan Smuts airport to hold discussions with him. I know what I am talking about. I know what those people told me themselves in this regard.

When last did I hold a conference there?

At the moment there are only two Black leaders who want to hold a conference with the hon. member.

Sir, if you ask me whether it is possible to come to an understanding with the various coloured groups and their leaders, I want to say that as far as the Government is concerned the answer is “yes”, because basically the Government proceeds on the standpoint that it respects the human dignity of those people and because, in all the talks which my colleagues and I hold with them, and in all my dealings with them, we do nothing which offends their human dignity in any way. On the contrary, I challenge those hon. members who are now laughing cynically at this, to furnish me with an example, for they have subjected this matter to a close scrutiny, of anything which I or anyone else connected with me did to offend the human dignity of those people. We did not butter them up either. We had the courage to differ where it was necessary to differ. We differed openly with them, but respected one another in the process.

You say “no” politely, but it still means “no”.

The hon. member must not mutter away like that. If she interrupts me, she must speak up so that I can hear what she is saying.

I said: You say “no” politely, but it still means that you say “no”.

The hon. member says that if I say “no” in a civilized way, it still means “no”. I have also said “yes” many times in a civilized way and the hon. member knows it.

The difference between that hon. member and me is that I do not lose my personality in the process of negotiating with those people. Let me say straight out to the hon. member now: I do not grovel when I negotiate. I do not go to fetch instructions when I negotiate. I do not go to sell someone out when I negotiate. That is the difference between the hon. member and me. Because this is the case non-White leaders differ openly with me and sometimes they say less flattering things about me. But it has never happened in my public career that they have laughed at me behind my back. That has never happened. It has never happened that they have ridiculed me behind my back.

How do you know?

The hon. member knows very well what I am referring to when I say this. [Interjections.]

Since hon. members have attacked me once again on my policy, and have stated, and quite correctly too, that I am not prepared to relinquish my policy, I want to repeat, as my predecessor also said, that it is implicit in my policy that if we do not begrudge anyone a position and prepare a position for everyone—whether or not those positions are equal for the moment, as long as we are striving to make them equal—then we are not only creating opportunities; we are indeed also eliminating discrimination in any form whatsoever. Discrimination will be eliminated in South Africa, but if hon. members understand that to mean that we are going to turn South Africa upside down, that we are going to convert it into a country in which so many million people are living, regardless of race, colour or the ethnic context in which they find themselves, they will be disappointed, for that we are not going to do. What we are going to do, however, is to afford every individual in his national context, every member of every community, the opportunities to develop to the full, to preserve his human dignity at all times and to work out for him and his children a full and equal place in the sun in South Africa. This Government may be accused of all kinds of things, but it cannot be said of this Government that it did not go out of its way to achieve this very object, to achieve this very object in respect of schools, hospitals, recreational facilities and in respect of every conceivable aspect on which one wants to attack the Government. Unlike the Opposition, which does so for political reasons, there is understanding, although they do not always agree, among the people of colour in South Africa. Not only is there understanding among the people of colour in South Africa. There is, in spite of the demands which they still have and which they will always have, an inherent gratitude in them for what they have received.

But what does the Opposition envisage with its agitation? They will not cause the Government to relinquish its policy of providing those people with enhanced amenities. The fact that the Opposition refuses to recognize what the Government has already done, simply means that they are breeding dissatisfaction where there should not be any dissatisfaction, that they are trying to arouse an ugly spirit among people of colour in South Africa. That ugly spirit is not only going to wreak vengeance on people on this side of the House when it is eventually no longer possible to restrain it. It is going to wreak vengeance on hon. members opposite as well. We have all seen this on television. It is with hesitation that I bring it to the attention of hon. members again. When that day arrives it will not help them in the least to say “I am English.” It is not going to be of any avail to them. Now they must ask themselves whether, in the way in which they are expressing their criticism, they are building up sound relations in South Africa, or whether they are poisoning relations in South Africa.

