, as Chairman, presented the Report of the Select Committee on Allegation by Member.

Report, proceedings and evidence to be printed and considered.

, as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts.

Report, proceedings and evidence to be printed and considered.

, as Chairman, presented the Third Report of the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs.

Report and proceedings to be printed and considered.

, as Chairman, presented the Fourth Report of the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs.

Report and proceedings to be printed and considered.

QUESTIONS (see “QUESTIONS AND REPLIES”).

Mr. Chairman, the conflict between the West and Soviet Marxist philosophy is the conflict of a way of life, a way of life which typifies the moral, social and economic norms of these two societies. When I talk of the West I do not only talk of the USA, to which most reference has been made during the course of the debate, but also of all other countries in Europe and elsewhere which form part of what we know as the Western nations. Is it, therefore, surprising that the purpose and objective of the West is to propagate its norms throughout the Third World to enable this way of life to become acceptable and thus contribute to its own underlying concept and purpose which is to bring about peace and prosperity amongst the nations of the world?

The West feels that its moral concepts, its basic spiritual concepts and its basic economic principles should also become part of these countries’ way of life. Therefore, when the West expects its affinity nations, amongst whom we are numbered, to accept and live by these norms it cannot, in my opinion, be regarded as an affront to or an interference in our domestic affairs. We accept the economic norms of the capitalist system and the principles of free enterprise. Why then should we be surprised when the West expects us to endeavour to measure up to their norms in the moral and social field in the interests of peace, harmony and happiness in the internal life of our own country? It is against these norms that we seek to measure our appreciation of the wants and desires of the peoples of our country and seek to meet the aspirations of the citizens of all races, creeds or colours, as citizens of our Republic.

We should seek to normalize our race relations in every field, social, moral and economic, just as we are seeking to normalize our community in different fields such as sport, of which the hon. the Minister has given such a fine example. I am also thinking of the field of labour where the hon. the Minister of Labour has, in my opinion, made a very important contribution to the whole concept of labour and its future requirements in our country. These are the priorities we are seeking; a normalization of our behaviour and a normalization of our conduct in this country.

The right of every man to have and to determine his own future, to develop to the utmost of his capacity, to equal opportunities, to retain his human dignity, to free expression of opinion, both political expression and participation with his fellow man therein are, surely, not uncalled-for expectations. Politicians make statements often to play up to the public, to play to the gallery, and interwoven with these statements are very often true and sound expressions of opinion, of genuine policy, carrying sincerity of purpose. As an example I want to quote what I think is a very important analysis of what has been said by various speakers recently. This analysis was made by a gentleman who is a professor in political science at UCT. He analysed what was said by speakers such as the Vice President of the USA, as reported in the newspapers, the US ambassador at the UNO and other speakers. He says one must make a distinction between rhetoric and genuine policy and between political generalizations by people like Mr. Mondale, who articulate policy, and formulations of policy by political specialists. I think that is the analysis we have to make with regard to these various statements we hear.

One must take note of the views of politicians, separate the wheat from the chaff and see in true perspective what is the attitude of the nations of the West. In my view it is not a demand, a threat or an ultimatum. If anything, I read between the lines of most of these statements a word of friendly counsel, a form of persuasion, a friendly hint and in many senses a friendly warning on the reactions of other nations to what is taking place in our country.

I believe we should accept that one must look for the true and basic attitudes of nations towards us and not be hysterical or oversensitive to what is conveyed by the Press and public statements directed at different audiences for different purposes an art in which none of us can claim to be unsophisticated.

Whom are you quoting?

I am quoting myself. I have prepared my own notes for this speech, which I am entitled to deliver. For the edification of the hon. member for Rustenburg, whose speech was the least appreciated in the House because of the level to which it descended, I want to quote this: “The enemies of my enemies are my friends.” To suggest that we must break our association with the USA and to rant and rave against representatives of important Western countries with whom we are closely associated in many respects, is not a very sound reaction. We have had much evidence of that in this House where, when dealing with recent statements of people who have visited our country and others, hon. members have become absolutely hysterical in their denigration of these people and their statements when we as politicians know exactly how these things work.

As a result of having nailed our colours to the mast of historic values and habits, we have over the years lost many opportunities which have presented themselves to make progress in the solution of our many problems. We have lost a lot of our own bargaining power because of these lost opportunities, more particularly when they presented themselves to us from time to time and have been of moment in the march of events.

Too many of our politicians have lost opportunities by looking over their shoulders at the ballot box, the voters and other political and social inhibitions. The goal of our South African society must be the elimination of discrimination, respect for human dignity, equal opportunity for every person for self-fulfilment and for meaningful participation in political life. Whilst the hon. the Prime Minister has accepted these principles, he has done so in a somewhat restricted form. Nevertheless, it is not beyond us to escape these restrictions and to formulate a meaningful and positive interpretation of the goals I have mentioned in consultation and with the co-operation of all sections of this country, so as to establish a corner-stone for future harmony and peaceful race relations in South Africa. The question which arises and which has often been debated here, is whether this goal can be achieved in a plural society. I believe it can. If we try to achieve this, we will inaugurate a future of unparallelled prosperity for all our people in a country where Providence has blessed us with every material advantage, sufficient to satisfy the demands of all and of the coming generations.

I do not discount, however, the harm nor can I sufficiently deplore the harm caused by the unfortunate expressions of opinion which are often made very loosely. Statements which float around without any consideration for the affairs of the country, such as “one man, one vote” and others of a similar nature, far from helping the situation often have the opposite effect and unloose forces which normally would not exist. It is true that Government spokemen have talked about moving away from discrimination and whilst they have raised hopes and expectations of many changes, the fact that nothing tangible has been done or very often seen to be done, creates frustration which causes a lot of unrest and unruly conduct. For many years the Government has talked of home-ownership, municipal administration, equal pay for equal work, the expansion of negotiating rights for workers and respect for the dignity of the individual, but unfortunately we have dragged our feet very slowly indeed as a result of which we have lost our standard of credibility. This is a most important factor and my final appeal to the hon. the Minister is: Has not the time come to shed the historical prejudices, differentiations and discriminatory attitudes which have, by now, fully exhausted their historical purpose and value? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Jeppe began by pointing out the contrast between the Western and the communist way of life. The hon. member knows, after all, that out sympathies on this side of the House and those of everyone in the country lie with the Western countries.

We cannot get away from this; we shall do everything in our power to co-operate with them. Surely this goes without saying. After the Second World War, and perhaps even before that, the world was divided into two camps, namely the communist camp on the one hand and the Western democratic states on the other. We in South Africa also have a philosophy of life. We have a basically sound, Christian national philosophy of life. The hon. member for Jeppe, however, is so politically ill that he has to join another party. Since we also have a philosophy of life, we base our outlook on the premise that there are various different ethnic communities which make up the world and humanity as a whole. If the international world today wants us to move towards a better, purer future for the world, I have nothing against that fine objective. The prerequisite, however, is that every separate, dynamic community must lead its people to development in its own way and out of its own resources in all the spheres which the hon. member mentioned, namely in the ethical sphere, in the social sphere, the economic sphere and the political sphere, so that those separate communities can reshape themselves in such a way as to contribute towards the uplifting of international life. Actually, this is the big difference between us and hon. members on that side of the House. They want to reshape the world from above, while we want to reshape it from beneath. One cannot build a nation from above, one does it from below.

We cannot reconcile ourselves to bringing the world towards recreation and resurrection on a cosmopolitan, an almost proletarian basis. We must do so on the basis of pluralism, of Multi-nationalism, as the hon. member ultimately said. It is a pity that the hon. member for Edenvale is not here now, because he again attached various labels to the policy of the NP yesterday. I do not know precisely what type of labels they were—it was just a series of tongue-twisting, jaw-breaking, teeth-gnashing expressions. No matter how much fuss hon. members make about our policy, it remains essentially a policy of national self-determination. All the hon. members were doing yesterday, was to discredit the credibility of the White man and of the Government and cast suspicion on it in the eyes of the outside world. It is no use their telling me that we must move away from discrimination. Why do they not tell the world that we have the right method of moving away from discrimination? That is why I was so disenchanted with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He made the following statement yesterday: “Since the days of Dr. Verwoerd, Dr. Muller was a Minister in a time when the domestic policy of the Government was more rigid and inflexible than ever before.” This is not the case. It was precisely because this policy is so dynamic that that hon. member was expelled from the caucus of the NP. He came up against Dr. Verwoerd who was the most dynamic personality and who made the great, fundamental and structural changes which aimed at channelling the nationalism of the Bantu in the right direction. He came up in arms against this. This was one of the reasons. Now he has the cheek to blame Dr. Verwoerd for the inflexibility and stagnant condition which prevailed at that time.

I want to quote, a few passages. I could quote from 1959, but I shall spare the hon. member that and I shall quote instead from a debate of 1961. Dr. Verwoerd said the following in a budget debate at that time (Hansard, Vol. 107, col. 4546)—

The policy which we have had over the years, was actually a policy of change, a policy to bring about changes. It was also a reshaping policy in order to reshape the country so that we could modernize our policy to such an extent that we would be able to take our place in the modern world.

I want to quote a second passage, however. At the time, the hon. the Prime Minister said the following in the same debate and I ask hon. members whether this is inflexible (Hansard, Vol. 107, col. 4618)—

Therefore, it was not as a result of world pressure. We are an inseparable part of the world after all. If the world is all for justice and if it wants to move away from discrimination, we are with them. Together with them we want to noise it abroad that we stand for justice. We stand for discrimination being removed.

The only policy which would sweep discrimination from its path, is the policy of national self-determination. It is the only policy which will succeed in a country like ours in which one has various heterogeneous elements and in which one does not have a uniform population, if one has to lead these people in their ethnicity to spiritual maturity, social progress, economic interdependence, political independence and political determination. Only by adopting that course, can one ultimately eliminate that tremendous backlog. The hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs was quite right yesterday when he said that we are moving away from a situation which was actually an historic legacy.

The word “suppression” or “baasskap” has never been part of the constitution of the NP. I think that the words were “Christian guardianship” and not “paternalism”. It is not necessary to act in such a maternal way as the hon. member for Houghton does and to consider the people as children which one always has to protect. No, one must help them so that they can ultimately help themselves.

That is why I say it is unfair to allege that this policy originated with Dr. Verwoerd, because to a certain extent, we laid down the guidelines of this policy in the manifesto of 1948. That manifesto ushered in a new era of national relations in this country and the intention was to move away from discrimination. Our policy was never an end in itself. It was actually a means to an end, viz. the removal of discrimination and domination. Even if we are a lonely nation at the moment, as the hon. member said yesterday, it does not matter. I want the consistency of policy in all our leaders to be seen, and do not doubt for a moment that we shall not sweep discrimination out of the way. In 1974 the hon. the Prime Minister said the following—

This has been transferred from one Prime Minister to the other. In 1948 we produced that policy so that we could find our way in this world, even though it might be a lonely road, as long as it would just be the right road, with the right objectives. We are a small nation which wants to live amongst other nations that also want to live. Of course, we are living in a very difficult world today. It is a world which has become so much smaller. It is obvious that our domestic policy is irrevocably bound up with our foreign policy. Our domestic policy is an international projection and we are dealing with human dignity and human rights. But we are not fleeing from these things. We want to get into step with them. This is exactly what our Prime Minister is going to do. When the Minister of the Interior comes to this House and propagates that we should move away from discrimination, then I want to tell him that if there is one thing which the NP agrees on 100% here in the House and in the caucus, then it is that we must eliminate discrimination on grounds of race and colour as quickly as possible in an orderly way. There is no dispute and dissension about this at all.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Etosha asked me yesterday whether I could say something in this debate about the talks on South West Africa with the five Western countries. Before doing so, I should first like to reply to the question by the hon. member for Etosha on the gold payments to Mozambique. The hon. member referred to gold payments at the official rate to Mozambique in respect of that portion of the wages of mine labourers held back in terms of an agreement concluded at the time with the Portuguese authorities. My colleague, the Minister of Finance, explained the position in this House on 9 June in view of the forthcoming revaluation of gold. In this regard I just want to add that the International Monetary Fund has in the meantime also taken steps to amend its Articles of Agreement. When this amendment comes into operation later this year, the official gold price will disappear and there will only be a market price for gold. With that this question will fall away. In addition I should just like to emphasize, and make it clear for the record, that the Government of Mozambique never asked South Africa for financial assistance. I think we should have clarity on that point.

Mr. Chairman, when one mentions the words “South West Africa” one’s thoughts involuntary go back over a period of many years. They go back to our military conquest of that territory in 1915. They go back to that contentious situation which prevailed in this country during those years. The bitter irony of it all is that our predecessors in the party which is today governing South Africa rebelled as it were at what they regarded at that time as being a false move, viz. the military occupation of the territory of other people. It is of no avail now to try to avoid the history of this matter. These are the facts. The occupation of South West Africa was, as it were, an operation carried out to assist the Allied Forces of the West. The Government of this country—whether it was UP or Nationalist is not internationally relevant now—stood by a section of the Western forces through two wars. The bitter irony of it all is that this Government is today being taken to task, pressurized and abused in respect of what happened in South West Africa. That is the bitter irony. But we shall leave it at that. I just wanted to make it very clear here that this was as I saw the matter in its historical perspective.

Reflecting further on South West Africa, one recalls the years of supervision over the area in terms of the mandate and how South African representatives went to Geneva and there reported, with favourable consequences, on the administration of South West Africa. There were occasions when the Permanent Mandate Commission of the old League of Nations praised our administration. Those were interesting and historical years. They were followed by the Second World War. The League of Nations was no more. A new organization, the United Nations Organization, was established. New issues developed. Shortly after the establishment of this world organization, which was supposed to preserve world peace for all time, the power-bloc struggle, which we know only too well, began. In this way many issues, which should never have done so, became international issues or disputes. In the cut and thrust of the great powers in their struggle for the soul of the people, South West Africa also became a point in dispute, something which it should never have become compared to the real problems of the world. But here, too, we shall leave it at that.

The World Court at The Hague gave various verdicts and opinions on South West Africa. These concerned the status of the territory, the supervision of the UNO and the right of petitionaries to submit petitions to the UNO. When Ethiopia and Liberia instituted the contentious legal proceedings against us in the early sixties, legal proceedings which lasted until a verdict was given on 18 July 1966, it concerned the policy which was being applied in the territory. The essence of the charge was the alleged brutal and deliberate suppression of the non-Whites, the Black people, which the South Africa authorities practiced or allowed in the territory. The records in this regard ran into hundreds, in fact into thousands of pages. There was a record of every law, every measure and every practice which, according to the records of the UNO and the allegations of petitionaries, were allegedly of a suppressive nature. We replied to these. A fierce struggle followed. Eventually we did not lose the case, if I may put it that way. Eventually Ethiopia and Liberia lost the case, and this again gave rise to an emotional outburst at the UNO, in the debate in the General Assembly in 1966. Eighty Foreign Ministers participated in that debate. Brutal demands were made, inter alia that South Africa should immediately withdraw from South West Africa, should get out. Our administration of the territory was allegedly terminated and a Council for South West Africa, which subsequently became the Council for Namibia, was established to govern the territory. Hon. members will recall that, before we reached that point, South Africa had over the years launched several initiatives in this regard. We never used article 2, paragraph 7 of the UNO Charter to block discussions of South West Africa in the General Assembly of the UNO itself because South West Africa was never part of the sovereign territory of the then Union, subsequently the Republic of South Africa. That was not the case. No South African Government, and no Prime Minister from General Smuts right down to the present Prime Minister, ever resorted to article 2, paragraph 7 when it came to South West Africa. South West Africa was never part of the territory of South Africa. Unfortunately misunderstanding frequently prevailed on this point, although I think that at present this is no longer the case to such an extent. But these are facts which I am stating here, even though they may make painful hearing. One need only look at the Constitution Act of the Republic to see that the territory of South West Africa is not included in it.

South Africa has therefore recognized the international character or nature—or whatever we wish to call it—of the territory in this sense that the territory never formed part of the territory of South Africa. One can say that from the earliest times it was already the policy of the South African Government that the people of the territory of South West Africa themselves should decide their future. This was implied and stated in World Court proceedings in which I myself had the honour of participating. This was made abundantly clear in a report on South West Africa which was published in 1967 and which I helped to draft, and which fell directly under the jurisdiction of the present Prime Minister, namely that it was up to the people of South West Africa to decide their own destinies and future. In other words, one can say that this sound policy, this far-sighted policy of the South African Government, viz. that it is a matter for the people of South West Africa themselves to decide their destinies and future, ultimately formed the corner-stone of the relative success which in my opinion has eventually been achieved now on the way to an internationally acceptable solution to South West Africa. We have never recognized direct UNO supervision over our administration of South West Africa, and to this day there is still no binding judgment of the World Court stating that the UNO has such supervision. There is no such thing. There is, it is true, an advisory opinion, the one which eventually followed in 1971, which does state this, but it is not binding and according to the Charter and the statutes of the court, it is not binding on any State or party. Nor is it enforceable. Besides, we know under what circumstances the World Court was constituted in 1971 and on what it based its decisions. We know that they rejected a plebescite which South Africa proposed.

There is another aspect concerning South West Africa to which I should like to refer, namely the candidness of South Africa and the South African Government concerning the territory, its willingness at the UNO over many years, at the World Court in thousands of pages, to inform the world of what was happening in South West Africa. Hon. members will all recall our willingness during the ’fifties to discuss matters with various committees of the UNO and to negotiate in order to try to find a political solution or to try to find a basis of negotiation for a solution. There was the Arden-Clarke Committee and subsequently the Carpio/De Alva Committee which instituted investigations. Hon. members will recall that South Africa always came out of these investigations favourably in this sense that in the reports and communiques that were subsequently issued, the South African Government’s attitude and sincerity in finding a solution was spoken well of and referred to in friendly terms. But this was followed by ever-more radical demands on the part of certain groups at the UNO, and in this way the progress we had made was overtaken and outstripped by the more radical demands.

This is briefly the history of the territory. It is therefore not a history of a stubborn, recalcitrant South African Government. It is a history of a Government that was willing to settle an international problem amicably, but which always held firmly to one standpoint, whatever such a settlement may comprise, the people of South West Africa themselves should approve of it, the people of South West Africa themselves should be consulted about it, and the people of South West Africa themselves should ultimately take the decisions. Since the court finding, or Opinion, of 1971, a whole series of actions followed from the UNO and these gradually spilled over into the Security Council. The Security Council of the UNO is not like the General Assembly of the UNO. The Security Council of the UNO consists of 15 members, of whom five are the so-called permanent members. Those five are a remnant of the Second World War. They were regarded as the five major powers that would have the potency, the great deterrents and that would therefore be capable of preserving world peace, and therefore it was the idea that unanimity among them was essential to preserve world peace, and for that reason each power was given the right of veto. If any action were proposed with which all five could not agree, it was regarded as something not conducive to world peace, and for that reason one of them, or all together, or two, could veto arty action. The Security Council today, by virtue of the five member countries that have permanent representation on the council—these are Russia, Britain, France, the USA and China—probably has 99% of all nuclear weapons at its disposal. They have the major naval forces, the major air forces and the big missiles at their disposal. They are the countries that send rockets to the moon and to Mars. They are the countries with power, brute power. For a small country it is therefore important not to get in the way of that power. We must have no illusions about that. There is potency in that council which can inflict severe damage.

We have always participated in the debates in that council. My predecessor and I, as well as Mr. Brand Fourie, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, have participated in debates there. We have repeatedly gone out of our way, in the face of all the unsavoury things which were said against us there, to make our position in regard to South West Africa as clear as possible. We have been doing this all these years. We have made repeated appeals to the council to understand that we do not claim the territory for ourselves. All we have done is to try to get the UNO to accept that we want the people of South West Africa to decide their own affairs. That was all we were really advocating. In aggregate that was what all our pleas amounted to.

Our problem, however, was that there were powers that did not want peaceful solutions. Peaceful solutions could possibly mean that the power of the gun, with which they want to take over regimes, would be eliminated, and that their selfish political and national objectives would in that way be defeated. That is briefly the position, if only people would recognize it as such.

When it seemed as though we were heading for a confrontation with the Security Council, Dr. Waldheim paid us a visit. This was five years ago. Nothing came of that visit either, in spite of the fact that important progress was in fact made in the negotiations with Dr. Waldheim and with his personal representative, Dr. Escher. Eventually we reached the position in which the people of South West Africa themselves met around a conference table. Blacks, Whites, Basters, Coloureds sat down together around that conference table. There warring parties of the past buried the hatchet.

After all, we all know that the history of South West Africa during the previous century was one of bloodshed, warfare, strife and rebellion. At that conference table the most divergent groups of people came together: People from Kavango, from Caprivi, Owambo, the Hereros including those of Kaokoland, the Namas, the Damaras, the Coloureds, the Basters of Rehoboth and the Tswanas—a Coloured group from the border of Botswana—the Whites and the Bushmen. All these groups eventually came together. In spite of their earlier history, they met around a conference table for more than two years.

There were differences. Hon. members read about these in the newspapers. These were severely exaggerated in that part of the world where I represent South Africa.

Those differences were resolved, however. Initially there were considerable disputes in the ranks of the individual delegations. Those disputes were resolved, however. What happened then? When the delegates, after much hard work, reached a consensus in regard to a constitution, that was no longer good enough either. Then it was “too good to be true”. Here, too, we shall leave it at that. What eventually happened this year was that the European countries—and subsequently, too, representatives of the five Western countries on the Security council—apart from the three major countries, Germany and Canada as well—came to discuss the issue with us. They came to discuss the issue with us in order, as they put it, to see whether the gap between the position of the South African Government in respect of the cardinal issues between us and the UNO could not be narrowed. The hon. the Prime Minister made a speech in Windhoek two years ago in which he indicated himself that that gap has been narrowed to a considerable extent.

Be that as it may, in the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, there is no time to mete out blame. There is no time for animosity. What we are aiming at now is to see to what extent the five Western countries can accept the standpoints advocated by the people of South West Africa, can sell these to their Governments and to what extent those Governments will then stand firm and will try to persuade the members of the Security Council of the UNO to accept them. If this can be done, the ball can, it is hoped, be set rolling, in order to start the final process by means of which South West Africa can become independent in a peaceful way, based on the declared will of the majority of the people of South West Africa in a way on which the inhabitants of the territory itself have decided and in a way which will bring open recognition of that territory by at least the moderate, responsible countries of the world. That, in brief, is the story.

†For the first time in South West Africa’s history Blacks, Coloureds and Whites are meeting in an open an honest attempt to find a constitutional modus vivendi for their country. Since September 1975 representatives of all the population groups in the territory have been assembled in conference, freely and of their own accord, in order to co-operate in eliminating their differences and advancing social and economic conditions, thus creating an atmosphere of mutual confidence for then-main task, viz. the adoption of a constitution for their country. Past adversaries have extended a hand of friendship to each other, as I have said, in a true spirit of goodwill to search for a durable and peaceful solution. The leaders of the territory have been discussing their differences around a conference table. They did not try to shoot it out.

When the record is scrutinized and studied objectively, it will be seen that in substance the leaders of South West Africa were in agreement with the most important aspects of the points which were put in the United Nations even before the recent discussions with the five Western countries commenced. I think it is important to remember this. The leaders of South West Africa were in agreement before the five Western countries actually came to South Africa.

Let me mention some of those basic points, points which for 31 years formed the basis of the dispute and acrimony between South Africa and the United Nations: the separate international status of South West Africa— which is now, after consensus, accepted South West Africa’s independence as a whole; South Africa’s withdrawal from South West Africa and arrangements for that withdrawal and transfer of power according to the wishes of the inhabitants; the opportunity for the inhabitants of the territory to express their views freely on the constitutional future of their country; the allowance of all political groups to propagate their points of view and to participate without intimidation in peaceful political activities in the process leading to self-determination, and the question of exiles returning to South West Africa to participate in peaceful political activities.

The following points are extremely important: Every person to have the right to the free development of his personality in so far as this does not violate the rights of others or offend against the public order and moral code; the life, freedom and inviolability of the person of everyone to be unassailable and only to be encroached upon pursuant to a law; all persons to be equal before the law; no person to be favoured or prejudiced by reason of his origin, sex, language, race, colour, creed or political convictions; freedom of faith to be guaranteed; freedom of movement to be guaranteed; every person to have the right to express his opinion by speech, writing or pictures in so far as it does not infringe on the rights of others or is not harmful to the State; freedom of the Press to be guaranteed, this right to be limited by the general laws for the protection of the constitutional order, the youth and personal honour and dignity; and the right to ownership, whether individual or collective, of movable or immovable property is to be guaranteed.

South Africa, for its part, accepts these points because they have been accepted by the representatives of the territory. It is our policy that we accept what the people of South West Africa freely, openly and sincerely decide and want. There must be no misconception about that.

*There were other matters, too, which were discussed, for example the question of the release of prisoners. All the Western countries call them political prisoners, but we draw a distinction between political detainees and people lawfully sentenced by the courts for common law offences. Be that as it may, I can assure hon. members that the standpoint of the South African Government in respect of this matter is not only reasonable, but the only one which can possibly be adopted, the standpoint that we are prepared to submit this dispute over who are political prisoners and who not, to a panel of jurists on which we will have representation. In addition, of course, we ask that Swapo release the hundreds of detainees in Tanzania and Zambia. I think hon. members, as well as any reasonable person, will agree that if one’s point of departure is one of morality, it is only equitable that everyone who is ostensibly detaining people should release them.

There is the question of UNO involvement in the territory with a view to satisfying the world and ourselves that the elections will be held openly and fairly and that there will be no intimidation. In my opinion these matters have been satisfactorily discussed. Good progress has been made with them.

