Mr. Chairman, there is a great deal in the latest annual report of the Department of Information which is not new and with which we do not agree, but which we have discussed on previous occasions in this House; and we do not wish to cover the same ground again. I should like to confine myself to the new and more positive note which one finds in this year’s annual report.

Over quite a number of years I have been able to have frequent discussions with information officers abroad. I often come into contact with the information officers at home, too, and in most cases I am struck by the ability and high quality of the people—men as well as women—employed by our country’s information service. Over the years, however, I have had very few discussions with officers abroad during which I was not given to understand or told quite frankly that their task is being made impossible, not so much by the obstacles that are placed in their way in foreign countries, but by the general indefensibility of the politics they have to explain …

That is untrue.

The hon. the Minister cannot say that what I have heard with my own ears is untrue. One finds throughout that the main problems of the information officers abroad are these: firstly, the general unacceptability of the politics they have to explain and, secondly, the lack of visible movement at home in directions which can be reconciled with more acceptable concepts of man and of human dignity.

Now the Secretary’s report for 1976 contains, for the first time, an open admission of what is passing in the mind of the Information Service, not only in the mind of the Secretary, but also, I am sure, in the minds of all our information officers in the 21 offices we have in foreign countries. No matter how carefully the Secretary drafted the first part of his report, I think that if all the points are taken together, it is fair to summarize them as follows: It amounts to a statement, firstly, that the Government has destroyed its own credibility abroad through the failure of the hon. the Prime Minister, in the eyes of the world, to live up to the great expectations aroused by his words and actions in 1974 and 1975. His present image is that of a head of Government who is either unable or unwilling to effect the political changes which can save South Africa from a race war from within and from without. [Interjections.] Together with this it is stated, in the second place, that the hon. the Prime Minister’s attempt at dialogue with the States of Western Africa was not followed up with visible political action, with the result that he has not really been able to develop a successful African policy. The third point which emerges is that the Government’s Angolan policy did us great harm and dealt a blow to our image as the military strongman of Africa; fourthly, there is the fact that the Government’s Transkeian policy, which was handled in a party-political way, especially in regard to the question of citizenship, had such a counter-productive effect that it has placed the whole policy of homeland independence in a negative light. Fifthly, the Soweto riots, not in Soweto alone, but the fact that they were allowed to continue for months without positive political intervention from the part of the Government, had “a devastating effect on South Africa’s image as a politically stable country”. In particular, the passive role of the Prime Minister during the long period of the riots was universally criticized.

All these events also had a detrimental effect on our economic well-being, of course. Arising from this, I want to raise a point which is not made in the report. However, I feel that it is important. I want to refer to the harmful effect which all these developments have had on the hope of a peaceful and satisfactory solution to the South West African issue.

I could very easily show that the standpoints adopted in the report are in line with our findings on the Opposition side over the years, findings which we have mentioned in this House so many times. They are also in line with the findings published in the latest two annual reports of an important body such as the South Africa Foundation, which really acts as a kind of independent department of foreign affairs and information.

It so happens that the findings in the report of the Department are strongly supported today by Mr. Donald Sole, who was our ambassador to Bonn until recently and who is now our new ambassador to Washington. He points out how political relations between us and West Germany have deteriorated—“deteriorated” is the word he used. In enumerating the main factors which contributed to this, he refers to “South Africa’s involvement in the Angolan war”. Secondly, he refers to the “country-wide riots” and to the belief which came to be held “that the South African Government was unable to respond to justified grievances and to restore peace in the country”. According to him, this had a detrimental effect on confidence in South Africa’s political future.

†What is important about all this, is not what political capital we as an Opposition could make out of it. That would not bring us anywhere. However, I do hope that the report will at least have the effect of putting an end to the fruitless debates we so often have in this House as to who or what is responsible for the parlous state of our international relations. In the report the answer comes out loud and clear. There can be no question about it. But not only does the report pin-point the fundamental weakness of our position, it also prescribes the remedy, the only remedy, viz. “imaginative, large-scale moves in South Africa away from racial discrimination” and towards a restructuring of our political and constitutional system. I shall return to that. It adds convincingly that unless “the domestic relations pattern” comes right, “no amount of money or manpower will be able to promote the South African cause abroad”. The message is absolutely clear, i.e. unless the Government brings about the necessary changes in South Africa, we would be wasting the money we are spending on the Department of Information abroad. Last year the amount was R9½ million and this year it is going to be almost R11 million. This places a very special responsibility on the hon. the Minister of Information. He is a senior and an important member of the Cabinet, and we would like to know from him—I think we are entitled to ask him—what he is going to do to help his department to overcome the problem, to justify its existence and to operate successfully abroad. We have had enough of nice speeches; we hear them inside and outside the House. We would like the hon. the Minister to come to specifics. His department has now told him in no uncertain terms, that their hands are tied abroad until the Government first puts things right inside South Africa. I hope the hon. the Minister will not again treat us to long lectures about how cunning the communists are, how “weak” the West is in not realizing that they should be backing us, or that double standards are applied in world politics. We know all that; we know that there is a communist threat and we believe that we are capable of winning the support of the West if we wish to. We also know everything about double standards, and that is to be deplored. Everybody deplores double standards, but it is a feature not only of international politics, but also of our own politics at home.

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

Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the hon. member be given an opportunity to finish his speech.

Thank you. We also know that we are a plural society … [Interjections.] It is a fact and not a policy. Nobody denies South Africa’s diversity. There is a large number of other countries in the world where more than one cultural nationality live within the same political boundaries. It is nothing new in the world. All these countries understand the problems of a multinational society, and it has become a special source of study today at most of the big universities in the world and at the United Nations itself. Our problem is not so much one of double standards or the fact that we are a plural society; it is that we have introduced and retained a basis of compulsion and of colour discrimination within our system which overrides everything positive in it. Our pluralism—which is recognized—has become mixed up with the image of apartheid. What we continually fail to realize, is that we are living in a particular historical era. We are passing through a particular historical cycle, a cycle which started at the end of the Second World War. Blacks call it the “era of liberation”, i.e. the release of Black people everywhere from positions of inferiority relative to their race and colour. That is a fact that we cannot change, and that is why there is so little interest in a situation where Black destroys Black, where Blacks rule themselves badly or where they are subjected to Black dictatorships.

In the cycle of international political history in which we find ourselves now, the overriding issue is whether Black, Brown or Yellow people are held in inferior positions anywhere by others because of their race and colour. That is the crux of the matter and that is what we shall have to move away from—we shall have to do it fast—if we are not to move into a conflict situation of a scale which we will not be able to contain. That is why we want specific answers from the hon. the Minister as to how he is going to help his department and South Africa to get out of the dangerous position in which it finds itself nationally and internationally. The onus is on the Minister and his Government.

In the past year we spent an enormous sum of money to bring important visitors to South Africa.

*Let me say, Sir, that we support this practice. We are in favour of inviting important people to South Africa to see what is going on here. However, it is interesting to note that almost every important visitor spends hours with Cabinet members and even with the Prime Minister. In this way, such visitors have policy explained to them not by information officers, but directly by those on the highest level, by those at the top, by the leaders themselves. What do we find in most cases? Perhaps they are brought to a better understanding of the complexity of our problems, but I have never encountered anyone who left here feeling that the policy which is being implemented here or which is being envisaged for the future is a just and acceptable one. I have often wondered how an information officer can be expected to make our policy seem acceptable abroad if not even the leaders, including the Prime Minister himself, can convey this impression to people who visit South Africa.

I could mention many examples of this, but allow me to refer to only two cases. The first one I want to refer to is Mr. Dona-Fologo, the Minister of Information of the Ivory Coast. He came here as a special guest of the Government. He was a special guest of the hon. the Minister. Subsequently the hon. the Minister went to visit him in the Ivory Coast. Mr. Dona-Fologo has a White wife, and he must have known what would have happened to him if he had not been a guest of the Government. [Interjections.] Let us see what he had to say after he had been a guest of the Minister, who had supplied him with first-hand information. On his visit to Umtata he made a speech. I quote from a report published in The Star about this speech—

However, the most disastrous case is that of Mr. Justice Gerald Sparrow, the world-famous writer, who at one stage was the spokesman of the Club of Ten, which places political advertisements in the London Press. Apparently he underwent a “change of heart”. He explained that he had visited this country three times. The first time he came as a guest of the Government. He is married to an Asian. I quote what was said by him—

On his second visit he brought his wife along, and after the third visit he delved even deeper and found the following—

The person who was interviewing him then asked him—

Thereupon Mr. Sparrow referred to apartheid and said—

This is said by people who have been here. This is the kind of thing which the Government will have to set right quickly.

In this connection I want to put two points to the hon. the Minister, because my time is limited. The first is that we have more than 30 foreign missions here in South Africa. They include missions from all the most important Western countries. Our information officers abroad can be as active as they like, but one convincing report by an ambassador here to his Government at home is worth more than all the information officers of South Africa can achieve with their propaganda in the capital of that ambassador’s country. It is my observation that the Department of Information and the hon. the Minister do not give the intensive, personal attention that is necessary to the heads of missions and the representatives of other countries in South Africa. If they did that, they could strike a major blow by being more active here. If the department, and the Minister himself, cannot convince the representatives of other countries who live amongst us of the acceptability of the Government’s policy and its plans for the future, it is no use expecting an information officer abroad to succeed in doing this. This was forcibly brought home to me when I noticed the hostile attitude adopted by the ambassador of Malawi, who lives amongst us, towards the independence of the Transkei. He wrote in the public Press that Malawi would not acknowledge it now or ever.

How can he say “never”?

I am mentioning the fact. These people live amongst us. They are the ones who should be informed. This is where our efforts should be directed. If this is not done, what hope do we have of establishing better relations in the capital of Malawi by means of an information officer?

I want to conclude. The hon. the Minister has a predilection for using new terms to describe his policy. His propaganda bristles with “plural democracy” in the singular—this is a federal concept—“plural democracies”—in the plural—“ democratic pluralism”, “cultural differentiation” and much else besides. If this can help South Africa, I say that we have no objection, but a change in terms is not going to help. What counts is the content that is given to it. If the hon. the Minister cannot spell out how, in practice, he is going to give the full benefit of citizenship and democracy and human dignity to the Coloured community, to the Indian and to the assimilated Black man, it is not advisable to play with words which are not an accurate reflection of what is being envisaged. We know from experience that this leads to a reaction which undermines credibility even further. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, earlier this year we had a private member’s motion on information which was debated by members on both sides of the House at a very high level. That is why it shocks me that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout started the discussions at such a low level here this afternoon. I shall return to him because I want to point out his duty and responsibility to him. I want to tell that hon. member that it is a disgrace to sow suspicion here about our officials abroad. We have a small department, with just over 400 officials, people who are loyal towards South Africa and who sacrifice everything for South Africa abroad. Then that hon. member makes the disgraceful remark that they supposedly admitted that it was impossible for them to proclaim and defend the policy of the Government. I challenge him to give the names of those people to the hon. the Minister in private. If he cannot do so, I say he is the biggest liar …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw it. If he does not give their names to the hon. the Minister, he is doing something which does not inspire any respect in this House. The hon. member knows that he cannot provide those names, because there are no such officials. I say this quite bluntly and straightforwardly. It is not true.

What do we have in South Africa? We have two departments that defend South Africa. Firstly, there is the Department of Defence. Our soldiers risk their lives by fighting in the front lines. Besides that we have the Department of Information, which does not have soldiers as officials, but ordinary people who have to resist the onslaught being made on the spirit, the soul and character of South Africans. Who are the people who have to step into the breach when it comes to onslaughts like these? It is not only the NP or the Department of Information, but the Opposition too. Every citizen of South Africa, every man and woman—White, Coloured, Black, Yellow—is involved in this. I had expected the hon. member for Bezuidenhout to say something positive in this regard this afternoon. This department, with the Minister and the Deputy Minister, tries to make our people spiritually prepared. This is also a task for each one of us. Our soldiers on the border cannot fight if we who are on the home front do not keep their morale and our own high. It is our task to see that the moral standards of the South African citizen are upheld. This is the duty of every one of us. The department does this in all aspects—both here and abroad. I should like to tell that hon. member that he should have more love for those things which are his, love for his nation and for his nation’s heritage. Since the UP has rejected him and he cannot get along with them, he wants to destroy South Africa too. Last night the House discussed a Bill which makes it an offence to assault a policeman on duty. Then we were able to see what hate and malice fills the hon. member for Houghton and a large portion of the Opposition. It shocks one. Then the hon. member comes along and says that there must be changes in South Africa. What change must be made?

The department itself says that there must be changes.

There is one great change which must be made, and that is in the heart of the hon. member. He is sitting in the House with a pitch-black heart. He is heartless. I think that one of the duties of the department is to cause certain people in South Africa to have a change of heart, although we cannot give them a heart transplant. What does the hon. member think must be changed here? How far must we go? He came up with the ridiculous slogan of “change” once again, without saying what must be changed.

Read the department’s report.

The outside world is asking for one big change, namely total surrender, the head of the White man. The greater part of the Western world is being used and misused today by the communist and Bolshevist attack on South Africa and the whole of Africa. They are demanding one thing, and that is chaos, so that they can take over this country with a small majority. We will not allow ourselves to be caught like this. The Whites of South Africa stand firm.

There are a few other matters which I should like to raise. I want to refer to what has been said by certain newspapers. According to them, an understanding of South Africa’s domestic problems abroad is no more important than committee meetings on a proposed law to make the wearing of safety belts compulsory. This is the only comment which a newspaper report had to make on the annual report of the department. I do not want to argue with the Press this afternoon.

I just want to tell them that they have a duty in this regard just as the Department of Information has. Why do they not support the department? I expected to read speeches or articles in our newspapers which supported the department and which I could have quoted this afternoon. Unfortunately I could not find this anywhere. I think that our newspapers should do their share in this regard. It is not the duty of the department alone; the newspapers also have a task to fulfil in this regard. We know that things are going very well in many departments and I want to ask the hon. the Minister to see to it that an information and public relations department will be set up in all Government departments so that information about every department will be available to the department of the Minister and to the Press at any time. We had Press legislation before us this year. The Press has been given a year to set its house in order. I want to go so far as to say that we must help them in this regard. We must give them the right news reports. They must always be able to obtain the necessary information, either from the Department of Information or from the various departments, in order to publish it daily for everyone in South Africa as well as for countries abroad. The Department of Information is a department which collects facts. It provides facts. We must build on this and I want to ask that our Press, both the English language and Afrikaans language sections, should do their share in this regard.

We must make sure that “charity begins at home”. We in South Africa must concentrate more on domestic information. Things have gone extremely well abroad, in spite of what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said. Brilliant successes have been achieved abroad. However, I want to ask that in spite of all the fine things and successes which have been achieved within the country, a greater effort should be made within the country. We must make use of films and television. Perhaps we can arrange talks or announcements both on our domestic and overseas flights. If one thinks of the television programmes which we have, there really are many which can just as well be replaced.

I am thinking especially of the “blood and thunder” films which are shown. We are a pious nation, but how many of us have seen the film of the hon. the Prime Minister’s visit to Israel? A film like this could perhaps be screened on television in two parts. I am very pleased that the hon. the Minister of National Education is present. I want to ask him to attend to this. There are also many other fine films which could be shown. Over and above what is being done in the normal course, I think that we can show similar films in cinemas throughout South Africa. For instance, there is the film about the Transkei. We must make much more use of similar films.

In conclusion, I should just like to tell the hon. the Minister that we have great appreciation for the fact that he has seen to it that we recruit only the best, most competent men to be our officials and that our information officers are constantly undergoing training.

Another matter which I should like to refer to, is the public relations services provided. I just want to quote an extract for the record, because our Press did not publicize this and announce it to the world. I am reading from page 19 of the report of the department—

These are arrangements which were made for our journalists. These are important events, both here and abroad.—

The department made a special effort. Heavy expense was incurred in order to bring those things about and on behalf of South Africa, I should like to express my appreciation towards the hon. the Minister and the department. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to return to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the report of the Department of Information. I want to tell the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that he is reading things into the report. The report of the Department of Information is in line with the policy of the Government in all respects.

I want to congratulate the Secretary for Information, Dr. Eschel Rhoodie, on a very sober, realistic report which does not hide anything, but exposes the hard realities of the situation to us very skilfully, without being negative. This report is one of the most newsworthy annual reports which I have read in my day. With Dr. Rhoodie’s approach, which is almost aggressive in its realism, one gets very much further than with the tame reports one usually sees. One wakes people up with this type of thing and we also hope to wake up the Opposition a little. It woke the hon. member for Bezuidenhout a little, but his tirade did not even give birth to a mouse. We welcome the realism of the report. We must know what has hit us and what is going to hit us, so that we can work out a counter strategy and motivate our fellow countrymen better in regard to this threat facing us. In discussing our domestic relations pattern, Dr. Rhoodie is not saying anything new. In fact he is only concurring with what various Government speakers have already said on this matter. Our hon. Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs have issued various clear statements in this connection. In his vote about a week ago, the hon. the Prime Minister spelled out in detail here in the House how we are going to move away from discrimination in this country. I shall return to this later.

