presented a petition from C. J. Oosthuizen, in his capacity as Chairman of the Klerksdorp Irrigation Board, praying for a write-off of the balance of its irrigation loan.

Mr. Speaker, towards the latter part of last year I saw a television interview with Chief Minister Mangope. In the interview he gave a fairly detailed explanation of why he was prepared to accept independence for Bophuthatswana. He advanced the argument that there were less than 2 million Tswana people and that the Tswana were forming a minority group in South Africa. He compared their position with that of the Zulu, who count between 4 million and 5 million. By doing that, he clearly indicated that the position of the Tswana was different. The Zulu formed part of a majority group, while the Tswana would always remain a minority group. I can accept the fact that people who belong to a minority group will fear domination by other groups.

This makes it an even greater pity that we do not have a Government in South Africa that is prepared to spend its time on finding a federal solution to our problems. If that could happen, the fears of minority groups, fears such as those expressed by Chief Minister Mangope, would disappear. One of the tragedies of our time is that the federal alternative has never been put before the Black people of South Africa by the South African Government. The Government has always missed the boat as far as this aspect is concerned. However, now the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation comes forward, as a “laat-lammetjie”, with this thought.

This is really a tragedy, because having to choose among the status quo, independence—which is liberation à la NP—or working together in a greater South Africa in terms of a federal constitution, there is no doubt in my mind as to what the choice would be. Instead of building up this country, we are now busy breaking it down. The policy of the Government, especially as it is reflected in this Bill, is quite clearly—that is my honest opinion—one of the greatest confidence tricks that has ever been played on the people of South Africa, and that includes all races. It is a confidence trick, nothing else. It purports to provide freedom for the people. Yet, at its best this will only be some second class freedom.

You should be ashamed of yourself!

No, I am not ashamed of myself. I did not create this situation. It is the Government of the hon. member for Kimberley South that created this situation. He should be ashamed of himself.

Yesterday evening I devoted some time to discussing the situation of the isolated and minute area of Thaba Nchu. I just want to pose a further question in connection with that. How free and how liberated will that little district of Thaba Nchu ever be? For the 64% of Tswanas who permanently live outside of their homelands independence has no positive meaning at all, especially not as far as political rights are concerned. The only real meaning it has, is that it will deprive them of their South African citizenship. As far as I am concerned, the whole method designed by the Government, not only as it applies to the Xhosa, but also as it is now being applied to the Tswana, is nothing but a method designed for the purpose of tricking the Tswana people out of their legitimate share of the wealth of South Africa. Because of this and other reasons I will never be able to support this type of legislation. I therefore fully support the amendment of the hon. member for Umhlatuzana.

Mr. Speaker, once again we are conducting historical debate here today. It is a debate on legislation seeking to create in this complex South African set-up a dispensation affording the right to self-determination to all the peoples living in South Africa. Moreover this legislation seeks to create a dispensation in South Africa which will avoid bringing into conflict the aspirations of the peoples living in this country. A dispensation is being created in which every ethnic group is being afforded the opportunity to realize its national aspirations to the full.

Hon. members of the Opposition have raised a whole number of arguments. Their arguments concerned chiefly the finer details of the matter. What is at issue here, however, is the major principle of the separation of political rights in order to eliminate the basis for a power struggle in South Africa. Ethnicity is a characteristic, a feature not only of the people of South Africa, but of Africa in its entirety. To a large extent it is a characteristic of people throughout the world.

Let us look at the alternatives and at the possible solutions to this problem existing in South Africa. Let us take a look at the way in which Africa solved this problem. Africa did this in one way. They solved the problem by means of one-party states and military dictatorships. The lesson which Africa teaches us, is that political divisions follow the course of ethnic divisions, which is followed by a power struggle between the different ethnic groups within that geographic unit. What is the result of this? In Africa the result is that there is no such thing as minority rights, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, guarantees for the freedom and movement of individuals.

Nowhere in Africa?

Not nowhere in Africa.

You said, “nowhere in Africa”.

I did not say that. In any event, since that hon. member has interjected, I just want to mention that I have heard that he was apparently sent to talk to the people of Bophuthatswana. I understand that he was not very welcome on that occasion. If my information is correct, he was chased back when he arrived there. They said that they speak to the chief only and not to a piccanin. [Interjections.] As far as the hon. piccanin on the opposite side is concerned, I should also prefer to speak to the chief and not to the piccanin. In any event, I do not think that that hon. member is actually much of a piccanin.

The Security Police gave you the wrong information.

As I have already said, this Bill seeks to create an order and a dispensation in South Africa by means of which one thing can be accomplished: Majority rule for all the peoples of South Africa. The basic premise of this legislation is to grant majority rule to the Tswana people. This is a fact from which we cannot escape. There is no other formula which one can apply so as to accommodate these problems.

I listened to the speech of the hon. member for Umhlatuzana In a completely bona fide manner, of course, the hon. member quoted certain figures which, unfortunately, were not the latest figures which are available. This debate is important to me and to us on this side of the House and that is why I have taken the trouble to obtain the most recent figures.

According to these figures the de jure Tswana population in 1976 was 2,1 million people and the de facto population—i.e. the people residing in Bophuthatswana—1,158 million. Of these 1,158 million people, 819 000 are Tswanas. Another point which I want to make, is that if one looks at South Africa’s Tswana population of just over 2 million people, one finds, looking at numbers alone, that it is a nation and a people in its own right. The population of Botswana is only 611 000, that of Swaziland, only 423 000; and that of Lesotho only 923 000. It is interesting to note that the total population of these three former British Protectorates is a mere 1,9 million people, as against the total Tswana population in South Africa of 2,1 million people. On the basis of numbers the Tswana people is a people in its own right. The population of Somalia is only 2,8 million; that of the Congo 0,8 million; that of Dahomey, 2,7 million, etc. The population of Bophuthatswana is also larger than that of Albania, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Fiji, Gabon, Guinea, Iceland, Jamaica, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malta and Tonga.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana also made a statement to the effect that Bophuthatswana was not economically viable. It was alleged, for instance, that only 6% of the land was arable. I do not have the time to spell out the economic viability of Bophuthatswana in detail, but I should nevertheless like to mention a few facts in connection with Bophuthatswana which do deserve to be mentioned.

There are 14 towns accommodating 263 000 people in this new country. What is important, however, is that there are 34 mines operating in Bophuthatswana. These mines provide employment to 53 000 people. Hon. members of the Opposition remarked jeeringly, that it was not the Tswanas who were working the mines. As if this is so terribly important. After all, it is absolutely irrelevant who is working in those mines. Those mines are situated in Bophuthatswana. These are the facts. When the Government of Bophuthatswana takes over and if it wants only Tswanas to work there, surely it has every right to give preference to Tswana citizens as regards working in those mines. I do not understand the Opposition’s argument. The fact of the matter is that the mines and the employment opportunities are there. The Government of Bophuthatswana is being empowered to give preference to its own people if it wishes to do so. This State which is not viable according to the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, has 81 industries within its borders providing employment to 9 100 people. R66 million has already been invested in those industries. Do hon. members know how many businesses there are in this country which is supposedly not viable? There are 1 436 businesses in Bophuthatswana.

I want to refer to another matter, to the allegation that Bophuthatswana is growing too slowly and cannot provide employment to its growing population. This is a very interesting allegation which was made by one of the hon. members on the opposite side of this House. I want to give hon. members a few figures, which they possibly do not have at their disposal as yet, but which they could have obtained if they had taken the necessary trouble to make inquiries in this regard. In 1973, 1974 and 1975 there was an annual increase of 12 200 people in the Black labour force of Bophuthatswana. Over that period the annual demand for Black labour within Bophuthatswana and in the border industries exceeded the supply by 2 255, in other words, 14 455 per year. That is to say, employment opportunities were created within and on the borders of Bophuthatswana for 2 200 people more than the increase in the supply of labour in Bophuthatswana. This is a hard fact. It illustrates the point that the economy is growing in Bophuthatswana and on its borders. The economy is growing to such an extent that it is enabling Bophuthatswana not only to accommodate the supply and to provide employment opportunities but is in fact creating a shortage of labour. Surely this is a fine development that has taken place there. In which Africa State is this still happening? Consider the foreign Bantu employed in the mines in Bophuthatswana. They may be replaced in due course, especially those who are living outside the borders of the Republic of South Africa, for example. This makes one realize that an unbelievably large number of future employment opportunities await the people of Bophuthatswana.

In passing I should just like to mention that the buying power of the de facto population in Bophuthatswana—that is to say the people living there—has increased tremendously, more than in virtually any other place in Africa. In 1970-’71 the buying power of those people was R92 million and by 1974-’75 it had increased to R198 million. In other words, buying power increased by more than R100 million in a period of 5 years. Surely this is a phenomenal increase which testifies to development and increasing prosperity. This is what has been happening in the country to which the hon. member for Umhlatuzana referred so jeeringly.

There are certain norms which one can apply in order to compare that country with others. As I have understood hon. members on that side of the House, the country has no hope of survival, no viability, nothing is happening there, there is nothing there and nothing will happen there. This is more or less the tenor of what we hear from that side. They also refer to the country in a jeering and disparaging way. They do so in a spirit typical of paternalism and in the spirit and tone of the old colonialists and imperialists. That spirit is still alive; that ghost still walks. There are paternalists on that side of the House who still believe in the ideals of colonialism and imperialism. They have been left behind in the modern development which has occurred in Southern Africa.

What was the gross national income of Bophuthatswana in 1975? It was the fine amount of R326 million. The gross national income of Lesotho for the same year was R183 million; that of Swaziland R201 million; that of Botswana R192 million; that of Gambia R87 million; that of Djibuti R124 million; that of Somalia R279 million; and that of Equatorial Guinea R87 million. Therefore the R326 million of Bophuthatswana compares very favourably with that of other countries and we may rightly say that Bophuthatswana is a State in its own right, measured in terms of these norms. Consequently Bophuthatswana is much better off than a very large number of other States.

Another important figure is the gross national income per capita, and we can argue about this for a long time. The latest figure concerning the gross national income per capita of Bophuthatswana in the year 1976 is R280. We may compare this with the gross national income per capita of Zaïre which is R130; Chad R110; Burundi R90; Tanzania R150; Somalia R90; Ethiopia R90; and I could mention many more.

Another important aspect in this regard is that the calculations of the gross national income per capita of the population exclude the income from the mines and the income of the Whites living there. Such income will be taken into account after independence only, and then it will be regarded as income generated within the geographic borders of Bophuthatswana. Consequently, if we were to calculate the figures anew after independence, after a period of one year, the figures would be very much different as the income of the mines is enormous. In order to draw a fair comparison, one must also take into account the income of the Whites living there.

The important factor concerning the gross national income per capita, is that it has increased considerably. The gross national income per capita of the inhabitants of Bophuthatswana increased from R134 in 1970-’71 to R233 in 1974-’75. This is a tremendously high growth rate of 14,8%. On the basis of the gross national income per capita of that population, this growth rate is exceeded by only three other African States. I do not have the time to go into this in detail, but it is only Swaziland, Djibuti and Lybia, with its tremendous oil resources, that have grown more rapidly than Bophuthatswana.

I want to apologise to the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. I have always accused him of being intelligent, but I really want to apologize to him for that. Yesterday evening in this House the hon. member said that Bophuthatswana was becoming independent while it only had four police stations. If I understand the hon. member correctly—I do not know how his mind works—a territory cannot become independent if it has only four police stations. How many police stations should a territory have? Should it be 8, 18 or 12? The hon. member makes the statement that this homeland has only four police stations and that it may not become independent for that reason. This is obviously a new norm, the Cadman norm, which must be applied before a territory may become independent. In terms of that norm a territory must have many police stations before it may become independent.

The hon. member would probably have been pleased if there were 50 police stations. He probably wants a police state. The hon. member tried to imply that something like this was terribly important. I do not know whether the hon. member has ever been to Liechtenstein. I have been there. There is only one policeman and there is not even a station for him. Perhaps the hon. member should go and take a look there before making such wild statements in this House. Can hon. members imagine this to be possible? This hon. member, as his party’s spokesman on Bantu Affairs in this House, says that Bophuthatswana may not become independent because it has only four police stations. I hope the hon. member will not say things like this in this House again.

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Speaker, I should appreciate it if the piccanin in the kitchen would keep quiet. The hon. member for Sea Point and certain members on the opposite side spoke of “a lack of generosity on the part of the Government towards the people of Bophuthatswana”. They are making a tremendous fuss about the land Bophuthatswana is to receive. According to them this is a terribly important factor. It appears to be one of the norms which they lay down for independence. Once the consolidation proposals have been implemented, the area of Bophuthatswana will comprise 4 million hectares. The area of Swaziland comprises 1,7 million hectares.

†Therefore there was a big lack of generosity on the part of the British Government towards Swaziland when they became independent.

*Let us look at Lesotho’s position. The area of Lesotho comprises a mere 3 million hectares. In that case, too, there was a lack of generosity on the part of the British Government. The area of Burundi comprises 2,7 million hectares as against the 4 million hectares of Bophuthatswana. That is why I cannot understand that argument, but I should appreciate it if one of the hon. members on that side of the House would stand up and draw the line for us by telling us how many millions of hectares of land we must give Bophuthatswana if we want to be generous. I should be very pleased if those hon. members would spell this out to us.

I just want to make one point about citizenship because a great deal has already been said here about citizenship. I want to make a single quotation from the Sunday Times of London of 6 March 1977—

Therefore this type of thing does not only happen here.

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. member for Lydenburg. He mentioned many aspects, amongst them citizenship. It appears that he feels that an anomaly that existed in regard to a certain Mr. Foreman, who lived on Fiji, should be taken as a precedent for millions of South Africans to lose their citizenship. He spoke about the lack of generosity in regard to the land question, and in the course of my speech I shall deal with that question. However, what he did say that I find interesting, was that the policy of separate development, and therefore this Bill, was devised to give the people of South Africa their freedom, to avoid conflict between the various peoples in South Africa and to avoid a power struggle in South Africa. He also said that it was devised to give majority government to the Tswana people. That is basically what he said the object of this Bill was. However, I think he is wrong. I think that the objective of this Bill, if one is honest about it, is to maintain exclusive White political domination over 87% of South Africa. That is actually what this Bill is all about. I therefore think that this Bill had to be looked at in that context. There is one very important aspect, and that is that this debate today is taking place in totally different circumstances to the debate we had on Transkei. The difference lies in one fundamental issue. The reason for that difference is that there is a new administration in the United States of America, and that administration has decided to use the power of the United States to take a definite stand against the policy of separate development. It has been made clear by America—and when we talk about America we are talking about the leaders of the West—that if we continue with the policy of separate development, we must not expect support from them. I think it has also been made clear that in the future the goodwill which we will get from the West will depend on our ability to move away from the policy of separate development. That is a very important aspect. In the pre-Angola days, as we heard from the hon. the Minister of Information when he spoke on his Vote, it was important to bring a homeland to independence for the purpose of improving our image abroad. There was a problem the South African Government had vis-à-vis its credibility in regard to its image abroad. World opinion did not believe that the Government was sincere in its policy and therefore it was important, during the pre-Angola stage, for the Government to prove that it was sincere and to bring a homeland to independence.

However, in the post-Angola stage—and again the hon. the Minister of Information confirmed this during the discussion of his Vote—it actually became irrelevant whether we brought a homeland to independence or not because the whole concept of separate development was rejected. We found ourselves, in fact, in a situation where actually bringing a homeland to independence was counterproductive to the objective of improving our image abroad. I think that if anyone had any doubts about that, the fact of the Transkei becoming independent, with not one single country being prepared to recognize the Transkei, has proved that. If there are still a few optimists who believe that we in South Africa can sell the concept of separate development abroad, I think that Vienna has proved the final disillusionment as far as those people are concerned. I think that we can say with confidence that there is not one member of this House who honestly believes that the West does not expect us to move away from separate development and who honestly believes that if we proceed along this course we do not do so at our own peril. I also believe there is no one in this House, or outside of it, who does not understand clearly what the Government’s attitude has been to this situation. The hon. the Prime Minister has said, and he has made it very clear, that separate development is not negotiable. He said separate development is a policy designed for our internal use, and not for export. He said that if, as a result of South Africa carrying out the policy of separate development, we are left in the lurch by the West, we will go it alone. That is the standpoint of the Government. I think we all understand it. The hon. the Prime Minister even went so far as to say that he is satisfied with the morality of the policy and that he is prepared to discuss the morality of the policy with anybody anywhere. He said he is also satisfied with the morality in respect of the way in which the Government is carrying out its policies and, if we are to believe Press reports, he is even prepared to hang for what he has done in this regard.

In this attitude, the hon. the Prime Minister is being supported by the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs has said that to negotiate a shift away from separate development would be the same as negotiating our own destruction. When the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that, I wonder what members of the NP in South West Africa must have thought of that, but that is by the way.

It seems that, after a long road of accommodating the West, the issue of separate development is now turning out to be the departure point between the West and the Government. I say it is a long road, because when Rhodesia looked like developing into a crisis issue between South Africa and the West, the hon. the Prime Minister acted in a manner calculated to avoid a confrontation on this issue. When South West Africa, Namibia, looked like becoming a very serious thorn in the side of our relationship with the West, again the Government acted in a way which was calculated to de-escalate the differences which existed between us on that issue.

However, when we come to the issue of separate development in South Africa, the Government seem to have lost either its willingness or its ability, or perhaps both, to act in a manner calculated to reduce this potential crisis. It appears that separate development has become the issue on which there is to be a battle of nerves between South Africa and the West; it is a question of waiting to see who will chicken out first. The problem is: What happens if the West are in fact not playing chicken?

What I find absolutely ironical is that it should be this particular issue, the issue of separate development, which has become the important point of alienation between ourselves and the West, because separate development was in fact specifically brought into being to improve our world image. That was the whole purpose of separate development. It was brought into being as a concession by South Africa to world opinion.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana yesterday quoted Dr. Verwoerd where Dr. Verwoerd made it quite clear in 1951 that it was not the intention of the Government to give the homelands independence. However, by 1959 there was a fundamental shift in Government policy. It had by then become the intention of the Government to give the homelands independence. What we must ask ourselves is why there was this shift? What was the reason for this shift? I think we can do no better than to look for the reason for this in the words of Dr. Verwoerd himself. I would like to quote what Dr. Verwoerd said in this regard. I am quoting from a paper entitled “Ideological Change, Afrikaner Nationalism, Racial Domination” by André du Toit of Stellenbosch University, This paper is contained in a book called Change in Contemporary South Africa published by the University of California Press. In this paper Dr. Verwoerd is quoted as saying in 1959—

That is the reason for separate development. We must all remember that separate development was born as an expediency, as a pragmatic adjustment to changed circumstances which came about between 1951 and 1959—no more, no less. It was a strategy by which Dr. Verwoerd could buy his objectives. And what were his objectives? To buy for the White man his freedom and the right to retain his domination in what was his country. Dr. Verwoerd’s objective was never separate development. And clearly, like any strategy White domination in the White man’s country. His strategy for achieving this was separate development. And clearly, like and strategy this strategy too has to remain flexible. It has to be able to adjust to changing circumstances. It has to remain what it is in essence—an expediency. But somehow, somewhere, something went radically wrong, and the strategy of separate development lost its flexibility. It was no longer expedient; it developed into the holy cow of the NP, and now, if we can believe what we hear, it has developed into the moral crusade of the hon. the Prime Minister and his Government.

I ask myself: For what? What possible benefit can there be to South Africa when the very clear objective that Dr. Verwoerd had, has become so confused with the strategy that he spelt out to achieve it? It is so confused that his strategy which was designed in 1959 to cater for conditions as he saw them in 1959, is now being used, as a holy cow, in 1977, for what? What are we actually getting out of it? What is the purpose of the whole thing? If one asks any Nationalist what the objective of his policy is, he says it is separate development. If one asks him what separate development is all about, one receives an answer like that we have just received from the hon. member for Lydenburg. They are going to give freedom here and they are going to give freedom there. But it is nothing of the sort. The objective of the NP has always been to maintain exclusive White political control over White South Africa. That was the objective. Separate development was merely the intermediate.

Let us for a moment look back on what conditions were like in 1959. Let us look at the projections which were made in 1959 on which this strategy of separate development was based. Let us look at the population figures, the demography, and the economic factors. And now let us look at the realities we find in 1977. It is like chalk and cheese. Let me give one crucial example. We all remember that magical year 1978 when the flow of Blacks into the urban areas would cease and when they would be starting to return to the homelands, so that we could all look forward to a time in the future when the Whites would be the majority in their own country. That was the projection in 1959 when this policy was brought about But what are the realities? We all know the realities. What change was there in the strategy of the Government to accommodate this very important reality? There was absolutely no change. All that there was, was a rationalization. We were suddenly told that numbers are not all that important. It was political independence which really mattered.

Let me take another example. In 1959 it was never envisaged that the Black population would explode in the way that it had. Nineteen million was the projection for the year 2 000. If one looks at the Tomlinson report and all the projections that were made at the time, the vast majority of Blacks would be accommodated in homelands. Today we know the position to be that by the end of the century the homelands will not be able even to accommodate one-quarter of the Black population. Three-quarters of the Black population will be in White South Africa. It is a fact; we know it and it is accepted. But what has the strategy of separate development done to accommodate this very important reality? When the homeland leaders became aware of this situation, and when they approach the Government—we are talking now about homeland leaders who were friendly disposed towards separate development—they explained the situation and said that they needed more land and more consolidation. What happened? The Government said “No”. It said: “We are giving you something. You must be grateful for what we are giving you. Not one hectare more than what was allowed for in 1936 will be given to you.” That is what was put to the homeland leaders. As a result of that there are still huge problems over the land issue, not only with Bophuthatswana and the Transkei, but also with other homelands. It made other homeland leaders reject the whole concept of independent states, because they see the whole thing as a complete farce. That is an absolute fact.

Let us take another example. On the 1959 projection of the Tomlinson report, there was a big difference of opinion between the then Prime Minister, Dr. Verwoerd, and Prof. Tomlinson, as a result of which no White capital was allowed into the homelands. In 1969 the Government under the present hon. Prime Minister changed that in order to allow White capital into the homelands on an agency basis. However, when one looks at the reality of what is required in the economic field in order to achieve the Government’s own objectives—and the Government’s sole objective is exclusive White political domination in a White South Africa—and when one looks at the miserable economic performance in the homelands in relation to this objective, one can only ask why the strategy of separate development was not adjusted to accommodate these realities. Again, all that it proved of the Government’s strategy is that it is totally inflexible. Separate development under the leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister proved unable to see this crisis. If it did see the crisis, it proved unable to adjust to it.

Let us take one other example. In 1959 colonialism and racial discrimination were not international swear words. South Africa was a safe place for the White man. That was never doubted. However, what is the situation today? Our security is threatened internally. We have Marxist régimes on our borders. We have unresolved questions relating to unrecognized Governments. By the way, in passing this Bill, we will be producing yet another unrecognized Government. Black nationalism is alight and in vigorous flame in White South Africa. It is demanding to be satisfied, and we have to defend ourselves and to explain ourselves in this threatened world.

Again, the hon. the Prime Minister seems totally insensitive to the realities. He wanders around Europe saying that he is prepared to defend the moral principles of a programme which is designed to keep 87% of our original pre-Transkei land area reserved for exclusive White political domination, and not only is it 87% of the country; it happens to be that 87% of the country in which over 95% of our gross domestic product is produced. And the hon. the Prime Minister is surprised that he cannot sell this programme abroad!

I have given only a few examples. There are many more that one can give. The point is that we are not, by passing this Bill, giving independence to the Tswana people. I believe this was made absolutely clear by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. We are not solving the co-existence problem in South Africa. That was made absolutely clear by the hon. member for Sea Point. What we are doing, is carrying out a strategy which was designed in 1959, and tailor-made for conditions as they existed in 1959, conditions which are however, totally irrelevant to the situation as we have it in 1977. Worse still, it is counterproductive to the objectives for which the strategy was designed. In fact, it is very dangerous and a very serious threat to the security of all of us in South Africa, and even to all in Southern Africa.

It is a matter of urgency that the Government must clearly redefine its objectives, and having redefined its objectives, it must adjust its strategy in a manner which is relevant, not only to its new objectives, but also to conditions as they exist internally and externally in 1977. That is fundamental—the Piet Koornhof type of thing. If I was a member of the NP and in the NP caucus … [Interjections.] … I would say to them that in reassessing their objective, the Government have to bear in mind three realities, in the long run, it is not possible to maintain even a White political presence—never mind a collective existence—in a country where one is in escalating conflict with 80% of the people permanently domiciled in the country and with the rest of the world. It is just not possible; one can forget it, because it is out of the question and not a reality.

Secondly, one cannot push political rights out to the peripheral areas when economic factors are drawing people into the central areas. One cannot do it. Thirdly, one has to get back to the original Verwoerdian belief that numbers are important when deciding political realities. It is a fact. One important aspect with which the Government can start, one major effort which they can make, is the land allocation to the homelands. If the hon. the Prime Minister would only agree to make the issue of land negotiable, not only could the legitimate demands of the homeland leaders be met, but, secondly, by including important growth areas in the homelands, it will be possible for the homelands to provide, in an economic sense, for a far larger number of people than it is providing for at the present moment. One always talks about the map trap and about people falling into the map trap. I do not want to get involved in that argument, but if the Government were to get itself involved in negotiations and were to come to this House and say that they have consensus which involves 40% of South Africa and it involves a situation where previously less than 5% of the GDP came from the homelands, it is now 25%, the Government would have my support. That is all I can say. I do not want to get involved in the details of it, because once one gets involved in the details of the matter, one meets up with problems. However, I think the principle is important. If the Government could do this, even at this late stage it would pull us back from the brink of disaster.

Unfortunately time does not allow me to continue with the other points that I would like to put forward. To conclude I would like to say that I believe that if the hon. the Prime Minister is really interested in saving this country from an alternative which is “too ghastly to contemplate”, he has got to urgently redefine his objectives, reorganize his strategies in order to obtain those objectives and having done that, he could come to this House and say: “Give me six months and see where we are.” However, as the situation is at the present moment all we are doing is acting out a stale and irrelevant strategy, a total obstacle, which is totally counter-productive to the objectives that we should be working for. For that reason, I support the amendment of the hon. member for Sea Point.