There is also the question of the withdrawal of South Africa from the territory. Good progress has been made in this regard. It is of course a matter which cannot now be discussed or worked out. It is something which will have to be discussed with the future Government of the territory, which is still to be elected. There are many facets to South Africa’s presence in the territory. There is the Railways, in which an investment of more than R200 million has been made, road carrier transportation services, the use of the harbour at Walvis Bay and many other undertakings and institutions of the Republic which are rendering assistance to South West Africa and its people. I am thinking here of the CSIR and other technological institutes in our country. In addition there are various Government departments, of a technical and of administrative nature, health services and social welfare services and so on. Hon. members will understand that the question of safety and security is one of the most important aspects.

If it is said that there should not be any intimidation, it follows that there should not be intimidation from any quarters. Therefore it is important that those matters be discussed and thrashed out by the Government which will be elected. It is foreseen that an assembly of constituents will be convened which will decide on a constitution for the territory of South West Africa. That constitution will then form the basis of further elections which will constitute a government for the territory and which will function until the date of independence. During that period, and not before the time, this matter will be negotiated and agreed on. That must be clearly understood. This is the case with all countries that become independent. That is more or less the pattern which has been followed in the case of other countries which became independent.

I should like to say a few words in regard to Rhodesia.

†I wish to stress a few facts about Rhodesia, facts which are sometimes not taken account of. The question of majority rule is not an issue in Rhodesia. This has been said by its own leader to be the policy of the Rhodesian Government, i.e. majority rule. Therefore nobody must come and tell us that that is an issue any longer. Whether there exists suspicion against Mr. Smith or whether suspicion against him does not exist, this is not the issue at the moment. If that is the premise from which hon. members want to proceed, they can test Mr. Smith. For our part, we believe and accept the statement of the Rhodesian Government that the transfer of power to the majority in the country is irrevocable and also that majority rule means the Black Rhodesians would have a predominant voice in the election of future Governments. The Rhodesian Government stated this itself, and we have no reason to doubt their sincerity; we accept this. The real problem in this regard is the creation of suitable machinery for an effective negotiation process. The onus to set that machinery in motion, does not lie with South Africa, but with the Black factions, the frontline Presidents and Britain. In the past South Africa has done what it could to bring about an atmosphere amenable to peaceful discussions and in trying to bring the parties together. South Africa has played a constructive role throughout. It does not prescribe to the Rhodesians as to what kind of constitution they should draw up; we only say that it will be in the interest of all of us in the whole region of Southern Africa if a peaceful solution could be obtained. We have played a constructive role in this respect. That is as far as we went in the past and that is as far as we can go in the future.

Mr. Chairman, the debate thus far has concerned itself to a major extent with the relations between South Africa and the USA. I do not find this strange. It is perhaps what could be expected, because the USA, as we said yesterday, is the most powerful country of the West, if not of the world, and therefore it is only natural that relations between South Africa and that very powerful country will be of very great importance. I do not want to repeat what was said yesterday, and I do not think it is going to serve the interests of any of us to try to compete with one another in trying to analyse what Vice-President Mondale really meant or what he did not mean. Suffice it to say that if he did not mean what he actually said, why not leave it to him to retract or correct it? Why should we try to analyse it here? Leave him to do it. Let us keep the door open for him. America is a big and powerful country and we cannot force or pressurize them, because we do not have the physical power to do so. Therefore let us leave the matter and see how it eventually develops. I have a duty to base myself on what was said, until it is changed. I have to prepare myself and, from a foreign affairs point of view, advise my Government on the basis of what was said and not on the basis of what we would wish them to say. We must face the truth and the reality of the situation, painful as it might be.

I want to summarize the salient features of the debate so far and in doing so I think I shall be replying to the major portion of the questions that were put to me yesterday. The hon. member for Randburg posed a very serious question, a question which actually gives me a very good opportunity to set out my views as regards our relations with the USA. The hon. member wanted to know from me what I wanted from the Americans. This is an excellent question. Let us briefly categorize what I require from the Americans. There might be many more things that I would want from them, but one must be reasonable. One must not ask from America what America cannot possibly consider or cannot give. America is a world power, a super power and it is involved in a power-block struggle even today and, even if it does not want to admit it, it has its own internal problems. America also has a certain position in international life which it cannot change and for which we must show appreciation and understanding.

Taking all that into account, how would I spell out what I want from America? To start with I want to say sincerely and with respect to our American friends; “Do not weaken your own friends and strengthen your enemies.” I think that is a clear statement. It means not to aid our common enemies directly or indirectly. It means that America ought to stand firm, for instance against creeping Soviet imperialism in Africa and to reassure the Black African leaders on this point. It means a lot more, but I think the message will be understood. Furthermore I would like America to evaluate progress in my country, South Africa, in the African context and to give us credit for the progress which has been achieved in this country compared with progress in the rest of Africa. I do not accept the argument that because we are a Western-orientated nation, with systems and value systems similar to and comparable with those of the Western nations, we must therefore be judged according to their standards. There is no reason to do that. We are an African people today on the African continent dealing with African problems and there are Africans amongst us and around us. In that context our situation must be judged. If that is done and the tremendous progress and statistics supplied by the hon. member for Vasco are taken into consideration, any objective assessment must of necessity indicate that the Blacks of South Africa are better off in every sphere of life than their brothers in the rest of Africa. I do not think there is a single person in this House today who can doubt this. It cannot be doubted whether one looks at it from the point of view of health services, education or wages. The wages of Blacks in Johannesburg are 80% higher than those in Ghana and Ghana has the next highest in Africa. I do not say that it is perfect or that it is utopian. I do not say that it must stop or anything, but, for heaven’s sake, when will we get an objective assessment of the good that has come out of this Government’s policies and efforts? When will we ever get credit for that? I do not say that the Americans must say: “You have done more than you should, stop now.” Cannot we get just a little encouragement? Cannot they recognize the fact that our Blacks are better off than all other Blacks? Even in America there are millions of Blacks who are unemployed, who are starving and who live under horrible conditions. One can make worse films in New York and Washington than one can ever make in Soweto. I think that we must bring a sense of proportion into international politics. Do not tell me that there are double standards and that I must accept it. That is not the point. The President of America introduced a new concept of morality. What does morality in international relations mean? It means that one must not be elective in one’s morality. I did not introduce the concept. I do not believe in morality in international relations, because it does not exist and it cannot work. However, they believe in it. The moment anyone believes in it, I accept his word for it. And that is the point at issue.

I want the Americans to appreciate the role we can play in Africa’s development. Of course we can play a role. Our experience in the technological and scientific field are tailored to the needs of Africa. We gathered that knowledge on the African continent, be it in the medical field, in the agricultural field, or in the road-building construction field. One can call it what one likes, but it is a knowledge peculiar to Africa, uniquely based on the African soil.

I can, of course, see the difficulties and frustration of the African leaders today in thinking how they can develop their people. It will take most of them 300 years to achieve the present-day standards of living of Britain. It must be a very frustrating and painful obstacle for an African leader to govern in these circumstances. We do not say that their systems of authoritarian rule are bad. We do not interfere with their systems. But we are sincerely interested in the upliftment of the African people, of the children, of the man in the bush who is worse off than 75 years ago. One now gets reports of rinderpest disease south of Zaïre where you have not had it for 80 years. Malaria is on the increase. Kwashiorkor, nagana, the sleeping disease that affects cattle and also trypanosome, the sleeping disease that affects human beings—are all coming. The locusts are breeding again. It is not just the red locust, but the real locust that eats grass and things like that. They are not going to skip Botswana to come and eat us. They will first eat Botswana. That goes for the red and the other locusts. This must be understood.

There are more important things than quarrelling with South Africa for ever. For what? What have we done to Black people here? We have not hated them and have not despised them and have not eradicated them as the Americans have eradicated their Indians. We must talk straight about these things. Why not? I was asked what I want from America. This I want from them: I want America not to discriminate against my country when determining its relations with other countries on the basis of the extent to which other countries uphold and apply human rights. For example, they are limiting export-import bank facilities for trade with South Africa while financing projects in the Soviet Union. Now let the Americans, who are my friends, tell me openly: Do they really believe that the average human being in this country—Black, White, Coloured or Asian—are worse off than the average Russian or the multitude of people under the oppressive régimes of the communists? Do they really believe that, and if so, on what basis of fact? Certainly, the average American does not believe it. But Russia is getting better treatment than us. Where is the morality in that?

Furthermore I want them not to threaten or restrain United States companies which trade with South Africa or invest in South Africa contrary to the United States’ active promotional activities elsewhere in respect of companies where not a single human right is ever upheld.

I want them not to embargo the sale of equipment required for securing the sea lanes around the Cape of Good Hope, which carries strategic traffic to Western Europe and to the United States. I want them, in other words, not to cut off their own supply lines.

I want them not to push my country and our peoples aside. I want them not to push aside the hand of friendship extended by us, extended by me here now and to be extended to them again in the next couple of days. South Africa is a country which has consistently been friendly to the United States and has never acted contrary to the United States’ interests, but has sided with them in two world wars and Korea. We have never made a demand on the pockets of the American taxpayer. We have paid our debts and we have complied with our international commitments as far as the United States are concerned. We understand Americans. We understand them better than any other nation in the world because of the similarities in our history. I understand the pioneer spirit of the early Americans. I understand the value system and the dreams of the Americans. For that reason I ask them: Do not push this friend aside.

I ask them not to compare the incomparable. I ask them not to compare their own experience especially in the southern part of their country with South Africa. I ask them to listen when I say to them candidly, but with respect, that their Black people went to the United States as slaves. The only common denominator of those people, apart from being slaves, happened to be the blackness of their skins. It is a tragic situation. I have understanding for it. Eventually they became free, but how many decades were required to make the American Black man free? In my opinion he is in practice not yet free. There are sophisticated forms of discrimination still existing in the United States, and my Black American friends will agree with me if the Whites do not. There are sophisticated forms in many respects so far as employment is concerned and in many respects as far as health services are concerned and things like that.

They know it. I do not blame them. I am just telling them: Do not compare your situation with ours; we did not meet the Black people of this country as slaves, but as nations, as people, talking either Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Tswana or Sotho. Is there anyone in the House who can doubt what I am saying here? This is how we met the Black people. Now they want to compare our system with a system in which Black people were uprooted from the African continent, divested of their culture and personality when taken to America hundreds of years ago and eventually freed under the most favourable circumstances where Blacks never attacked the American value system. Under these most favourable circumstances, it took them decades to reach what they have reached. Their cities were burnt down and troops were called out. As I say, under the most favourable circumstances it took them decades, but now suddenly Vice-President Mondale threatens us—do not tell me he did not, because he did; I can quote what he said—that unless we quickly do certain things which amount to our committing suicide, they will review their relations with us. Can I not talk like this; can I not be candid with the Americans then? Must I just sit back and hope that something is just not as it is till it hits me?

I want the Americans to accept this country’s and this Government’s sincerity in searching for a political dispensation which could accommodate the interests and aspirations of all our peoples without the threat of conflict and domination. I want them to accept our sincerity in wishing to remove unjust and harmful forms of discrimination. I want them to give us credit for the constructive role we have played to bring about peaceful solutions to the problems of Southern Africa, particularly of Rhodesia and South West Africa. I want to ask them to support the voices of reason in Southern Africa and to express America’s opposition to those who propagate violence, revolution, death and torture.

I want America to assume a leadership role in encouraging the efforts of the peoples of Southern Africa towards a peaceful settlement in a way which will take into account the historical rights of all the nations of the region—not just some and not just because they are Black. I want to ask them to make a sincere attempt to understand the complexities of our history, the realities of our situation. This to me is perhaps the most important aspect which we will have to bring home to our friends in America. They must please try to understand the complexities of our history and our situation. We can never over-stress this.

I appeal to every member of the House to assist me in this task. They can differ from us in as many respects as they wish, but they must please convey the true facts to our American friends. Let us do it. They are facts on which all of us can agree. Let me point out what I have in mind when it is asked of me: What do you want from the Americans and what do you want them to understand regarding your complexities and your reaction to their demands for human rights and morality? What I want them to understand in the first place is that the morality practised by so many of South Africa’s critics has become manifestly selective and discriminatory itself. The Americans cannot insist on majority rule in South Africa while they themselves are utterly unconcerned or are not sufficiently concerned about the political and social systems of scores of countries whose records show that they have no respect for fundamental human rights. I want to tell the Americans straight that many of the countries they trade with, many of the countries with whom they encourage trade, in which they encourage investment and whom they never attack in the United Nations, have no respect for fundamental human rights. The Americans and those countries cry to heaven about alleged conditions of oppression in South Africa, but the Americans do nothing when the leaders of those countries perpetrate the most atrocious acts against their own citizens. While the blood of thousands of their own citizens drips from their hands, those countries shout at us in the United Nations. I want to tell America: Please, come to your senses! Understand that too. Take that into account. Be like Pat Moynihan, who, while criticizing me in the Security Council, saying that he abhorred apartheid and could not agree with it or with many aspects of it, could pick up his pencil and, looking at the 15 around the table, say to them: “Gentlemen, the majority of you sitting round the table here in the Security Council do not have a high pedigree of democracy either.”

That is the kind of thing for which I can have appreciation. I can listen to Moynihan and I can listen to his criticism and I can tell my Government that this is a sincere man, a reasonable and balanced man. Take, for instance, the fashionable concept of majority rule which I have mentioned, which according to many commentators, and even the Americans, will miraculously kill all the ills of South Africa. I can only react by asking: In how many countries of the world does one find majority rule in the sense in which the Americans understand that concept? How many Americans who propose majority rule for South Africa are willing to guarantee to South Africans the same rights which Americans enjoy in terms of America’s system of majority rule? I say frankly to hon. members here and to them that America cannot and will not give such an guarantee. Yet Americans and American Governments keep on suggesting—hon. members say I must not use the word “demand”—or proposing that majority rule should be accepted by South Africa. They give advice without being willing to accept responsibility for the probable consequences of conflict which a policy of forcing diverse peoples into one entity might bring about. Surely the height of immorality, as I have said, is to be selective in the applications of the norms and standards of morality?

I do not say that we do not have problems in this country, or that there is no need for change in South Africa. My views on these matters are well-known. The UNO say it is not enough; some of my own supporters say it is too much. The Opposition tries to make some gain out of this. This does not bother me. Much of the information on South Africa is completely unsubtantiated and unbelievably one-sided and distorted overseas, and we know it. We all know it. I can prove it. For instance, I can prove what has been said about the hon. member for Houghton in some United States newspapers. The picture which emerges about South Africa in the outside world, in the USA in particular, is one of unmitigated racism and inhumanity against Black South Africans. The impression is being created that everything which the South African Government does is inherently evil. I shall give an example. When American companies came to see me in Washington and submitted to me six points to improve the working conditions of Black labourers in South Africa, we discussed the matter and I forwarded this information to the Government. My colleague, the hon. the Minister of Information, got up in this House and welcomed it, with certain reservations. What happened was that immediately certain American citizens said: “Well, if the South African Government can welcome it, there must be something awfully wrong with those points. Let us get some new points.” This is the situation with which we are dealing. I ask hon. members: Is this right? Can I not tell my American friends to wake up, to be fair, to be more fair than they have been? The Black South African, according to many American commentators, has no political rights whatsoever. The object of the South African Government is supposed to be the perpetual entrenchment of White superiority. From where do they get these stories? Some emanate from within this House, unfortunately. But, surely, hon. members know that this is not the case. Surely hon. members know that this picture of unmitigated terror and hatred from the White side vis-à-vis the Black side is not true? Why then can we not tell the world that? Why can there not be emphatic statements and speeches in this House telling them that? If there is anybody who wants to argue this matter with me, I shall give him the history of South Africa. I shall tell them how Whites ran the Cape of Good Hope for 150 years …

We all know that.

All right, all hon. members know it. Thank you, but I still ask our American friends to take account of that. We also know how it came about in the economic field. We all know how the disparities came about. The great metal and mineral discoveries of the latter 19th century changed the pastoral and agricultural tenor of South African life violently. In an environment where capital was lacking, but where unskilled labour was abundant, it was the mining industry which then required a high capital input and a relatively little labour per unit value of output. The natural consequence was a large influx of foreign capital, accompanied by the importation of trained labour at attractive rates more competitive than those prevailing in Europe. The wages of the vast reservoir of unskilled labour, and labour supplies, were determined by the local market conditions of supply and demand. They were not determined by Mr. Vorster’s policies, and hon. members know it. All hon. members know it.

The result was a dual economy in certain respects, similar to that in virtually every developing country, viz. the simultaneous emergence, not through any conscious policy of discrimination, but simply through the ordinary workings of a highly competitive labour market, of a sophisticated modern exchange economy, and an underdeveloped one. Of course, to expand the former and contract the latter in the hope of eliminating the underdeveloped one, is a slow and laborious process, not capable of simplistic solutions. This we recognize. In other words, the divisions in South African society are of a natural and historical origin of sociological affinity. Who doubts this?

We did not create these divisions, either dogmatically or ideologically, but God created them. The choice lay between the relative merits of recognizing these divisions, these peoples, or in attempting to eliminate them and to establish an artificial unitary society structure. The White people of South Africa did not seize political power from anyone.

The fact is that they never shared power with others in any meaningful sense of the word. The question in the post-war period was how to accommodate the thirst for independence and authority, something which would, I concede, be experienced by the Black peoples.

It follows that, in this manner of thinking, the objective of self-determination could best be served by the recognition of the existing political, geographical and cultural divisions, rather than by attempting to force all the various societies into one artificial unity.

I believe one of the most important aspects which I would like to bring to the attention of the Americans, is that during the second half of the 20th century it has been demonstrated that the major fact of contemporary Africa is the emergence of a deeply-felt African nationalism something of which any solution in South Africa must take account, or must be prepared to accommodate. I do not say they have to take note of our nationalism without us taking notice of theirs. The mere fact that White South Africa is aware of this phenomenon, and is reacting to it positively and understandingly, is indicative of the fundamental change in thinking in recent years.

Any just solution in South Africa must therefore accommodate both Black and White nationalisms. To me it is not really a question of race, or racial superiority. It is a question of accommodating various nationalisms, value systems, cultural patterns—call it what we like. We know what it means. Attempts by one nationalism to dominate or overthrow the other will be resisted and could, if alternatives were not found, lead to a conflict with awesome consequences, not only for Black and White in South Africa, but also further afield. That we all want to avoid.

Important changes have been introduced in South Africa. A lot has been said about the lack of change. I have been challenged to indicate where changes did occur. My point of view is that important changes have been introduced in this country to improve relations between Black and White. More will be introduced. The significance of these changes is seldom correctly assessed. Indeed, they are rejected. It is a great pity that that is the case. This is precisely where the greatest misunderstanding arises. Critics of the South African Government, in particular the PRP, refuse to admit that a just political dispensation can be achieved in South Africa by a division of political power which can accommodate Black and White nationalisms, while at the same time introducing significant changes in discriminatory measures based on colour.

Of course it can be done; of course a distinction can be drawn between the two, but one cannot say that the ultimate form of differentiation, namely the right of a people to exist, is a kind of discrimination that must be removed, because then one removes that people and their right to exist. Surely this is clear and elementary.

White South Africans are not racists as they are often made out by the PRP. White South Africans are not haters of Black people. However, we do find ourselves in a dilemma. I admit it. I admit that we have dilemmas as far as the Coloureds, the Asiatics, and the urban Blacks are concerned. Of course, we admit it, but we are sincerely trying to find solutions for these problems in a way that will bring about peace and not turmoil and conflict.

We find ourselves in a continent populated by a large majority of Black people. We realize that it is in our interest to co-operate with them and to move away from obsolete and harmful forms of discrimination. We recognize that, and we will do so. We have done so to some extent, though not as fast and as much as others wish us to do. We have opened up certain theatres, hotels, restaurants, sporting events, trains and other public systems. We have done it to some extent, not completely, but we have done so. In Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town, one can now go to hotels and restaurants where Blacks and Whites eat together, speak to each other and meet socially. Hon. members know that a few years ago this could not be done. However, the hon. members scoff and laugh at it. They say it is white-wash and cosmetics with which we are trying to bluff the world. They say that we are trying to maintain an absolute White superiority grip on the Black people, denigrating them and disregarding their human dignity and therefore we are heading for a racial clash. But I say these changes are significant and White South Africans ought to be commended for the way in which they accepted them without revolution or too many ugly incidents.

I want to say a few words about our Black people. As far as the Black peoples of our country are concerned, there is a need, more real and urgent than ever before, to talk to one another frankly and openly. Like them, we also have our roots deep in the soil of Africa. We do not want to rule over them. Indeed, we are committed to divest ourselves of the political power to govern them. I invite Black leaders to state categorically that they share this fundamental concept with us, namely that they on their part do not wish to rule and lord it over us. We are all of Africa Knowing our continent and its problems, we know that the Black nations all over Africa have rejected systems considered to be inappropriate to the needs of the Black African nations. They have rejected the governmental system which we, the White African people, believe in. Whether we like it or not, this is a fact. It is their right to reject it and I do not query or question them. But then it is our right to be governed according to our system. Those who deny us this basic right, are in effect the racists, and not us who merely want to preserve that which is justly ours. The Blacks and Whites of South Africa must co-operate in sorting out their respective political rights, so that the one need not for ever fight the other over domination such as one finds in Northern Ireland on the basis of religion, in Cyprus on the basis of nationalism and in Lebanon on the basis of both religion and nationalism. I can also mention examples right through Africa— Biafra, Uganda—where whole tribes were destroyed because they were not trusted— Pakistan, Bangladesh; so I can go on. I am not quoting examples from Roman times, but from contemporary times. By forcing people together politically against their choice, one only creates conflict, and we all know it. By doing so, one only creates a new struggle for domination, and that is exactly what we want to avoid.

I want to conclude at this stage …

Hooray! [Interjections.]

I am trying to speak seriously to the Opposition and I am trying to solicit their assistance as far as these important external matters are concerned. If they do not want to give it, it is up to them. If they want to treat a debate like this in the vein in which they did, it is up to them. The voters will later ask them why they did it. I want to conclude by saying that I want to make it very clear that I as Minister of Foreign Affairs of this country have no illusions about the enormous dimensions of the problems confronting the country, all of us, but I know that we can overcome them because we have the firm and resolute intention and the inherent strength to solve them in a way which will ensure to all the enjoyment of the material benefits of our country. I believe we can base our solutions on a political dispensation which will accommodate the national aspirations of all our peoples, which will secure and safeguard their human dignity and which will avoid the tragedy of a violent struggle for domination such as we have so often seen elsewhere in Africa and the rest of the world. I believe in the common sense of our nation and our peoples. I believe we are motivated and will be guided to make the right decisions on the journey ahead, however turbulent that journey may be. I think it is going to be pretty turbulent. I believe in the determination of our youth to survive any vicessitudes and that our dreams can come true. I believe we can all dream this dream of a Southern Africa liberated from the shackles of suspicion and fear, a Southern Africa whose peoples co-operate with one another rather than confront one another. I earnestly urge all South Africans to join in a new trek to fulfil this great dream.

Mr. Chairman, it is very difficult to try and follow the hon. the Minister in his speech, seeing that he has been speaking now for well over an hour. I gather a great deal of his speech was based on the notes of the speeches he made in the United States.

Here are my notes, for your information.

Thank you very much.

Here they are, in my hand. They were written this morning.

What about the last part of the speech?

What is the point you are trying to make?

What about those big sheets you were reading from? [Interjections.]

What is your problem?

The point I want to make is that a great deal of what the hon. the Minister has taken a long time to say, is well known. He himself has said that it is well known to us in the House. [Interjections.] When one boils it all down, one sees that the USA has of course made many mistakes and very often misinterprets the situation in South Africa … [Interjections.] I know that just as well as the hon. the Minister. I do not question that for a moment. However, in the final analysis any member of the Government and indeed any South African who wishes to enjoy good relations with the West or with the world, first has to come to terms with the people living in South Africa. It does not matter how many times we try to persuade the USA, until such time as we persuade the overwhelming majority of people living in South Africa that our policies are just, we shall not get to—as the hon. the Minister will probably understand—first base.

I have been listening to the hon. the Minister. He is new to his post. I wish to congratulate him on achieving that. I wish him well in the very difficult task which is his. I was going to refer to him somewhat facetiously as the Andrew Young of South Africa, because Andrew Young had been accused of speaking too often and too much. I shall not do that because the hon. member for Parys has suggested in the course of this debate that the American ambassador to the United Nations is the Idi Amin of America. If ever there was a crude and a dangerous expression of opinion, it certainly came from the hon. the Minister’s own colleague. I hope he will repudiate that kind of remark before the end of this debate as I do not think it will help our relations with the West or the United States.

With regard to the South African/American relations, I want to make only two comments. The first concerns the general hysteria surrounding Mr. Mondale’s comments regarding one man, one vote. Surely we ought to remember—and the hon. the Minister should be the first to remember—that the idea of one man, one vote lies at the very heart of the policy of the Nationalist Government. Why are they so hysterical when Mondale suggests that that is what we ought to be doing in this country? This is a point of negotiation, for them to explain what they mean by that and for the hon. the Minister to explain to the Americans and to the West what the NP means by “one man, one vote”. In the last analysis again it is surely the objective of all the parties in this House to give democratic opportunities and full political participation to every person resident in South Africa and in Southern Africa. How does one do that? That is the point of debate; one does not take one expression and use it as a possible temptation to say: “If you do not want to play the game according to my rules and if you want to make demands or proposals or suggestions, then I am not prepared to play at all, so I will pick up my ball and go home.”