After the Defence Force, our information service is the most important front in the struggle to maintain the security of South Africa. Before the conventional war can be won, we shall first have to win the propaganda war. Here in our country too. Communication has become one of the mightiest techniques of conquest in modern times. The success we are going to achieve in applying communication power, will largely determine whether or not we are going to win the struggle here. We shall have to muster all our strength and ingenuity in order to stave off this onslaught against us. We are very grateful for the military preparedness which we have in this country. But our people will also have to become more prepared in the field of information.

We appreciate the aid which the Department of Information gets from all who project the image of South Africa abroad. There is the aid from the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Tourism, the Department of Immigration, the Railways Travel Bureau, the foreign service of Radio South Africa, Television, the S.A. Foundation, all of which do very good work. But one wonders whether we could achieve more if we could have more co-ordination and better liaison among all these doughty campaigners for South Africa.

That is why I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Information today whether he will not consider introducing a national information board. A national information board can be an umbrella body; a body on which everybody involved in projecting South Africa’s image abroad, as well as those bodies concerned with providing information on the domestic front in one way or another can be represented and can have a say. Such a body, one which could operate under the aegis of the Department of Information, could enable one to adopt a very much more co-ordinated strategy, a strategy which can be very effective because it can be adopted in various directions at the same time. There are several bodies in the country that consider it their task to inform people in one way or another. These bodies can also be brought into a national body of this type. This could give rise to a more extensive and co-ordinated information strategy on the domestic front, and to a greater awareness of the importance of information.

It is no good mincing matters; we are involved in a struggle for survival, while many of our people are not yet prepared for this struggle. Many of our people are still ignorant as to the nature and extent of the onslaught against us. This is also the case here in our very midst. The preparedness of the people of South Africa, White, Coloured and Black, is a task which ought to enjoy the highest priority, a task which should be tackled with efficiency and speed. It is chiefly a task of information.

Just as greater financial provision is being made for our military preparedness—and we are all in favour of this—more money will have to be voted for the task of information. Before we can win the conventional war, we will first have to win the propaganda war.

We are involved in a struggle for survival. We must put the question very urgently whether all the people in our country are on our side. It will have to be brought home to people, Black, Coloured and White, that they are making a big mistake if they are under the impression that the enemies of South Africa are not their enemies too. Africa is strewn with the bodies of Blacks killed by other Blacks for ideological ends. The Black man in South Africa who believes in maintaining his own identity and in free enterprise, is just as much the target of the PAC, the ANC and Frelimo as the Whites are. This is something which we must bring home to the Black people.

Just as many other good things originated in the Free State, the Coloured Relations Committees also originated in Bloemfontein. [Interjections.] This was due to the initiative of a few officials of the Department of Information. The results of the activities of the relations committees are amazing. Wherever in South Africa one of the more than 100 relations committees is functioning, the climate of relations between the Coloureds and Whites has improved.

Now, I wonder whether the possibility should not be considered of extending the relations committees to the Black people and the Indians in our country as well. Relations committees, in which frank communication can take place, where there can be open discussion about those things which oppress and cause friction, can become a mighty weapon with which to improve racial relations in this country, and in this delicate situation. We cannot only defend South Africa on its borders. We must also defend South Africa here in our midst and at all levels of contact. Major General Boshoff of the S.A. Defence Force timeously laid his finger on a sore spot when he said—

The solution to this lies in communication, in disseminating information at all levels of our society, in order to get all the people of this country on our side to fight for the survival of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the sentence or so in the speech by the hon. member for Bloemfontein North which really interested me, was his reference to the “tame reports” of other Government departments. I hope, if he gets another turn to speak, that he will tell us a little more about what departments he has in mind when he speaks of “tame reports”. The report of the Department of Information is a rather wild one and I have a few words to say about it.

†Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout dealt with some of the problems created for the Department of Information by the Government, particularly through its non-acceptable policies. Well he is dead right. This is accepted by everybody, and to the extent that the Department of Information in its annual report has, although very delicately and often a little ambiguously, tried to bring this home to the powers that be, their efforts are to be applauded. We have said it before and we will have to keep on saying that selling separate development or plural democracy, or by whatever other name you wish to call it abroad, is simply a “on-begonne taak”.

I want to talk about some of the problems which the Department of Information is creating for itself, tasks and problems which, I submit, are going to make its whole effort fail, in fact make its whole effort impossible. Before anybody else says anything to the contrary, I want to say that I start from the assumption that we all want our efforts abroad, particularly our efforts to sell this country, to succeed—to sell this country and not to sell it down the river. We want the efforts in this direction to succeed. I want to draw attention to this aspect of the department’s activities. In the United States of America the department spends an amount of R695 000 per year on staff alone. That is a sizeable amount by any standards. Of course, that is only part of the bill. All in all I believe the department’s operations in the United States would cost about R1,5 million per year, give or take a few score thousand here or there. Incidentally, I am told by South Africans who live abroad, that money does not really seem to be any kind of a problem with the Department of Information in the United States. It is said that money flows pretty freely. Whether this pays dividends, is not in our purview to establish.

I want to deal with one aspect of the department’s operations, primarily because it is a sphere in which I happen to have some knowledge, i.e. in the sphere of newspapers. Let me say at once that no newspaperman that I know would not have reacted angrily and wholly negatively to the kind of attack which is directed at newspapers by the Department of Information in this annual report about which the hon. member for Bloemfontein North waxed so eloquent. In its report for 1976 the department says that: “Journalistic racialism is visibly practised by …” not by little obscure newspapers, but, according to the report, by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Observer—in London—Trouw in Holland, the Toronto newspapers and by Der Spiegel in Germany. That does not leave many over in the Free World. I would like this committee to realize that this is a very grave charge indeed to level at newspapers of standing, and it would be very surprising if it was not bitterly resented by the people who own and run those newspapers. The report goes on to accuse these leading newspapers in the Free World of “hostile analysis, deliberate distortion, and obsession with ethnic problems and the politics of plural accommodation in South Africa”. Elsewhere in a section entitled “Prognosis”, still referring to newspapers in the United States, we are solemnly told that (p. 8)—

There is more, if that is not bad enough. At the end of 1976 both the New York Times and the Washington Post contained articles by Anthony Lewis, John Bums and Jim Hoag-land. These articles were analyses and reports on South Africa. These articles are being criticized as “riddled with omissions of fact, innuendos and half-truths.” This is said about three internationally known and respected newspapermen, whatever else we may think of them. One of them, Hoagland, is a Pulitzer Prize-winner. This may not have any bearing on this issue, but it gives the man some standing. Finally, the report reads—

Presumably of innuendos and half-truths—

Here we have a formal declaration of war by South Africa’s Department of Information on all the leading newspapers in the Free World. In all seriousness I ask whether anyone can think of a crazier way of trying to win friends and influence people. Can anyone think of a more effective way of antagonizing the world’s leading opinion-makers than by this kind of indictment? Is this a policy born out of despair, or out of panic, or out of both? To me as a former newspaperman, it makes absolutely no sense. It is a recipe for disaster as far as this country’s relationship with the free Press of the Western World is concerned. Is this a deliberate, premeditated policy and campaign or have we just blundered into it? Not satisfied with antagonizing the Free World’s leading newspapers—I am not talking about rags in out of the way places, but about the leading newspapers in the world—the Department of Information now takes on the American and British television network as well. They do this just for good measure. South Africa will experience a difficult year in 1977, we are told. They can say that again! I quote from the report—

I suppose they meant “are”—

Listen to this—

Before the hon. member for Simonstown interrupts me, I want to say that even if some of this were true, or even partially true, I suggest that for the Department of Information to say so in terms as brash and as sweeping as this, is surely to invite not only retaliation, but something akin to lasting enmity. Proud professional people—I should like the hon. the Minister to accept this—will not tolerate this arrogance.

They should be honest.

Of course they should be honest, and they are honest in the light they have. The hon. the Minister and his department start from the assumption that everyone of them is dishonest and a liar. That is what the hon. the Minister’s department says. He must talk to them about it. As if we do not have enough enemies already, we now go and do this. One must look at the department’s attitude to the United Nations. Few people have any love for the UNO. I am not going to try to make any excuses for it. However, how diplomatic is it to pour scorn on the organization and its “continuing strategy to internationalize South Africa’s domestic affairs and at the same time to silence the voice of protest from South Africa”—I do not know what that means—and to do so at a time when this country is engaged in the most delicate negotiations with leading Western nations of the UNO over South West Africa? What in heaven’s name do we hope to achieve by this bull-in-a-china-shop approach? Does the hon. the Minister of the Interior approve of these attacks on the mass media of the world and on the UNO? If he does, I say that we are succumbing to despair. We shall have to do infinitely better if we want to make any kind of progress in the propaganda battle. I believe that the rapier, used with a little more finesse, would be much more likely to succeed than the bludgeon wielded with this kind of regardlessness for the consequences. We are most certainly not going to get anywhere by insulting and vilifying those who we long to have on our side. That is the road to total failure.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Parktown mentioned certain references to the Press, references which appear in the annual report, in rather a booming tone. The hon. member was simply expressing his personal desire to join issue with the officials of the Department of Information. As far as this is concerned, I shall leave the hon. member at that.

I want to refer to the Press in another sense. There is an old saying that the pen is mightier than the sword. I want to change this saying today to read: “The pen is mightier than the sword, even if the sword is in the hands of a soldier and the pen in the hands of a fool.”

On 5 May 1976 during the discussion of the Information Vote, the following report was written from the Press Gallery—

This report comes very close to impugning the dignity of this House and is at least offensive towards quite a few hon. members on both sides of the House. A poor impression of the members was deliberately created by the Press Gallery amongst their voters outside.

Let us take a look at who the people were who participated in the debate. Apart from the hon. the Minister himself and the chief spokesman on information on the NP side, the hon. member for Sunnyside—they are probably the exception to which the report referred—the following members among others, participated in the debate. The hon. member for Bloemfontein North, a former news editor of a large Afrikaans newspaper and today the chief information officer of the NP; the hon. member for Parktown who reached the top of the ladder in journalism as the editor of a large English newspaper; the hon. member for Von Brandis who in his time represented South Africa in the highest diplomatic councils of the world; the hon. the Deputy Speaker, for whom we have a great deal of respect; the hon. the Deputy Minister of Information; and the former Leader of the UP in the Transvaal, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, not to mention young dynamic speakers like the hon. members for Pretoria Central, Vereeniging, Innesdal, Krugersdorp and others. Hon. members will agree with me that these are some of the most competent speakers in the House, but in the eyes of this journalist they were extremely poor, a lot of featherweights, and speakers who made the journalists in the Press Gallery yawn so much that one could hear it down here. I object in the strongest possible terms to reporting of this nature, because I can say without hesitation that more planning and study goes into a debate like this than the apparent lack of interest which some journalists show in it. Then they seek to escape their guilty conscience by advancing destructive criticism like this. If any of my good colleagues and a few members of the Press Gallery are enjoying a pleasant thrill because they know that I am going to have a hard time from the Press from now on, I say that this testifies to the “excellence” and superior power of a single journalist who has a newspaper in which he can write what he wishes. This is the only power of the Pen over that of the sword.

I now want to attend to other matters of essential importance to me as regards the Department of Information. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the need for the Department of Information to concentrate its efforts on domestic information to a greater degree in future, and more specifically on information to the various Black population groups of South Africa. I am not suggesting that a great deal is not being done in this regard already. However, I do believe that clear, practical intensive information is essential on three aspects in particular, aspects which are intimately bound up with our continued existence in South Africa. That this has become necessary is due in particular to the recent riots which gave rise to murder, looting and arson. Properties and services to the value of millions of rands were destroyed. Had they not been destroyed, these properties and services would have contributed towards improving the standard of living of many millions of people. Furthermore, the destruction resulted in hardship and a lowering of people’s standard of living.

Firstly, the dissemination of domestic information must be focused afresh on the disposition of the people affected by circumstances brought about by the riots. The Black people must be convinced that they should not allow themselves to be misled and incited by propagandist slogans and intimidation calculated to create rebellion and to commit crimes against the whole community. They must rather be taught that decency and a law-abiding spirit promotes the advancement of all. They must realize that nowhere in the world have 4 million people done so much, so thoroughly and with such goodwill for 20 million other people as has been done in South Africa. After all, the examples are there for all to see. There is the percentage of Black school-going children, the per capita income of our Black people as against those of the rest of Africa, the number of hospital beds per capita and there is even the number of cars owned by Black people. This is something to which the hon. member for Bloemfontein West referred in the course of the debate yesterday. There are many other examples, but I do not have time to mention them now.

It is important that we should start with the Black teacher and the Black pupil when presenting this type of information. I suspect that another type of propaganda is being disseminated from those circles. I am referring to propaganda to which we will have to pay very careful attention in the future.

The second aspect on which the Department of Information must concentrate its domestic efforts, is the importance of food for South Africa. Attention must be paid to the question of production and the need to combat wastage. We have a great deal of food in South Africa. That statement is correct. However, wastage takes place on a colossal scale. This amounts to lost energy and capital which will ultimately lead to lost order and peace among the peoples of South Africa. In this regard I want to associate myself with the idea of the hon. member for Bloemfontein North, that of an information board. The time has come for the Department of Information to formulate a drastic information project so that a highly specialized and co-ordinated development programme with a view to the cultivation of food be established between South Africa, its neighbouring states and the homelands as part of the economic power bloc in South Africa to which the hon. the Prime Minister has repeatedly referred in the past. This must also be done so that the slogan of the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, namely “food for peace” can become a reality.

It will not help much if we bring about a spectacular increase in our food production—we shall have to depend on it in future as a strategic weapon—and fail to see to it that the number of mouths to be fed does not increase excessively. Therefore, the increase in the number of mouths to be fed, must not be more rapid than the rate at which we can produce our food.

This brings me to the third aspect to which I think that the Department of Information will have to pay more detailed attention, namely the threat posed by an uncontrolled, unplanned rate of population growth which is sufficiently explosive to tear apart our whole way of life in South Africa if serious attention is not paid to it.

It is true, and I believe this is correct, the Department of Information does have an exceptional, a gigantic task to promote South Africa’s image abroad. Again this afternoon we heard from the hon. member for Bezuidenhout how essential, but how impossible this is—according to him—due to South Africa’s domestic policy. I just want to tell him that our policy is not formulated for approval by the rest of the world but to suit South Africa and these conditions.

But it does not suit them either.

That is what that hon. member says and this is why he is sitting where he is.

As regards countries abroad and the task of the Department of Information I believe that it is just as important—with reference to what I have already said—that the department should be responsible for promoting and co-ordinating the harmonious, peaceful coexistence within South Africa with all possible means at its disposal. I want to express the hope that if more money becomes available in more favourable times, this department will receive a greater share of it. [Time expired.]

The hon. member will forgive me if I do not react to his remarks at once, but I want to express a few thoughts and ideas about internal information. Before doing so I should like to react to the standpoint adopted by the official Opposition as well as by the PRP, a standpoint we have to listen to in one debate after another, year after year, i.e. that the domestic policy of the National Government is responsible for all the ills in South Africa and in the world. Today again this was the beginning, the middle and the end of the political philosophy of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and of his argumentation—I could almost say of his demonstration. The hon. member for Parktown continued in the same vein. This is the standpoint that the domestic policy of South Africa is largely, if not exclusively, responsible for the attacks of 90% of the Third World, the communist countries and all the other enemies on South Africa. All unrest, riots and violence and all other conditions are supposed to be caused by this Government’s policy. This is also supposed to be the reason why the Department of Information has to battle so hard to put across our point of view abroad. I shall come back to this later if time allows me. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout has said this again during the debate today. Sometimes they say this, but they always imply that if the UP or the PRP were to come into power, this hostility of the outside world would change overnight. This is not true, and they know that it is not true.

†It has been stated over and over again by South Africa’s enemies that the policies of the UP and the PRP are not acceptable to them at all. These people who are trying everything—and if I say everything I mean everything—and are using every method—and if I say every method, I mean every method—will continue to do so whether the UP is in power or whether the PRP is in power. I ask of them not to bluff themselves because they are not bluffing us, the enemies or the outside world. I want to say to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that whether one takes the dilapidated little UP apart and whether one puts it together again with a little bit of cement here and there and whether one gives it any name that one likes, it will not make any difference at all. The position is that all the Opposition parties have been rejected boots and all by our enemies. As a matter of fact, they have been rejected by ourselves, by our own people and by our friends. Let me just quote one example of how our enemies are rejecting them and of how our friends are rejecting them. On 16 January this year the hon. member for Houghton went on television in the United Kingdom. Amongst other things, during that interview, she admitted that their policy ultimately means Black majority rule.

That is your interpretation.

Amongst other things—I have the quote here—she also said that she was talking on behalf of thousands of White South Africans and millions of Black South Africans.