Mr. Speaker, I find a serious contradiction in the Opposition thinking with regard to the independence of Bophuthatswana and the existence of the Black homelands. Last night the hon. the leader of the PRP spoke about a concept of a larger consolidated homeland which would be acceptable to them, and now the hon. member for Randburg has done the same. On the other hand they speak about the Black people outside the homelands and pretend that a great crime is being committed towards these people. They should first decide for themselves whether they are against the concept of independent homelands or not. Perhaps I should ask the hon. member for Houghton: Is the PRP against the concept of independent homelands if they are large and well consolidated, as the hon. member for Sea Point said last night? [Interjections.] I specifically want to ask the hon. member for Houghton whether she and her party are opposed to the homelands receiving independence in the widest sense of the word. [Interjections.]

I shall tell you when I speak.

The hon. member for Houghton is going to speak, and when she speaks, she should reply to this question thoroughly. I know the hon. member for Randburg to be a very honest man and therefore I want to ask him … [Interjections.] On this point, then, I must differ from my colleagues who are laughing.

I want to ask the hon. member for Randburg a question in connection with what he has just said. If we should consolidate the homelands better, as he suggested, would he then give his support in principle to full independence for these homelands? He nods his head affirmatively. The hon. member for Houghton is not prepared to talk about it. To me that symbolizes the game of deceit being played by the PRP and the official Opposition with regard to the Black peoples in South Africa. They should not think that the Black leaders and the Black People did not see through them long ago.

I shall presently discuss many points on which many Black leaders and Black people in South Africa differ from us fundamentally, and on which we argue with them, even after they have accepted the concept of independence. There are even other States in Southern Africa as well who differ from us on many issues. In spite of this, our clear standpoint of a political dispensation which we regard as the road to the future must and will triumph eventually, because the NP has and strives after a political truth which can never lose. If one wants to distort the truth a little, as the Opposition does, one must accept that eventually, the whole world will come to see through one, and one will be exposed for one’s paternal thinking, as the hon. member for Lydenburg rightly said.

I should like to consider and discuss the Bill and the whole question of the independence of Bophuthatswana from four points of view. The first is the socio-economic problems involved in this independence. The second is the question of White/Black and Black/Black political power confrontation in South Africa. The third is the fact that the independence of Bophuthatswana is a means of defusing tension. The fourth argument which I want to advance is that the independence of Bophuthatswana is certainly not politically perfect. I shall come to that later, but I want to say even now that it is not a complete and perfect solution for the future of Southern Africa.

I first want to discuss the socio-economic problems. I find it strange that, in a certain sense, even the hon. member for Umhlatuzana revelled in the economic problems. I do not mean to offend him by saying that I could refer to other hon. members as well. The hon. member for Randburg and the hon. the leader of the PRP spoke last night of the large number of more than a million Tswana-speaking people residing outside Bophuthatswana. They revelled in this fact and asked what we were to do with these people. I want to say to them, with regard to these socioeconomic problems, that the homelands are a reality.

We cannot run away from the realities. The lack of job opportunities for all these people in the homelands and the influx of those people to the White areas is a problem situation which would have existed regardless of the policy we followed in South Africa. The hon. member for Randburg knows that Bophuthatswana consists of six separate areas. Those six areas have a population of more than 600 000 according to the latest figures at my disposal. More than half of those Tswana-speaking people are 14 years of age or younger. More than two-thirds of the Tswana people in Bophuthatswana are under the age of 20 years. It is essential that more job opportunities be created for those people in the homelands in the future. More than one million Tswana-speakers live in the White area. Of these, 570 000 live in the urban complexes and 500 000 live in the White rural areas. Whether the PRP or the UP is governing, the socioeconomic problem of creating job opportunities for these people will always exist. I now want to ask the hon. members for Randburg and Durban Central: If the problems do exist and if the Tswana-speaking nation desires to accommodate as many as possible of its own people in its own territories to further its own progress and development, would it not be completely stupid and idiotic of us to try to build an economic structure in terms of which we shall continue to provide work in White South Africa for a growing number of the young Tswana people who enter the labour market? Would we not be acting more sensibly, more honestly, more realistically and with a greater vision of the future if we tried to resolve the problem to the best of our ability, in co-operation with the Tswana nation, by providing job opportunities in the homeland? I do not think we have any choice. We are dealing with realities and they cannot run away from that and we cannot run away from that either. Statements made by the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana were quoted ad nauseum by hon. members on that side of the House yesterday. I too could read many quotations of that kind, for instance, “Chief attacks homeland citizenship.” Another reads “Homelands will try to end Black bondage.” That appears in a passage read by the hon. the leader of the PRP. Another one reads: “Mangope lashes Nat land policy.” Yet another one reads: “Chief wants R214 million paid.” I could continue in this vain because there are many more reports like that. That is one of the problems which we have in South Africa. There are also reports which seek to convey the opposite impression. The mere fact that the population of Bophuthatswana has chosen the road of independence surely proves that what the hon. members have been reading here from the English newspapers—that is a kind of biased representation of what happens and what is said—is not the whole truth. In this context I should like to quote the following—

The Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana goes on to say—

When a leader of a nation says that, it is disgraceful that White politicians should for their own political gain, because they are not at all concerned about the interests of the non-White nations of South Africa, try to run down and criticize our efforts to strengthen these bonds and to give practical effect to what we regard as the birth of a true nation in the homelands.

Furthermore, the independence of Bophuthatswana has a direct bearing on White/Black and Black/Black power politics. The NP is not ashamed to admit that its policy of homeland development is basically directed at reserving for ourselves, in perpetuity, political power over ourselves in what we regard as White South Africa. That is a cornerstone of NP policy, as the hon. the Prime Minister has often stated. We will not share the sovereignty over ourselves. [Interjections.] I shall examine the solutions further in a little while. Another cornerstone is that we want to preserve our own identity. If the Tswana-speaking people want to develop their identity too, we should help them, because that is part of our political philosophy. We do not see South Africa as a unit which should be destroyed. By the way, I should like to put this question to the PRP, which refers to a “unitary South Africa”; Will they offer a choice to the Whites and to all the non-White nations or will they eventually— that is what the road they are following will inevitably lead to—do what is being done in America at the moment? Initially it was alleged that people had a free choice. However, when the Whites resisted integration, the Negroes said that they were still being discriminated against. The process of free choice was then reversed and they were forced to integrate. I now want to say to the PRP: If one’s policy is a unitary state and one draws the line through from the political to the social and economic spheres, one is going to start by offering people a choice. The pressure on one is going to increase and eventually the inhabitants of the unitary state are going to say: “Wait a moment, if we are a unit, we have to be a complete unit.” When that happens, people are going to be pressurized and there will be no more freedom of choice. Moreover, the PRP’s policy of disregarding identity will be the greatest stimulus to an identity explosion among people in South Africa. We as Afrikaners have seen as soon as one tries to suppress a nation’s identity, the nation stands up and says to itself: “I have a right to be myself and to hold my own.” The PRP, which blackens our name throughout the world because we want to protect and preserve that which is ours in White South Africa, will live to see the Black Governments and the Black nations in the independent homelands taking measures to keep out aliens and to reserve for themselves, in the areas which they regard as their homelands, those things in the political, economic and social sphere which they regard as theirs and as an inalienable right in their own territory. That is the logic of our policy.

We are also deeply involved in Black/Black political problems. The hon. member for Pinelands should listen now, because I want to tell him that the White hand of friendship which the NP is extending to the nation of Bophuthatswana forms a contrast with the Black fist that we saw in Johannesburg last week. That was the Black fist of Black power which will eventually swallow up the Tswana people as well. They must not think we are so stupid that we do not realize that. I have here an expert from the banned ANC magazine Sechaba. Perhaps it would interest the hon. member for Pinelands, because one can see here the objectives of the ANC where they speak of “Build small secret ANC cells to discuss the situation in your country.” It also refers to the support which should be given to trade unions and to the protest which should be made about increases in all forms of rent, tariffs, etc.

Here one sees a very interesting pattern which is developing at the moment. I want to tell the hon. member and also the hon. member for Houghton that Black power in South Africa, under the leadership of certain people here who do not have the interests of the Black nations at heart, but who want to gain power for themselves, is not only gaining stronger international affiliations but is steadily gaining momentum here as well. The Black fist which we saw last week in Johannesburg was not hanging in the air. What did Chief Gatsha Buthelezi say in the Jabulani centre on 16 March last year? He said: “Join Inkhata and unite all Blacks in the liberation struggle.” What is Inkhata? It started as a small movement of the Zulu people. It grew and opened its ranks to members of other nations. However, members of other Black nations cannot occupy positions of authority in Inkhata, but can only become affiliated members.

The Black nations in South Africa also see in Black power the political pressure which is developing and ultimately they will have to realize that a Black Government may plough them under. Therefore I was not surprised when I read, after the statement by Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, that the leader of another Black nation had said to him: “If we were to join Inkhata, we would have another Angola.” Those are the Black/Black political problems which we should like to see neutralized with the independence of Bophuthatswana. I have also said that we see the independence of Bophuthatswana as a catalyst for better and more relaxed relations between the White and non-White nations in Southern Africa. I know that the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana and various other leaders have said on numerous occasions that they will use the independence as a lever for creating better relations between Whites and Blacks in South Africa. We accept that attainment of independence by the Black people on our borders will in many respects cause a dramatic change for the good in various fields of the relations between Black and White. If one has defused the political problems of Black people who might insist on becoming partners in one’s political set-up, one will have brought about a relaxation in human relations on the economic, social and many other fronts. I am convinced that the independence of Bophuthatswana will be a catalyst which will serve to improve the relations between White and non-White. The hon. Opposition spoke contemptuously of the fact that Bophuthatswana does not form a geographical unit. The independence of Bophuthatswana will, however, have its most evident effect in all fields, especially on the person-to-person level, in those parts where Bophuthatswana borders on White towns and is surrounded by White land. There, in the farming communities and the urban complexes, the independence of Bophuthatswana will bring home to us all the realization that we are dealing here with people who form part of a political dispensation which does not threaten us and that we are dealing with people who in every sense want to walk the road of peace with us in Southern Africa.

What we are dealing with here today is the reality of Bophuthatswana, six geographical areas. With more than a million people in White South Africa. We do not want to make out for one moment—the NP has never tried to do that—that this is the perfect solution. However, the NP is dealing with realities, and on top of those realities we see sovereignty over ourselves, the preservation of our identity and a Southern Africa without tension and friction.

For the people of Bophuthatswana, too, our policy will ultimately lead to absolute sovereignty over their own people, the preservation and development of their identity, which is probably more important to them than it is to the Opposition, and the maintenance of peace and order. As regards the finality of the solution, I should like to speak about this matter as our leaders have spoken in the past. Incidentally, I worked closely together with the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development for many years. We worked together very closely on this matter. We worked together in private, in an office, and I find it absolutely contemptible and abominable that the Opposition should again try to suggest here that the Minister and the people who work with him do not have the interests of the Black nations at heart. There are people who worked for nights on end on a constitutional dispensation, on efforts to guide nations to maturity in the economic field, and nothing was too much trouble for them. I therefore have reason to say publicly across the floor of the House that the accusation of a denial of human rights which is made against our leaders is false. As the hon. the Minister and our other leaders have said, even if the independence of the homelands is not the perfect answer, we still believe that we will have a commonwealth of nations in Southern Africa, nations which will each have sovereignty over its own people. However, it will be a community of nations, not a community of one nation. We do not have one nation in South Africa, we never have had and never shall have that. That community of nations will, however, be able to talk in harmony at the highest level as completely independent people. I believe that this Bill on the independence of Bophuthatswana is the key to harmony, co-operation and the joining of nations at the highest political level, as well as co-operation in all other spheres, in the interests of the Whites and every Black nation and every individual of those nations.

Mr. Speaker, it was with great respect that I listened to the hon. member for Innesdal. I shall deal with most of the problems he mentioned during the course of my speech. He will pardon my saying that because I know him as an honest speaker on our population issues, I find it totally incomprehensible that he could try to defend the lack of consolidation and a meaningful geopolitical dispensation for Bophuthatswana. In all honesty, I did not expect it from him.

Mr. Speaker, we are undoubtedly witnessing an historic event today. The hon. the Minister described it as an historic occasion and so it is. It is for that very reason that I wish to associate myself with what the hon. member for Umhlatuzana said. If one considers the function of this institution, our Parliament, then it is totally inexplicable that we should have received the details of the agreement so late and, what is more, that we still do not at this stage have some of the most important agreements which ought to be considered here in this regard. I am referring to agreement No. 22, the movement of citizens across the common borders; agreement No. 25, the employment of Bophuthatwana citizens; agreement No. 39, the purchase and transfer of land; and agreement No. 45, the economic development of Bophuthatswana. Once again I want to ask the question: Who in this House, whether it be the hon. members on this side of the House or the hon. members opposite, can advance meaningful arguments in favour of the independence of Bophuthatswana when we do not have these documents in front of us? I simply cannot understand how a thinking person can do this.

Last year, when we were dealing with the Transkeian legislation, we at least had Transkei’s own Bill in front of us. At this stage, we do not yet even have the corresponding Bill from Bophuthatswana before us. In other words, at this stage we do not have the faintest idea about the constitutional form which will apply in Bophuthatswana after this Bill has been accepted. As far as I know, this is the first time a Parliament has deprived itself of its sovereignty over another area without knowing how the other area is going to be governed. All this does is to place a question mark over our function in this House once again. How can one talk sensibly about these things when we do not know what type of institution is going to be created in the soon-to-be-independent Bophuthatswana?

You are casting a reflection on them.

No, it does not cast any reflection on them. It is our task as citizens of this country and as members of Parliament to find out what is going on there. There has seldom been so little enthusiasm, both inside and outside this House, about a measure as far-reaching as this one. In that regard, I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. I want to add that seldom in my short career in this House have I listened to a discussion of a Bill which showed such a total lack of valid arguments and such an excess of rationalization. I shall come back to that later.

The only mitigating circumstance in our discussion of this Bill is the fact that the Legislative Assembly of Bophutswana recommended to the Bophuthatswana Government in November 1975 that negotiations be initiated with the Government of South Africa for the possible independence of Bophuthatswana. That is the only mitigating element in this entire discussion.

That is their right.

Yes, I do not question that.

What did you say about it?

I shall come to the hon. member for Carletonville presently. The fact is, as the hon. member for Sea Point has indicated, that on no occasion have the citizens of Bophuthatswana had the opportunity to express themselves specifically on the question of Bophuthatswana’s independence. Much less have those citizens of Bophuthatswana who are resident outside Bophuthatswana had an opportunity to express themselves on the question as to whether they would prefer independence if this entails the loss of their own South African citizenship. So who are we bluffing now? We can bluff ourselves, but no-one else.

There are a number of basic points of departure which we may consider in appraising this step we are taking today. I want to mention three of them. Firstly, what were the considerations which led to the Government taking this step? Secondly; to what extent is this going to improve the position of the Tswana people? Thirdly; will this make a positive contribution towards the improvement of race relations in South Africa and of South Africa’s position internationally?

As for the basic consideration which led to the Government deciding on this policy, I want to refer to what the hon. member for Randburg said here today when he echoed what the hon. member for Umhlatuzana said yesterday. If it is as the hon. member for Innesdal, the hon. member for Lydenburg and other hon. members have indicated, i.e. that the motivation is the noble deed of creating a nation, if that was indeed the intention …

Creating a nation and creating a State.

Yes, creating a nation and creating a State. That is correct. There has been talk of nations here, and it is only in this way that proper recognition can be accorded the separate national identity and national existence of the Tswanas. If that is the intention, i.e. to make this homeland independent as a deed of unselfishness and as a result of the Afrikaner’s own struggle for self determination and independence, then I say that it cannot take place on the basis of this geographic division. If that is the real intention, then I say we cannot do to a nation what we are doing to Bophuthatswana in this case, viz. giving it an area like the one we are in fact giving it in this case. We are bluffing ourselves. I ask the question: As Afrikaners, would you and I have been prepared to accept this type of land consolidation?

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether the Government ought to create an area for a nation other than the one it had originally? [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I am only saying that if it was the intention, as has been implied here, to create a process of becoming a nation and of becoming a State, no matter what the historical reasons may be, it cannot be done on this geographical basis.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask another question?

No, I am sorry. [Interjections.] I want to come back to what the hon. member for Carletonville said. The hon. member for Carletonville has spoken time and time again in this House about geo-political lines that have to be drawn, and now, as an honest person, I want to ask him this question: Can he and his conscience justify this geographical distribution of land?

I shall answer in my own good time.

Please do, because I should like to know. [Interjections.] With regard to neither the size of the land, nor the consolidation could anyone regard this legislation as an honest attempt at giving a nation like the Tswanas the opportunity to govern itself as an independent nation.

If we look at South Africa and … [Interjections.]

That argument used by the hon. member for Marico—in fact, it is an argument which the hon. the Minister has also advanced—relating to the position before 1910, is now so hackneyed that it is no longer of any significance. It is of no avail to tell the citizens of Bophuthatswana, or the other Blacks, which parts of South Africa were inhabited by which people before 1910. As far as the present case is concerned, that is absolutely irrelevant. Hon. members know that. I do not know who they are trying to impress with it. Themselves? If they are impressing themselves with it, I should nevertheless like to know what they are achieving thereby.

[Inaudible.]

Do those hon. members think they are going to impress the Blacks with this argument? I fear not. How unrealistic can we get? If it was the intention that that area—as small and unconsolidated as it is—should serve as a fatherland only for those who have always been living there, it would perhaps have been possible to make a case for it. However, if that area is to serve as a fatherland for the large number of Tswanas who are resident outside it, then it is not only wishful thinking, but it is also immoral. [Interjections.] It is immoral. [Interjections.] Now we are faced with the situation in which even this limited amount of consolidation has not even been completed yet. But just listen to the rationalization. They are saying: “We could not do it.” The hon. member for Brits said there were all kinds of considerations. According to him, the financial aspect makes it impossible. He also argued that the resettlement of people, something which will inevitably have to occur, makes matters impossible and that the exchange of land created problems which appear to be insurmountable. And then the greatest of all nonsense: “Yes, but it is actually to the benefit of the Tswanas for the areas to be as fragmented as it is.” [Interjections.] How can we expect any serious, thinking person to accept such an argument?

It is true, however, that many hon. members opposite believe that the Government is serious and honest in its efforts to create fatherlands for the Blacks in South Africa on the basis of a sensible geo-political separation. There are some of them sitting there, and there are many more of them outside, who really took the Government at its word. I know about them. Many of them have contacted me. Today those people are tremendously disappointed because the Government is carrying out this policy in this way. Hon. members know that as well as I do. This basis of land partition, as well as the lack of consolidation, is certainly not creating the basis for a viable fatherland for those Black people.

If we want to be honest and if it was the intention to do what had been said, then places like Mafeking, Vryburg, Kuruman, Brits, Rustenburg and other places should surely have been included. Only then would it have made sense.

But then they would have lost some of their seats.

Yes. An hon. member said here yesterday that the electorate had repeatedly rejected the Opposition and placed the Government in power with a greater majority because the creation of fully-fledged fatherlands, of national homelands for the Black peoples, was the policy of the Government. In the constituencies surrounding Bophuthatswana, NP members of Parliament were in fact sent back to Parliament time and time again with greater majorities. What does this mean, however? What does it mean when someone says: “I am making my cross for the creation of fully-fledged national units?”

When it comes to the test, however, and one asks them why they are not giving their farms and the towns in the area to Bophuthatswana to make it a meaningful division, there is silence and we get the rationalization which we had yesterday. That is why I am asking the Government: What does it mean to say that the nation has expressed itself time and time again in favour of such independence?

Another man’s farm.

Yes, another man’s farm, yes. It amazes me that the hon. the Minister and hon. members have once again used the example of other areas which, according to them, do not constitute unitary area either. They referred to America which has Alaska and Hawaii and other island empires. Mr. Speaker, how ridiculous can one get? If a crisis were to arise, it would not be necessary for any one of these countries to travel across a hostile country to get to its own area. It would not be necessary for any of the countries quoted as examples to do that. What is the situation in South Africa? I cannot understand why this old argument is used time and time again, whilst everyone knows it has no validity.

If we look at the lack of economic infrastructure to which the hon. member for Umhlatuzana referred and which is so plain to see from this B.E.R.B.D. report, then the question arises: What are we actually doing here? Bophuthatswana has no viability, particularly not if it is the intention that the people outside Bophuthatswana are to exercise their citizenship in the homeland. In this regard, the hon. member for Lydenburg did my colleague, the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, an injustice in referring to the police station. What the hon. member for Umhlatuzana meant by this, was to illustrate the apparent lack of administrative infrastructure which exists in Bophuthatswana. The infrastructure exists outside Bophuthatswana. The hon. member ought to have known that.

It is seldom that I have come across a rationalization such as that which we had yesterday and today in this House. As far as this point is concerned, I want to say in conclusion …

Ah, thank goodness!

… that economic servitude … the hon. member for Carletonville must listen to me, because this is the path which the Afrikaner trod.

I shall not.

The economic servitude of one nation to another is just as unacceptable and just as deadly as political subordination. As I see it, to talk about Bophuthatswana’s economic servitude to South Africa as a benefit to Bophuthatswana, is a total refutation of the Afrikaner’s own history. [Interjections.]

The second argument that was used, by the hon. member for Innesdal as well, is that it helps us to escape from the political problems of South Africa. The result is confusion of speech, because what did the hon. the Minister of National Education and of Sport and Recreation tell us? He said it was possible to create machinery within the same national context in which the Coloureds and the Asians could administer their politics together with the Whites. The hon. members must not tell me that the Asians are not a separate nation. A few years ago they were regarded by the Government as unassimilable in South Africa. [Interjections.] Therefore, it was said that it was possible to create and maintain a united political structure together with the Coloureds and the Asians within the same national context. If that is the case, one could ask: Why not in the case of the Bantu as well? If an arrangement can be made in which a meaningful joint say and joint participation may be given to Coloureds and Asians, why can this not also be done in the case of the Bantu? The hon. Minister went even further and, despite what the hon. the Prime Minister had said, stated that theoretically, there was even the possibility that the established urban Bantu could be involved in this. The hon. the Prime Minister said: “We have already thought about the urban Bantu. They are not relevant.” If this is possible for us in respect of the other two population groups, then the entire argument used by the hon. member for Innesdal, the hon. Minister and others, falls flat. The reason why the argument was used is, as we heard once again this morning, that the NP is irreconcilably opposed to power sharing. Division of power, yes, but sharing of power never—not in this House nor anywhere else. What does the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation tell us? He tells us that it would be possible to govern at a control level on a basis of consensus. But there is no greater form of power sharing than on the basis of consensus.

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

No, I do not have the time. If issues can be decided by way of a minority or majority vote, as they are in this House then it is possible that a majority, even if it is a majority of Whites, will be able to enforce its will. However, on the basis of consensus, every group is given the power of veto. Show me a more extreme form of power sharing. Hon. members must not rationalize once again and say that they are doing this because they do not want to have or accept power sharing in South Africa. That is nonsense.

I want to point to a second consideration. To what extent will the position of the Tswanas improve? The position of the people in Bophuthatswana will certainly improve, because they are getting the right to rule themselves and to appoint their own officials. They will be only too pleased—we all know this—to be free of the discrimination of the White authorities, of the dominating position of Parliament and of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. That is very clear. In that sense, they stand to gain by it. In respect of their economic position, however, it does not hold a single advantage for them, in any event not more than they can enjoy as citizens and as an integral part of South Africa. What advantage will the domiciled Tswana citizens who are living outside Bophuthatswana, derive from this? They are being deprived of their South African citizenship without their having any say in the matter. What is the implication of this withdrawal of their citizenship? Tomorrow or the next day Parliament could pass an act and unilaterally deprive the Tswanas even of that measure of protection which they enjoy in this regard, namely that they will not forfeit any of their rights. Nor is that all. We know from practical experience what happened with Transkeian citizens who were domiciled here. We know about all the problems and troubles that were placed in their path. This has been proved in practice. The Tswanas are losing their claim to a share in the proper utilization of South Africa’s financial and economic resources.

Even in respect of a simple matter such as admission to universities, it is said that as far as admission to Black universities is concerned, that is in order, but the admission of Tswana citizens to White universities is not only arranged with the permission of the hon. the Minister, but now also has to take place by means of diplomatic notes. In other words, if a Black student wants to study at the University of Cape Town, he first has to approach his Government. [Interjections.] If I am wrong, hon. members must correct me.

The third consideration I referred to, was to what extent it would improve South Africa’s race relations. The relations will improve inasmuch as there is a small group of people who will be released from the frustration of domination and discrimination and inasmuch as those people are removed from the scene of the political problems. The urban Black problem—I have said this many times in this House—is the most explosive element in our entire racial situation. The fact that those people were not consulted and the fact that they have been given no choice as to whether they wish to forfeit their South African citizenship or not—many of the people are not interested in giving up their South African citizenship for the sake of Bophuthatswanan citizenship—is going to increase and not decrease the possibility of confrontation and the explosiveness of the urban Black problem. I want to repeat this warning in all honesty in the House today. I was most amazed at the pious wish the hon. the Minister expressed here, viz. that Bophuthatswana would receive international recognition. It amazes me that the hon. the Minister could even be as pious as to express that wish. [Interjections.] I repeat that the impression was created during the First Reading of the Bill that we would really get a different approach here to the one in the legislation relating to the independence of Transkei as regards, and that is why I cannot understand why the hon. the Minister declared as piously as you please in his Second Reading speech that South Africa could not tolerate dual citizenship. Did we not create dual citizenship in 1971 with the Act relating to citizenship in the Bantu homelands? Then there were in fact two citizenships. [Interjections.] Therefore, the hon. the Minister must not come and tell us that we cannot have two citizenships. [Interjections.]

As a creation of a real fatherland for the Tswana people, the measure is totally inadequate and nonsensical. There is no question of a rational and justifiable geo-political division in that regard. If the citizens outside Bophuthatswana had not automatically been deprived of their South African citizenship, but had had a choice, and if provision had been made for real and adequate economic assistance for development in Bophuthatswana and if the alternatives had been stated clearly to the Tswanas, i.e. that they could choose whether they wanted to retain their share and claims in South Africa as far as both politics and the economy were concerned, and if the Tswanas had asked for it, I would probably have been able to support the measure. But under the prevailing circumstances it is only an irresponsible and stupid person who could accept that measure as an answer to the problem of the presence of the Tswanas in our plural society.