The hon. the Minister is on record as stressing the importance between the internal and the external policies of our country. He also stated that he saw the result of the Westdene election as a mandate for change. I believe that, with the advent of this new hon. Minister, there is in the public of South Africa, Black and White, a mood of expectation. That is a very hard factor for him or for anyone to come to terms with. There is also a mood of real cynicism, and this mood is helped by the attitude of Blacks on the one hand—they are the ones we are going to have to persuade— and the attitude of certain prominent Nationalists on the other hand. I refer specifically to an editorial which appeared in a so-called Black newspaper. I quote the following, which appeared 12 May of this year—

When the world was commenting on the arrival of the hon. the Minister back in South Africa and when he was fighting the Westdene election, they wrote the following—

The mood of cynicism which is abroad in South Africa, is in large measure found amongst the Black peoples of South Africa and it is they, long before we convince the United States, that we have to convince that we mean to be just, fair and equitable in our policies. The hon. the Minister is therefore not helped when he has colleagues in his own Cabinet or in his own party who constantly take an opposite view to his very own. The hon. the Minister admitted in a very disarming way that there were differences in his party regarding this. I admire that kind of honesty. There will, of course, always be differences of emphasis, but is there a difference of direction? If there is, how is it possible for the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs to give a lead in South Africa in this light?

I would like to put two or three specific questions to the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister is very quotable and it is encouraging to learn that he is not prepared to die for an apartheid sign in a lift. One hopes that he feels exactly the same about toilets as well. The hon. the Minister is also on record as having said that he will not stand for those things which have nothing to do with our survival. I want to ask the hon. the Minister quite seriously, not facetiously, and without trying to score any points at all: Is he prepared to lay down his life for the continued denial of political, social and economic rights of urban Blacks who will be in the so-called White South Africa for ever?

Will he die, I ask him, for the rejection by his Government of the key recommendations of the Erika Theron Commission regarding the future of Coloured South Africans? Will he die for the continued existence of Indian South Africans in a non-man’s land? In short, will he die to prevent any—I want to underline the word “any”—sharing of power between Whites and people of other races within the common area of South Africa? I believe that this is the absolute crunch question which faces the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and which faces all of us in South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pinelands has criticized the hon. the Minister for using speeches or notes that he used at the United Nations. I see that the hon. member is reading out of a scrap-book. I wonder whether that is the scrap-book he used when he talked to members of the University Christian Movement. The hon. member criticized the hon. the Minister. I want to ask him whether he would support the hon. the Minister and South Africa if we say to the United States: Why do you have two sets of values, one for South Africa and one for the rest of the world? The problem with that hon. member and his party is that it will not serve the political aims of their party if the United States takes a softer line on South Africa.

*At various stages during the debate reference was made to the dangers of the expansionist movement of the Soviet Union in Africa. It is clear beyond all doubt that Russia is endeavouring to include larger areas of the world in its sphere of influence. One could mention a whole series of African countries which are in danger of falling prey to Soviet expansionism and of being drawn into the Russian sphere of influence in Africa. This is one of the facts of our existence in Africa.

One could ask oneself why Russia has such a special interest in Africa. Various reasons may be advanced for this. Reference is often made to the strategic importance of Africa. One need only think of the strategic importance of the so-called horn of Africa where Somalia and Ethiopia have already been completely drawn into the Russian sphere of influence. One may also look at Southern Africa which is strategically positioned like a large ship between the Indian and Altantic Oceans.

I believe, however, that one of the most important reasons why the Soviet Union is concentrating its activities on Africa and why it has escalated them during the past few years, may be attributed to the relative defencelessness of most African States. There is great potential for political change and revolution in Africa. There is a political liquidity in Africa which makes Governments, leaders and systems come and go. Coups d’etat and takeovers, often backed by the Soviet Union, are the order of the day. There are enough so-called freedom or liberation movements in Africa which Russia can use in a subtle manner as a guise to achieve its objectives in every—and I want to repeat every—African country in the name of some honourable cause. The way in which Russia is supplying these Governments on a generous scale with weapons and instructors constitutes a threat to the security and stability of every African country, but also to the continent as a whole. In Die Burger of 3 May reference was made to the weapons that were being off-loaded in Mozambique. They were weapons such as 21 MIG jet fighters, T43 tanks and SAM 7-projectiles. The report goes on to say—

That tallies with what the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France said about his discussions with his Russian counterpart after his recent visit to Russia. He said, “Mr. Gromyko assured me yesterday that the Soviet wanted peace in Africa.” He then went on to qualify that statement. I quote from a report in the Citizen of 7 June as follows—

†The situation is becoming more alarming because of the apparent reluctance of the United States to resist the expansionistic drive of the Soviet Union in Africa. This conclusion is supported by what has happened in Angola and lately in the Shaba province of Zaïre. If King Hussan of Morocco did not come to the rescue of Zaïre, the Shaba province would have fallen to the pro-Soviet invaders. Without the Shaba province Zaïre would have become easy prey for the pro-Soviet Marxist Congolese Nationalist Liberation Front. The consequences would have been grave for Africa. Zaïre is of great strategic significance in Africa. It is larger than the 10 principle states of West Africa, including Algeria, with common frontiers with nine African countries. It is abutting the Sudan in the north and Zambia in the south. Had Shaba fallen in the hands of the Congolese National Liberation Front, Zambia would have been the next in line. Pres. Kaunda knows this. He already has a great deal of trouble on his northern border. The ideal of Russia to establish itself in Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic Oceans is becoming more and more apparent. In a recent interview which was published in News Week of 16 May the following question was put to King Hussan of Morocco—

Part of his answer reads as follows—

In the following question he was asked—

The answer was—

Apparently King Hussain is uttering the same sentiments as our Minister who has asked America this very morning not to weaken the position of its friends and strengthen that of its enemies.

*Moderate and anti-Marxist governments in Africa must realize that they will be thrown on their own resources to an increasing extent for their preservation, security and survival. They must not expect assistance from outside. Nor must they expect unlimited supplies of arms from outside. Leaders and governments whose countries are not part of the Russian constellation and sphere of influence in Africa must realize that they are going to become exposed more and more to some form of radicalization or liberation action. The Shaba province was only an example and probably a precursor of this. African countries will have to exploit every possibility so as to strengthen themselves and prepare themselves to avert successfully any further forms of Soviet expansion on this continent. By so doing they will not only ensure the peace, security and prosperity of millions of people in Africa, but Africa will also be making what is possibly its greatest contribution to the world and mankind. That holds true for us in South Africa as well.

South Africa, too, will have to continue strengthening itself in the face of this threat. We, too, shall have to find the necessary consensus and mutual understanding so that all the inhabitants of South Africa, despite our differences, may become united in a common loyalty to this territory and in the values of a free Christian civilization which we want to preserve here at any cost. That is the only way in which we, too, shall be able to survive despite the forces that are building up against us. We must not underestimate the forces beyond our borders. But nor should we underestimate our potential and our ability to rally the people of South Africa to form a united front against this threat.

In this spirit I believe South Africa will be able not only to strengthen its position in Africa but also to play an important role in serving the security of a Western civilization and the values of a Western civilization in the whole of Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the hon. the Minister to reply to two questions in his reply to this debate. The first one relates to a statement he made earlier this morning namely that majority rule in Rhodesia is no longer an issue and has not been for some time. Does he mean by that that majority rule is no longer an issue since the Kissinger talks? If that is so, I want to point out that, as I understand it, that was only part of a package deal. I come to my second question. The hon. the Minister said that the issue which requires a decision at the moment as regards Rhodesia is the setting up of machinery and that in setting up such machinery it is necessary to get the support of the Rhodesians, the five front line presidents and Britain. I want to ask him—I think this is a question that should have been put a long time ago: Whatever has the solution to the Rhodesian situation got to do with the five front line presidents? I would have thought that Rhodesia and Britain, certainly, are the parties which must arrive at an agreement, but what on earth has the actual approval of five front line presidents got to do with this matter? I shall be obliged if the hon. the Minister will give a detailed reply to this question.

Sir, as regards the hon. the Minister’s speech here this morning, I want to say that we think that his attitude to South African/American relations is a very reasonable one. We feel he was right to set it out in the way in which he did so today. We want to assure him that we in these benches will do nothing to make his position more difficult in negotiating with America or with the Western countries. Indeed, where we possibly can, we shall try to find common ground with him and to give him support where it is necessary.

However, in offering this support, I want to suggest to him that he and the Government should stop playing what I can only describe as a “lonely” game. I believe they are inclined to give the impression that their efforts to save South Africa rest in their hands and their hands alone. I would say that, at this stage particularly, there is a welling up of feeling among South Africans who would like to participate and who would like to help their country in its hour of need. I think the Government must stop playing what I describe as a lonely game and must enroll all South Africans of goodwill in a national effort to help the country.

We have had predictable reactions to this debate from the PRP and from the rump of the UP. The PRP have said from time to time that there is an explanation and a reason for everything adverse that has been said about South Africa. They always take the side of the critics of South Africa. Never do they come to the defence of South Africa. We had this again from the hon. member for Von Brandis. He always has to provide excuses for the actions and attitudes of other countries. Let me give two examples. He said we are paying far too much attention to Young and Mondale. He said he believed there was an overreaction and that this was counterproductive, the words that are so current these days in liberal circles. Secondly he pointed to the fact that there are some 12 Russian ships within an area of 28 million square miles. He said that that was a very small number of ships for such a large area and that, therefore, there was no threat to Southern Africa from the presence of the Russian fleet. This is the line these gentlemen have always taken. It is also the line the Prog Press in South Africa always plays up. It is typical of the words of those who wish to appease and those who wish to escape reality. We have had enough apologists for Young and Mondale in this debate. It is notable that only one genuine UP member has spoken so far. The rest were either rebels or mini-Progs. However, what has shocked me today, is that I would never have thought that the party to which I formerly belonged was a party that could under these circumstances act as they have done today. When the hon. the Minister was trying to the best of his ability to give an explanation on behalf of our country here in our Parliament to the rest of the world, what happened? There was obvious boredom. There were remarks such as: “He is going on too long”. There was derision, scorn and laughter. If that is the attitude, particularly of the back-benches, of the party to which I belonged, then I can only say today that I am proud no longer to be a member of that party.

I want to come to the reality of our situation as I see it. As I understand the position, America has committed herself to some form of human rights campaign throughout the world, the end of which is “one man, one vote”. The hon. the Minister said yesterday that there were fundamental differences between us and that relationships have in fact worsened. America and the Western members of the Security Council have decided to take an initiative against us. I have said time and time again that we are in their way. As I see it, the Americans’ attitude is that there must be change at all costs in Southern Africa. They believe that there will be transitional chaos, but that in the end they will receive credit for having initiated the change that they are trying to bring about in Southern Africa.

I have often pointed to the dangers with which we live today. Our answers are naturally to strengthen our defences and to have aggressive diplomacy of the sort that the hon. the Minister is so able an exponent. I believe too that we should in span the efforts of all South Africans in a national effort inside South Africa and outside. To the hon. the Minister I want to say that I think he is in a position to do something positive, although he is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in an internal sense. I believe that he can persuade his Cabinet colleagues to work out a programme for internal action to take the whole of South Africa with him in the step forward that is necessary.

The Government must put right what is wrong, what we all in this House know is wrong with our society in South Africa. The responsibility at the moment is solely that of the Government and if it acts boldly, all moderate South Africans will be taken along with it. There are things that we in South Africa are unable to defend. The hon. the Minister, who has been overseas for so long, knows this just as well as I do. He can eliminate them. He can help to get rid of them out of our society. They not only humiliate other people, but they also humiliate us. If he would only use all moderate South Africans at this time, Indians, Coloureds and Blacks, as has been done to a limited extend, to try to sell the good but not hiding the bad of South Africa overseas, he would meet with a heart-warming response from all South Africans. I think he was quite right when he said that if he cannot get anywhere with the political leaders of the West, he must appeal over the heads of the political leaders to the peoples of the West. It is this point I wish to emphasize today. In my experience overseas there are South Africans who are selling South Africa’s case. They are not necessarily supporters of the Government, but they are selling South Africa’s case as patriotic South Africans. They must be used to far greater effect than they have been so far.

If all our efforts fail, we shall have to go it alone. Rhodesia has gone it alone for 11 years. It has become self-reliant. It has developed a strong patriotic spirit and we can do the same on a far more spectacular scale. If we are not left alone, if there is interference in South Africa, if we indeed do have to fight for our country, at least let us do so on the basis of a clear conscience, on the basis of having tried to be reasonable and having done everything reasonable, and on the basis of most South Africans all fighting for the same cause. Should ever such a situation come to pass, let us fight, as no nation has ever fought before, because we shall be alone, more alone than any other nation in the world’s history. We shall be fighting for our survival. Let it be realized, and we should make it known, that if we have to fight for our survival, it will be a fight against impossible odds, but we shall still fight to the best of our ability. But if all else fails, then we shall destroy … We shall destroy everything that we have built up here in Southern Africa, as the Rhodesians are thinking of doing at the moment, and turn this part of the world once again into the warring jungle it was before the civilizing influence of our forefathers came to this land. [Interjections.] That is not the language one wants to use, but it should be made known that we in this country have a right to exist, we have a right to survive, and we shall fight for that survival, come what may.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Simonstown once again made a constructive contribution to this debate, a type of contribution which we normally expect from a patriotic South African. [Interjections.] It is the type of contribution we are accustomed to hear from the hon. members of his party, not only in general debate but particularly in a debate of this nature, a debate in which we have become accustomed to listening to constructive speeches, especially when we are dealing with the subject of foreign affairs. When this is discussed we are accustomed to the fact that all parties in the House show a unanimous approach.

*That is how we have come to know it over the years. We know we are presenting a united front and that we are talking on a common basis when it comes to foreign affairs. I should not have thought, however, that we would talk about cynical matters in a debate of this nature, as the hon. member for Pinelands did in fact do earlier when he spoke about what we would die for and what we would live for. That is the type of discussion one would expect in general debates. However, one does not expect an hon. member to try to score political points off other hon. members during a discussion of foreign affairs as the hon. member for Pinelands has done, what is more just after the hon. the Minister had made a brilliant speech in which he once again gave encouragement to South Africa, in which he once again asked South Africa, White, Black and Brown, to stand together to make this South Africa worthwhile to everyone who lives here. The hon. member for Pinelands replied to that and based his reply on a mixture of cynicism, negativity and pessimism.

In an atmosphere such as this, in which the hon. the Minister has said that he expects certain things from the West, but that he also expects certain things from South Africa’s Opposition parties, certain constructive things, we nevertheless have to listen to certain remarks such as those made by the hon. member for Sea Point yesterday. I want to ask the hon. member for Sea Point what he meant when he quoted the words of someone with whom he had had a discussion in Kenya. According to him that man asked: “Can Black men live in dignity in South Africa?” The hon. member for Sea Point knows that what the basic philosophy of NP policy amounts to is that we allow others to have whatever we demand for ourselves. The hon. member would not have used those words if he himself had not wanted to create the impression that the NP did not allow the Blacks in South Africa to live a life of human dignity. That was what he intended by that remark and that is the meaning the hostile world press will attach to his words.

After all, the hon. member for Sea Point is a politician who has been in the political arena for many years now. Is that the behaviour of a South African patriot? It is essential, particularly in a debate on foreign affairs, that senior Opposition spokemen in particular should make certain matters clear to the world. First of all, they should state clearly that we and we alone—White, Black and Brown—will solve our own problems in South Africa. Secondly, they must stress with acclamation to the people here in South Africa that the circumstances of life of Black and Brown people in South Africa are infinitely more acceptable now to what they would be under the heel of Russian imperialism. It is their duty to tell the people of South Africa about the experiences of people such as Solzhenitsyn and others, about the collapse of their beloved free enterprise system if the Russians were to take over, about the seizure of our assets to the benefit of the Russian ideology. They will not do that, however; it does not suit them. What they seek to do is to score a few political points in an important debate like this one.

On 11 February this year, we also conducted a debate in this House on foreign affairs. On that occasion the hon. member for Von Brandis said that a responsible West could not expect us to hand over to majority rule. Since then we have heard—in this debate as well—what Mr. Mondale and Mr. Young had to say. In that same debate, however, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Hilgard Muller, said that the world expected nothing more or less of us than to hand over to a Black majority government. It was that part of his speech in particular that was shouted down by hon. members of the Opposition. They have not learned from the experiences of Mr. Smith. It has not yet been brought home to them that a new Government has come to power in the USA. They do not realize that it is not any particular policy which attracts the Russians to South Africa or to any other area rich in mineral resources, but that Russia’s expansionist drives are the cause of their interest in South Africa and other areas.

We have also heard that the West not only expects us to surrender to Black majority rule, but also to make a contribution towards solving the problems in Rhodesia and South West Africa. However, even if we were to make a constructive contribution in that regard, it would still not be enough, nor would it remove the branding iron from our skins. We should also have to surrender to Black majority rule. No matter how much they would like to do so, the Opposition cannot get away from the circumstances we find ourselves in at present. A renowned authority on politics in South Africa said that in reality South Africa was paying heavily because in the years after 1948 the Opposition had waged its internal struggle on foreign battlefields as well. In those cases where it was not deliberate, it happened of itself through the unbridled fighting methods and the domination of information channels to the outside world by parties which favoured the Opposition.

The cry of majority rule will not only bring about the overthrow of orderly régime; it will also lead to Russian colonialism and imperialism as has already been clearly demonstrated in our neighbouring States. That is why it was pleasing to hear voices from Libya which made it known that despite the fact that they were opposed to our policy, they had no choice but to close ranks with us in opposition to Russian expansionism. In addition, the Prime Minister of Singapore made the following important remark at the Commonwealth Conference—

That brings me to the crux of my plea to the hon. the Minister and his department. Despite the fact that there is a potential of hundreds of millions of anti-communist people in the world, there are approximately 150 million people relatively near to us, in the Middle East, whom it is worthwhile approaching with a view to forging and strengthening links of friendship and mutual assistance.

Despite what the hon. member for Von Brandis says, we know that the Indian Ocean has become a lake for the Russians to sail on and that Nacala, a harbour on the Mozambique coast, could accommodate America’s entire seventh fleet.

According to figures for 1975, the Middle East produces 31 % of the world’s oil, and 80% of Nato’s oil supplies and 70% of its strategic equipment is transported around the Cape sea route. Although the Middle East borders on the eastern bloc countries and is particularly vulnerable to Russia’s aspiration to expand its influence and spread its imperialist ideology, the communists have fortunately not succeeded in making progress in that area. South Africa is their alley in the fight against Russian expansionism. South Africa with its sophisticated technology, knowledge and expertise in the agricultural, mining, veterinary science and many other fields, a country which is itself involved in a development struggle, could give much assistance and support to the countries in the Middle East.

We have forged fine links with Israel. That was emphasized by the visit by the hon. the Prime Minister to Israel last year. We trust that many moré good things for both of these countries will spring from the ministerial committee. We also have good relations with Iran. I am thinking of the praiseworthy example set by the University of Pretoria in allowing post-graduate students to study here in South Africa. Last year a number of engineers were trained as mining instructors in South Africa. I think it is in the interests of South Africa and of the Middle East for us to develop and strengthen our ties with them to the mutual benefit of South Africa and those countries.

Mr. Chairman, I have only a few minutes, but I cannot forbear to deal with certain remarks which have been made by the hon. members for Simonstown and Brakpan.

In the course of my speech yesterday I referred to the multiple and diverse dangers presented by the communist threat. I emphasized the multiple nature of these dangers. I shall use my notes now just to get the record straight. I want to get it straight because the hon. member for Simonstown tends to distinguish himself in this House by misunderstandings, misconceptions and prejudices which interlard his speeches. The hon. the Minister will know how to reply to his misconceptions about Rhodesia. I want to react to a misconception about what I said. Using my notes, I said we dared not underestimate the dangers of the multiple communist threat in Africa. However, I said we also dared not miscalculate its various manifestations and thereby waste or divert our precious resources, moral and material, to the wrong priorities. I did not use those precise words as I was ad libbing as I spoke from my notes, but that was in essence what I was saying. I stand by that. We dare not divert our precious resources in fighting the communist menace. We dare not divert our resources to the wrong priorities.

What did you say about undue attention being paid to Young?

I did say undue attention was being paid to Mr. Young. If the hon. member had listened he would have heard that I said that I did not believe that he was the most important exponent of American policy. I can waste no more time on that matter.

I want to deal with another matter. This is, after all, the Committee Stage of the Appropriation Bill. I want to deal very briefly and in a constructive way with the question of the position of our ambassadors abroad. I want to deal with their promotion structure within the foreign service. Apart from the permanent Secretary and certain deputies at head office, there are something like 29 or 30 ambassadors employed in the foreign service abroad. The four most important ambassadors are in London, Washington, Paris and Bonn. They occupy a place in the salary structure of the Public Service which is three places down from the position of the permanent Secretary. There is a permanent Secretary, a deputy secretary and then in a further grade below that are slotted the four ambassadors who hold the most important posts of representation abroad. Below that level there are something like 25 ambassadors, occupying posts in the hierarchy of the Civil Service four down from the post of permanent Secretary. I do not want to plead today for increases in their salaries. For obvious reasons adjustments in salary structures and increases in salary must wait for better economic times.

What I am concerned about is the position of these 25 to 30 ambassadors abroad. These men are obviously selected people. They have been chosen because of certain skills and professional ability. Confidence is placed in them because of their ability to represent South Africa’s interests of all kinds in difficult situations abroad. I believe that since the foreign service is structured in the way it is, the effect of this is that something like 25 to 30 people who occupy these high and responsible positions in our foreign service have in fact very few prospects of promotion beyond that point. It is something which they feel, although they do not complain about it since they have no trade union and they are scattered. I know, however, that the ambassadors feel that they do not have the opportunities of promotion and of rising in the public service to the extent that other people of ability in South Africa can rise to the level of secretary or deputy secretary in their various departments. Quite clearly one cannot have 30 secretaries in a department and therefore I believe that what is needed in order to give due recognition to the skills, the professional qualifications, the experience and the responsibilities of people occupying the ambassador class in our foreign service is that there should be a special grade which will in fact enable them to attain and to obtain the career satisfaction to which their abilities entitle them. I believe the hon. the Minister, having been a career official himself, will well understand what I am speaking about. I raise the issue not in any mood of criticism, but as a positive suggestion that the status and the career opportunities of ambassadors in the South African foreign service should in fact be improved in such a way that even if they feel they are getting no further in their career than to be a senior ambassador and to retire in that position, they will not suffer in comparison with officials of equal ability in other departments in respect of their retirement salaries, their pensions, and their career satisfactions, satisfactions which come from 30 years or more of devoted service to South Africa in the specific field which they have chosen. I am not asking that there should be a mere improvement in salary, because we all know that this must wait. I am asking for a change in the structure so that the special duties and responsibilities of ambassadors may be better recognized within the structure of the salary and the promotional arrangements within the Department of Foreign Affairs. I would be grateful if the hon. the Minister would give thought to this. I do not expect him necessarily to reply to the issue today, but it is something which needs attention and which would give great satisfaction within his service if it were attended to in a reasonable way.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Von Brandis, apart from the issues raised by him today, yesterday suggested that the Department of Foreign Affairs should endeavour to issue an annual report of its functions. The hon. member made suggestions as to what could be taken up in such an annual report. I agree with him in principle, but the problem in this regard is that as far as foreign affairs are concerned, the main events affecting the department, which it can readily publish, are of course the events at the United Nations, events which also constitute an overall review of world action as planned against South Africa. I agree with the hon. member. I think it is a good idea. It so happens that we have just completed the latest survey of this nature. It has more than 400 pages and I will immediately make available to the library of Parliament at least two copies. If the hon. member is personally interested, as an ex-colleague of his, I shall try my best to steal one for him. The report does contain a rather full documentation of the resolutions taken at the United Nations in the Security Council and the main events in the various committees concerning the very many matters and the fronts on which South Africa is attacked. It makes sordid reading, but I shall be glad if hon. members would at least read it, so that they can see what I and my colleagues of the department must go through at the United Nations. We do not only have to listen to these accusations for hours and days on end; we also have to draw up answers to these many allegations and some of them are very difficult to reply to. Some of them are even impossible to reply to and I think it would be a very good thing for hon. members to study this report which we shall make available.

What title have you given the report?

The title will be: “Review of the proceedings at the United Nations in 1976 on issues affecting South Africa.”

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he, while I thank him for being willing to make this report available, would give consideration to publishing some information about the specialized agencies as far as their activities concern South Africa and about such other conferences of an international nature, for example on the law of the sea and others, which are of direct interest to hon. members in this House but which is not readily available to us in this country?

I will certainly consider that request. I do not want to promise something that I will not be able to fulfil. We are short-staffed and these things do cost money. However, to the extent possible we will make available all that information. If we cannot publish it we will try to obtain documentation on the specialized agencies and then fill in the gaps. Certainly I can see that there is a need for it and we would very much wish to comply with that request. The hon. member for Von Brandis also referred to the promotional difficulties, possibly the lack of opportunities for our ambassadors. The point I want to emphasize in this respect is that a foreign service specializes in international relations and international matters. He knows what a career in the foreign service entails. A young man who is appointed in the department is posted abroad as soon as possible. There he initially serves in a junior position. In the course of time he is promoted to senior positions, the most senior of which is, and what is often regarded as the pinnacle, namely the post of ambassador. We should rather compare our foreign service with other foreign services. It is rather difficult to make comparisons or to integrate foreign service personnel with the rest of the Public Service. We have severe difficulties in this respect, also in respect of rank, training and background. I am just mentioning this to the hon. member. I accept his comments and the sentiments he expressed as well as the good spirit in which he made them. I do not want to give the impression that I would be able to do much about it. However, I will tell him what my personal opinion is. One enters our foreign service to become a foreign service career official forever, unless one enters politics. Otherwise one remains there until retirement. This is the way I see it. It costs a lot of money to send a young man abroad, to bring him back and to send him abroad again for another two or three spells. We invest such a terrific sum of money in the career of such a man that one wants to retain his services for as long as possible. It is very often only after years of experience that a man can produce his best. To the extent that foreign service officials in ambassadorial posts can be taken up and used in other sections of the Public Service, we will do so. We will go into it, and I will ask my colleague, the hon. the Minister of the Interior, to discuss this with the Public Service Commission to see to what extent it is feasible, practicable or possible. I thank the hon. member for the positive contribution and the spirit in which he offered his sentiments.