Let us now forget about all the generally absurd talk which is in progress. Let us argue the matter on a practical basis. Attack me if there is not enough of this, that or the other and ask me what the policy of the Government is, whether we are going to do this, that or the other. But the ugly spirit which they have created in the past, and which they are still creating, is something they are going to suffer the consequences of themselves. Not only are they going to suffer those consequences from other people; they are also going to suffer those consequences from the electorate of South Africa. After all, I, who have been sitting opposite the hon. Opposition for years now, do not find it edifying—nor do I derive any pleasure from it—to witness the demise of such a great political party as the official Opposition. I am now addressing the UP. Surely they do not want the PRP to occupy their position here. Nor do I want them to occupy the position of the UP. Between the UP and myself there are differences in principle, but they must ask themselves why they, as the UP, find themselves in this position.

It is not necessary for them to go calling on Theo Gerdener and others. They should rather hold an exhaustive discussion among themselves and ask themselves what it was that brought them to their present pass. Then they will find, when they have to furnish the reply to that question, that it does not lie in a new name, but merely therein that they should again, as of old, take cognizance of the realities of the South African society and of South African politics. Then they will have a chance to survive. If they do not do so, well, then I am afraid … I reiterate that none of us take any pleasure in this, but then the UP is going to disappear ignominiously. We do not want that. The Opposition does not want that and none of us here want it. It is true, however, that their political fate is ultimately in their own hands. After all, it is no concern of mine.

Sir, I have indicated that in regard to the fundamental and important matters raised by the hon. members during the discussion, I shall hold a further discussion tomorrow.

Mr. Chairman, I listened very attentively to the hon. the Prime Minister. I had expected that on this occasion, we would be given guidelines from the hon. the Prime Minister on the future of our people. I expected clear formulations of policy and all we got from the hon. the Prime Minister were four points: firstly, that there should be separate residential areas in which provision would be made for the various groups; secondly, that discrimination was to be eliminated—we have heard this countless times before; thirdly, that human dignity was to be respected; and fourthly, that everyone would be afforded the opportunity to reach complete self-fulfilment within his own circle. If that is all we can offer the people of South Africa at this stage, we may as well keep quiet.

I want to comment on a few other points the hon. the Prime Minister mentioned. The hon. the Prime Minister spoke of the realities of the situation in South Africa. I want to say at once that I do not know of a single member in the House who does not accept and recognize the plurality of our society. This is not the only reality, however. Another reality of the situation is that we cannot continue to withhold from participation in the political structure people who are permanently resident in South Africa—as you and I are—and from those who have a different skin colour. We shall never have peace in this country as long as we are unwilling to accept that reality. I have never accused the hon. the Prime Minister of having failed to appreciate the human dignity of people in his personal relationships and actions towards them. This is not the non-White’s complaint however. The non-White’s complaint is levelled at the nature of the policy that is applied to him and at the fact that his human dignity is not properly recognized in it. I cannot understand how the hon. the Prime Minister can say that no one has ever complained to him about the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and about section 6 of the Immorality Act. In the Theron Report there is evidence given by six Coloured members who said that those things had to be done away with because they were injurious to the non-White’s dignity. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Prime Minister said nothing like that had occurred under the old régime. I am not reponsible for what did or did not take place under UP rule more than 30 years ago. I want to say, however—I know the hon. the Prime Minister is more aware of this than I am—that the world we are living in today, is not the world of 30 years ago. [Interjections.] As regards the demands and expectations of the non-Whites in our country, and those the outside world imposes on us, the scene has changed completely. I cannot understand how anyone can persist in arguing that more has been done in the past 10 to 15 years than a previous Government did 30 to 40 years ago. The demands are different today. There is no merit in the argument that the electorate reinstated the Government with an increased majority—although one readily admits this. We may take a look at Rhodesia and the Rhodesian Front as well as the fact that the NP made a clean sweep in South West as well. There is no merit in this, however. There are other yardsticks and principles that we have to apply in our judgment of what is right and what is wrong.