Mr. Speaker, in his plea, the hon. member for Edenvale has demonstrated unambiguously, just as all the hon. members on that side of the House have done, how deeply the roots of imperialism are embedded in them. The first point the hon. member made, was that he could not discuss the matter sensibly because he did not have the constitution of Bophuthatswana in front of him. The question at issue here is: Do we want this nation to become independent, decide on its own fate, determine its own future and draw up a constitution for itself? If the constitution was not to the hon. member’s liking, did he want to have it here to try and amend it, or for what purpose did he want it here? Our purpose here is precisely to afford a nation the right of self-determination, so that it may draw up its own constitution and determine its own future. It is not the duty of this Parliament to do that, and that is why that is not the question at issue here.

“Baasskap”!

Yes, it is the tendency towards “baasskap” amongst those hon. members. After all, the hon. member for Edenvale is on his way to the PRP. I now want to know from that hon. member: What prospects does that towards which he is moving hold out for the Black peoples of South Africa? The hon. member said that what we were doing here was not good, because it did not hold out any prospects for the Black peoples. What does the PRP’s policy hold in store for them, however? I do not have the time to speak about this at any length today, but I have nevertheless made an estimate. According to the policy of those hon. members, there will be two systems of voting and people will have a qualified right to vote. According to a calculation I have made, it appears that 85% of the constituencies will be in White hands and only 15% in Black hands. Nine percent of those will be the hands of the urban Blacks and only 6% in the hands of the Blacks in the Bantu homelands. If, as is the case today, there are 150 to 160 seats, then, according to the PRP policy, every homeland will receive only one seat. That is the direction in which the hon. member is moving, and one must now weigh it against what we are doing here. I should also like to request the hon. member to reread the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation from which he quoted, because the Minister also said in that speech that there was one thing in which South Africa did not believe and that was, as is the case in Africa, that the winner should take all and the loser lose all.

Just as you are taking everything here.

Yes, and only one nation can eventually be the winner. All the other nations will lose. All of the nations cannot be winners. [Interjections.] That is what we stand for, just as the hon. the Minister said. A system like the one the PRP is advocating, according to which every homeland will have one constituency, if constituencies are accepted as the basis, is surely the most favourable way of unleashing confrontation.

How do you work that one out?

Just go and analyse your policy. If the hon. member does not believe me, I will spell it our for them on a later occasion. I do not have the time to discuss it today. I want to go one step further. Hon. members on this side of the House have mentioned what we are doing here today. We in South Africa not only have to deal with various cultures and people; we also have to deal with different nationalisms. What we are doing here, is allowing each nationalism full expression and creating a basis on which those nationalisms can co-operate and co-exist. If one throws together and mixes up those nationalisms in one political dispensation, without creating a power base for every nationalism in which it will be secure, unthreatened and sovereign, one creates an opportunity for confrontation. What we are doing here, is creating a basis for co-operation by allowing every nationalism to reach full expression by recognizing its own sovereignty and, by so doing, making it feel secure so that it can co-operate with other people and not be threatened by them. The hon. member has done what all the other hon. members have done: He has come here and belittled Bophuthatswana and her people. He has said that they cannot develop, that they will not develop because of the state their country is in. I am very hurt when hon. members of the Opposition say that. We can understand it because their spiritual forefathers used that same language against the Afrikaner nation and its country. I want to tell the people of Bophuthatswana that they need not be worried about such remarks and disparagements. The Afrikaner nation is an example of a nation whose sound nationalism had to endure the same invective but in which that healthy nationalism grew and overcame those things. That is why I believe that the sound nationalism within Bophuthatswana, will develop that country. We know and foresee that that country will progress and grow.

The hon. member said Bophuthatswana could not make progress because it was chopped up into six parts. However, I just want to repeat what his own leader said in 1959 when the legislation relating to self-government for Bantu was discussed—

I emphasize “some consolidation”—

At that time there were 110 areas and 154 Black spots. That makes a total of 264. That number has already been reduced to 24, however, in terms of the consolidation proposals. That is “some consolidation”, indeed, a large measure of consolidation. I want to go further, however. It seems to me that that hon. member has more faith in the Tomlinson Commission than he has in the Bible. However, the Tomlinson Commission did something which did not fall within its terms of reference. To be specific, it suggested what the homelands should look like, it drew a map and indicated Bophuthatswana in three blocks, not one.

But he drew a ring around them.

No, he did not draw a ring around them; not at all. [Interjections.] I have studied that map. I want to address a challenge to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and if he is a man, he will accept it. He looks like someone who is going to speak again in this debate. I will arrange for us to have a summary of the reports and then he must show it to the House. Three rings were drawn around the spots which existed at that time. If he is a man, he must show it to the House.

Now you yourself are admitting it.

These rings were drawn and I want him to show them to the House. The Tomlinson Commission, to which those hon. members are addicted, did not propose only one block for Bophuthatswana, but, in reality, three blocks.

I admit that there are disadvantages attached to this consolidation; actually only one disadvantage, and that is that people like those hon. members cannot understand that a country looking like this, can grow, develop and function fully and normally. That is the only disadvantage relating to this consolidation. It is also the case that due to their actions, the outside world finds it difficult to understand as well. That is the only disadvantage attached to this consolidation.

On the other hand, there are indisputable advantages attached to it. I now want to point out a few of them. Let us take the rate of development of African States. Let us forget about the homelands for the moment. The three States in Africa which lie closest to South Africa, namely the former protectorates, are growing most rapidly due to the economic stimulation and interaction which exists between them and South Africa. South Africa’s markets are an advantage to them; they can sell their goods on our markets and they can trade with a country with a strong economy. That is to their benefit. Those are the three fastest-growing countries, but they are growing more slowly than South Africa’s homelands. Those homelands are growing more rapidly than all those other countries. The most important point, however, is that the two homelands that have been divided up into the greatest number of blocks, namely the six of Bophuthatswana and the ten of KwaZulu are, in turn, the fastest-growing amongst the homelands. This is so primarily because South Africa’s infrastructure is available to them over a wider area. The hon. member for Edenvale asks how America would ever reach Alaska over a hostile area. However, South Africa is not the enemy of the homelands and their peoples. On the contrary, we are their best friend. The entire infrastructure of South Africa is at their disposal. They can use it now and in the future. Transkei has already become independent and it consists of three areas. Has our infrastructure been closed to them? Surely that is not true. It is still at their disposal.

I want to mention an example of the benefits the present consolidation entails. The urbanization process in the homelands is essential for the occurrence and absorption of economic development. In 1970, 14% of the people in the homelands had been urbanized. In Malawi the figure was 5%; in Botswana 10%; in Swaziland, 7%; in Uganda, 7% and in Tanzania, 5%. In the case of the homelands, the average was 14%. The average was therefore higher than the percentages of the countries I have mentioned. In the case of Bophuthatswana, 28% of the people were urbanized and in the case of KwaZulu, 24%. I am now talking about urbanization within the homelands, not outside. This economic phenomenon is important for economic and industrial development, and it occurs to a greater extent in the homelands which consist of more than one area. I also want to point out the absence coefficient of Black males between 50 and 60 years old, those people who are responsible for a country’s development, the source of economic development. In 1970, the average absence coefficient for all the homelands was 18%. In Bophuthatswana the absence coefficient was only 9,6%, one half that of the others. This had not been the case previously. In 1946 the average of all the homelands was 26%. The absence coefficient for Bophuthatswana in that year was 23%. Due to the development taking place there, the homeland holds an attraction for its people, as one hon. member indicated this morning.

I want to turn to another point. Last night the hon. member for Yeoville referred jeeringly to the mines in Bophuthatswana.

Jeeringly?

Yes, he referred to them jeeringly. He said that all those mines belonged to White people.

It is true.

In that respect, South Africa and Bophuthatswana are in exactly the same position. For years the gold-mining industry and other mining industries in South Africa belonged exclusively to people from outside South Africa. The hon. members opposite blame us for not wanting to allow White capital into the homelands. Why does he reproach us if there are Whites who are developing the mines there? I want to draw the hon. member’s attention to another matter. The other day I was talking to the general manager of a large mining house. He told me he had made an estimate which showed that since Union, only 7% of the total gross revenue from the gold-mining industry in South Africa had left the country. Therefore, 93% has remained inside the country. This is inevitable because salaries had to be paid, power had to be bought, transport had to be paid for, equipment had to be bought, etc. The same will hold true for Bophuthatswana.

From whom will the power be bought?

The greater percentage of the yield from the mines in Bophuthatswana will stay there. It will stay where the labour and food, etc., have to be bought.

I want to point out another advantage of this consolidation. In the homelands which consist of more than one area, the number of commuters living in the homeland and working outside the homeland is greater than in the other homelands. This gives them an opportunity to earn money outside the homelands and to take the money into the homelands.

Last night the hon. the Minister pointed out another very important advantage, viz. that as a result of the division of Bophuthatswana, the people of Bophuthatswana will travel through South Africa and that we will travel through Bophuthatswana. This is a security factor. We shall be responsible for each other’s security. This is a very important aspect.

Hon. members opposite said that Bophuthatswana was not developing. Incidentally, everyone who advanced that argument, extracted three or four points from the B.E.R.B.D. review. They said there was only 6,6% agricultural land in Bophuthatswana. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana said that and so did the hon. member who, so I hear, is going to be kicked out of his party or who is going to resign. They said that the loss of expendable capital was great and that there were few people in Bophuthatswana. As far as the number of people is concerned, I should like to quote a few figures to the hon. members. Between 1960 and 1970—hon. members have been obsessed with 1970’s figures all along— the population of Bophuthatswana grew by 128%. During the same period the total Black population of South Africa increased by 38% and that of all the homelands by 70%. As far as Bophuthatswana is concerned, this relates not only to the people who were born there. It includes those people outside Bophuthatswana who returned to that homeland. It has a holdover its people, an attraction for them. Hon. members are talking about a mere 6,6% arable land. Those are outdated figures, however. There is a report by the Secretary for Agriculture of Bophuthatswana which indicates that that percentage could be boosted to 10,4% or 10,8%. It is due to this that Bophuthatswana has that same land which caused the revolution in the Springbokvlakte, that black turf which increased wheat production to such an extent. That is why the hon. the Minister of Agriculture is now lowering the wheat price. According to a conservative rough estimate, Bophuthatswana has at least 200 000 hectares of the land which yielded that tremendously high production, land which has always been described and regarded as pasture. At the moment there are five Tswana farmers whom I know of who have already planted wheat there and they have a fantastic crop on their lands. This is the beginning of the development of that area into a crop farming country.

At present it is 6% but it can be pushed up to 10%. What percentage of the Republic’s land is arable? It is only between 8% and 10%. What is Zambia’s—6,4%. Botswana has 0,9% arable land. The Congo has only 1,8% and the Sudan, 2,8%. But hon. members rely on three small things like that. After all, that is not how one judges the economy of a country. One cannot describe South Africa’s economy as not viable just because we do not produce petroleum and rubber. After all, that is not how one judges an economy. No, one judges a country’s economy by the following yardstick: How is the domestic product growing? What are the economic trends? In that same bulletin which hon. members read, they will find that in 1960-’61, the Government sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product was 48%. In 1971-’72 it diminished to 14%, because the private market sector’s contribution of 32% in 1960 had increased to 61%. The contribution of the public market sector increased from 18% to 24%. Surely this is an economic trend. In absolute terms, therefore, Bophuthatswana’s economy is growing faster than South Africa’s. [Interjections.] If one takes the growth rate, Bophuthatswana’s domestic product is growing faster than that of South Africa as a whole.

That is because it is smaller!

But of course! That is true! On the other hand, there are states in Africa which are smaller and which stay small. [Interjections.] Not even 25% or 20% of Bophuthatswana’s potential has as yet been tapped. The fact is, however, that they are in the process of tapping it, whilst there are places in Africa where this is not happening. There are places where the economy is stagnating and even deteriorating. The gross domestic product of Bophuthatswana has grown by 250% during the period from 1965 to 1971. This is indeed growth. Now I ask you: What is better? To have a large economy, to stagnate and become increasingly poorer, or to have a small economy growing at this tremendous rate so that one may progress and grow? It is better to grow and become greater than to be large and stagnate. After all, then one is deteriorating. [Interjections.]

In conclusion, I want to refer to the fact that hon. members of the PRP have said that they object to the fact that a referendum was not held. According to them, the people of Bophuthatswana were not consulted. Those hon. members must realize, however, that the Legislative Assembly of Bophuthatswana was elected by the people and for the people. Therefore, the Legislative Assembly speaks on behalf of the people just as this Parliament speaks on behalf of the Whites in South Africa. The Parliament of Bophuthatswana addressed a request to this Parliament. After all, it is a Parliament which was appointed by the Tswanas themselves. Moreover, another election is going to be held. The preparatory work for the election is already in progress. There is also an opposition party in Bophuthatswana. The opposition party also entered its candidates in the election. In fact, the candidates are being nominated now. There are constituencies in Bophuthatswana in which the governing party’s candidate has already been elected unopposed and in which the opposition party has therefore not even put forward a candidate. [Interjections.]

According to my information, there are 48 nominated chiefs in the Legislative Assembly of Bophuthatswana. Forty-seven of these are supporters of the Governing party, a party which is in favour of independence. I know of one elected chief who spoke out against independence. What became of him? He was kicked out; he was not nominated again. Someone who was in favour of independence was nominated in his place. Everything points to the voters supporting the governing party. One of the most important indications of this is the large number of constituencies in which candidates of the governing party have been nominated unopposed. Now hon. members of the PRP are alleging that there was no consultation. Surely Tswanas in the urban areas outside Bophuthatswana can also vote; indeed, they will vote, and they also nominate candidates.

If that is true, should you not be afraid?

No, I am not afraid. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

I am definitely not afraid. As far as I am concerned,—and this is also the policy of the Government—every people decides on its own future. If the Tswana nation decides otherwise, then it is their decision and not a decision of the South African Government.

Why do you hold an election before, and not after, independence?

Now the hon. member for Houghton wants to know why the election is taking place before independence. After all, we are not dealing here with a nation which has absolutely nothing. The Tswanas are not in a situation in which they have no political institutions. They already have their own Legislative Assembly. After all, they have been there for a long time and they have already developed. They have not started only today.

The hon. Opposition is once again proving that although they want to lead a nation, they simply do not understand the aspirations and the pulse and the emotions of a nation. I want to remind hon. members of the Opposition that we held a referendum on 5 October 1960 in which a decision was made in favour of a Republic within the Commonwealth. In January 1961 Dr. Verwoerd went to London with a mandate to strive to keep the future Republic in the Commonwealth. There he decided of his own volition to withdraw his application and not to keep South Africa in the Commonwealth any longer. Because he knew and understood the emotions of his people, he returned to the greatest hero’s welcome he had ever experienced. Our present hon. Prime Minister also understands the desires of the nation. Because we are Nationalists, we know, too, that a spirit of nationalism courses through the hearts of the Black nations. We respect their nationalism and we know that their nationalism will lead them on to great heights.

Mr. Speaker, the debate which we have been listening to for the past day or two, deals with a subject which is near to the hearts of most of us. This subject is to see whether, on the basis of a kind of relations politics in South Africa, we are able firstly, to secure the position of the Whites and, secondly, to have justice done to all those people who are still under our guardianship today. I think this is essentially what this debate should be about. To most of us it is also very clear that a pattern has been created in South Africa over the past 30 years and longer, one which has been approved at one election after the other. This pattern is that every group should have its own institutions and that every group should speak for itself. None other than the hon. member for Yeoville wrote an article in the Sunday Times about 14 days ago in which he put it very clearly: “That we must make it clear that we too stand firm on White survival.” In the article the hon. member made it very clear that every group in South Africa must speak for itself and was doing so. As far as the IUP is concerned, which is to become a full-fledged political party after Saturday night, and which is still attracting people to it, I should like to tell hon. members on this side of the House that it will not help us to shout against thunder in this type of matter. We have reached a situation where the creation of homelands and homeland development have become irrevocable in South Africa. Not only we realize this today, but also my former colleagues. The hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Bezuidenhoud realize it too. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout made a speech in 1973 about the crumbs falling from our table. I think the statements which the hon. member made in that speech were quite correct.

As a result of that speech the UP changed its approach completely. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was asked the following question in this House: “When the UP comes into power, what are you going to do about the Bantu homelands in South Africa, as well as those which have already gained independence?” The hon. the Leader was asked what his approach was. The approach used to be that the UP was entirely opposed to the policy of homelands and that it would have to be undone. The approach was that the people would have to be forced back into the rest of South Africa. The reaction of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to the question was that the UP would not refuse independence to those homelands which had been promised independence and which were on the “verge of independence”. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is one of the people who was responsible for this change in attitude. Today, however, we are witnessing the consistency of the official Opposition and the PRP. Last year the hon. member for Yeoville went overseas and visited Canada. What did he do there? He said the world must recognize Transkei. I appreciate the fact that the hon. member said this.

Do you object to it?

Of course I do not object to it, but at the moment the hon. member is again opposing legislation in that direction. I want to suggest that the hon. member should pay another visit to Canada before the end of July. [Interjections.] I am sure that if the hon. member were to be questioned in this regard, he would say that the world must recognize Bophuthatswana. These people are a separate nation living in their own country. They speak for themselves. We as Whites can converse and negotiate with them. We are prepared to help these people. They are a nation in the true sense of the word.

A proud nation!

Yes, a proud nation. This is a kind of standpoint which the hon. member for Yeoville wants to take up and one should have appreciation for that. However, one cannot have appreciation for the fact that he belongs to that political party while he has the opportunity today of demonstrating in a practical way that he will adopt the same attitude here in South Africa as he did overseas.

You want me to attack my country abroad!

We on this side of the House realize that this policy has been followed for more than 30 years. I remember speeches—I do not even want to quote from them—by people like Gen. Smuts, Gen. Botha and others, in which they put it very clearly that parallel institutions had to be established in South Africa. That is why I was a member of the UP and accepted that we had to convert our policy of a unitary system into a policy of a federal system. Why did we move in a federal direction? Because of the need to have regard to this development which is taking place in South Africa at the present time. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is having so much regard to this at the present time that when he and Mr. Gerdener issue statements, they speak of their federal confederal direction. When the opportunity presents itself to show by example that we want to lend a hand in laying the foundations of such a system, I, like the hon. member for Innesdal, want to say that it is not a perfect approach …

How did you vote on the Transkei legislation?

I shall let the hon. member into a secret. I was one of the people on that side of the House who tried to influence the hon. gentlemen not to oppose that legislation, but unfortunately I could not succeed in doing so.

We should at least be consistent in allowing our federal direction in South Africa to become meaningful. The hon. member for Innesdal admitted—and I think it is a magnanimous admission—that the approach of having independent States was not necessarily the best solution for South Africa. I think the hon. member created the impression that the present borders of Bophuthatswana were possibly not the final ones. Of course, the final borders have not been determined. I think the hon. member for Yeoville is in earnest when he says that we should place a constitutional roof over this country some time in the future. How is he going to place a constitutional roof over South Africa without his laying proper foundations or building proper walls for that building? We see the creation of homeland development today as an important facet in the constitutional pattern which we want for South Africa. As far as the urban Bantu is concerned, we realize full well that the homeland policy of the Government is not the answer to the problem of the urban Bantu. However, the urban Bantu are not relevant to this discussion. We can discuss and attend to the position of the urban Black man in South Africa at the proper time and at the right stage. What is relevant at the moment is a constitutional institution for the Black people in their own areas. If one wants to make one’s own policy meaningful, one must be prepared to go along in helping to lay the foundations which will justify one’s subsequent constitutional development. Of course, the Black people of Bophuthatswana do not have as healthy an economic development as we should like to see. [Interjections.] Of course not.

I mentioned in a debate here the other day, that of the 48 States of Africa there were only eight which were able to satisfy their own food requirements. That is so. This does not mean to say that because a State is at this stage it is incapable of developing. Why do hon. members have so little confidence in the form of leadership, in the degree of skill, in the ambition and aspirations of the Black man? It is said every day that we must share our powers with the people, but when confidence has to be expressed in the Black man as regards his ability to see to his own affairs and to develop his own area, then, all of a sudden, there is a lack of confidence in him. Then it is clearly evident that the hon. members on this side of the House are not in earnest as regards homeland development. Nor are they in earnest as regards effecting a constitutional development in South Africa, based on the maintenance of group identities, or as regards creating institutions for each group. What did the hon. member for Sea Point say? He said that new borders could be drawn and that every one falling within such borders were to remain there and exercise their political rights, etc., within that area. The hon. member does not want the idea of separate freedom for the Black man or the idea that every group be given its own institutions. He wants there to be power sharing at every level in South Africa. This is what the hon. member for Sea Point wants, and that is why they are opposed to this legislation. The various approaches in South Africa to this matter ought to be very clear to any observer. We in these benches see in the creation of institutions of their own and in a sovereignty of their own a way of negotiating with peoples and co-operating with them at the highest level.

How do you differ from the Government?

As far as my knowledge of their policy goes, the Government is not interested at this stage in creating an umbrella body in South Africa. In this regard we differ completely from the Government, but where we agree with the Government, is when they are engaged in laying the foundations and building the walls. We shall support them in this. The standpoint of the hon. member for Sea Point is very clear in this regard.

†He wants to share power at every level.

*The hon. member is sitting over there.

Do you want to share power at every level?

Of course, we are not prepared to share power at every level. If we were prepared to share power at every level, we would eventually have an integrated, common society as my friends in the PRP would like to have established in South Africa.

*However, if one creates the institutions for the different groups and is prepared to have co-operation in South Africa wherever there are shortcomings, one should also be prepared to create the body above these. We accept that the Government made promises to the Black people that they could have independence.

And the Opposition?

The Opposition also made such promises. Of course they made them and we all know that this is so. As a matter of fact, they adjusted their policy accordingly. They are the people who always have a great deal to say about the word of honour of the White man and who say that promises must be kept. However, when the Government is prepared to keep those promises, their endeavours are thwarted.

It is nothing more than lip service on their part.

Yes, just as they pay lip service to the idea that ours is a plural society. In a plural society one acts accordingly and one creates those institutions for the various groups. In such a society one gives the greatest degree of say and one decentralizes power and responsibility. What is this legislation but an example of this?

I want to contend that we in these benches are at least consistent and prepared to keep our word. As the approach and the philosophy of the UP have changed over the years, we are prepared to keep to the changes which have occurred. By the same token we shall inform the Government on every occasion what the shortcomings in its policy are. If the Government has not yet taken a look at the position of the urban Bantu at this stage, we will urge the Government to change its approach in respect of these people. We shall have to regard them as being a permanent part of our society.

However, this is not relevant at the moment and that is why we are prepared to support this step of the Government since it is a step in the right direction. As far as we are concerned, we say to the people of Bophuthatswana: You have made this choice yourselves. You have stated emphatically that you want your independence. As far as we are concerned, we congratulate you at this stage and we wish you the best future. We also want to assure the people of Bophuthatswana that we in these benches will do everything possible to improve relations in South Africa between people, groups and nations. Even if they obtain their independence, they will not be able to manage without us nor shall we be able to manage without them. We shall have to develop mutual relations in South Africa so as to ensure a future for everyone in this country, also for my friends sitting to my right.

Mr. Speaker, the speech of the hon. member for Newton Park exudes a completely different spirit because his approach is much more realistic than that of his former stable-mates. One can agree with most of what he said. He shows a balance and seeks the equilibrium which is necessary in these times of tension and struggle, in these times in which relations between people will determine the future of the various population groups in the plural population set-up of South Africa. Before I come to my actual message, I should like to react to what was said by the hon. the leader of the PRP yesterday evening. I want to accuse him of subtle incitement. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that he put the question: How many Soweto’s are needed to convince this Government that it must change its policy and that it must accept the policy which the PRP champions and advocates and which the world advocates, i.e. Black majority government—-because that is actually what their policy amounts to? Do you know, Sir, what the question implies? It implies that he is telling the young people of Soweto: “If you carry on with this action calculated to incite and create anarchy, you will be able to force this Government to accede to demands which we are actually telling you to make. The so-called reason for the recent unrest was that too much Afrikaans was being taught in your schools, but we want to tell you that the meaning lies deeper than that. You must just carry on as you have been.” Sir, I want to accuse the leader of the PRP of having used irresponsible inflammatory language. Those words will find an echo in certain elements outside, and this may lead to dangerous repercussions and implications in the future.

Yesterday evening the hon. member said that the Black people of Bophuthatswana have not been consulted in a general poll or referendum. However, this achievement of a long-cherished ideal, for Bophuthatswana too, is a phase in a long process which has lasted for years. We must remember that the Whites came into contact with the Bantu at a primitive stage in their development when they were only used to their tribal systems and individual primitive modes of Government, having no knowledge at all of a Western approach to government. It was therefore a long process in which the Whites brought the Tswanas to their present stage of development, namely that of the acceptance and realization of an independent status.

I should also like to react to the speech of the hon. member for Durban Central, who said that he knows the Tswana language so well and that he consequently has a special knowledge of Bophuthatswana and of the Tswanas. I should like to tell him that if his knowledge of language is revealed in what he had to say yesterday evening, he has gained very little wisdom through that knowledge. I also know the language of the Tswanas. In fact, I did spiritual work amongst the Black people for 30 years. I was in the Transkei for eight years from 17.3.1929. As a pioneer missionary of the D.R. Church, I had the privilege of initiating the first growth points of the blessed work which is being done there today. After that, I worked amongst the Tswanas for more than 20 years in Pretoria and the Marico area, having been based in Zeerust. I also learned their languages. Ndi teta SiXhosa. Ngi Kuluma Zizulu. Ke tsebe Sesoetoe. Ke bua Setsjoana. Ke itse go bala Sepedi, Siswazi, Chinyanya le Chikaranga, me ga ke re ke botlale tata, ke motho fela. What I said here now, Sir, is that I also learned Bantu languages. I can speak Xhosa and I can speak Zulu. I know Sotho. I passed a first-year university course in it. I speak Tswana, but I do not want to say that I have become swollen-headed due to the fact that I know those languages. I have remained a ordinary man. I may say that I know more languages than that. I can read even more, and I can write and speak seven Bantu languages. Due to my knowledge of those languages, I had an opportunity to penetrate to the very soul and essence of the Black man and to learn to know him. I got to know him better than that hon. member and other hon. members want to make out that they know him. I am saying these things because, supposedly due to his knowledge of the Tswanas, the hon. member made the statement that the Tswana people have gone furthest towards westernization and detribalization. He said that their ethnicity is decaying and being lost. I want to tell him that with my knowledge of the Tswana people I hold precisely the opposite view. According to my knowledge, these people have managed wonderfully to maintain their ethnicity over the years. The Tswana people actually has a history which differs from that of many of the other Black peoples of South Africa. There were periods in their history when they were practically destroyed, periods in which they were scattered and dispersed.