I would like to see that a special grade is created.

I understand; we will go into that.

The hon. member for Pinelands asked me for a lot of things. He asked me what I would die for and what not. I stated in all good faith a number of things for which I would not die, and that is enough as far as I am concerned, although I would not say that is the end of it. He knows very well why he puts these questions to me. He wants to embarrass me.

No, not at all.

Oh yes. The hon. member does not want to assist in orderly change in this country. He is trying to put me in a spot and drive me in a corner. That is the reason why he does it, and he knows it very well. I want to appeal to him, also because of the way he started his statement today by doing me the great favour of not comparing me with Andrew Young … If he wants to do it, then he must do it. It is his business. That kind of spitefulness and facetiousness does not bother me at all. Go right ahead, if that is your attitude.

The hon. member for Simonstown …

Is that the reply?

… asked me why I said that majority rule in Rhodesia was not an issue. I can tell the hon. member that what I stated this morning were not my words, but the words of the Rhodesian Government itself. Once the Rhodesian Government itself states that they accept majority rule, and what it meant, it is not for us to question that. We accept the good faith and sincerity in which they say it, and our role then is to tell the West and the others that they should not come to us and tell us that they do not trust Mr. Smith, because we believe what he has stated. This is the role we have to play. We did not make the decision whether to accept it or not. That was made by the Rhodesian Government and not by us. Our role is confined and limited to saying that we believe that Mr. Smith is sincere when he says that. In the second part of his speech the hon. member asked why I said that the setting up of machinery for a negotiation process in respect of Rhodesia is, inter alia, the responsibility of the frontline Presidents. I am not in favour of the frontline Presidents being involved. But it is a reality of life that those countries do exist. In the most simple terms, it is a geographical fact, and the various parties concerned, viz. Britain and the United States, think that it is better to involve the frontline Presidents because incursions are being made from the territories of those Presidents into Rhodesia. Similarly, the Rhodesians from time to time counter attack against the terrorists in these territories. That is a reality of life, whether one likes it or not. That is not the issue here. It is a reality of life. Britain feels very strongly that she should consult with them because, without their possible co-operation, one would not be able to stamp out terrorism or achieve an internationally negotiated settlement in Rhodesia. I personally think that any attempt on the part of the frontline Presidents to endeavour to prescribe to Rhodesia about what leaders should take over in Rhodesia is something the South African Government cannot go along with. We reject it and think that it is extremely harmful to the process of finding a peaceful solution in Rhodesia.

The hon. member gave us some advice. He suggested that we should not try to play the lonely game in trying to work out solutions for South Africa on our own. He suggested that we should enrol more South Africans and others to try and assist us. That is exactly what I have done—I hope the hon. member will concede that. If he had listened to my statements and speeches during the Westdene by-election campaign, he would have noticed one thing, and that is the emphasis I personally put on the need for co-operation between the English-and Afrikaans-speaking citizens of this country. I went out of my way to state that the Afrikaans-speaking section of this country does not have a monopoly on patriotism. I stated that, and I believe it. I will work towards it. The hon. member, all English-speakers, in fact all South Africans, are welcome to work together as a team on this new track towards the fulfilment of a great dream. We will appreciate any form of co-operation. I can tell him that I have received many letters from English-and Afrikaans-speaking South Africans, but I mention the letters I received from English-speaking South Africans because he raised this point. These letters give us and the Prime Minister support. They are encouraging letters and they showed me that there is a dramatic change going on in this country right now, that all White South Africans are being drawn closer together than ever before, not into a laager, as is often alleged, and not to isolate themselves into that kind of mentality, but seriously to try to exchange views with one another. They want to reach one another by sharing views with one another, as never before, to the advantage of our country. I welcome this. I welcome the support my party received from English-speaking voters in Westdene and I am extremely grateful for it. There is no question about it—they are most welcome, as far as I am concerned.

*Before closing, in the few remaining minutes, I should like to put it very clearly that I am not the only one who feels this way about the realities of Africa as I have sincerely spelt them out here, although some people might not like it. I should very much like to give this House the opportunity of hearing what Mr. Paul Pinn, a Black man from the African continent wrote in the Chicago Tribune the other day. He comes from Ghana in West Africa and he is studying at an American university. Under the heading “Rule by the majority is a rarity in Black Africa” he writes as follows—

†It is a Black African himself who says that. He continues—

I appreciate this kind of realism on the part of a fellow African. I believe that if we can in this way talk to one another and analyse one another and if we can first of all see one another in those what I can almost call hard, raw terms, I think that agreement between Whites and Blacks on this continent is not far away, but can be achieved. This is indeed what we are trying to work towards.

I want to conclude by thanking everyone who participated in this debate. It was a wide-ranging debate and by and large a positive debate. I found it most gratifying to note that a large degree of consensus does exist amongst all members of the House as far as the more crucial aspects of our foreign relations are concerned. I am grateful for that. I need this kind of consensus, and I wish to express my appreciation to all the members of the House in this respect.

Sir, the enemies of peace in South Africa have only one purpose in mind and we must not forget it, whatever other differences we might have. They wish to reduce South Africa’s economy to a shambles. I think we are agreed on that. They want to set the scene for violent revolution and they hope to establish a new political order. What is important in this respect and what I wish to emphasize is that it is precisely those whose interests are alleged to be advanced by revolution, by lack of investment, by cutting ties with South Africa or by isolating South Africa who will lose most. I refer to the Blacks. Our enemies do not really care about the welfare of our Black people, Coloured people and Asian people. They stand to lose nothing but the Blacks will be the losers. Our enemies feel that to risk economic collapse and push for violent revolution is a cheap price to pay to achieve their own ends. What a tragedy that the world provides cover for these sinister aims of the enemies of both Whites and Blacks in our part of the world.

We are receptive to constructive criticism and suggestions from any country or body in the world, but in conclusion I want to say that we are not prepared to be told that we must save ourselves by committing suicide.

Mr. Chairman, in the few moments which remain to me, I just want to address a few words to the House. As a result of the recent visit by the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Austria, I think it is fitting for this House to express its appreciation on behalf of South Africa to Austria and to Dr. Bruno Kreisky in particular for the much appreciated reception which our Prime Minister and his retinue enjoyed there.

I am of the opinion that South Africa today probably occupies one of the most strategic positions in the struggle of the free West against the Russian imperialist power struggle for world domination. I have no doubt at all that Soviet Russia is systematically continuing with its war methods. The essence of communism is to incite conflict in order to promote world revolution. Not only do they consider armed conflict as war, they even consider détente and so-called peace negotiations as weapons in their struggle for power. The Russians participated in the discussions at Helsinki in all hypocrisy and they also signed the agreement, but just ask the Western European countries how convinced they are that Russia has in fact carried out the provisions of that agreement.

I am mentioning these things as proof of the fact that until today, Russia has not yet furnished any proof of its being prepared to relieve the tension, even in Europe. Their record in Hungary and Czechoslovakia is still fresh in our memories and I would not be at all surprised if Yugoslavia, too, gets similar treatment after Marshall Tito disappears from the scene. Russian control of Europe, of the European economy in particular, is the key to the Russian imperialist urge for world domination. If Russia should succeed in obtaining control of the European economy, they would also sever the umbilical cord or the main artery of the free economy—the basis of the free, open community of the West—between Europe and the USA.

It is in this respect that South Africa’s position fits into the strategic jigsaw of the Soviet-Russian blueprint for world domination. Among the wealth of mineral resources which South Africa and Southern Africa possess, are a number that are indispensable to the economy as well as to the production of the strategic military requirements of the West. Without the continued availability and provision of the raw materials concerned, the economy of the industrial producing countries of Europe can be controlled by Soviet Russia. That is why I say that South Africa today occupies the most strategic position in Russia’s urge for world domination.

Vote agreed to.

Chairman directed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Although this Bill deals with a very wideranging subject, the Bill itself, as hon. members can see, is very short. One could, if need be, have contented oneself with merely furnishing a simple explanation of the Bill itself. However, I think hon. members would take it amiss of me if I did that. Therefore, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say a few words in elucidation of the Bill, and I ask to be allowed to sketch the background to the Bill, as well as what gave rise to it, very briefly.

The Bill empowers the State President to make laws and regulations for the territory by way of proclamation and to repeal and to amend existing laws if and when this becomes necessary.

The purpose of this Bill, as I see it, is inter alia to appoint an Administrator-General to lay the foundations for the election which is being envisaged in terms of this Bill, an election which, as I shall explain later, seeks ultimately to make the territory in its entirety independent. This will, however, be preceded by the election of a Constituent Assembly whose task and responsibility it shall be to draw up a constitution for the territory. The eventual Government of the territory will then be established in terms of that constitution.

Because the territory has not up to now been administered in its entirety, parts thereof having virtually been self-administering and self-governing and various aspects of the administration of other parts having been undertaken by Government departments, it will be necessary to repeal or amend many of the laws and regulations which are applicable in the territory, and to introduce new legislation if necessary. This process of repealing and introducing legislation will begin as soon as possible and will commence during the ensuing parliamentary recess. That is why it is necessary for me to introduce this legislation now.

However, I want to express it as my considered opinion that even if Parliament had been sitting continuously, it would still have been necessary for me, owing to the time factor and the co-ordination which is foreseen in this connection, to have submitted this legislation to the House at this juncture. Therefore I have no alternative but to request the co-operation of hon. members. I trust that they will agree with me that it is necessary that these powers which are being requested, be granted to the State President.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I want to enumerate a few facts in regard to the background to this matter. The territory of South West Africa—as we have frequently stated—does not belong to South Africa. In fact, we do not lay claim to an inch of it’s soil. It belongs to the population groups of South West Africa, and we have always insisted that they should work out their own future and should decide their own salvation. Not only is it true that every nation is jealous of its own identity, it is also true that not one of those population groups wishes to be enslaved or dominated by another nation. Our policy throughout has been that we would not force any of those population groups into any dispensation if they were not prepared to enter of their own free will. In addition it was our policy to give each group as much experience of self-government as the circumstances allowed us to give them. Moreover you are aware, Sir, that for 31 years, from 1948, we have been engaged in a struggle with the UNO over this territory. They questioned our right to administer the territory. They labelled us as an occupying power, although we were never at any time an occupying power. From the outset, from the date on which the mandate was transferred to us, we were purely and simply a power of administration and wanted to be nothing more than that.

Fluctuating demands were made on us from time to time, demands which were very divergent and which at times required us inter alia to hand over South West Africa to an organization known as Swapo, to hand over power to Sam Nujoma, an adventurer who led a communist front organization. Over the years we rejected those demands.

Harsh accusations of genocide, neglect and suppression were levelled at us, accusations which could never be proved and in which there was not a grain of truth. You are also aware, Sir, that there have been numerous negotiations with the UNO over the years, the first being with the then Secretary-General, Hammarskjöld. The hon. members know the history of the Arden-Clarke and subsequently the Carpió and Da Alva missions. You are aware, Sir, that we invited U Thant to hold discussions with us and that he refused to accept our invitation, but that Secretary-General Waldheim did in fact hold talks with us here in South Africa and that those talks eventually led to the appointment of the Swiss ambassador, Dr. Escher, as representative of the Secretary-General.

†You will know, Sir, that a written understanding or agreement—call it what you will—was entered into by the South African Government and Dr. Escher. Nothing whatsoever came of that. His report was pigeonholed and to this day South Africa has not formally been notified of what happened to that report.

We were blamed, by Dr. Escher and others, that we did not give the peoples of South West Africa the opportunity to get together and to know each other. In response thereto we undertook to call into being what was called at the time the Advisory Council of South West Africa. We did not nominate the people, but invited the various peoples of South West Africa to send delegates to attend the meetings of that Advisory Council. They did so. We met with delegates in Windhoek, Pretoria and Cape Town and discussed matters of mutual concern with them. Hon. members will recall that thereafter the leaders of the majority party representing the Whites in South West Africa decided to open talks with the leaders of the other peoples. At first it was difficult. There was mistrust and misunderstanding about it.

These talks ultimately led to what later became known as the Turnhalle conference. When we look back we can see that few people gave it a chance. According to what the newspapers wrote at the time the initiative died practically every Sunday, and maybe a couple of times every week as well for that matter.

However, contrary to all expectations they reached consensus as to how the territory should and could become independent as a whole without one group dominating the others. I think two matters are worth mentioning in this regard. Firstly, this has been a remarkable achievement by all standards and, secondly, it must be stressed that this conference was as truly representative of the peoples of South West Africa as a meeting could ever be. I think the leaders concerned deserve the heartiest congratulations from each and everyone of us.

That being so, one would have thought that they would be applauded from all sides, especially by the Western powers. Unfortunately, however, they received, to put it at its highest, only a very lukewarm reception.

In terms of its policy the South African Government accepted the decision and announced that it would implement it as requested, starting with an interim Government. The five Western powers in the Security Council then intervened and asked for talks with the South African Government. As hon. members know, the talks lasted three days in April and three days in June. During these talks we put our commitments to the five Western powers very clearly. I also made it very clear to Vice-President Mondale when I met him in Vienna in May. Inter alia, we made our commitment very clear that it was necessary for the South African Government, in terms of its commitments, to pass legislation during the course of this session for the purpose of installing an interim Government as requested and, naturally, to take such other measures as was necessary to lead the territory to independence as a whole.

During all our talks with the five Western powers the Turnhalle delegates were in attendance. We consulted with them throughout. As a result of what flowed from the talks, the Turnhalle representatives withdrew their request for an interim Government and decided to accept instead the appointment of what we decided to call an Administrator-General, whose functions it will be to govern the territory as a whole during the interim period and to prepare the territory for elections to elect a constituent assembly, as I have already said whose function, will be to draw up a constitution for the territory. The territory will then become independent in terms of that constitution. The South African Government will then of necessity have to enter into negotiations with the South West African Government over a substantial number of issues.

*Agreements will deal inter alia with matters such as transport, communications, electricity and water supply, economic and financial matters, security and protection, the use of the South African harbour Walvis Bay, and numerous other matters which I need not mention here.

However, the Bill also refers specifically to Walvis Bay, and in passing it is necessary for me to say that Walvis Bay belongs to South Africa. There can be no doubt, legal or otherwise, about that. This territory was occupied by the British in 1878, it was properly declared to be their property and was so recognized. In 1884 the territory was transferred to the Cape, and it was administered as part of the Cape until in 1922 the territory by means of legislation of this Parliament, was regarded as part of South West Africa for administrative purposes, and for administrative purposes only. I want to make it very clear that the territory is not part of the mandated territory and never was. Nor was it only Walvis Bay that was never part of the mandated territory. There are islands along the coast of South West Africa as well, which belong to South Africa, and similarly, they, too, were never part of the mandated territory. In 1861 they were partially and in 1866 finally annexed by the British as such. The territories were de-annexed and, as in the case of Walvis Bay, the British transferred them to the Cape. There are many such territories. I shall mention the following: Mercury, Bird, Long Island, Soal, Penquin, Halifax, Possession, Albatross, Pomona, Plum Pudding and Roast Beef … [Interjections.] I want to make it very clear that “Plum Pudding”, “Roast Beef" and all those territories are South African property. There should be no doubt whatsoever about this. I am mentioning this specifically because there are signs—at this stage I am putting it no higher than this—that certain circles will dispute South Africa’s ownership of Walvis Bay and, if need be, the islands as well. South Africa will not and cannot accept this under any circumstances.

The object of this legislation is to make South West Africa independent. To this end the Administrator-General will have to take the initiative. In order to do this, laws will have to be made and other laws will have to be amended and repealed. He will, apart from the power to make laws, also be vested with the power, at the request—such a request has already been received—of the Hereros, the Damaras and the Tswanas, to grant local government to them.

Our standpoint in respect of South West Africa and its people is that we regard the Turnhalle as representative of all the people of South West Africa. Unfortunately there are others who dispute this. The Turnhalle leaders would like to have world recognition for their independence, if it is in any way possible, and so would we. It became apparent from the discussion with the five Western representatives—and the Turnhalle leaders are prepared to accept this—that international acceptance can best be assured if a representative of the Secretary-General of the UNO satisfies himself that the elections were free, that there was a secret poll and that there was no intimidation whatsoever. These things are not unfamiliar to us. These are rules which are also applicable in respect of our own elections. We have no objection to a representative of the Secretary-General being allowed to satisfy himself of all these things, and any other things which may be necessary, as agreed upon. All that we wish to say in this connection is that we trust that what has to be done will be done as soon as possible and that there will be no dragging of feet anywhere in regard to this matter. In addition, invitations will be issued to all those who are outside the territory—in fact, we have already done this in the past—and who have the right to be in the territory, to return to the territory if they wish to return to the territory in peace—and I emphasize the words “in peace”—to participate in that process. Hon. members are aware that we issued similar invitations in the past and that a great many people availed themselves of those invitations.

The hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs also conveyed certain information to hon. members, inter alia in regard to the release of prisoners, during the course of the discussion of his Vote. I do not wish to repeat it here. The hon. Minister dealt with the matter in detail. During the course of the last discussion with the five Western representatives, I gave them this legislation.

I explained it to them and I told them what we envisaged with it. We discussed the question of the Administrator-General. We also discussed the question of local government for the various peoples. I can now inform this House that after I had explained the Bill to them, I asked them whether they could see any objection to it. They said “no”, but when I asked them whether I could say during the discussion of the Bill in the House of Assembly that they had not been able to see any objection to it and that they had agreed to it, they said—entirely correctly on their part—that they did not have the right to say anything of that nature because they would first have to make a report to their Government and they did not, in the nature of things, have the authority to speak on behalf of their Governments at that stage. I do not want any misconception in regard to this matter. They did in fact agree that I could say that the proposed legislation “is consistent with the discussions with the representatives of the five Security Council countries with a view to reaching an internationally acceptable solution”.

†For the purpose of the record, the five Security Council countries of France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

*In respect of the appointment of the Administrator-General, their standpoint was: “The appointment of the Administrator-General is consistent with these discussions.” Therefore they were completely informed of these matters by me.

Therefore, we have now reached the stage where, if there is any realism left in the world and if there is any desire, at the UNO and elsewhere, to end this 31-year-long dispute, it can be done now. Time will tell what standpoint is going to be adopted in regard to this matter. Hon. members will understand that the five representatives will now have to inform their Governments so that their Governments can in their turn go to the Security Council, for the Security Council will have to adopt certain resolutions in regard to the representative of the Secretary-General.

In conclusion I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to issue a special warning against the clever stories which will be written in the newspapers from now on, against rumours and sensation-mongering which will make the rounds. There will be people who will hear half-truths, and sometimes not even half-truths, and write full front page reports about them, as was the case last Sunday. I should like to make a very earnest appeal to everyone, in particular to all our newspapers. South Africa can hardly have a more delicate matter to deal with than this one. If this matter is not dealt with delicately, and if it is written about for sensation-mongering purposes, or if one journalist wishes to prove how much more he knows about the affairs of South West Africa than another, then I want to say right now that the possibility exists that we are going to meet with adversity in regard to this matter. That is why I am asking for self-control and responsibility on the part of everyone who is going to write about or discuss this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I think that as far as this House is concerned, we have come to the end of a long road with regard to South West Africa this afternoon. It has been a long road for a Parliament which often gave its most serious attention to the problems connected with this territory. There were times, sometimes long periods, when wisdom and responsibility required of us not to discuss matters with regard to that territory at all. That was the case when the position of the territory was being considered by the International Court and when delicate negotiations were taking place at the UNO and with other great powers. Today we have reached the stage where the hon. the Prime Minister is requesting powers from Parliament to lead South West Africa to freedom and independence by means of executive powers and also to determine the position of Walvis Bay in the same way. I must say that this is not the type of legislation one would like to pass, but on the other hand, unusual factors are involved.

†In respect of this matter time is an essential element in the very difficult strategy to which we are now committed. In some respects we lost the initiative for a while. It is to be hoped that we can regain it. We lost it, I believe, through the Government’s spendthrift attitude towards time and its belief that a delay would gain a further span of life for certain of its policies. In this regard, it is two years ago that I referred to the many warnings from this side of the House of our inevitable obligation in respect of South West Africa. I pointed out then the diplomatic advantages that would be gained from giving the resolution of this problem priority. I also stressed the danger of others putting their oar in if we lost this initiative. The Big Five have done so and, since they have done so, great flexibility is needed. Indeed, so great a flexibility is needed that I believe it is a justification for this Bill.

Secondly, the advance to independence is not an uncomplicated matter. I draw attention to the fact that some two years ago I spoke of the desirability of having someone of outstanding status, possibly someone of ambassadorial rank, to play the guiding role and to act as an impartial arbiter in the complex negotiations which will inevitably take place. I spoke also of the formation of an interim Government and the need for a more realistic assessment of the role of Swapo in our attempts to attain an internationally recognized settlement. My suggestions were not acceptable then. From what we have heard this morning, it seems that there is to be a different approach. There is to be a constituent assembly to draw up a constitution. There are to be elections in which Swapo can apparently participate. There is to be the possible appointment of an Administrator-General. All these matters will require delicate negotiation and exact timing. They cannot be legislated for now—the ground-work is not complete. They certainly cannot wait for Parliament to meet again.

The only course seems to be enabling legislation of the kind we have before us to give effect to the consensus which it is hoped will be achieved in South West Africa at some point of time in the future. The hon. the Prime Minister has also mentioned the different stages of development and the different type of administration in respect of different parts of the territory. All these will have to be dealt with separately. This, again, is a matter to which it will be difficult for Parliament to give its attention.

One cannot, of course, avoid or ignore the effect on the international community of legislation of this kind. However, I cannot imagine that people who deny that we have a right of sovereignty over South West Africa can be much concerned as to who exercises that sovereignty. It is interesting from the historical point of view to note that when South Africa originally took over South West Africa after the 1914-1918 War, it was administered under laws which were given effect to by the Governor-General of the time. It is interesting that now at the end of our period of connection with this territory, we should have reached the stage where it is the State President in lieu of the Governor-General who is responsible for legislating for South West Africa. For all these reasons we shall not oppose this Bill. It will have our approval.

However, I want to say a word about the Bill itself. The long title of the Bill reads—

Nevertheless, nowhere in the Bill is there a mention of the bringing of South West Africa to independence or of Walvis Bay. There are old authorities which L. C. Steyn, the late Chief Justice, summed up when he said—

To avoid that, I think we should have an amendment to clause I, as to which I believe there is agreement between the hon. the Prime Minister and myself, and which I shall move at the Committee Stage.

One question remains, namely Walvis Bay. We on this side of the House are agreed that the sovereignty of South Africa over Walvis Bay should be retained, but I think we also have a feeling that earnest consideration should be given to the possibility of converting Walvis Bay into an open port which could act not only for South West Africa, not only for parts of Central and Southern Africa, but for South Africa itself. I know it is a matter which has been raised before, but I do hope that it will not be overlooked.

I think that in this effort to achieve independence for South West Africa, the people who have been connected with the Turnhalle, the people of South West Africa, have the good wishes and prayers of all those men and women of goodwill in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I think it would be quite improper of me to make any sort of reference to the merits of the discussions being held at the moment or to make any type of comment on them. What I should like to do, however, is look at the legal situation appertaining to the Bill. Before doing so, I just want to say that today we are not discussing South West Africa’s independence as such; what we are discussing is preparatory steps that could lead to South West Africa’s independence. In this regard it is very clear to me that a distinction has to be drawn, as has been done over the years, between the legislative authority on the one hand and the executive authority on the other. The Government—and that excludes the legislative authority—has always had certain international duties with regard to South West Africa which it has performed on behalf of South Africa. As the legislative body, we in Parliament must empower the Government to meet those international obligations in respect of South West Africa.

In the first place we must look at the wide powers contained in the Bill and secondly we must consider to whom the powers are being given. As the hon. the Prime Minister said, full powers are being given and in this regard reference is also made to Walvis Bay. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that the position relating to Walvis Bay was not clearly spelt out in the Bill and that for that reason he intended moving an amendment. As far as I am concerned, the amendment does make the matter clearer than it is at the moment, but I must point out that it is stated in the Bill that the Act is applicable to what is called “the territory”. When one looks at section I of the principal Act, “the territory” is defined as “the territory of South West Africa”. However, when one looks at section 36 of the principal Act, one sees that it is worded as follows—

When we read the Bill, therefore, the word “territory” means South West Africa and Walvis Bay. However, if it is necessary to state the matter even more clearly, I cannot raise any objection to the amendment of which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has given notice.

With this Bill we are reaching a position today which is analogous to that of 1919. Hon. members will recall that after World War I, the various Allied forces concluded the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The Treaty was concluded on 28 June 1919. It came into operation in January 1920 and the mandate itself came into operation only in December 1920, after a resolution to this effect had been taken by the council of the old League of Nations. Section 2 of the mandate—as far as the South African Government is concerned, the mandate is still applicable today—provides, and I quote the relevant part—

That is the Government—

In other words, the mandate itself provides that the Government of South Africa has not only the power of administration, but also the power of legislation. Therefore, when the Government vests the legislative authority with regard to South West Africa in the State President, it is vesting it in the State President, in other words in the executive authority of the Government of South Africa. When this is done—this is my contention—it is perfectly in line with the provisions of section 2 of the mandate.

What is interesting, however, is that after the Treaty of Versailles had been concluded, and before the Treaty had come into operation, and before a final decision had been taken concerning the mandate, this Parliament met for a special session in 1919 and placed Act No. 49 of 1919 on the Statute Book. That is what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also referred to. It is interesting to note that the aforementioned Act and the Bill before this House at the moment are virtually identical. In terms of section 2 of Act No. 49 of 1919, and subject to the provisions of section 4 of the same Act—section 4 deals with a few less important local matters and does not contain any wide provisions whatsoever—the Governor-General is empowered to do the following things by way of proclamation—

1. (a) Repeal, alter, amend or modify any laws in force within the said territory including such proclamation as has been or may be promulgated during the military occupation thereof;
2. (b) make new laws applicable to the said territory;
3. (c) delegates his authority on his behalf to such officer in the said territory as he may designate to act under his instructions.

