Mr. Chairman, today is really a very historic day. Exactly 30 years ago, on 6 June 1948, the first NP Cabinet was announced. I am glad to recall that memorable day in the history of the NP. It definitely was also a memorable day in the history of South Africa.

Firstly, I want to express my thanks and appreciation here today to the hon. the Prime Minister as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Cabinet and the Department of Foreign Affairs, with all its branches throughout the world, for all the visible and invisible things that they have done, and are still doing, in order to make it possible to maintain Western civilization here at the southern tip of Africa. We know of many successes, and the successes that will never be known, are many—in fact they are legion. Let us allow those successes that will never be made known, to go by in silence. Let us not, however, remain silent about our thanks and appreciation for them. There is great appreciation throughout the country, amongst all population groups, for the way in which Department of Foreign Affairs is run, and for the creation of good relations and of friendly relations at home and abroad. It is a pity that the Official Opposition and the NRP adopt such a negative and destructive approach towards them. Do they have no appreciation for what is being done to make South Africa a bastion of Western civilization?

I am not going to waste very much breath discussing the attitude of the NRP, as it was revealed here yesterday. No one even tries to understand their plural policy.

The attitude of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, however, is inexplicable. Can the hon. member not rid himself of that negativism that he has repeatedly displayed here over the years? All his speeches are larded with it. At first sight he makes such a tremendously good imppression. He is a polished, brilliant orator. I have known him for several years. I know that he is a well-read man. In him, however, one finds a psychosis of spite, a provocative attitude, an I-told-you-so approach, a know-all approach that borders on naïveté. All of this is deplorable. As I said, the hon. member is after all a person with a wealth of theoretical knowledge, a well-read man. How unfortunate that he displays an eternal lack of pragmatism.

Sometimes the hon. member tries to adopt the PFP line. However, we soon find out that he does not even know where to begin. In addition the liberal English Press are trying to sell us the hon. member and the PFP, they are extolled and their praises are sung. One would swear the PFP was a mighty political party in South Africa. The way in which these things are done, reminds me of a fruiterer trying to get rid of his products. What does he do? He arranges his boxes of fruit carefully. The top layer of fruit is polished beautifully and rubbed up. If one begins to dig deeper, however, one realizes that the bottom fruit is rotten. It is the same with the things that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout tries to dish up to us here. When one digs down a bit deeper in the PFP, one finds how rotten their policy is.

It is my sincere desire that we in South Africa should form a common front as regards our foreign policy. We shall have to do so in order to stem the tide of communism effectively here at the southern tip of Africa. There are many businessmen and industrialists, in my constituency in particular, who support the NP’s policy of separate development, although they apparently still want to move in Progressive circles just to be in fashion. They see no future in the PFP. They accept one thing only: That South Africa is a capitalist country. In the PFP, the Official Opposition, there are some of the biggest capitalists in South Africa, people who have made their fortunes under the rule of the NP, a government that has maintained stability here over the past 30 years, often under very difficult circumstances. I cannot understand how those big capitalists can allow that party, that is supported by them financially and otherwise, to be so indifferent to the diabolical danger of communism that is threatening us. Their spokesman, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, did not say anything about this in his speech yesterday. In fact, he creates the impression that he is apologetic about what is being done to fight it.

What is the hon. member for Houghton’s attitude towards this? An absolutely cynical attitude, a shake of the head, but we must help so that she herself can be saved. She will lose more than I will if the Marxists take over here. If the PFP wants to practice honest politics, they, and their Leader in particular, must tell us what stance they adopt when they speak to African leaders. We understand that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has visited a considerable number of African states and we should like to know what his attitude is when he speaks even to someone like McHenry. Does he express himself against the revolutionary forces, or is he an advocate of evolutionary development in South Africa? We should like to know this. If he is in favour of the latter, how does he indicate to those people that his party will come into power in a democratic way in order to set the evolutionary process in motion? How, therefore, does he explain his policy to those people?

I ask for a team effort from the political parties in South Africa to help us to promote South Africa’s name abroad. They must stand with us in the front line and fight with us. We have many friends in the world and can still make many more.

†I want to suggest that we initiate in South Africa a concerted effort, backed by all patriotic South Africans, to set the ball rolling to form an alliance with pro-Western middle-power nations. I am referring especially to middle-power nations who are not in the Western bloc and who feel the threat of communism daily like we do. These nations—I do not want to be specific at this stage, because it is not necessary—are situated in the southern tip of Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and in South America. These are countries with a vast potential as far as agricultural products, mineral resources oil, human resources, know-how, finance, etc. are concerned. Most of them are highly industrialized nations. They command the best technical brains and know-how in the world. The total human population of these nations is in the vicinity of 370 million. These are people who live daily under the threat of communism, something which they have in common with South Africa. I see a great potential in establishing a friendly alliance with such nations. I should like to call it the Fourth World, a world where all people will be free to run their own affairs according to their own beliefs and convictions, without the fear and threat of other do-gooders who want to run their affairs for them. What a happy relationship that would be! [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am not surprised that the hon. travelling member for Edenvale, who moved from Langlaagte to Benoni, to the Senate and then to Edenvale, is unable to understand a clear policy.

At least I am not travelling to nowhere.

I am not surprised that he does not understand this, for it is very clear that he is also unable to keep his own voters for longer than five years. [Interjections.] The hon. member spoke of the Western civilization and the maintenance thereof in South Africa. I plan to deal with this in the course of the debate.

The hon. member for Amanzimtoti put our attitude to foreign intervention and pressure on South Africa very clearly. We demonstrated our attitude very clearly in our reaction to such pressure and attempts.

†It is not enough, however, merely to resist foreign pressure, merely to say we are opposed to it. We in South Africa have to face the reality that Southern Africa has become a battleground for international forces, the influence of which will determine, to a large extent, the future of the subcontinent. We as South Africans must ensure, not merely that we resist pressure but also that we ourselves have our own message for Africa, our own strong and acceptable message which will ensure for us a meaningful role in the destiny of the subcontinent. Instead of doing that we have become the one meeting point, the one point of agreement on which peoples who differ fundamentally, in philosophy and policy, can agree. We have become the whipping boy of not only the communists but also of Africa and the Western World. This is the reality that we have to face.

I think we are entitled to ask: What has the Government done about it? Yesterday we heard a great deal about the dangers and the threats against us, but that is what the general election was supposed to be all about. That hon. Prime Minister called a general election to demonstrate South Africa’s rejection of foreign interference in and pressure on South Africa. Correct? The public subsequently gave the Government a mandate. It is now six or seven months later, however, and there sits the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs! What has he done with that mandate? What has he done to stop the pressure, the interference and the attempts to force South Africa to follow the dictates of other countries? [Interjections.] What we have heard from the hon. the Minister and the Government side have been excuses and plaintive complaints about the world being unfair to us. Of course the world is unfair to us. We have criticized it and attacked it, but it is not enough simply to say that the world is unfair and that there are double standards that are unreasonable. What has that hon. Minister and his Government done to change the situation for which South Africa gave the hon. the Prime Minister a mandate? What have they done other than to say we are all agreed that we do not want foreign interference?

You did throw in your weight too!

What the Government has done is to continue, as a matter of deliberate and conscious policy, to plunge ahead, throwing the domestic problems of South Africa into the international arena. I say they have done it deliberately and consciously. They have done it by taking one of the most critical, delicate and dangerous issues, the relationship between the State or Government of South Africa and millions of its subjects,—its citizens, throwing it into the international arena and making it an interstate or inter-government issue. I am referring, of course, to Transkei and Bophuthatswana and the continuing progress towards transferring the domestic issues which divide us in South Africa in other homelands to the foreign affairs field where that hon. Minister becomes responsible.

Then I come to the “pot of gold” at the end of the NP’s rainbow, those independent states which were to solve all problems. What have they turned out to be? They have turned out to be not even gilt, but only rusted tin. The Transkei, the perfect model, was thrown into the lap of the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs by the hon. the Prime Minister as a matter of conscious policy. What has this done to solve the relationship between South Africa and the rest of Southern Africa? It has become the bitter fruit of our own actions. I am not, however, going to deal with that today other than to hold it up as an example of the failure of the Government to find an answer, a message, other than that of throwing into limbo new states to join the international scene. We have to try to find some modus vivendi, some link and method of living together. The first of the pots of gold, Transkei, has broken its diplomatic links and has abrogated its defence treaty and is having a State-Church conflict. That is the only answer we have had. There is no fail-safe; there is no emergency parachute; there is no alternative policy to the policy of plunging ahead and throwing South Africa’s domestic politics into the international field. The NRP believe that South Africa should be sending out a new message. It should have learnt the lesson of Transkei.

Give us that message, Vause.

I will give it to the hon. member. We should be rebuilding the links which the hon. the Prime Minister has severed, viz. the links with Transkei and Bophuthatswana we have severed and the links we continue to plan to sever with the other homelands containing South African citizens. We should be rebuilding those links before it is too late, binding Southern Africa together in a common destiny and not adding more to the conglomerate of poverty-stricken unstable States. We should be binding them together in some form of association.

You are insulting the Blacks.

I am not insulting them. It is a simple statement of fact to say that we are creating States which are economically non-viable and which have not had the political experience and do not have the infrastructure to govern without the assistance we give them through seconded officials.

The message is one which the leader of one of those States, the President of Bophuthatswana, gave when on 24 May he said—

That is the message the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs should be sending out to Africa. He should be providing the nuclear force, the attracting force, to bind together in Southern Africa the States of this subcontinent in order jointly to exploit our rich human and natural resources including our water resources; jointly to create the industrial powerhouse of Africa; jointly to provide a defensive front against aggression and domination by communism. We should form an association so strong in itself and with so much to offer and so much to be lost by leaving it that it will have its own built-in safeguards against anyone wanting to resign or withdraw from it and built-in safeguards against tantrums. In that case it will not be White South Africa that will be resisting the tantrums, but all the States of Southern Africa associated in a power-house, in a confederation, an association which will guarantee each a share of the wealth and the contribution of the peoples of Southern Africa in the development of our whole region. That is the message the Government should be sending out, a message of creating links between all the people with a common interest and a common destiny, the links for which one of our own States that has become independent, namely Bophuthatswana, pleads, the links of a confederal system to bind us together. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, Foreign Affairs debates in this House are taken to be bi-partisan affairs in which fundamental issues facing the country—particularly in times like this—can be debated in a logical and objective manner, and I do not intend following the sad road which the hon. member for Durban Point has taken: a repetitious, well-worn party-political road. But I wish to come to the question of South Africa’s relations with Western countries, in particular South Africa’s relations with the United States of America. The fact is that the United States has largely articulated Western attitudes down the years. Even during the ’sixties, that country articulated Western policy and mainly influenced the policies of Western countries towards South Africa.

What has been generally recognized in this debate—it has been recognized on the Opposition side and it has been recognized on the Government side—is that there has been a change in posture and policy towards South Africa. The previous policy, the policy of the ’sixties, was described as the “communications” policy. Western countries, the United States in particular, believed that it should have relations with South Africa, that it should encourage trade and cultural and other relations with South Africa. In that way it hoped it would change South Africa. And as a matter of fact, in 1970 Nixon and Kissinger explicitly took a decision, a conscious decision, to pursue a communications approach in relation to South Africa. That has changed for the reasons which were spelt out by the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs yesterday. There were a whole variety of reasons, partly international and partly domestic. Be that as it may, the situation has changed, and the United States’ policy today in relation to South Africa may be described as prescriptive, punitive and coercive. It is prescriptive in the sense that the United States is dictating or trying to dictate a particular course as far as South Africa is concerned. It is trying to tell us what course we should take. In the second place it is punitive in the sense that the United States is adopting certain measures which it believes will force us into changing our position. A very good example of this approach was set out in an article in the January 1978 issue of Foreign Affairs, an article in which two influential American scholars and diplomats, Ferguson and Cotter, spelt out 41 steps which could be taken against South Africa. It is also coercive as when Ambassador Andrew Young when asked in an interview in March 1977 with the magazine Africa—a very influential English-speaking journal on the African continent— how the United States should act in relation to South Africa, said he thought there should be an economic embargo against South Africa in terms of chapter 6 of the United Nations Charter. He then went on to say—

This policy is prescriptive, punitive and coercive. I believe that this is a situation which is satisfactory neither to South Africans nor to Americans. And I wish to look briefly at some of the assumptions which underlie this policy.