I am in a difficult situation. I should very much like to devote my whole speech to the White Paper but I know in advance that I am going to come in for accusations because, like my hon. colleague for Port Elizabeth Central, I shall not have the time to deal with the report comprehensively. I think it is a very great pity indeed that the procedure in the highest House in the nation does not afford one an opportunity to discuss so important a document as the report of the Theron Commission, and the White Paper on it, really comprehensively and after full consideration. [Interjections.]

In the limited time at my disposal, I should nevertheless like to return to some aspects of the report and reply to some of the points raised by the hon. member for Oudtshoorn. For obvious reasons, I cannot react to the hon. member for Pretoria East. I do not like this type of ad hominem approach. I can say without fear of contradiction that the Theron Report deals with one of the most important matters in the life of our nation. I think the hon. the Prime Minister conceded this.

The development of the Coloured community, its place in our society and the whole problem of the relationship between White and Coloured, is of paramount importance because it will, in fact, determine the future of this country. This is not just a routine report. Hence my entreaty and my great disappointment, because this report and the accompanying White Paper cannot, in fact, be discussed in detail here. I want to say at once, however—and I shall come back to this later—that I am most appreciative of the positive aspects in the White Paper and for the positive acceptance of certain proposals in the report. I want to make it clear that I am not approaching it from a negative point of view only.

We all looked forward to the Government’s reaction with great anticipation. If I may, I want to say that the hon. the Prime Minister contradicted himself to a certain extent. On the one hand, he asked us to prove that the Government had not accepted that report. He referred to the two or three statements the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central had quoted. At the same time, however, and subsequently, he said that perhaps it was precisely because the Government understood the philosophy of that report that it did not accept it.

I said that those points had not been accepted. I did not say the report had not been accepted.

I understood that what was at issue, was the overall philosophy on which the report was based, because this is the accusation the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central made. [Interjections.] What I expected from this White Paper, was that the Government would spell out the future to the Coloured population with imagination and vision and that it would do the same regarding the relationship between White and Coloured in South Africa. It is very clear that we are to judge that White Paper not only against the background of the report of the commission and of the numerous bottlenecks that the commission exposed in it, but also against the background of the bitterness and rejection the commission found to exist amongst the Coloureds regarding this dispensation they are caught up in.

What I had expected was a White Paper that would provide the answer to the increasing hardening of the Coloureds’ feelings. If the hon. the Prime Minister thinks that the discord that exists amongst our non-Whites is merely the handiwork of agitators from outside or from within, then I want to tell him in all honesty that he is living in another world and that my impression—not only of today and of yesterday; not only since I entered the political arena in 1974—is a completely different one. It is a fact that there is great bitterness and dissatisfaction, and this is not being caused and incited by agitators from outside. I want to say at once, however, that I have no doubt that such agitators are, in fact, active.

I had hoped that the White Paper would bring hope and relief, against the background of the greater political isolation South Africa finds herself facing and the increasing pressure from abroad that is being exerted upon us in the Security Council and elsewhere. In other words, I have the right to ask myself, and I have the right to put the question to hon. members on that side of the House, as to whether the White Paper will, in fact, contribute to the reduction of tension between the colour groups in South Africa.

Order! The hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the hon. member be granted the time to complete his speech.

My heartfelt thanks to the hon. Whip on that side of the House. The second criterion is whether it is going to promote the creation of a common loyalty in South Africa, in the face of all the dangers. Can we honestly say that that White Paper between us and the Coloureds is going to be conducive to the creation of a common loyalty, despite all the enemies that are threatening us? Thirdly, I want to know whether the White Paper is going to make it easier for us to defend our cause against foreign countries.