Yes, that is right.

She also said she is not a revolutionary and does not believe in violence.

That is also right.

I have the quotes here. What is very important is that on the very same day, 16 January 1977, two reporters of Beeld interviewed Tsietsi Mashinini. What did he have to say? I quote from Beeld what he has to say about the Whites, amongst others—

The vice-president of Botswana referred to those people as the cream of Soweto, the cream of South Africa. They are not unimportant people. Mashinini is a well-known person. He is also well-known to the hon. member for Houghton. He is sought by the police in connection with the death of Dr. Morris Edelstein. Yet he was accepted with open hands all over the world. He is no nincompoop. He is a very well-known figure.

Sir, there is something else I wish to quote. However, one hesitates to quote such words in this House. Nevertheless, I think it is time that everybody in this country gets to grips with the truth, including the Opposition parties, the hon. member for Houghton and her fellow liberals like the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. For the benefit of the hon. member for Houghton I should like to quote the English translation of what Mashinini had to say. I quote from the same article in Beeld—

As I have said, one hesitates to quote such words, but it is time we got to grips with the truth. We should count our words in this House and outside it and not say what, for instance, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said in the House today. He goes on, and I quote further from the translation—

The cry “I am PRP, I am PRP” will not help those hon. members one iota. I have quoted what those people have to say about the policies of that party. As far as I am concerned, I can talk of one party because the hon. member for Bezuidenhout will belong to the same party before long.

I should also like to give one example of what our friends have to say about those people. I said that on 16 January this year the hon. member for Houghton appeared on television in the UK. I also said I intended talking about the subject of England and internal information, amongst other things, because we should learn to count our words both inside the House and outside it, including overseas. We should know what to say and what to stress, and what not to say and what not to stress when we go overseas. I think that it is very important that South Africans should get proper information because when they go overseas, they can help the Department of Information to a far greater extent. Sir, after the hon. member for Houghton appeared on television in England on 16 January, Helen MacInnes, a bestselling and very well-known British authoress, who had watched that television interview, wrote to The Daily News with regard to that interview, and I quote—

This is in sharp contrast to what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. member for Parktown had to say today. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I think one can agree whole-heartedly with one point in the speech made by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, namely that no political party in South Africa which has a policy that does not amount to complete surrender to majority Government, to Black Government, will find any favour whatsoever in the outside world. I think this is universally accepted, for even the report of the Secretary for Information, which has been quoted from and which will continue to be quoted from in the course of the debate, mentions this on page 4—

I do not single out the hon. member for Houghton and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout in this connection. I think this may be accepted of any political party in South Africa under the present circumstances. For this reason I think that when we are dealing with South Africa’s position as against the outside world, and especially when it comes to projecting a good image of South Africa, we have to accept this. It is no use our saying that the NP’s policy of multinationalism or pluralism is responsible for this situation. I want to go so far as to say that the people who want to use the report of Dr. Rhoodie to create the impression that five factors in particular have landed South Africa in this situation as a result of politics should analyse those five factors which have contributed to this situation.

In the first place, they should analyse South Africa’s withdrawal from Angola, something which was mentioned by Dr. Rhoodie. He also mentions the Soweto riots, the resolutions of the OAU, the economic recession we are experiencing in South Africa and the apparent stalemate in dialogue with Black Africa. The last point, I believe, is surely the only one over which South Africa had a large measure of control, and even that was also affected by the previous factors he mentioned. If the impression is being created that this report is a sign that if we were to change our domestic situation completely, we would present an image to the outside world which would make the whole world take an interest in South Africa again, we have to take another look at it, for then the impression is false.

The report of the Department of Information does not shock me. In my opinion it is merely a factual report which has to be faced by us all as South Africans. We must be quite clear about the fact that it is ten to twelve in this country. I find it strange that no one quoted what the Secretary for Information says about the prospects for next year. According to this report, the prospects for next year are much worse for South Africa.

If this is in fact the situation, we must certainly ask ourselves some questions—especially in this House. What is South Africa’s position and what can we do to rectify the situation? I believe, firstly, that we shall not be able to do anything that will satisfy the outside world to such an extent that they will never criticize this country again. They criticized us in the days of Gen. Smuts. America is criticized today. There is no country in the world which is not criticized. It seems to me that for some reason the world, the various countries of the world, are disparaging one another in order to derive the greatest advantage from it for themselves. What would be the reason for this? The more one country disparages another, the more one country displays another’s dirty washing in public, the easier it is, in the first place, to hide one’s own sins from the world, and, in the second place, it is also true, of course, that when a man can show that he is better off than someone else, he is in a much more favourable position to draw capital and business expertise to his own country. As far as I am concerned, this is one of the major reasons why mutual tactics of this kind are being used on such a large scale in the world today. Every country that makes use of these tactics does so for the sole purpose of promoting its own interests.

However, I do not want South Africa to follow the same line of action and to use the same tactics. I believe that we in South Africa should not fret about the situation that prevails today. It is correct that we should accept the inevitable. The fact is that we have a surplus of positive aspects in South Africa, a surplus which we can apply to create an image for South Africa in the outside world by means of which we can also secure a place for ourselves on the continent of Africa. If it is true what Dr. Jan Marais said some time ago, that South Africa is no longer believed where it matters, I am convinced that South Africa still can be believed where it matters. Where does it really matter? As far as I am concerned, it matters among our own people in this country. The moment we are able to create a spirit of true South African patriotism among all our population groups, I believe that we shall be able to withstand the onslaughts of the outside world—whether in the form of the written word or in a physical form. For this reason—as we have already been told—we shall have to start in this country and among our own people.

The best image of itself that South Africa can project to the outside world lies in the certainty that every single South African, irrespective of race and colour, can always count on unqualified recognition of his or her human dignity. In the second place, it is to be found in the certainty of every South African, irrespective of race or colour, that his own group identity, his own intimate and personal affairs, will be respected and recognized by all groups in South Africa. In the third place, we shall have to satisfy every South African with the knowledge that no ceiling is being imposed upon him as far as the expression of his own individuality is concerned. In other words, every South African must be afforded every opportunity—and this applies to all races—to sell his labour, to receive the best training and to know that no ceiling will ever be imposed upon his activities.

When we have succeeded in creating this situation, I am sure that we shall be able to withstand the onslaughts from outside. Then people will come and see what is happening here in South Africa, and then they will believe us again. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I really cannot understand what the hon. member for Newton Park is still doing on the other side of the House. I honestly have to say that I have absolutely nothing to add to what the hon. member said. I think his was an excellent speech in defence of the South African situation, externally and internally. [Interjections.] It is an excellent reply to the speech made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Bezuidenhout started by analysing certain aspects of the report. However, it is a great pity that the hon. member refers to criticism aired in the report and then does not state by whom the criticism was expressed. Why does the hon. member not state by whom the criticism was expressed? In his speech the hon. member created the impression that the criticism originated from the Secretary for Information.

But do you not understand the report?

If the hon. member had quoted the report fully, he would have been honest toward the House and he would also have stated by whom the criticism was expressed.

The hon. member created the impression that the picture of South Africa abroad is supposedly sombre in the extreme. This report is factually correct. Then what is the situation abroad? Because the hon. member has travelled abroad, he should be aware of it. I should like to recount my personal experiences with regard to each of the five points touched on in the introduction to the report. Last year, while the matters raised in the five points were really the focal point of international politics, I was abroad in my official capacity. I had the opportunity of meeting opinion formers, people in Government and heads of State in ten different countries in three different continents and of discussing South Africa with them, South Africa in its internal, Southern African and international situation in all its facets. What did I find? After one had had the opportunity to talk calmly, peacefully and objectively to the best-known Press media abroad, whether in the East, North America or Latin America, and to state the factual situations correctly, there was real appreciation and comprehension of the situation with regard to each of the five points referred to by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. My experience was also that the conversations and interviews which I held, were afterwards fully reported in those international Press media and with very good insight. I met with a very favourable reception at some of the largest newspaper firms in the world; not hostile, but very favourable. One example is the New York Times. One more example is another large newspaper in New York, The Sunday News, with a circulation of approximately 3 million per Sunday. The chief editor of this newspaper requested me personally to write an article to be published next to the main editorial article. My choice of subject was the policy of the NP. I wrote the article and it was published to very good effect. I have a copy of it here. It appeared under my own name and also under my title as the South African Deputy Minister of Information and of the Interior.

These are things, according to my information, which have not happened before. Therefore I want to say to the hon. member that experience shows that we are not so very unwelcome and that the picture is not so very sombre. There are, however, serious problems of which note must be taken, and it is the task of the Department of Information to inform the Parliament about them. When we come to Parliament and say this, the fact that we are honest should not be held against us and then used against the NP. That is what the hon. member for Newton Park replied to, and he is surely quite correct. What was the experience of the hon. member for Yeoville in Canada? He was booed off a platform as a racist. What was the experience of the hon. member for Houghton on some of the platforms abroad and even in Soweto onto which she ventured? She is heckled at as a racist. What will the hon. member for Bezuidenhout find if he should dare to address a meeting in Harlem, New York? He would be booed off the platform as a racist. [Interjections.] That type of attitude will not get us anywhere. We should rather look at the positive things which are being done.

The hon. member referred to our guest programme, but then he makes the unfortunate remark that some of our guests supposedly spend so much time with Cabinet Ministers and even with the Prime Minister. But the hon. member knows very well what the facts of the matter are. The hon. member really should not act like that. I expressed my thanks last year—I should like to do so again today—to all the members of the Opposition who spend so much of their time giving interviews to official guests in South Africa.

I did not criticize that.

And I said that the members of the Opposition have even more opportunities to state their case to official guests to South Africa than Government members do. They state their case to good effect. Over the past year we had 110 official guests in South Africa. We had 332 internal guests and we rendered local assistance to 587 guests. The 110 guests came from approximately 17 or 18 countries. Apart from these quests, we also had 152 special guests on the occasion of Transkei’s independence. Special arrangements were made for this. Some of these people undertook private tours in South Africa afterwards.

With regard to what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, I want to refer to comments made by these guests after their visit to South Africa. I quote what one of them, a very influential person from Switzerland had to say—

Another guest said the following—

I want to point out one result of our guest programme this year. Three different groups of members of Parliament from Belgium visited us this year, inter alia, as guests of the South African Government. A direct result of their visit was that they were the driving force behind the establishment of a Belgian/South African Parliamentary Friendship Association, an association which already boasts more than 100 members.

After his visit last year an influential person from Israel had 13 comprehensive articles on South Africa published in a newspaper. There are a number of similar examples. The visit of the president of the influential Curtis Publishing Company in the USA, and his wife, the director of the Saturday Evening Post last year resulted in a whole issue of his paper being devoted to South Africa. In his letter of thanks he says amongst other things—

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is well aware of the exceptional results achieved by our guest programme. In effect, it is one of the most positive aspects of the activities of the Department of Information. Yet another very influential person from Canada writes the following in an article entitled “The Whipping Boy”—

He also says—

Another positive aspect to which I should like to refer the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, among other things, is that of our publications abroad. As a result of the financial circumstances prevailing in South Africa last year, we decided to cease temporarily the publication of Panorama in foreign languages at one stage. Do hon. members know what the result was? The publishers in Berne were simply flooded with more than 10 000 letters from throughout Europe and other countries in the Western World in which appreciation was expressed for Panorama and in which people objected to the fact that the magazine was no longer published, and requested that it should be published again because of the positive message, the exceptional information and the particularly good influence which it projected on behalf of South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, in the course of my speech I shall refer to some of the comments made by the hon. the Deputy Minister. I should have liked to have had more time to discuss this specific subject as well as the Vote, because it is interesting and important. It is especially so because the department drew up and published a controversial report this year. I should have liked to discuss the implications thereof in greater depth, but in the course of my speech I shall refer briefly to various aspects.

I want to start with the good news, and that is to congratulate the department, in the first instance, on an industrious and busy year in which we saw clear indications of a more realistic approach to the problems of South Africa, to the implementation of certain aspects of the policy of the Government and to foreign attitudes towards South Africa and towards our policy. As far as visitors from abroad are concerned, I want to agree with the hon. the Deputy Minister—because I have the opportunity now and then to meet some of these visitors—that they are invited to South Africa on a broad base, on the grounds of their sincere interest in South Africa and not merely on the grounds of an approving attitude they have shown before.

That is not a criterion.

I am saying there has been an improvement in this regard which I myself have noticed, viz. that they are being invited not only on the grounds of their approving attitude towards South Africa, but because they have a serious interest in the country.

In the second place I want to refer to the project that has been undertaken with regard to overseas libraries. The hon. the Minister will recall that I have been advocating this for many years. It is an old hobby-horse of mine, and therefore it was gratifying to read in the report that a start was made in 1976 to make books about South Africa available to some of the more important libraries abroad.

†I now want to pass on to another aspect, an aspect which is, to my mind, important and significant. There is a frank admission in the report—an admission which we very much welcome, because there must be room for realism in all we do—of certain failures in the projection of our policies. For example, reference is quite frankly made to the controversy that arose over the status of the Black Transkeians. Observers were able to remark that it was still really race that mattered in South Africa and not nationality, as the Government has indeed proclaimed. This is an important recognition. Further on in the report it is mentioned that one aspect of the difficulties we suffer is because—

That states it very strongly, perhaps even more strongly than I would have put it myself. It is, however, a truth which has to be recognized. The report goes on to say—

This is realistic, and even if the hon. the Minister of Information does not think it fair for this strong view to be held about race, it at least identifies the problem accurately. That is the point. Does the department apply this knowledge in practice? The other day we were privileged to be invited to a series of films which were prepared by the Department of Information. One or two of those films were very good. I want to refer, however, to the third one which was identified as a basic film to serve as a synopsis or as an introduction to talks of the Department of Information abroad. The hon. the Minister also referred to the fact that the monologue had been geared to the terminology as used abroad in order to make it more acceptable. The first half of this film was entirely directed at race. It began with images of Caucasian, Asian, Negroid and Mongoloid types. It went on to place an emphasis on their differences and to make some justification, either implicit or actual, for the legal or statutory institutionalization of racial differences in South Africa.

I would say it is very fair and good propaganda to show the mosaic of race in South Africa. It is good to show that there is peace and goodwill within such a mixture of races, but it is disastrous to attempt to depict this mixture of races as the cause of our difficulties and as the cause of the special policies we have. It raises race to the very level which has been identified by the department as wholly unacceptable to people abroad. There is an attitude of mind, and anyone who has worked abroad knows it, that you dare not use race as a justification for Government policy. Race is something which has become a running sore in international relations and I do not believe that any experienced officer overseas who is sensitive to public opinion as it exists in the civilized capitals of the world, could even think of using such a film. There would be instant antagonism if such a film were shown. It would be seen as a confirmation of the fundamentally racist philosophy of the South African Government. It is impossible, if one is seriously concerned with the problems of projecting South Africa and if one understands the nature of feelings about race overseas, to use a film like this. I believe it is a completely misconceived attempt to deal with the problem of propaganda abroad.

I want to turn briefly to the question of the co-ordination of foreign visits. It would, I think, be a good idea, when foreign visitors come to South Africa, to ensure that, apart from just exposing them to the political situation in South Africa and to political disquisitions by various politicians and others, they also have the opportunity to meet specialists in the fields in which they themselves specialize. It is a matter of practical experience and knowledge that if you introduce people to members of their own professions or their own fields of interest, it creates relationships of a personal nature which are more enduring than can be created merely by a trip through the country to meet a lot of people. We have had members of Parliament here, and I believe that more could be done when members of Parliament are invited. I have in mind, for example, the Italian members of Parliament who were invited recently. I believe that more could be done to make sure that they are in fact brought in touch in good time with the Parliamentary associations which already exist. Both the Parliamentary Association in this Parliament—that is the South African-Italian Association—and the Italian Ambassador were informed only at very short notice of the visit of these people, and so we were able to do very little for them.

Lastly, I want to refer to a point which arises from the annual report. On page 9 we find the following statement—

On the next page there is then given, amongst other things, an example of this kind of biased and slanted report. This is what it says—

This is apparently to be feared, Sir. I continue—

These, Sir, are the attacks we have to fear and the attacks we have to ward off. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Von Brandis has just referred in his speech to the film show which we attended the other day, at which we saw one of the films of the Department of Information. His objection to this is that excessive emphasis was laid on the concept of “race” in the first half of the last film. I want to suggest that the hon. member read the latest edition of South Africa International by the South African Foundation, especially the article by Mr. Nathan Glaser, “Ethnicity, a World Phenomenon”. In this article he will see that race as such is not necessarily negative. It forms part of the culture of nations. It forms part of the composition of the world in its totality. I want to point out to him that even in Britain, in the United Kingdom, there is suddenly a great desire amongst the Scots to be Scots once again and amongst the Welsh to be Welsh again. They do not simply want to be part of a unified United Kingdom. Indeed, there is a desire to belong to a community which they originally formed part of. The real problem of the Opposition, the PRP as well as the UP, or, at any rate, certain sections of the UP, is that they do not attach any value at all to an awareness of a group community. This is the real problem.