The first assumption is that the South African situation is essentially a moral situation. Men of great intellectual standing in foreign relations have criticized that particular approach. Dr. Kissinger has criticized it very persuasively and has pointed to the dangers of adopting a moral approach in international relations. The fact is that, apart from the practical uselessness of such an approach in solving international problems, there are situations where there are conflicts of moral claims. The Middle East is a case in point. Nobody denies that the Jews have a moral basis for the establishment of Israel, but the Arabs also have claims: They have a certain moral right to self-determination in the Middle East area. And this conflict also applies to South Africa. No doubt persons of colour in our society are entitled to self-determination, are entitled to democracy, are entitled to their full share of political rights. However, there is a White minority and there are also other minorities who can similarly make moral claims. This is therefore a dangerous assumption, an assumption like the other assumptions which I will be mentioning upon which the Opposition parties can agree with us in relation to our attitude towards the USA and the Western countries in particular. The second assumption relatés to majority rule and is based on the indiscriminate urging of majority rule expressed simply in numerical terms. This practice is contrary to the whole tradition of the USA. Anybody who knows something about the history of the USA, its constitution and the founding of America will know that the fathers of the American governmental system were extremely concerned about the dangers of majority rule. This tradition runs through American politics and expresses itself in the highest form in the writings of contemporary American political scientists who are today warning against the dangers of simply adopting a glib majority rule approach in our kind of society. Yet, this assumption underlies Western and, in particular, USA attitude towards our society.

The third assumption which underlies particularly American statements of policy in regard to South Africa, is that there is a parallel between the South African situation and the USA situation in regard to race relations. But there are in fact very real differences and these negate any possibility of a comparison, e.g. the fact that, in the first place, the numerical ratio is totally different and, in the second place, in the case of the USA situation, one is dealing essentially with a monoculture situation, with people who essentially share the same culture.

The fourth assumption which underlies Western, and in particular American, attitudes towards South Africa, is the inevitability of revolution, the inevitability of disaster in South Africa if we do not meet the moral claims of the persons of colour in our society and if we do not achieve what the Americans regard as a “just transition to a power sharing”. This is an assumption which we must, quite obviously, take seriously. It is up to us to demonstrate, not only to the Americans and to Western countries, but also to the world, that we have the answers, that we are a creative people and that we are a tough people. I believe it is pleasing to all South Africans that somebody like Prof. John Macintosh, the British MP and academic, who has just visited the country, could remark, as reported in The Cape Times and other newspapers, that the one impression which he formed of White South Africans is our toughness. Those are the fundamental assumptions and I believe that we must continue to attack those assumptions. I believe it is an important part of our foreign policy response to a critical world to answer those assumptions. I believe, too, that it is very important that we should get across two overriding considerations. The first is the fact that, in all likelihood, given the role that Soviet imperialism has come to play, the test for the USA will be in Southern Africa. It will be here where it will have to say: So far, and no further. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister a few questions, but before I do so, I just want to tell the hon. member for Edenvale that I appreciate his personal concern about me. If we had the situation in this House that the hon. members on the Government side—this is the case in Britain as well as in some European Parliaments—also criticized the Government for their mistakes now and again, then it would also have been easier for us to make a thank-the-Minister-speech now and again. As matters stand at the moment, however, our side has to play the part of watchdog and critic, and if we do not do so, the whole parliamentary system would suffer as a result.

The first matter that I want to bring to the hon. the Minister’s attention, is the fact that there is a great deal of concern amongst parents whose sons are prisoners in Angola. I know that the Government does not have direct relations with Angola and that it is a very difficult situation, but I nevertheless would like to know from the hon. the Minister whether efforts are being made to bring about their release and whether there is not the possibility of some exchange of prisoners taking place. I shall be very pleased if the hon. the Minister can give the parents a little hope.

In the time when Dr. Hilgard Muller was Minister of Foreign Affairs, we quite often raised the question in this House of the training of Black people, Coloureds and Indians for diplomatic posts abroad. We feel our people must stand together abroad and must be able to present an image on the foreign stage, not of White exclusiveness, but that we must be able to reflect South Africa there for what it is, a multinational country. We have often raised the matter before, but I see no indication of attempts being made to involve members of all the race groups in South Africa for this important task. I shall be grateful if the hon. the Minister could give us a little information in this regard.

In the budget there is an amount of R113,5 million payable to the Transkeian Government and R22 million payable to the Government of Bophuthatswana. This money is being paid in terms of Act 106 of 1976 and Act 93 of 1977 respectively. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister how this amount is made up and for what period in the future such amounts will continue to be payable.

Then, too, R1 000 is budgeted for the UN. I should like to hear what the hon. the Minister’s attitude is at the moment as regards our position as member of the UN, and whether he still considers it in our interest to remain a member of that organization. If so, I should like to know when we will resume active participation in the proceedings of the UN. I want to state our standpoint clearly in this regard here and now. For many reasons, which I cannot deal with now due to a lack of time, we believe it is in the best interests of South Africa to remain a member of the UN, and we also believe that if one has a good case, one must put that case on every possible platform one can find in the world. [Interjections.]

Furthermore there is also an amount of R5 000 in the budget for special awards of honour to foreigners. I shall be pleased if the hon. the Minister can tell us which people received these awards of honour, and the form they took in each case. Under the head, “Assistance to and co-operation with foreign countries” there is an amount of R20 830 000. Approximately R11 700 000 of this amount is budgeted for salaries and grants for officials that we seconded to the Transkei and Bophuthatswana. We on this side of the House are not opposed to this. We believe that we should try to retain all possible influence in those areas, but I should like to have particulars about the remaining amount of more than R9 million budgeted for assistance to foreign countries.

Then there is a final aspect that I want to raise. We do not want to involve the hon. the Minister in the controversy surrounding the Department of Information. I know there was a time when there was tension between the two departments, but I believe this has been settled now. What I should like to know from the hon. the Minister, however, is whether he would be so kind as to tell us whether he thinks it would be a good thing for foreign information to be placed under the control of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

I know there are two sides to the matter. On the one hand, the Department of Foreign Affairs does not want to be linked to what it considered a propaganda service. On the other, it is my experience and that of others that any publications that are printed under the auspices of the Department of Foreign Affairs have much more authority and carry much more weight abroad than publications provided by the Department of Information. We also believe that the Department of Foreign Affairs should maintain strict surveillance in all countries over the work of the information service so that a clash of strategies does not occur.

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Bezuidenhout will agree that it was unfair to put a whole string of questions to me just as I was about to rise. [Interjections.] Yesterday, the hon. member had two turns to speak …

I object. [Interjections.] I can put the questions whenever I like.

The hon. member can put the questions when he likes, but then he should at least give me a fair chance so that I could write down the questions. [Interjections.] I cannot reply to all these questions immediately, unless someone speaks between me and the hon. member so that I can quickly record the questions and the answers. However, I could not even keep up in order to write down all the member’s questions.

It is not my fault… [Interjections.]

I shall provide the hon. member with the answers, but I do not think I shall be able to do so immediately because I do not even have all the questions before me. That is all. There are, however, questions which the hon. member has put which I can reply to immediately.

In the first place, there is the question of South African prisoners in Luanda. That is one of the thorniest questions with which my department and other Government departments are now dealing. I want to give the hon. member and the parents the assurance that no stone is being left unturned to give constant attention to this matter and to work on it. In fact, I have received instructions from the hon. the Prime Minister to give the highest priority to this matter. As far as is practicable we try to see the parents of these boys fairly regularly. We invite them to my office, where I talk to them and explain to them what we have done, what we are trying to do, and what we are busy doing in an attempt to get these boys exchanged. I know the hon. member will realize that this is a very thorny, painful and difficult task. I trust that he will accept my reply to that effect.

Are you reasonably hopeful?

There were times when I was really hopeful, and then there were also times when progress was in fact being made, but then all of a sudden something happened out of the blue with the result that we again had to mark time for a while and to try and find other means, channels and methods.

I want to refer to another question by the hon. member. I am pleased that he worded this discreetly. He said that the foreign service should not be exclusively White. I agree with him that in principle this should not be the case. He knows, however, that in the past, we have already had non-White officials in our service at our missions, some for training and others in other departments than mine. There are considerable administrative questions and problems connected with this matter. We are attending to it, and I can give the assurance that I agree in principle that my department should not be an exclusively White department.

I think those amounts to which the hon. member referred, viz. an appropriation of approximately R113 million for Transkei and R22 million for Bophuthatswana, are statutory amounts which we have to pay to these countries in terms of an Act of this Parliament. There are also other amounts involved in the customs union pool which we share with these countries. That is the position. I cannot state offhand precisely how these amounts have been calculated, but I shall give the hon. member the information later.

As far as our membership of the UN is concerned, I should like to say that we are still a member and that we still have a mission there. We have not filled the post of ambassador there, but we have appointed a temporary chargé d’affaires as head of the mission there. We are not paying our contributions that we are supposed to pay—that answers the question by the hon. member for Simonstown at the same time. I am not absolutely sure how much we owe, but I think it is approximately $6 million. My contention is of course that the hon. the Minister of Finance ought to allow that money to accrue to my department to utilize for another purpose, but that is a different matter. My standpoint is that we cannot pay that money unless our right to be heard in the General Assembly is guaranteed and unless we can be heard there like any other member state of the UN. The day when we are able to resume our seat in the General Assembly, we shall pay that money, but until then we shall not do so. We do not want to be over-sensitive, spiteful or obstinate, but one simply cannot pay for what one does not receive. Because, in the meantime, we have fallen more than two years in arrears, we have, now lost our right to vote, but if one cannot speak there and cannot even participate in any case, then the loss of one’s vote is a theoretical matter. Nevertheless I believe at the moment that we should still remain a member. I do not want to say this out loud, but the problem is that once one has left that body, one will not get in again because admission is, inter alia via the Security Council, in which the Russians, have the veto. In my opinion, South Africa should remain a member. I have already indicated that we are not paying our contribution, but we still have a forum. We can still circulate documents there. We can still state our case, not to the fullest extent, but by way of letters and documentation which can be circulated. We hear and see and know what goes on there. Our representatives observe the committee meetings. They are tuned in to the events within the UN. The Government therefore always has first-hand knowledge of all that is happening in that forum and what is being planned against us there. On balance, therefore, I really think it is in South Africa’s interests to carry on as we are now doing. It is still in our interests.

Then a question was raised in connection with the Department of Information. I should not like to comment on that. As I understand the situation, it is a matter which is being investigated by the Public Service Commission at the moment, I trust the hon. member will accept that I should rather not comment on such a thorny question at this stage.

As regards the question of a list of awards, honours and the expenses incidental thereto, I shall gladly furnish the hon. member with all the particulars.

There are still some questions left which the hon. member put yesterday. If I understood the hon. member correctly, one of the questions he put to me was: “What is going to be our stand in the developing struggle in Africa? Anti-communism is not enough.” Connected with that, he said: “The West believes we adopt this stance to protect the status quo. African States who are against communism nevertheless agree that South Africa ought to change.” I am merely summarizing the main ideas of the hon. member’s points as he raised them. In general I agree with the hon. member. It is being said universally that South Africa is constantly using this anti-communistic standpoint, one could almost say “bogey”, to conceal how cruelly, how callously and how oppressively it is acting towards its own non-Whites. It is true that it is constantly being alleged that we try to cover up our misdeeds in that manner, but there is another side to the matter as well, and that is that in my view the African States themselves are beginning to feel and realize that Marxism, and specifically the aggressive Marxism of Russia and Cuba, is now getting too close for comfort, is now becoming a threat to them, because who really attracted the Russians to Ethiopia, to Eritrea or to Shaba? What attracted them to those places? Surely there is no apartheid there. There is no apartheid in Shaba that led to action having to be taken against the cruelty of an oppressive racist policy?

The result is that it is beginning to seem as though it is getting through to the moderate Black leaders everywhere that there is indeed a serious danger lurking in communism. I am not saying that we shall win favour abroad by merely displaying an anti-Marxist attitude, and nothing else. Of course we are not displaying an anti-Marxist attitude to conceal anything which may be wrong in South Africa, or to escape our obligations to act fairly and justly or in order to continue with an oppressive policy. We deny that we have an oppressive policy in the first place. I would go so far as to say that even if one could remove every White man from this country tomorrow, the Marxist onslaught on South Africa would be just as fierce, and I shall tell hon. members why. In this connection I should also like to talk frankly to our own Black leaders in this country. The reason is simply that, if we want to be honest with one another, we should all know—not only in this House, but also outside—that the average Tswana will not vote for a Zulu leader. The average Xhosa will not vote for a Zulu leader. The average Sotho will not vote for a Swazi leader or a Tswana leader. In what way does it benefit us, then, to quarrel, dispute, argue with one another about elementary realities and I do not even mean arguing here across the floor of this House, but also with our Black leaders who know in their hearts and souls what the truth is in connection with their own ethnic bent and ethnic affinities, and know the truth about the feelings of their own people. I contend, that even if we were to repeal every last piece of legislation based on ethnicity in this country we would experience greater problems than the people of Shaba in Zaïre have ever experienced, greater problems even than ever existed in Biafra, Ethiopia, Somalia or Eritrea. In Southern Africa there is undoubtedly the phenomenon of ethnic ties, of ethnicity. I repeat that it is not a problem of polarization between the White and the Black man, that it is not problems in respect of Black/White relations which alone serves as an attraction to Russia. It is by no means as simple as that.