In other words, today we have reached a stage of preparation prior to independence. It is a stage at which South Africa must relieve itself of certain of its international duties. However, in 1919 the then Government also went through a preparatory stage. At that time the Government promulgated an Act similar to the legislation to which this House has to devote its attention today. These points of similarity are, in my opinion, important in considering the fairness and justness of the Government’s actions today.

It is also interesting to note, however, that Act No. 49 of 1919 did contain one restriction. We find that restriction in section 5 of that Act. I quote—

To have placed limit on the powers of the Governor-General was apparently not a correct procedure. Consequently, Act No. 32 of 1921 was placed on the Statute Book, and this was an Act in terms of which section 5 of Act No. 49 of 1919 was amended. I quote section 2 of Act No. 32 of 1921—

After that legislation we had a situation identical to the one we are having today. Subsequently there was a constitutional development. There was the constitution of South West Africa which initially came into effect in 1925 when limited self-government was given to the Whites. In April 1946 the League of Nations was dissolved without its having laid down what was to become of the mandated territories. The UNO Charter made no specific provisions relating to the mandated territories, but an international trusteeship was established and this was organized on a voluntary basis. In 1950 there was the judgment of the international court which ruled that the mandate was still valid at that time. Therefore, after the dissolution of the League of Nations and the establishment of the UNO, the mandate was still valid. That was the unanimous ruling of 14 jurists, not political judges. On 27 October 1966 a resolution was passed at the UNO allegedly cancelling the mandate and a court loaded with political appointments ruled in June 1971 that South Africa was in that territory illegally. That ruling was illogical and illegal and that is why the Government rejected it. That is still the Government’s standpoint. As far as that is concerned, therefore, the position is actually the same today as it was in 1919.

Let us look at South Africa’s present obligations. Firstly, we must take another look at the provisions of the mandate itself. The second part of section 2 provides—

South Africa has therefore taken upon itself a certain duty, one it has had for more than half a century. South Africa is in honour bound “to promote to the outmost”, as it is phrased, the interests of that territory. The question is: How can the South African Government best do this under present-day circumstances? I think this can best be done by creating and preserving an atmosphere of peace in South West Africa. The Government realizes the necessity for peace in the territory so that the people of South West Africa may lead their country to independence in an atmosphere of peace. In this regard one may refer to the standpoint of Dr. Mulder as expressed by him in a speech he made on 1 April last year—

A second duty which the Government also has to work very hard at, is to assist this young country to be accepted as a proud member of the comity of nations as such. The Government has already achieved much success in this regard and I believe that more and more people are realizing that it is in the interests of the people of South West Africa, in the interests of peace in this part of the world and, indeed, in the interests of everyone who considers peace and development to be a requirement for good relations, that South West Africa’s people be allowed to make their own decisions. Because the Government has clearly spelled out its own bona fides to objective observers in many resolutions and publications before the UNO, I am of the opinion that the Government has achieved a measure of success and that it will achieve even greater success. I am speaking on behalf of this side of the House, but I think I am speaking on behalf of everyone on that side of the House as well, when I wish the Government every success on the road ahead for the sake of the people of South West Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just sat down spent some time in his address trying to define the difference between the responsibility of the legislature and that of the executive in respect of the mandate given to South Africa in 1919. I do not want to follow him in this argument, save to say that the mandate was given to the Union of South Africa, which later was succeeded by the Republic of South Africa. To the extent that the Parliament of South Africa is sovereign, it also includes the executive. In terms of a mandate one cannot therefore separate into water-tight compartments the responsibility of the executive on the one hand and Parliament, as the sovereign body of South Africa, on the other hand.

The hon. the Prime Minister outlined the background of the circumstances. He mentioned the dispute, which commenced some 30 years ago, between South Africa and the international community on the South West African issue. I would like to think that the next most important step was in 1973 when there were declarations by both the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs indicating a sense of realism towards the issue of independence and self-determination for South West Africa. The next key step was the setting up of the Turnhalle conference late in 1975, followed by problems which arose or obviously were going to arise concerning the international recognition of the territory. More recently there was the involvement of the five Western powers through a contact group. This Bill is really the result of the discussions which have taken place with the contact group of the five Western powers, having as their terms of reference resolution No. 385 of the Security Council, and the hon. the Prime Minister, having as his terms of reference the decisions and recommendations of the Turnhalle conference. It has been an attempt to reconcile resolution No. 385 of the Security Council with the Prime Minister’s terms of reference which has led to the introduction of this Bill.

Viewed purely from a parliamentary point of view, I believe this is a humiliating measure for the Prime Minister to put before the South African Parliament, because nearly 60 years after the South African Parliament received the mandate and nearly 30 years after it first became an issue between South Africa and the international community, Parliament is being asked in this Bill to abdicate the responsibility which it has claimed it has had towards the people in the territory of South West Africa. This responsibility includes making provision for them to exercise the right of self-determination to the point of accepting independence. If one looks at the Bill—I think the hon. the Prime Minister has conceded this— one sees that absolute authority over the affairs of South West Africa will no longer be vested in this Parliament for all practical purposes, but will be vested in the executive acting through proclamation by the State President. These rights include the right to administer, to lead South West Africa to independence and to withdraw South African authority and thus leave South West Africa an independent nation.

I do not want to refer to the Bill in detail, but in relation to the administration and the granting of independence to South West Africa, these powers are absolute. As the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, the long title of the Bill is not in practice legally restrictive except in cases of ambiguity. Subsections (6) and (7) of section 38 of the existing Act make provision for reporting to Parliament within 28 days of Parliament re-assembling and for the right of Parliament to disapprove. They also provide that in the event of a disapproval that particular action of the State President will be declared null and void.

I think the hon. the Prime Minister will concede that in spite of these two provisions in the existing Act, Parliament will in reality not be able to undo the steps which have been taken as a result of negotiation between the executive and the international community. In any case, because this Bill gives the State President the right to repeal, inter alia, any aspect of this Act, the State President could in fact repeal subsections (6) and (7) of section 38.I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister to indicate in the course of his reply whether he in fact intends applying the procedures set out in subsections (6) and (7) or whether he intends, through the State President, removing this right of Parliament to receive reports and to dissent if it so wishes.

In the second place I would like the hon. the Prime Minister to explain why, in his opinion, it would not be possible for this House to establish a Select Committee of Parliament which could be converted into a permanent commission to be available during the months during which he says the executive has to negotiate, so that Parliament would not abdicate, in entirety, its responsibility for the leading of South West Africa towards independence during the period when it was not in session. He indicated the difficulties in respect of the whole of Parliament meeting, but he has not indicated any special problem in relation to a Select Committee or a commission of Parliament sitting on a continuous basis to be available as a screening process before recommendations are made to the State President.

In any situation other than the unique quasi-international situation involving South West Africa, I believe that this Bill, from a parliamentary point of view, could only be described as grotesque. For Parliament to divest its authority and to place absolute powers in the hands of the executive, would be unthinkable where Parliament exercised constitutional sovereignty over citizens or over territory. I can think of only one other similar situation in 1946 when Earl Mountbatten, the then Viceroy of India, was given similar powers for a period of time. In the end, however, it was the Parliament of the UK which finally enacted independence for India.

I think we must bear in mind that the sovereignty of the Republic of South Africa does not include the territory of South West Africa. South Africa exercises administrative, legislative and judicial functions there, but we have not extended our territorial boundaries to include South West Africa. Indeed, in the late 1940s there was a move to do that, but General Smuts, in response to international pressure, did not proceed with that. Added to this, our unique constitutional position is that the international community, while recognizing our de facto administrative function, rejects our legal claim to exercise authority over this territory. Therefore one has a situation which is unique in terms of international law and in terms of international authority.

I must point out that there is no reference to the territory of South West Africa in the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act and that South African authority over South West Africa is primarily in terms of the South West Africa Constitution Act of 1968 and the South West Africa Affairs Act of 1969. It is important to notice that both of these Acts, which lock South West Africa into the Republic of South Africa, were passed by this Parliament when the hon. the Prime Minister was Prime Minister and neither of them, in any way, referred to or inferred in any way self-determination or future independence for the territory of South West Africa. On the contrary, section 37 of the South West Africa Constitution Act of 1968 states—

The South West Africa Affairs Act made specific provision for the transfer of such affairs as Bantu Affairs, Coloured Affairs and a host of other matters from the South West African Administration to the control of Ministers who headed similar departments which fell under the Republic of South Africa. At least until that time, under the stewardship of the hon. the Prime Minister, it was a question of an integration of the administrative, legislative and judicial functions of South West Africa into the Republic of South Africa. I believe that we have both a unique constitutional situation and a unique political situation.

As I see the constitutional position, South West Africa has no juridical sovereignty of its own and South Africa does not have the legal authority to confer sovereign independence on that territory. Sovereign independence will come to South West Africa in practice and in law when three things happen.

When South Africa withdraws her authority over South West Africa; when the people of South West Africa assume sovereign independence for themselves; and, thirdly, when that independence is recognized by the international community. These are the three procedures that I believe will see that full sovereign independence, in the internationally accepted term of the word, is vested in the people of South West Africa. I believe that this Bill has to be seen as part of these three interrelated processes. I believe that is the case. If this Bill, with all its grotesque features from the normal point of view as far as parliamentary sovereignty is concerned, creates the machinery, which if properly handled, could help the satisfactory execution of these three principles, it deserves to be supported.

As I have said, we have a unique political situation. On the one hand we have the hon. the Prime Minister and his Government, the administering authority of South West Africa, declaring that he will not interfere with the people of South West Africa in their decision-making process towards self-determination and towards independence. That is the attitude of the hon. the Prime Minister as far as the role of his Government in the decision-making process is concerned. On the other hand, whether we like it or not, we have an international community pointing out that the policies of the South African Government as applied, the political structures which it has erected and the relationship between South West Africa and the South African Government, as the administering power for the territory, must of necessity influence the decision-making process of South West Africa in relation to independence. So, Sir, here one has two conflicting political attitudes towards the role and the influence of the South African Government. The hon. the Prime Minister has acknowledged that, as the defacto administering power, South Africa now has a role to play in the process of independence. That role is inter alia to see that machinery is created to neutralize the impact of the apartheid and separate development policies on that process and this is a second reason why the Bill should be supported.

So much for the juridicial and administrative aspects of the Bill. This Bill also has to be seen as the day on which the National Government has at last come face to face with the harsh reality of the South West African issue. In this Bill the Government has indicated that it has come to realize how deeply ingrained is the international rejection of its policy of apartheid and how the policy, applied over the years … [Interjections.]

Order!

… has been jeopardizing the whole question of the independence of South West Africa. It has done so because on the one hand it has prejudiced possible Western support and on the other hand it has enabled other people to exploit the situation for their own purposes.

Order! I feel that the hon. member is not very relevant at the moment.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Prime Minister has indicated that this was a Bill of a fundamental nature which was going to lead to the granting of independence to South West Africa. He himself, as did the other hon. members, outlined the background dating from 1919 onwards. I will confine myself to matters which I believe are relevant in motivating why we in these benches are supporting this measure. I think we have to look at this background because why, after all, is the Western contact group here? What has been the problem? Why has there not been international recognition? I think one has to look—just as the hon. the Prime Minister looked at the circumstances leading up to this—at the political circumstances leading up to this. There is no doubt for instance that the attempt to implement the recommendations of the Odendaal Commission on South West Africa has a detrimental effect …

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. the Prime Minister is impertinent. Who is the hon. the Prime Minister to shout “Order!” on a matter like this?

Mr. Speaker has already called you to order.

He did not call me to order on this matter. This is directly relevant and the hon. the Prime Minister has admitted that problems arose in regard to the question of the independence for South West Africa. May I say to him that it was his action, or the action of his Government, in imposing that system, which is the cause of this problem, and which has led to the situation in which there has been an attempt at reconciliation between the Western powers and his own Government. This Bill allows the State President to take away the Departments of Bantu Affairs and Coloured and Rehoboth Affairs from the central Government. I would say the action of integrating them was an action that jeopardized, or prejudiced, the issue of independence in South West Africa.

He has mentioned the Turnhalle conference. I think it was a pity that the Turnhalle conference with all its good work—I will deal with it in due course—was constructed essentially on exclusively ethnic lines. I want to say this: There have been encouraging shifts of ground by this Government on South West Africa in recent months and I am not going to reproach the Prime Minister for that. There have been encouraging shifts of ground. This became apparent, first of all, in the Press conference after his meeting with Vice-President Mondale. At that Press conference it was said that the most important agreement reached between the American Government and the South African Government was that free elections should be held on a nation-wide basis for a constituent assembly which would eventually be able to develop a national constitution for an independent Namibia. Free elections on a nation-wide basis was something new. It was a new concept and I believe it must be welcomed. There was agreement between the Prime Minister and the Western powers that all Namibians outside the country, including Swapo, should participate. I would say that this was a distinct shift of ground and I am not reproaching the Prime Minister for it. Some of the shifts of ground of the Prime Minister were debated in this House on 27 May. There have, however, been further deliberations and the Prime Minister indicated that the Foreign Minister would be meeting the Western powers contact group. If one looks at the communiqué issued subsequent to that, further shifts have taken place. The most important one and one which the Prime Minister has conceded, is that he has abandoned his commitment to setting up a central administrative authority along the lines suggested by the Turnhalle in favour of a person to be known as the Administrator-General. This is a shift I am not reproaching the Prime Minister for. This is the result of the circumstances in which he found himself. There has been some controversy as to who initiated this latest proposal. The Turnhalle claims that it took the initiative. The Western contact group disputes it. I believe the issue as to who originated it is irrelevant. To my mind it is much less important than what the substance of this is. If this is the decision and the agreement which has been reached and if one is now abandoning the machinery the Prime Minister announced he was committed to before, then obviously one is inter alia wiping clean the slate as far as the referendum is concerned which was held amongst White voters in the territory of South West Africa, because in very specific terms that referendum was held to deal with the machinery for independence. I can only quote some of the statements made to indicate how important that referendum was in determining the type of election and the type of interim Government. Dr. Paul van der Merwe, the member for Middelland, said—

Mr. A. H. du Plessis said that a “yes” vote was an endorsement for the ethnic divisions. I want to take it no further, but quite clearly there has been an encouraging shift in the attitude of the Government as a result of the negotiations between the Government and the five representatives of the Western powers.

Save for three issues it is not my intention—because I realize that the Prime Minister has a difficult negotiating role to play—to ask the Prime Minister to declare his hand in respect of the likely course which negotiations are going to take. I believe, however, that in view of the fact that Parliament is being asked to abdicate its responsibility for South West Africa, Parliament is entitled to know, perhaps in more detail, the state of play as it is at the moment.

In the House on 27 May the Prime Minister made nine statements in relation to his attitude towards independence for South West Africa. These nine statements are all related to the legislation which is before us. I would ask the Prime Minister in the course of his reply to indicate whether there have been any shifts other than the obvious ones on the nine statements which he made. The first one is that the Government was “absolutely committed to introduce South West Africa what is at this stage called ‘a central administrative authority’ I accept that the hon. the Prime Minister has shifted his attitude on this. Secondly, the hon. the Prime Minister said (Hansard, Friday 27 May 1977, col. 8713)—

I take it from what he has said that the Government intends proceeding through the new Administrator-General. Thirdly, he said—

The hon. the Prime Minister did refer to Walvis Bay. He referred to the position as it did exist and also to the position as it does exist. However, he has not indicated his attitude on the future situation as far as Walvis Bay is concerned. Hon. members are entitled to know whether Walvis Bay is going to be treated like a Hong Kong outside of China or whether it is going to be treated as Port St. Johns was in relation to the Transkei. One would like some indication from the hon. the Prime Minister of his attitude. The next point the hon. the Prime Minister made was that South Africa would not under any circumstances hand over South West Africa to Swapo. I do not think there is anybody in this House who would hope that Swapo would be the victor in an election contest.

Are you sure?

However, is it an absolute statement on the part of the hon. the Prime Minister that under no circumstances will he contemplate this? The next point is the question of detainees. The hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs dealt with certain aspects of this. The hon. the Prime Minister did say that, unless detainees were released in other countries, he would not be able to proceed with the release of detainees within South West Africa. We want to know whether that situation still applies. Then there was the question of United Nations involvement. Do we take it that as at the moment there has been no shift of attitude on his definition on what he regards as involvement in South West Africa, a definition he put to the House on 27 May? I am just asking what changes have taken place between 27 May and now so that the House will at least be in a position to make up its mind on the merits of the position as it exists at the moment.

There are three aspects on which I want to get some clarification from the hon. the Prime Minister in particular. He has warned about dangerous Press reports and rumours. My first question is : To what extent is there agreement between himself and the contact group on the issue of the phasing out of the South African administration and of South African military forces? I believe there should be a definite statement not on the future situation but on the situation in terms of the agreement at the moment. I think this is material in many people’s minds. Secondly, I must assume that one of the functions of the Administrator-General will be to proceed to remove discriminatory legislation of this Parliament in so far as it applies to South West Africa.

I should like the hon. the Prime Minister to indicate what laws of the South African Parliament which are applicable in South West Africa he considers to be discriminatory. In other words, he is going to give a mandate to somebody to change these laws.

Order! I do not think the matters raised by that question are relevant.

Mr. Speaker, the Act makes provision for the Administrator-General to change the laws of this Parliament. We should like to know from the hon. the Prime Minister what laws he will recommend should be changed and, in particular, whether there is any agreement between the Prime Minister and the Western contact group …

Order! It is my opinion that the body of the Bill cannot be divested from the long title. The hon. member may continue but I shall stop him if he goes too far.

The last question is this: Can we have an assurance from the hon. the Prime Minister that, in so far as it is possible to give assurance at this point in time with the rapidly changing situation, no resident of South West Africa who is a citizen of South West Africa will be deprived of his South African citizenship without his consent? I raise this because, once again, the Administrator-General is entitled to change the citizenship laws in so far as they affect South West Africa. We believe that it is tremendously important that we know what the Prime Minister’s view is. We should like him to give a categorical assurance that nobody will be deprived of his citizenship as a result of any change in laws in consequence of this Bill.

In all of this, the hon. the Prime Minister has referred to the Turnhalle. Let me say that I consider the people engaged in the Turnhalle talks as the men in the middle. I believe that many, if not all of us, have considerable sympathy for these people who have taken part in the Turnhalle talks. I believe that history will acknowledge that these gentlemen have made a significant contribution towards breaking up the constitutional log-jam and the finalization of independence for South West Africa. The hon. the Prime Minister referred to the fact that there were certain denigrators. I think he is correct. The Turnhalle suffered certain disabilities not of their own making. They were denigrated by people who are hostile to the whole concept of the Turnhalle and who want everything channelled through Swapo.

But there were other handicaps as well and the hon. the Prime Minister is aware of it. The Turnhalle was started too late. It was started after South Africa, whether we like it or not, had been declared an illegal authority. It was started after the Council for Namibia had been established. These were all minus factors. It was too ethnic, it was too closely identified with the South African Administration. However, I think we should be pleased that in spite of all these minus factors the Turnhalle by its own integrity and by its own performance threw off some of the stigma of its close association with the policies of the Government. I would hope that the Turnhalle, perhaps in the form of a political party, is going to continue and that the Turnhalle in that sense will be an important factor in the political life of the territory.

I want to sum up. I believe that the Government’s resistance to independence for South West Africa for many years, its inertia between the years 1967 and 1973, its failure to acknowledge the harsh reality of the international implications of South West Africa, combined with its internal policy of apartheid, have seen the Government painting itself and painting South Africa into a comer on this issue. This Bill is the result of discussion and negotiation between the Government and the contact group of the five Western nations. As the hon. the Prime Minister has indicated, it has the concurrence of the leaders of the Turnhalle Constitutional Committee. It provides the administrative mechanism by which we in South Africa can extricate ourselves from the cul-de-sac into which this Government has led us. I also believe that wisely, correctly and skilfully handled, it can lead to the international recognition of South West Africa. We hope that the Government has learnt from the mistakes of the past. We want to say to the Government that we shall support any steps that it takes in the direction of independence for South West Africa. However, we shall reserve the right to criticize the Government when we believe it does the wrong thing. We realize that the last lap towards independence is going to be an extremely sensitive and difficult one. We shall act accordingly. We want to see the territory of South West Africa taking its proud place as an independent State in the community of nations.

We want to see the people of South West Africa living in peace and developing their country’s great potential. We would hope too that an independent Namibia can show to our country, which for 60 years has held authority over it, how people of diverse races, language and cultural communities, can live and work together. It is in this spirit that we shall support this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the leader of the PRP sat in this House and heard the hon. the Prime Minister’s request to the Press, viz. that the present situation as far as the whole South West Africa problem is concerned, should be handled in a responsible manner. Then he stood up and did precisely what the hon. the Prime Minister had asked the Press not to do. I am not one who likes to question the patriotism of a fellow South African and a fellow member of this House, but it was written all over the speech of this hon. member who has just resumed his seat that he is sorry that we have made a breakthrough in the South West Africa situation.

What absolute nonsense!

The only inference we can draw from the hon. member’s whole argument is that he wants to use this delicate, international, involved situation as a point of departure for proving that they are a dynamic opposition and that he is a dynamic leader. He leads me to believe that the initials PRP stand for “Petty, Reckless Politics”, because this is what he played in this House today. Instead of the tirade, instead of dragging in apartheid, a concept which he knows we have long since stopped using in this country, instead of the tirades which he tried to get in about discrimination, he should rather have had a word of praise for the hon. the Prime Minister, for the leaders of the Turnhalle and for all responsible leaders, even the international figures who participated in this, for the imaginative initiative which they did in fact take. That party has no conception of the fluidity of the situation, no conception of the delicate balance which is still part of these negotiations, and under the circumstances I consider the speech of the hon. member for Sea Point highly irresponsible.

Mr. Speaker, you ruled the hon. member out of order when he wanted to talk about discrimination and apartheid, and therefore, in accordance with your decision, I shall not reply to him on that matter, but you will allow me just one sentence. I want to ask the PRP whether their hate of the standpoints of two-thirds of the White voters of South Africa is so great that they want to abuse a delicate matter like this, which has nothing to do with South Africa, in order to get at the NP for political reasons? Speaking of this, I ask whether our international problems, our problems of pressure to which the hon. member referred, are not to a large extent caused by this tendency of the PRP to make a caricature of everything which the Government does, advocates and propagates. Why does the world think that apartheid and separate development—the policy of the NP—is a policy which is oppressive, cruel, a policy which does not build rights, but which fails to recognize human dignity? It is because the PRP says so. It is because the hon. member for Houghton has been spewing poison about the policy of the Government in this House for years and years. [Interjections.]

I want to return to the hon. member for Sea Point. The hon. member for Sea Point described the possible independence of South West Africa of which the hon. the Prime Minister spoke as a degrading measure. He presented the possible independence of South West Africa as a defeat. The NP does not see the possible independence of South West Africa as a defeat. The NP sees it as a joyous event, as the solution to years of stalemate, international blunders and unpleasant disputes. The NP sees it as the solution to an international dispute, a solution which is in the interest of all the people of South West Africa. The fact that we have reached this point should fill everyone in South Africa with joy and gratitude because a light has dawned for South West Africa. From the PRP, however, we get a load of bitter gall in connection with this matter. [Interjections.]

If ever an hon. member has proved that he is incompetent ever to become a leader, even of the Official Opposition, the hon. member for Sea Point has succeeded in proving this today.

Why are you so angry?

Mr. Chairman, an hon. member is asking me why I am angry. I am angry. The hon. member for Yeoville, too, is not looking at all happy about the attitude of his hon. leader. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Yeoville is smiling, but it is that embarrassed smile which we know so well. It is not his genuine smile; it is the smile which makes him blush. [Interjections.] He is smiling the smile of a man who is actually very unhappy. Mr. Chairman, we saw that same smile at the time when he was on the point of leaving the UP. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Prime Minister made it very clear to us that decisions will probably have to be taken quickly during the next few months. In addition, he made it clear that not only will decisions have to be made, but the decisions which are made, will have to be implemented and that this will require legislation, the repeal of legislation and the amendment of legislation. It will be legislation for which Parliament will not be able to accept responsibility in the first place, because it will be in recess. The situation in which it may become necessary to take urgent decisions and to implement these decisions without delay, is the result of long discussions, discussions which have meant that speedy action by means of legislation will also be necessary. It is therefore against this background that there will have to be machinery which will be able to take and implement effective, rapid decisions and to amend or repeal existing legislation. This is the background against which this Bill must be seen.

It must be conceded immediately that this Bill grants wide powers, even sweeping powers. Fortunately, we and the official Opposition are in agreement on the necessity of this legislation, while the position of the PRP is very vague and unclear. The question which I want to ask now, however—when we look at the Bill—it is of a twofold nature. Firstly, is the process proposed in the Bill, namely legislation by the Cabinet, the best machinery which can be created with a view to speedy, comprehensive action? Secondly, are there sufficient guarantees that the powers which it confers, will be used in the best tradition of democracy? Firstly, the question arises whether it is the best machinery. My reply to this is a definite “yes”. If we take the whole political set-up and tradition in South Africa into consideration, we see that the responsibility for the introduction, formulation and implementation of legislation rests squarely on the shoulders of the executive. This is nothing strange. On the contrary, it is quite an everyday matter for the Cabinet to be given legislative authority, with regard to specific matters, to make regulations of a drastic nature which are just as binding as any Act. What is more important: In the specific case of South West Africa, the Cabinet is the only government body which is really au fait with matters. There are good reasons for this. It is due to the extremely delicate nature of the discussions which are being held and the confidentiality which must be preserved, because without it the venture will be doomed from the start. That is why I do not believe that any other body, committee or Government institution other than the State President could be granted the necessary powers which the Bill proposes to confer.