Small remnants of various tribes fled from the onslaughts of Mantatesi in 1823 and from the Matebele from 1828 and 1837. They were able to return, however, and were rehabilitated with the assistance of my forefathers, my people, and re-established in various places. My people helped them recover a great deal of what they had lost. Their ethnicity has been maintained over the years by binding factors such as their lanaguage and culture. They also had their totems by means of which the various tribal units were distinguished.

The Hurutsé bina Tsuene (dance or sing for the monkey); others; bina Tau (lion), Puti (duiker), Kwena (crocodile) or Tsepe (iron), etc. These were binding factors which kept the various tribes together.

The hon. member told us about the Tswana who worked on his father’s farm and who intimated that he no longer had any contact with the Tswanas. When I was a boy, a Tswana came to work on my father’s farm and his children grew up with me. We played and worked together. They still work for me today. They have been working for no other family but ours for almost 70 years. I challenge the hon. member and everyone on the other side to go and talk to them. If they do so, they will find that those Tswanas are still in every sense of the word Tswanas, in their customs, their behaviour, their language and habits. They know their chief and their totem. They do not want to be anything else; and this after having worked for only three masters in almost 70 years, i.e. three generations.

I shall tell the Opposition what their problem is. They do not know the Bantu of South Africa. They want to approach the Bantu on a holier-than-thou, sophisticated Western political level. This is the big mistake the Western nations are making in their African policy: they do not know the Black people. They have no real knowledge of the ideals and essence of the Black man. They have no knowledge of the Black man’s methods of administration, way of life, etc. That is why the Americans and the Western nations are making one mistake after the other in the implementation of their policy in Africa. They said to the Black States: “Come on; we give you your freedom. Accept the Western democratic system.” Usually this is rejected after the first election which takes place on a democratic basis. They lack knowledge of the Black nations. The same holds for the Opposition. It is tragic that this is the case in our own country, where we live amongst them and are called to promote the interests of the Black peoples in South Africa in a responsible way. We must do so in such a way that we do not take away anything which belongs to them, but that we lead and educate them for their task.

Let me say that 130 to 150 years ago the Tswana, who will be taken up into the State of Bophuthatswana today, were actually a scattered people without property. There was excellent co-operation, however, between them and the Voortrekker leaders, Potgieter and Maritz, who made the first onslaught against the Matebele at Mosega where my son is living today, and in the Motsweli area where the Chief Minister lives, both near two beautiful fountains. It is in that area where the Tswana also had their own Blood River in the upper reaches of the Crocodile River, i.e. the Klein and Groot Marico Rivers which they named Madikwe. As far as I know Madikwe means “Blood River”. “Madi kwa” means “the blood is there”.

That is where the blood of the forefathers of the Tswanas flowed when they fought against M’mantatesi and the Matebele. I believe that the grandfathers of the chief minister and other ministers of Bophuthatswana participated and fought together against the Matabele where that trail of blood was left behind. I have documentary proof here from the writings of Rev. Robert Moffat, who described what that area looked like: A deserted area with trails of blood and skeletons where the wild animals fed on corpses and carcasses. As a result of the assistance which the Tswanas offered Andries Hendrik Potgieter at the time, some of their tribes were allowed to return and at various spots their previous land was given back to them.

I am grateful today, and believe that the Tswana should be grateful, that they got back more than twice the amount of land they owned in any period in their history.

If I look now at the 3,8 million ha which will constitute the area of Bophuthatswana, and I think of the little they had before 1910, it is clear that they have gained more than half again, and this is due to the generosity, the goodwill and the assistance of the Whites which rehabilitated them as a people once more. I wish I had the time to mention to hon. members the various places which they owned before 1936. I have all the names, but I just want to give the number of morgen. From 1837 to 1936, Bophuthatswana got back 1 777 000 ha through the goodwill and assistance of the White Governments which governed South Africa during these periods. Then after 1936, they received 2 022 000 ha more than they had ever had before, a total of 3,8 million: One could hardly have expected them to get more. I do not begrudge them this, but that is all.

In this regard I also disagree with the hon. member for Edenvale who said that the Government should also have given them Rustenburg, Lichtenburg, Brits and many other places. If I were in the shoes of the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana, I would also have felt it to be advantageous and good to have received a more meaningful area like this, with all those towns thrown in. He must also see it, however, from my point of view as a White man. If, as they are demanding the broadest, the biggest and the best of South Africa, geographically speaking, is added to all the various Black States, what will ultimately remain for the Whites? Only the Karoo and the North-Western Cape.

If Pietersburg and Potgietersrus and other places are to be given to the northern Black States which are still to become independent, what will ultimately remain? Bophuthatswana should rather meaningfully cherish and appreciate what they are being given today—i.e. a large portion of the area to which the Tswanas have a right and which they owned previously—and try to cultivate the best possible future relations. I believe that a man like the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana and his Government will accept this approach towards good relations and an understanding of the meaningful, historical and unique event which is to take place on 6 December, as a guideline for the future.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, it has been a great priviliege for me to participate in this important and historical debate. In the few minutes which still remain to me, I just want to make a final statement, i.e. that no historian, especially no future Tswana historian, can ever disregard the important role played by Commandant Andries Hendrik Potgieter in the North-Western Transvaal. He was the one who played the most important part in driving the Matebele forces from that whole area. Nor will any historian be able to ignore the importance of what happened on 17 January 1937 at Mosega and at Motsenyateng, one of the most important native villages of the Tswana chief Moghatle. The largest portion of the Mosega farm today belongs to my son, Gerhard Grobler. The nine-day campaign which lasted from 2 to 12 November 1837 is also of great importance. One of the farms in the area in which that battle took place is Silkaatskop. At a later date this was the bushveld winter stockfarm of my grandfather, M. S. F. Grobler. I mention these things to show that I have a close connection with the passage of history there, and that I have learned a great deal about this; amongst other things as a result of stories told by my parents and forefathers.

I believe that the people of Bophuthatswana should build a monument to Andries Hendrik Potgieter in the future. Had he not stopped the expanding power of the Matebele, the whole of the North-Western Transvaal would still be known as Matebele land today. Not a single Tswana would have returned there, and we would not have been able to witness this historical day today. Were it not for Andries Hendrik Potgieter, the Tswanas of Botswana might not have existed as a State today, because they would easily have been driven out by the Matebele too. There was nothing to curb that tribe in its aspirations for territorial expansion by way of marauding expeditions and murder campaigns. They could easily have decimated the Tswanas or even driven them as far as the Kalahari. If this had happened, neither Botswana or Bophuthatswana would have existed today. There is a fine bust of Andries Hendrik Potgieter at Zeerust today. The bust was set up to commemorate the heroic deeds of Andries Hendrik Potgieter. I think that the Tswana nation owe it to Andries Hendrik Potgieter to build him a monument too, since he was the man who was so important to them at that difficult stage of their history.

I want the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana to know that we in South Africa, as well as the rest of the world, make high demands of him. We hope that he can follow in the footsteps of another great Tswana leader, of another branch of his nation—someone whom the great anthropologist, Prof. F. V. Bruwer, describes as follows—

To them and to their future Governments I say: “Tsoalle pela. Pula! Pula!”

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Marico obviously has his roots deeply in the western Transvaal and I found what he said about these particular matters of considerable interest. He is obviously not only knowledgeable on the subject, but also feels very deeply and very sincerely about an area where he and his family have had their roots for generations. While he spoke in that trend one listened to him with interest and a certain amount of respect for his pride in that heritage, but he then unfortunately followed the trend of other speakers in that he, instead of dealing with the merits of the matter, decided that it would be proper, for example, to virtually accuse the hon. member for Sea Point of incitement in the manner in which he presented his speech. This is the tragedy of this whole debate. I wonder if South Africa is not asking today whether this continuous mud-slinging and sterile debate which goes on in the House is in South Africa’s interest. I am not afraid of a free-for-all. I enjoy it as much as anybody else, but is it in the interests of South Africa that this should continue? Is it appropriate when we are discussing a matter of this nature concerning this particular type of situation? Can we not expect from Parliamentarians a more meaningful dialogue and a more meaningful exchange of views in respect of the future of South Africa? [Interjections.] There we have it again! There one has the proof! All one has to do is to say one word, and it all comes out. [Interjections.] Listen to it, Sir. This is what South Africa is hearing. [Interjections.] Just listen to it! It is unbelievable that here when one has the future of South Africa being debated, one gets this kind of behaviour from members of Parliament. I wonder how the public sits in judgment in this situation, when we here are supposed to concern ourselves with ensuring the security and the future of White people in South Africa. That is our job, and look at the way in which the hon. members behave! [Interjections.]

Order!

It is unreal. I want to say that I, for one, see some signs of hope in a dialogue which perhaps has been started. I would like to join in the congratulations to the hon. the Minister of Sport. I want to make it quite clear that I do not want to congratulate him to embarrass him or because I agree with everything that he has said, but at least he is trying to keep a dialogue going in South Africa to seek a solution. Whether we agree with the hon. the Minister or not is irrelevant. He is at least seeking to do it. Even the hon. the Minister of the Interior went on in the same vein the other day. He also deserves congratulations for that.

The hon. Senator Worrall is another one who is trying to get dialogue going in South Africa to seek a solution. That is what I am prepared to respect and congratulate because I think that is the spirit that should have been displayed in this debate. The spirit that this debate requires is a seeking after a solution, but instead we have seen the arrogance of some people who think that only they have the solution. [Interjections.] Listen to the noise from the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs. He is incapable of conducting a reasonable dialogue. [Interjections.] I do not include him in it because he is just not real. He does not belong to the people who seek to find a solution for South Africa. He is out of it. He is not involved and never can be. [Interjections.]

When we come to the question of the homelands, I want to say immediately that I do not believe that one can just dismiss the concept of homelands out of hand. I do not believe that one can do that. One has to examine whether the concept of homelands can make a contribution towards a long-term solution of South Africa’s problems. I believe that if the concept were approached correctly, in a more realistic manner, and if it were regarded as only a part of the solution instead of the whole solution, it could make a contribution towards a long-term solution for South Africa. Instead of the rather raucous laughter I hear, I should rather like to try to conduct some kind of dialogue, some kind of reasonable debate here today. If one is going to bring homelands into the situation as a long-term solution, one must accept certain fundamentals. The first is that one must accept that there must be true self-determination. The people themselves must decide what their desires are, they must be able to express them and they must be tested in the correct manner. We believe in self-determination, but self-determination entails a decision by the people whose future is at stake.

It must not be a decision by somebody else on their behalf. That is an essential ingredient if the homelands concept is to have a degree of success. The second fundamental is that there must be a reasonably consolidated territorial entity. If one wants to create an entity which is a viable entity, it has to be something which can reasonably stand up in these circumstances. There are writers who cannot be dismissed with contempt as being neopoliticians who have written about this issue, for instance people from RAU. I want to refer to only one who has written an article in a very recent issue of Aambeeld. I presume hon. members have read it, Aambeeld is a magazine of RAU. The article was written by Stoffel van der Merwe, the chairman of the department of political science of the university. He makes it quite clear that if one wants to have a viable State, a state with a reasonable chance of success, it must be a properly consolidated entity which can stand up on its own. I quote what he said—

These are not my words, but the words of an eminent academic whose views should not be ignored with regard to this situation.

I believe that a homeland unit must be an economically viable entity to be capable not only of subsistence, but also of fulfilling the reasonable aspirations of the people, the citizens of that homeland. In other words, people must not just be reconciled to living as they are; they must have a future, look forward to improve themselves and attain better standards of living.

Fourthly, we have to see how the homeland concept fits into the broad plan of South Africa’s constitutional development. I do not think we can escape the fact that the homeland concept is, in fact, a form of partition. There is no question about that: it is a form of partition. However, whether it is a practical form of partition, is another matter. I believe that partition as a possible solution for South Africa’s problems simply cannot be ignored. A German specialist—some hon. members may remember the Gräfin von Donau—wrote after visiting South Africa: “Nicht dass die Teilung undenkbar sei; vielleicht ist es die einzige Lösung”. It is, in fact, perhaps the only solution for the problem.

I think we need to examine some of these aspects, because the philosophers who were behind the concept initially did not believe in fragmentation. On the contrary. We can for example quote the words of Dr. Verwoerd. His Hansard reads—

These were the words of Dr. Verwoerd, the man who, after all, must to some extent be regarded as the father of this concept.

But that is not all he said.

Of course not. He said many other things too, but I contend that he was not in favour of fragmentation and I do not think the hon. member is in favour of it either.

† I think we can again quote Dr. Malan, this time in a different context, where he is reported as saying the following—

I do not think we can ignore these words. Admittedly they are part of history today, but they show that the concept which is involved here, is one that we really cannot pretend is not one of the issues that exists. The question which we have to ask ourselves today is: If we talk about partition, because that is what we are talking about in the homelands concept, will the Black people accept the partition of South Africa when the land they are bound to receive in terms of that partition, is only about 16% of the total surface area of South Africa and, more important than that, when that land yields only less than 3% of the total gross domestic product of South Africa? [Interjections.] That is the question that has to be answered and no amount of noise is going to destroy those facts …

What about the potential?

We are dealing with the reality of a division today. The potential of South Africa’s GDP is unlimited and one cannot only look at the potential of the Black areas as opposed to the potential of the White areas, because the White areas have a tremendous potential on their own.

To my mind the answer is clearly that the Black man will not be satisfied with 16% of the surface area, nor will he be satisfied with 3% of the GDP. Therefore, we are not finding a solution in this regard. The next important question is whether the Whites will agree to a more realistic partition of South Africa. In this case we have to get an answer from the hon. members on that side of the House. Is White South Africa prepared to give up more land and more of its gross domestic product in order to bring about a solution in regard to this matter? Unfortunately the majority of the Whites in South Africa are not prepared to do this and unfortunately they may be prepared to do so when it is too late to make the sacrifice. The trouble in our country at the moment is that it is always a little too late in respect of these matters.

If we look at the homelands in another way, not as the final solution but as a creation which can become part of a federal or of a confederal whole or part of a cantonal system such as both the hon. the Minister of Sport and the hon. the Minister of the Interior have referred to, then we see a situation which is quite different, because then, in so far as the Black people are concerned, some of them will find a home in the homeland and others of them will remain part of the remainder of South Africa. They will then have to remain part of the rest of South Africa on a non-discriminatory basis and then we might be on our way to a real solution. Once the homelands are established, once the numbers game in South Africa becomes different and one is left with the remainder of South Africa, then a possible federal or confederal solution is in fact a practical possibility. We shall then be able to look at South Africa quite differently, because we can redraw the boundaries and whether they be provinces or states, we can take into account community of interests, which includes ethnic origin, and we shall then be able to achieve the security that people are looking for; we shall also be able to allow for the aspirations of the Black people in that kind of situation. I do not want to say that there is nothing whatsoever in the homelands concept; I rather want to say that we can take the homelands concept, if it is put in the correct context, and we can use it as part of a solution for South Africa, acceptable not only to Whites but also to Blacks and perhaps to the Western world.

Do not in those circumstances think for one moment that the homeland concept is the answer to all our problems because it is not. There is no possibility of that being a final solution. The hon. member for Newton Park said that in Canada I had appealed to the Western World that the Transkei should be recognized. I do not believe that Chief Lucas Mangope and his people are taking the right road, but I can understand why they are taking that road. I can understand it because he himself has said that he is taking this road in order to bring about meaningful political change in South Africa—and he used the words “South Africa”—and to remove discrimination. That is the road that he has chosen to take in these circumstances. No one can blame him for taking it because he does not have the other alternative. I therefore have no difficulty in saying that despite the fact that I do not believe that this is the right road—and I would have preferred him to take another road—I certainly do not want to do him and his people any harm. On the contrary I wish them well. I will say the same thing for Bophuthatswana when the time comes because I believe that if the reality of the situation is that a State is independent, it is no use my pretending that it is not. Therefore I will certainly in the interests of those people, seek to support them. [Interjections.]

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

No, I do not have time for questions. May I look at some of the statistics in regard to the position. Let us be realistic about it. The White population of South Africa is 4,31 million. The Tswana population is 2,103 million. In other words, they are 48% of the Whites, if the figures are taken in proportion. The land that is to be given to Bophuthatswana is 4,043 million hectares in extent as I understand the figures. The White land in South Africa, to be left after the homeland becomes independent, is 106 million hectares in extent. In other words, 2 million-odd Tswana against 4 million-odd Whites get 3,77% of the land that the White man is to have.

And the other homelands?

It makes it even worse if one takes into account the other homelands. If we look at the 1973 figures of the GDP, Bophuthatswana’s GDP in respect of Black people only was R66 million while the figure in respect of South Africa was R2 279 million. In other words, the GDP of that homeland, expressed as a percentage, was 0,28%. If we take both Black and White in the area of Bophuthatswana it comes to only 0,5%. If we look at Bophuthatswana, using the 1974 figures, we find that Black income was R66 million. Commuters, people who work outside Bophuthatswana, earned R98,5 million. Migrants earned R47,2 million. What does that mean? It means in reality that as far as these people are concerned, they cannot earn all that they should earn inside their own country. That is the reality of the situation and that is why if one compares the GNP with the GDP, one will find that there is a dramatic difference because the GNP of Bophuthatswana is R212 million as against R18 713 million for the Whites, which amounts to 1,13% of the figure in respect of White South Africa. These are unrealistic figures and from an economic point of view it is quite clear that the Tswana nation is not getting a fair share of the wealth of the whole of South Africa. That is why one cannot isolate the Tswana people by saying that is all that belongs to them. One must allow the Tswana people to share in the wealth of South Africa. That does not mean a hand-out or any of those things.

Let me look at the employment situation. One finds the situation in the homelands as a whole that some 100 000 new jobs must be created every year. However, in the homelands only 28,4% of this figure can be created according to Benbo’s figures. 36,8% can be created in the border areas and 34,8% cannot find jobs either in the border areas or in the homelands. They either have to be migrant workers or not work at all. One cannot create independent States like this. This is an economic situation which one cannot ignore. I can do no better than to quote the Assistant Director of Benbo who says: “Bo en behalwe Christelike beginsels wat pertinent ter sprake is, het reeds van die vroegste tye ekonome daarop gewys dat ’n skewe verdeling van inkomste tot politieke onstabiliteit kan lei.” It is now no longer purely political instability on a domestic basis; it becomes political instability on an international basis because you are creating independent States. I want to say, with great respect, that this is not a logical way of dealing with this.

There is one last matter which I want to deal with and that is that the hon. the Minister— and I want him to deal with this in his reply—has made it clear that as far as he is concerned, he is now creating a situation where he is putting a premium on becoming a foreigner. He is on record as saying during the debate on the Status of the Transkei Bill that he for one would see to it that there were privileges given in respect of hospitalization, housing and a variety of other matters for those people who were prepared to surrender their citizenship of South Africa and who would become citizens of another State. In other words, depending on whether you are a South African Black or whether you are a Black who has citizenship of another State, you get preference in regard to social services such as hospitalization.

Disgraceful!

I find it unbelievable that the hon. the Minister could really have meant this. If you are a citizen of a country then surely you should logically have at least an equal right if not a greater right than those who are foreigners. Bearing in mind that human rights has become a real issue in respect of South Africa, how can it be in accordance with internationally accepted concepts of human rights to do such a thing? I find it impossible to believe. With great respect to the hon. the Minister, if that is what he is doing to force people into independence, then he is in fact doing a disservice to South Africa. I want to say just one more thing which is appropriate to this. The hon. the Prime Minister said in Vienna and again at the airport here that he is prepared to be hanged for what he is but he is not prepared to be hanged for what he is not. I do not want to be hanged for what the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is. I do not believe that anyone in South Africa should be hanged at all and the responsibility as to whether we get hanged or not lies with the hon. members sitting on the benches opposite in this House.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Yeoville vented his spleen here this afternoon about the measure before this House. Had he been on another visit to Canada at this stage and held the speech there, it would have been better. We again had the double talk from the hon. member today which we have become accustomed to hearing from that party. He said, inter alia, that he had no objection to the independence and that he wished the Tswana people well seeing that they were going to become independent. I cannot understand why he did not stand up and support this Bill. I think the hon. member who spoke on behalf of the IUP this morning, was right when he said that when the hon. member for Yeoville was in Canada, he was out of reach of the whip; then Mamma Helen could not get to him to prescribe to him what to say!

The hon. member also made the accusation that we on this side of the House did not want to continue conducting a dialogue and that we resorted to mud-slinging instead. I want to ask the hon. member who started the mud-slinging arguments in this House last night? It was the hon. the leader of his party, the hon. member for Sea Point from whom he would so dearly love to take over the leadership. The hon. member for Sea Point used the words “wat ’n klug” for the homeland of Bophuthatswana last night. He spoke of “daily harassment of apartheid” and “meanness of the NP”. I think the hon. member should have a few words with his own leader on this matter and should not accuse us of mud-slinging.

The hon. member also quoted Dr. Verwoerd here in support of his argument that Bophuthatswana was not to be granted its independence. He cannot deny that basically Dr. Verwoerd favoured the existence of separate peoples in this country. Nor can he deny that Dr. Verwoerd favoured partition. If he wants to quote Dr. Verwoerd to support his arguments, he is really on the wrong track.

He also said that the Tswana should share in the wealth of South Africa. The hon. the Deputy Minister indicated this morning that there were, inter alia, 34 mines in Bophuthatswana. The income derived from those mines ultimately go to people who do not think as we do on this side of the House. The PRP always wax lyrical about wealth in South Africa having to be shared. Now there is an opportunity for them to start sharing wealth. They may give it to the Tswanas at once, because the Tswanas can put it to very good use.

This afternoon the hon. member also dragged in to the discussion the argument of human rights just in passing. I fully agree that this Bill will regulate and determine the life and future of many hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa. We should be careful, however, when we drag the concept of human rights into the discussion of this matter. We should not say lightly that this legislation does not meet those requirements, and that we are damaging and destroying human rights in South Africa by means of this legislation. If one examines the American concept of human rights, one sees that it consists of three main components. Unfortunately I do not have the time to discuss this fully, but if one analyses it in detail, one sees that it consists of approximately 22 requirements. If we test the contents of this Bill and what will result from it, against those requirements, we do not come off badly in comparison with other countries in the world as far as human rights are concerned. There may be requirements which we do not meet, but I challenge the hon. member to mention any country in the world, including even the USA, which does not fall short of some of these requirements against which human rights in the most liberal sense of the word can be tested.

Unfortunately the hon. member for Hillbrow is not in the House this afternoon. He said with contempt yesterday by way of an interjection that the Tswana nation of Bophuthatswana was “on the road to nowhere”. I think it is a scandalous interjection the hon. member made. I think he is the last hon. member to say that someone is “on the road to nowhere”. He has reached “nowhere”. That is why he will not be in this House much longer. What is more I think that members of that hon. member’s party are the last people to tell us how these things should be done.

I cannot neglect saying a few words about the speech made last night by the hon. member for Sea Point, who, unfortunately, is not present at the moment. He said amongst other things that we would no longer be able to use the Tswanas for the defence of Southern Africa. That is not true. We shall be able to use them. Chief Minister Mangope stated repeatedly in public that he and his people would defend their country to the last, by force of arms, if necessary. We believe they will do it. We can trust them. I am convinced that after Bophuthatswana has become independent, they will adopt an even stronger stand to defend this southern part of Africa to the end, if necessary.

The hon. member for Edenvale, who, unfortunately is not here either this afternoon … [Interjections.] … earlier today objected in the House to the fact that we did not have Bophuthatswana’s own legislation on independence before us and consequently did not know what it contained. The words he used were, “Ons weet nie wat daar aangaan nie”.

In my opinion that, too, is definitely scandalous. It is the height of paternalism that he should first want to see what a people is doing while still under guardianship, before giving it its freedom. We on this side of the House say, “No, that is unnecessary” because we trust the Tswana people; we trust these people and we are prepared to give them their freedom. We believe the only thing they will do with it, is to use it in the best interests of the Tswana people and nothing more. The hon. member for Edenvale as well as other hon. members kicked up a tremendous fuss about the question of Bophuthatswana citizenship. That has already been discussed fairly exhaustively by this side of the House and I do not want to devote a great deal of time to the matter. I have, however, a document here entitled: “Burgerskap en Burgerregte in Blank Suid-Afrika.” It is a paper read to the Suid-Afrikaanse Buro vir Rasseaangeleenthede by Adv. Willem Olivier, at present a senior lecturer in Law at the University of the Orange Free State. I should like to read a quotation or two from this paper for the information of hon. members. This learned young man says—

I have the references here. The author Leeper discusses this sentence and the case in the Michigan Law Review of 1951. The quotation continues—

The young man concludes by saying—

The hon. member for Edenvale would be well-advised to discuss this matter with his learned son and I think he will possibly learn a great deal in this regard.

By means of this Bill we are in fact writing another chapter in the history of Southern Africa in this House this afternoon. And the hon. members of the Opposition are standing on the sidelines again. They do not participate in this. They oppose it vigorously as they did our becoming a Republic. Fifteen years from now they would again be angry with our television service if that service were to show that they had had no part in it. To me, however, it is a privilege to participate in this debate. We should like to congratulate Chief Minister Mangope and his people—we know many of them in Pretoria—and we want to wish them strength on the road ahead. We do not beat about the bush. We realize, we acknowledge and we admit that the road ahead will not be without problems. We know this and we have no illusions in this regard. These are facts; there will be problems on the road ahead for us and for them, but we accept this, because we know the ability, the perseverance, the courage and the will a free and independent people manifest to overcome their problems. Our nation did it; we triumphed and we will again. We have no doubt whatsoever that the Tswana people, too, has the same ability to conquer the problems they may meet along the road and to solve them satisfactorily in the interests of their nation. They are going to succeed in this because they are free. The hon. member for Yeoville severely took us to task this afternoon. Now I want to ask him, however, what would have become of the State of Israel if the Israelis had not become a free nation? What were they before they as a very small group of people acquired a very small piece of land on which they became free? But look where they are today! The hon. member should rather remain silent on this score. He should look to his own ancestors then he would not oppose us. [Interjections.]