In the implementation of our domestic policy we can of course make mistakes which make it easier for the Russians to get at us through leftists and radicals abroad. Things happen in our country which enable our enemies to kick up an emotional dust-storm to our detriment. But let us also discuss this matter frankly with one another. It is also true that if one ultimately has to lean over so far backwards in order to remove all possible causes which can lead to conflict, or can perhaps be misinterpreted, even misrepresented abroad, one will be compelled to go so far internally that one is going to bring about one’s downfall in any case. We must preserve our perspective and balance on this aspect.

All departments and all people in positions of authority should constantly in their actions bear in mind the interests of South Africa in the international world. This is an appeal which the hon. the Prime Minister, other members of the Cabinet and I are constantly making. We can bring about a considerable number of changes. We can negotiate on many matters. We can change many things. We can even do away with many measures in this country. I am one of the people who believe that. But there is one thing we cannot do: We cannot suspend, or amend or change our right to govern ourselves. That we cannot do. That is why the NP is in power. The NP is in power because the enfranchised Whites in South Africa believe that the NP, by means of this Government, will preserve the right of self-determination of everyone. That is not racism. What I am asking, is no different from what any other nation on earth is asking. What is happening against us, however, is this: There is no serious insistence by the outside world on the inclusion of our 2 million Tswanas in Botswana. After all, they are the same people, speaking the same language, with the same history, of the same family. Cousins intermarry across the border. Some senior chiefs from Botswana often have to cross the border to pronounce their blessings on the inauguration of chiefs in Bophuthatswana. They speak the same language. Their hereditary law is interwoven. Their lobola arrangements are interwoven. A vast number of common values and norms are interwoven. In aggreggate they will number 3 million.

It will therefore be a larger State, “a more united nation, more viable in every respect”—to use the terminology of the USA, the terminology of which they are so fond, the concept of “bigness and unitedness”.

No active attempt is being made to unite those Tswanas, who are really one nation, with one another. The positive action which is being taken is to insist that the 2 million of their own national compatriots should be separated to help form a statistical majority to inundate the Whites. These are truths. These are the truths concerning the attempts to plough us under in Southern Africa. The same truths apply to the Swazi nation, the South Sotho nation. There is no active propaganda, no titanic struggle is being waged to bring together in these cases what really belong together. No. Everything possible is being done to ensure, by means of unnatural separation, by means of the drawing of unnatural boundary-lines, that the White, the Coloured and the Asian people must ultimately form a statistical minority in their constitutional dispensation. The same applies to the Black minority groups. That is what it is all about, and that is why I reply in the affirmative to the question asked by the hon. member, because the Government would like to remove harmful forms of discrimination which the Black, the Coloured and the Asian people regard as humiliating. I am also replying now to the hon. member for East London North, who launched such a tirade at me yesterday. We want to do that, and I have not moved away from that.

However, I belong to a party within the framework of that party I have colleagues, and there is a balance, because it is a matter of question and counter-question, standpoints and interests are weighed up. That is, after all, how a party works, because if that were not the case, we would have had a dictatorship. While I, in the interests of our foreign relations, might like to have certain steps taken more rapidly, I must obviously take into account that I have other colleagues who, in their turn, point out to me that if I do it in that way, we shall have a great backlash where we do not want it or would be creating other problems and for that reason it cannot be done in that way or it cannot be done immediately. But if anyone thinks that the Government is not continually devoting the fullest attention to the pros and cons, the advantages and disadvantages of every step which it takes, I am afraid that such a person does not know how a Cabinet works.

I only entered the Cabinet fairly recently. I can nevertheless state that at Cabinet level, we act on the basis of consensus. Decisions are taken under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister with due consideration of other colleagues’ viewpoints. If one is not satisfied with that, one must take one’s hat and depart. However, I have not yet had reason to take my hat and depart. As a junior member of the Cabinet I have been deeply impressed by the earnestness, the integrity and depth with which considerations are weighed whenever a matter is before the Cabinet. [Interjections.]

I do not know whether I understood the hon. member for Bezuidenhout correctly—he must correct me if I am wrong—but I made a note here to the effect that he had apparently made the point that the Government should make it clearly that counteraction would be taken against every one of our neighbouring countries that allowed its territory to be used against us, or that such a country should expect such counteraction.

If it allows its territory to be used for military action against us.

I thank the hon. member for the statement, and I am in full agreement with it. It is really self-evident. I think the hon. the Minister of Defence, the hon. the Prime Minister and others have already made that clear previously. However, I do want to ask: When the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Defence said that, were there not some members on the opposite side who kicked up a row and said that it was too robust, too rash and too challenging to those countries? [Interjections.] No, I am merely asking whether there were no howls of protest about that at the time. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether there has already been an instance where the Republic had military action against it from a neighbouring State?

Now I do not understand it. The hon. member proceeded from a certain theoretical assumption, and he wants us to reply to that. But when my colleagues proceeded from the same theoretical assumption and gave him the answer he wanted, some of the hon. members opposite howled about it.

I do not know what you are talking about now.

I think the hon. member does not know what we are talking about now. I want to add, however, that it is of course always better for us to try and keep the peace in other ways. That is precisely what we are trying to do. We are constantly trying to prevent our neighbouring States, in their own interests, from going so far as to accommodate these subversive elements and allow their countries to be used as fronts of attack against us. I also want to add that we shall also go out of our way in respect of the countries with which we have ideological differences to conclude practical arrangements for co-operation on a basis of mutual trust and respect for one another’s sovereignty. As the hon. the Prime Minister has also stated on occasion, it is not necessary for any of our neighbouring States to make any appreciable military preparations, since they have absolutely nothing to fear from South Africa. We are not threatening anybody and we have never threatened anybody.

The hon. member also raised the question of South West Africa. That is one aspect which the hon. member raised which really shocked me a little, and I am disappointed at what he said. He said he could not see how it was feasible for independence to be brought about before December 1978. It was a though he were pleading for further delay. It is true that it is becoming more and more difficult, but who is the cause of that?

I should like to say a few words about South West Africa now. I can talk for hours about that territory, but we shall not be able to discuss the entire period from 1915, the year of our military conquest of that territory, until today. However, I just want to indicate to the Committee what has happened during the past year. In April 1977, we began our talks with the West. This was from 27 to 29 April. After that, on 8 and 10 June, further talks with them took place, and then again on 22 and 23 September and again on 3 December. We formally met the five Western Powers on four occasions in South Africa. I think that on those four occasions, we talked for almost 90 hours—with them and with the Turnhalle delegates and others.

90 hours?

Yes. There were four occasions, and sometimes the talks lasted for two to three days.

Wasted a lot of your time.

That is perhaps another matter. In the meantime, we continually consulted the Turnhalle group and had them with us. The five Western Powers also invited me to New York. The invitation was handed over to me on 28 December last year. On 29 December, I flew to Oubos, where the hon. the Prime Minister received me and other colleagues. There I discussed the matter with the hon. the Prime Minister, and that night I flew back to let the five Western Powers know the next morning, 30 December, that I should be going. The invitation was to continue the talks in New York on 17 January. A few days before 17 January, I received a call from a spokesman, a spokesman for the five, who said: No, 17 January was not suitable because Mr. Nujoma was ill. They then asked whether I could not come at the end of the month. That was when Parliament would have been in session. I said it would be very difficult because I had other obligations at the time specified. They then asked whether I could come on 23 January, and I said “yes”. I said yes within an hour. The day after, they said that was not suitable either. Ultimately, it was then arranged that we would meet in New York on 11 and 12 February on the level of foreign ministers.

There has been a lot of speculation about my supposedly having walked out of the talks in New York. I think I should say a few words about that. We began those talks in New York on a Saturday morning. The five foreign ministers were there. They gave me a chance to state our side of the case on the morning of Saturday, 11 February. I explained to them in detail in what respects their proposals, as they were then worded, were unacceptable to us because they were unacceptable to the people of the territory, as conveyed to us by their leaders. When we met again late that afternoon, I was simply told that they had listened to me, that they had listened to Swapo and also to the frontline states, and that they thought their proposals as presented to me in Cape Town shortly before my departure, constituted the best basis for a settlement. They asked whether I would consider the proposals overnight and meet with them again the next morning to discuss them further. I want to state unequivocally here today that if I had done that I should have intimated to them that I was able to consider the proposals on my own overnight in New York. I would have created the hope that that it was perhaps possible that those proposals would be acceptable. I therefore had three options that afternoon. I could have said that the matter was closed and disposed of and that there would be no further talks. That would have been irresponsible. In the second place I could have said that I would think about them overnight and meet with them again the next morning. That would have given false hope or could at the least have created unfounded expectations. The third possibility was to say that I was not closing the door, but that I would be returning to consult with my Government and with the leaders of the territory. I chose this course.

Thereafter, I visited Windhoek from 21 to 23 February to report personally to the Administrator-General and also to consult with him. I was there again from 3 to 4 March. At short intervals throughout February and March, we held informal consultations with the ambassadors of the Western Powers. Chief Kapuuo was shot and fatally wounded on 27 March. I visited Windhoek on 28 March for a first-hand appraisal of the position arising from his death, and to go into the situation there. Thereafter, on 13 April, we met the DTA members here in Cape Town. On 16 April, we met Dr. Owen and the Secretary for State, Mr. Vance in Pretoria. Administrator-General Steyn visited me in Cape Town on 22 April. Therefore there were prolonged consultations, talks, and telephone calls lasting hours about this matter. On 25 April, the Government, after thorough consideration, accepted the proposals by the five Western Powers. At that stage there was a special session of the General Assembly in progress in New York. After that I wrote a letter to Dr. Waldheim on 2 May in which I virtually pleaded with him to use his influence to have these proposals accepted in the interests of all because the position was deteriorating and more and more people were being killed. I pointed out to him that ultimately, after 31 to 32 years, we were now able to solve the problem. But that did not help. Within a matter of days after this Government had accepted the proposals of the five Western Powers, the General Assembly moved an extremely condemning and insulting resolution against the South African Government.

What is more, not one of the five Western Powers whose proposals we accepted, voted against that resolution. The best they could do, was to bring out an abstention vote, in other words they did not vote, but merely sat still. At the UN, there are various ways in which one can vote. One can vote “yes” or “no”; one can abstain from voting and remain seated on one’s bench; one can walk out—that is also a way of voting; or one is absent entirely.

I have given a brief summary of the talks which took place over a period of more than a year on these proposals of the Five Western Powers. You can imagine how many hours were devoted to these, and how much trouble was taken. Over holidays, weekends, Christmas, New Year, etc. we on the Government side and the Administrator-General worked on this. Can you imagine how much has not been told. When the Hereros wanted to shoot the Wambos in the wake of the emotional shockwave which followed on the death of Kapuuo, the Administrator-General walked in among 4 000 Ovambos with their pangas in a compound one night to restore peace and quiet there.

Can you imagine what was done behind the scenes and for how many hours I pleaded with the five Western ambassadors, not from yesterday, but over many months: Please, Swapo is killing more and more people; we have for a long time had documentary proof that they want to kill certain leaders of the territory, and other people as well. There are letters in which the names of 25 people, mainly Blacks, appeared who had to be murdered. It was done so arrogantly that the malefactors who had ordered those people to be eliminated, had signed the letter themselves.

On the one hand, one therefore has the situation that there is not a single legally binding verdict of the International Court of Justice to the effect that the UN had any rights in South West. There were a few opinions, but the UN itself did not pay any heed to world court opinions, and countries like Russia take no notice of them at all, but nevertheless get away with it. The main legal aspect as to whether the UN has a say over South West, has therefore never been established by way of a finding verdict. The five Western Powers told me: “You cannot really have a realistic solution to the problem of South West Africa unless all the parties once and for all set aside the long drawn out legalities and legal disputes.” We accepted that. We accepted it as a reasonable proposition for proceeding with these negotiations and eventually accepted the proposals.