In the complex situation in which South Africa finds itself today, it is a great task for the Department of Information to broadcast its message, to put across the correct image. Unfortunately, having good domestic relations will not solve the problem of the Department of Information. As long as there are people in our country who want to obstruct all attempts at peaceful coexistence between the nations of South Africa on the basis of goodwill between the nations, using any means, including lies, the Department of Information will experience problems in conveying its message. It is these enemies inside the country who help to complicate their task. There are people who resent the success which the Government of South Africa is achieving in promoting good relations between the nations in Southern Africa. I am thinking, for instance, of the attempt by the PRP to thwart the desire of the Government of Bophuthatswana to obtain sovereignty. Besides their attempt in the House the other day, they even went so far as to send an envoy of their party to the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana to plead with them not to ask for independence.

Horace van Rensburg.

But their share in complicating the task of the Department of Information goes much further. They realize that their chances of achieving political success through the normal, accepted channels are extremely limited, and that is why they are turning more and more towards practices which, to put it mildly, one may call “extra-parliamentary opposition action”. We have just seen that a students’ representative council of a university in Natal wrote a letter to all the Opposition parties in Parliament in which they said that a democratic Opposition no longer had any value and that they should withdraw and turn to extra-parliamentary opposition. What does this mean? It means one thing only, namely that they want undemocratic methods to be applied.

Then there are also the activities of organizations like the so-called Christian Institute. Abroad they adopt a very pious attitude and they succeed in being accepted in church circles. However, how do they conduct themselves here in South Africa? One can only describe their conduct in South Africa with a Biblical text; one can only describe them as “the father of the lie”.

That is untrue.

The hon. member for Pinelands says it is untrue. I want to quote from Pro Veritate. There one reads—

This is what they broadcast—

This is the Lord’s Prayer—

Since this is clearly a deliberate, malicious lie, while the priest says it is not a lie …

I said that it was untrue that they were the father of the lie.

… I want to point out that the director of the Christian Institute was approached by a leader of the Dutch Reformed Church, accompanied by witnesses, including a member of the Christian Institute and a clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church, and that Dr. Beyers Naudé then admitted that it was not true. However, when he was asked to publish a correction in the next edition of Pro Veritate, his reply was that he was not prepared to do so because he was not prepared to promote anything which would help the White establishment in South Africa. These are the spiritual associates of the PRP and of the Christian Institute. As long as this hypocrisy and malevolence are found in South Africa, the Department of Information will experience problems in stating its case abroad because people like Dr. Beyers Naudé are accepted in foreign churches like the Reform Church in Holland and the Evangelical Church in Germany as very pious people. This is the problem which we are faced with.

They know the truth.

It is very difficult to oppose this thing as long as this element is active in South Africa. I do not know whether it is any use appealing to priests in the House and outside to cease doing this type of thing. However, what may help is personal contact. That is why I want to express my appreciation for the foreign guest programme which is being carried out by the department in South Africa. It does much to dispel the false impression created by these priests and to put matters in the right perspective. The hon. the Deputy Minister has already referred to the standpoint taken by the Saturday Evening Post, which was shocked to see the difference between the reporting which they are used to and the facts which are witnessed in South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I agree with what the previous hon. member said and he will pardon me if I do not react any further to his speech. I think that the Department of Information is a very important department in the sense that they have to sell South Africa abroad and convince people to form military, economic and political ties with South Africa. Furthermore, in its particular way, the department has to strike political blows for South Africa in Washington, New York and London. We are greatly indebted to the officials for this. They succeed in striking these blows and I should like to compliment them on this. I also compliment them on exposing journalistic racism, because we in South Africa are not prepared to put up with biased, one-sided, inaccurate, twisted reporting. We have a case and we are not prepared to be trampled on.

This department succeeds in its good work because it has a commodity to sell, namely South Africa and its people, and because its officials are inspired and enthusiastic. When we look at the selling of South Africa abroad—if I may put it that way—I think that our priority should always be that we should sell ourselves in Africa. This is the continent where we must sell ourselves, in the southern part of it in particular. The reality of the matter is, however, that we have only one information office to the north of us, and that is in Rhodesia. As far as I know, the rest of Africa is devoid of formal information offices. Africa is our hinterland, our future and survival are inextricably bound up with Africa, geographically, politically and militarily. We must see what this Africa, of which we also form a part, looks like. I should like to quote what president Kaunda said on one occasion—

Information breakthroughs are being made in Africa on a low-profile basis, but I ask that the rate of breakthroughs in Africa may be accelerated.

I am very grateful for the guest programme—there was an expansion of nearly R600 000, and the information offices abroad have an increased expenditure of R1 379 000. I want to request that more of this money be spent on the states in Africa in order to make ourselves known there too.

Having said this, I want to concede at once that there is a tremendous climate of unreasonableness, of antagonism towards South Africa. Here we must also recognize the brutal realities and tell them to our people too. Let our people know what we are really fighting against. I want to quote from a few documents of the Dar es Salaam declaration. It is brutal, but I want to quote it. In this declaration, certain countries say the following—

These are harsh words, but there are even harsher to follow—

These are totally distorted lies. Of course, they are fanned by Russia and especially by some of our people who travel in African countries. They do not go there in order to sell South Africa, but to sell it down the river, and then they experience a type of masochistic pleasure because they are actually hurting themselves too. I listened once again today to one of the hon. members on the other side who derived so much pleasure from injuring himself and this country in this House. I think he must be quite a masochist. I firmly believe that the South Africa package—this package which we have and which constitutes our policy of striving after, maintaining and developing human relations in this country—is quite saleable in Africa.

I want to put this clearly. We do not want to sell a superpower of our own choice in Africa. We do not want to sell Russia, the Russia which does not give any statistics about the death penalties which it imposes, which has 141 extermination camps and which has its infamous psychiatric prison hospitals which we all know about. We are not trying to sell Russia. Nor are we trying to sell America. I want to read to the House what was said in Case Studies on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In it we read the following—

We do not want to sell Britain either.

We just want to sell South Africa. We want to sell South Africa as an African state. We ask to be judged as an African state, as a state which must not be ignored, a state which is not prepared to allow the super powers to decide on its future as they wish.

Let us take a look at what Africa really demands of us. I just want to point out a few aspects of the principles of the OAU. There are seven of them altogether. I am not going to read all of them. However, there is one which we comply with in every respect, and it is the following—

We do not participate in this. However, there is perhaps one with which we do not comply at all, and this is the following—

Perhaps this is a principle with which we do not comply. We are definitely linked to the Western world.

Now I want to refer to the following aspects too. As far as the prescription to us is concerned, the prescription as to what we should do in Africa, the countries which signed the Lusaka Manifesto say the following—

We claim that we have made greater progress in this regard than they have. We are giving freedom to people in the country. We are making progress. I believe that now is the correct time to put our shoulder to the wheel once again and to tackle Africa with renewed vigour, with greater force and vigour, with all our finances, and with every means at our disposal. The time is ripe for it now. Just look at Zaïre; after all, we know what happened there. Unfortunately I do not have the time to elaborate on this now. We also know what happened in Ethiopia. It is clear that the countries of Africa have realized that they must depend on themselves. The time has come for us to think of that too. The Turnhalle Conference constitutes further proof of the fact that the nations of Africa realize that they have to live with one another, that we cannot wipe one another out. A new approach is taking shape.

South Africa has certain excellent qualities without which the rest of Africa cannot get by at the moment. As an alternative they will have to realize that they will have to get along better with it. South Africa is living in a time in which it can sell itself. The hon. member for Bloemfontein North Pointed out that the answer to this situation is communication alone. We must communicate with one another. Our road to the world outside, our road to peace, runs through Africa, and nowhere else. We have heard this said a hundred times already. I repeat it and underline it.

That is why I believe we must move on, we must tackle Africa with vigour, particularly in the years which lie ahead. That is where our future lies. We have no other future. I believe that we will succeed because we have something to sell. We are at a juncture in which we can and will succeed in doing so.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pretoria West will forgive me if I do not reply to his speech, but I only have a few minutes. I want to discuss an aspect of the Department of Information’s activities which concerns the use of a good deal of taxpayers’ money. However, before I do that, I would like to say a few words about a subject of some principle, and that is the relationship between public servants and members of this House. If the Secretary for Information wishes to wage war with the leading newspapers of the free world that is his business—although I have expressed my views about it; I think it is self-defeating—but when it comes to criticizing and passing judgment on the work of members of this House, then I really ask the hon. the Minister of Information to intervene because an important principle is involved, namely the propriety of public servants to criticize the work of members of this House. It happened towards the end of last year when the Secretary for Information accused Opposition members of wasting the time of officials and taxpayers’ money. I am not concerned with the merits of the case at all. I am concerned with the principle of it and I would ask the hon. the Minister to take some note of what is happening.

What are the facts?

I am prepared to give the hon. the Minister the facts, but I cannot waste the time of the House by giving the details. I am prepared to give the hon. the Minister the details because I think there is an important principle involved despite the reaction that I am getting from the other side of the House.

I want to come to an aspect of the Department of Information’s publishing activities. I would like the hon. the Minister to explain to the Committee how it comes about that a sum of R402 000 out of a total of R520 000 went to only three publishing firms last year. One firm is Chris van Rensburg Publications, the second is a firm which has direct links with Chris van Rensburg Publications and the third is a well-known Nationalist publishing firm, Perskor. [Interjections.] Please, there is an important principle involved in this. In the past two years Chris Van Rensburg Publications and a company called Erudita, which I am informed is controlled by Mrs. Van Rensburg, earned no less than R586 758 from the Department of Information. These firms, I need hardly say, are relatively new firms. Although the department bought a total of 10 100 books worth R279 858 from Chris van Rensburg Publications it spent no money, as far as I know, with 12 to 15 of the best-known publishers in the country. This seems to me to be a strange state of affairs. The fact of the matter is—and that is why I have raised it—that in some publishing circles at least there is a conviction that it is a complete waste of time to tender for work with the Department of Information. People with whom I have discussed the matter say that nearly all the work, as far as they can see, goes to a lucky few and unless one is on the inside track one is wasting one’s time.

One publisher told me: “The whole thing is diabolical.” I raise this matter firstly because I, and I think a lot of other people outside this House, are not satisfied that the Department of Information is, in fact, spending the taxpayers’ money either wisely or well; and, secondly, because there seems to me to be far too much selectivity in its business dealings which, apart from being unfair, may also at the same time be bad business and therefore a waste of the taxpayers’ money. For that reason it is a very proper subject for the Committee to deal with. I want to quote one other example which again concerns Perskor. In 1976 Perskor earned R2 412 000 from the department out of a total of R2 709 000. The previous year Perskor got R2 062 000 out of R2 582 000. There is so much criticism and so much dissatisfaction in, admittedly, circles which have a vested interest in this kind of thing—but they are the people who know about it—with the Department of Information in this particular field of operation that I suggest there must be something wrong somewhere. I believe that the case for an inter-departmental inquiry is strong.

Why?

Because there is taxpayers’ money involved and I believe the hon. the Minister has to establish whether they are using the money to the best advantage and that they are getting the best value for their money. It seems to me to be a simple enough request to make to the hon. the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Von Brandis referred to a case where there was a misunderstanding in connection with the Italian members of Parliament who visited South Africa. I just want to say to the House that I myself was in a position where it was impossible for me to see the visitors. It was because of arrangements that had to be made at very short notice. If it had not been so other arrangements would certainly have been made and these people would have been able to see everything that they wanted to see. It is for this reason that I say that it caused me some embarrassment too because I could not find the time to accord those gentlemen an interview.

There are so many matters which were raised by the hon. members of the Opposition and other hon. members on which I should like to comment. But unfortunately it is completely impossible to do so in the short time allowed for in this debate. Therefore, I shall refer in the first place to some of the aspects touched on by hon. members on this side of the House. The hon. member for Sunnyside laid special emphasis on the question of co-ordination. I should like to give the hon. member my assurance that all the necessary arrangements have been made by the department and the ministry for every good co-ordination between the Government departments concerned and our department. It has not been done with a view to collecting information for publicity in the Press, but to use the information in terms of the duty of the Department of Information. I can give my assurance that the necessary co-ordination with all the relevant departments exists. Public relations services have been established in this respect. The hon. member for Bloemfontein North raised a very important matter, a matter on which the hon. the Minister will surely comment. The only comment I want to make is to say—if I had had the opportunity, I would have elaborated on it—that relations committees are absolutely essential with a view to improving relations, not only with regard to the Coloureds, but also with regard to the Blacks and Indians in our country.

The hon. member for Parys referred to several matters. I should like to refer to one of them, and that is that the Department of Information is at the disposal of other Government departments when they want to tackle projects and carry them out. Examples of this can be found in the annual report. The Department of Health, for example, approached our department for assistance with a particular immunization campaign in Natal. I do not want to go into details with regard to the question of family planning to which the hon. member referred. I only want to give him my assurance that we and the Department of Health are constantly in contact and that we are at their disposal with regard to any project which they might have in mind.

The hon. member for Krugersdorp pointed out quite correctly that words are not minced in the world in which the Department of Information must operate. Words are not minced either in South Africa or abroad.

The speech by the hon. member for Klip River linked up with this very effectively. One of the major reasons for our problems, internal and external, is the fact that some people and organizations in South Africa are broadcasting a lie. That lie is believed overseas because people overseas assume that these people have credibility, which is not the case. The statement by the hon. member for Klip River is therefore quite correct. We do wonderful things by means of our cultural section, by means of our publications, by building up contacts and by personal conversations with people overseas. Fine results are obtained in this way. As long as that situation prevails in South Africa, we shall, however, have this problem to deal with.

The hon. member for Pretoria West asked what Africa expects of us. He may just as well ask, too, what the world wants from us. I cannot go into detail, but I want to point out one idea. What does the world really want from us? If I consider what the hon. member said, and what the President of the USA said with regard to majority rule in South Africa during the last few weeks, and an article which appeared in the Sunday Times of 27 March 1977, and a long report of an interview on this subject between Mr. Serfontein and President Kaunda of Zambia, I come to the conclusion that Africa and the rest of the world basically want from us, in the first place, concessions with regard to the status of the Whites; in the second place, concessions with regard to the rule of the Whites and, lastly, concessions with regard to the State of the Whites. That is what is at stake for us. We have to try and project our answers to these things, and to everything raised here by hon. members, inter alia by the actions of the Department of Information internally and externally. And we are doing this in a variety of fields. The annual report deals with the matter in full and therefore I need not go into detail. We are doing it by means of our films, inter alia, by means of our publications and by means of many other activities. We are able, as a department, as a State and as a Government, to do all these fine things, but if the population does not support us in this effort, we cannot succeed. In this respect I want to associate myself with what the hon. member for Newton Park said, i.e. that we simply have to realize that all responsible South Africans, regardless of colour, have a task to fulfil in this respect. We must have no illusions about this. What is closing in on South West Africa will also close in on South Africa. Our internal as well as our external trouble-spots will definitely be exploited by our enemies. Indeed, our enemies are already operating. It is all very well to refer to all the fine things with which we are occupied, but what are our enemies doing? Trained communists have already returned to South Africa from outside. They are no longer being trained for 2½ years; their training now lasts only three to six months. They are trained by Russian officers who can speak Afrikaans and Bantu languages.

These trained people have already returned to South Africa, and we have to assume that they are not sitting still. Therefore it is clear that the Government cannot perform this task on its own, but that the total responsible population has to make the maximum use of its time to create good relations inside South Africa. Therein lies our greatest countermeasure to the kind of problems with which we are faced at present. If we can succeed in doing that, we shall also be able to put across our message to the outside world much more strongly. Certain Black cultural groups are at work in South Africa. They concentrate on the young people. One has only to read the report of the Snyman Commission again to realize what lies behind their activities. A certain cultural group holds meetings in South Africa which are attended by young Blacks. Thousands of young Blacks assemble at these meetings, a speaker screams repeatedly: “Who is your greatest enemy?” and then the thousands of young Blacks scream back repeatedly: “It is the White man!” Such meetings are not isolated events. Black forces professing to be cultural organizations are motivating the Black youth in South Africa to an absolutely militant degree of which we do not always realize the seriousness. That is why I ask myself the question: Is everybody in South Africa sufficiently aware of these activities? Are we as South Africans all keen enough to find a counter-measure to such activities? Do we live our everyday lives in such a way that we can present such a counter-measure? Are we engaged in establishing the greatest measure of horizontal communication, from the level of this House through all Government boards, in our communities, in our houses, in our organizations and in our business chambers? Is every one of us giving the necessary attention to those things which are important to our young Blacks, so that the message which we should like to put across may take root, the message of true South Africanism which can serve to counteract the threat? Do the educational authorities give the necessary attention to the matters which require attention in the field I have just tried to cover? My greatest worry is that we are not making the maximum use of our time to communicate horizontally with each other on all levels in South Africa. I believe that the greatest deficiency of our South African set-up lies in the fact that there is not enough horizontal communication between us. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, when he spoke previously the hon. the Deputy Minister, with reference to a speech I had made, wanted to know why I am still sitting on this side of the House. When asking me that question, the hon. the Deputy Minister must realize one thing, i.e. that when South Africa’s interests are at stake, it is not only the lot of hon. members on that side of the House to be the ones who have the country’s interests at heart. If what I have to say resembles what the hon. the Deputy Minister has to say, or vice versa, that is a mere coincidence. In my opinion the situation outside the country is such that the majority of South Africans who have South Africa’s interests at heart, and want to convey the correct image of the country to the outside world, must speak as we in these benches do.