It is easier for a free man to solve his problems than it is for someone who is dependent, someone who must be subservient to someone else, to do so. The saying “rather a poor free man than a rich slave” is very true, and is valid in all circumstances, also for these people. Talking of freedom, we read in the papers what the great Afrikaner from Plains in Georgia reportedly said the other day—

We agree with him, wholeheartedly, but we have known this for decades. That is why we started making arrangements decades ago to accommodate the passion for freedom of people in this southern country of ours. By means of the provisions of this Bill the opportunity is now being created for the complete realization of people’s desire for freedom. This holds good for every people in South Africa and the policy of separate development is the basis for this. That is why the Bill is essentially the satisfaction of a people’s desire for freedom. By means of this Bill the National Party Government is making it possible, really possible, for them to realize this desire, to realize it fully and to reap the benefits of this in their own country. By means of this legislation they are being enabled to take their place as a full-fledged nation together with the Republic of South Africa, the Republic of Transkei, Lesotho, Swaziland and other independent countries.

We are not giving the Tswanas an illusory freedom. We are not giving them the illusory freedom which the hon. members of the UP and of the PRP want to give them. The UP with its federal model which seeks to determine the freedom of an individual and of a people, inter alia, on the basis of its economic contribution to the whole, and which contains everlasting control over the self-interests of the individual, is as unacceptable to the Tswanas as the PRP’s model of freedom, a model in which the freedom of the individual or of the people is determined by the degree of learnedness; a model which, at the same time, contains everlasting control by other people over the matters of the individual or of the nation. Those hon. members always hold up to us the picture of the fine things happening in Britain. And then we come across newspaper headings such as the following: “Britte vrees moontlike rassebotsings.” In the Beeld of 8 June 1976. I read a single quotation from this report—

And this while non-Whites constitute less than 5% of the population. This is what the hon. member of the PRP want to have accepted in South Africa. It is too absurd to be true that we accept something of the kind in this country. That is why the Government comes forward with its suggested model in terms of which it says to the Tswanas that they will become free on their own, but that the Government of the Republic of South Africa will help them as far as possible. Hon. members of the Opposition shut their eyes to the realities of Africa. It is a fact that the people of Africa do not share their power. Africa simply does not share power. That is the lesson of Africa. That is the language of Africa. Even in the most peaceable African State there is no sharing of power. There is domination by the strongest group. We have no evidence to convince us that it will be any different in South Africa. The purposeful objective of the militant, Marxist enemies of South Africa is very clear for all to see. It reads, inter alia—

This includes the hon. members on that side of the House. It is not only we on this side of the House who are involved. That is why we maintain that the model which we recommend and which is being implemented in practice here today, is in fact the only model which affords hope for the future of all our people. We are giving these people freedom and a right to self-determination. We recognize every people in South Africa’s right to self-determination. Those hon. members do not recognize it. We admit frankly that many problems await us on the road that we are taking but we do not run away from them. Speaking of problems, I want to say that the hon. members of the PRP and the hon. members of the UP, who are Progs in their hearts, do not lessen or facilitate the problems for us. They make things more difficult for us and they create a dangerous situation for us and for South Africa. They are playing a more dangerous dual role. They are sitting in this privileged House with the support of White voters and from this position, they are conspiring with Black extremist enemies of South Africa, both inside and outside South Africa. Mr. Speaker, if you tell me to withdraw this statement, I shall do so, but the fact of the matter is …

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is it proper to allege that there is a conspiracy between members of this House and the enemies of South Africa, both inside and outside the country? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the words “conspiring with Black enemies”.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw them … [Interjections.] I am saying they participate in the discussions to overthrow the existing order in South Africa. Do hon. members want to deny that they are advising the Black people—I wanted to say “inciting”, but I am not saying it—not to accept independence and the provisions of this Bill? The hon. members are doing so and they cannot deny it. They are telling the Black people not to accept it. Why are hon. members doing these things? It is not in the interests of the White or Black people of South Africa. I think they are doing so because they want to govern this country, and have long seen that there are too few White people supporting them. There are too few people who are prepared to vote for them, and now they are hoping that they will eventually be able to govern this country with the support of Black people. They misuse the Black people for their personal political gain in South Africa. I want to warn them, however, that Chief Minister Mangope and his people have watched them and have summed them up. I do not think they are going to get their way with the Tswanas. The road which we in South Africa walk with the Black people, is a straight one. The Black people know they can trust us, but at the same time they know that they cannot trust the hon. members of those parties, with their future in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the Opposition’s standpoint has already been stated in great detail, and therefore I merely want to express a few supplementary ideas. Before doing so, I should like to exchange a few words with the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development. He has disappointed me. The hon. the Deputy Minister has presented himself as a student who has made an intensive study of the Tomlinson Commission’s activities and he became quite defiant, I am not quite sure what about. However, he did not give a correct picture at all …

Show me in what respect.

He did not give a correct picture at all of what the Tomlinson Commission envisaged for the Tswana people. Nowhere does the Tomlinson Commission express the idea, or indicate on a map, that there should be an independent State in South Africa consisting of three parts. If the hon. the Deputy Minister can find that anywhere, he must show it to me. I have the map here. The map indicates that the consolidation of the Tswana portions with White portions should take place in such a way as to form a single whole with Bechuanaland—present-day Botswana. It must be linked up in one piece to Botswana.

You spoke about rings. How many rings are there?

There are not three rings here at all. [Interjections.] I said that rings had been drawn all over the place, and that is true. [Interjections.] Let me just put my standpoint. [Interjections.] He has challenged me, and I want to reply to that. Hon. members must not be so nervous. [Interjections.]

Order! We cannot conduct a debate in this manner.

He pointedly alleged here that the Tomlinson Commission supposedly wanted an independent Bophuthatswana consisting of three parts.

He did not say that the territory would be independent.

That is nevertheless the impression he created here. However, what did the commission actually propose? What the commission had in mind in respect of Bophuthatswana was that all the parts should be consolidated to fit in, as a single whole, with Botswana, as it is known today, and not remain in three parts.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether it is true that on that map Bophuthatswana is shown to consist of three squares, i.e. Al, A2 and A3?

Yes, but three united parts of “Bophuthatswana” that become one with Botswana. It is not, as he said, a question of three loose pieces remaining. I want to quote from the commission’s report what is stated under the heading “Why Consolidation is Necessary.” I quote—

The report is therefore completely in favour of consolidation. The map indicates that the Tswana portions are consolidated into one territory. There cannot be two interpretations given to that map. I quote again from paragraph15 on page 181—

Then the report relates the Tswana complex to Bechuanaland as one of the “power stations”. The report reads further that the Tswana square, with Bechuanaland as the core, must be added to Botswana. It disappointed me that the hon. the Deputy Minister presented himself as an expert and then gave a incorrect picture of the object and view of the Tomlinson Commission, i.e. that the Tswana territories should be linked up as a single unit to what was then Bechuanaland.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member what his attitude is to the view of the Tomlinson Commission that the three parts of the present Bophuthatswana should be consolidated with Botswana? What would Bophuthatswana’s attitude be towards that?

I shall gladly reply to the hon. member on that question. I have always been a strong supporter—I am not going to bind myself to detail—of the Tomlinson Commission and I supported the commission when hon. members on that side of the House were opposing it. [Interjections.] I hope that in future the hon. the Deputy Minister will be less defiant when he does not have any case and that he will not misrepresent a matter in this House.

I never cease to be amazed at how the Government succeeds in letting a good opportunity slip away. With the secession of Bophuthatswana, the Government has had an excellent opportunity, in the first instance, of avoiding the mistakes they made with Transkei. The Government has also had the opportunity of handling the independence of Bophuthatswana in such a way as to give new credibility to its homeland policy inside and outside South Africa. If it had wanted to, the Government could have made a model of the independence of Bophuthatswana, which is now before the House for discussion.

However, it has not grasped either of those opportunities. One look at the map is enough to have people look again in disbelief at the homeland policy of the Government. During the debate we heard a great deal about self-determination, about freedom and independence, about Black freedom and Black independence. None of us is opposed to the concept, the principle, of self-determination or freedom for people. I am certainly not opposed to it, because I advocated it in the House and outside even long before hon. members on that side of the House had accepted it. On the Government side, however, all the talk about freedom and independence sounds suspect. The reason for that is that during the past decade or two, in which the foremost African States were struggling to obtain independence from their White colonial rulers, the party on that side of the House never showed any sympathy for Black independence. That, of course, left an impression on the opinion in Africa. The NP’s whole record indicates that it has always been on the side of the colonial powers. The same has been true for years in regard to the question of South West Africa which has been dependent on South Africa. We on this side of the House were the people who advocated the concept of self-determination and independence for dependent people in certain areas who choose to be independent. [Interjections.] Hon. members on that side of the House know, after all, what our standpoint is. We believe that the best answer for solving South Africa’s problems lies in the federal idea which gives freedom and a comprehensive pattern of life to people within their country. There is, after all, not only one way to obtain freedom. Surely one can also obtain freedom within one’s country; one does not only have to secede in order to obtain freedom. I am glad, however, to see that the federal idea is getting through to leading hon. members on that side of the House. I have always believed it would happen and I have also said so in the House. In my opinion the idea is getting through dramatically to that side of the House. The shining example—the hon. member for Verwoerdburg also referred to that—of how the idea is getting through can be seen in what has been happening in South West Africa. South West Africa is as multinational as South Africa and the NP is in power both here and in South West Africa. The only difference between the two territories is that we are already independent and South West Africa still has to obtain its independence. That is all. [Interjections.] There Government thinking also moved towards fragmentation, but after all the representatives of the various peoples got together at the Turnhalle and periodically discussed matters with one another over a period of 18 months, they came to other conclusions. To what conclusions did they come? They decided that South West Africa is the joint fatherland of everyone living there—White, Black and Brown—and that it ought to retain its own integrity as a territory. They decided to recognize the multinationality of that territory but that all eleven peoples should have a share in the Government.

Does the hon. member for Verwoerdburg, or anyone here, want to deny that that is power-sharing, that it was decided that there shall be power-sharing, but on such a basis that the one does not dominate the other? There will be a charter of rights, and there will even be a constitutional court that will ensure that it is complied with. That is the confidence the NP and the Whites of South West Africa have in their future. There it is a question of freedom for everyone within the same political boundaries. That has always been our attitude as well. I do not want to speak about that now, but it is, in fact, the policy of this side of the House that the course of action that is coming to the fore should also be implemented in South Africa. That is not to say, however, that we are opposed in principle to independence for a territory like Bophuthatswana. Bophuthatswana, of course, has never been a colony of South Africa. Neither has its people ever agitated for independence outside South Africa. What they have wanted throughout the years has been full citizenship within South Africa. No one disputes the right of their authority to ask for secession if they want it. I want to say what I have also said in the House previously, i.e. that what we are dealing with here is, in fact, secession and not a case of a colony which is becoming independent. It is more a question of partition, political territorial separation.

I said that yesterday.

Good. I know that the hon. the Minister is one of the few who uses the term “partition”. He was also the first to use it.

I used it yesterday.

I am not fighting with the hon. the Minister about that.

I know.

I am just mentioning it because it puts the matter in a different light. I want to say immediately that partition, as a solution to a particular problem of relationships, cannot be rejected in principle. There are a large number of examples in the world of partition having been implemented. One can, however, argue about the political good sense involved in partition, and that is what the argument here is about, i.e. whether partition is being implemented here in a sensible manner. One cannot, however, really object to the principle. As I have said, there are many examples in the world of partition having been implemented as a solution to a specific problem of relationships, whether it be one of conflicting nationalism or one of conflicting religious and cultural life patterns. Everyone knows of such examples and I therefore do not have to mention them. In some cases the partition even took place under the guiding hand and the chairmanship of the UN. I therefore say again that there can be no objection, in principle, to the act of partition, and that is not what we are doing either. Hon. members will concede, however, that where a portion of one’s country secedes, such partition is a serious step with many unforeseeable consequences, both for the country that remains behind and for the country that secedes.

It is therefore of importance that we take an in-depth look at the manner in which it is done, for example whether it is in the interest of both those who remain and those who secede. It has long been clear that the motives for Transkei wanting independence, and the considerations involved, and those for the Government wanting independence for the territory, were different. In my opinion the same applies in the case of Bophuthatswana. In fact, two trends of thought have developed amongst homeland leaders in South Africa. All are opposed to the racial policy of the Government and all are in favour of the termination of the existing political order created by the Government. The majority believe that it should be done by pressure from within. Others, for example the Transkei, believe that it can best be done by pressure from the corner and the strategy of independence. Last year I attended a conference in Transkei, and this was the standpoint adopted there by Mr. Digby Koyana, its Minister of Foreign Affairs, about the question of independence. He said—

They see independence from a totally different angle to hon. members opposite. When I take note of the statements of Bophuthatswana leaders, I am led to believe that the same applies. Bophuthatswana borders on Botswana and therefore, in an individual sense, becomes a “front-line state”. I am not advancing this argument as a reason for our opposition to the Bill at all. All we want to see is that if Bophuthatswana wants to secede, for whatever reason, the secession should take place in such a way that it is in the interests of Bophuthatswana itself and of the Republic so that we do not, in future, find ourselves with an aggrieved neighbouring state which is hostile to us. Then we will have solved nothing, having created only problems for ourselves.

Are you and your party then not in favour of Bophuthatswana, at the earliest possible juncture, growing dynamically and becoming stronger in the economic and other spheres, or must it first be completely strong before it secedes?

I shall sum up the conditions that we think are necessary. Of course we want it to grow. It is in our own interests that it should be economically strong and that people there should have an easy life. It is in the interests of all of us, and we are in favour of that. We specifically want to see it made possible. In fact, I would have been strongly in favour of an independent Bophuthatswana if it were done in the right way. We believe, however, that before one resorts to as drastic a step as partition, certain conditions should be met. I just want to sum these up for the benefit of the hon. the Minister. Firstly, in the territory that wants to secede, and amongst the people domiciled within that territory, there must be the express and unequivocal will to secede. That will must be tested and proved beforehand. There must be no doubt about that. The Government, however, has done nothing to test the will of the people of Bophuthatswana in a recognized manner.

Is that our duty?

Of course it is our duty because we must pass the necessary legislation.

It is their duty.

The Government ought not to introduce legislation here before that test has been carried out. It is common knowledge that there is disagreement about this matter amongst the people of Bophuthatswana. Last year there was serious unrest in the area, particularly amongst students and high school pupils. Great damage was done to buildings and youths repeatedly marched on the Legislative Assembly.

About independence?

Yes, according to evidence presented to the Cillié Commission. The evidence indicated that the action was taken in opposition to independence. I am not saying that those people are in the majority; that is not my assertion at all. Neither do I claim that the majority are not in favour of independence. I am only saying that we neglected our duty to make that test so that there cannot be recriminations against us at a later stage. We cannot pass a Bill here before we are certain that the majority of the people in that territory do, in fact, want independence.

May I please ask the hon. member a question?

No, unfortunately my time is nearly up and I have already answered quite a few questions.

There is, however, another very important condition which the Government ought to have complied with. It ought to have ensured that there were realistic boundaries before the territory obtained independence. There ought to be finality about the territory and the boundaries of that territory before it secedes, otherwise we could be faced with great difficulties in the future. We see what is happening in Transkei. The Prime Minister of Transkei comes along and tells us that an armed struggle against South Africa is the only alternative if Transkei’s land is not peacefully given back to it. Surely we do not want that kind of trouble after independence.

You want trouble before the time!

No, we must solve that. Any difficulties that crop up must be solved, and there must be realistic boundaries for a territory before that territory becomes independent. It is not only a matter that bothers us here; it is a matter that bothers people on that side equally much. Let me just give one or two examples. The rector of the Rand Afrikaans University, Prof. Gerrit Viljoen, said on the radio that South Africa’s ideas about homelands have thus far been that they are territories where only Black people live. He added that he did not believe that the homeland policy was the complete answer for South Africa, but that one should ensure that it is the answer to the greatest possible extent. That much I concede. He therefore thinks that “konsolidasie tot geo-politiese, realistiese en regeerbare eenhedes” ought to be “’n baie hoë prioriteit”. In this he is supported by Mr. Piet Cillie, the editor of Die Burger. At a conference of the Afrikaans Calvinistic Movement at Potchefstroom at the end of last year it was virtually stated as a condition for further support of the Government that more realistic boundaries be given to the homelands. The report on that conference reads, inter alia, as follows—

We are therefore not the only ones who adopt that standpoint and lay down that condition. That is the condition that should have been met. Viable, consolidated territories ought to have been created before the granting of independence to them.

That did apply in the case of Transkei, but you were opposed to it.

Oh? And now we have trouble there. In the kind of Africa we are living in today, we cannot afford to create more hostile neighbours. Is there anyone in the House who believes that the boundaries of Bophuthatswana are realistic? On the contrary, as I have said, this is something that bothers many people.

Then there is, of course, also the question of citizenship. Citizens who are not domiciled in the territory, or who do not want to secede, ought not to be forced, directly or indirectly, to lose their existing citizenship. That is also going to create grievances and hostility and take us further away from the final solution. The Government had a fine opportunity to set about things in the correct manner and create a model. If the Government had done so, it would undoubtedly have had the support of the Opposition. In that case it would have been easier for the new State, not only to remain on friendly terms with South Africa, but also to obtain international recognition eventually. With this Bill, however, and with the proposed independence or secession of Bophuthatswana, the Government has not met one of these basic requirements. Therefore we have no other choice but to oppose the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout had a great deal to say about rings today. He said by way of an interjection in the Tomlinson report a ring had been drawn around certain areas to indicate that they should constitute one homeland. When the hon. the Deputy Minister pointed out to him that three separate rings had been drawn around three areas, he denied it. Since he talked about so many rings, I, again, want to set a number of question marks against the standpoint of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and against his political future, he who is a political vagrant.

You are a political fool.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, may the hon. member for Bezuidenhout say of the hon. member for Kuruman that he is a fool?

Order! Did the hon. member for Bezuidenhout say that the hon. member was a political fool?

Yes, Sir.

The hon. member must withdraw it.

“Political” or “fool”?

The hon. member must not ridicule my ruling. He must withdraw the words “political fool”.

I withdraw them, Sir.

At one stage we thought that the hon. member was dealing with the Status of South West Africa Bill. Then he came along with the story that there was only a small difference between South Africa and South West Africa, namely that the one was an independent State whereas the other still had to become independent. I want to tell the hon. member that there was only a small difference between Adam and Eve, and thank heaven for that small difference! South Africa is a sovereign independent country.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout and other hon. members of the Opposition spoke disparagingly today of the citizenship of the Transkei and of the country of the Tswana people. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout has just said that he would have supported the Bill if we had handed over a viable fatherland to the Tswana people. I now want to ask the hon. member for Bezuidenhout whether he is intimating thereby that the fatherland of the Tswanas is not viable? I ask the hon. member for Bezuidenhout: Is Bophuthatswana not a viable fatherland?

Surely I have spoken; it is a patchwork quilt.

Is Bophuthatswana viable or is it not viable? The hon. member for Bezuidenhout states that the fatherland of the Tswana is not a viable fatherland. The hon. member for Lydenburg indicated today that the gross national income of Botswana, which has a surface area of 56,9 million hectares which is a conjoint area, is R192 million whereas the gross national income of Bophuthatswana with a surface area of 4 million hectares—and, according to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, a patchwork quilt—is R326 million. How does the hon. member explain that? Then the hon. member maintains that the country is not viable. The hon. members of the Opposition are prepared to humiliate and undermine the country of the Tswanas in the eyes of the world today. He said that there was no indication by way of an election that the Tswana people wished to become independent. Is the hon. member thereby disparaging the representatives of Bophuthatswana? If the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana, Captain Mangope, stated that it wanted to become independent, does the hon. member believe that that leader of his people was not speaking on behalf of his people when he asked that?

It has not been proved that he has the majority.

That hon. member therefore states that Captain Mangope is acting on his own initiative. He maintains that he has acted dictatorially and that he has not asked to become independent on behalf of his people. I should not like to waste any more of my time on the hon. member for Bezuidenhout.

Various hon. members of the Opposition—of the PRP in particular— maintained that the policy of the NP was the cause of possible situations of conflict in the future which could cause us major problems. It is the task of a responsible Government in South Africa to do justice to the national and cultural aspirations of the various peoples, to see to it that the development takes place in such a way that one people does not dominate another and that the continued existence of the various peoples is not endangered. Denial of national and cultural aspirations, domination of one people by another and the threat to the continued existence of a people are direct causes of friction and conflict. I think I can say without fear of contradiction—this is a lesson Africa has taught us—that the more heterogeneous the population of a country, the greater is its potential for friction and conflict. The converse is also true, namely that the greater the homogeneity of a country’s population, particularly in an African State, the more democratic that State is. I could mention Botswana as an example of this. Botswana has probably the most homogeneous population of all the African states. International observers have already described Botswana as one of the most democratic countries in Africa. In Africa, every form of federation has failed. Nevertheless, federation is the form which the UP and the PRP want to offer us as solutions. Only in Nigeria do we still find a federation today. However, Nigeria is a military dictatorship without democracy.

In a few African States there has been sharing of political power among various Black nations. Bloodshed due to a power struggle was the order of the day in those States with the result that parliamentary democracies were replaced by one-party States or military dictatorships. Since South Africa is probably the country with the most heterogeneous population in Africa, it is the task of the Government of South Africa to identify situations of conflict, and where possible to eliminate them; situations of conflict between White and Black and between Black and Black. The PRP and the UP, and other leftist groups in South Africa and internationally, are of the opinion that the only possible situation of conflict is a situation of conflict between White and Black and that if this occurs, it will be the result of the policy of the NP Government. I believe that that is where they are making their biggest mistake. The lesson of Africa has already been that the converse is true. By far the greatest amount of bloodshed and most extreme outbursts of hatred in Africa have taken place where there has been conflict between Black and Black. Conflict between Black and Black in Angola and in Mozambique and the slumbering conflict between Black and Black in Rhodesia are examples.

That is why I believe that the Government’s policy of separate freedoms and of separate democracies is the only way to avoid possible situations of conflict. The basis of future power struggles between White and Black, between Black and Black, between Tswana and Zulu, can only be eliminated by creating a diversity of political cultural homogeneous units, viz. homogeneous independent States. There is no power struggle between South Africa and Botswana, between South Africa and Lesotho or between South Africa and Swaziland. Nor do I believe that there will ever be any power struggle between South Africa and Bophuthatswana or between South Africa and the Transkei. These States, as independent neighbours, would far rather take each other by the hand, because they need one another, and together can work towards freedom and prosperity in Southern Africa. In this regard I should like to express my agreement with what the hon. member for Newton Park had to say earlier today. The words he used were identical to those uttered by one of the Ministers of Bophuthatswana, who said at Mothibistad, near Kuruman—

To proceed, I should like to indicate that it is to me a very great privilege to take part in the debate on the Second Reading of this Bill today. It is my privilege because as history would have it, the White man’s first encounter with the Tswanas was in the region of Kuruman. It was at Kuruman that the missionaries of the London Missionary Society settled with a view to bringing the message of Christ to the Tswana people. This was in about 1800. The church built by Robert Moffat in 1831 is still standing today, a sturdy monument to the goodwill of the White man, which extended to his relations with the Tswana. It was in that church that Robert Moffat translated and printed the Bible in Tswana. In fact, Tswana was the first African language into which the Bible was translated. This occurred a hundred years before the Bible appeared in our own mother tongue, Afrikaans.

I should like to proceed by quoting a message which a famous Italian once gave the youth of his time. This Italian was Giuseppe Mazzini, who lived in the time of Garibaldi. He told the young people of his time—

The Status of Bophuthatswana Bill means “the Status of the Place of the Tswana Bill”. Clause 1 defines the borders of the part of Southern Africa which will give the Tswana people a place in the world, a place from which the Tswana people, too, will be able to make its voice heard in Africa and in the world from a sovereign independent position. It is a privilege to be able to take part in this process of liberation, even though it is the liberation of another people, the Tswana people. One can only appreciate it if the flame of nationalism is burning in one’s own heart, if one has oneself played a small part in the process of liberation of one’s own people. I want to quote from an article entitled “Geloof maak Tswanas vry” in the Volksblad of 9 February 1977—

Bophuthatswana is going to become independent in a peaceful way. I think that the reason why the States being liberated by the Government are not being accepted, is the fact that not a drop of blood has been shed. I believe that the Tswana people is acquiring its freedom in the most ideal way possible.

I want to tell the moving story of an old man, an old soldier, whom I met near Boegoeberg. He said to me: “Look, I have two wounds on my body which I sustained while fighting for the freedom of the Republics of the Free State and the Transvaal. However I almost lost my life and we lost the freedom of those republics too.” Then he said to me: “I thank the Lord that I was able to go to the polling booths on 5 October 1960 and by making a cross, was able to help to make South Africa a free, independent republic.” It was my privilege, too, to make the first cross and thereby to help to make South Africa a free, independent republic. That is why it is possible and easy for me today to be counted amongst those who are prepared to give the Tswana people full freedom and independence within the borders of their own fatherland.

The once mighty UP which so vigorously opposed the republican liberation of South Africa is today shattered, because that party and its fragments next to it failed to take into account the flame of nationalism which burnt in the hearts of the White nation of South Africa. Another reason for their downfall is the fact that they do not take into account the flame of nationalism which bums in the hearts of the Black peoples of South Africa. That is why the wreaths on the grave of the once-proud party of Gen. Smuts will not be dry before Southern Africa sees the birth of a new African State, Bophuthatswana. They are obtaining their independence with the aid of the NP of South Africa and the Democratic Party of Bophuthatswana under the leadership of Chief Minister Mangope.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout has just said that the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana does not have the right to ask for independence.

I said nothing of the kind.

The hon. member implied it in what he said. It is already well known that the party of Chief Minister Mangope has won a majority and that two members of the Opposition have crossed the floor to join the Democratic Party.

It is understandable that the PRP and the UP should so venomously oppose this Bill. It is because the NP’s policy of separate freedoms is succeeding and becoming a practical reality. It is because the independence of Bophuthatswana is a slap in the face of that party’s policy of political power-sharing. It is because the independence of Bophuthatswana entails a further fragmentation of the basic approach of those two parties, namely that South Africa is an indivisible unity with a nation of about 24 million people. It is because the independence of Bophuthatswana is a nail in the coffin of the ideal of the PRP, too, namely Black majority Government in South Africa.