†What does Mr. McHenry do? He arrives in this country and holds Press conferences the very day the Prime Minister of this country and myself are holding talks with the five ambassadors. While we are holding talks in the Prime Minister’s office with the five ambassadors accredited to this country, the spokesman of the five travels round the country issuing statements left, right and centre, statements in which he blames us for everything. Swapo receives no blame directly. At that time we were holding discussions in the Prime Minister’s office with the five ambassadors and had come to an agreement that we would not talk to the Press at all because of the delicate stage reached. When the five ambassadors asked us to keep the substance of our talks away from the Press, we readily agreed. However, their main spokesman was then travelling to Windhoek and Cape Town as if this were his new found forum from which he could address the world. One can almost say that it was his constituency. Furthermore, he could not care less what he was saying. I must now conduct diplomacy under those circumstances! Under those circumstances I must try to take our people, our supporters and the leaders of South West Africa along in order to implement the proposals of the five. Under those circumstances the hon. member for Bezuidenhout asks me not to be in a hurry and to take it easy. Good heavens, Mr. Chairman, how much longer can we carry on like this? How much more patience must the Government show? How much more must we do to show our sincerity in accepting these proposals and that we are ready to implement them? We were ready to implement them on 25, 26, 27 and 28 April. In fact, we are still ready to implement them as I am speaking here today in this House. However, for how much longer the Government will be able to withstand the pressure being exerted by the leaders inside the Territory of South West Africa, I cannot say. Therefore, it is not a case of the Government wanting to do anything alone or going it alone. It is not the Government who wants to enforce its will on the people or on anybody. It is not the Government that is displaying intransigence. I have given hon. members a brief record of the programme of the negotiations. I can talk for hours and hours on this subject, the difficulties that we have encountered, the critical stages of the negotiations, the many times that we reached a stalemate and how we got out of it again. At no stage have we delayed talks. We went out of our way to accommodate the timetables proposed by the five.

*I should like to touch upon another aspect. Surely we did not know on 25 April whether Swapo would accept the proposals or not. We did not know that. Although I cannot disclose what was said in the Cabinet, I want to say here today that the Government accepted those proposals on the assumption that Swapo might also accept them, otherwise the Government would have been gambling. After all, the Government could not have done otherwise than to take into consideration that Swapo might have accepted the proposals because it would surely have been irresponsible to accept the proposals on another basis. I want to make another point: These proposals were accepted long before it was decided to act against the terrorists in Angola to ensure the safety of the people in the territory. It is against that background, where we leaned over backwards time and again, that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout now tells me that he cannot see how it is feasible for independence to be brought about before December and is pleading in anticipation for further delay. I want to go further and state that if we carry on in this way and do nothing while the West, in the months that lie ahead, pleads with and tries to appease Sam Nujoma and negotiate with him, the territory will not become independent within the foreseeable future. Then we will still be standing here by this time next year. The rainy season in South West Africa begins approximately in mid-October. We have been told that once heavy rains have set in during the rainy season, which lasts until April, one cannot hold elections. In other words, unless we decide at some stage or another at least to go ahead with the constitutional process before the rainy season, I can give hon. members the assurance that by this time next year, we shall still be conducting the same kind of debate, and by then hundreds of people would have been shot dead. It will bring about a deteriorating situation within the territory and the constitutional uncertainty in the territory will get out of hand. There is also the danger that the Government may lose its credibility, not only among the White leaders of the territory as such, but among the Black and Coloured leaders of South West Africa. That is the situation, and that is the fact which I want to state unequivocally here this afternoon. Therefore I want to tell the hon. member …

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister for certain information? I am not dealing with policy now, but with the practical situation. Does the hon. the Minister honestly think that the constitutional process can be finalized between now and the start of the rainy season?

I should not like to take that matter any further today. We are at a very delicate stage. I do not want to take the matter any further than I have already indicated. If we want to keep at all close to the independence date of 31 December then further steps of a constitutional nature will have to be taken before the rainy season begins. To us it is not a matter of unilateral implementation. We have accepted the proposals. Today is 6 June, and we accepted the proposals as long ago as 25 April. The indications in the newspapers are that Mr. Nujoma cannot easily be found and that he wants to delay matters further. A further complicating factor is the fact that Chipanga, who had been locked up by Swapo, has now been released. He was one of Nujoma’s lieutenants and has turned against Mr. Nujoma. Hon. members can read for themselves what Mr. Chipanga has to say about Mr. Nujoma. All we are interested in is to afford the people in the territory a fair, open and just opportunity once and for all of voting for people to represent them in a constituent assembly so that a decision can be made on a Constitution which can form the basis of their independence. Our Government will then negotiate with that Government so that we can withdraw from the territory in an honourable way. Their security must be ensured, treaties must be concluded between them and us, and South West Africa must be given the opportunity of going its way as an independent State, in the international community with its economy and its infrastructure intact. That is all we want. That is what we have worked for and what we have made major adjustments for. It has not taken place without pain, without division among the Whites, and without a great deal of sorrow and remorse. All these elements have accompanied the process.

A further aspect I wish to comment on is the following. If our troops preserve the safety of those people by cracking down on and cleaning up the Swapo nests from where they launch all their dangerous killing expeditions, there is a tremendous chorus of abjections, from the West as well, as though we were being insincere and did not want to implement the proposals. I want to say that they are welcome to send the representative of the Secretary-General of the UN to South West Africa; we are prepared to receive him and also to go ahead with the necessary constitutional steps. I told a Western representative long before 25 April: “Take your proposals to the Security Council. My Government would not consider that as unilateral action on your part; we will still consider the proposals on their merits, but get them approved at least.” Mr. Kapuuo was shot dead at the end of March, and we accepted the proposals after that. We did not say that as a result of his death, the fact that the Herero had been deprived of a great leader, and that the president of the DTA was no longer there, we could not go ahead with the elections and could not accept the proposals either. When the bus with seventy people abroad was hijacked; when the landmine was planted under the building of the Legislative Assembly of Owamboland and the entire Cabinet could have been blown up; when shots rang out and when shots were being fired at people and when Swapo’s violence escalated after 25 April, we did not run to the West and say that our acceptance of the proposals of 25 April was no longer valid and that we wanted the matter reviewed. Nor did we insist that the number of troops which would remain in South West Africa towards the final phase should be increased from 1 500 to 15 000. We did not do that, but uncomplainingly endured everything. If ever there was a Government which showed its sincerity in trying to establish a peaceful settlement in a territory, then it is this Government with its actions in regard to this matter. Only recently I told a liberal-minded American: “I am prepared to defend the South African Government’s case in South West Africa before any liberal audience in the United States, and I will win it, because we have agreed to the principles which the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States, including liberal-minded people, themselves say they are holding dear. We have agreed to every one of them, and yet it is not enough.” In this connection, I should like to make an appeal to hon. members on that side of the House. There is nothing wrong in their also talking to the members of the five Western powers; it is quite in order. In fact, I want to request them to state our case to those representatives. Tell them that time is running out, that the Government is being fair in its actions, and that the leaders were fair … [Interjections.] If what we did in South West, was not good enough, and if what we did in South West, results in sanctions and other drastic actions against us, then I want to say today that nothing will ever be good enough. That, then, is my appeal to them, and I am grateful to receive such a positive reaction from the hon. Opposition.

The hon. member also referred to the release of prisoners. I just want to point out that the proposals contained a mechanism for the release of prisoners. All we are waiting for now is for the Security Council to accept the proposals. Then that mechanism can be put into operation. We cannot do that before the time, however. The few people who were released together with Mr. Chipanga, are only a small group. According to our information—which has been confirmed by the West—there are several hundred former Swapo members who rebelled and whom Mr. Nujoma had imprisoned, inter alia, in Tanzania. They are living in detention camps under the most precarious, humiliating, inhuman and cruel conditions. How am I going to look Pastor Ndjoba, the leader of Owambo, in the face if we should suddenly begin to release prisoners unilaterally and those people who are being detained in Tanzania are never seen again? There is a mechanism which has been agreed upon in this connection and if the Security Council adopts the proposals, this mechanism can be put into operation.

I just want to touch on a final aspect before I leave the South West Africa issue. Pressure has been exerted on us, especially by the USA, to reduce the number of our troops in South West Africa under certain circumstances. We agreed to that because we were satisfied that the reduced number of troops under the circumstances of an abatement of the threat, would not amount to an invalidation of the umbrella of security which would be available to the people of South West Africa. In the nature of things, however, it was a painful matter. I want to point out to the House that America has a trusteeship territory, Micronesia. Do hon. members know what agreement has been concluded with that territory? The agreement between America and Micronesia reads—

Micronesia is also a non-self-governing territory and consists of a number of small, scattered islands with a population of 150 000 people. In terms of article 83 of the Charter of the UN, this matter should also have been handled by the Security Council. But in that council, there is a Russian with a veto who might cause problems for America. However, because America has the atom bomb, that is to say, the power and the brute force, she can enforce this type of agreement on Micronesia. Her troops will remain in the territory for 15 years, regardless of what happens. It is not human rights which the Big Powers aspire to. It is power.

†The hon. member for Amanzimtoti …

An irresponsible speech.

No. To some extent part of his speech was responsible. However, the hon. member said that the real threat to South Africa was our state of growing isolation. Just how does that hon. member think we can avoid it? By his policy? Does the hon. member think he can avoid our growing isolation with his policy?

Yes. [Interjections.]

On what grounds does the hon. member base his opinion? We get this kind of wishful thinking, without a basis or evidence to substantiate it. There is no example anywhere in contemporary history where the kind of policy which that hon. member and his party propagates, has been accepted. [Interjections.] It is not even accepted in South Africa.

The hon. member also advocated diplomacy based on commitment to Africa. Another hon. member, the hon. member for Mooi River, had a lot to say about the possibility of our agricultural potential being used by us in this regard. I do not want to take it further, but it may surprise the hon. member for Mooi River to know that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and I have this year paid visits to certain African countries. He must not ask me to name them, however. I want to thank him for the suggestion, and I can assure him that we are doing it already.

The hon. member for Simonstown raised a whole host of questions and points. He said that last year I had said that I would appeal to the people in the USA over the heads of the Administration. I did not say that because we had given up hope of talking to the USA Administration itself. We are still doing that. We should continue to do so. Since then I have appeared on a number of American television programmes which were broadcast over various channels and I have done what I have said. It had some effect, because I have received many letters from all over the USA, interesting letters, which reflected a good positive reaction.

The hon. member complained about the United States Information Service and mentioned the showing of the film Roots. This matter is receiving attention. The new USA Ambassador has only just arrived in South Africa, and I appeal to the hon. member to leave the matter to my department. We shall go into the issue.

Mr. Chairman, may I, in connection with the American Information Service, ask the hon. the Minister whether he is aware of the fact that a film under the title Waiting for Fidel was lent by the Canadian Embassy to the Sea Point High School some weeks ago to be shown to the schoolboys? [Interjections.]

I can only say that I am not aware of it.

I shall give you the chapter and verse for it?

I shall welcome that. We can then decide what to do. But let me first investigate the facts.

The hon. member also mentioned that the five Western powers were running away from their own proposals and he urged us to implement the proposals. I think the statements I have made earlier might answer the hon. member’s concern in that respect.

The hon. member foresaw anarchy in South West Africa if the South African forces should withdraw. I fully agree with that, unless of course there is a corresponding decrease in the threat, the violence, the murders and the killings. One of the cornerstones of the proposals is—whether it will be so in practice, I cannot say—that there should be a cessation of violence and that, as violence diminishes, we would reduce our forces, but not before.

The hon. member referred to the Salisbury Agreement of last year as a highlight. He fears that anarchy and terrorism are increasing. He asks what South Africa’s standpoint is on the Anglo-American proposals and the Salisbury Agreement and whether we are supporting the Salisbury Agreement, the so-called internal agreement. This is a very delicate question. We do not prescribe to and interfere with Rhodesia. The South African Government is naturally very much interested in a peaceful and stable solution being reached in Salisbury. We would welcome a solution in Rhodesia that would have the support of the majority of Rhodesians and would bring about a stable Government. It is in South Africa’s interest, but South Africa cannot concern itself with the type of Government, the ideology, the particular complexion of the party that will win the election, because that would be interference in the domestic affairs of that country. In our opinion the Salisbury Agreement is a step in the direction of a solution, and any development that is a step forward is welcomed. But it will depend upon the parties to the agreement whether the agreement will hold firm, whether it will work and bring about a de-escalation of warfare. We remain in favour of a solution that will attract the widest possible international acceptability, but without discounting the good chance that the internal settlement in Rhodesia has of succeeding. In this respect I would like to appeal to Mr. Joshua Nkomo to return to Salisbury and to work with that agreement so that the political process can be completed in Rhodesia by the end of this year with, hopefully, a stable Government there, so that through that stability the whole of Southern Africa can reap the advantage of greater stability and progress.