I am convinced of that because we are not, in the first instance, bluffing ourselves. We realize that whatever policy is adopted in South Africa, one will only satisfy people and create the right image in their minds if one is prepared to relinquish one’s identity and share power in such a way that the Whites will eventually no longer know what their position in this country is. I therefore want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that there are many people who disagree with him in the political sphere, and will still disagree with him in the years to come, but who nevertheless speak the same language when it comes to South Africa’s interests. I also want the hon. the Deputy Minister to bear this fact in mind. That is why, when my time ran out during my previous speech, I had started to speak about certain things that we can do in South Africa. I do not believe there is any disagreement about that in this country. In doing these things we can use people of all races and colours to create the right image in the outside world, particularly in respect of those matters about which there is no disagreement, thereby disarming our enemies out there.

I should like to come to the next point I wanted to raise when I spoke last. It is quite clear to me that there ought not to be any group domination in South Africa. The moment the outside world understands that, because we are giving effect to it here, we shall also be creating a much better impression. The money we are spending on information services could then be spent much more profitably because there would then be a sound basis on which the matter could be conveyed to the outside world.

I have already referred to how we must chiefly set about things in order to convey the right impression to the outside world. Locally we must launch a campaign to indicate to the Black people what dangers communism embodies on the one hand and what wonderful benefits there are in the capitalist system on the other. The impression is created that the policy adopted in South Africa today, including the approach of the general public, is so weak that it would be better for them to pay heed to the wants of communism. So they say that in South Africa and Southern Africa communism would be better than the apartheid government we have in this country today.

With that kind of propaganda a tremendous number of innocent non-Whites are being exploited and impressed, and hence swept along. These people must come to realize that communism does not mean liberation, progress and “one man, one vote,” but in effect enslavement and retrogression. They must come to realize that communism does not mean that they will be living in a democracy. This must be made clear to them, in contrast to what we can, in fact, offer them in South Africa, because however poor the present policy may be, I nevertheless believe it to be ten times better than the communist system. A free capitalist system for Southern Africa and for us would mean that the Black man would be able to live his life to the full. For the Black man this would mean that he gets every opportunity to prove himself. He would get every opportunity to have a share in everything South Africa has to offer. Not only would it mean that he could be an entrepreneur in free enterprise, but also that he could become a person who would be able to employ others. It would mean that he could play a much greater role in the future of South Africa, and what he built up for himself he could take for himself and claim as his own. In contrast there is the communist system. If we do not do this amongst the non-Whites of South Africa, we will find them more inclined to think along the same lines as those people who tell them that the benefits of the communist system are much greater than what they have today. When the Free World sees that we are building up a strong class of entrepreneurs amongst the non-Whites here, I believe that the so-called crisis of confidence that we find ourselves in now will change into greater confidence in us and greater confidence in Southern Africa. Then we shall find that every last person in South Africa will work together to convey such an image to the outside world that whatever onslaughts may come along, we shall be in a position to ward them off.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to discuss the subject which the hon. member for Newton Park has just touched upon, but I would like to turn my attention to the significance of certain things the hon. member for Bezuidenhout had to say here in the House today. I want to refer, in particular, to the statement of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, a statement which was followed up by the hon. member for Parktown, to the effect that the internal policy is unjustifiable abroad.

Indefensible.

Indefensible. When we are speaking about this, it is important, in my view, for us to maintain a specific balance. In this connection we must look at what the real aim and purpose of our internal policy is. It is the aim of our internal policy to ensure order and justice in these heterogeneous conditions prevailing in South Africa, and nowhere else. Secondly it is also aimed at the maintenance of human rights for the Whites and at ensuring the security and survival of all, including the Whites. I am saying that we must strike a balance, and I think it is of exceptional importance that we do so.

I unequivocally want to state here today that countries abroad are very important to us. It is important for us to try to extend and improve our prestige and reputation abroad. What I am opposed to, however, is the hon. Opposition’s standpoint that one should be completely obsessed with countries abroad. When one listens to this absolute obsessiveness, one realizes the great danger to South Africa that it embodies. The danger that we are up against here is that of the internationalization of South Africa’s problems. We know when a problem has been internationalized. This is evidenced by an expectation that the outside world will come and solve the problems. We know that Israel has reached the stage where it is accepted that America and the Western countries should all conclude an agreement about Israel and that the outside world must be satisfied with what happens in that country. We know that the problems of Rhodesia have been internationalized. The outside world is grouped around conference tables discussing Rhodesia. We know that the same situation pertains with regard to South West Africa which has always been an international problem. This gives us a picture of what happens if a problem or a country is internationalized. If we think of this unpatriotic, treasonable conduct of Opposition members, which amounts to the problems of South Africa being judged in the light of what the outside world says about us …

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

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw them. We see that this is particularly dangerous to South Africa. That is why I want to state clearly, so that the world will know—there must be unanimity about this in South Africa—that South Africa’s internal policy will be formulated in Pretoria and Cape Town, in any case in South Africa and never in New York, London, Moscow or Peking. That is what we must be careful of. If we must see everything that happens in South Africa against the background against which the Opposition sees it, we are systematically internationalizing the problems of South Africa.

Our problems in South Africa do not only stem from our policy, but also from the fact that there are White people and Black people in this fatherland of ours. We unfortunately live in a time when the White West apparently has some sort of guilt feeling about the Black people of the world. That is why there is reference in the report to “journalistic racism”. In this connection we have listened today to the contribution of the hon. member for Parktown which I cannot but describe as an emotional tirade, an uncontrolled outburst. He spoke of a “declaration of war”. He spoke of a “recipe for disaster” and of a “premeditated campaign”. He also asked: “Or did we just blunder into this mess?” He also went on to say: “This invites retaliation”. I want to ask the hon. member whether he agrees with what is stated in the report about journalistic racism. On page 4 of the report we read the following—

Is that not true? The report goes on to state—

Is that not true? The report goes on to state—

Is that not true? There is a feeling growing amongst us that Opposition members, and in particular the hon. member for Parktown, are sprinkling perfume on the enemies of South Africa. I want to tell him that we on this side of the House are prepared, at all times, to broadcast to the outside world that we are an independent country, and are proud of it. We shall not dance to our enemies’ tune. We shall not crawl to them either,

In this connection we must look at what the task of the Department of Information is. The task of the Department is to put the facts about South Africa to countries abroad. The department must not only state the facts in calm and sober terms, but must also evaluate the facts for countries abroad and convince them of the value and significance of those facts. Criticism in South Africa must firstly be met by pointing out the wrong facts, secondly by correcting the perspective of reports that have appeared abroad and, thirdly, by bringing to the attention of the world, as effectively as possible, the facts which count in South Africa’s favour but which are not generally known.

Let me state clearly that it is not the department’s task to convince the outside world, of South Africa and its problems. In policy for the world. It is not the department’s task to reach consensus with the outside world about the internal policy of South Africa. This policy of South Africa, as the hon. the Prime Minister has said, is not for export. The task of the department is to develop an understanding, in the outside world, of South Africa and its problems. In my opinion the task of the department embodies the following: In the first instance the idea must be conveyed that South Africa is a country where high values apply, values with which many other parts of Africa are not familiar, values such as Press freedom and an independent judiciary. Secondly the world must have an understanding of the fact that South Africa is a country with great ideals, ideals for the establishment of political rights, human rights, and all other rights which one can call to mind, in such a way that tension between South Africa’s national groups will thereby not be aggravated, but rather removed. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, one thing on which we will find agreement as far as the report of the department is concerned is that for a variety of reasons it has become exceptionally difficult for the Government and its information office to sell South Africa effectively overseas. Another thing that we must realize is that emotional outbursts, such as we have just heard from the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, however self-satisfying they may be, lead us no further towards solving the problem of selling or explaining South Africa to the outside world.

I think we all agree, especially when we are criticizing other people and accusing them of distortion, untruths and malicious propaganda, that we should be especially careful that on the facts at least we are correct. I want to raise two instances in this respect. One is to point out to the hon. the Minister how easy it is, even for the hon. the Minister, to be incorrect on the facts in relation to another country, and how from that other country’s point of view it may be seen as malicious propaganda. I refer to the hon. the Minister’s speech earlier in this House when he indicated that we were moving towards, or hoped for, some kind of alliance with Communist China.

That is untrue.

We shall deal with that later. In the course of that speech he said—

Whatever the hon. the Minister meant by that, he should realize that America immediately withdrew its Ambassador and diplomatic representatives. Does he want that to happen to South Africa? We certainly do not want that to happen to us, but he is drawing a comparison between America criticizing us and doing nothing as far as Uganda is concerned. The United States Government discouraged all kinds of relationships with Uganda, and now refuses to grant American companies tax credits for their investments in Uganda. I raise this because the hon. the Minister himself must be very, very careful when he states facts which do not happen to be the truth.

Are charges brought against Uganda in the Security Council?

The Minister’s general accusation was “hulle het geen vinger geroer nie”, but I am saying that they withdrew their Ambassador, they refused to give tax credits and they discouraged all forms of association. Does the hon. the Minister want that to happen as far as America and South Africa are concerned?

They moved a “pinkie”, that is all.

Then you must say the “pinkie”. Tell the truth and not just part of the truth.

The other matter which I wish to raise with the hon. the Minister is very serious because I believe in his reply today he will be able to establish the credibility and integrity of his Department of Information, not only in relation to readers outside, but in relation to hon. members of this House. I refer to a matter in respect of which he gave a brief reply earlier to a question which I put, viz. the article which appeared in Time magazine on 7 March this year, placed by the Deputy Consul-General of South Africa, Mr. John Adler, in which he said—

I want to ask the hon. the Minister; does he stand by this statement of his department? Has compulsory education for Black children been introduced and is it soon to be introduced at high school level? There have been various explanations. One is that because the Government has said that parents who now send their children to school—not compelled to send them to school, but who happen to send them to school—must undertake that they will stay on for four years, that is to be equated with compulsory education. I believe that in any ordinary reading of what the hon. the Minister has stated our policy to be, that is not compulsory education. I believe that the department should have taken the earliest opportunity to correct what was a distortion of the facts as far as compulsory education is concerned. [Interjections.] I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he stands by this statement. I received a letter—and this infuriates me—from the Secretary for Information, a letter in which he gives an explanation of this matter. He writes—

Mr. Chairman this letter itself is a falsification in itself of the headline in the Rand Daily Mail. It is a falsification because the headline in the Rand Daily Mail does not say “Compulsory schooling for Africans”. It says “Compulsory schooling for Africans in five years”. However, this official writes to a member of Parliament. He deletes three words from the headline which was in front of him and, having deleted those three words, he then uses the truncated headline to justify the department’s statement. Further than this, this particular article—the statement by Dr. Hartshorne—makes it quite explicit that there will not be compulsory education this year. He says that there are at present 4 million Blacks in schools—

Yet, this department—not only in giving an explanation to the outside world, but in giving an explanation to a member of this House—comes along, falsifies a headline in the Rand Daily Mail, and then fails to give the information which the Rand Daily Mail did, through Dr. Hartshorne, that free compulsory education was only three quarters of the way along the road, that it could happen in five years’ time, and then only if the money was available.

Mr. Chairman, there is a matter of principle involved here. I believe that the integrity of this hon. Minister’s department can be established if the hon. the Minister comes clean today and says there was an error, an error of judgment or an error of fact. However, if the hon. the Minister remains silent on this, I accept that he is condoning the falsification of a headline which appeared in a newspaper and which was sent by way of explanation to a member of Parliament. Secondly, I will accept that the hon. the Minister condones the fact that it will go on record that free compulsory education has already been introduced in South Africa, while all the facts are that it is intended to introduce it in due course, but that it has not been introduced at this stage.

Mr. Chairman, in the first place I want to thank hon. members who participated in the debate. In a certain sense I also wish to express my appreciation for the level on which the debate was conducted. I am grateful that it was possible for the debate to be conducted in this spirit, particularly in the times in which we find ourselves. I want to refer very briefly to hon. members on the Government side who participated in the debate. The hon. the Deputy Minister of Information has already replied to many of these speeches. He replied to those aspects which fall within his discretion.

There are only a few matters I should like to elucidate further. The hon. member for Sunnyside referred to liaison with the Press. I assure the hon. member that I am in agreement with him. The idea he raised was a very good one. It is certainly the task of the Department of Information to help the Press, as far as is practicable, obtain the information it requires. For that reason the department has established a special Press Liaison Division, which not only liaises with the Press, but is also responsible for interviews and Press conferences, and for the provision of information to the Press, as far as possible. It is also the task of the Press Liaison Division, as far as possible, to open doors for liaison with Cabinet members, committees and so on.

I am also very grateful to have received letters during the past year from some members of the Press—I am not going to mention their names—thanking the Department of Information for the special efforts it made and for the results it achieved in regard to certain aspects of assistance to the Press, here in Cape Town and elsewhere in the country. I am grateful to those officials for the good work which is being done, and I thank the hon. member for Sunnyside who raised this matter.

The Department of Information has another new division now—a data-processing division—in which, with the aid of the computers, the difficult task of making information on information available is performed. By that I mean that information which may be available somewhere in the Public Service, somewhere in a department, on a topical question in which the public may be interested, is kept up to date in this division with the aid of a computer. All particulars are kept so that duplication is not necessary, and so as to enable us to lay our finger on that information immediately any inquiries are made in regard to it, and to say in what department the information is available. It is, in other words, information on information. I think that this is a very important task which the department has taken upon itself. The system is still far from complete, but I think it is a step in the right direction and will enable us to be of further assistance.

The hon. member also put questions on the internal distributions of films and the exhibition of films on television. I can tell him that we have already made a start and that this year six of our films, together with feature films, will be shown in South Africa. Secondly we have already received assistance from television, and a film we made called Lifeline dealing with the Cape sea route, has already been shown on television. We shall certainly continue along these lines because we believe that it is in the interests of South Africa that it should be done.

I want to say a few words about that portion of the speech made by the hon. member for Bloemfontein North which did not fall under the section dealt with by the hon. the Deputy Minister. The hon. member advocated a national information council. There is certainly merit in that suggestion, and I shall go into the matter and examine the advantages, the implications and problems which it may cause. I shall definitely go into the matter. There were quite a number of positive, practical suggestions in the hon. member’s speech, and these we shall definitely follow up. Other members of this side of the House, including the hon. members for Parys, Klip River, Pretoria West, Krugersdorp and Pretoria Central, as usual made good speeches, to which my colleague, the hon. the Deputy Minister, has already furnished almost a complete reply. I shall in the course of my speech return to several aspects here and there.

I come now to the Opposition’s attack on the department, and I shall begin with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who, as usual, launched the main attack.

It was not an attack.

Yes, it was an attack, and I shall prove it. In the first place, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, without mentioning any names, accused some of the officials of the department, who are unable to defend themselves here, of disloyalty.

I praised them.

No. The hon. member accused them of disloyalty. He alleged that officials made certain admissions to him, things which they omit to tell me when I go over there and omit to tell the Secretary and other senior officials who visit them regularly overseas. A complaint has never been made to us that they cannot do this kind of thing. However, the hon. member alleged that complaints were made to him …

The report says so!

I shall come to that in a moment. The hon. member alleged that complaints were made to him that the Government was creating impossible problems, that the policy of South Africa could not be sold and that we were trying to market an unmarketable product. That is the essence of the impression which the hon. member created. He also created the impression that this report was an attack on the Prime Minister and on various Ministers and that the attack had been launched by the Secretary for Information and the Department of Information. That is the impression which the hon. member created with his speech.

You are sensitive.

No, I am not sensitive. I am now going to furnish the facts.

To see the 1976 report in its correct perspective, we must first consult the 1975 report. Under the head “Résumé” on page 3 of the report the following was stated—

That was the image that was projected in 1975. In other words, this unsellable product, i.e. the policy on which we are enduring so much criticism was sold with great success in 1975. In this annual report, then, we were able to boast of it. No one criticized me on these positive suggestions. No one questioned the quotations. The unsellable product of our policy was sold to the benefit of everyone, with great success, in 1975. During the bridge conference at the Victoria Waterfalls, South Africa’s international standing was higher than it had ever been during the past 40 years. South Africa’s standing had then reached the high-level mark. What went wrong? The Department of Information provides the answer—

This was recognized for what it was in 1975 already, when it had only just begun. We are now being blamed for this as though we had been responsible for the events in Angola. It is abundantly clear that we had a very positive report here, a report based on our policy and on what we had achieved. We had made a break-through in many spheres. In many spheres, too, we had gained recognition and achieved acceptance and success. In the 1975 report the first signs of problems as a result of Angola were being foreseen.