There is yet another question I want to ask here in all honesty and sincerity, concerning the relationship between the Afrikaner and the Coloured. In that regard, I want to address hon. members on this side of the House who are Afrikaners. The history of the Afrikaner and that of the Coloured have become inextricably interwoven during more than 3¼ centuries. The historical, biological, religious and cultural ties between the Afrikaner and the Coloured are indisputable. There are probably no two groups in South Africa that are so closely related, so much indebted to each other, and have so much to thank each other for, as the Afrikaner and the Coloured. We all know that during the past 30 years, many Afrikaners have posed serious questions—some of them in this House—about the path we have trodden, and are still treading, with the Coloured and about whether it is the right path. Hon. members are aware of the questions being asked and of the doubt in the hearts of a large proportion of the Afrikaners, precisely because of the links they have and feel between themselves and the Coloured. Hon. members are aware of the misgivings and of the grave concern that has been expressed here in that regard as well. That is why I have to put these questions to all of us, as Afrikaners. Can we say, in all honesty, that the White Paper is going to bring the Coloureds closer to us as Afrikaners? We must be true to our consciences when answering that question.

It is not sheer coincidence that the Theron Commission, with the possible exception of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central—I trust he will not take it amiss of me that I say this—comprised only Afrikaners and Coloureds. Nor is it strange that the differences apparent from the report, are differences between Afrikaners including—broadly speaking—Prof. Theron, Dr. Terblanche, Prof. Vosloo and Prof. Du Toit on the one hand, and other Afrikaners on the other. This merely reflects the deep division among Afrikaners over the path we have to tread together with the Coloured. That division is also very much apparent from the report of Prof. Piek and Dr. Van der Merwe of RAU. The deep division among Afrikaners and NP supporters on the path we are treading with the Coloureds, runs like a dividing line through their ranks. Consequently, to pretend here that those differences do not exist, would to be evade the truth. In the House, too, voices are often raised in this regard; this happened once again this very week. There have been, and still are, a great many pangs of conscience amongst Afrikaners about the fate we, as Afrikaners, have allotted the Coloureds. Consequently, I do not find it strange that voices have been raised to an increasing extent on the part of the Afrikaner, saying that we cannot continue on that path, and that we have to effect sweeping changes in our relationship with the Coloureds as well as in the position of the Coloured himself.

What sweeping changes do you propose?

I shall come to that presently. I am not trying to score petty political points off anyone on small issues. We have the White Paper that has been tabled and we must analyse it honestly. Unfortunately, I cannot do so in detail because I do not have the time. I want to extract certain aspects, however and I do so on the basis of the booklet Prof. Erica Theron and Prof. Du Toit wrote on the report, in which a short résumé of the report was given. Whilst I am about it, I shall reply to the speech of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn by pointing out that the most unpleasant thing I have experienced in the House is the way in which Prof. Theron and some of the members of the commission were criticized.

When?

I am referring, inter alia, to the behaviour of the hon. member for Piketberg last year. Hon. members have apparently already forgotten it. In Prof. Theron’s and Prof. Du Toit’s booklet, they say—

Those recommendations are then further elucidated and it is pointed out that the wage gap has to be narrowed, that considerably larger amounts of money have to be appropriated for the construction of school buildings and boarding schools and for the elimination of the housing backlog. I want to express my appreciation at once for the fact that a large additional appropriation for housing was, in fact, made available in this year’s budget. It is also recommended that the Department of Community Development be abundantly supplied with funds. Further points are also raised, but I cannot quote them in full, not because of a lack of appreciation for what is being done, but due to the time factor. Prof. Theron continued—

She refers to the colleges for advanced technical education and to the University of the Western Cape, and she would like these to fall under the Department of National Education. This, then, immediately brings me to the areas in which all the recommendations made in the White Paper are being rejected. It was recommended, for example, that the Coloured Development Corporation be placed under the Department of Industries; that Coloured agricultural extension services and all the rural Coloured areas fall under the Department of Agricultural Technical Services; that for the sake of cultural development, Coloureds be brought into the statutory national culture council; that the Department of Sport and Recreation, too, give all possible assistance to the development of Coloured sport; and so on. As for the third group, all the recommendations of the White Paper are being rejected in this regard as well. Here we are dealing with recommendations concerning the repeal of the prohibition of mixed marriages under section 16 of the Immorality Act, as well as the recommendations that the Group Areas Act be amended to provide that Coloureds be allowed also to own properties in central business premises—something the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central mentioned—and that local authorities be allowed to grant general permission—i.e. not by way of a permit—for the use of entertainment and recreational facilities by members of other population groups. Why should the Coloured always have to ask for a permit? Why should he, as a person, not have the right to frequent those places? That is the essence of the matter. This is where human dignity is at issue. It ought to be the Coloured’s right to have this; a concession from the White authorities. She also refers to the recommendation that all universities be opened to Coloureds, for undergraduate and postgraduate study, and that the admission of students to universities be left to the discretion of universities. However, the White Paper talks about selection and not admission.