The hon. member asked what was happening at Ruacana and what we were doing to protect our interests there. The Ruacana hydro-electric project is on the South West African side of the border and was built for the people of South West Africa. They are to get the advantages of that project. I am afraid that although, by and large, it is in tact at present, full utilization would require co-operation with the Angolan authorities. I am hopeful that that will one day become feasible and possible, however difficult it might seem at the moment.

The hon. member also asked about the killings in Botswana, about the shooting of two South Africans in Botswana. I think the hon. member for Bezuidenhout asked a question in this connection last week and was answered on my behalf by one of my colleagues. I cannot take the matter further than that. We are still waiting for the Botswana authorities to consider their police report. We have forwarded the reports of the post mortem examinations conducted in South Africa on the deceased to the Botswana authorities. We have done everything at this stage that we could do. We are now in an interim period and shall have to wait until it is clear what action the Botswana Government is contemplating. I think it would be inappropriate for this Government or any hon. member to make any further statement on this question at this stage, although we are indeed very much concerned about the whole issue.

The hon. member for Constantia asked what the lines of authority were in dealing with South West Africa. It appeared to him that implementation of policy there became unco-ordinated and that statements made by Ministers not connected with foreign affairs tended to conflict with one another. In the first place, the South West Africa issue is the responsibility of the hon. the Prime Minister and as such falls under his department. It is administered at present by an Administrator-General instituted in terms of legislative provisions passed by this Parliament.

Naturally, in such a transitional period there will always be a problem regarding co-ordination, in the sense that duplication of some sort would be unavoidable. There will always be transition pains in a situation of this kind. However, I can assure the hon. member that the Department of Foreign Affairs continues to act to the best of its ability as a co-ordinating factor. We are satisfied that it is working well, as well as can be expected. I am not saying that it is all that perfect. However, it is working well in the circumstances.

Then he raised a very thorny and delicate issue in regard to the Non-proliferation Treaty. This, he ought to know, is a rather sensitive area. He will remember that the hon. the Prime Minister stated last year that we did not have and did not intend developing nuclear explosive devices. This is the first point I want to make in this respect. The question of South Africa’s accession to the Non-proliferation Treaty has been under consideration over the last few years. I wish to state categorically that the South African Government supports the principle of non-proliferation. We are certainly very much in favour of it, because we are acutely aware of the dangers of proliferation. However, what is also of great importance to us, is that we wish to be satisfied in considering accession to the Treaty that that will, at the same time, not endanger the secrecy of our own process of enrichment. In addition, we should wish to be satisfied that the discriminatory measures so far taken against South Africa in this field, would cease. This is a serious matter. The hon. the Prime Minister dealt with this in some of his addresses last year. I should also like to refer to the unconstitutional ousting of South Africa from the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This is something of which the hon. member for Constantia is aware, something to which he also, quite rightly, referred. We are concerned about this.

There are, of course, some other serious aspects that should be taken into account. For instance, we want to be reassured regarding the supply of fuel for the Safari-reactor. This fuel was withheld from us in spite of an agreement with the United States, in spite of the fact that we had paid for it and in spite of the fact that that fuel would have been subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. In spite of these three factors we are not getting the fuel for which we paid. We should therefore like to be satisfied in this respect. Furthermore, there is the question of the supply of fuel to the Koeberg nuclear installation. Again we want to know whether Escom, who has a contract with the United States for the supply of that fuel, will have that fuel delivered to it. We want guarantees in this respect. Finally, I might mention that, according to article IV of the Non-proliferation Treaty, nuclear powers are obliged to make available to other signatories access to technology and equipment. We want to know whether South Africa, if ever she should decide to accede, will be treated— in terms of that treaty—like any other ordinary, normal State in the world or whether South Africa will again be singled out for punitive action. Will we again, have to suffer discrimination which will make it impossible for us to accede to that treaty?

These are the questions that concern us. They are currently receiving attention. I therefore appeal to the hon. member for Constantia to accept my reply and not to raise any further difficult questions in this respect.

They just want us to sign away our bargaining rights; that is all!

That might be so. Nevertheless, we shall do the right thing in our own interest.

The hon. member for East London North devoted his speech almost exclusively to me personally. I want to thank him for that. I feel greatly honoured. At some stage, time permitting, I would gladly appear with the hon. member in his own constituency in front of his voters. Then we can discuss these very matters further in the presence of his own voters. [Interjections.] I indeed look forward to that very much. However, I am not going to spend much time now on the hon. member, for the simple reason that he conveniently omitted to quote from another speech made by me in this House after the speech he actually quoted from.

May I just read from that speech, which I made on 2 September 1970. If the hon. member has not read that speech, I ask him to go and study that statement. After I had referred to the record of a United Nations sponsored seminar on the problems of the multinational society, I went on to say the following:

*I am quoting from Hansard of 2 September 1970, col. 3212—

… Here the idea is clearly expressed that the individual’s rights can in fact be subordinate to the interests and the continued existence of the group, because it is after all true that the individual’s human potential can in fact only evolve and develop to the full within his national or group context. Very few of us have the ability to undertake space flights and to detach ourselves from our group, and then still to realize our full potential. It is a fact that this is generally the case … Sir, I cannot put it more clearly than that. The point I want to repeat is this: We need not flinch from international standards, whether in the sphere of human dignity or in the sphere of group development. This party can comply with them, because this party has in it that inherent idealism.

This party, the NP, has in it the inherent idealism and dynamism to do that. Sir, it is not our objectives which are changing or that I no longer stand by those principles; I still stand by every word I said in 1970. It goes without saying, however, that the methods change.

Several other questions have also been put to me, but time is running out, and all that remains for me to do is to tell speakers on this side of the House that I appreciated it very much indeed that they made so many constructive and positive proposals. My department has made notes of everyone’s contributions, and we shall want to further discuss those contributions with them individually. I wish to express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for the support and positive contributions which came from them. Similarly, I wish to express my thanks and appreciation to all speakers who participated in this debate. I am not excluding anyone when I say this. I think the contributions were, in general construction. Constructive contributions were made, and I hope that in spite of all our differences in the sphere of domestic politics, we will be able to stand united as one man to deal with our enemies when it comes to the onslaught from abroad.

I should now like to conclude with a thought which Dr. Brzezinski once expressed to me on the occasion when I met the President of the United States of America in Washington. It was in March 1977, shortly before I took up the post in which I now find myself. In the course of that meeting with the President, at which Vice-President Mondale, the Secretary for State, Mr. Vance and Dr. Brzezinski were present, I spent approximately half an hour explaining to the President what this Government envisages in South Africa and in Africa. I spoke frankly and openly to the President and did not try to hide our faults. I referred to certain laws, regulations and practices and told him that I realized that he would never be able to agree with them. I indicated in what respect I thought changes could be effected on the road that lies ahead, but I also told him very frankly that there was one dominant issue which we would not be able to change, namely our right to govern ourselves and to preserve our identity, not because we are white, but simply because we also have our set of values according to which we wanted to live. I discussed the position in Africa with the President. I emphasized how little freedom of the Press really exists in other countries in Africa; I did not do this to denigrate Africa, but merely to point out that they have a different system of values in which there was no really independent judiciary, no multiplicity of political parties or regular elections, etc. present. I pointed out that few if any of the democratic principles of the norms of human rights that were upheld in America, existed in Africa. I am not saying that this is so because they are Black. There are White Governments as well which do not apply the same democratic principles as America does.

I do not want to be misunderstood. It is not a matter of Black values being inferior to those of the Whites. But it is a fact that they have rejected the particular system of values of the USA. They have accepted other systems in line with their needs and values. I spoke to the President in this vein. I told him how much we should be able to accomplish in Africa if there were no Russian or Cuban aggression, but if instead there were peace in Africa. I mentioned to him how important it was for the masses of Black people in Africa to obtain a better protein diet and better health and training services. I mentioned to him that relatively speaking, compared to the position in the USA, one could have inexpensive boreholes drilled in Africa—one could probably have it done for R700 or R800—so that they could have pure water and get rid of diseases in sterilized water. I told him of the Nuguni bull which had been bred in South Africa, a large animal of the same strain as the African cattle which would for that reason be best able to adapt to and to survive in Central African conditions. I pointed out that the nearer one moved to the equator, the smaller the cattle became. I said ultimately they were just as small as calves and yet ate the same amount of grass and drank the same amount of water as a large animal. I said that with bulls such as these, which is only one example, we should endeavour to increase the protein diet of the people.

I told him of our knowledge in the field of agriculture. I told him what my colleague the hon. the Minister of Agriculture was doing in the field of vaccines for the combating of animal diseases in Africa. I referred to the simple kraal-dweller living in remote areas in the bush, far removed from the city. I pointed out that we should be able to help him to harvest eight bags of grain instead of four. Subsequently he could harvest sixteen bags. We would then also be able to construct a simple bridge across the river for him so as to enable him to reach a little village or a shop in the rainy season. After that, we could render assistance to him in the form of some means of conveyance and still later provide him with a better bridge and better means of conveyance. In that way, one would ultimately, by dint of hard work, create a basically sound basis in Africa for industrial development. With the money which would then become available from agriculture, a demand for manufactured goods would be created. When I had finished speaking, there was a moment of silence. Then Dr. Brzezinski, who spoke first, said more or less the following—

Then he kept quiet for a moment, and said—

†There is nothing inevitable about manmade plans, intentions, policies and actions. It is inevitable that the sum will one day die, and this earth as well. And all of us. Yes, that is inevitable. It is also inevitable that there will be a flood after a severe cloudburst. There is nothing inevitable, however, about human plans and human designs. The locomotive of history is the locomotive of human motives and desires. The thing that endangers us is not the locomotive of history in the sense of inevitability. It is the locomotive of Russian lust for power, the locomotive of distortion, of lies, against this country and our people. It is the locomotive of nihilism, of anarchy. That is the locomotive that is threatening the world.

*However, if we make an honest attempt here in Africa to face up to the realities, of one another and can see where our dangers and weaknesses lie, and can see where the going will be uphill and take a firm resolution to uplift the masses of people—Black, White, Coloured and Asian people—to allow them to live better and with more security and to understand one another better, in other words, if we can join the locomotive of justice and understanding, of honesty, sincerity, hard work, the indestructable power of faith, then we would possess far greater strength, greater inherent self-generating power, than the locomotive of Russian imperialism and aggression. I believe blindly that the Whites, the Black people, the Coloureds and the Asians have been living together in this country for so long that they do nevertheless have an inherent trust in one another and realize that they will make the correct decisions on the road that lies ahead. And then the words of Dugmore in 1820 come to mind: “Here we must take root and grow or die.” We must all be able to say we have grown.

†We have taken root, we have grown and we are going to live in peace and assist Africa in inheriting the greatness which ought to be the destiny of this beautiful continent.

Vote agreed to.

The Committee reverted to Votes Nos. 8, 10, 14 to 16, 19, 25, 29, 39 and 40.

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

Schedule

Amendments agreed to.

Schedules, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have now debated the various Votes under the budget and considerable time has elapsed since the budget was introduced. Perhaps we can now in retrospect see whether it has attained its objective. There are three main characteristics of this budget that I should like to refer to immediately. The first is that this budget was intended to be stimulatory. It was intended to put us back on the path of growth. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that the stimulation of the economy has been shown to be inadequate and that he has already had to take further steps in the form of extending Bank credit. Despite those steps and despite the fact that there appears to be a moderate increase in consumption which may perhaps even be due to purchases in anticipation of the general sales tax, it is quite clear that there is an inadequate resumption of fixed investments and that the stimulation has not been adequate in the circumstances in which our economy finds itself. The second is that South Africa is being faced with a major problem in regard to unemployment. The position in regard to unemployment certainly does not show reasonable signs of improving. It is quite clear that this is related to an inadequate revival of the economy. Jobs are not being created in adequate numbers. Continued action to safeguard the balance of payments, in the absence of a turn-around in capital inflow, has resulted and continues to result in inadequate growth, and therefore unemployment remains a major problem in South Africa.

The third matter I want to deal with is the question of the general sales tax which is soon to be introduced. This continues to create confusion. The decision to allow a choice as to whether the tax is to be add-on or add-in can only lead to disorder in the market-place and this will result in the exploitation of the consumer. In making this decision the Government was without doubt influenced by the views of major business associations, but I venture to submit that it did not have regard for consumer interests. Regrettably one must conclude that it did not consult adequately with consumer interests and to the extent it did consult, it did not take heed. There is no doubt that individual trades and businesses are adversely affected in their activities. Inflationary expectations have arisen as a result of the announcement of the general sales tax. All in all, it is a sorry tale. If the Government continues to be committed to this tax, we would like to make a last-minute appeal to the hon. the Minister to firstly postpone the introduction and the imposition of this tax, and secondly to give relief from the tax in respect of the basic essentials of life. There is no doubt that this tax will hit the poor and will hit the poor hardest.