The year 1976 was definitely a very difficult year for our department, not because of an erroneous policy or because of our inability to sell it, but owing to circumstances which were in 90% of the cases completely beyond our control. This made our task extremely difficult. This report is a rendition of the facts in respect of 1976. If we were able to present a wonderful, favourable picture for 1975, we have to present a more troubled picture for 1976. This is because circumstances have changed as a result of factors beyond our control. Should we deceive this House now? Should we omit to mention the facts relating to what happened, or should we make them public? It is not the Department of Information, or the Secretary for Information who is making an attack on the Government, on the Ministers, on the Prime Minister, or on anyone for that matter. I want to quote from the report. If hon. members wish to be honest, they would interpret it correctly. I quote (page 3)—

And furthermore—

And also—

These are not our allegations. This is the problem we have to contend with, a problem which is being seized upon now by our enemies to be used against us. I quote further—

This was during the first week of the riots—

In fact, it was so objective that the Prime Minister—if I remember correctly—praised that objectivity during his visit to West Germany for talks with Dr. Kissinger. I quote further—

Surely that is the truth. Therefore, what we have here is not an attack on anyone. It is simply the facts which are being presented. I quote further—

Once again this is true. For how many years had our information officers abroad not been asking me to tell them when one of our homelands would be able to achieve independence. To them it was a necessity. That is why I was asked to carry independence through as quickly as possible, because our officers abroad were not being believed. The policy which they were proclaiming there, the speeches in which they told the people that our policy would lead to total sovereign independence for Black homelands, were simply being cast back in their teeth and disputed. The people there were alleging that it was simply a further attempt to camouflage our policy of oppression, and that nothing would come of it. After all, why was it taking so long? Where was the time-table, the schedule? When was it going to take place? Over the years, my information officials waited for the day on which Transkei would become independent so that they could bring the fact to the attention of the world. When Transkei did in fact become independent, we consequently conveyed all the facts to the entire world, in full.

In addition we also demonstrated that the independence of Transkei could be better justified than the independence of 20 to 30 other existing States. We proved this by means of statistics and facts, and any normal, objective realistic person, any honest person, would admit in his heart of hearts that if certain other States in Africa and in other parts of the world deserved to be independent then Transkei certainly deserved to be independent. Anyone possessed of all his faculties would say so.

[Inaudible.]

I shall inform the hon. member for Sea Point why they are not doing so, since he so badly wants to know. They are not doing so because they are afraid that they would in that way be condoning an aspect of our policy, and that is why they are rejecting it.

Every country in the world?

Of course. They are afraid of one another. Is the hon. member for Sea Point so naïve about international politics? If he is, he still has a great deal to learn. I can give the hon. member the assurance that there are many States in Africa, States with whom we have contact, that would recognize Transkei tomorrow if a few prominent countries would only take the lead. However, everyone is afraid to be the first, for they are afraid of criticism, of possible isolation in their own circles, and of the accusation that they had been the first country to step over the line by implying that a certain aspect of South Africa’s policy might perhaps have positive value. That is the problem we have to contend with. The West is afraid and says that it first wants to see what the reaction of African States is going to be, and in their turn the African States say that they cannot adopt a standpoint because they would be isolated by the OAU; consequently they dare not do so. The problem in this regard is not that Transkei does not deserve to be recognized. The problem we are experiencing is that the international recognition of Transkei does not fit in with the present strategy of our enemies and of the Western World. If they were to recognize it, it would by implication mean a condonation of our policy of separate development, and that the world is not prepared to do. Those are definitely the facts.

Their citizenship is the important issue.

Their citizenship is an issue for the hon. member. She saw to it that it became an issue for the rest of the world. [Interjections.] That hon. member, and her people, saw to it that it became an issue. When States negotiate with one another and an agreement is concluded between Governments—on whatever aspect it may be, whether in respect of trade relations, customs and excise agreements, or on the citizenship of their citizens—these are internationally recognized negotiations and agreements. Why are the negotiations in regard to the citizenship of Transkeian citizens, negotiations which were signed by the Government of the Transkei and the South African Government, not accepted as such?

Because you deprived them of their citizenship.

No. It is because the hon. member for Houghton believes that we are depriving them of their citizenship. If their own Government agrees with that, who then has the say? They, or the Government over them?

Give us an example of where a … [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Yeoville ought to know better than that. He ought to know that South Africa’s position is so unique that this kind of thing does not occur anywhere else in the world. [Interjections.] It is true; our position is unique. Because our position is unique, it creates unique problems and we have to find unique solutions to them. The fact remains that we are dealing here with an international agreement between two States. That is the main reason why the independence of Transkei is not being recognized, i.e. because doing so does not fit in with present world politics.

I can quote page after page of what is being said in the Press, of what journalists and others are saying. However, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is not interested in that, for he would like to make political capital out of the situation by creating the impression that there are tensions in the Cabinet, or that the Department of Information wishes to keep a back door open for itself through which they want to attack other departments and the Government. I reject such an allegation with the contempt which it deserves.

You need not do that; I did not make such an allegation.

The hon. member did make the allegation, he made it very clearly. I also tried to insinuate it very clearly in everything that he said. I want to continue. The fact of the matter is that the entire 1976 report is a reflection of how the hostile Press assesses the situation here in South Africa. That is what it is, and it is our duty and our task as Department of Information to bring it to the attention of this House. We would be neglecting our duty if we failed to do so. This is not simply the view of the department or of the Secretary to the department; these are the facts as we find them before us.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout raised another argument, which I want to mention at once. He spoke in general about the guest programme. The hon. the Minister has already replied to that. The hon. member mentioned two examples of guests whom, as he put it, we had not convinced. In spite of the fact, he maintained, that they had spoken to Ministers and even to the Prime Minister, they could not be persuaded to accept our policy. Does the hon. member think that anyone, on a single visit to South Africa lasting three weeks—for that is more or less the extent of such a visit—can be completely persuaded and convinced of the correctness of a policy as complicated as ours? Does the hon. member think that this is possible for any person? The hon. member raised that complaint here, but surely it is impossible. There is a further argument, and I want to mention an example. I am not going to mention the name of this person, because I do not want to involve him, but a certain member of Parliament from another country who paid a visit to this country conducted interviews with various people, including the Opposition parties. It so happened that he also saw the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who was the UP representative. When I had my last interview with him, shortly before his departure, he said to me: “After everything I have seen and heard, I appreciate the complexity of the problem. I realize the problems you have and how complicated your problems are. After considering all the solutions offered by the different parties, I want to say here that I cannot see any other solution than the solution which the NP is suggesting at the moment. Although I cannot exactly understand all the ramifications thereof.” Then I said to him: “Well, can I expect you to make some utterances of this kind when you return to your own country?” His reply was: “Please, do not expect that from me. That would be political suicide.” That is the kind of problem we have to contend with, and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout knows it better than I do.

In regard to the Dona-Fologo case, to which he referred, I think he tried wilfully or out of ignorance to spread a false impression abroad through the allegation he made in the House this afternoon. I made a note of his words. He said that Mr. Dona-Fologo had a White wife and that Mr. Dona-Fologo knew very well—and I quote—“what would happen to him if he had not been a guest of the Government”. What is the insinuation?

It is not an insinuation.

The insinuation is that if Black and White visitors from abroad, who are married, come to South Africa and they are not guests of the Government, steps will be taken against them. Surely the hon. member knows that that is untrue. He ought to know that it is untrue, if he is informed. The Mixed Marriages Act is not applicable to visitors. Does the hon. member want to tell me that steps will be taken against a Negro with a White wife who visit South Africa if they are not guests of the Government? [Interjections.] Let us take the example of Breyten Breytenbach. We could mention many others as well. A specific impression is being created here, and it is going to be quoted overseas, as surely as I am standing here, Sir, because the hon. member’s speeches are regularly read for consumption against us.

Does the hon. the Minister want to tell me that the Immorality Act is not applicable to everyone, except in the case of guests who are excluded by the Government?

What is involved here, is not the Immorality Act; it is the Mixed Marriages Act. [Interjections.] Sir, the hon. member used the example of Mr. Dona-Fologo and his wife. Surely it is not immorality if a man gets into bed with his own wife, or is it? The example which the hon. member used was that of a Black Minister who had a White wife. He said nothing about immorality. He was talking about the Mixed Marriages Act.

No. I referred to the Immorality Act.

If the hon. member meant the Immorality Act, he chose a rotten example.

I shall settle the matter with you some time in the future …

No, the hon. member will settle nothing. He chose a rotten example. That is what he did.

Sir, I want to refer to another argument of the hon. member. He accused the Department of Information of being incapable of convincing the ambassadors and representatives of other countries here in South Africa of the advantages and the value of our policy. He said that we could not even succeed in doing that, and then asked us how we could expect our information officers to succeed in doing so overseas. But, Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member not aware that officials from overseas missions here are subject to the policy of their respective Governments. Even if each one of them were to be persuaded tomorrow that our policy was correct, it would not help us in the least. Not at all. Their Governments abroad decide what policy shall be maintained towards South Africa. Let me mention an example. A very appropriate and apposite example. The hon. member knows as well as I do that the border posts between Transkei and Lesotho were never closed. Surely we must accept that the diplomats from the various countries here in South Africa informed their Governments that it was nonsense to allege that the three border posts had ever been closed. However, it did not suit the outside world to accept the reports of their own diplomats on this matter. The standpoint which they, together with Lesotho, adopted at the UNO was that the border posts had in fact been closed. Come hell or high water, that was the policy that had been decided on, and Lesotho even asked for I do not know how many millions of rands in aid when the UNO mission was sent to see whether the border posts had in fact been closed. Now we can see what weight is attached to the reports of political officials in the outside world, if they do not suit the people overseas. Now hon. members are asking me to convince them of our policy! I shall not mention any names, but there are people who were here years ago and there are also people who are still here, who definitely have a better understanding of our policy than ever before and who will certainly react positively to the complications of our position. But that serves no purpose with their Governments.

I want to mention another example. The hon. member referred here to Mr. Justice Sparrow—this is the second example which he mentioned—and what he allegedly said to a newspaper overseas. I do not blame him; he based his argument on the newspaper report alone. I want to quote from a letter which I received from Mr. Justice Sparrow on 10 January 1977 in regard to this matter. He had this to say—

He knows nothing at all about this matter. It had been fabricated. He stated—

In other words, the two examples which the hon. member used in his attack on our guest programme, have been proved false with a single attempt, without even doing any research in books—I happened to have the information with me.

Provisionally I want to leave the hon. member for Bezuidenhout at that and first exchange a few words with the hon. member for Newton Park. I want to tell that hon. member that, as always, I understand his standpoint. Particularly under the present circumstances I want to tell him straight away—I said this some time ago as well in this House—that I think his party is an example to Opposition parties in South Africa, not because they butter up to the Government, but because they support what is positive and what is factual, and oppose what in their opinion is wrong, and they are entitled to do so. That is what I expect from an Opposition party. That is how democracy ought to work in practice. At present we are saddled with the position that the PRP opposes everything the Government undertakes, simply because it is the Government that is doing so, and also because they want to achieve what they would like to achieve, viz. to eventually become known as the Official Opposition. The highest ideal of the hon. member for Sea Point is to become the official leader of the Opposition. It is therefore very clear why they oppose everything. It is probably likely that they will soon be receiving a little more support towards achieving that goal. That is how I see the position. The UP, on the other hand, is in a position that they oppose us in most cases and only in a few cases do they perhaps form a slightly objective opinion. Let me say at once that I understand the standpoint of the hon. member for Newton Park and his party. If they agree, they agree, and if they differ, they differ.

We are not afraid.

It is not easy. Among other things the hon. member advocated an information campaign on communism among the non-Whites in South Africa. Let me say at once that we are already working on this. We are busy doing so; we have already prepared the pamphlets, etc. But the moment the Government and the Department of Information undertake a task like this, it finds itself at a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that the campaign is exploited by certain people and interpreted as though it were an attempt by the Government to make people believe that, because they are “so rotten”, other people are even worse. Therefore we are immediately at a disadvantage. However, we shall proceed with out work in spite of that, because we believe that it is in the interests of South Africa that it should be done.

Some time ago I made an appeal to our Press, and in the interests of all our people—Whites, Black, Brown and Yellow—I now want to make that appeal to them again: Why cannot our Press, particularly those newspapers who claim to have a wide readership in the Black areas of our country—there are such newspapers—discuss communism as it operates in practice, coldly, soberly, objectively and without emotion? I am not speaking about the ideal theory of communism, but about communism as we encounter it in countries where it is being applied at the moment. Why does our Press not regard it as its task to inform, inter alia the Black people, and South Africa in general, of the true facts of communism? I have invited them to do so, and I am doing so again today. If there was ever a contribution which the Press could make to promote sound human relations in South Africa, as everyone is at present manifesting the willingness to do, such a contribution is surely an attempt to ensure that the Black people, the Brown people and the Whites are kept fully informed of the true face of communism. I think that it would be effective. It would be more effective if the Press did so by means of articles, and if the Department of Information were to do so in articles. As I have said, we are immediately at a disadvantage, because people think that we are making propaganda. However, if the Press were to write about this purely objectively in the from of a series of informative articles, or in whatever form they choose to do, people will attach value to it. I feel that it is incumbent on the newspapers that have access to the Black people of our country—pre-eminently the English-language newspapers—to undertake that task in the interests of South Africa. I think that it is necessary for us to view this matter in a very serious light, in the interests of South Africa.

I should like to express a few thoughts on the speech made by the hon. member for Von Brandis. In the first place he asked us to invite guests to South Africa on a broader basis. He suggested—and I reacted to it immediately by way of an interjection—that guests were being invited to South Africa primarily as a result of the positive statements they had made about our country before they were invited.

I congratulated you because you had already begun to invite people on a broader basis.

We did not only begin to do so recently. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that, during the past five to six years, it has never been a condition that a guest had to make positive statements about us before we invited him.

I said that there had been an improvement in this regard.

Yes, there was an improvement. The guest programme has now been delegated to the Deputy Minister. My attitude in this regard is that it is useless to invite only people who are well-disposed towards us, or who echo what we say, for their opinions are regarded with suspicion in their own countries. It is not advantageous to invite such people to South Africa. It is equally useless to invite an outspoken archenemy of South Africa, a person who has compromised himself in public towards South Africa in the worst possible way, to visit this country. Such a person is prejudiced, has already committed himself, and therefore cannot change. The group we gladly invite consists, in the nature of things, of those who are critical yet whom we believe, although they have made statements against us, have a sufficiently open mind to come and see for themselves and to decide what the position in this country is, and afterwards form their own opinion.

I agree with that.

Owing to the fact that we cannot invite vast numbers of people to this country because of the financial implications, we must concentrate on the opinion-formers and decision-makers of the respective countries. Hence the fact that we are limited to people who are opinion-formers and decision-takers, people who are influential in the business world, in the academic world, in the world of commerce, and similar circles.

The second matter which the hon. member for Von Brandis raised related to a film on our multi-national society and our policy of plural democracies. As I have already said, this film was specifically made to be used abroad in the form of a general introduction for the viewers in order to furnish them with the general background, and this is followed by a short talk by our information officer who then replies to any questions which may arise. Then they can see the matter in its perspective, against the sight and sound background of the film they have already seen.

The hon. member correctly remarked that in this regard we should steer clear of racism. I want to concede at once that we should steer clear of racism. We do in fact do so in all our publications, and we also did so here. What we had to do here—we could not do otherwise—was first to recreate the general background against which the film is projected, the background that in South Africa one finds all the faces of the world present: Negroid, Asiatic, Caucasoid and all the others. These are the background flashes, and immediately afterwards—if the hon. member recalls—the film proceeds to focus on the various African peoples, one by one: The Tswana in their specific national costume, the Zulu in theirs, the Xhosa, etc. In other words, it was merely a background flash, I almost want to call it, of the races in South Africa, but it does not actually deal with races; it deals with peoples. That is why we depicted all the peoples one by one in background flashes. That was the idea behind it.

It was a poor film.

If that hon. member can make better films, I shall readily appoint him in my department. The hon. member for Von Brandis asked us to steer clear of racism and colour. That is one of the reasons why I sometimes make myself unpopular by asking that the name of South Africa be changed. Why do I ask for that? Because the moment I want to identify myself abroad I have to say that South Africa has a population consisting of various peoples. I then enumerate them—the Xhosa, the Zulu, the Swazi all the way down the line. Then I am forced to say “and White South Africans and Coloureds”. Then I am forced to identify myself by introducing the concept of colour. This causes people abroad to ask: “Why do you have an obsession with colour? Leave colour out of it.” As a White South African I cannot identify myself in any other way but to speak of “White South African”. I have no other name, and therefore I should like to have another name for this purpose, and I should very much like to give our Coloureds a different name to the one they have at present, also with the purpose of leaving colour out of it. It proves one thing, namely that South Africa is inhabited by a number of different peoples. Forget about their colour; that has nothing to do with it. They are peoples with different backgrounds.