Do the Whites not also have a right. [Interjections.]

Order!

As for the second and third group of recommendations, according to the White Paper not a single recommendation is being accepted. We are therefore telling the Coloured: “You are to remain separate; you are separate.” The report found that the Coloureds do not have an identity of their own and this means that everything the hon. the Prime Minister advanced as a moral and sociological justification for a policy of apartheid, does not apply to the Coloureds. The Coloureds do not have a different and distinguished identity.

Mr. Chairman, like the hon. the Prime Minister I also find it difficult to argue with the hon. member for Edenvale on a professorial level. I should like to point out to him, however, that I have been occupying myself with the interests of the Coloureds in the Free State for a long time and that the ordinary Coloured, whilst having a high regard for the Government and for what the Government is doing for that population group, has many misgivings as to the motives of the Opposition parties. The Coloureds say that they do not trust the Opposition parties, as those parties would like to use the Coloureds one day in order to get to the Government benches, if that is possible. I also want to point out to the hon. member for Edenvale that the Government is determined to work out a dispensation for the Coloureds in South Africa, one which will turn them into a happier community. I want to request the Coloureds not to be led astray by the hon. member for Edenvale and others, because if they were to allow that to happen they would only be making matters more difficult for themselves. I am not going to comment any further on the speech of the hon. member; I have another theme.

In a time when one’s country is in the melting-pot, it grieves one to have to listen to the undertones of pessimism about our chances of survival in the highest council of the country. One is upset by the negativism and the pessimism of some Opposition members. The dejection shown here today by the Leader of the Opposition, worries one. Nothing can do South Africa more harm than the irresolution of her own people. The effect thereof is so much worse when it issues from this Parliament. There are Opposition groups and there are newspapers that specialize in prophecies of doom and that allow no chance to go by without their painting conditions in our country and our future as black as possible.

A spirit of dejection is deliberately being created by our enemies and is being fanned in this country, and the people of South Africa, White, Brown and Black, should be on their guard not to allow themselves to be gripped by this spirit of dejection. South Africa is involved in a struggle for survival and simply has no place for alarmists, doubting Thomases and lamenters. There is only one recipe for survival in South Africa, and that is confidence in one’s cause, confidence in oneself and confidence in one’s future. Internal confidence is contagious and also stimulates external confidence. That is why it is so important for this Parliament to radiate strong inspiration and confidence to the outside, especially in these times. We are heading for difficult times. Let us have no illusions about that. Perhaps it will be necessary for more of this nation to die so that this nation may live, but we do not despair nor do we fear. Every day we witness the Russians spreading their sphere of influence across the length and breadth of Southern Africa. The Soviet strategy is to use Black nationalist movements to overthrow the White Governments of the South. Under the command of international communism Dingaan’s demand of 138 years ago is being repeated, sweep the White man out of Africa. But we say to them that we shall not allow ourselves to be swept out. We say to our enemies that they should not underestimate South Africa. South Africa’s war record is impressive and illustrious, and recently there has been an upsurge of patriotism and comradeship in this country such as we have not had for many years. Afrikaans- and English-speaking people and others are beginning to unite because they feel instinctively that they are becoming involved in a struggle for survival. There are even statements by Black leaders which show that they are prepared to die for South Africa to ward off communism. There is a will in South Africa to fight and to survive. As Prof. Gerrit Viljoen of the Rand Afrikaans University stated—

Our new Minister of Foreign Affairs tells us that he detected dejection among our people earlier last year, but that this has made way for purposefulness and preparedness in recent times. There are countless things which John Citizen can do to help this nation in its need, but I only want to name one of them here this evening.