The hon. member for Bryanston paid a visit to Mafeking. However the piccanin was sent home with a flea in his ear. They tried everything in their power to persuade these people not to accept independence. I want to quote from the Volksblad of 4 October 1976 what they said at their congress—

With their objections to citizenship and consolidation the PRP is merely raising a smokescreen with which to cause the independence of Bophuthatswana to be a failure. What concerns me most—from what I deduce from the standpoint of these people and also from what I read in the newspapers—is that the PRP is prepared to call in the aid of the Black leaders to bring about the downfall of the NP.

I want to quote from a cutting from the Sunday Express of 5 December 1976. The heading reads: “Join me in opposition, says Gatsha.” I quote—

The report goes on—

I know that this party wants to make independence fail. It was at this PRP congress that the Black Power salute was given and ’Nkosi Sikelel’ i-Africa was sung. This was identical to the meeting which took place last week which was also attended by members of the PRP and the hon. members for Bezuidenhout and Edenvale.

I have before me another cutting from the Daily Dispatch of 12 July 1976. According to this report Mr. Buthelezi said—

Today I want to make the statement that Mr. Gatsha Buthelezi, with his organization, into which he wants to drag the PRP and the UP, which rejects independence for Black peoples in Africa, rejects it because there are certain political parties that have promised him that he may be the Black Prime Minister they are striving for in South Africa.

We in the Northern Cape, who have been neighbours of Bophuthatswana for many years, and who are now going to be neighbours of an independent State, believe that that country, which is close to us, has tremendous potential. We believe, too, that the Tswana people and its leaders are capable of developing that fatherland of theirs so that it can be a fatherland of which they can be proud, which will give them a place and a voice in the world. All we want to say to them is: “Pula.”

Mr. Speaker, we heard a lot … [Interjections.] If hon. members keep on wasting my time, I shall have to ask for injury time. We have heard a lot of interesting speeches during the course of today and yesterday in this debate, but I am afraid that I cannot class the speech of the hon. member for Kuruman in that category. I am sorry that we appear to have rendered the unfortunate hon. member so nervous about the future of this country. He can relax, however, because we have no evil intentions and he need not be frightened of either Chief Buthelezi or of ourselves. The hon. member should be glad that there are Africans who are still prepared to talk with White people in this country in the spirit in which we discuss matters with Chief Buthelezi.

The hon. member for Newton Park delivered what I thought was a very interesting speech. I was especially interested because it represented such a complete change of heart from the speech he and other hon. members of the IUP delivered last year when the identical Bill mutatis mutandis was being discussed in this House, i.e. the Status of the Transkei Bill. I have looked up Hansard, and I found three interesting speeches delivered by three of the six hon. members of the IUP, i.e. the hon. members for Newton Park, Maitland and Albany. All of those members heartily supported the stand taken by the official Opposition when it moved “this day six months” on the Status of the Transkei Bill. They could plead, of course, that since they were in that caucus they had to abide by caucus decisions, but no caucus could make them stand up and speak. They had to vote with their caucus, but they did not have to make speeches in opposing that particular Bill. They made some very interesting statements. The hon. member for Albany actually said the following (Hansard, 1976, col. 8393)—

What has happened in the last year to make this particular measure so constitutional?

He came to his senses!

He never had any senses to come to!

The hon. member for Maitland was not quite as enthusiastic in his opposition, but nevertheless he did say the following (Hansard, 1976, col. 8422)—

The hon. member did not give us the impression that he thought that it entailed anything very good. The hon. leader of the IUP, only in June of last year said the following (Hansard, 1976, col. 8830)—

I want to know what has changed the mind of the hon. member for Newton Park. I am very interested in the transformations that take place in this House. I shall be doing a good deal of “Hansardizing” in the future, so I hope hon. members will be careful of what they say.

Those were caucus decisions.

Caucus decisions do not make people stand up and talk. They make people vote …

They make people walk out sometimes.

… and some people walk out, if it is a matter of conscience as those hon. members should have done. Instead, they stayed here and did a lot of talking.

The hon. the Minister’s speech interested me very much as well. He started out with a lot of very lofty reasoning, and said things like “We once again come to a day that confirms that our Government is sincere and honest in the logical fulfilment of its nations policy in our multinational situation.” He said too: “We come to a day upon which once again a nation reaps the fruits of our Government’s system of Bantu self-government with its rich constitutional dynamism.” All I can say is that this fruit is giving us all indigestion. I want to point out that it has taken 29 years to the day …

Are you not going to congratulate us?

No, I am not going to congratulate you. I am in mourning. It has taken 29 years to the very day since the NP came into power and it has taken 29 years for this “rich constitutional dynamism” to yield its second independent Bantustan. Well done! Two in 29 years. That is going it some. All I can say is that at this rate of two every 29 or 30 years, it will take until about the middle of the next century for all the remaining Bantustans to become independent. The hon. the Minister went on to say: “That fortunate nation is the people of Bophuthatswana.” That nation is now reaping this rich fruit of constitutional dynamism or whatever other nonsense the hon. the Minister talked of.

How long did it take Israel to become independent?

I want to say something about this “fortunate nation” of Bophuthatswana. I want to look at some of the facts about this “fortunate nation”. As hon. members have said, there are something like 2 million Tswanas. I want to point out that only just over one-third of those people live inside Bophuthatswana. These figures are based on the survey that was made by Benbo and projections made since 1970. Approximately two-thirds of the Tswana people live in White South Africa. Of the economically active people, that is some 23,2%, only 29% are in the homeland while 71% of the economically active people are in White areas. Of the economically active male Tswanas, over 75% are working and living in the White areas. The income per head of population is roughly R40,2 in Bophuthatswana and it is R230 per annum in White South Africa. Less than 14% of the earnings of commuters—and there are large numbers of commuters who are working in the border industry areas of Brits and Rosslyn, as well as Pretoria, which has virtually become a border industry area for Bophuthatswana—end up in Bophuthatswana. The rest ends up in the shop tills of the border areas. Where are the jobs going to come from to provide for the 24 000 job seekers that come on to the labour market in Bophuthatswana each year? Certainly Bophuthatswana itself is unable to generate the capital. Where is the replacement going to come from for the R54 million that I see on the estimates for Bophuthatswana this year? One can go on and on about these fortunate “liberated” people. We find that of the some 880 000 people living in Bophuthatswana, about a third are not even Tswanas at all. They are other Bantu, for instance, Pedi, South Sotho, Shangaan, Zulu and Xhosa, so that of the small population that lives in Bophuthatswana, something like one-third of the roughly 880 000 people are not even Tswanas.

Anybody who has visited the sprawling slum of Winterveld, which lies in Bophuthatswana, about 30 to 40 km from Pretoria, will know that that is one vast squatter area where all the homeless appear to congregate. Although they are homeless people, most of them are employed in the industrial triangle of the Vaal, that is the Pretoria-Vereeniging-Witwatersrand area. Then we find breakaway groups, for instance, the Pedi, who wish to be separate, the Ndebele, who want their own homeland, and the Sotho, who want to join Qwaqwa. This whole fortunate, liberated nation is simply fraught with impending problems inside the homeland, problems which I believe not all the treaties, whether concluded or not, between the two Governments will be able to solve.

I now wish to come to the Tswanas who are living outside Bophuthatswana, that is the two-thirds of the Tswana people, who total well over a million people. It certainly goes without saying that they were not consulted about independence, whether they were living on the White farms—those invisible people that nobody ever worries about—or whether they were living in the White cities. There are about half a million of those. The election of 1972 certainly did not encompass the urban Tswana, for it has been calculated that less than 15% of those who were eligible to vote in the urban areas in fact did so. When the Status of the Transkei Bill was under discussion— which is exactly the same measure as the one before the House today, with the necessary changes having been made—we had many glowing promises falling from the lips of the hon. the Minister, telling us about the future of Transkeians living in the White areas of the Republic, especially those living in the urban areas. He said the following, and I quote from Hansard as follows—

The hon. member for Yeoville has quoted what the hon. Minister went on to say about the preferences that would be given to those people. He rightly pointed out that it was quite wrong that so-called “foreigners” should enjoy greater privileges than the citizens of the country in fact enjoyed. The hon. the Minister declared that the citizens of an independent Bantustan would not be declared aliens. He said—

He went on to say that they would be assured of a position which was no less favourable than that of citizens of a Bantu homeland which had not yet become independent. I agree with the hon. member for Yeoville that it is an extraordinary situation that people whom this Government is declaring to be aliens by this Bill, as they did in the Status of the Transkei Bill, should in fact enjoy conditions as favourable, if not more favourable than the citizens of this country. But we need not worry about that; they are citizens of South Africa, they are Africans belonging to ethnic groups who have not yet been declared non-citizens by the Government. Of course, the reality has been something quite different. The urban Xhosa have not yet enjoyed any preferences at all. What they have enjoyed is harassment, insecurity and complications. This is all the result, of course, of their being deprived of their South African citizenship.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is not moved at all by the fact that leader after leader has appeared in the main Black newspaper, The World, complaining bitterly about the consequences of the deprivation of citizenship from the Xhosa-orientated people who have been deprived of their South African citizenship. Has he not been moved at all by the fact that there have been complaints by the hundred by the Xhosa-orientated people living in Johannesburg, Soweto and elsewhere that, when their 16 year old children go to apply for reference books, they are told to go to the Transkei consulate to get their documents there? If a document is lost, a duplicate is not issued. People are given temporary immigration permits. Is he not moved by any of this? Does he not realize what trouble is brewing that he brings in another measure with exactly the same provision in it, bar one subsection which is completely unintelligible to me? I do not know whether other members of the House have managed to work out what sort of citizenship people can opt for if they opt out of Bophuthatswana citizenship. Presumably they must then opt for Sotho citizenship or Zulu citizenship, but certainly not South African citizenship—that is absolutely clear. In view of the fact that, as I say, there have been so many complaints about the harassment ex-South African citizens of Xhosa origin are now suffering in the urban areas, I want the hon. the Minister to tell me whether it is his intention to issue the same “Algemene Omsendbrief nr. 30 van 1976” which is headed: “Transkei-burgers: Aansoeke om bewysboeke, Transkeireisdokumente, wettiging van Transkei-burgers in die Republiek van Suid-Afrika, en aanverwante sake”. That document, issued by his department, gives complete instructions to all officers of the Department of Bantu Affairs on how to handle the ex-citizens of South Africa who are now, of course, declared to be Xhosa citizens. Does he intend to handle the Tswana citizens in the same way? I can assure him we are in for a load of trouble if he does so. The townships are in a ferment over this sort of thing. The people do not want to be deprived of their citizenship. I hope the hon. Deputy Ministers are listening to tins warning …

If you stay out of the townships, there will be peace.

… because when we have given them warnings on previous occasions, they took no notice of those warnings. Then there is great trouble for South Africa, trouble from which this country may very well never recover at all.

The hon. the Minister and his Deputy Ministers might well listen to the words of the Transkeian. Ambassador, Prof. Njisane, who only three months after the Transkei became independent said—

So much for the fine promises made by the hon. the Minister about Transkei’s independence. I note that the hon. the Minister has not made any similar promises to sooth the fears of Tswana people living in the White areas. However, as I have said, it would at least be helpful if he would inform us whether it is his intention to issue the same sort of directive in connection with the Tswana as he issued in connection with the Xhosa.

I want to say that I do not think one can handle the question of the independence of Bophuthatswana in isolation. One cannot consider it in isolation. It must be understood and judged as an integral part of the policy of separate development. All of us who know our political history know full well that the policy evolved originally from “Wit baasskap”, moved on to apartheid and then to separate development. It evolved not so much as an ideal but as a pragmatic response to pressures both from outside of South Africa and from within, despite all the fine anti-colonial speeches we have listened to during this debate. I am prepared to grant that I think Dr. Verwoerd felt the need for some ethical content to the policy of “Wit baasskap”. He realized it was not enough just to preach White supremacy and he tried to introduce some ethical content into it. Unfortunately, the vehicle he chose was not large enough, because he chose the area of land which had been set aside by the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936 which related to the old policy of Native reserves. That area of land was never intended to serve as ethnic homelands for the vast mass of the African people. He chose that to be the vehicle for his ethical content of separate development. I agree that the principle of partition per se is not objectionable under certain very specific conditions, although we in these benches do not advocate that policy. Our policy is for a multiracial South Africa under a federal system.

What does Harry say?

The type of partition advocated by the hon. member for Yeoville is one which I would not find objectionable. But it is very different from what is being advocated in this Bill and it is very different from the whole policy of separate development as advocated by the Government, because that policy does not contain any of the basic essentials that are needed for an equitable partition of South Africa, namely adequate land, land that is properly consolidated, land that has certain economic value and, most important of all, land which the people themselves have accepted as being equitable. As I say, we would prefer to offer the other alternative altogether, and that is a multiracial South Africa on an equitable basis, with shared power and with the removal of all race discrimination and equal opportunities for everybody of all races. That is the policy of my party. But nobody denies that partition per se could be an ethical policy if it were based on an equitable solution as far as land division is concerned, as far as the riches of South Africa are concerned and as far as the people themselves are concerned, and if it were negotiated by the people themselves. It must not be thrust by a Government which is all-powerful upon a people who are completely powerless, and the partition must not be such that the land division is obviously hopelessly inequitable. In any event, this was never intended as a solution, a homeland solution, when the land Acts of 1913 and 1936 were originally passed That is my answer to the hon. member for Innesdal.

What about the realities of history?

So if he talks about Black nationalism, which I tell him becomes Black power …

You advocate Black power?

I advocate nothing of the sort. I advocate a multiracial South Africa.

No, you advocate Black power!

It is the hon. member’s policy, the policy of his party, which has indeed built up Black nationalism, which in turn has become Black power. It rests fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Nationalist Government which will not share any power in the Republic of South Africa with Black people, and hopes to get away with this fraudulent suggestion, this fraudulent solution of the separate and independent Bantustans, based on the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts. It cannot work. It is a fraud and it has been seen to be a fraud, not only by the Blacks inside South Africa, but by the entire world. That is why Transkei has not been recognized. It is recognized as a fraud, because that is precisely what it is. Everybody realizes that it is part of the numbers game. This is the South African Government’s way of excising from the population figures of South Africa firstly 3 million Xhosa, now 2 million Tswana and then, perhaps, in the next 30 years, we will get another couple of independent Bantustans, if they last that long, which is very dubious. So it goes on until you have cut down the population figures of South Africa and you are left with 4% million White South Africans, a White majority Government in South Africa which everybody accepts freely. It will not work and we therefore oppose this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have now almost come to the end of the discussion of the Second Reading of the Bill and if there is one thing which came strongly to the fore in the speeches by hon. members of the Opposition, it is the political lesson for everyone in the world who takes an interest in politics that if one wants to engage in politics one must be capable of hearing the voice of the people. One must be capable of interpreting the voice of the people. One must also be capable of giving expression to the wish of the voice of the people. The vast majority of members of the Opposition—I think there are other hon. members who are beginning to see this—have not yet perceived this basic fact in politics. That is why those hon. members are where they are. I find it amazing that hon. members the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Houghton, for example, can accept the idea of partition, only to reject it because the partition does not take place as they want it to. I shall come back later to the idea of partition. First, however, I want to turn to the hon. member for Houghton. To be specific, I want to refer to a Bill, the Bantu Homelands Constitution Bill, which was discussed in this House in 1971. On that occasion the hon. member for Houghton also made a speech. I should like to quote what the hon. member for Houghton had to say here on 10 February 1971. She began by conducting a long argument with the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, and then had the following to say—(Hansard, Vol. 32, col. 606)—

What are you reading there? [Interjections.]

I am quoting what the hon. member said here in 1971. I quote further—

Now I want to say to the—I am tempted to call her—hon. old woman member for Houghton, that I was not the youngest member in this House in 1971. However, I am now already seeing the second Bantu homeland becoming independent. The hon. member referred to the day and date 26 May. It is today exactly 29 years ago that the NP came to power. [Interjections.] According to the calculation of the hon. member for Houghton here this afternoon, it will take another 150 years before all the other homelands also become independent. All I can say to that is that that was a stupid remark. Bophuthatswana is the second homeland that is becoming independent within the space of two years. As a West Transvaler born and bred, as someone who knows the Tswana people, I should have liked to say what I have to say here in the House in Tswana, if that were permissible. However, I find it most regrettable that hon. members on the other side of the House should have been so disparaging of the ability of the inhabitants of Bophuthatswana—including those of them who do not live within the homeland—their State machine, their potential and everything to do with them, as they did here today. I can testify to the fact that there are capable people in the Cabinet of Bophuthatswana, in the Public Service of Bophuthatswana and in the Legislative Assembly of Bophuthatswana. I want to remind hon. members that a number of authorities—I do not want to go into this too deeply—carried out an investigation into the way in which the inhabitants of Bophuthatswana manage their State affairs. They specifically reviewed the political system of Bophuthatswana. One of these authorities remarked that it was one of the best political systems for a Black state he had ever seen. It is not a Nationalist who said this and this is a compliment to the people of Bophuthatswana. We have learnt to know those people. We can go and look at their public service and their officials today. We know that their public service and Government are doing good work.

I shall come back to the hon. member for Houghton later, but I first want to dwell briefly on the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred to the speech by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development. In his speech the hon. member said that he had not said that a ring had been drawn. I want to dwell on this matter briefly because the hon. member will have some explaining to do. The hon. the Deputy Minister said (Hansard, 26 May 1977)—

*Mr. J. D. du P. Basson: But he drew a ring around it.

That is right, there was no Bophuthatswana.

It is very convenient for the hon. member to evade the issue now in this way. After the hon. member had made the interjection he took another look at the Tomlinson Report. If hon. members look at the Tomlinson Report, they will see what indications are given by the Tomlinson Report. Not a single ring has been drawn around it. However, that hon. member makes an interjection and tries to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that he does not know what he is talking about. I just want to stay with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout a little longer, because it can be most entertaining to follow his actions. The hon. member quoted from the Tomlinson Report. I, too, want to quote from the Tomlinson Report, paragraph XIII (iv) on page 207—

The hon. member made a big fuss about what was stated here and said that the Government should have simply accepted the recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission as such. Mr. Speaker, I think you will afford the hon. member the opportunity to reply to this: “What would the attitude of the hon. member have been had these recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission been carried out— viz. with the consolidation as proposed by the commission—and if the Bantu Authorities Act were to form the basis for action? Would the hon. member have wanted to see us apply the Bantu Authorities Act in Botswana? That is how that hon. member reads the recommendations. We are today consolidating the Swazi homeland directly to Swaziland. Would the hon. member have been satisfied if we had made the Bantu Authorities Act applicable there on the same basis? I think the hon. member would say “yes”, because then he would be doing exactly what he has at the back of his mind, namely furthering imperialism as far as Bophuthatswana and Swaziland are concerned. Surely this is nothing but …

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he disagrees on the issue that was the crux of the matter, namely that the Tomlinson Commission did not want a divided Tswana territory, but an undivided area?

That was not the crux of the matter. The hon. the Deputy Minister said very clearly that it was not one territory. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that he had drawn a ring around it. Why, then, does he want to run away now? We cannot allow him to run away in regard to this matter. We must tell each other very clearly what we understand thereby. I shall come back to this aspect later. In the interests of both White and non-White we cannot allow party political groups, whether Whites in Parliament or other members of a party or Blacks belonging to a Black political system, to make use of another group in an effort to promote their own cause. Hon. members must state clearly what they mean.

I should like to refer again to the whole idea of partition. One hears that the idea of partition is not quite so foreign to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and even to hon. members of the PRP. I am now for the first time hearing noises which are to some extent in line with the history of South Africa. The whole idea of partition—in whatever context it might be used—has been a factor throughout our history. As far as 1903 the British Royal Commission had investigated the matter. As far back as 1913 an Act had been passed relating to Native land. There have been various commissions of inquiry that have gone into the question of partition.

It must be remembered that in this process the idea of partition has never been adopted in South Africa’s history when it has not been borne in mind that there would have to be some form of self-government in that territory.

But in that case as consolidated areas.

No, Sir. Let us leave it at that now. I shall come back to the issue of consolidation later. The idea of partition has always gone hand in hand with some form of government. As far as our relations with Black people are concerned, this runs through the political history of South Africa like a golden thread. We have given effect to that idea since the earliest years. I want to quote a report in the Volkstem concerning what Gen. Hertzog said on 21 January 1913 about partition, land, etc.—

This immediately brings us to the idea of consolidation. I shall come back to the concept of self-government. I do not think that we in South Africa should make the mistake of thinking about consolidation in isolation. I want to ask here today that we should forget about the word “consolidation”. The White man—and in this regard I am diametrically opposed to all those parties—gave its word to the Black man in 1936 that he would give him additional land. The Parliament of 1936 did not consist of a majority of NP members. It was a coalition Government that was in power, a Government which represented almost 80% of the Whites in this country. How can hon. members say—as hon. members here want to say—that they are not satisfied about it, that they do not agree with it and that they have not been consulted in this regard? Surely that is not longer relevant to this matter.

I do not want to apologize for certain mistakes made in the past because it is true that there were mistakes, in the sense that we did not act sufficiently rapidly in regard to the purchase of land. However, what is important is that we can say to the Black people of South Africa on behalf of the NP that the NP saw to it that the White man kept his word in giving the land. Hon. members would do well to learn a lesson from the words of Mr. Andy Young here in South Africa, viz. that the Nationalists and the Afrikaners were hard people, but that he would prefer to negotiate with them because then he knew where he stood. We have given our word and as far as I am concerned the matter is settled. We must forget the word “consolidation” now, because that side of the House has once again succeeded in making the word consolidation, too, a dirty word in South Africa.

When discussing consolidation it is important that we should pay special attention to one point. The hon. the Prime Minister is on record as having said in the House that when consolidation has been concluded, the door is not closed to negotiations with any of the independent homelands concerning the borders of such independent homelands. Whereas the White man has kept his word, at the same time we want to convey our sincere gratitude to the White people in South Africa for having kept their word. From now on we must forget the word “consolidation” when we are discussing borders. When we discuss borders with Bophuthatswana, we are talking to an independent State, and if we should reach a stage at which we want to adjust the borders in the interests of both States, this need not be done in terms of the provisions of the 1936 Act. We shall exchange land, because having kept our word in purchasing the land and transferring it to the Bantu homelands concerned, we have thereby finalized the transfer thereof. This, too, we must say to our White people. From now on and in the future we could perhaps talk about exchange.

I take it that the hon. member for Edenvale, the hon. member for Sea Point and the hon. member for Hillbrow are negotiating because he is not in the House at present. [Interjections.] Oh, I see the hon. member has returned. That hon. member really did something uncalled-for in this House today, by trying to drag in Dr. Verwoerd in a way which, to my mind, was not justified.

I did not quote him.

How can the hon. member say now that he did not do so. After all, he quoted it. The hon. member for Randburg also did so. I am sorry; it was not the hon. member for Edenvale, but the hon. member for Randburg. The hon. member for Randburg sits there so quietly; he does not even correct my mistake. It seems to me that he is content that I should falsely accuse the hon. member for Edenvale. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Randburg quoted what Dr. Verwoerd said, but he did not quote him correctly or fully. He specifically left out what suited him. I am now going to quote exactly what Dr. Verwoerd said and I am going to provide the column number so that the hon. member can go and take another look at what Dr. Verwoerd said on 20 May 1959 (Hansard, Vol. 101, col. 6227)—

The hon. member therefore quoted Dr. Verwoerd to the effect that Dr. Verwoerd had supposedly not had the independence of the Bantu homelands in mind. Listening to the words of Dr. Verwoerd, how can the hon. member still argue that Dr. Verwoerd did not have the independence of the Bantu homelands in mind? Such nonsensical arguments make it absolutely impossible for one to argue with those hon. members. Hon. members must recall that what he said in the House is read not only here, but elsewhere as well.

I should like to say something about the origin and the development of the Tswana people and I also want to come back to the issue of land. The first Tswana tribes came to South Africa from the north about 500 years ago. I think that Tswana may have been the first Bantu immigrants in what is known today as South Africa. The Rolongs lived in the eastern part of the Molopo Reserve for a number of centuries. The Huritsi lived at Rustenburg and Brits and the Kghatla-ghothla between Pretoria and Warmbaths. In the years between 1650 and 1700 a famine drove a section of these tribes southwards and part of them became what is today known as the South Sotho.

This is a matter which can teach us a lesson today as far as Africa is concerned. We say in all sincerity—and we say to our Black people in this country—that we shall have to consider developing to the maximum the potential of our territories—as the hon. the Deputy Minister indicated. However, hon. members seek to brush the matter aside as if there were no history of the development of this situation in South Africa.

The hon. member for Marico indicated what role Andries Hendrik Potgieter played in the whole process as far as the Tswana people are concerned. When one looks at the sources, one sees how often efforts were made in the past to solve the problems. As long ago as 1885 a commission was appointed with a view to the setting aside of reserves, as they were then called, in the Cape Colony. The process was started earlier in the Transvaal, because it was being done there as long ago as 1853.

All those commissions considered a single matter. Remember that this was before the British Royal Commission was appointed in 1903. They all considered partition: Where should the White people live and where should the Black people live? I do not want to dwell on history any longer, but I do want to refer to Act No. 27 of 1913 and to the Bantu Land and Trust Act of 1936. The idea of partition, as far as the co-existence of people in Southern Africa is concerned, occurs throughout our history.

We have today reached the situation of being able to give a second homeland its independence. It is true that it is the NP that has introduced the political aspect into the idea of partition. Because it has experience of the matter, it is the NP that has linked the political rights of those people to the land, with the idea of partition. No one will reproach one for doing so.

I have said that it has always been the idea that if partition is carried into effect, this entails a degree of self-government or self-management. This idea originated so far back—I think the hon. member for Newton Park referred to this—that one can quote Gen. Smuts and Gen. Botha in this regard. One can also quote Gen. Hertzog because he said “dat hulle daar sal ontwikkel tot die grootste moontlikheid wat hulle het”. No one can say today that the Government of the day is giving effect to the idea of partition differently to the way in which it has been done throughout the history of South Africa.

Like a golden thread.

It is a golden thread that runs throughout our history.