They are all South Africans.

Of course! They are all South Africans. I agree with that. But I want to identify the different peoples in South Africa.

Why?

Because there is a diversity.

You talk about the identity of the White man.

No. I talk about the identity of every nation. These peoples do not differ only as races …

You should be ashamed of your policy.

I am not ashamed of my policy. On the contrary. I am ashamed of that hon. member. I am far more ashamed of her than I am of my policy.

Are you ashamed of me?

Of the hon. member, yes.

May I ask the hon. the Minister. If he is indeed ashamed of me, why does his department use a photograph of me sitting with Andy Hatcher as propaganda? They used photographs throughout the United States last year headed: “Well-known antiapartheid fighter, Mrs. Helen Suzman, dining with Mr. Andy Hatcher,” your propagandist on whom you spent $350 000 last year.

Mr. Chairman, I knew the hon. member would be sensitive about this matter. Therefore I am grateful that she is reacting in this way. It is precisely what I expected. I was waiting for it. No one else spoke about it, and I have been waiting for it all afternoon.

You said you were ashamed of her.

What happened—and there are going to be other opportunities to discuss this matter again—was that the hon. member was not aware of who Mr. Andy Hatcher was before she associated with him. She received an invitation to address 100 Black businessmen in Haarlem, New York. In her customary manner she stood up and said all kinds of things about her party’s policy on South Africa. Ultimately she once again and as usual proclaimed the concept of majority rule in South Africa. I have the quotations if the hon. member wants them. I have them here verbatim, if she wants them. She did at least concede that she hoped that there would be Whites in the Government as well, but she admitted that the majority would be Blacks.

I said I hoped there would certainly be Whites as well.

You said you hoped there would be a few Whites, but you also said there would be Black majority rule. You said you hoped there would be Whites also.

*After the hon. member has said all those things, Mr. Andy Hatcher, a Black man from America, was, to her astonishment, the second speaker.

He was the first speaker.

Yes, very well. But he then reacted and analysed a lot of her arguments. That is the problem the hon. member has, that she is repudiated in America in a certain sense by people who work for South Africa. Now she is objecting to the fact …

He must not tell lies.

The hon. member must prove that.

I have a tape recording of what was said.

I have a tape recording as well.

Let us play it to an independent judge. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, let us deal with this position. We have appointed a company, a firm in America. This is not news and it is not strange either. It is a practice which is followed by many countries in the world. As a matter of fact, I think it would be more newsworthy if one did not have a company.

He is discredited.

Discredited? The hon. member for Houghton is more discredited than this company. I can guarantee that. The fact remains that in America we have—as many countries do—appointed a company with the object of improving relations and of improving the image of South Africa. The company is used for publicity purposes, to make contact with various other companies and to speak on behalf of South Africa. They are prepared to do so. This specific company also represents Japan, Taiwan and one or two other countries. After all, we are not in such bad company, if the hon. member does not know it.

Do you know what he said about school books? [Interjections.]

I cannot go into detail now. Why did the hon. member for Houghton not take the opportunity of making a speech? If she had done that, I would have been able to reply to her.

Order! The hon. member for Houghton must please calm down.

Mr. Chairman, the facts are quite clear. The hon. member for Houghton did not expect to come across anybody at that meeting who knows more about South Africa than the other ill-informed Blacks.

He told lies.

She did not expect that to happen. So when this man stated a different point of view, she could not tolerate it. That is why she is reacting as she reacts at the moment. That is the whole reason.

[Inaudible.]

The fact that she had lunch with him afterwards …

Before—and it was dinner.

Or at a later stage. I do not know when …

Dinner before!

All right, dinner before. The fact that she had dinner with him before, and that this photograph was published in America does not worry me at all. [Interjections.]

Order!

As a matter of fact, I am convinced that in this case, as in all other cases, South Africa is being very well served by this company. I am convinced that South Africa is gaining by it and that every cent spent on that company is worthwhile. We will carry on with this, irrespective of the objections of the hon. member for Houghton.

Andy Hatcher is a joke in his country.

I am not going to go into detail about Mr. Andy Hatcher. The fact remains that Andy Hatcher was one of the top officials, during the administrations of President Johnson and President Kennedy.

He was.

He is a man of standing in America. Let us accept that. However, the hon. member for Houghton is jealous because we could get a man of the calibre of Mr. Hatcher to work for South Africa. That is why she attacks us. [Interjections.]

Not so. Because he told lies.

Order! The hon. member for Houghton must please contain herself now. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, since I am dealing with this specific political party now, I think it is time I addressed myself to the hon. member for Parktown. As usual this afternoon he again, of all the hon. members who participated in the debate, made the biggest fool of himself. This is not something one expects from him. He made an allegation to which I have already given a partial reply. He alleged that our policy was unsellable. However, I quoted to him from the 1975 report how sellable our policy was in the year when matters had not been bedevilled by circumstances beyond our control, in the year when our policy met with general acceptance.

However, the hon. member made further allegations as well. He suggested that the cost of our information campaign in America was inordinately high, that it seemed as though money was flowing freely there and as though we were carrying on with reckless abandon. But there is one thing the hon. member should understand very well. Our officials in the USA are paid according to a fixed scale, in exactly the same way as all public servants abroad. They receive their entertainment allowances, and so on, just as all other officials do. There is no favouring of information officials over anyone else. That aspect is beyond reproach.

The hon. member went on to allege that it seemed as though we had money to bum. The hon. member must realize, however, that in this year’s estimates—I do not have the percentages available now—we had to cut our applications to the bone owing to both the international situation as well as the financial position of South Africa. Subsequently we were again approached by the Treasury with the request—a request with which we complied—to curtail our spending by a further 4%. This was after we had already deducted everything that we possibly could. What it amounts to is that at present our estimates have in fact not only been cut to the bone, they have been cut to the quick—if I may express it in that way. This has been done to cope with the financial position in South Africa.

In the meanwhile, circumstances around us have changed so drastically that our task has increased threefold as a result. As the hon. member will know, our funds are limited. Therefore, instead of attacking the Department of Information and insinuating that it is wasting money overseas, the hon. member should rather pay tribute to the people who, with the meagre means at their disposal, are doing such wonderful work on behalf of South Africa abroad. We should not have any illusions. America is important to us. America is one of our foremost target areas.

What about Peking?

The hon. member has Peking on the brain. I shall quote something to him about Peking in a moment.

I repeat that the USA remains a priority target for us. That is why we must spend money in America, and we shall continue to do so, because it is important to us. I also want to mention a few other facts. The hon. member took strong exception to the fact that the Secretary for Information reacted sharply in his report … [Interjections.] There is a group of hon. members opposite that would do well to make less noise. I cannot hear myself.

Order!

The hon. member reacted very sharply to the racism of newspapers, the so-called journalistic racism. He said we were making enemies of the newspapers. But what are the facts? We mentioned a few major liberal newspapers in certain countries by name as the newspapers which distort reports on South Africa and publish half truths about us. I shall mention examples of this. The fact that we mentioned newspapers by name indicated that we had facts on which to work. If that had not been the case, we would only have made general and vague accusations. The fact that we mention reporters by name, means that we have isolated and singled them out. We know precisely who they are. I want to mention an example. The hon. member mentioned the name of Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post as a journalist who ostensibly has such an outstanding reputation, who had won prizes, etc. Even if he won 30 prizes, he still published a number of untruths about South Africa in his articles. Should we remain silent? Should we crawl, plead and say: “He may be lying about us now, but we may not take him to task, because he might become angry at us?” In one of his articles he stated that it was an offence under the Terrorism Act—with all the penalties that go with it—to agitate against investment in South Africa.

Could be.

“Could be!” Can you believe it. There you have another hypocrite; another Christian who throws stones. [Interjections.] This is the type of allegation I am talking about. If such allegations are now being made, should we placate a person, crawl before him, soft-soap and plead with him, or should we expose the untruths? He unburdened himself of so many untruths in his series of articles that we published a full-page advertisement in his own newspaper and paid for it, because they refused to publish any corrections, an advertisement in which we exposed all the untruths. We are still waiting for a reaction on his part. The same people who read his false articles were at least able to read about the true facts in the form of a reply. This is the type of thing that the department is doing. We are not living in a world of angels. We are moving through a world in which attacks are made on one and in which the best form of defence is attack. That is the policy of the department, and we shall implement it, regardless of the standpoint of the hon. member for Parktown.

Does the department make friends in this way?

I make friends with those who are responsible. By crawling I am not going to make friends with anyone, but simply make them despise me. [Interjections.] The hon. member is now implying that this is a terrible thing. Does the hon. member realize that the names of the newspapers mentioned in America were only two or three out of a total of 1 750 daily newspapers? The hon. member should not make gestures with his hand. Out of this total I singled out only three newspapers. How did I make enemies of the others as well, or did I make friends of the others in that they saw that the newspapers that acted incorrectly were mentioned by name while the others were not singled out?

I could continue in this vein. Actually, the hon. member put his foot in it, literally and figuratively, with his last speech in regard to publications. Last year already the hon. member began to suggest, and every so often during the year brought the Press into it, that the department was misusing money in regard to publications. He suggested that favouritism was being shown, that there were jobs for pals, and that this kind thing was taking place. The hon. member attacked the department for spending too much money on certain companies and not enough on others. He made this allegation although he is in possession of the reply to a question which he put to me and in which he wanted to know what amount the department spent on printing during 1975 and 1976, respectively. In other words, the hon. member wanted to know the total amount that had been spent. Secondly, he wanted to know the total cost of printing that was caused to be done on tender. Therefore, if one deducted the one amount from the other, one could see in which cases there had been favouritism and jobs for pals, for one could see what amount had not been spent on tender. Thirdly, the hon. member asked to what firms printing contracts had been allocated and what the total amount was that had been paid to each firm during the respective years. I furnished the hon. member with the totals. The grand total spent on tenders was R2 582 903 during 1975 and R2 709 952 during 1976. These were the total amounts spent on printing. Precisely the same amounts were laid out on tender. In other words, every cent laid out by the department for this purpose was laid out on tender.

I said nothing else.

The hon. member says that he said nothing else. However, what is being suggested?

Will you deny that more than R2 000 000 of that R2 500 000 went to Perskor? That is the statement I want to make.

Of course. The hon. member is highly intelligent. He is a Marquard, and I give him credit for that. I now want to discuss the matter which he raised. Should the department now, in these times when money is scarce, when every penny has to be counted, accept a higher tender than the lowest one and, just to please that hon. member, spread a little more money among other companies? That is the request he is making to me. Every cent was eventually spent. Last year, and this year as well—I want to make this clear—the hon. member repeatedly turned to the Press and made all kinds of irresponsible statements in respect of the publications programme of the department. Some of those statements were not only irresponsible, but the hon. member was also guilty of malicious mischief-making and suggestions to the effect that there was possible corruption and that problems existed behind the scenes.

[Inaudible.]

Of course. With what other object was it done? If one bears in mind that the hon. member used to be the editor of The Star, one cannot help thinking that he had a greater respect for facts in those days than he has today. I want to tell him specifically that he is simply being reckless today. It seems to me that is the price he has to pay for political frustration. I know of many journalists who made rotten politicians. What precisely did the hon. member say? As an example I want to take one aspect to which he did not refer today, but deliberately avoided, namely his story that we could have had a certain book printed more cheaply by his friends. I want to deal with that story today. He attacked me on this during the recess, but today, when he had a chance to speak about it, he did not say a word. I think it is necessary that I raise this matter today. In 1976 the hon. member intimated to The Cape Times that the department was recklessly wasting money—those were his words—with the purchase of the book Stepping into the Future, a book dealing with the progress that is being made in non-White education. He implied that the company from whom the book had been purchased made an enormous profit out of it and that he, René de Villiers, had a publishing friend who could have printed the book 100% cheaper.

The hon. member must not shake his head now. He made that allegation to The Cape Times. The hon. member did not take the trouble to verify his facts in advance, and he did not even take the trouble to write a single letter to or even address a single telephonic enquiry to the department concerning this entire matter. After all, he has the “gift” for sensing facts, and on that he bases his argument. These days the tactics of the hon. member are first to make an accusation through the Press and then to sit back and see how the department reacts. In 1976 he suggested in the Press that a handful of printers and publishers were being favoured by contractual allocations for the printing and publishing of books and publications. He said that one of the publishers, Mr. Chris van Rensburg, had already received R600 000 from the department in 1976. That is how the newspaper report read. What were the facts of the matter? The Secretary for Information wrote a letter to the hon. member and asked him who his publishing friend was who could print books so cheaply, because the department would like to make his acquaintance. For propriety’s sake I shall not mention the name of the company.

What is the name of the company?

The House should take cognizance of this. It is not good enough that only I should know about it. The hon. member made the attack in public. The company in question, together with other companies, were invited to submit a tender for the printing and publishing of a book on health services, a book which would in all respects be the same as Stepping into the Future. What Stepping into the Future did for education, this book would do for health services. The format, the number of pages, the colour plates and the number of copies printed would be precisely the same as that of the previous book. The quotation from his friend’s company, who could print the book 100% cheaper according to that hon. member, was 60% higher than the lowest tender we received. [Interjections.] If I had followed the hon. member’s advice, I could indeed have been accused of recklessly wasting capital. [Interjections.] The hon. member should not squirm around so uncomfortably now. He must take his medicine. He made the attack. As far as the so-called 100% profit on Stepping into the Future is concerned, I can only mention that the company whose tender was accepted submitted an audited statement to us this year proving that the company had suffered a loss of R30 000 on that specific project. The company asked us to compensate it for this loss, but we refused. An audited statement therefore proved that there was a loss of R30 000, but the hon. member said that it could have been done 100% cheaper. [Interjections.] Even the hon. member’s arithmetic lets him down. The hon. member told the Sunday Times that the department had during that year paid Van Rensburg R600 000.

That is what the Sunday Times itself said; I did not say it. [Interjections.]

I have the statistics, and the facts at my disposal, indicating that an amount of R255 000 was paid out to the company in the year 1974, R249 000 in the year 1975-’76 and R161 000 in the year 1976-’77.

That is not bad at all.

Yes, it is not bad, but they submit the lowest tender every time …

Perhaps it is for the sake of publicity.

The hon. member need not feel injured about this. He made an attack and he is now receiving a reply to it. When the hon. member repeated his accusation this year that only certain publishers and certain printers were being favoured, two of his publishing friends phoned the department and said what amounted to the following: “Please, for heaven’s sake, he did not get that story from us; please do not associate us with his statements to the Press …” [Interjections.]

Who said that?

Two companies that are supposed to be friends of the hon. member.

Could you furnish their names?

I shall give the hon. member their names after the debate. [Interjections.] For the edification of the hon. member I want to say that it is not possible for the department to favour specific printers and publishers in respect of contracts and purchases. The prescribed procedure eliminates that possibility. Contracts are considered by the Tender Board and the Government Printer acts as agent for the Department of Information. The department itself does not award any contracts, and when contracts arise, they are published in the Gazette. All publishers and printers may tender for a contract; the tenders are then sent to the Tender Board for consideration and approval. That is the procedure which is adopted, and that is as it ought to be.

As regards the purchase of books, only one rule is adopted. A company or a publisher that is going to publish a manuscript relating to a subject in which the department may perhaps be interested may submit this manuscript to the department prior to publication to establish whether we would perhaps be interested in buying copies of the book to be published. The reason for that is simply to save money. If the department is interested and indicates its requirements in advance, we usually receive the books 30% to 40% cheaper, and in that way we save the taxpayer money. If the company publishes the manuscript first and then asks us whether we wish to purchase copies, the number of copies printed may be insufficient for our purposes and the price perhaps too high. Very often the manuscripts contain errors that first have to be corrected. Therefore the manuscripts first have to be approved by us. In fact, one of the hon. member’s contacts recently submitted a manuscript to us for consideration. In this manuscript, which was to have been published, “fingerhooks” was described as a typical Afrikaner sport. There was only one photograph in the entire book on sport, i.e. a photograph of a “fingerhooks” contest in progress. This is the kind of manuscript which is submitted to me by his friends. [Interjections.] The time has come for that hon. member to “pull finger” and do his work. [Interjections.] The hon. member is going to get even more of a drubbing.