If there is less tax evasion, and if each one of us pays the emperor his due, the hon. the Minister of Finance will not have to struggle so much to find money for our Defence Force. I do not want to infer that our taxpayers are dishonest people. Far from it. The Greek philosopher Plato said, however, that where income tax is levied, the just man will pay more and the unjust man will pay less on the same income. Although it cannot be determined even approximately how much the State loses annually through tax evasion, it probably amounts to hundreds of millions of rand, perhaps enough to foot half of our defence bill and perhaps even enough to pay the full defence account. In the global onslaught on us the economic onslaught has become priority No. 1. The economic struggle being waged against us has probably grown more than any other struggle. It has become a formidable weapon against South Africa. We have to do everything in our power to keep our economy strong because we are living in an economically sick world which is pouring its money into bottomless pits. Today a great deal of the world’s money goes to the oil producing countries where it is wasted. A lot also goes to the Third World countries where it is used unproductively in the most cases. Some of the money that remains, is wasted on la dolce vita or the sweet life. All of this is unproductive and it causes a scarcity of capital and slumping markets throughout the world. South Africa finds itself in the midst of this situation of shrinking markets and will have to adjust to this. Fortunately greater economic realism is taking root amongst our people. It really looks as if the time for unrestrained buying on credit is past and it seems that the slack spirit with regard to productivity and social security has changed into greater seriousness to look after and to keep what they have. All levels of the population share the concern about our economic situation. We are very grateful for this because a great asset is contained in the national consciousness. South Africa’s economic future and its survival depend on the national motivation and on the survival ability of the people of this country. We have the ability to survive an economic crisis in South Africa; we have the brains, the labour potential, the resources and the leadership characteristics to tackle survival plans. We also have the will to do this and we have a dynamic Government which is always prepared to take the lead in such plans. What one cannot understand, however, is that the Western world can be blind to the important fact that South Africa has many important mineral resources. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, in the introduction to his speech this afternoon, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that there was a crisis in South Africa. I think the crisis is actually within the ranks of the UP. The hon. the Prime Minister, as well as the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Affairs, indicated briefly this afternoon why it is that the Official Opposition find themselves in that situation. I believe the reason why they do find themselves in that position, is the fact that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and other hon. members of that party as well, are desperately searching for a policy for their party. The hon. the Prime Minister referred to the Kowie Marais Commission. He also referred to the fact that there was almost an alliance between those hon. members and the members of the PRP. In the second place, I wish to say that I believe that the hon. members of the Opposition are desperately searching for a leader. However tragic it may be to say this to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon, it is an acknowledged fact that the political future of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is rapidly drawing to a close. Even more important is the fact that the UP is represented by a mere 30 members in the House today. What is the reason for this? The reason is that there are certain factions within the UP which are impossible to reconcile with each other. Mr. Chairman, can you imagine for a moment how the ideology and thinking of a member such as the hon. member for Durban Point can be reconciled with that of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout?

I said in the House last year that there were tensions in the UP and that some of those members would pack up and break away from the UP within the foreseeable future. I was laughed at. I mentioned the hon. member for Maitland, the hon. member for Newton Park and the hon. member for Walmer by name. Hon. members can go and look at my Hansard. The hon. member for Walmer laughed at me and said that I was talking the biggest nonsense—but look where they are sitting today.