If we were to look at this budget in the ordinary circumstances of a country undergoing normal cyclical variations in its economy, to which one could apply routine fiscal and monetary measures, such measures would be in order. However, the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs, who sat down just a moment ago, has spoken about the locomotive of history. The locomotive of history hits one when one stands on the line. It hits one when one stands on the train line, but one does not have to stand on the train line. One does not have to be run over. The locomotive of history runs on the lines that are laid down for it. The issue that we want to put to the hon. the Minister is whether it is adequate for a budget to be introduced with short-term considerations of the nature contained in this budget. Should we not rather have regard for the South Africa in which we live today and face the situation where South Africa is living under the threats of instability as a result from both external threats and internal threats?

There are internal forces of conflict and there are also external threats which threaten conflict. We have heard for two days running of the possibility of boycotts and sanctions. Those, together with violence, are all part of the armoury of the forces that are ranged against the existing order in the Republic of South Africa. The question that has to be asked of the hon. the Minister—and it also has to be asked of the hon. the Prime Minister and the Cabinet—is how this 1978 Parliament with its budget and legislation has met the challenge of history. How has it met the challenge of the threats that are against us? Has it taken account of the Republic’s true situation? How does it meet the challenge of the times, and is there a long-term plan for survival? It is all very well to utter fine words and to say that we will fight, that we will be there and that we will survive, but the issue is:

Is there a long-term plan for survival in South Africa? The question that needs to be put specifically to the hon. the Minister of Finance is: Can the problems of South Africa be solved with the inadequate growth in domestic product which has been shown in the last three years and the type of growth that is now anticipated in the economy in the years that lie ahead? Even in the case of the growth that we have, can the hon. the Minister say that that growth has taken place in the sectors in which it is needed in South Africa? I regret to say that I believe the answer to all those questions is, unfortunately, in the negative. What one must put to the hon. the Minister, is that however great the dangers are to South Africa’s stability from the bullets and bombs of terrorists, the dangers from frustration, humiliation and poverty are even greater than the threat from the terrorists and from those who seek to do us physical harm. The challenge to South Africa is not merely a challenge to achieve political power, but also a challenge to the system itself. It is also not merely a challenge to the political system in South Africa, but also a challenge to the entire economic structure in South Africa. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Finance to tell us in this debate how in fact he sees South Africa responding to this challenge. Does he see that we are in fact removing the factors which cause humiliation? Can it be said that frustration and poverty are being adequately combated? Are we showing to South Africa what the value of the free enterprise system is, not to the man who is enjoying its fruits, but to the underprivileged who have been told by the enemies of South Africa that it is a mechanism for privilege and for exploitation? How does one really explain to the unemployed that the loss of their jobs is a natural corollary to the safeguarding of the balance of payments? They do not understand that; they cannot understand that this is a problem that faces the economy as a whole. Can the hon. the Minister tell us how the problems of South Africa can be solved in a society where at least one in every eight Black workers is unemployed and where new young work-seekers cannot find employment? The key to political stability, as we see it, lies in an economic order in which there is full employment with mobility from worker to entrepreneur, from employee to capitalist and from the poor to the rich. It is that mobility which enables the free enterprise system to be sold and it is the only way in which it can be marketed. Any plan for the survival of the Whites must therefore have, as an essential ingredient, full employment for the Blacks. Any plan to maintain the standards of the Whites in South Africa must include meaningful steps to uplift the quality of life for Blacks. The key to stability will therefore come with increasing Black consumer consumption. It will be achieved by improving the quality of life for Blacks. That is therefore the key to the survival of Whites in South Africa. It does not mean that we merely have to deal with the few aspects that we have spoken about. It means that there will have to be a real improvement in living standards, and the removal of economic insecurity caused through a lack of jobs. It means true home ownership—not merely leases—in close proximity to places of employment. It means reasonable leisure time and recreational facilities to be used during that leisure time. It means educational facilities to enable parents to have greater hopes for their children.

It means also physical security, protection from assault, robbery and worse. It means the ability to save in relative terms to accumulate wealth. It also means social services by the State for the unemployed, the sick and the aged. All this will not appear as a miracle without effort. To achieve this there are three essentials and I do not think the budget gives adequate incentives for this. The first is a work syndrome, a desire on the part of people to work harder and for the community as a whole to have the incentive to work harder. The second essential is growth of proportions unseen in recent years, and channelled into the correct activities, and the third is a reassessment of priorities.

The question that one needs to ask in regard to the reassessment of priorities is: Has the Government faced the reality that there has to be a complete reassessment of the economic priorities in South Africa? Is the hon. the Minister prepared to face the reality that in the years which lie ahead some of those greatly desired projects need to be postponed indefinitely, if not abandoned? In the kind of order which we need in South Africa in order to ensure the survival of the White people, the new, magnificent State provincial and municipal buildings, the opera houses, the beautiful by-passes, the monuments and the luxury works will have to be sacrificed for many, many years ahead. The per capita expenditure of a non-essential nature on privileged groups will have to be frozen to allow others less privileged to participate to a greater extent. An assessment must be made as to what is necessary to survive and what can be postponed or abandoned.

There is a choice before the Whites of South Africa. They can abandon and surrender, they can fight and survive as long as they can, or they can fight and adapt themselves in order to survive in the long term. I want to put to the hon. the Minister what I believe is an unique challenge. It is an unique challenge because the truth is that if we look at history there is not a nation which has voluntarily given up privilege. If we look at the history of the world, at the history of the empires and the nations which were built around privileged groups, we see that no one has given up privilege voluntarily. No people who have been in a privileged position have ever accepted the substitution for that position of merit as a measure. Those people whose roots are here and who intend to remain here, have a unique historical challenge before them. Unlike the colonial powers who withdrew under pressure, unlike those empires, commonwealths and republics of old, who were destroyed by new forces, White South Africa may well be one of the first not to defeat an onslaught by arms alone, but also by an accommodation and a change in structure from privilege to merit.

This does not mean having to spend less on defence and security. On the contrary, to ensure that a period of instability does not come about once the reassessments are made, one will have to ensure that one is in a position to defend oneself against terror, aggression and crime which will undoubtedly take on alarming proportions in a period of instability if the precautions are not taken.

We will have to look at the Defence Force, we have to look at the long-term threats that there are to South Africa and we will have to make sure that while we make the changes we are able to survive. However, the test is really whether we are prepared to give up a position of privilege and accept merit as the standard. In this regard we have the most interesting situation in the respect of the hon. the Minister himself. The hon. the Minister went to Brussels and on Thursday, 18 May this year, he delivered a speech, a speech which I believe may well be a most significant one. He said—

The question is: Does this represent Government policy? Does it mean that this is what the Government stands for? Will the hon. the Minister, when he replies to the debate, tell us what he means by “a society where merit alone will determine worth”. If it is true that merit alone will determine worth in this society, a completely new political debate can start in South Africa. In that case we are in a different ball game and can we decide the matter in quite a different fashion, because then we are talking the same language, i.e. that we are moving from a position of privilege to a position where merit alone will determine. However, the question which needs to be asked, is whether that was only for the consumption of Brussels or whether it is also for the consumption of South Africa. Having made that statement, then I say to the hon. the Minister it is no use using beautiful words; he must now demonstrate that in reality and in the actions which are perpetrated in South Africa.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister and other hon. Ministers to respond to another point. The hon. the Minister said in Brussels—

I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether that is correct. If it is not correct, the hon. the Minister owes it to the investors overseas, as well as to us here in South Africa, to make it correct. The hon. the Minister must not avoid this issue when he replies to the debate. Is it correct that we and the overseas world entertain the popular notion that these things are not open to all races when in fact they are? Are luxury hotels, public parks, restaurants, entertainment centres and sport and other activities all open to all races? I am very happy about what the hon. the Minister of Community Development announced yesterday and I commend him for it, but it is not correct to say that all these facilities are open. I ask the hon. the Minister whether he will commit himself in the House and in this debate to the opening of all the facilities which he says are open and have been opened. If he runs away from that commitment, he has, with respect, done a disservice and not a service to South Africa with his speech in Brussels.

Will the Rand Club accept me as a member?

Please do not talk nonsense when we are dealing with an important matter. The truth is that these facilities are not all open and that we require a commitment that they will be open so that we shall see the situation which the hon. the Minister has described, coming about in reality.

I should like to refer the hon. the Minister to a statement which was made in the Plowden report on the Control of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom. In this report the following recommendation was made—

I ask the hon. the Minister whether he accepts that as a sound principle, whether he will follow that principle and whether he will not in the future take a look ahead. In the United Kingdom that look ahead is taken over a five-year period every year, but in our case we may well have to look ahead a great deal further. Must South Africa not today form a picture in order to analyse the needs of the community and indicate South Africa’s plan for the future? What do we really need to deal with some of the things the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs has indicated we must have in South Africa?

It would be very interesting to hear who the Ministers are who are causing him to be retarded in his activities. In the light of what he said in Brussels, I am sure the hon. the Minister of Finance is not one of them. However, is it not important that we should know? As we see the situation, South Africa needs equal pay for equal work throughout the Public Service, a solving of the housing problem for all the races, equal education facilities for all the races and equal pensions for all the people of South Africa. It is also clear that we shall need increased defence expenditure over a five or ten year period. If the hon. the Minister accepts that these are things which should be done, has he a plan to do it? If one were to tell the Western world that one had a plan to achieve all these things over a period of time one has stipulated, I believe—and there are many who believe with me—that the whole attitude of the Western world towards us would change. It would then become much easier for Western powers to support us than it is at the moment. If that is so, will the hon. the Minister not then present—as I believe he should—a five year plan to this House, a plan indicating what can be done in regard to these matters? Then we can be judged not only by what we are doing today, but by what we intend to do in the future in the economic life of our people. However, let us look at some figures. If one allows for an inflation rate of 10%— and I think that is relatively conservative in relation to past history—without any increase in real expenditure, in other words, maintaining real expenditure at the level of this year, it means that in five years’ time the Government will be spending R15 800 million per annum. This would be without any increase in real expenditure, without solving any of the problems of South Africa. The present budget, before loan redemptions and borrowing, shows a deficit of more than R2 000 million and, allowing for loan redemption, more than one third of the budget has to be found from borrowings. If we examine this picture, must the hon. the Minister not answer the challenge that he should present a five year plan to this Parliament? The Government must tell us what its objectives are in economic terms over a five year period and over a 10 year period. It must also tell us how it will achieve those objectives. If South Africa is to meet the challenge of rising aspirations as well as the increasing need for defence, where is it to find the money? There are answers to this question.

Tell us.

I shall tell hon. members, as you ask me. Firstly, productivity must be increased in South Africa and there can only be greater productivity if all discrimination is removed in economic terms. Then, people can earn more in real terms because they can produce more in real terms. Secondly, real growth in South Africa has not only to be doubled, it has to be trebled if in fact any of these targets are to be achieved. Thirdly, contrary to what the hon. the Minister indicated in Brussels, i.e. that he believes we can maintain a reasonable degree of growth without foreign capital, we believe that if any of these problems are to be solved, foreign capital will have to be obtained, because without it a reasonable rate of growth is almost impossible to achieve. Fourthly, as I have indicated, priorities will have to be reviewed. It will have to be decided what is urgent in order to survive and it will also have to be decided what one can do without in so far as luxuries are concerned for those of us who have been in a privileged position until now. What we need from the Government is not merely a defence of the present position which, as we have heard over the last two days, has been found to be difficult to defend; we need a challenge based on the future position of this Government. We need to tell our own people how in five to 10 years’ time South Africa will face the world. We must tell the West that we have the will to make these changes, and they must help us with capital if they want us to obtain these objectives, because the objectives are that we do have change in South Africa, and change without violence. The fact that there will be change is beyond question. The only question that has to be decided in South Africa is whether that change will come by means of peaceful means, as we want it, and as I believe the hon. the Minister wants it, or whether it will come by means of violence, which is what the enemies of South Africa want to achieve.

The way to peaceful change is a way through investment, through growth, through greater prosperity and through a greater economic plan for South Africa.

If I may, I also want to deal with one other aspect. I believe that what South Africa needs is an ideological base from which to operate. What is the cause for which South Africa is being asked to fight? Is it to defend ourselves; to maintain privileges? Certainly, it is to survive. However, all of this tends to make it a White cause instead of making it a South African cause. We are told to oppose communism. Opposing something is in itself a negative thing. It will, in itself, not arouse men to action, particularly if they have not experienced the system themselves, and if, on the contrary, they are being offered the system by those who seek to persuade them that it could act as a panacea for their shortcomings.