The PRP’s proposal of a Select Committee—I think I am correct in believing the hon. member for Sea Point to have said that they want to make a proposal to this effect—which will then, I suppose, have to supervise the Cabinet and be involved in the matter, is one we cannot support. This idea which has been expressed is just another manifestation of the attempt of the Opposition to achieve by means of Parliamentary procedure what it cannot achieve at the ballot box. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who is going to speak in a little while, wants to help govern the country in a commission on foreign affairs, while the hon. member for Durban Point want to help govern the country in a commission on defence. Now the PRP wants to be involved in the handling of foreign affairs, especially the South West issue, by means of a Select Committee. This is not necessary at all.

As I shall indicate in a moment, there is machinery in terms of which Parliament has a direct, and very important role to fulfil in the exercising of the power conferred upon the executive by the Bill. After all, our system does not require the Opposition to assist the executive in carrying out and formulating its decisions. After all, the NP Government has a mandate from the people to govern, while the Opposition does not have such a mandate. It is not the function of the Opposition to have a say in the functions of the Cabinet. They do have the right to question and to criticize Cabinet action and that right is written into this legislation as well, as I shall indicate.

The hon. Opposition members will say that this is all very well, but that this legislative power is of such a sweeping nature and because it concerns legislation as such, it is the specific function of Parliament. The hon. member for Sea Point has already spoken in that direction. My answer to this is that the legislative power which is being granted here—as the hon. the leader of the Official Opposition correctly indicated—is not a normal legislative power.

The legislation which the Cabinet will be able to pass in terms of the Bill is not normal legislation. It is quite exceptional legislation in the sense that it is essentially of an administrative nature. It is also exceptional because it is not made for the electorate which elected the members who constitute the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa. Approximately 99% of the electorate which votes for the members of the House of Assembly will not be affected by the legislation which the State President will be able to make in terms of this Bill. It is also exceptional because the territory which this legislation will affect, as the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs indicated this morning, has never formed part of the territory of the Republic of South Africa. Therefore, Cabinet legislation for South West Africa which may be placed on the Statute Book in terms of this Bill does not affect the territory which forms part of the territory of the Republic of South Africa.

Furthermore, the legislative power which is being granted in terms of the Bill is exceptional because the NP Government has irrevocably committed itself—with the support of the Opposition, I believe—to an attempt to give effect to the wishes of the people of South West Africa itself in whatever it does as regards South West Africa. The hon. the Prime Minister emphasized this once again in his speech this afternoon. That is why, Mr. Speaker, you may be sure that, in exercising the powers conferred upon him by the Bill, the State President will basically act as an administrative organ, trying to give expression to the wishes of the inhabitants of South West Africa itself. Our record proves that the South African Government has no desire to exercise powers against the will of the people of South West Africa itself. That is why I cannot see why a Parliamentary committee or commission is necessary. The Cabinet can be trusted with this, because there is the closest co-operation and the desire to give expression to the will of the people of South West Africa.

Secondly, I asked whether there were sufficient guarantees against abuses in the Bill. I think there can be absolute confidence about this as well. Our first guarantee is that the people of South West Africa will always be consulted and involved in talks and negotiations so that, in this way, they will take part in the action affecting their country. The second guarantee is that this Parliament exercises control. Section 38(6) of the South West Africa Constitution Act, 1968, to which the hon. member for Sea Point himself referred, provides that any proclamation must be laid on the Table within 14 days of being promulgated, and that if such proclamation is promulgated during recess, it must be laid on the Table within 14 days after Parliament has met again. Subsequently it provides that proclamations which are laid on the Table shall remain on the Table for 28 days. After all, it is the right of a “virile” opposition like the PRP to study those matters and to question any mistakes which the Government may have made or any unjustified proclamations it may have promulgated.

Sterile.

I would not put sterile in inverted commas, but I would do so with “virile”.

Section 38(7) goes on to provide that if Parliament disapproves the action of the State President, such action will cease to be of effect as from the date of disapproval. This is a very strict form of control which this Government exercises. That is why I believe that Parliament has effective control and that its functions are not really affected by this amendment. The existing subsection (1) provides that the State President has the power in any event to make laws for the territory by proclamation in the Government Gazette with regard to any matter except the matters about which the Legislative Assembly of South West Africa can make laws. The legislation by proclamation can be tested by this Parliament when it is laid on the Table. This will ensure that Parliament will exercise its function.

We support this Bill because it is necessary for decision-taking and legislation to be placed in the hands of a supple, flexible body like the Cabinet, which can act quickly, which is fully informed at all times and which is always functioning. We support it because it may obviously be necessary in terms of an international agreement which we hope may be further confirmed. We support it because it is in the interests of the people of South West Africa themselves and will be implemented with their co-operation. Furthermore, we support it because Cabinet action can always be tested by Parliament in the normal way.

We want to express the hope that the passing of this Bill will be the beginning of a new era for South West Africa in the true sense of the word, in which a period of rest and peace will begin for the people of South West and in which they will escape from the tension caused by continual involvement in international uncertainty and dispute.

I hope that the contribution of the PRP in this debate will be brought home to the voters by every other hon. member in the House as an indication of the degree of loyalty which South Africa can expect from this party when serious decisions have to be taken.

Mr. Speaker, I should not like to become involved in an argument with the hon. member for Vereeniging concerning matters which are not directly … [Interjections.] Why are hon. members so nervous now? I do not want to get involved in an argument with the hon. member on matters which are not directly concerned with the Bill. I do, however, want to correct the hon. member on one point, viz. his reference to us and to me in particular. The official Opposition has never yet demanded that it should become part of the Government process, and it has never yet demanded that it, too, should be in the Government, because this would obviously be ridiculous. To allege that a proposal for the appointment of a permanent committee on foreign affairs boils down to a demand for participation in the Government, is obviously nonsensical. A standing committee on foreign affairs has been requested by us in the past in order to improve parliamentary processes, and not in order to participate in the process of government. There is a very important difference in this regard. Hon. members on that side of the House must not say at one moment that they want to move away from the Westminster system, but then when we make suggestions which are closer to the European system with the aim of improving our Parliament, oppose that too. Then they are just creating confusion. I want to raise a few ideas briefly in connection with the Bill.

In normal circumstances no Opposition would support a Bill of this nature, because it places unlimited legislative authority over the territory of South West Africa in the hands of the State President—in other words, effectively in the hands of the Government, without reference to or any recognition of Parliament. It is a sweeping plenary power, probably the most sweeping ever vested in a Government by this Parliament. There are, however, good reasons why we will not oppose the Bill. We realize that the matter must be seen in a broad context and also that the Bill must be seen against that background. Briefly, the background looks like this:

The Government has committed itself to allowing South West Africa to develop to full sovereign independence. It has already furnished proof of the fact that it is prepared to allow this to happen with all possible speed. I think we all realize that the Government has irrevocably committed itself to this and that it can no longer change any part of it. In the second place, the Government has shown that it is prepared to take those steps which it wishes to take in the future, in consultation with and in co-operation with the five Western powers of the Security Council. In other words, we now have a wider involvement in the matter than just the Government and this Parliament. We do not want to make use of this opportunity to recall the past. It is well known that we have consistently held the viewpoint for years that the South West Africa question can only be solved successfully if it is done in the closest co-operation with the Western powers. This has now been done, even though it may have been a little late. The Bill must also be seen against the background of what has happened during the past year and a half in South West Africa. The hon. the Prime Minister and other speakers also referred to this. In point of fact a political revolution has taken place, and no one can lose sight of this. The revolution is a criterion not only for other territories which are still in the same position, but is indeed also a criterion for us in the Republic of South Africa. That territory’s population groups came together at a convention in order to plan the future of the territory together as best they could under the prevailing circumstances. As the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs said this morning, at times it was not easy. At times it even looked as if the negotiations and discussions could fail. They succeeded, however, and the various population groups decided together that South West Africa as a whole should be considered the fatherland of everyone who lives there—Black, Coloured and White—and that it should remain one country. They also decided that the multinational nature of the territory must be recognized and that all 11 nations must have a share in the central Government of the country. We believe that this is also something which we must take note of, and this was confirmed by referendum by the Whites who participated in the Turnhalle conference.

The outside world will have to realize that even if one were to remove all the Whites from South West Africa, one would still have the position there that one was dealing with a multinational country where constitutional plans will have to be drawn up in such a way as to prevent the domination of one national group by another. There will simply be no escape from the fact that South West Africa is an open, but at the same time a plural, community. There would have been much more recognition today if there had not been confusion in the outside world about the policy which was followed, in which the emphasis fell not so much on the diversity of populations, but rather on the question of colour. I am quite convinced that South West will get away from this and that the territory will be able to get over it as it progressively detaches itself from an old and worn out policy.

Three weeks ago I availed myself of the opportunity to pay a visit to the Turnhalle. This was on the occasion of the referendum. The Turnhalle was in session at the same time, and I availed myself of the opportunity to hold discussions with most of the important leaders of the Turnhalle as well as with a group of leaders of Swapo. The conversations were private, and I do not therefore intend to quote anyone here. I did, however, gain certain impressions which I just want to discuss briefly because it concerns what we are doing here now.

The first thing which struck me, was that the leaders of the Turnhalle appreciate the absolute necessity of obtaining Western support for their independent country. I formed the impression that they were prepared to go a long way in this direction. For this reason they have also accepted the principle of free, open elections in which everyone can participate with the UNO being involved in some or other way. I think one should take one’s hat off to these people who have come up with a plan after nearly two years and had now to give it up as a result of circumstances and were prepared to make the necessary adaptations. One thing is certain—and I think the hon. the Prime Minister will realize it better than anyone else—and this is that there will be some disappointment amongst members of the Turnhalle conference because the interim Government which they looked forward to, will not come into being now. They hoped—this was clear to me—that if the Turnhalle plan was accepted as a foundation and confirmed here by means of legislation, they would have nevertheless been able to do certain things which would have established their credibility and proved their bona fides to their own people, from a position of power, either partial or interim power. Unfortunately, this opportunity is being denied them by this legislation. I do not say this as a reproach. It is unavoidable. They saw this themselves eventually and made a request of the hon. the Minister to this effect. I think, however, that they can comfort themselves with the thought that they were architects and that what they achieved will undoubtedly still have its impact on the future of South West as well as on the politics of the Republic. I say that they are to be admired for the fact that they are prepared to put aside their disappointment and prepare themselves for what will result from this, namely free general elections in South West.

In this regard I should just like to address a word to the hon. the Prime Minister. Of course, it is not yet certain that Swapo will participate in the election as a whole. They lay down certain requirements, and we shall still have to see whether those requirements can be complied with. In my conversations with their domestic leaders they indicated that they were quite prepared to participate in elections. In fact, they pointed out that the United Nations itself demands that free elections must take place in the territory. They put it to me that the General Assembly of the United Nations did in fact recognize them as the only “Liberation Movement”, but that the UNO never appointed them as the future Government of South West, and that they themselves realized that they would have to earn their place there. No one knows how strong Swapo is. There are various opinions about this. There are people, experts on the situation, who calculate that they are the strongest single political movement in the territory. Swapo itself believes that most of its supporters are not prepared to show their colours now, but that they have 60% of the support in the country. The Turnhalle, in turn, believes that they do not have much to fear from Swapo. I say that at this point none of us are clear as to what, precisely, the position will be. What we do know, is that free elections are in fact coming now. This is one of the main objectives of the Bill and was also put by the hon. the Prime Minister. Now I just want to address one word of warning, namely that I think we must not underestimate the political potential of Swapo in a political election in South West. I think that we will make a mistake by doing so. They undoubtedly have the support of strong Lutheran church leaders, of intellectuals, and they are very much more than simply an Owambo movement. A considerable number of smaller parties have already joined them, amongst others the Maharero Royal House Party which joined recently, and is an important Heroro group. I am mentioning this merely because I feel that the Government must not enter the future underestimating what could result from this.

It was clear to me that Swapo’s propaganda is of a strong national character, that it is very much aimed at the ordinary man. They disseminate the idea that the Turnhalle people are puppets of the Government. I am merely stating this as their point of view. We have also had this in South Africa, where Black leaders are linked with the Government party and the unpopular policy which the Government has in the eyes of the masses. They lay very strong emphasis on a better economic dispensation. Their most important slogan is : “Equal pay for equal work”, “Support Swapo for the right to share the wealth of Namibia” and others. This is powerful propaganda. The reason I raise this, is that I believe it would be a mistake for us to underestimate the political power and the possibilities of Swapo in an election.

Now that an interim Government is no longer to be appointed and the work will fall on the shoulders of an Administrator-General, I believe that the Government will have to use all the influence which it still has there, in the first instance to prepare the way. Let me put it very clearly that I am not saying that the Government must intervene in the coming political election. Indeed, I do not think it will do so. This is the last thing I have in mind. The Government is there to prepare the way and to see to it that the territory becomes independent in such a way that a State will be established which will be well-disposed towards South Africa and which will have domestic peace. I believe that it would be wise of the Government, since there will not be an interim Government as foreseen by the Turnhalle in which the leaders of the Turnhalle would have a share, to do everything in its power to eliminate the grievances which flow from discriminatory measures as quickly as possible and, in the economic sphere in particular, to open up the fullest opportunities for all as quickly as possible and to do it in such a way that it can be seen to be done by everybody. I am convinced that when it comes to the election, the biggest struggle will not be on matters of colour, but on the future economic system of that independent country.

Marxism or what?

Well, of course one must be prepared for it, and if we do not open the way in time, so that those people can become part of a free economy—this must be done as quickly as possible and what we are doing must be seen to be done—we may run into trouble in the future.

This is the short message which I have in connection with the Bill. I want to add that although Parliament is hereby in effect giving up its authority over South West, this does not mean that we on the Opposition side will stop taking an interest in everything which happens there or that we will cease our vigilance in respect of the interests of all the people in South West Africa.

There is just one more point. The hon. the Prime Minister spoke about Walvis Bay. He has the support of this side of the House as far as this is concerned. There is no doubt that Walvis Bay is part of the territory of South Africa. The hon. the Prime Minister said quite correctly that there were bodies or persons abroad who are preparing to argue the point. A commission has already been appointed by the UNO to go into the matter and to report on it. From reports which have already come to the fore, it seems as if they are going to take the standpoint that it is not part of South Africa sovereignty. As I said, we support the standpoint that it does in fact form part of it.

Nevertheless I want to tell the hon. the Prime Minister that it is not only abroad that there are people who take the opposite standpoint. In his negotiations on Walvis Bay he will have to take into account similar standpoints held inside South West Africa. He must take note of the fact that amongst the Black leaders there is a strong standpoint that no matter what the legal position of Walvis Bay may be, it should be added to South West. Chief Kapuuo is one of those who has taken a strong stand on this point. I am just mentioning it When, therefore, the hon. the Prime Minister negotiates on Walvis Bay, he must not only take into account the standpoint of the outside world; he will also have to take note of the fact that there are people inside South West, many South Westers, who feel that Walvis Bay belongs to South West. I hope that the negotiations on that matter will be carried out in such a way that we will not be faced with hostility in future from within an independent South West Africa towards South Africa, which would once again result in a “border problem”.

Mr. Speaker, as Deputy Speaker, it is not fitting for me to make a contentious speech here today. When he introduced the Bill, the hon. the Prime Minister also made an appeal to hon. members to exercise self-control and one appreciates the self-control which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout exercised throughout this debate. In doing so they did South West Africa a service. I nevertheless feel that when matters concern South Africa, it would be a good thing if one of us who represents South West Africa in this House also gave his opinion in this regard.

Unfortunately the hon. member for Sea Point did not play the game. If he had only read the draft constitution which the Turnhalle of South West Africa drew up—it was drawn up by the various population groups of South West Africa—he would, on the strength of its first chapter, probably not have made that speech. But I presume that he has not read it.

I just want to go into two matters. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout raised the question of Walvis Bay and I think it is necessary for us to remove all doubt as to this matter. It is true that in the past year, or even two, the belief has arisen to an increasing extent abroad that Walvis Bay forms part of South West Africa, which is of course not the case. I do not want to go into the history of the matter. I have here the original Act of the Cape Parliament in regard to the annexation of Walvis Bay, etc. I think, however, I should perhaps begin with the mandate on South West Africa. The hon. member for Pretoria Central referred to section 2 of the mandate agreement. I want to refer specifically to section I which makes the entire question of South West Africa abundantly clear. Section I reads—

Therefore there is no doubt.

The former protectorate over South West Africa did not include Walvis Bay and the mandate only dealt with what had previously belonged to the German Protectorate. I think this is quite clear. For administrative purposes the South West Africa Affairs Act, Act No. 24 of 1922, was in fact passed, in terms of which the Governor-General of the time was able to determine by proclamation in the Gazette that the port and settlement of Walvis Bay would form part of the Cape of Good Hope. The necessary powers were conferred upon him by the Act to enable him to do this by proclamation, and proclamation No. 145 of 11 September 1922 was promulgated in order to do justice to it. From that time onwards one can follow the golden thread running through to the present day that all Governments of South Africa adopted the standpoint that Walvis Bay was not part of South West Africa under international law. I also want to refer to legislation which the late General Smuts intended to introduce in this Parliament in 1946. The Bill had already been printed, but it was never introduced in this Parliament because at that stage General Smuts met with adversity in the UNO. The Bill was “to provide for the representation of South West Africa in the Parliament of the Union. Clause 1 read—

Therefore, Walvis Bay was included as an addition. In other words, it was not taken for granted that Wavlvis Bay would form part of South West Africa. After that, however, the following was also emphatically provided in the definition in section 1 of the South West Africa Affairs Amendment Bill, 1949 (Act No. 23 of 19491-

In other words, in terms of international law, Walvis Bay is considered separately and not as part of the original German Protectorate. Therefore, when legislation was introduced, it was specifically mentioned that, for administrative purposes, Walvis Bay should be included.

Now, it was my privilege to write a modest MA dissertation on the constitutional development of South West Africa. The question which worried me was what the standpoint of the UNO in this regard was; especially because we are so often afflicted from that quarter by divergent opinions. I examined all the documents of the UNO. When I say all the documents, I mean all of them. Nowhere, not in any UNO document, is it accepted that Walvis Bay forms part of South West Africa. Indeed, it has always been accepted that Walvis Bay belongs to the Republic of South Africa. In the World Court too, where this matter was really subjected to close scrutiny, the position of Walvis Bay in international law has never been questioned. It was always automatically accepted that Walvis Bay belongs to the Republic of South Africa. In fact, I have before me here a document which was published by the Department of Information of the British Government. It states clearly:“From reference division: Central Office of Information, London.” Then reference is made to a speech by Lord Caradon, the representative of Britain at the UNO at the time, whom I also had the privilege of meeting. The speech is dated January 1967. I can furnish further particulars, if necessary. I quote—

Then he carries on. In other words, Britain, which is one of the great powers today, one of those which has the veto, one of those which participated in the discussions, has also admitted itself that Walvis Bay is in fact not a part of the original South West Africa, but that it forms a part of the Republic of South Africa.

I do not think we ought to go into this matter any further. Of course, the necessary agreements will have to be concluded between the Government of South Africa and the future independent Government of South West Africa as far as Walvis Bay is concerned. As a South West African and someone who has all his possessions in South West Africa, I must admit that Walvis Bay is of vital importance to South West Africa. Therefore I can only express the hope that in the agreements which are going to be concluded, provision will be made to ensure that Walvis Bay will continue to play an important role in future in the economy of South West Africa. I do not doubt that, when the date arrives on which such agreements are discussed, the Government will in fact take the necessary steps in this regard. I want to leave the matter at that, however.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition as well as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout dealt with the question of the participation of Swapo in any dispensation in South West Africa. I want to deal with this question briefly. I want to say immediately that there has never been any restriction on Swapo that precluded it from participating in elections in South West Africa. In fact, before the Turnhalle conference was convened, the Owambo Government—the hon. members know that Swapo has a great deal of support among Ovambos in particular—specifically wanted to test the power of Swapo and an election was held for this specific purpose. In that election, 55% of the voters of the Ovambo population who are scattered throughout the length and breadth of South West Africa, voted in favour of the present leaders of Owambo at the Turnhalle Conference. They did so in spite of the fact that Swapo representatives went from one polling station to another threatening to bum down the houses and murder the families of anyone who voted.

I also employ Ovambos and when I wanted to take them to the polling station that day, they told me that they had no papers or proof that they were registered. I do not know of any farmer in my constituency who employs Ovambos who made provision for his workers to go and vote, because they did not have any documents. If one leaves those people out of account and one takes into account only those who were living in Owambo, then 75% voted in favour of the present Government of Owambo and the Owambo representatives at the Turnhalle Conference.

However, I am not so sure that, when an election takes place in terms of this legislation, the external wing of Swapo will in fact participate in such an election. I have my doubts about this, principally because they are not too keen to have their strength tested. Swapo knows that it has to avoid this. Of course, Swapo also knows where it gets its help from. The organization gets its help from communist countries and I should like to illustrate this to the House. I am referring in particular to Sam Nujoma now, to whom the hon. the Prime Minister referred. I want to quote from a speech which the Deputy Minister of Police at that time, who is now the present Minister of Transport, made on 13 April 1967 in the House, in which he referred to Swapo. He said (Hansard, Vol. 20, col. 4173)—

The hon. the Deputy Minister continued in this vein and told how Ja-Tiovo had admitted that he had received his training in Peking, Moscow and other places.

I want, however, to question the support which Sam Nujoma has from Swapo. I have here a letter stamped “Confidential”, which was addressed by Peter Mueshtilange, self-styled Secretary for International Affairs, from the head office of the South West Africa People’s Organization to Mr. Benjamin Amazila, Swapo representative in Stockholm, Sweden. The address at the top of the letter reads: P.O. Box 2603, Tel. 23749 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, East Africa. This is correspondence between the head office of Swapo and the representative in Sweden.

I just want to quote a few extracts from the letter. I quote—

The letter goes on to say—

I skip a few lines and quote further—

Then I quote the last paragraph of the letter—

That is why I doubt whether Swapo has any important support at all. I have never professed to be a prophet, but I want to hazard the prediction that when that election for which this Bill makes provision, ultimately takes place, Swapo will not participate in it. Since it knows it has the support of the UNO, Swapo relies on the fact that South West Africa should be handed over to it and it alone, and that is why it will not participate. It is actually a tragedy that the Western world, which spells out the self-determination of nations according to article 1(2) of the Charter, should be the very people to try and put a spoke in the wheel of the self-determination of the nations of South West Africa. It is actually a tragedy that we have reached this situation. We in South West Africa—this holds for the White, Brown and the Black population groups there—go forward together in confidence to work out a future for South West Africa. We are not going to submit to extortion or threats by enemies, by the UNO, by Swapo or by anyone else for that matter. We are carrying on because we know that the road which we are following in order to obtain self-determination for South West Africa, is the only honest road which we can follow in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill has been introduced by the hon. the Prime Minister and he will therefor answer the debate and reply particularly to the speech made by the hon. leader of the PRP. The only observation I want to make about his speech, is that although his whole speech was critical of the Bill, yet he supports it! I cannot understand why he has not moved “this day six months”. He has given ammunition to many who will try to bring about the failure of this Bill in practice and the proposed path that lies ahead of the different peoples of South West Africa. In contradistinction and in contradiction to his attitude, was the attitude of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He spoke, as we have known him to speak on occasions such as these, with the correctness and the propriety befitting the occasion.

This is not a Bill that we ourselves would have liked to have seen introduced in the House. We would have preferred, under other circumstances, to have seen another Bill introduced in this House. The stage has been reached, however, where this enabling Bill has had to be introduced. It enables the State President to make laws by proclamation in order to bring about the self-determination and ultimately the independence of South West Africa. We support the Bill, because we feel that it would be unwise to stop the work already done by the Turnhalle. In this connection we feel that the Turnhalle has shown itself to be an example to the rest of the world of how different groups of peoples and different races can work together to find an apparently acceptable solution to their problems. As regards the appointment of the Administrator-General who has to lay the foundation for the election of members of a representative council which in turn has to draw up a constitution, we ask the hon. the Prime Minister: Will that final constitution come back to South Africa, as the administering authority, for approval? We hope so, because we think it would be necessary that this final act should be discharged by the administering authority. The administration of South West Africa is not something that we in these benches feel we should be ashamed of. We believe that as the administering authority of South West Africa, South Africa has played a very prominent role, a very worthy role and a role in comparison with other administering authorities that cannot be challenged.

In regard to Walvis Bay, we share the opinions that have been expressed already, i.e. that sovereignty should be retained by South Africa and that this is clearly established in both national and international law. There is much more we could say under certain other circumstances which we do not propose to say today. Delicate matters are being discussed in Parliament today and we think it would be unwise for us to discuss them in Parliament or to express doubts of any success at this stage. We do not wish to do anything to prejudice possible success. We wish the people of South West Africa success on their new road. They have a great future in a great land, if they are permitted to go into the future without interference from people outside. So far as we in South Africa are concerned, we feel that South West Africa is within our sphere of interest and that what happens there is of vital importance to each and everyone of us in South Africa. We shall therefore watch all future developments in South West Africa in the light of the effect that they will have on us here in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, by this time a great deal has been said this afternoon that had to be said and a great deal has been said that should not have been said. When one reads the preamble of this Bill, one sees that it is as wide, as someone has already said, as the mercy of our Lord. That is why we are very grateful to the hon. the Prime Minister for having lifted the veil for us this afternoon and for having given us the background against which we are to view this legislation. In one’s consideration of this Bill, one should bear in mind that it regulates the aspirations and dreams for the future of many people. When we talk here, we are talking about matters that are going to affect other people’s lives directly. Therefore it is fitting that we talk with humility, sincerity and circumspection.