I am no Madam Rose. That I leave to the hon. member for Hillbrow. At the time I also predicted that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was fast leaving the UP. Sir, we know the political history of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. We know that he has been the biggest political bird of passage during the past two decades. Today the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is in a serious dilemma. This is no secret. I read the history of what had happened in the Transvaal. I may say in passing that I met Mr. Obie Oberholzer, the acting leader of the UP in the Transvaal, in the lobby yesterday. I just wondered whether he and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout chatted to each other for a while. I just wondered. Unfortunately the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is not here at the moment, but I wish to say that his dilemma is that whereas he wishes to leave the UP, the NP, in the first place, does not want him at all. I wish to ask the hon. member for Maitland, who is sitting here next to me, whether he and his party will be prepared to accept the hon. member for Bezuidenhout when he scrambles back again?

That would be a mistake.

Yes, that would be a big mistake. Then there is the hon. member for Sea Point and his party. They are reasonably intelligent people. They know that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has no bargaining power, no “bedingingsmag” at all today. With what, then, would he approach those hon. members? He will only bring himself, and perhaps the hon. member for Edenvale who is sitting over there.

I wish to make haste. I wish to come to a matter to which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred in the budget debate last week. Let me quote briefly what he said on this occasion. (Hansard, 14 April, 1977, col. 5269)—

Imagine, he is the one who says this!—

This was an unfortunate remark which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout made. If ever in the history of South Africa there has been a Prime Minister who has striven, in everything he does, for peace in Southern Africa in a purposeful and loyal manner, it is this very hon. Prime Minister. Therefore I wish to tell the hon. the Prime Minister that each one of us in this House—except for the hon. member for Bezuidenhout—and, I believe, each member of the public, has praise and appreciation for the honourable and noble efforts he is making on behalf of the people of South Africa for the cause of peace in Southern Africa.

I wish to quote the hon. the Prime Minister fairly extensively because I think that this is an important matter for every one of us here in South Africa. I wish to quote him at some length because I think that what he said, is extremely significant. I quote the hon. the Prime Minister (Hansard, Vol. 61, col. 5203)—

I believe that in the years and months that lie ahead, there will be a spirit of co-operation in South Africa between Afrikaans- and English-speaking people, between White and non-White, and that common purpose will develop like nothing we have ever known in the history of South Africa. Because I believe this, I also steadfastly believe, in the future of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I will remember the quote from a speech which the hon. the Prime Minister made in this House and to which the hon. member for Welkom referred. I accept that both the hon. member for Welkom and the hon. the Prime Minister were very serious with reference to what was said there. The spirit that shone from that speech by the hon. the Prime Minister at that time, was that of a peacemaker, of somebody seeking peace, not only in Africa, but especially in Southern Africa. I appreciate that. It also reminds me of the preface to the White Paper on Defence, something which I do not wish to discuss now. I would just like to quote from it. In the preface the hon. the Minister of Defence says—

I spoke recently to a guest from overseas—I think he was a guest of the Department of the Interior and I think he came from the Netherlands—and this man really appreciates the complexity of South Africa’s problems—the realities to which the hon. the Prime Minister referred—and he told me that he could explain all these things to people abroad. He can explain the differences in population figures, the unequal development, the difference between rural and urban development, the complexity of the composition of the population and the state of siege of the Whites. However, one thing which he cannot explain—and there his argument comes to a halt—is the apartheid notices which one sees when one arrives at Jan Smuts Airport. This he cannot explain. I know the notices are being removed now.

Another thing I cannot understand—and I put this question specifically to the hon. the Prime Minister and to the hon. the Minister of Community Development—is how any South African, White or Black, Opposition or Government, can explain the necessity for the separation of the ballet classes at Worcester, on the grounds of the right of self-determination of the Whites. What role does that play? What explanation does one give to the outside world? Can we argue with these people that those measures make a greater contribution to mutual understanding on the domestic front, that it reduces the possibility of friction and removes misunderstanding? I cannot understand this. This is the type of measure concerning which it is expected of the hon. the Prime Minister and the Cabinet that there must be clarity in South Africa, especially as to the question whether, and to what extent, they are negotiable. As the hon. the Prime Minister said, we can talk nonsense to each other about this. We can play the fool with each other, score political points off each other in regard to the internal problem, but in the last instance …

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.