I believe that South Africa’s cause needs an ideological base, an ideological base, politically to align us with democracy against tyranny and oppression, economically to associate us with the free enterprise system as opposed to communism, and sociologically to bring us together with those who care to ensure equality of opportunity and who care to afford protection against exploitation. I believe that is social democracy. I believe that social democracy can be a counter to communism, and that it can also open an ideological counter to Marxism. It is freedom without licence to abuse. It is free enterprise with protection to ensure equality in bargaining power.

Words and slogans are never enough. There needs to be substance. Social democracy means full employment, care when economic circumstances such as age and illness cause inability to work. It means equality of opportunity, equal educational opportunity—not in form only, but in substance. It means equal ability for those who work to obtain a quality of life equal to those who make a similar contribution. It means an ability of movement between capitalist and worker, between employer and employee. The lower must, without legal restriction or conventional handicap, have the potential to become the higher. It means safeguards to ensure equality of bargaining power in a free market operation, and also to ensure the non-exploitation of the less fortunate.

Given the ideological base of social democracy there is an economic alternative to communism which can be a cause for South Africans, all of them irrespective of colour. Then we can show what life is like elsewhere. We can have a true comparison. However, as I have stressed, the substance must be demonstrated in reality. Words alone are not enough. Once we have a just economic system which is based on merit, political solutions will be more readily found, political solutions which, like all democracies, involve participation by all the people irrespective of the particular constitutional model that may eventually be chosen.

On a merit basis, where there is protection to groups and individuals—whether they be minority or otherwise—I see social democracy as the key, as the ideological base from which South Africa can fight communism and Marxism.

Mr. Speaker, I expected the hon. member for Yeoville to make a financial speech today. Unfortunately, however, he plunged headlong into politics, and he made a purely political speech. The hon. member made certain statements that in my opinion are not worthy of him. As a financial expert—and I would call him that— as a person who has a knowledge of financial affairs, he ought definitely not to say the kind of thing he said here this afternoon.

From the very outset, in making his very first statement, the hon. member argued for “equal pay for equal work”, etc.

The hon. member made another statement, however, that amazed me. It was his statement that there should be an equal pension for all in South Africa. Can one imagine a more ridiculous thing than this? An equal pension for everyone in South Africa …

Are you for or against discrimination?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bryanston has not the slightest idea what he is talking about. What the hon. member for Yeoville is asking for, therefore, is an equal pension for all, from the Prime Minister to the lowliest labourer.

He did not say that at all!

The hon. member said: “An equal pension for all the people in South Africa.” This is what will appear in the copy of his speech.

Furthermore, the hon. member put forward a few other things to us here, things that, if they were implemented, would, in the hon. member’s opinion, serve to counter communism in South Africa. As far as I am concerned, many of the things that the hon. member said today—if they were to be implemented—would in fact serve to promote communism throughout the world. The hon. member asked the hon. the Minister of Finance a whole series of questions. Of course, the hon. the Minister himself will reply to them later. There are a few others matters, however, about which I myself want to tackle the hon. member for Yeoville. For instance, he argued enthusiastically in favour of throwing open hotels, restaurants, parks, etc., to all race groups. What he actually said was that there should be “one man, one vote” in South Africa. This is his policy in all respects. The hon. member also spoke about equal pay for equal work, etc. Who is preventing that hon. member’s businesses from paying equal salaries to Black people, Coloureds or Indians? This Government and the laws of this Parliament do not prevent it.

Ask Helen whether she pays the waiters in her hotels the same.

Yes, let us look at what the hon. member for Houghton pays in her hotels. We know what she pays in her hotels; after all, that is common knowledge.

I challenge you to compare your employees’ pay with mine. [Interjections.]

This afternoon the hon. member for Yeoville failed to see this budget in its true perspective. I want to single out a few points in this regard. We are not afraid to point out problems. I am going to refer to a number of problems. I also want to point out how the hon. the Minister and the Cabinet have succeeded in combating those problems by means of this budget.

Firstly, I want to point out that this budget represents an increase of only 9,1% more than the last year’s figures. This is lower than the rate of inflation. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Yeoville: Should this budget have made provision for 20% more? He wants there to be a greater stimulus. If this budget had provided for a greater stimulus, then the expenditure of the State would have been very much higher. What would then have happened to the rate of inflation? This hon. Minister acted in a responsible manner. He did not come up with irresponsible requests and accusations like those of the hon. member for Yeoville. Inflation had to be combated, and that was one of the highest priorities. Last year the budget was drawn up with that in mind, as it was this year. An expansionist budget was introduced so that systematic, sound growth could take place in the economy, without inflation being stimulated. The result of this budget will very definitely be that more employment opportunities will be created. Now, however, the hon. member for Yeoville says that there must be sufficient employment opportunities for all the Blacks in South Africa. He forgets about the Whites; there does not have to be work for them. He only says: “There must be full employment for all the Blacks”. That is what the Government should do, according to him. Does South Africa exist for the Black people alone? Do the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians not have rights here too? This is the type of statement the hon. member made. As I said, this budget will bring about sound economic growth. It will be possible to make higher profits and higher real salaries will be paid.

There will be more State revenue so that the Government will be able to introduce an even better budget in 12 months’ time. In that way, more funds will be made available, and this will not be inflationary; it will be the result of sound growth. There will also be more funds on the capital market for the purposes of lending, for both the private sector and the public sector.

Let us look at what else has been achieved by this budget. In his objectives for the 1977-’78 financial year the hon. the Minister spelled it out very clearly that the balance of payments was objective No. 1. We know that the hon. the Minister did in fact do that. In that regard he also took a look at imports and decided that imports had to be cut down on in order to rectify the balance of payments. As a result of these strict monetary and fiscal measures that were implemented, the value of imports dropped by 7% and the volume of imports by 17%. This resulted in the balance of payments being rectified. Fortunately, in this period we also had a very profitable year in agriculture and in mining. It helped us to rectify our balance of payments. What has happened now in this budget? The hon. the Minister made R31 million available for financing mines that were short of cash, so that they would not be lost to the market. I want to point out that many non-Whites are employed in those mines. Foreign non-Whites are also employed there. Due to the provision of this amount of R31 million, these mines will now be in a position to carry on producing.

What did we find as regards import replacement? The hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs went out of his way in his attempts in this regard. All sectors were involved here. They consulted together and worked on it for many days. The hon. the Minister of Finance also granted assistance in this regard. Under the chairmanship of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut a number of people in the private sector came together and began a thorough investigation of the question of import replacement. As a result, both the Ministers succeeded in rectifying South Africa’s balance of payments. Now I want to ask a question. What would have happened if the balance of payments had not been rectified? It could very easily have happened that South Africa would have been unable to repay some of its short-term loans, that it used to stimulate the economy in the past and to tackle certain projects. What would have happened then? Then the hon. member for Yeoville would have sung a different tune. He would have accused the hon. the Minister of all manner of shortsightedness and poor policy. We would never have heard the end of it. As a result of our Minister’s action, however, a much bigger local market has been created for our people. As the result of the import replacement our own industries are being put in a position to produce more. Certain branches of industry have been established that are today showing economic viability. It was also first established that there was adequate available manpower, people with the necessary technical knowledge, before these things were taken any further.

In conclusion I come to the promotion of exports, and I shall mention this once again later and point out a few problems that this hon. Minister has combated with the co-operation of the private sector—and—take note—with the aid of experts.

We must remember that the amount set aside for export promotion in this budget, for the year 1978-’79, is 115% higher than the amount last year. It is now an amount of R92,2 million. After all, this is a vast sum that the hon. the Minister has made available in this budget in order to assist the industries, because by promoting exports, the industries can produce. What more does the hon. member want? What more must be done? The domestic market is not big enough for what all these industries are producing. However, they are able to produce and to export. The hon. member says the economy has not been stimulated sufficiently. But surely there is already a tremendous upswing in the economy. For a sound expansionistic policy to succeed and to create a sound climate, this hon. Minister has done certain things, and I am going to spell them out here and now.

Firstly, there was the reduction of the surcharge on company tax. This meant that there could be more funds in the hands of the companies. They could therefore invest more, finance more, build up more stocks and produce much more. There was also the elimination of the 10% surcharge on personal taxation. This means R206 million over a year. In this way the consumer is put in a position to buy more, because more money is being placed in his hands. Then there is also the earlier repayment of the loan levy which will take place on 15 July. This holds good for both the companies and the private individual. All this is money being placed in their hands. The hon. member must, however, take one fact into account. After all, this is a programme that extends over 12 months. One cannot create heaven and earth in a day and think one is on one’s way.

There was also—and I have already mentioned it—the doubling of the export promotion amount which now amounts to R92,2 million, to 115%. That is there too. What about the proposed sum of, for example, R250 million being made available last year for Black housing, an amount of which R165 million has already been spent this year? Then there is also an additional 23% that was granted to the Department of Community Development for further housing and public works. This is a tremendous stimulus that the hon. the Minister has provided here.

We can also look at the capital projects. An additional R100 million is being ploughed into Sasol II alone, and after all, this money is not going to one sector only. It is being distributed throughout South Africa. The building industry, other industries and the industrial sector in general are going to benefit by this.

The hon. member speaks about equal pay for equal work. For the Whites alone, 22% more was budgeted this year for education and training. Although the total budget is only 9,1% larger, 22% more was given for education and training this year. It was R117 million last year as against R144 million this year. The hon. the Minister has done all this to stimulate the economy.

Let us see whether the economy has already reached the turning point. The hon. member will know and be aware of the fact that we are already in an upswing. If the hon. member for Yeoville says he is not aware of that, he is not being honest with himself, the House, me or anyone else. I just want to point out three points by which one can assess whether the economic cycle has reached its nadir. One of them is a surplus on the current account of the balance of payments. We know that in 1975 we had a deficit of R1 813 million on our balance of payments and in 1976 a deficit of R1 630 million. In 1977, however, there was a surplus on the current account of the balance of payments of R751 million. There was therefore a swing of R2 381 million in a matter of 12 months. This shows that the hon. the Minister controlled, arranged and regulated the finances of the country to such an extent that it served as a stimulus and resulted in us being able to look the world in the eye in regard to everything that we want to finance. We can pay our debts and also tackle the necessary work internally.

The second point that we can look at in order to see whether the cycle has achieved its low point, is the high liquidity that we have in South Africa today. A high liquidity always brings the interest rates down and we are experiencing this in South Africa today. There is even a tendency for the interest rates to drop quickly. If this happens, we shall again encounter more balance of payments problems. The hon. the Minister as well as the Reserve Bank and the monetary authorities will have to take another careful look at that to prevent it getting out of hand in some way to our detriment. Furthermore there is the savings capacity of our industries. This is also a sign that indicates that we have reached the nadir of the economic cycle.

Let us look at what has already happened since then. The motor-car industry has, so to speak, skyrocketed again. There are various sectors that are doing very well. Our mineral exports as well as our agricultural industry are doing very well. There are some problems and we are looking at them. Over the years there has also been a tremendous accumulation of labour in the industrial sector. When industries are not in full production, they do not want to discharge all their employees nor can they simply do so summarily. They have to retain their employees at their full salary while their production is halved. Consequently the employees are not fully productive and the unit costs are very high. As a result the industries have not always been able to hold their own and they suffered substantial losses.

Inflation is an important matter in South Africa. I want to put it clearly that, in spite of the fact that administration costs have shot up in recent times and in spite of other factors that have played a role, the rate of inflation, that was 11,3% in January this year, dropped to 9,9% in March and to 9,7% in April. When the general sales tax is introduced on 3 July, I want to concede that in the general run of things, the rate of inflation will probably increase by 1% once again. The hon. the Minister, however, did not stop at that. After all, this is not all that he has done in this budget. He has a consistent policy, as he announced two years ago. I can tell the hon. member already that due to the sales duty that is to be introduced now, the present sales tax will gradually be phased out. The hon. member ought to know that. However, it cannot be done overnight. It will, however, mean a great improvement as far as South Africa is concerned.

I want to dwell on a few problems for a moment. We are experiencing problems in South Africa, and we identify those problems in order to solve them and not to complicate the matter as the hon. member tried to do this afternoon. The industrial sector is a sector that will not only have to provide work domestically for South Africa in the future, but will also have to earn foreign currency. Our agriculture can still be developed further. Our agricultural potential has not yet been fully utilized. Mr. Chairman, if we have to go to extremes, everyone will have to cultivate sufficient fruit and vegetables for himself in his own backyard in order to ensure his continued existence. We can produce enough in South Africa in spite of the fact that we have little water. We can even produce enough to provide Africa and the rest of the world with food where there is famine. The hon. members also spoke about equal pay for equal work and he also spoke about the outside world attacking us. I wonder why he does not raise his voice so that we can hear what is happening in the outside world where people are starving, being shot and even murdered.