After a manuscript has been submitted to us, we adopt the golden rule of not submitting the manuscript to other companies, because we cannot put a person’s initiative and his proposals up for auction. It would be unethical and dishonest. Surely I cannot submit such a person’s work to other people and then ask them how they would set about doing the same work. While other publishers were sleeping, this company, C. van Rensburg, to which that hon. member is taking such exception now, received the consent of Chief Minister Matanzima for the Transkei book—which was also sent to that hon. member and which is a prestige copy—as well as that of the leader of Bophuthatswana, Lucas Mangope. He went to those leaders. After all, he knows the policy of the NP, and he knows what is happening. He asked those leaders whether they would co-operate with him if he published such books. In that way he obtained from those leaders the sole rights in respect of those books.

Very strange.

Yes, Sir, I can hear how painful this is to him. It pains me too. I now want to add that although Bophuthatswana is going to become independent in eight months time, only one publisher has informed us that it wishes to publish a book on Bophuthatswana, regardless of whether we are going to buy copies of that book. Obviously we shall avail ourselves of that offer. It would be much cheaper than to produce something of that nature ourselves. I now want to conclude this argument with that hon. member. I think he has had enough now. The hon. member should not confuse purchases and printing contracts. In future he should please verify his facts before running to the Press, particularly with unfounded accusations. After that he can kick up as much of a row as he wishes.

In conclusion I want to give the hon. member a piece of good advice, with reference to his so-called “100% cheaper” story of 1976. I want to quote this Chinese saying to him. Confucius say: “Please make sure that brain is engaged before putting foot into mouth.”! [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not have the time to reply to the hon. the Minister’s speech, although I could do so. I just want to refer to two of the statements he made. He came as close as the rules of this House allowed to calling me a liar and that is why I want to refute his statements. I want to make a quotation from a letter written by the publisher he named. I just want to quote the following two sentences—

That was written on 16 November. There is a second statement I want to quote—

There you are, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Mr. Chairman, I forgot to reply to the speech made by the hon. member for Sea Point. At the same time, I should also like to react briefly to what the hon. member for Parktown has just said. I want to refer to the same letter as the one he quoted from. I do not want to dwell on this matter for any length of time but I think it is high time I and the friend who writes those letters to the hon. member got together. If that man says he stands by his statement, then why was his tender 60% higher than the others?

I shall show you this letter.

Yes, we could exchange letters. The facts remain unchanged, however.

I just want to refer briefly to the recommendation made by the hon. member for Sea Point. I think there is a difference of opinion as to exactly what this means in practice. First of all, I want to quote from the letter which he too received—

These are the words of the Minister—

So my official arrives overseas with a statement like this one in his hand and says, “Compulsory education for Bantu in South Africa has been approved in principle.”

That is not what he said.

He said; “Compulsory education for Black primary school children has already been introduced.”

But it has not already been introduced.

Of course, it will be introduced gradually, naturally.

“Will be!”

Yes, of course. I think the hon. member is making a terrible fuss about a very minor matter. If by “compulsory education” he means that all Black children receive compulsory education at all times in all standards, then I concede that this statement is incorrect. But if the Minister says that compulsory education has been approved in principle—“The principle of compulsory education has been agreed to”—and that it will be applicable in future, then I can quite understand an official who is so far away and who gets hold of something like this, alleging, when an attack is made on him, that compulsory education has been accepted in South Africa. I understand it, and I think the hon. member is making a mountain out of a molehill in this regard.

The headline referred to in the letter is “Compulsory schooling for Africans”. That is in fact not the headline…

How long is the headline? I do not have the headline in front of me to see whether it is a sub-headline or whether it is a full one. It depends on how it is presented. I do not have the publication in front of me. The fact is, I can see that the official proceeded from the bona fide assumption that as the Minister had stated that something like this had been approved in principle, he had the right to use that statement to defend South Africa overseas. [Interjections.] If the hon. member chooses to resent me for this, I may say that it could possibly have been an error of judgment on the part of the official to spell out in detail its precise meaning. I cannot blame him for the fact that he used that argument, however—not in the light of the statement he had in his hand.

Vote agreed to.

Vote No. 12 and S.W.A. Vote No. 6.—“Interior”, Vote No. 13 and S.W.A. Vote No. 7.—“Public Service Commission”, and Vote No. 14.—“Government Printing Works”:

Mr. Chairman, as has just been experienced, we have to raise matters in these debates in very limited time, whereas the Minister’s time to reply is always unlimited. I therefore propose this afternoon to pose certain questions to the hon. the Minister, which I hope he will deal with fully in reply, because I can only pose the questions; I cannot really argue the case to any extend. He will not be surprised to hear that the first question I am going to raise relates to the Population Registration Act. My attitude and my party’s attitude to this Act and its administration, application and implications for a vast number of the people of South Africa, is already clear. This afternoon, as an indication of the hardship, the heartbreak and the resentment that it causes, I will now join in the letter-reading that has been going on between the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Parktown. I am going to read one letter to the hon. the Minister. It is a letter addressed to me personally and signed by the Deputy Minister of the Interior, Mr. L. le Grange. It is dated 22 April 1977 and under the heading “Population Register, Miss X” it reads as follows—

I will pass the letter on to the hon. the Minister. I raise this letter to try and indicate to the hon. the Minister what is happening. What has happened here is that four sisters have been able, within the law, and within the statutory definition of what is a Coloured person as it was up until 1969, to have themselves classified as White persons. They have the appearance of and are accepted as White persons. Then, Sir, came the amendment to the Act of 1969. The youngsters, who were then of an age where they could not be classified, afterwards came forward to be classified, but the guillotine had fallen. The guillotine has fallen and the rest of the family must now be Coloured. I do not have to enlarge upon the implications of this. Where does this family live if they wish to live together? They are half White, half Coloured. I wish to relate this to another case which is being handled by the hon. the Minister’s department. If one of these sisters, who is not classified as White because of the arbitrary amendment of the definition, marries a White man in Swaziland, England or Australia and she returns to South Africa with that husband, she is not married to him, according to the laws of South Africa. If she wishes to live with one of her White sisters, and she goes to live under the roof of that sister with her White husband, she will be guilty of committing an offence under the Immorality Act. I indicate these as problems. The hon. the Minister was so forceful earlier about the recognition of marriage, but that was not a marriage of a South African citizen and is recognized by this Government. Does this hon. Minister realize and does he appreciate the resentment caused by these statutory definitions? When one has a situation like this where the children of the same parents are half White and half Coloured, one asks oneself: What is a Coloured person? Does it depend upon the year in which they were defined, because that is what is happening in this case? The only way in which this can be determined is by applying an arbitrary, and from time to time varied, definition as to who is a Coloured person and who is not. One only has to think of the problems of housing and social contacts in families of this sort. Is this inhumanity going to continue? I have raised this matter before. The hon. the Minister can see that the letters go back to 1975, but I can tell him that they go back further and I can bring him dozens of cases where this has happened and where it continues to happen. The hon. the Minister or his colleagues will find, when they have to deal with housing problems, that they will have to sort this out.

What is more, let me tell them that the children born of these people never have their births registered. They go along nameless and identityless until some time or other at a school somebody asks them for a birth certificate or an identity document. That is what is happening. I wish to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will tell this Committee how such a decision as this one can be reconciled with our professed Christian ethics as a basis of Government in this country.

I now want to turn to the report of the Department of the Interior. On page 8 of this report we find the most revealing of statistics that I have ever seen. These statistics deal with the matter of appeals. The hon. the Minister will find the following statistics—

Appeals heard by the Appellate Division:

Rejected: Nil in 1975, Nil in 1976.

Upheld: Nil in 1975, Nil in 1976.

In other words, there were no appeals. This should surely be removed from these reports, because if one looks at the Population Registration Act, one finds that there is no such thing as an appeal, although the verbiage is there. A person cannot appeal because of the definitions which are applied as the hon. the Deputy Minister applies them. I know that a person does not have a snowball’s chance of going to any court to have his decision reversed, because of the wording of the Act as it now stands.

I want to turn, if I may, to the Public Service Commission and its functions and to the report which was tabled on Friday. In that connection I immediately want to ask a question. The House passed an amendment to the Public Service Act last year and in terms of that amendment the Commission falls under the Prime Minister instead of the Minister of the Interior. I take it that the fact that we are debating it under the Vote of the Minister of the Interior is a tribute to his standing in the Prime Minister stakes. It is the Prime Minister who is responsible for the Public Service Commission. No doubt the hon. the Minister will explain how it is that he has assumed the Prime Minister’s responsibility.

He can delegate in terms of the Act. You should know that.

I was just wondering. It is of interest to know why this hon. Minister is dealing with it.

He is usurping the hon. the Prime Minister’s position.

The second important aspect of the amending legislation of 1976, an aspect which is also referred to in this report, is the fact that recommendations which are rejected by the State President need not be reported in the annual report. That brings me to the subject I wish to discuss with the hon. the Minister this afternoon. The ramifications of State departments, boards, commissions and undertakings are becoming a cause for real concern in South Africa. In 1971 there was submitted to the Cabinet a very full report concerning proposals to economize and to improve efficiency. That report was, in essence, a proposal to reduce the number of State departments from 44 to 30 over a five year period and to effect a saving which was then estimated at R80 million to R100 million.

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

Mr. Chairman, I merely rise to give the hon. member for Green Point an opportunity to complete his speech.

I am grateful to that hon. member. Sir, the significant thing is that to date that report has never been made public. It would seem that the empire-builders would have nothing to do with the suggestions which came from the Public Service Commission.

Who was the Minister concerned in 1971?

Yes, the Minister concerned was Mr. Theo Gerdener. He was the one who laid it before the Cabinet, and what was his report? It was that the Cabinet would have nothing to do with it. They turned it down. That is common knowledge. It is a fact that the Cabinet would have nothing to do with the proposal to reduce the number of State departments. The hon. the Minister cannot deny that that is so. I suppose the fear was that, had those proposals been adopted, some Cabinet posts would have become a little redundant. Some members of the Cabinet would have had to look around for something else to do.

That was not the end of it. In 1972 the Commission, in its report to the House, stated that recommendations were made concerning the amalgamation of State departments. Nothing eventuated. In 1973 there were proposals relating to the re-grouping of functions of four State departments. This affected the Department of Community Development, the Department of Public Works and others. The Commission reported that, if those proposals were to be accepted, it would bring about greater efficiency and a considerable saving in manpower and accommodation. However, they were also rejected.

Let me remind hon. members that when the Government took over in 1948 there were 28 State departments. There are now 44. Let me say that we have more departments than any other Western nation has. Western Germany with a population of 50 million has 22 departments; Japan with a population of 100 million has 13 State departments, Britain with 55 million people has 24 State departments.

How many Opposition parties do they have?

Canada has 26 departments while Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands have about 12 State departments each. We must also add to the 44 State departments the 22 agricultural boards that fall under the Minister of Agriculture. We must also add Iscor, Escom, Armscor, Sasol, the proliferation of provincial institutions and a host of permanent commissions and boards that seem to be instituted in every Bill that goes through the House. At a time when expensive computers are being taken into service, we still have to have 30%, which is a conservative estimate, of the economically active Whites absorbed into the public sector.

It is true that the Public Service Commission in its report refers to the revision of the Public Service. But while the Commission reports that a certain post has been abolished, another department is created by one of the ministries and so the number of people employed by the Public Service continues to increase. There seems to be a continuous Cabinet resistance to any real economy drive as far as the Public Service is concerned. The growth of the Public Service has outstripped the growth of the population. Let me give the figures I have been able to find. In the period 1946 to 1966, viz. two decades, the number of employees in the public sector increased by 128%. In the same period the White population increased by 47%.

But that is only the White population. That is no argument.

Yes, the White population. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that I am talking about what is involved at the present moment, namely the White people working in the proliferation of departments which are necessary because of the ideological phobia of separate development of the Government.

It serves the whole community. That is no argument.

This proliferation is stimulated by separate development. There are more permanent commissions, boards and sub-departments being created for this reason. We cannot afford in this country the stupidity and the waste of manpower and money which this involves.

Sir, in the short time at my disposal, I want to put some questions to the hon. the Minister. Is a serious effort being made to reduce the number of State departments? This question has been hanging fire for six years. What immediate steps are being taken to consolidate departments? Heaven knows, there is a good deal of consolidation that can take place in departments.

I want to say that we are fortunate at the present time in having appointed to the Public Service Commission three new members of outstanding experience. I want to ask the hon. the Minister, acting under delegated powers, please to see to it that the Commission is given some opportunity to get on with this job and that in due course they will be able to report what practical steps have been taken to readjust the position in regard to the public sector to reduce its demand on manpower so that our economy and the country as a whole can benefit by the use of a reasonable percentage of the people of this country.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Green Point dealt with race classification but I want to ask him whether the Government is responsible for all transgressions of the laws relating to race classification. Surely this is not true. Nor is it true that it is only the Opposition parties that are full of compassion for the people who find themselves in that unfortunate situation. After all, we deal with the same matters. Matters of the same nature occur in my constituency where, for example, a White man lives with a Coloured woman and their children attend a non-White school. They live in a White area and the neighbours are continually pointing out that there are children in the White residential area who wear the blazers of the Coloured school they attend. Does the hon. member think this does not affect us? Does the hon. member think we do not feel terrible about this too? When all is said and done, who is to blame? When one speaks to the people, it becomes evident that they do not mind. It is true that afterward they are worried about the children but they make no apology for the relationship they have had or are still having. They make no apology for that whatsoever. In fact, many of them prefer to live together like that.

I think we must make it clear once and for all that the NP is not a bugbear as far as race relations are concerned. The Opposition is always trying to label us as oppressors, as people who grant other people nothing in this life. That is absolutely untrue. We have the same sympathy and the same pity for these unfortunate people and we are doing our level best to deal with this situation in the best possible way.

Actually, I want to place more specific emphasis on the central population register on which the department has been working since 1967. In that year the department commenced planning the mammoth task of compiling a central population register for South Africa. The present Secretary for the Department has been intimately involved in this major task from the very outset and today, after 10 years, he and quite a few other senior officials who have been involved in this from the very first, are still working on this and they are looking forward to the day when this task is completed. Initially, it was hoped that they would complete this task in 1978 but to achieve this, 1½ million persons would have had to be registered per annum. For various reasons, however, it was not possible in practice to register more than 1 million persons per annum. There was inter alia a delay of approximately 18 months during which period there was no office accommodation. In the interim there was a general registration of voters which also took up a lot of time. One third of all applications received are incomplete or incorrect. Often supporting documents are lacking with the result that many inquiries have to be made and this gives rise to extra work and is time-consuming. Incomplete addresses are another major problem. A very big problem is failure to reply to inquiries.

At present it is planned to have the work completed by the end of 1980 and the voters’ roll at the end of June 1978. By 30 April 1977 the names of as many as 1 822 000 parliamentary voters appeared in the population register. The total number on the voters’ roll was 2 266 000. So there are still approximately 348 000 outstanding. To reach the objective by June 1978, approximately 40 000 voters will have to be registered every month. I think the newspapers and the radio should help us in this. At the beginning of this year it was proved that a little propaganda and news coverage in this regard helped a great deal. In August last year the names of 30 000 people were put on the register, at that time this was the average figure per month. After some propaganda and publicity in this regard this year, 43 000 applications were received in January, 46 000 in February; and 51 000 in March but in April it dropped again, to 31 000 to be precise. So there is a need for propaganda in the endeavour to get parliamentary voters on the roll before the end of June. The department has to advise the Government before the end of the year whether a general registration of voters has to be held next year. This is something which is going to cost the State approximately R2 million. That is why we are so keen for as many as possible of the voters whose names have not yet been put on the population register to submit their applications as soon as possible so as to make it unnecessary for the Government to incur the extra expenditure involved in a general registration.

According to the annual report, 146 200 changes of address were made in the course of last year. At present, changes of address are coming in at a rate of approximately 20 000 to 30 000 per month. These changes of address are forwarded voluntarily. In contrast to the fewer than 100 RV1 changes of address that are received per month, this is a wonderful achievement in that so many people forward their changes of address voluntarily.

Meanwhile, information concerning all temporary aliens has also been computerized and as soon as someone’s residence permit expires, the computer indicates this; in other words, expiry of a residence permit is immediately made known and the department can take action at once.

The compilation of the central population register is being done entirely by overtime staff of the Department of the Interior as well as officials from other departments. The day staff works only on keeping up the records. Approximately 200 officials have been working overtime for four days per week since 1972 and they issue 4 000 books a day. They use the same office accommodation as the day staff. Doing it this way means a tremendous saving for the State. There is no need for extra buildings, extra offices, extra office equipment, or extra permanent staff. Because this task is seen as a temporary one that has to be completed, it was decided to do it this way, with overtime officials.

It is remarkable to note that whilst it was estimated in 1967 that the cost of this change-over to the new register would be R1 per person, this still holds true today. After 10 years, the change-over is still costing R1 per person. This testifies to sound planning and it is a praiseworthy task that the department is completing in this regard.

Compiling a central population register is an exhaustive task and it includes a central birth register, a deaths register, an address register, a marriage register, a driver’s licence register and a fire-arms register. As far as registration is concerned, parliamentary voters, babies, 16-year olds, immigrants and holders of driver’s licences are receiving priority at present.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.