I shall be brief and for the sake of providing some background I just want to say that we have been administering the territory of South West Africa for nearly 58 years, after having conquered it. In fact, we were empowered to do as we have been doing. I want to make a brief reference to Act 49 of 1919. Section 2 of that Act provides that the Governor-General may repeal certain laws, may make new laws and may even delegate his authority by proclamation. On 27 July 1925 the South West Africa Constitution Act was passed in this Parliament and the Government of South Africa obtained full power to administer and to legislate as though the territory formed an integral part of South Africa. It is stated clearly in the legislation that in that context the Governor-General is in fact the Governor-General-in-Executive-Council.

In our consideration of the principles mentioned in such laws up to the present time, we shall do well to refer to the fact, so that the outside world may take cognizance of it, that the principle of the State President legislating for South West Africa has been in existence for a very long time. It has been acceptable for a long time. The second point is that the State President will continue to act on the advice of the Executive Council. That is also important because it indicates that it is not a dictatorship. The third point is that provision has long existed for the State President to appoint people in South West Africa to act on his behalf in that territory. What is also important, in the fourth place, is that it is the Government of South Africa which actually holds the mandate and not necessarily the House of Assembly, the Senate and the State President jointly.

Next we deal with Act 39 of 1968, more particularly with section 38 thereof which is now being amended. When we consult the Act, we see that the State President may legislate on any matter. This is nothing new, since this is a principle that has been in existence for a long time. This principle has never been abused. At the time not even our enemies at the World Court could point a finger at any instance of the State President’s power having been abused. So in considering the history of what has happened in practice, we have every reason to believe that everything will go well for this territory in future.

I cannot resist the temptation to refer to the speech made by the hon. member for Sea Point. He said two things in particular that struck me. Firstly, in placing this legislation on the Statute Book—apparently everybody agrees to it—we must remember that it is so that we are in actual fact complying with a request of the inhabitants of South West Africa. We are complying with their friendly request, but the hon. member for Sea Point says, “we have a harsh policy”. I cannot understand it—it is ridiculous. We are in fact giving the people what they are asking for, and he agrees that we should give it to them, but then, for foreign consumption, he comes up with the story: “We have a harsh policy”.

Secondly, we take cognizance of the fact that the automatic and natural fulfilment of our mandate would be to lead these people to freedom. That is the logical outcome of our mandate. We administer the territory, but we have to lead it to self-realization. That is in fact the UNO’s desire as it has been expressed for at least 17 years. But the hon. member for Sea Point says, “It is a humiliating parliamentary Act that we have before us today.” I think the hon. member for Vereeniging summarized it very accurately when he said that the hon. member had proved today that he spoke not with two tongues, but with at least three. He is not fit in any way to occupy any position of leadership in this country or this House.

The moderate and very patriotic attitude of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and even that of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, re-aroused in me a feeling of great esteem and respect. I also want to say that of the hon. member for Simonstown. We appreciate it. I, and to my mind many people in South West Africa appreciate it.

I want to state that because we need the legislation at this juncture, we cannot postpone it. It has been clearly stated that it is urgent, and we all agree on that. The next question is whether we can justify the placing of this legislation on the Statute Book to our voters. I want to state that it has been practice since at least 1925 that the State President may act on the advice of the Executive Council with regard to South West Africa. Section 16(1) of our Constitution states this very clearly—

Therefore we are now going to have two things. Firstly we are going to have what has been recognized by international law since 1925, and that is that the State President—then the Governor-General—and the Executive Council, in other words the Government or the Cabinet may legislate. The Government actually consists of senior members of the Senate and of the House of Assembly and what one has in reality, is, secondly, the full legislative authority of this country in miniature. In weighing up all these matters, I do not have the slightest doubt that I should add my vote to those supporting the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members who have expressed support for the Second Reading of this Bill in their speeches and in the process have made very constructive contributions to this debate. I thank the hon. Leader of the Opposition for the example he set other hon. members in the way in which he put his point of view, briefly and forcefully, on the necessity for and acceptability, even in this form, of the Bill. I appreciate it very much indeed. It was human, and the hon. Leader of the Opposition could not resist the temptation, indirectly to read me a lesson and to give me some advice. I accepted that in the spirit in which he did it. Bearing in mind the saying “He has advice for others, but none for himself”, I shall not comment on this at all. The hon. Leader raised the possibility of Walvis Bay as a free port. At this stage I cannot hold out any prospects for him in that respect. It is not as easy as it may seem. There are a vast number of facets to this matter; there are pros and cons to be weighed up. It is obvious that nothing hasty should be done about the position of Walvis Bay. In point of fact, it will only reach finality if and when the territory becomes independent. In the meanwhile, one has to take the necessary measures of course.

I shall not deal with the hon. member for Sea Point now. I shall do so at the end of my speech.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout—he will excuse me if I say that I am glad to have had the support of three of the four Opposition parties in this debate—raised an extremely important point, viz. that even if one were to remove all the Whites from South West Africa, one would still have a very problematical situation, because of the various nations in South West Africa. Three-quarters of our problems with South West Africa stem from the refusal of people abroad to accept that we are indeed dealing with various nations, with various population groups. There are people abroad who refuse to do otherwise than to treat them all alike and to see them all in the same light. Therefore it was a good thing that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout again drew attention to this specific aspect.

The hon. member also referred to the understandable disappointment amongst the leaders of the Turnhalle because they cannot have an interim government. I want to reiterate the position in this regard so that there may be no doubt about it whatsoever. If they had made such a request and not deviated from it, I would have been committed to them and, as I told them, in that case I would have had to introduce the necessary legislation to create an interim government regardless of the consequences. I decided not to do so soley because the Turnhalle itself, for understandable reasons, decided not to do so. They were afraid—that was the only motive on their part—that it would prejudice their international acceptance if they did not adopt the course which they eventually adopted.

The hon. member for Middelland gave an interesting survey of the history of South West Africa, a review which can be useful in appraising the situation before us.

†The hon. member for Simonstown asked me whether the final constitution for South West Africa will come back to this House. I presume it will, and I base this view on the standpoint—I am, of course, not the final authority as far as this is concerned; I shall have to consult the legal authorities—that for the courts to recognize the constitution it must emanate from some body which up to that stage had jurisdiction over the territory. Therefore I judge that the final constitution will either by way of the State President or by way of an Act of Parliament come back to this House for consideration.

*I come now to the hon. member for Sea Point. Everyone introducing a Bill in this Parliament would very much like the support of all hon. members for the measure. This is especially the case in the position in which I find myself. With such a delicate Bill as this one, one would like everyone to support it. Furthermore, as far as I, personally, am concerned, it so happens that it is very difficult for me to spend much time here in the House at this stage because there are so many matters which require my attention outside the House at this moment. Be that as it may, I want to record my disapproval, I want to go even further and say my contempt, so clearly for what the hon. member for Sea Point said that I want to tell him that I do not want his support for the Bill. I shall deeply regret it if he does not do what is in his heart, viz. to try to cause this legislation to miscarry. Apart from what the hon. member for Sea Point said, someone has just given me a copy of the mouthpiece of the PRP, a publication called Deurbraak. It contains an article written by a supporter and champion of the PRP …

Highly critical.

I have not even mentioned his name yet and I already have it from him. The article was written by a certain Mr. Serfontein. He is a champion and supporter of the PRP and I shall quote only two paragraphs to indicate the atmosphere the PRP is creating with regard to this debate, the atmosphere they are creating in this regard. Mr. Serfontein wrote—

Only a traitor can say that.

The hon. Minister of Defence is quite correct in his observation. I shall read the last paragraph of this article to hon. members an article which had to appear at this moment to create the necessary atmosphere. The last paragraph reads as follows—

[Interjections.] As far as I am concerned, that is the most scandalous article ever written in this scandalous mouthpiece of the PRP. I look forward with keen anticipation to a reaction from the leader of the PRP to rectify what is stated in this mouthpiece of the PRP. Because courtesy and the rules of the House require it of me, I shall reply to some of the arguments of the hon. member for Sea Point, otherwise I would have ignored him completely. I reply to him solely because the rules of the House and the spirit of the House expects of me that I should reply to some of his arguments. The hon. member referred to “this humiliating measure”. What this Bill contains to make it humiliating, I do not know. What is humiliating about introducing legislation to grant independence to a mandated territory, I cannot understand either, especially not in view of the fact that it has always been the standpoint of the Government—a standpoint which has often been debated here in the House—that the people of South West Africa should decide their own future, and in view of the fact that I said repeatedly that I was prepared to accept their decisions even if I did not agree with them myself.

The hon. member for Sea Point suggested that the Bill be referred to a select committee or to a commission. I think the hon. member was simply looking for something to say. I cannot imagine how he thinks either a select committee or a commission—in view of the speed that is required and the synchronization that has to take place—can make any contribution to this matter. Besides, a select committee or a commission has no power to act in this respect. In other words, the hon. member is only putting forward this suggestion because he does not want to agree with the Bill and because he is looking for something to say. He is doing so solely in order, besides the insulting things he has already said, to drag in other things as well. I gave this House as much information as possible on my negotiations with the representatives of the five Western countries. However, the hon. member for Sea Point does not listen to what one says. Surely I made it very clear to him that the representatives did not have the authority to finalize the matter. They first have to report back to their respective governments.

In spite of my having said that, the hon. member nevertheless wants to know what “agreements” I concluded with them. He asks this question, although I dealt with the matter in full and said that they could discuss it, but that their respective governments had the final say and that they had to report back to them.

I want to state candidly that even if I were in a position to furnish the hon. member with any information, I would, in view of his attitude and in view of the attitude of his publication, have thought twice before doing so. To tell the truth, I do not know what the hon. member is going to do with the information. I have to be on my guard against that, I have to be especially on my guard against the hon. member—I shall choose to use Parliamentary language—utilizing this information so irresponsibly that it could cause South Africa the greatest embarrassment imaginable.

Therefore I shall prefer to leave matters at that, and thank hon. members for their contributions. Tomorrow, in the Committee Stage, we shall deal with the matter to which the hon. Leader of the Opposition referred.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Chairman, in the closing stages of the debate on Friday the hon. the Minister indicated that he was prepared to accept my amendment on clause 12 and, therefore, I move the amendment standing in my name as follows—

Mr. Chairman, I accept the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 13:

Mr. Chairman, I notice the hon. the Minister is nodding his head so I take it that it is a nod of approval for this amendment and, therefore, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper as follows—

Mr. Chairman, I accept the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 14:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Germiston District, as follows—

1. (1) On page 16, in line 59, to omit “7” and to substitute “14”;
2. (2) on page 16, in line 63, to omit “satisfied” and to substitute “of the opinion”;
3. (3) on page 18, in line 24, to omit all the words after “(a)” up to and including “authority” in line 25 and to substitute:

Mr. Chairman, I accept the amendments.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 17:

Mr. Chairman, I understand the hon. the Minister will accept this amendment. Accordingly, I formally move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

Mr. Chairman, the amendment is acceptable to me.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 18:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Germiston District, as follows—

Mr. Chairman, I accept the amendment as a textual amendment of the English text of clause 18 of the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

New clause to follow clause 21:

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

In this Bill there are various provisions for notices to be served on the owner of a property. Notices may be served on an owner to prohibit the continuation of a building, to prohibit the commencement of building operations, to order the owner to proceed with or suspend building operations or to demolish certain buildings or certain structures. Various other orders can also be served on him. It is common knowledge that when one has fixed property, there is generally a third party who is involved in one way or another. Generally it is somebody who holds a bond and who has therefore an interest in the fixed property concerned. If, in terms of the Bill, a notice is served on an owner, for instance, to demolish a building which must have a certain intrinsic value on that property, and that building is demolished or if the building operations are suspended, I submit that the right of a bondholder would be prejudiced. It is for that reason that I believe this Bill should contain a provision which will compel an owner, when he receives such a notice, either from a local authority or from a higher authority, to notify any third party who has an interest in the property concerned. More particularly, he should notify the mortgagee, in other words, the bondholder. Of course, other persons are also involved, such as lessees and persons who hold a usufructuary right over the property. It is for that reason that I have moved this amendment.

It is all very well to place a responsibility on the owner to do such a thing. However, to make it work, it is necessary that there should also be a penalty in the event of the owner failing to do so. In my amendment I have therefore made provision that he should be subject to the penalty clause contained in the Bill.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member’s amendment is not acceptable to me. I wish to point out immediately that the relationship between the parties can, in any case, be arranged by contract. This is the first argument which the hon. member used. The question arises whether we should make this a criminal offence under those specific circumstances. The second argument against the amendment is that the list which the hon. member has drawn up of people who may have an interest, is not a comprehensive list. At this stage I wish to suggest that the hon. member does not continue with the amendment so that I can consider all the facets of the amendment during the recess. I have an idea which I wish to put to him, and that is that when a court issues an order, for which provision is made in clause 21, it will most probably give instructions as to who must be notified of the order which it may issue. For the sake of good order I think it would be better if I investigated the matter. Perhaps I can even deal with it by way of regulation. The hon. member’s list with regard to people who may have rights to the property, is in any case, as I have already said, not comprehensive. Therefore I ask him whether he would consider holding his amendment back. I shall investigate it during the recess, and, if necessary, I shall come back to the House.

Mr. Chairman, I have listened to what the hon. the Minister has said. I agree with him that the list of the persons concerned may not be comprehensive. I appreciate his undertaking to have another look at this matter. I sincerely hope that he will do something about ensuring the rights of third parties. The intention behind this amendment is to ensure the rights of third parties. With the approval of the Committee, under those circumstances I will withdraw the amendment.

Proposed new clause, with leave, withdrawn.

Clause 25:

Mr. Chairman, this clause is the presumption clause and it reads as follows—

This matter, as we all know, forms the nub of the Opposition by this side to this Bill. I appeal to the hon. the Minister to listen very carefully to the arguments that we advance here this afternoon. The Hon. the Minister shakes his head; therefore I am going to go ahead because I realize that we have a fight on our hands and we are going to put to the hon. the Minister exactly how we feel about the matter.

The hon. the Minister, in his reply or in his introduction to the Second Reading, mentioned the fact that in the Other Place he had suggested that the official Opposition should look at this clause very carefully to see whether they could not produce an amendment which would satisfy them. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that we have looked at this clause very carefully and we find it so objectionable that we cannot, and will not, produce any amendment to it. We are going to suggest that this clause be removed from the Bill. We are going to vote against it completely for the following reasons. I am going to go through them again ad nauseam if the hon. the Minister would like.

This clause is another breach of what is basically the law as we have known it for so long in this country, namely that an accused is innocent until such time as he is proved by the State to be guilty. If one reads this clause very carefully, one will find that the only obligation on the prosecution is to produce a charge-sheet in which is set out the allegation that the accused, at a certain period, being a builder or an engineer in charge of that particular construction project on a particular building at a certain place, failed to comply with the requirements in regard to the standard of quality, for instance, of materials, laid down in terms of regulations which will be promulgated in terms of this Bill. All the State has to do thereafter, is to lead evidence to show that the accused was in fact the engineer, the builder or the workman and that there was a building that was erected on this particular plot by the accused. That is all the State has to do. The onus is then cast upon the accused to rebut this presumption that he is guilty. This cuts right across, as I said just now, the procedures that we have always adopted. There are numerous examples of statutory presumptions which exist in our law today. Those statutory presumptions are usually provided where it is absolutely impossible for the State to prove the commission of the offence. In this regard I can give two examples that I wish to mention to the hon. the Minister. The first is the presumption that an owner is the driver of a motor vehicle. The other one falls under the provisions of the Stock Theft Act, where a person in possession of stock, which is reasonably suspected of being stolen, commits an offence unless he gives evidence to the contrary. Similar provisions relate to the question of the possession of diamonds.

In this regard mere possession is regarded as being for the purposes of sale, unless the accused proves to the contrary. All these matters relate to an offence where it is virtually impossible for the State to prove the commission of the offence. In his reply to the Second Reading debate, the hon. the Minister mentioned the question of the Agricultural Produce Agency Sales Act. That particular provision, as I said by way of an interjection when he made the speech, is totally disrelated to this presumption clause. That particular provision, which the hon. the Minister now appears to be introducing throughout his legislation is in regard to the vicarious responsibility of an employer for the acts of his employees, and has nothing to do with this presumption at all. The hon. the Minister should know that. He must not try to draw a little smoke-screen across the whole situation by saying that we have agreed to a similar type of legislation on previous occasions. Let us come back to the clause.

In the Other Place the hon. the Minister recently said the following (Senate Hansard No. 8 of 1977, col. 2424)—

Further on he said (Senate Hansard No. 8 of 1977, col 2425) …

But you are not allowed to quote that; it is during the same session.

Yes, I can.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister: Why is it that the State cannot prove its case under these particular conditions? What contraventions are going to be so difficult to prove? These contraventions relate only to the question of standard or quality of materials, design or workmanship. Is it impossible for the State to test the standard of materials of a building which has been built for some time? I believe it is quite possible for the State to get expert evidence to prove whether the standard of materials was correct or not. What is the position in regard to the quality of the materials? The State can get evidence from those who were employed on the construction site in order to ascertain what quality of materials were used. With a little bit of investigation, the investigating officer can easily ascertain that information. What about the standard of design? The design plans are all presented to the various authorities in terms of the Act itself. In regard to the question of workmanship, it is again a matter of the investigating officer finding out and obtaining evidence in relation to the question of the quality of workmanship.

Another aspect which I want the hon. the Minister to think of very carefully is the temptation on the part of the State to take steps and to rely on this provision in every case where there is a building failure. What will be the effect of that? It may be that the building failure has been caused as a result of a natural occurrence, e.g. an underwater situation, a subsidence of some sort, or another completely natural occurrence. There will be this temptation on the part of the prosecutor to say that all he need do is to allege and the accused will then have to prove to the contrary. What will be the effect of that? It will be that the poor building owner, or the engineer if it is a structural aspect, through no fault of his own will have to go to enormous expense to produce sufficient evidence to show that in point of fact he did not contravene any of the standards laid down. The Minister himself in the Other Place recently referred to this point.

The Minister need not think that I do not know the rules of this House, I can quote from his speech as much as I like. [Interjections.] No, the hon. the Minister was trying to put me off. I want to quote from the Senate Hansard No. 8 of 1977, col. 2424, what he said—

I want to know from the hon. the Minister whether he in fact has any doubts.

No.

He has not got any doubts. Well, we certainly have. We certainly have got lots of doubts. I believe that if the Minister had no doubts he would not have had to say this. We would assume that if it led to an injustice he would change it.

You know in what context that was said.

Yes, I know in what context it was said. It was exactly in context with what we are discussing at the moment, exactly the same.

Mr. Chairman, this clause places an onus on an accused person to prove his or her innocence. Guilt is presumed unless otherwise proved. It has become popular on the other side to sneer when hon. members on these benches talk about the rule of law. We sincerely believe that this is a further erosion of individual rights and a breach of the rule of law. The hon. the Minister did point out at Second Reading the difficulties he had with respect to this, and one appreciates those difficulties. For example, he said it was difficult to dismantle a building to find out whether or not an offence had been committed. No reasonable person can expect that the State will have to dismantle a building to prove that an offence has been committed. The standpoint of the members on these benches is that it would be equally difficult for the accused to have to dismantle a building to prove his point. Surely, when periodic inspections have taken place relating to the standards of workmanship, when drawings have been submitted and plans passed, it should not be necessary for this presumption to be here. We will vote against this clause and we ask the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to supporting its exclusion from the Bill.

Mr. Chairman, this clause places too heavy an onus on the accused to discharge. Furthermore, it is an unreasonable presumption. For these reasons and also for the reasons that we advanced in the Second Reading we of the SAP will oppose this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I want to finish off what I was saying to the hon. the Minister and repeat my question relating to what may lead to an injustice. I know that the hon. the Minister knows a lot about auctioneering and a little about law as well. Surely he will appreciate it when I say to him that I believe that under these particular circumstances what he should do is to say that if it gives rise to a difficulty on the part of the State to prove its case, he can come with amending legislation to bring in a presumption, if it is found that it is absolutely necessary. Instead of putting the presumption in here now, with all the dangerous situations which may arise in relation to the onus being cast on the accused, rather let him look at it the other way and delete it from the Bill and bring it in if he finds that it is in fact impossible or nearly impossible for the State to prove its case in this regard.

Mr. Chairman, I believe the hon. the Minister has been very reasonable this afternoon. He has agreed to quite a number of amendments that have been moved by the Opposition. I believe he should also look at this again very carefully. After all, he is facing opposition not only from the official Opposition, but also from the PRP and the SAP.

That is very unusual.

The whole lot oppose it. This is the result of careful thought. Unfortunately there has been no participation from other members on the Government side. Perhaps one of them could get up and give his views. I believe the hon. the Minister must look at this again very carefully and give us his final undertaking that he will withdraw this provision. Failing that, we shall vote against the clause.

Mr. Chairman, it is entirely parliamentary for the hon. member for East London City to oppose the clause. No one can deprive him of that right. In the nature of the matter, I am not prepared to withdraw the clause, for the reasons I have already mentioned.

Let me react very briefly to what hon. members have said. The fact that the Opposition group in the middle and the Opposition group on the other side over there are voting with the group of the hon. member for East London City does not make their arguments any more acceptable. There are people who think that there is little difference between them in any event.

Let me tell the hon. member for East London City, who often congratulates himself on his legal knowledge, what is at issue.

He knows quite a lot.

I am not disputing it; he knows quite a lot, but not enough. Let me say in all fairness that in the first place, we are dealing with two matters. The first is the issue of legal presumption, and the second concerns the circumstances in which it may be justified. That is what is at issue. I shall come to the hon. member for Orange Grove presently. Apparently, like the hon. member for Amanzimtoti, he objects to this in principle. He is opposed to legal presumptions, in any event. The fact is that in the first instance, the issue here is a legal presumption. Whether he wants to admit it or not, the hon. member for East London City and his party have voted in favour of a legal presumption which makes the onus of rebuttal far more difficult than it is in this case. Let me prove this. I shall be very brief. In any event, the hon. member will not agree with me since we have differing standpoints in the matter. The hon. member, being a lawyer, knows that when the onus is on the State to submit evidence, it has to do so beyond any reasonable doubt. The hon. member also knows that when there is a legal presumption, all the accused has to do is to prove his case on the balance of probability. This means that a less difficult onus rests on the accused than on the State.

Yes.

The hon. member concedes that. Let us now take a look at what the hon. member voted for. He voted for a legal presumption which determines that when there is a complaint, it is not enough for the accused to prove that he did not commit or connive at the act or omission in question and secondly, it is also not enough to show that he had taken reasonable steps to prevent the act or omission. I contend that that places an onus on the accused which is far more difficult to rebut than is the case here. I think that in this respect the hon. member will agree with me.

Let us look at his second argument. Once again I want to deal with it in brief because I know that the hon. member will not agree with me. There is a legal presumption to which I referred and which the hon. member and his party voted in favour of. In my opinion, that legal presumption makes the onus resting on the accused more difficult to rebut than does this legal presumption. Secondly, in my opinion it is less difficult to prove an offence in this case than is the case with regard to an infringement of the regulations to be made in terms of clause 17. Permit me to furnish a practical example. This is a practical example for the hon. member for Walmer as well. Of course plans and specifications are submitted for approval. The issue here is specifically a deviation from the specific plans and specifications. I want to put forward just one element as an example. The plans provide that for the sake of the safety of a building, the concrete reinforcement must contain X% of steel. If the contractor deviates from the prescribed plan, then to the state this would mean that in order to discharge the onus of proof, it would have to break down the concrete reinforcement in question. I see that the hon. member agrees with me. In my opinion this would not be possible. However if an allegatiom is made against an accused, all he has to do is to …

[Inaudible.]

Just a moment. Mr. Chairman, I did not interrupt the hon. member. I just want to try and make my statement. These are technical matters. All the accused has to do is to submit the invoices of the concern where he bought the steel. He can also call as witness the man who did the work. After that no one can dispute it. However, those facts are only at the disposal of the accused, and not at the disposal of the complainant. That is true, after all.

[Inaudible.]

It is true, after all. In conclusion I just want to say that I am not prepared to withdraw the clause. If he wants to the hon. member can go on arguing about this ad nauseam and taking up the time of the House. I have said all I want to, and I want to repeat what I have already said, viz. that the allegation that this presumption could lead to inequitable action does not convince me. The moment I am convinced of that, I myself shall amend the provision.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister has completely missed the point of the arguments which have been advanced by this side of the House in opposition to this clause. Therefore I wish to spend a little time to make the position clear to him. We believe that the principle of our law that an accused is not guilty until he is proved to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, is a sound principle and should generally be adhered to.

That is not to say—and I think that the Government also accepts it—that in certain instances we have supported a presumption placing an onus on accused persons. That is perfectly correct. We have done so, and it is not therefore—because we are totally opposed, in every instance, to the placing of such an onus on an accused person—that we oppose this clause. We oppose it because of the effect which it will have. We oppose it, firstly, because we believe that the normal principle of our law should be adhered to in this instance. But we oppose it above all because it can certainly lead to injustices.

The hon. the Minister makes the fatal mistake of saying that the accused person— that is to say, the person against whom a charge has been laid in respect of a building failure—is necessarily a person who knows that a particular building standard has not been complied with. I ask the hon. the Minister to consider how many persons could be accused in respect of a building failure in terms of this presumption. It could be the supplier of the materials. It could be the architect. It could be the engineer. It could be the structural engineer. It could be the concreting engineer. It could be many other persons that one could go on naming. It could be the manufacturer of the product or it could be any number …

That is so. What is your problem?

Supposing the fault lies with the faulty manufacture of a particular material and the person who is accused is the constructural engineer: that man is not in a position to know that the fault lay with a faulty material. The hon. the Minister shakes his head. But, of course, that is so!

Does the hon. member agree that there is mens rea in this clause?