To me, as a West Transvaler born and bred, it is a momentous day when we can meet our neighbour, Bophuthatswana, and tell him: “You have asked for your independence. We are prepared to give you your independence.” I think it is necessary, too, that on this day we should say to our neighbour, Bophuthatswana, that the hand of friendship will never be withdrawn from the State of Bophuthatswana. To my mind, ample proof has been furnished that the immediate neighbours of Bophuthatswana in particular, viz. the White communities in the vicinity of Bophuthatswana, have extended the hand of friendship to Bophuthatswana. We can also attest to the hand of friendship which the Legislative Assembly of the Government of Bophuthatswana has extended to the Whites in those areas. This is a matter which works both ways.

When I consider the future of this State, I am sorry that hon. members have sought to disparage this fine development that has taken place here. There is something I want to say today to the hon. members for Houghton and Umhlatuzana, but I should first like to cross swords with the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. He said that there were only four police stations in Bophuthatswana and asked how, therefore, they could become independent. I want to say to the hon. member that the people of Bophuthatswana are peaceful people who do not need so many police stations. He can take the police stations to Natal if he wants to, because we do not mind. The people of Bophuthatswana do not need so many police stations. I should like to ask the hon. member for Houghton why she did not use her full time today.

I did not get any more time.

Surely the hon. member still has time left?

No, I had not.

In that case I apologize, but then they should have let her speak first. They should have allowed the old woman to speak first. [Interjections.] I want to tell the hon. member for Houghton that she should go and speak to the hon. member for Pinelands. If hon. members adopt that tone towards the Bophuthatswana people, their Legislative Assembly, their land etc., then she must speak to the hon. member for Pinelands because after all, that hon. member was present—not when the idea of Black nationalism originated, because we know Black nationalism—when the idea of Black power in South Africa originated. I want to ask the hon. member whether he was not present when the University Christian Movement was established in South Africa? Was the hon. member not in America to find out how the University Christian Movement in South Africa should operate? I ask the hon. member to think very carefully about the “happening” in America in 1967. The hon. members for Yeoville and Houghton, who have been bandying the idea of partition about today, should speak to the hon. member for Pinelands. When we congratulate Bophuthatswana on the step it has taken, we must tell each other at the same time that there is no place in Southern Africa for a philosophy which does not give White nationalism the right to exist, just as there is no place for a philosophy which does not give Black nationalism a chance. As soon as White nationalism develops into White power or Black nationalism develops into Black power, it is dangerous. The hon. member for Houghton should speak to the hon. member for Pinelands about that aspect because it is going to be essential for our co-existence in this country.

With this I want to conclude. I have used these words before, but I still feel that the situation we are dealing with here is an important one. We are living in an era in which there is a constant cry of: “Change, change, change.” What I am going to say now applies equally to us as White politicians, cultural leaders and clergyman and to the Black people. When we use these words, we should use them by way of prayer, and we must pray to the Father that we shall have the strength to change what must be changed in Southern Africa, but we must also pray that we will be given the grace to know that there are things which I, as a person, cannot change. We must also pray that we shall have the wisdom to know what the difference is between the two.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke made an interesting speech. Unfortunately I do not have much time and therefore I should like to leave him at that. I should just like to return briefly to a few remarks or comments made by the hon. member for Houghton about myself and my colleagues in these benches. The point she was trying to make was that we had changed. She did not reproach me for having changed. Nor do I believe that the UP, the Official Opposition, will reproach me for that as they themselves have changed as far as the Bantu-stan policy is concerned. In fact, they are still changing. Actually there are only two groups of people in this House taking a firm stand on non-change, and they are the PRP and the hon. gentlemen in the Official Opposition who agree with the PRP on the basic principle of a unitary society in South Africa. It is true that they tell the world that we must all change, but they are the last people who want to change. Everyone must change except they themselves because they think that they are absolutely right as far as accepting a unitary society in South Africa is concerned. My colleagues and I change—and I make no apology for this. Other parties are changing. Indeed, opposition politics in its entirety is changing in South Africa. We in these benches are also changing and taking steps in the light of the realities in politics in South Africa.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is one of the people who is perhaps more aware than most of my other former colleagues of the fact that for many months—in fact almost years—I advocated to my party a strategic shift as far as the concept of Bantustans was concerned. I felt that we had to make this shift for specific reasons. I shall tell hon. members what the reasons for this are. Firstly, I felt that to an increasing extent we were facing a political fait accompli in this regard. The White people of South Africa, the people whom we represent were giving their support to this concept to an increasing extent. We felt that we were not making any progress at all.

Secondly, we realized that until such time as we had succeeded in removing the Bantustan concept and what it stood for from the political arena, we would not be able to put into their proper perspective, the other facets of the issue completely unaffected by the Bantustan concept. In this regard I am referring to the urban Bantu. This is our standpoint and one of the reasons for our strategic change—we also stand by this—that till such time as the people of South Africa accept and give active expression to the Bantustan concept, we shall not be able to put into their proper perspective the other aspects of our colour politics in South Africa either. This is one of the reasons for our having arrived at this conclusion.

I have been listening to the debate for a few hours and there is one question which bothers me possibly more than anything else. It concerns an idea which I have raised before. We sit here as Whites in the seats of political responsibility and we have to decide not only our own destiny, but also that of other people. I am the last person who would want to say here today that the headman of the population group we are concerned with at the moment does not have the sense of responsibility to perform his duties properly. I believe he would have accepted this legislation only if to his own way of thinking he was satisfied that he was doing the best for his population group. Having said this, I do not want to take the matter any further. I shall do nothing to disparage him or his people in the Republic of South Africa, because—and I stand by this— the time has arrived, no matter how we argue the matter, for the White man in South Africa to realize that the time is long past when I and my White brother can argue with each other about the non-White in South Africa. The hon. member for Houghton did not get to that part of my speech. I have said before that this is one of the biggest tragedies that has ever occurred in colour politics in South Africa, especially with regard to this question.

And still you voted for “this day six months”.

I shall return to that with pleasure. The hon. member was not present when I referred to the unchanging opinions she held in South Africa. Incidentally, she can change her opinion on other matters. I want to point this out. A few years ago she said that she was prepared to accept the possibility of her being an old woman. Today she objects to that strongly.

Yes.

I am very pleased to hear it.

Because it is true now; then it was not.

She has undergone a rejuvenating cure. I do not hold it against her at all.

That is true.

I am very pleased about it. We say the time is past when we as Whites should argue and fight with one another about this matter. We say we must try to find concensus so that we may argue the things of real concern on the political scene of South Africa. Now my hon. friend from Pinelands may ask, “Why do you not become a Nat?” What a ridiculous argument! How much colour politics are there in most Western countries as far as party political divisions are concerned?

[Inaudible.]

That hon. member did an egg dance this afternoon which only an advocate, and a good one at that, can do.

Your egg is rotten.

Only time will tell whose eggs are rotten. As regards the nation, judgement has already been passed.

I am satisfied that in this regard we are dealing with a sound principle. Just like my hon. friend here, I want to congratulate Bophuthatswana on its coming independence. The reasons for my not becoming a Nationalist, include a deep-rooted difference I have with the NP on this matter. As regards the Bantustan concept, I concede victory to them. I support them. We go further. We are not going to talk about support and then do no more than pay lip service. We shall try to assist the Government in future to give substance to this, but after that we shall turn round and say that we are now going to argue with the people of South Africa about the things which count in South Africa, and this means about the 8 million and growing millions of Black souls in White South Africa. This will be the essential argument of the future. That is where we differ. Why should I become a Nat now? After all there is no colour politics in Britain. There is no colour politics between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party there. Colour politics is not necessary to have party divisions.

I am perfectly satisfied that our standpoint is a sound one. I do not apologize for my change of standpoint. We are prepared to support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I think this hon. House and you will allow me—perhaps hon. members opposite will envy me this opportunity—to draw to your attention from these front benches today, as the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke also did a moment ago, that it was precisely 29 years ago today that the NP, together with its associate of that time, the Afrikaner Party, took over the government of South Africa from the UP, only the tattered remnants of which are today to be found in the benches opposite. It is 29 years ago today, more than the average span of a human generation, more than a quarter century ago, that it happened. The signs are today probably 50, 60, a 100 times more propitious than they were on 26 May 1948 for an indefinitely continued administration of this country by the NP. We know how the Leader of the Opposition at the time, the late Gen. Smuts, tried with great expectations to be prophetic. He said that the roles would be reversed again after a short while. Since then our country has made great progress. We have experienced a very great consolidation of White unity, even though we still differ with one another politically. That is why I should like, from these Government benches, to have the fact that the NP has been in power for so long placed on record. My whole party and I are profoundly grateful for this. We are particularly grateful to Him who, as we know, controls the destinies and decisions, of peoples parties, Parliaments and nations of the world. During the past 29 years we have experienced a great many things here. The man who walked in here 29 years ago to occupy the bench of the Prime Minister, was the late Dr. D. F. Malan. Together with the leader of the Afrikaner Party, the late Mr. N. C. Havenga, he was the architect of the unity and the victory which were achieved. We pay tribute to them. I am very grateful that I, as an ordinary member who came to this House not in 1948, but in 1953, had the privilege, from the bench in which the hon. member for Algoa is now sitting, of seeing, for some time still in this House, the great leader, Dr. Malan, seated in his bench, and also of being able to sit in the caucus with him. I could tell interesting anecdotes of incidents which I, perhaps owing to my impetuosity, experienced as a young member with Dr. Malan in the caucus. However, I may not do so here. After a while the late Advocate J. G. Strijdom succeeded Dr. Malan. Humanly speaking, the leadership of the country was allotted to him for too short a time. This was, however, decided by powers greater than we. We are grateful that Mr. Strijdom, in the midst of all the sacrifices he was ready to make for his country, in the midst of all the personal sacrifices and the dynamic driving force at his disposal, reached the top of the political ladder in South Africa. For that we are indebted to He who controls the destinies of peoples.

Mr. Strijdom was followed by Dr. Verwoerd. His term of office lasted much longer than that of Mr. Strijdom. It is a tragedy, but there one can still see the small piece of carpeting covering the stain on the carpet next to the bench of the hon. the Prime Minister. It is a constant reminder of what we experienced here in the years after Dr. Verwoerd assumed the office of Prime Minister. We are grateful that tremendous dynamism was manifested in his time, too, in regard to the expansion of the NP, and that great things were accomplished. Actually, it makes one feel rueful and unhappy to sit here and listen today to how hon. members opposite tried to climb onto the back of the late Dr. Verwoerd, and onto the back of other hon. members of the NP, and how they tried to bolster their arguments with the words of the late Dr. Verwoerd. I shall return in a moment, when I reply to the debate in detail, to the words of Dr. Verwoerd, which were quoted here today.

After the late Dr. Verwoerd came the man we still have today, a much younger man, someone who came to this House with me in 1953, our present hon. Prime Minister, Mr. John Vorster. We are grateful to have him and to have been able to see him evolve, with his tremendous drive and with his tremendous diplomatic and othe practical capabilities, as we have seen him display here during the past few months. I know, and I can hold out to hon. members the prospect, that we shall again experience a demonstration of this here in this House tomorrow. We are grateful to be able to have such a leader again. I believe that the NP has been more richly blessed than many other governing parties in the world to have had successive Prime Ministers of such calibre: The Late Dr. D. F. Malan, the late Mr. J. G. Strijdom, the late Dr. H. F. Verwoerd and the present Mr. John Vorster. So they succeeded one another, men of outstanding quality. As a party the NP has been very fortunate. As a country, South Africa was richly blessed. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for having allowed me to express my deepest feelings in this respect.

I now want to return to the debate on the Bill before this House. At the outset I first want to convey a few general impressions concerning the debate, in general as far as the respective parties are concerned. When I refer to hon. members of the party who participated first in the debate, I know that complaints will be expressed on the opposite side of this House, but owing to political tactics, those complaints might not be heard now.

I am referring in the first place to hon. members of the NP. In this debate they surpassed themselves as in few other debates. They surpassed themselves as they also did in a similar debate last year. In particular they surpassed themselves in the constructive attitude to the policy which the Government and the NP is adopting in regard to the development of the Bantu homelands to the highest rung of the ladder. They demonstrated the recognized attitude of our party and of the Government, to be helpful to the Bantu homelands, with the words which they spoke here today and, of course, with their deeds outside this House as well. We believe in the interdependence of nations, we believe that the White, Black, Brown and other nations in South Africa are mutually dependent on one another and have to complement one another. We saw this philosophy emanating and we heard it resounding from the contributions here of the hon. members of my party. They displayed an entirely positive approach, i.e. to help build a developing and evolving Tswana nation. Their attitude was appreciative of what that nation has already achieved, understanding in regard to the situations in which that nation finds itself, they did not close their eyes to the achievements which that nation has already accomplished, nor did they close their eyes to the potential of that nation. I am very proud of those hon. members of my party for the positive attitude they displayed here. On the same note I want to express a sincere word of appreciation to the two speakers of the IUP who participated in the debate.

The Independent National Party!

They do not have a new name yet. The new name is still coming.

Have they signed the blue cards yet?

No, I do not know what the colour of their party’s membership cards is. They have their own. Those two members displayed a fresh and a very realistic and positive attitude, and we appreciate that. I am entirely prepared to debate with the hon. members of that party here in this House on the basis of what has just been expounded by the hon. member for Maitland. I think it was a very fair basis.

I come now to the UP and their bedfellow, the PRP. The attitude of these two parties displayed a very great similarity. They were disparaging towards the Tswana nation and the potential of that territory. They did not try to open up any vistas for that nation and that homeland, which is soon, so we hope, going to be an independent country alongside ours. The UP and the PRP merely tried to make petty political gain for themselves, without seeing the matter in a universal light and without being constructive.

Such an attitude is not conducive to good relations between nations, and at this southernmost point of Africa good relations between nations is extremely essential. The statements made by the hon. members of those two parties did not in any way tend to promote relations between nations and certainly did not tend to promote individual relations between leaders and between responsible members of the various nations.

You are making general statements. Give examples!

In the course of the debate, hon. members on this side of the House made the same points, and mentioned examples.

Are you not able to mention examples?

I shall come to them in a moment. That hon. member should not become so excited now. He should contain himself a little.

The hon. members must understand that the hon. the Deputy Minister and I in particular, but also other hon. members and colleagues of mine in these benches, are in constant contact with Black leaders and Black Cabinets. There are certainly many occasions on which we can discuss these matters with one another very seriously. Sometimes we differ with one another. The hon. members should not think that when we speak to Black leaders and to Black groups, we never differ with one another. But I adopt an absolute standpoint—I am pleased to see that my hon. Deputy Ministers also do so—that we should not say such disparaging things in public, we should not speak so derogatorily and manifest such scepticism as the hon. members of the Opposition did here today. We know how to negotiate and to discuss matters on which we have doubts or differ with one another when we come into contact with the Black people. The Opposition parties still have a great deal to learn in this regard. The hon. members for Bezuidenhout and Yeoville should try to set them an example in this regard.

I now want to reply to arguments raised by hon. members in this debate. In view of the time factor of course I shall not be able to give attention to matters raised by hon. members on my side. I want to confine myself for the most part to the arguments of the Opposition members. Owing to our method of debating hon. members on this side of the House have already replied to many of the arguments raised by Opposition members, and their replies were of an excellent standard, as I said a moment ago. It is therefore not necessary for me to repeat the same facts, statistics and data which have already been furnished by hon. members. Therefore I shall not need to reply to every allegation made by hon. members on the opposite side of the House.

I listened with great concentration to the speech made by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana and I even had an opportunity to look at part of his Hansard speech. I do not have much fault to find with his speech. For the most part he spoke in descriptive, recapitulative terms and summed up what is stated in the Bill and what I had to say about it. For the rest the hon. member came forward with very little that was new. He said very little from which it was apparent that he differed with us to any great extent, that he criticized us or that he wanted to attack us. His speech did in fact contain such elements, but not many. The hon. member for Sea Point, in his way, kicked up far more of a fuss. As far as I was concerned, the speech made by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana was very moderate. However, he made quite a few mistakes and said quite a few things which I cannot accept at all. I shall refer to them in a moment. I hope he is not going to accuse me of being preoccupied with him, or that I am developing an obsession about him. However, I am as close to developing an obsession about him as one can possibly imagine. However, the hon. member is a person who suffers from an obsession himself. I have brought it to his attention before, but it seems as though he is not paying any attention to it. His obsession consists of his having delved so deeply into and made himself such a part of the ideology of his own party, namely to base his politics on an integrationistic foundation and to approach and to see South Africa as an absolutely intertwined unitary state, that he is always berating us for not doing things as he would do them on that unitary state basis if he were to come to power. Surely it is a principle of logic that he cannot argue with me about my policy on incorrect premises. He must accord my premises the necessary credit. However, he acknowledges his own integrationistic premises. In this debate he again based his speech on them.

The hon. member and the hon. member for Yeoville quoted the words which the late Dr. Verwoerd spoke in 1951. That was where Dr. Verwoerd supposedly said that he could not see small, non-contiguous units developing in that way. He said it in 1951 for the first time.

In 1961.

No. The hon. member reads badly. I shall give him the column numbers in Hansard. He will find it in Senate Hansard of 1951. Dr. Verwoerd replied to that allegation himself, however …

He said it in 1961 in col. 4191 of Hansard.

He first said it in 1951, in col. 2947 to 2949 of Hansard. Dr. Verwoerd replied himself to what he said, and it is therefore not necessary for me to try to reply. The best reply to the words of Dr. Verwoerd we find in what Dr. Verwoerd himself said. He replied himself, and his reply we find in the House of Assembly Afrikaans Hansard of 1965, col. 4402. The hon. members would do well to look it up. I am not going to quote it here in full, but merely give the gist of it, which amounts primarily to two things: The evolution of Black politics and the evolution of White politics in South Africa. He said that the circumstances of 1951, when he said it the first time, were not the same as the circumstances in 1965, when he gave the reply.

I was referring to 1961, not to 1951.

It makes no difference from which year the hon. member was quoting; the words and concepts remain the same.

Are the circumstances of 1977 the same as in 1951?

That hon. piccanin member should not behave himself like a piccanin in this House. The hon. member should keep his mouth shut; I am busy now. He did not deign to speak—and perhaps it is a good thing—otherwise I could have replied to him. Dr. Verwoerd said that the circumstances of the times had changed a great deal. For the rest Dr. Verwoerd said—and he said this in particular after he had said it the first time because hon. members will know that it was particularly from 1959 onwards that this began to happen—that a national awakening had taken place and that we had developed our own nations policy much further and had framed it far more clearly. That was fundamentally Dr. Verwoerd’s reply in 1965. In other words, Dr. Verwoerd replied to those points himself, and I do not think hon. members are achieving anything by quoting it now, in 1977, as though Dr. Verwoerd still thought and believed it to the day of his death. One year before his death he himself put those words of his in their correct perspective, in view of the developments which had taken place.

I want to deal further with the speech made by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. He said that we had allegedly said that the Tswanas would not lose their South African citizenship. That is the allegation he made, and he said that I said so during the First Reading. However I do not find the Hansard in question, but-the hon. member would do well to look up my speech in column 6921 of this year’s Hansard. That is where my speech at the First Reading was recorded. There the hon. member will see very clearly what I said, viz. that citizens of Bophuthatswana could not lose citizenship of Bophuthatswana before their independence, in other words before they had received another citizenship. I also said that, after their independence, they would not lose their citizenship of Bophuthatswana either before they had accepted their other citizenship, of whichever country it might be. I listened to what the hon. member quoted from my speech. However he did not quote what I said in full. He would do well to be fair enough to me to look it up, since I cannot lay my hand on the volume in question now.

In addition, the hon. member had a lot to say, particularly about the economic viability of Bophuthatswana. He tried to ridicule it. The hon. member said that the place had no afforestation and therefore Bophuthatswana may not become a State. But how many countries are there in the world that do not have afforestation? I do not even want to talk about the police state aspirations which he has for the new country, for he is not satisfied with one police station. He said, inter alia. “There is no afforestation,” that there is no tillable, cultivatable, plough-land—no “arable” land. However, the hon. the Deputy Minister replied to that argument so effectively that I need only refer to it. The hon. member said that there was “some mining”, and the hon. the Deputy Minister pointed out how important the mining industry is to that country. The hon. member does not even know the basic geography of the territory. He referred to Babalegi, the industrial town, as “lying outside the homeland”.

I did not say that.

I have his Hansard, and here it is.

The other three are outside the homeland.

I just want to read what is stated here. I think that anyone of reasonable intelligence—I am not even referring to clever people—will be able to understand this very well. He said—

Babalegi is not “industrial activity outside the Tswana homeland”. The hon. member should go back and learn about the geography. [Interjections.] I am talking about Babalegi, and the hon. member would do well, when he finds himself in Pretoria again, to go and see where Babalegi is. I am convinced that he will be dumbfounded when he sees Babalegi, and it would do him good. The question of the police stations and the arable land, I shall leave at that. Various other members on this side of the House have already provided the hon. member with information in regard to the economic aspects. The hon. member for Yeoville, too, referred to the economic trends in Bophuthatswana. There are many particulars which we may obtain from the national accounting system. I want to single out two examples to indicate what economic development ability Bophuthatswana has shown during the past few years, and it should be borne in mind that this development was manifested at a time when they still had almost nothing. In other words, having regard to what they have gained, we can ourselves imagine what the further dynamic possibilities for the future are. I am not going to refer to the Tswanas who are working outside the homeland now. I am not even going to take them into account, although in relative terms they make the picture far more favourable if they are taken into account. The per capita income over the period 1960 to 1971 for homeland inhabitants in Bophuthatswana itself was R58 per annum. During the period 1970 to 1974 the per capita income rose to R194 per annum. This is a much larger amount. The growth rate of the gross national product over the same period, 1960 to 1971, went to 11% and over the ensuing four years—no longer 11 years—it went up by 25,1%.

Is this for the de facto population figure or the de jure figure?

I said it applies to the people who were living and working in the homeland itself. It is therefore the de facto figure. There are many other similar statistics which one could quote, and what is more, hon. members on this side of the House have done so. I could have said a great deal more in regard to the hon. member, but I shall leave him at that, for I do have to pay some attention to the hon. members as well.

The hon. member for Sea Point made a particularly cheap soap-box orator speech. He was preoccupied to a far greater extent with his own party than with Bophuthatswana. That also applied to the hon. member for Houghton. The hon. member for Sea Point, in a sonorous voice and sing-song manner, tried to trot out his policy here. However, I did not know for whose benefit he was trying to do So. The hon. member can explain away many things. When he has been unfair to the Black people, he always tries to explain it away. We even know about the experiences of the hon. member in Zaïre, which he visited recently, and how he subsequently came here and explained them away. Like Pres. Carter, he wanted to do a bit of slumming there. I wonder whether he was wearing his jeans. While he was strolling around there, people got hold of him, and he lost some of his money. He lost a considerable amount of money there, but do you know, Sir, what the hon. member told the newspaper? He said that he had merely felt arms around him. That was all. He discovered afterwards that he had lost more than R200. The arms embraced him, and he was minus R200. Why does the hon. member try to gloss over the way the people there treated him? He should spend less time up in the “airy-fairy” clouds, and come down to earth a little. He makes a fool of himself in this way when he tries to play Father Christmas in the political sphere. I shall come in a moment to his reference to the different areas. When I refer to the speeches made by other hon. members, I shall refer again to that hon. member. His economic arguments have already been dealt with by the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development.

Strangely enough the hon. member for Sea Point, and one of the other hon. members, I think it was the hon. member for Yeoville, spoke of “self-determination” for nations and groups of people. But here he finds the best and most splendid opportunity to support the self-determination of groups of people, to help to improve it and to help to perfect it. But, with the aid of the other members of his party, he tried to place as many obstacles as possible in the way, and to disparage the people.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member should sit still and listen. The hon. member for Sea Point, and also the hon. member for Houghton and certain other hon. members, asked whether the Tswanas had asked for independence freely. I made it very clear yesterday in my introductory speech how it came about that this matter was raised. I referred to it, and one of the hon. members on the opposite side of this House did so as well, i.e. to how the Tswanas expressed this request in their Legislative Assembly after they had previously, in other ways, as a party and as individuals, met there and discussed the matter. Their Legislative Assembly made the request, and I quoted it to hon. members here yesterday. But that was not all. The hon. members ought to know that at present the Tswana nation is holding a general election. The first phase of this general election took place a little while ago when the 48 members who are to be the traditional representatives were nominated in the 12 wards. I think that the figure has already been mentioned here by the Deputy Minister, viz. that 47 …

All carefully chosen.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member had time to speak and she did not even avail herself of all of it. Now she is stealing my time by speaking while I am speaking. The hon. member could really show a little more courtesy.

Don’t cry!

I am not crying. The hon. member is shouting so many interjections that I cannot even be heard.

In the 12 wards that have this traditional nomination and where each nominates four, 47 persons supporting the governing party in Bophuthatswana have already been nominated. Now there are a further 48 who have to be elected at the general election. Those nominations were made a few days ago, and of those 12 wards, one of the electoral divisions or wards, nominated four people for the governing party. In other words, there will not even be an election in that constituency. The members there will be returned unopposed. Consequently the future Legislative Assembly of Bophuthatswana already has 51 on the Government side out of a total of 96 members. Around what has all these events revolved? They have all revolved around the idea of independence, yes or no. Then the hon. member comes here and says that the Tswana nation has not yet had an opportunity to express their opinion and say how they feel about it.

What about the urban people?

They are going to vote. The urban people are all included in the 12 constituencies and at Thaba Nchu as well, where they nominated no opponents, two members are urban dwellers.

After the hon. member for Sea Point had spoken so disparagingly about the Tswanas, he did at least say something by means of which he hoped to make himself popular with those people again. That is why he then said that these people do not have enough land. The hon. member blows hot and cold at the same time. The one moment he disparages them and the next moment he is ostensibly pleading for more land for them. What can one expect from the hon. member now? He kicked up a fuss about “Sowetos” and asked: “How many Sowetos must there still be?” What does that kind of argument have to do with the matter we have before us today? I think that the hon. member’s words could still have inflammatory consequences. What does the hon. member do to discourage such riots? What do they do to discourage rather than encourage them with such references? The hon. member moved an amendment, and advanced a few reasons for it. These reasons will all still be dealt with in the debate. Certain hon. members have already referred to them, and I shall also deal further with them.

I come now to the hon. member for Durban Central.

What about the last part of my speech dealing with citizenship?