Let us not get involved with all sorts of legal terms that may mean one thing to the hon. the Minister and another thing to a judge.

Surely, the law means the same thing to everybody?

I am assuming that in a court of law it would mean the same thing to everybody, but in this Committee it does not mean the same thing to everybody because we are not all trained lawyers.

I am talking about the hon. member and myself.

All right, even if it is between the hon. the Minister and myself, it does not help to get involved with Latin terms. I accept what the hon. the Minister says, namely that where an onus is placed on an accused, he does not have to discharge that onus beyond a reasonable doubt. He has to discharge it on a balance of probabilities. That is perfectly correct; but that does not get over the problem that I have just put to the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister says that the accused is necessarily the person who has knowledge of the cause of the building failure. If he is the supplier of materials or the manufacturer of materials, and if the building failure was due to a fault in the manufacture of a particular material manufactured by the accused, then the accused may, not necessarily will, even in those circumstances, bear knowledge of it, but nobody else along the whole line of construction will have that knowledge. Yet everybody else along the whole line of construction could be an accused person, because the State does not have to do any investigation to see what caused that building fault. All they need do is allege that there has been a building failure and they can charge anybody along the whole line of manufacture, construction, etc. Therefore it does not help the hon. the Minister to say that the accused person is necessarily the person who bears that knowledge. That is why we say that there not only can be, but probably will be injustice as a result of this presumption. It is no good the hon. the Minister just looking very vague and looking away at the clock and carrying on as though he has already decided on this matter, decided that he is obviously right. We know that this hon. Minister is a very arrogant man, but perhaps sometimes he could consider the possibility that he may be wrong. I would therefore suggest to the hon. the Minister that he should have a rethink on this clause because he is undoubtedly wrong in his attitude to this clause and he will be found to be wrong when this clause is put into practice. Unfortunately, in the process of the hon. the Minister being proved wrong, there will be accused persons who will be placed in a position where they will suffer injustice because they will not be to blame and it will be almost impossible for them even to discharge an onus on a balance of probabilities because, as the hon. the Minister has pointed out, in many cases of a building failure, unless the building is dismantled, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to find out exactly what the cause of that failure has been.

Mr. Chairman, I support the argument of the hon. member for Musgrave. However, there are some other very serious difficulties attached to this presumption. The hon. the Minister makes the point that this is just like any other presumption and that an accused person only has to rebut the matter on a balance of probabilities. He is quite wrong, Mr. Chairman. This is a totally different presumption from almost every other presumption we have in our law. I shall just give some examples. In our law, to prove side issues in relation to offences such as drunken driving on a public road, it is provided that, if it is proved that one was driving on a road, it will be presumed that it was a public road. If the hon. the Minister understands the concept of balance of probabilities, which I accept he does, he will realize that one weighs the one bit of evidence up against the other and balances them to see which way the balance tips. This is known as the balance of probabilities. However, what is the presumption here? It says that the allegation in the charge-sheet is proof. No evidence need be led at all. There is no evidence necessary at all. Simply an allegation on the charge-sheet serves as the proof; so how does one weigh the balance of probabilities? How does one weigh up the evidence of the accused against the allegation in the charge-sheet? It is totally impossible to do so because there are not two bits of evidence to weigh up against each other. We have here an extraordinary onus placed on the accused where simply an allegation on the charge-sheet is proof.

The next point that I want to make is that this does not relate to a side issue or a technical issue such as a public road, for example, or who the driver of a car was. We all know that if one proves who the owner of a motor-car is, that person is presumed to be the driver of the car in terms of most ordinances relating to road traffic. That I understand, but in this case, with regard to the essence of the offence, it is said that if somebody is charged, he is guilty. It really boils down to saying, for example, that somebody charged with robbery or murder is guilty unless he can prove that it is not so on the balance of probabilities. We are here talking about the essence of the offence; not a side issue.

I really do want to make the strong suggestion to the hon. the Minister that this is not a case where one can balance probabilities because the allegation in the charge-sheet is, in terms of this clause, sufficient proof. Therefore, we oppose the clause.

Mr. Chairman, I want to react to the speech by the hon. member for Durban North by telling him at once that I do not agree with his inference. The clause contains a presumption concerning a fact and not concerning guilt The hon. member knows that is correct, and it is therefore incorrect to say that the allegation that someone has committed an offence is sufficient to find him guilty. In terms of the clause one has to prove the connection between the accused and the complainant. There must be a connection between the accused and the complainant.

The hon. member for East London City has already pointed this out and the hon. member knows it is correct. The hon. member knows that it is necessary to prove this connection. I do not want to go into this any further because evidence in this connection is already on record. Although there is a presumption of a specific fact, the cause or connection still has to be proved. I am quite prepared to debate that aspect with the hon. member. However the hon. members are prepared to support presumptions which place an onus on the accused which is more difficult to rebut than is the case here. I refer to the legislation concerning the sale of agricultural products by agencies, which was supported by both the PRP and the official Opposition. [Interjections.] The hon. member cannot argue with me in this regard. It is in Hansard if he wants to read it. The Committee Stage and the Third Reading of the legislation were passed without debate. The hon. member should not therefore say that that is not true; it is a fact.

However, I want to go further and point out that in that case it was an issue of the sale of agricultural products, whereas here the issue is one of people’s lives that could be in danger. I gain the impression that hon. members opposite are more interested in defending alleged accusations than protecting the interests of other people who may be prejudiced by their actions or omissions.

Clause put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—90: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. G; Brandt, J. W.; 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. G; Greeff, J. W.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, 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.; Koomhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J.; (Hercules); Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Mouton, C. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, D. J. L.; Niemann, J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Scott, D. B.; Simkin, C. H. W.; Smit, H. H.; Steyn, D. W.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van der Watt, L.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Wyk, A. C; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. P. C. le Roux, P. C. Roux, A van Breda and C. V. van der Merwe.

Noes—41: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. L; De Villiers, R. M.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthoven’t Hooft, R. E.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Lorimer, R. J.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Miller, H.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Page, B. W. B.; Pitman, S. A.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: W. G. Kingwill and W. M. Sutton. Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Third Reading

Mr. Speaker, I move subject to Standing Order No. 56—

Mr. Speaker, in this the last stage of the passage of this Bill through Parliament, I may say that it has certainly come a long way since it was first tabled in the Other Place. In fact, this Bill is quite a different Bill from the one which was first tabled in the Other Place. During the Committee Stage taken there, some 39 amendments were passed. These amendments, I believe, removed most of the objections which many people had in respect of the proposed legislation. As a result of the Committee Stage which we have just completed, we now find that a further 10 amendments have been passed which we in these benches believe have improved the Bill still further.

An awful lot has been said about this Bill and I do not intend to take up much time of the House this evening. I should like to say, however, that I am particularly pleased that the hon. the Minister has seen fit to amend clause 17 so that he will now pass regulations after consultation with the council of the SABS. I would appeal to him to ensure that his department in future liaises very closely with the engineering and the architectural institutions in respect of any regulations to be passed in future.

We in these benches are in full agreement with the broad principles of this Bill. We believe that it is going to have many benefits for South Africa, especially in respect of the standardization of building regulations and specifications in the interests of the community and the South African economy. We also believe that this Bill will result in an improvement in the standard of building. Thirdly, we believe that this Bill will now grant to local authorities the powers for which many of them have asked in the past, powers which will enable them to ensure that buildings in the local community will be built in a manner which will be a credit to that particular community.

In conclusion, I should like to say that we are not going to support this Bill for the reasons that were clearly stated during the Committee Stage, viz. the hon. the Minister’s refusal to remove the presumption clause, i.e. clause 25. When the time comes for a final decision on this, we shall not be supporting this particular Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we in these benches have three major objections to this Bill and for those reasons we will be unable to support it at Third Reading. I want to summarize very quickly. I am not going to chew old bones. In the first place the Bill constitutes an erosion of the rights of local authorities in the form of centralization. We believe it builds an unnecessary bureaucratic odifice. In support of this, I want to raise one matter that I have not raised before with the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister described clause 17 of the Bill as “die kernklousule van die hele wetsontwerp”. In clause 17(2) of the Bill we read the following—

In other words, we are not even standardizing through this Bill. We are allowing a vast divergence of different areas. It makes it very difficult to understand why it is necessary to have this Bill at all and why it is necessary to take these powers away from local authorities. Why is it necessary to have centralized control when local authorities will have full knowledge of local conditions. By all means, the hon. the Minister can be as persuasive as possible to try to make local authorities accept standards that are suggested by the SABS or by the National Building Research Institute, but why force it if, according to the provisions in clause 17(2) of the Bill, he is making provision for differentials right around the country? The final point why we disagree also has relevance in this regard. Clause 2 states that the legislation will not bind the State. We are not even binding the State. Public buildings need not comply with any standardized building regulations. Not only are we allowing a diversity of regulations right around the country. We also do not bind the State. I would like to restress the point that I made during the Second Reading debate, i.e. that it is in fact the State that should be bound by these building regulations and should comply with minimum standards. If we are spending public money correctly, the State must comply with minimum standards. If minimum standards were not required, there might have been some excuse for this. We cannot carry on with the State being absolved from any responsibility in this regard.

Finally, in regard to the presumption-of-guilt clause, we cannot agree to that clause. We have argued the matter at length this afternoon. We must take exception to the inclusion of that clause. These three major objections make it impossible for us to support the Bill at Third Reading.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill is of tremendous importance to the building industry in South Africa. Together with the regulations, it will eventually make out a blueprint for the building industry in South Africa. During the Second Reading debate we made it very clear that a Bill like this is needed in South Africa. We also made it very clear to the hon. the Minister that we felt that this Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. The necessity for that has been abundantly proved by the number of amendments that the hon. the Minister was forced to accept both in the Other Place and in this House. We also told the hon. the Minister that there were certain major municipalities who were opposed to the Bill being passed during this session. They felt the Bill should have gone to a Select Committee. For the reasons we stated we were against the Bill at that stage. I do not want to rehash all the arguments that were put during the Second Reading debate so I want to conclude by saying that on the grounds of the arguments we advanced during the Second Reading, we are opposed also to the Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to reply briefly to the Third Reading debate. The hon. member for Walmer only raised one point, viz. that he thought that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. The evidence he quotes to support his standpoint is a number of amendments I have accepted. From that one could only make one necessary inference, viz. that legislation referred to a Select Committee comes back to this House without amendments. But surely the hon. member is aware of what happened with the various pieces of legislation that were referred to the Select Committees. All that happened was that the Select Committee sat for weeks and that those who could not get their way there simply placed another amendment on the Order Paper for discussion here in this House. Instead of arguing that a reasonable standpoint was being adopted on this side of the House in that we were accepting the two amendments necessary, he argues that this is a reason for a Select Committee to be appointed. In the second place I want to tell him and other members that I have to go to people concerned with building activities across the entire spectrum and not a single body—and that includes the United Municipal Executive—does not support the legislation. Does the hon. member really want to ask me to listen to the individual standpoint of every city council? Surely in the nature of the matter that is impracticable.

I now come to the hon. member for Orange Grove and I want to tell him once again that in contrast to his argument that the State should be bound, there is not a single regulation or ordinance relating to building standards to which the State is subject. There is not even one obliging the State to submit building plans to local authorities, but the legislation we are now considering does in fact contain the provision that except in the case of certain exceptions, building plans and specifications must be submitted by the State to the local authorities in whose area of jurisdiction the building is to be constructed for their information and commentary to the State itself. In other words, in that provision the fact is implicit, not only that the State must comply with the new standards, but also that the State must take into account the responsibilities of the local authorities with regard to city planning, traffic, etc. After all, the hon. member had an opportunity to submit an amendment to this effect during the Committee Stage, if he had wanted to. Why did he not do so?

I did move one. I moved that on clause 2.

I am sorry, I withdraw the accusation. Secondly, the hon. member argues that if we seek standardization, why are we now providing for the fact that in various areas, various standards will apply. Is the hon. member not aware of the fact that there are differing climatic conditions in different parts of the country? In fact we want to establish regional committees to investigate this specific aspect in regard to the various regions. The standpoint of the hon. member for Amanzimtoti is briefly that he supports the legislation with the exception of clause 25. He does not accept clause 25 but otherwise he supports the legislation.

Question agreed to (Official Opposition, Progressive Reform Party and South African Party dissenting).

Bill read a Third Time.

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

This amendment refers to the definition of “Treasury” only, and I have moved it so as to bring the definition contained in this Bill into line with the definition of “Treasury” contained in the Exchequer and Audit Act, 1975 (Act No. 66 of 1975).

Mr. Chairman, we will support this amendment, much as we do not like the principle. The hon. the Minister will recollect that at the time when we discussed the Exchequer and Audit Bill, we said that we felt that this sort of job, especially when it comes to a responsible position like this, should be delegated directly by the Minister. Today, however, we will not oppose this amendment because it is existing legislation.

I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he has considered very carefully the definitions contained in here and most particularly the definition of “petroleum product”. The hon. the Minister knows that in the regulations which he has published previously in the Government Gazette in terms of the National Supplies Procurement Act, he had definite definitions of diesel, oil, petrol, and so on. Also, in the draft regulations which were circulated for comment regarding the re-issue and disposal of used mineral oil, the Minister has a definition of “new oil”, “used oil”, “re-refined oil”, “crude oil” and so on. I do know that in terms of clause 2(2) he will be empowered to issue regulations governing different classes of petroleum products. I do not intend wasting the time of the Committee this afternoon with arguing and recommending various amendments to provide for definitions of all these different products, but I want to ask the hon. the Minister in all sincerity to have another look at his proposed regulations before he takes the Bill to the Other Place and perhaps to consider introducing the various definitions in the Bill instead of just the one definition, viz. that of “petroleum product”. Perhaps he will consider that before he takes the Bill to the Other Place.

Mr. Chairman, I want to be very brief and tell the hon. member that I am satisfied that the definition of “petroleum product” is wide enough to cover the definitions in the old regulations. I can give the hon. member the assurance, however, that I shall reconsider the matter before the Bill reaches the Other Place.

The idea is just to eliminate any possible confusion.

Yes, I shall look at it again.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 2:

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

1. (1) On page 2, in line 29, to omit “by” and to substitute “by registered or certified”;
2. (2) on page 4, in line 2, after “storage” to insert “, disposal, recycling”;
3. (3) on page 4, in lines 4 to 22, to omit paragraph (b).
4. (4) on page 4, in line 23, after “the” to insert “maximum”.

Sir, clause 2 is of course the most important clause in this Bill. It empowers the hon. the Minister to control certain things either by regulation or by notice in writing served on any person or persons. The first point which I think must be taken in regard to this particular clause is that when a notice in writing is served on a person by post, it has always been accepted that this should be either by registered or certified post. It is for that reason that I moved my first amendment.

The reason for my second amendment is that I believe one of the powers the hon. the Minister will require if he is to make this Bill work is the power to regulate the disposal of used oil. In other words, he must be able to regulate whether people can simply take out the tap and allow the oil to pour on to the ground or whether they should be compelled to conserve the oil and to send it to a re-refining plant for recycling. I know this matter has exercised the hon. the Minister’s mind in the past, because during June of last year he circulated a set of draft regulations relating to the disposal or use of used mineral oil. In those regulations he proposed to regulate that certain persons in certain areas shall be compelled to conserve used motor oil and not simply to throw it down the drain, spill it on the ground or use it to settle the dust on their driveways. This is particularly true of motor garages. The regulations were also to provide that certain people should be compelled to deliver that used motor oil to recycling plants, purifying plants. I am sure that the hon. the Minister is aware that oil does not break down: it only gets dirty. All that one really has to do is to remove the impurities and one has the original product back. Germany, for instance, recycles more than 40% of its requirements of lubricating oil. This can be a major means of conserving fuel in this country. Taking this definition of “petroleum product” as a globular one, the hon. the Minister is given powers so that he may—

He also has the power to regulate or prohibit the purchase, sale, supply, acquisition, possession, storage or transportation of any petroleum product, but he has not got the power to pass these regulations. I submit that as the Bill stands at the moment, he will not have the power to promulgate these regulations because it is not provided for in the Bill that he should have this power. That is the reason why I move that we should insert the words “disposal” and “recycling”. This will enable the hon. the Minister to regulate those activities in the interests of conserving petroleum in the country.

We then come to paragraph (b) of subsection (1). This is the section which we find totally abhorrent. As was argued by the hon. member for Von Brandis at Second Reading and as was argued by other hon. members in this House, this is nothing more than a blatant invasion of private enterprise by the hon. the Minister. In terms of this paragraph the hon. the Minister is asking us to allow him to interfere in the whole of the petroleum industry in this country, even to the extent of being able to say to a garage owner who wishes to change from selling Shell petrol to Mobil petrol that he may not change, or to say to him that he will not allow him to sell Mobil petrol and that he must in fact sell Caltex petrol. I believe that this is not necessary. We entirely support the principle of saving and economizing in the use of petroleum products, but we do not believe that the Minister requires these Draconian powers to achieve that object. It is for that reason that I have moved the third amendment.

We now come to paragraph (c) of subsection (1) which provides that the Minister may by regulation “prescribe the price at which any petroleum product may be sold by any person”. We are not in favour of price control, but we believe that there are occasions when it is necessary. This is one of the occasions where we believe that price control is necessary. Then, again, we believe that if price control is practised, there should not be an absolute price, but that only a maximum price should be laid down and that the forces of free trade and the free market should be allowed to work from there. I do not believe that the Minister should be allowed, as he asks here, to fix an absolute price. As the clause reads at the moment, he has the power to fix an absolute price and to compel every person who deals in petroleum products to charge that price, whether it concerns petrol, oil, liquid petroleum gas, or whatever. Incidentally, when one looks at the definition of “petroleum product”, one sees it could also include petroleum jelly and I think the hon. the Minister knows what petroleum jelly is: it is vaseline. I am sure it is not his intention to include that.

What about butter?

In terms of the Bill as it stands at the moment, the Minister may fix an absolute price. We believe that this is wrong and that he should only fix a maximum price. It is for that reason that I have moved the fourth amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I want to raise something with the hon. the Minister. It does not concern any amendment that has been moved. I would just like to have an assurance from the hon. the Minister that when framing the regulations in terms of this particular clause, he will bear in mind something I have already mentioned to him before. That is the regulating of the hours during which petrol may be supplied by filling stations.

I would like to remind the hon. the Minister that coastal holiday resorts are presently experiencing a loss of trade. It is brought about by the way schools break up just before weekends, something which prevents people from up-country to set out immediately for coastal holiday resorts. The schools of the Free State and the Transvaal, for instance, normally break up at 12 noon on a Friday. That prevents people from making their journeys to the coast until the weekend is over. In this way two whole days of the school holidays are being lost. Those are two days merely spent by people waiting at home for Monday to come so that they can obtain petrol for their journey.

The same thing applies when schools re-open. Schools normally re-open on a Tuesday. That compels people to leave their coastal holiday resort on the previous Friday. They cannot possibly get home on one tank of fuel, which means they are not at all capable of travelling on Saturdays. In this way, it is felt, another two days of the holidays are being lost. For holiday-makers using caravans this means a loss of four days on their holidays. This especially affects the children. It deprives them of four extra days they could spend at the coast eating bananas, something which is very important. [Interjections.] Of course, this also involves losses to accommodation establishments, because people who would normally stay longer at hotels, boarding-houses and holiday flats, are now forced to arrive there later and and to leave earlier than they would normally have left. The solution to this is very simple. All the hon. the Minister has to do, is to consider allowing filling stations to remain open on the first and last Saturdays of school holidays. The hon. the Minister could perhaps allow filling stations to remain open until noon or 1 p.m. on those particular Saturdays. No extra petrol will be used. I do not feel that petrol would be wasted.

A step like this would also contribute to road safety, because it will spread the holiday traffic over the entire week-end. I would like an assurance from the hon. the Minister that he will remember this when framing his new regulations.

Mr. Chairman, I want to indicate that we will be supporting the amendments moved by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. I would like though to add one point in this respect. I want to point out that the hon. the Minister is taking unto himself and unto his department extremely wide powers to control in every respect the activities of the oil industry. I want to know whether the hon. the Minister, before taking these powers and before setting up this extensive structure, has in fact investigated the possibility of the effective use of the oil industry in South Africa as it stands today. The oil industry has a very effective industrial organization and a very efficient marketing organization. It exists and its bona fides and efficiency are beyond question.

Everything the hon. the Minister wants to achieve can be achieved, but in a far more positive and effective way, if he does so by motivating the oil companies to do the job for him; in other words, by motivating them to carry out the requirements of this legislation and by using their organization to carry out these requirements. It is purely a matter of motivation and co-operation. If the hon. the Minister is prepared to do that, I believe, he would be able to avoid setting up a huge, clumsy bureaucracy which can in fact only result in ill feeling between the industry and the department concerned, and which could result in a negative response from the private sector. The hon. the Minister in this legislation can determine which supplier will supply to which outlet. In other words, it is not a matter of outlets choosing their suppliers, or suppliers being in a position to compete for outlets, but in terms of this legislation the hon. the Minister actually goes so far as to be able to determine which supplier will supply which outlet.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South has indicated that the hon. the Minister can prescribe the price at which particular products will be sold. We agree that, certainly in some cases, maximum prices or price control is necessary to protect the public, but equally in the interests of the public, it is necessary to allow the free enterprise system to operate and thereby to reduce prices in order to sell their products.

As we said in the Second Reading debate, it is not a matter of not being sympathetic about the aims of the hon. the Minister, viz. the maximum conservation of the fuel resources of South Africa, but we have difficulty with the manner in which the hon. the Minister goes about bringing his aims into effect. We are suspicious about the structure that the hon. the Minister is creating in order to do this. For that reason we are in support of the amendments moved by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South.

Mr. Chairman, let me begin once again with the hon. member for Bryanston. What surprises me is that hon. members of that party stand up in this House and speak without having the vaguest idea what they are talking about. What are the facts? The fact is that there are no powers in this legislation which I do not already have in terms of the Act relating to …

[Inaudible.]

Just give me a chance. I am acquiring no significant powers in terms of this legislation which I do not already have in terms of the National Supplies Procurement Act. However, I have already pointed out in my Second Reading speech that the main purpose of that Act was to provide for action aimed at the security of the country, but because we are now dealing with different circumstances, I am now introducing this Bill, which concerns petroleum products only. I have already said this in the course of my Second Reading speech, but the hon. member was not listening. He is so fond of his own voice that he only listens to himself.

In the second place, the hon. member wanted to know why I did not make use of the organizations of the oil companies. I read a letter to the House in my reply to the Second Reading debate from which it was clear that the oil companies had requested this legislation.

All of them?

Yes, all of them were with me.

And they all support the Bill?

Yes, they all support the Bill in its present form.

Without exception?

Yes, without exception.

Without reservation? [Interjections.]

Does the hon. member not want to understand that they support the Bill?

In the third place, the hon. member maintains that I am now going to establish a bureaucracy. Where does the hon. member get that idea from? The fact is that in a broad sense, these measures are already being applied by my existing staff. Where on earth does the hon. member get that argument from? He has not even taken the elementary trouble to check his facts.

He spoke about the price clause, whereas he knows that in terms of existing legislation I am empowered to determine a maximum or fixed price. The hon. member made a plea that the free market mechanism should determine the price. However, there is a specific reason for his plea. You see, Sir, apart from the conservation measures, the Bill is aimed at the proper distribution of fuel. It is very easy for major undertakings to cut certain prices and then to increase the prices of other goods which they also sell, but what about the filling stations that have to serve people throughout the length and breadth of our country? After all, we are not dealing now with a commodity which one sells over the counter. Surely this is a commodity which goes hand in hand with the provision of service.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South discussed the determining of a fixed petrol price. At this stage I have no intention of determining a fixed price for fuel, but circumstances could occur which would compel me to do so. However, I want to give this House an undertaking that before I determine a fixed price, there will have to be evidence to the effect that if I do not do so, a total disruption of the distribution of fuel will take place. I now give hon. members that assurance.

†I agree with the principle of the first amendment of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. I have asked the legal advisers to go into it, and they assure me that in terms of the Interpretation Act what he proposes is in fact the legal position.

*Section 7 of the Interpretation Act, No. 33 of 1975, furnishes a definition of the meaning of service by post. Firstly, it means that the postal article is properly addressed, secondly that it is sent by prepaid, registered post, and thirdly, that it has been done in the post.

†In other words, the interpretation laws cover the point. Although I accept the principle, the amendment is superfluous. I hope the hon. member will accept that.

*The principle of the second amendment moved by the hon. member is also acceptable to me. However, in my opinion the amendment does not go far enough. I wonder whether the hon. member is prepared to accept that we should amend it as follows—

That is how the existing paragraph reads. Now the following new words are inserted—

The amendment of the hon. member is contained in this. However, it goes further by also making provision for the re-refining that will be done at Graaff-Reinet. If the hon. member will give an indication that this satisfies him, he may do so.

I accept that.

Unfortunately, I cannot accept the hon. member’s third amendment. I hope he will understand that this provision concerns the regulation of the distribution of fuel. It also gives legal effect to the existing rationalization plan to which I referred, making it enforceable. There is no specific interference with the private sector here. The oil companies asked for this specific provision. I have tried to explain that a rationalization plan has been in operation for years—since 1960, if I remember correctly—which represents an agreement between the oil companies, my department and the filling station industry. The aim of this rationalization plan is, firstly, to limit the number of filling stations to enable us to increase the turnover, and by so doing keep the cost as low as possible. The rationalization plan has had the effect that fuel is provided at the most distant points. The aim of the plan was also to limit the number of filling stations. In the period from 1960 to 1975 the number of motor vehicles increased from 1 million to 3,2 million. The number of filling stations increased from 4 295 to 4 602, an increase of about 8%. The sole aim of the clause is to give legal effect to this plan, which is a voluntary agreement, so that it can be enforced.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.