I shall still discuss that. Yesterday the hon. member for Durban Central cut more of a doleful figure than ever. I said this to him in private, too. Apparently he was quite out of his depth yesterday. That is why he even found it hard to convince himself. Usually he succeeds very well in convincing himself, but yesterday he did not even succeed in doing that. He came here with a long story about the fragmentation of our Bantu homelands, as he put it. The scattered location of the homelands is perhaps the theme which was raised the most by hon. members in this debate. That is why I should like to give this matter a little attention. This matter was put forward from various quarters opposite. From the hon. member for Durban Central, for example, we heard the argument that Bophuthatswana was too fragmented, that it was the most fragmented country in the world. That is what the hon. member said. He must remember that he said it. He must remember that he said that because it is probable that Bophuthatswana will eventually consist of six parts, it is the most fragmented country in the world.

Inside another country.

Wait a minute now. Do not perform a somersault now.

He said: “Inside another country.”

Very well then. Now the hon. member can see at once what a “gaip” the hon. member for Durban Central made of himself yesterday. I shall demonstrate this in a moment. The hon. member for Durban Central said that it could not in any way be compared with a country consisting of a group of islands. [Interjections.] Yes, I am going to discuss it. I am grateful that it was raised. I am going to give an example in a moment of a country which consists of a group of islands. Just wait a minute. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, you must help me a little with the hon. members.

Order! The hon. the Minister should not allow himself to be led astray by interjections; he should simply complete his argument.

The hon. member for Durban Central asked: “How can this fragmented country be properly administrated when it adjoins a foreign country?” He was referring there to the Republic of South Africa. And do hon. members know what? The former Prof. Olivier, at present the hon. member for Edenvale, even referred to our Republic of South Africa vis-à-vis Bophuthatswana as a hostile country. He did that. I wrote it down. He said it was a hostile country. It is no use his shaking his head so vigorously that one can hear it over here. He said it.

Of course, the hon. member for Edenvale and the hon. member for Yeoville also said that there was no viable consolidation here. I shall return to that in a moment. They also said that Mafeking, Vryburg, Brits and Rustenburg, and I do not know what else, should also have been included, and to that the hon. member for Sea Point added: “Just change the jurisdiction. That is all we have to do.” Just change the jurisdiction over these vast areas, and all is bliss. Then Bophuthatswana is great, and all is well with the world. I want to go into this a little further. There are many examples of countries which are more fragmented than Bophuthatswana will be.

In the middle of a continent?

I am going to mention an example now, and when I do so hon. members of the Opposition will of course react with a bellow of scornful laughter. Nevertheless I am going to do so.

Ah, the blackboard!

Order! I do not want to disallow interjections entirely, but I do ask that we dispose of the rest of this discussion in a reasonably calm manner.

Thank you very much Mr. Speaker. In the many years I have been in Parliament, I have experienced through my own actions that the more interjections there are, the more effective you are being in your reply. What I am showing hon. members here is a map of the oldest country in our Western civilization, Greece. With all due respect to the Greeks, I do not think their Cabinet knows precisely how many parts their country consists of. Here on the map is Greece and everything which is blue, is the Aegean Sea. [Interjections.] And here lies the continental portion … [Interjections.]

Order!

… and there lie all the isles of Greece.

Where do you have to cross foreign territory …

Order!

Wait a minute.

Order! The hon. member may reply to this point at the Third Reading.

That is good advice, Mr. Speaker. I am certain that the Greek Government does not know of how many parts its country consists. Now I want to ask hon. members whether Greece, with that number of component parts, is not more fragmented than Bophuthatswana. Nor is it the only country which I could use to support my argument. For example there is still Japan, and Denmark. I could have brought hon. members a map of Denmark, too, but things there are not so clear over a long distance as they are in this example. [Interjections.] Now I want to tell hon. members … [Interjections.] Wait a minute. The hon. member should listen now. The hon. member should not deliberately close his ears.

The Tswanas will have to row like mad to get from the one island to the other.

Order! The hon. member for Bryanston must not make any further interjections.

Hon. members are now alleging that islands do not count. That hon. member’s argument was that islands are situated in an ocean, and that they are safe. Mr. Speaker, now I ask you this: What is safest for a country consisting of various parts: To have the ocean between those various parts, the ocean which is navigable on as well as below the surface and may be used freely by all the countries of the world, or to have, between the component parts the territory of the Republic of South Africa, one’s best neighbour and not one’s hostile neighbour, as the hon. member for Edenvale said.

May I ask you a question?

Wait a minute; first give me a chance. I have been to this part of Greece myself on a number of different occasions. Very recently, a few weeks ago, we read in the newspapers—this is also something which I encountered there last year—that there was great tension between the Greeks and the Turks, particularly in the south-eastern parts of Greece, and how dangerous the situation was there, with those islands of theirs. Things like that will not happen between Bophuthatswana and the Republic of South Africa. What communication system is there between the large island of Crete at the bottom here in the south, and Rhodes in the south-east, and Greece itself, i.e. the continental portion of the country? What communication system is there? There are only three means of communication. In the first place there is telephonic communication. There are underwater cables. And just imagine what can be done to one’s cables. Then there are aircraft, and of course the radio. In addition there is a fourth means of communication, shipping. This is the most pleasant of all, if one wants to travel. All those means of communication are far more inconvenient and far more dangerous than when a country has its best friend, its emancipator, between its various territories. If this could have been a single territory, it would of course have been easier, particularly in certain respects. If this cannot be the case, it is, in my opinion, much better for a country to have the territory of its emancipator, the country with which it has very good relations, the country from whom it is receiving money, the country in which its people is living, the country which buys from it, the country which in all respects is interdependent upon it, between its two or six territories than to have the Mediterranean Ocean between its territories.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Umhlanga may laugh at that if he wishes. It is because he does not understand these things. [Interjections.] I am sorry that it is not visible on this map, but I nevertheless wish to give hon. members another example.

You’ve got it upside down!

Oh, could the hon. member for Houghton not please keep quiet? [Interjections.] There are not only examples of an ocean in between, which I could present to hon. members. I want to give hon. members another example from that same part of the globe. I am referring to Turkey. Do hon. members know how Turkey is situated? Turkey is situated on two continents. It is situated on the Asiatic mainland and extends past the Bosphorus to the European mainland. In addition, Turkey also has a group of islands.

Really?

Yes, that hon. professor should preferably begin to ply his trade now. He should begin to understand these things now. [Interjections.] A few years ago I myself went on a boat trip through the Bosphorus. Approximately 200 yards away from our ship we could see Russian ships sailing past. [Interjections.]

Not really?

Oh yes, if I was still such a little “baby face”, I would also have been frightened and would have shouted, but that was not the case. Hon. members know that the Bosphorus is navigable and that it is controlled primarily by the Russians. The Bosphorus lies between the two territories of Turkey. My question is therefore whether it would not have been more convenient for Turkey if its best ally could have had territory there, rather than to have all the countries of the world, particular Russia, sailing the Bosphorus. Now those hon. members opposite are struck dumb. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

That hon. member for Pinetown is still going to do himself an injury at the back there.

I find it too funny for words! [Interjections.]

I could quote many more examples. I want to hold up the biggest country in the Western World as an example. What does the USA look like? What about Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands? Yesterday the hon. member for Durban Central tried to make a derogatory joke of the fact that, on the map which he displayed, the district of Thaba Nchu, which forms a part of Bophuthatswana, appears as an insert. The hon. member said that the district of Thaba Nchu should have been increased in size so as to make it visible. I wonder whether the hon. member knows how many times Hawaii would have to be magnified if it had to appear as an insert on the same map as the USA. Can the hon. member imagine that? I do not think he can. The good Lord did not favour him with enough reasoning ability for that. [Interjections.] That is the unfortunate problem with the hon. member.

That is fantastic!

Yes, it is fantastic. [Interjections.] Those hon. members may ridicule it if they like. [Interjections.]

Order!

I come now to the arguments in regard to the viability of Bophuthatswana and the allegations that various territories are ostensibly not viable. In that case the impoverished Greece is probably extremely unviable. In that case Turkey, Japan, Denmark and all the other countries which consist of various portions are probably extremely unviable. What are the elements which contribute the viability of a country? Surely this is very clear. In the first place it is the economic yield. This is very important, as is also the economic potential for the future. In addition there are minerals. Will Bophuthatswana have fewer minerals because the country consists of six spots? No, the country will not have fewer minerals. It may perhaps have more, because the country comprises six portions. One of its non-contiguous portions is perhaps rich in minerals. As far as agricultural production is concerned, I want to ask whether agriculture means less because the country consists of various portions? I say that this is not the case. It is the people who count, and not the land so much. Then, too, there is irrigation. Is agriculture useless from an irrigation point of view? The Taung area has an irrigation settlement. Should we now eliminate that portion simply to make it into one territory with another portion and in that way lose the irrigation? Then there are industries. Should we do away with Babalegi and all those portions which are favourably situated for industries? Is it not in fact an advantage that Babalegi is situated near the main railway line?

Administration is another very important factor in making a territory viable. What administrative problems now arise in going from one territory to another across the territory of one’s friendly neighbour?

One needs a passport every time to reach other parts of one’s country.

Yes, one needs a passport. What difference does that make? A passport can be arranged.

It is not necessary in Greece.

In Greece one does not need a passport, but what difference does the passport make? We can issue passports. In any case the person will not need to ask for a passport every time. He can receive a standing concession. We also have to travel through these territories. The people will not only have to go from one territory to another for administration purposes, but for other matters as well.

I want to come to the carrying capacity of Bophuthatswana. Does the Thaba Nchu territory, the Taung territory and the Madikwe territory have less carrying capacity now because they do not adjoin another piece of land? Surely they do not have less carrying capacity because of that. Why do hon. members then say that the viability is going to suffer? Then there is the enterprise of the people. Do they have less enterprise now because the territory is divided into six portions, instead of into one portion? These are the things which contribute to viability. The hon. members should not come to us with their childish stories. We are not a kindergarten; we are in the Parliament of South Africa.

One last idea I want to deal with is that expressed by the hon. member for Sea Point. He said that all the territories should be included and that jurisdiction over them should simply be withdrawn. Surely that is not a solution. Surely we cannot simply draw a line and then say that all is bliss, and that there is now consolidation. Surely we are working with the Bantu territories in terms of the trusteeship. Did we not in 1936 take upon ourselves the extremely important task, in terms of the 1936 Act, of ensuring that the Bantu territories belonged to the Black people or to their Governments? That is why we have already had to spend almost R40 million in Transkei to do those things, deprive the Whites of their property so that the Blacks could get it. We had to do the same in Bophuthatswana, where fortunately it occurred to a far lesser extent. Should we now add large territories and allow the land which is supposed to be what counts for Bophuthatswana to remain in the possession of Whites? Surely it is not then the Black people who obtain the land.

They can buy it.

The hon. member finds it very easy to talk. That is a very theoretical approach. We, as trustees, are responsible, and to me it is a matter of ethics that we should not manage the trusteeship in respect of the Black territories in such a way that we favour the Whites. We must favour the Black people. The hon. member’s argument has no ethical foundation.

I want to make haste, for time is catching up with me. The hon. member for Randburg really said only one thing to which I want to react, viz. the criterion which he stated at the beginning of his speech and on which he elaborated. It was that the independence of the homelands is being rejected overseas, in America and other countries, and for that reason we should not implement it. I know that that hon. member is taken up with Andy Young, that he goes to him for guidance. I know that is his criterion. Should we now listen to the hon. member for Randburg, who seeks guidance from Young, and does only what pleases him? South Africa has a criterion, and it is not based on what the outside world thinks, but on what it considers to be its bounden duty, i.e. to carry out its own ethical principles and to do what is right. We must act according to our own appraisal of the situation and not according to that of the outside world. There is such a thing as a universal opinion inside and outside one’s country which one has to take into consideration. However, our criterion is based on what we think is necessary and right. The hon. member will never succeed in satisfying the entire world. He will not even satisfy Andy Young.

The hon. member for Randburg also referred to the “land allocation for legitimate demands to be negotiated” and said that the land should have been divided more satisfactorily. Other hon. members also harped on that theme. I should like to remind hon. members opposite of what I have said so often before in the past, and that is that South Africa does not find itself in a position today where the territory of South Africa still has to be divided among the people. We must understand this very clearly. As far as Whites and Blacks in particular are concerned, the division of the land took place on an historical basis. In 1936 we added an area to that which the Black people had traditionally received over many decades. We are arranging the matter. Therefore we are not in the position today that we have to divide the land, the wealth and the political power of South Africa.

The hon. member for Edenvale—to whom I have already given a partial reply on the question of the non-contiguity of the land— also complained because we were not able to peruse in advance the constitution of Bophuthatswana in this Parliament. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister said in reply to that that we were by no means enamoured of that kind of “baasskap” attitude which the hon. member was displaying. We are giving them the plenary power to draw up their constitution themselves. I have every confidence that they will draw up a constitution which will comply with their specific democratic views, and with which they will best be able to govern themselves in future. In this regard they receive advice from us and from other people. We must leave it entirely in their hands. I take it that they have already made a great deal of progress in drawing up their constitution. However we do not have it at our disposal now as we had the one of Transkei at our disposal last year in draft form. There is a very good reason for that, and it is that there is still a longer time before independence than was the case with Transkei last year.

At the beginning of my speech I referred to the hon. member for Newton Park. He displayed a very realistic approach when he referred to the various institutions of the Bantu. I also have much appreciation for the approach adopted by the hon. member for Maitland. I find the way in which the hon. member for Newton Park has, during the past few months, been able to throw off some of the shackles with which he was burdened and how he is now able to demonstrate just as well how falsely the UP and the PRP act towards the Blacks, and in particular how they chop and change in regard to these matters very striking. I think that he made a very positive contribution.

In passing I want to thank the hon. member for Marico very sincerely for an excellent piece of historical background. It formed a good adjunct to this Bill.

I think that I have replied to just about all the arguments raised by the hon. member for Yeoville. He also said that a premium was being placed on becoming foreigners. Narrowly speaking, the people who are becoming independent in terms of our homeland legislation may, in terms of other laws, perhaps be called foreigners. However it is clearly stipulated in the Bill that we shall not treat them as foreigners. The Bill stipulates clearly that they lose no other privileges. Of course they are no longer citizens of the Republic, but—and I repeat what I said in my speech—we give preference to people who become inhabitants of an independent country and who are citizens of that country over people who by law are foreigners from other countries in Africa. We do not give preference to the latter over the inhabitants of other homelands. The Black people of South Africa, whether they are members of a homeland which is not yet independent or of one which is in fact independent, are given preference over Black people from other countries of Africa, countries which do not have historical ties with us. That is what I said, and what I want to know from the hon. member is: What is wrong with that? Does the hon. member want me to give preference to people from Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, and even to people from Uganda, when it comes to the provision of employment, over the people of Bophuthatswana, Transkei or Lebowa? Surely that is an obvious attitude towards the Black people who were associated with South Africa and who still are.

That is not what I said.

That is what I said; it is what is meant, and this is obviously what the hon. member did not understand correctly. Perhaps he understands it now. Why does the hon. member use an example which has emotional overtones by asking whether we will deny them privileges in respect of hospitals?

That is not what I said.

I was speaking about amenities in general. The hon. member ought to know that we will give Black people all those privileges in respect of hospitals that they must have.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister precisely what he means by the words (Hansard, 7 June 1976, col. 8318)—

You do not say a word about them being foreigners from some other country in Africa.

No, the hon. member should not take that tack now. Those words of mine were well-considered words, and have only a single meaning. It means that people who associate themselves with a nation, before they become independent or after they have become independent, are given preference over other people from Africa. That is what those words mean; they mean nothing else. The hon. member is deliberately stating them incorrectly, or he is doing so out of ignorance. If he did so out of ignorance, he now knows what the true facts are. Those words have never had any other meaning.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout simply availed himself of the opportunity to extol his policy. There was one thing which I asked that hon. member which he apparently did not understand very well. I asked the hon. member why he complained about Bophuthatswana not being rich enough, not being sufficiently developed in the economic sphere and not yet possessing the necessary infrastructure. I know that he did not necessarily used these precise words, but that was the gist of his allegations. He said that the development of Bophuthatswana had not yet reached such a level of viability that the country could become independent.

I was referring to the political viability of the territory.

I asked the hon. member why a country should first attain maximum maturity before it could become independent. Why cannot a country grow from below, with the potential at its disposal, as in the case of so many other countries in the word? I am now putting this question to the hon. member again.

With that I come to the hon. member for Houghton; I really have very little to say about the arguments of this hon. member, except in regard to one point she complained about, a point which is not really relevant in this debate. The hon. member referred inter alia to certain problems the Transkeians are allegedly experiencing. We are at present negotiating with Transkei on these matters. I do not know what circular the hon. member was referring to.

I shall show you.

No, it does not matter now; the hon. member can show me later. I am negotiating with Transkei, and we are clearing up these matters. There are various matters involved, and we are in the process of negotiating on them.

I should like to thank very sincerely all those members who supported me in a positive way during this debate. For those hon. members who did not support me positively, I want to pray that they may still receive wisdom and will in due course improve. Hon. members have already improved in time, and I hope that more of them will do so.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he can reply to the point that was made that in terms of a possible agreement Bophuthatswana citizens, after independence, can renounce their Bophuthatswana citizenship? The question is whether they will be able to regain South African citizenship.

This matter is dealt with in clause 6(3) of the Bill. We could discuss the matter further during the Committee Stage. The hon. member should simply read clause 6(3) carefully; he will then see that there are conditions on which the two Governments have to agree. The two Governments still have to negotiate on the conditions.

Question put: That the words “the Bill be” stand part of the Question,

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—107: Albertyn, J. T.; Aronson, T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hickman, T.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. I; Malan, W. C.; Maree, G. de K.; Meyor, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mouton, C. J.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, D. J. L.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Roux, P. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Scott, D. B.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Watt, L.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Venter, A. A.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda, C. V. van der Merwe and W. L. van der Merwe.

Noes—34: Bartlet, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G.H.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. I.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthoven ’t Hooft, R. E.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: D. J. Dalling, and R. J. Lorimer.

Question affirmed and amendment moved by Mr. C. W. Eglin dropped.

Question then put: That the word “now” stand part of the Question,

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—106: Albertyn, J. T.; Aronson, T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. R; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. G; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Beer, S. J.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. R; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hickman, T.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Maree, G. de K.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V. Mouton, C. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, D. J. L.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Roux, P. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Scott, D. B. Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Watt, L.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Venter, A. A.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda, C. V. van der Merwe and W. L. van der Merwe.

Noes—34: Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; Dalling, D. J.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. I.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthoven ’t Hooft, R. E.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Jacobs, G. F.; Lorimer, R. J.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: W. G. Kingwill and W. M. Sutton.

Question affirmed and amendment moved by Mr. R. M. Cadman dropped.

Bill accordingly read a Second Time.

Mr. Chairman, this clause deals with the rearrangement of section 27 of the principal Act. The rearranged clause separates two different types of offence. The first type of offence relates to resisting of arrest, willfully obstructing a policeman or hindering or interfering with a policeman in the course of his duties. In separating this type of offence from another type, namely assault on a policeman, the new provision provides for the increasing of the maximum penalties which can be imposed after convictions of these offences. We have no objection at all to the increase in the penalties which are proposed. In the first instance, it is increased from six months to 12 months as a potential imprisonment and from R200 to R500 as a potential fine.

Our argument, however, relates to the second category of offences, namely the category which relates to an assault. Here too the penalty is increased, but it is increased to 12 months’ imprisonment. Our argument is not in relation to increase in the penalty, but it is in relation to the fact that the magistrate is being deprived of an option in the exercize of his judgment. It is the right of a magistrate in all normal offences to impose a fine as against imposing imprisonment only. Very often we argue about the ability of the men on the Bench, about the independence of the Bench, about the standing of the magistrates’ court and the ability of a magistrate to try properly the cases which are brought before him, but if we are sincere in that—I suggest that hon. members are—I believe it should be within the purview of the magistrate to decide what the best penalty is to be imposed for an offence which has been proven before him in court. By depriving the magistrate of the right to impose a fine, we create a situation in terms of which, if a person is convicted of assaulting a policeman, the magistrate has no option but to sentence him to a period of imprisonment.

You are wrong.

It is true that that period of imprisonment can be suspended or portion of it can be suspended, but I think it is correct to say that there may well be proper circumstances in which a fine would be a better penalty than imprisonment.

Name one.

In summing up I wish to say, if it is the wish and the view of this House—I think I support that view—that an assault on a policeman is a serious offence, we would be found for supporting a move to increase the potential maximum penalty which can be imposed.

Why do you not propose it?

However, if it is the view of this House that the hon. the Minister of Justice, in amending this legislation, can foresee all the different kinds of assault which might be brought to court, and can foresee now, as we sit here, what the proper penalty for such a conviction might be, we are not to be found to support it, because we believe there may well be, as I said in the Second Reading, assaults and assaults. There may be serious assaults and there may be assaults of a very minimal nature in which event a fine might be the most efficacious penalty. Therefore, I move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

The effect of the amendment will not be to change the seriousness of the offence or the potential penalty allowed to be imposed by the magistrate. However, it does allow of a discretion. The discretion which is being allowed, is that the magistrate, instead of imposing only a sentence of imprisonment, will have the right and the option, in proper cases, of imposing a fine as well.

Mr. Chairman, I move the second amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

With the leave of the Committee, I wish to withdraw the first amendment as printed.

When one looks at the members comprising this committee, members of the legal fraternity, it is clear, are the big majority, followed by those who follow agricultural pursuits. I think I am the only policeman here, and I have 39 years of full-time police service behind me. Therefore, I am convinced that I can speak with authority on this subject. I am one who has always held that the police are performing a difficult task. They are the outward sign of law and order, and one can indeed say that they represent the majesty and the authority of the State. Whether it is in cartoons or in comic cuts where the policeman are portrayed as ignorant men going out with the cooks and being fed on pies at the back-doors, I have always deplored it. In my years of service I did come across people who told me to use the tradesmen’s entrance. Of course, I bluntly refused to do so and I used the front door.

I have always viewed assaults on policemen, whether committed by people in boisterous mood or not, in a serious light. At the same time, of course, I have always known policemen to have a sense of humour and to have a sense of balance regarding the situation. I also deplore incidents, as referred to during the Second Reading of this debate, in which, for instance, policemen’s caps are being removed. Therefore, I have moved my amendment in all sincerity in order to try to enable the courts to use their discretion in cases of this kind. By doubling the fine and the sentence of imprisonment the courts will be given an indication of the serious light in which this sort of incident is viewed.

Various hon. members said during Second Reading that the accused person could be detained until the rising of the court. Well, that is a farce. Let us make no bones about it.

[Inaudible.]

It is a farce!

[Inaudible.]

There is no punishment attached to that sort of sentence. The accused simply sits in the court until the court rises. A suspended sentence has its virtues, but it does not give the court any leeway or any option. I feel that a monetary fine would be the best sort of punishment. The accused should be made to pay, because when one touches somebody’s pocket, that person is hit harder than when he is sent to gaol from where he can be released on parole after a short while. However, I am not criticizing the Department of Prisons for this. In my amendment I have asked that the fine be doubled and that the term of imprisonment be doubled. The option in this case should be left to the court, and the court should also be able to exercize its discretion as regards both fine and term of imprisonment.

Mr. Chairman, I have put forward my standpoint about that matter during the Second Reading debate. In general I agree with the hon. member for Sandton’s view regarding the discretion that a magistrate ought to have. I am someone who believes that a magistrate, in the majority of cases as a general rule, ought, in fact, to have such a discretion in the imposition of a sentence, except in cases of crimes of a very serious nature. I have already said in the Second Reading debate that an assault on a policeman in the performance of his duties is a very serious crime. What the hon. member loses sight of is that it is not merely normal assault, but assault on a policeman whilst he is engaged in the performance of his duties. I think hon. members will agree with me that this is a very serious crime.

The question now is: What do we, as legislators, want to achieve at this time? Here it is not merely a matter of a sentence. If that were the case, I would agree with the hon. member for Sandton and the hon. member for Umlazi. It is not, however, a matter of a sentence; it is an effort to stop people before they assault a policeman whilst he is engaged in the performance of his duties. I should like people to know before the time that they will not have the choice of a fine if they are found guilty of assaulting a policeman whilst he was engaged in the performance of his duties. The legislation must therefore have a deterrent effect so that people will know that they must not assault a policeman. People must know before the time that it is not only wrong to assault a policeman, but also a serious crime. There is consequently a calculative risk, because someone who assaults a policeman is not a joker.

The proposed section 27(2)(a) makes provision for the joker. If such a joker knocks off a policeman’s cap, he has the choice of a fine. The magistrate therefore has a discretion in such a case. What we are now dealing with, however, is a case of someone assaulting a policeman whilst he is engaged in the performance of his duties, and I therefore feel that the legislation must have a deterrent effect. I do not think the hon. member for Umlazi disagrees with me in that connection because in his first amendment he wanted to change the provision in connection with a sentence as follows—

Then the hon. member gave the matter further thought, and in the light of his experience of 39 years as a policeman, he himself realized that his amendment would not give sufficient indication of the seriousness of the matter. He then proposed a second amendment in which he asked that the sentence be a fine not exceeding R1 000 or imprisonment for a period not exceeding 24 months. He himself came to the conclusion that such an offence is a very serious crime because the policeman is hindered in the performance of his duties.

You should accept the amendment.

No, it just shows the trend of his thoughts. If I give the hon. member another few days’ time he will fall in with our view that there should be no option of a fine. As time goes on that hon. member, for whom I have a great deal of respect, as everybody in this House knows, will suddenly realize that it is an extremely serious offence to try to assault a policeman while he is trying to fulfil his duties. Therefore I cannot accept these amendments.

Amendment moved by Mr. D. J. Dalling put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—28: Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du R; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Cadman, R. M.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. I.; Enthoven ’t Hooft, R. E.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Kingwill, W. G; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Mills, G. W.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: D. J. Dalling and R. J. Lorimer.

Noes—97: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Maree, G. de K.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mouton, C. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, D. J. L.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Roux, P. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Scott, D. B.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Watt, L.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Venter, A. A.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda, C. V. van der Merwe and W. L. van der Merwe.

Amendment negatived.

Amendment moved by Brig. C. C. von Keyserlingk negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause agreed to (Official Opposition and Progressive Reform Party dissenting).

Clause 8:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

Mr. Chairman, relating to clause 8 …

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.