I have before me a magazine called Fokus op Ekonomiese Kernvrae, compiled under the guidance of Prof. J. A. Lombard of the University of Pretoria. In co-operation with Mercabank, this magazine has carried out a fantastic study of our industries. I can assure the hon. member—and I shall say it very frankly in this House today—that we have certain problems. Between 1950 and 1976 the economy of South Africa, as far as the manufacturing industry is concerned, grew at an average annual rate of 6,1% measured against the real added value in the manufacturing industry. This is much higher than the GDP was. The share of the manufacturing industry in the GDP for this period increased from 18% to 23%. If needs must, however, this growth rate will have to be pushed up to 40% if we want to provide for all our requirements and if we want to provide employment opportunities for people of all races and colours in our country.

What happened over the past number of years? Let us look at what has happened in respect of the ratio between capital and labour. During the ’forties there was a considerable substitution of capital for labour.

This was not what this Government had prescribed, because the dealers and industrialists were responsible for this. In fact, it is a common phenomenon throughout the world that people ploughed in capital in order to achieve greater productivity and efficiency so as to make a profit. One cannot expect an industrialist to suffer losses. That is why it happened that too much capital was ploughed in in relation to the labour, and this resulted in a substantial increase in the capital/labour ratio. This meant that we could not provide work for everyone who sought it. We could not employ everyone. That is why the Government has already said that it is going to look at labour-intensive industries today so that there can be more emphasis on that type of industry. We also had a drop in the capacity employed of the factories since 1976. This, however, can be ascribed to a world recession. After all, we cannot produce articles and then throw them in the water, because who will pay for them? One must have a market abroad for one’s product and that is why the hon. the Minister has come up with his export promotion scheme and has spent so much in that regard this year. The percentage of the total factory production being exported, has varied over the past 20 years between 11% and 14%. This is much too low. We must increase the figure considerably.

The cost of input of local origin in the factories has increased tremendously since the beginning of 1973 and the average wage, amongst other things, has increased by 76% from 1973 to the end of 1976. The productivity of the employee, however, has not increased accordingly. His wages have shot up, but his production has not increased by much. However we must face that fact. As a result of the increase of the price of steel, the increase in electricity tariffs and railway tariffs, these industries began to suffer. They began to make lower profits and what was the result? These companies were forced to retain their distributed profits. They had to retain it because, as a result of the high rate of inflation, they had to replace machinery and buy stocks at high prices. In spite of all this they tried to do what they could. We can possibly also take a look at the question of energy in South Africa. We had problems with oil prices, and we know how the price of oil increased from R1,30 per barrel to R12,70 per barrel. This had an effect throughout the economy of South Africa. If South Africa had not needed to pay this tremendous additional amount for fuel, that money could have been spent in creating more employment opportunities by establishing more industries. We could have given electricity to Soweto; we could have established many more industries; we could have stimulated the Bantu homelands much better and we could have spent more money on all these projects.

Is it the Government’s fault that the price of oil was increased? The whole of the outside world is struggling at the moment. So far the Opec countries in fact have the oil-importing countries in a vice-like grip, because over the past few years they have done a great deal, for instance, to invest the extra money that they receive as a result of the oil that they export, in Western countries in order to finance further sales indirectly. In this way they have got the Western World in an iron grip. We can be grateful that South Africa is not caught in the same iron grip.

An energy crisis is facing us. South Africa is aware of what the two hon. Ministers concerned have already done in this regard. Today coal provides 75% of our energy requirements and oil a mere 25%. We know that hydro-electric power will only be able to provide 2% of our energy requirements in the future, as a result of a lack of adequate water resources. Uranium is an energy resource that will play an important role in the future. However, I want to request today that there be a more in-depth investigation into the use of solar energy. The wind can also be used as a source of energy. The old windmills on our farms in particular can be put to good use in this regard.

Malcomess windmills.

We have recently seen a man advertising a windmill … [Interjections.] That hon. member reminds me of a windmill without the “mill”.

We must also make much more use of water as a source of energy, and in this regard I have in mind in particular the use of seawater and the force of the waves. We must investigate whether there is not a solution to our energy crisis in that direction.

I also want to begin to talk politics now as the hon. member for Yeoville did. All of us in South Africa have a specific task, and I should like to mention seven tasks that each of us in South Africa must carry out. The hon. member for Yeoville must accept what I am going to say: Every man and every woman in South Africa must obtain qualifications; the Government cannot do it. We provide all the necessary facilities, but every man and woman, whatever their colour, must see to it that they obtain the highest possible qualifications. Everyone must see to it that his own productivity is boosted. We cannot increase everybody’s productivity by means of a budget. Every man must do the maximum, for himself and for South Africa. Everyone in South Africa must show a more entrepreneuring spirit, they must not always wait for the NP to show that spirit. Our people must also show more idealism, they must be more go-ahead and they must also be more motivated to achieve something for themselves and for their fatherland. The last task I want to mention, is that we must not only look after ourselves, but we must also produce and work to such an extent that in this way each one does something for one’s fellow-man and one’s fatherland, something for which one does not receive any payment. There are too many of our people today who even flee the country, ostensibly because their remuneration is too low and because they want more money for themselves. These people could rather work at a lower remuneration and render free services to South Africa and their fellow man, whoever it may be.

Then I should like to come back to the Press. In recent times we have found that the Afrikaans newspapers have been critical, but that they have been decent and respectable, and have acted positively. I cannot find fault with positive criticism. I want to repeat, however, that I cannot say the same of the English-language Press, the Argus and the Saan group. Just compare their criticism of the Government—there are also other aspects that can be taken into consideration—with the criticism by the Afrikaans newspapers and, for instance, the Citizen. A while ago I received a letter from Johannesburg and I should like to read it to the House, but I am not going to reveal the writer’s name. He writes, inter alia—

He goes on in this vein and gives a review of who and what he is. It is apparent from this that he is an international personality who has travelled the world. He concludes his letter with the following paragraph—

This is what these people say. What is the Press to whom they refer? They are the newspapers that I have referred to, newspapers that do not do their duty towards South Africa, the Argus and Saan group.

You are talking rubbish!

I want to come back to the hon. member for Yeoville. I do not quite understand the hon. member. One day he is positive, and the next day he says something that shocks one to the marrow. On 3 April 1978 the hon. member said here n the House (col. 3698)—

The hon. member’s colleague, the hon. member for Parktown, however, advised foreign investors not to invest in South Africa. [Interjections.]

Nonsense!

The hon. members cannot deny it. It was in the newspapers, and we know that it is true. Has the hon. member for Yeoville convinced his colleague yet that he was wrong? Why does he only speak to the leaders in South Africa? Why does he not speak to his own colleague, and tell him that he should not say things like this to the foreign investors? The hon. member for Yeoville said very piously this afternoon that we must get money from abroad to invest in South Africa. He must be honest with himself, however. If he makes an appeal to foreign investors, he must also deal with his hon. colleague. There is another matter, too, concerning which I want to cross swords with the hon. member for Yeoville. As far as I am concerned, the hon. member is a total racist. He has been attacking us for years now. The hon. member has not yet changed colour over the years; he has only changed his party. He is a real floor walker. On 22 February 1973 the hon. member said the following in the Transvaal Provincial Council (Vol. 136, page 715)—

Then there were a number of interjections to which the hon. member replied as follows—

The hon. member was referring to the Afrikaners. [Interjections.]

That is an untruth.

The hon. member cannot say it is untrue. It is here in the Hansard of the Provincial Council.

You twisted the facts so that one cannot recognize them. [Interjections.]

I shall have the Hansard fetched from the library. The hon. member for Yeoville knows he said it.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member for Yeoville allowed to say that the hon. member for Sunnyside twisted the facts so that one cannot recognize them?

Order! The hon. member for Yeoville cannot say that the hon. member is twisting the facts. He must withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw it. I also said … [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must just withdraw and sit down.

Mr. Speaker, …

Order! I am sorry but the time of the hon. member for Sunnyside has expired.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, has discoursed for the last 30 minutes on a set of circumstances which do not, in my view, have very much of a bearing on reality. He did not seem to think that the Government has anything to blame itself for, that there were no things which they had done wrong, and that it was simply evil circumstances that had caused us to be in the position in which we are today, a position in which unemployment is still higher than it has ever been in South Africa’s history.

While I grant that the employment graph has levelled out at a very high peak of unemployment, it is not showing any signs at this stage of being reduced. It is certainly not increasing any further, but as yet it is not showing any sign at all of coming down.

I also want to refer to the “Brussels sprout” in terms of the merit system. I think my hon. Chief Whip is looking somewhat puzzled; I am referring to the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Finance in Brussels.

That was the “Brussels spout”.

In that speech he introduced the concept of the merit system. I want to say to him that we hope that this means that the Government will work towards an equal pay for equal work system. We also hope this will mean that he will allow all race groups to trade in the central business districts of every town. I hope it will also mean that he will allow all race groups to have factories in any industrial area throughout South Africa. We believe that only when these things are done in the economic system, can we begin to talk about some sort of a merit system in the economy. The success of a Government and of a country can best be measured in economic terms. The economy and the standard of living of the people are the measure of the success of a Government. After 30 years of Nationalist rule the economy is in a worse state than at any other time. The muddle is worse and unemployment is higher. We have less of a free enterprise system than ever before. We must grant—this I must hand to the hon. the Minister—that the present controllers of our economic destiny have shown a greater measure of realism in the budget. With this budget, and that of last year, they have been attempting—I grant them that—to redress some of the wrongs of the past, but I am afraid their hands have been tied by the excesses of their predecessors. The spending spree embarked on by the Government when the gold price soared had to be seen to be believed; it was nothing short of criminal. It is for that that we have to pay today.

I want to state clearly what our two major economic problems are. They are inflation and unemployment. Both of these evils are still rampant in the South African economy today. Admittedly, inflation has come down and is, hopefully, still coming down, but one wonders what the impact of 3 July 1978 on inflation will be when the sales tax starts taking its bite from the South African economy. I am sure the Government blames everybody but themselves for the existence of these two evils. They will say it is imported inflation, that it is not their fault at all, but that it is due to the rising oil price, that that is the real reason for the inflation in South Africa. They will point to the slow-down in the world economy as the reason for our slow-down and for our unemployment. But these are only some of the causes of our inflation and our unemployment. The root cause, in our view, lies with the Government—fairly and squarely. In the Second Reading of this Bill I dealt with apartheid and with discrimination as being one of these reasons. Here and now, however, I wish to deal with the aspect that we are supposedly a country that supports the capitalistic West and the free enterprise system, and yet, day by day and year by year, we destroy the very system of which we are supposed to be the champions. Every year that goes by, the free enterprise system gets more and more tied by bureaucratic red tape. More and more people are employed to wield that red tape, resulting, as I have said in a previous debate, in the fact that more than 40% of our White working population work for the State or for State-owned corporations. This is a very large percentage and has resulted in private enterprise being penalized through excessive taxation to pay the salaries of this large bureaucratic machine.

Let us stop here to ask ourselves just what we are trying to fight in this country. We are told by hon. members on the other side of the House that it is communism we are fighting. But then we must ask ourselves what is communism. Communism is not a political system. It is an economic system. It is an economic doctrine in terms of which wealth is redistributed from the rich to the poor. How did Karl Marx envisage that communism would be achieved? Let me quote three of his means of achieving communism. Then hon. members can judge for themselves whether the Government is not, in fact, pursuing the ends of communism.

These three means to an end, as stated by Karl Marx, are firstly, a heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Do we have that or do we not have that in this country today? The second means is the centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. It is exactly this that we have in this country today with our Railways, the Post Office and, of course, our television service. The third means is the extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State. What is the IDC doing today? What is Iscor doing today? What is Sasol doing today and what are the Railways doing today? All these features are part of the every day life in South Africa. What, then, do we need to do in the light of the fact that we appear to be getting closer and closer to the communistic ideal in South Africa today? Obviously the first thing we have to do is to reduce the State’s participation in private enterprise. This must be a gradual process. Maybe it will take a decade, maybe it will take more than a decade, but it must be a clearly stated goal of the Government. In this way we must institute a spiral which will be the exact opposite of the inflationary spiral, which is causing us so much trouble in South Africa today. The Government must put its employment levels at far lower than the present 40%-plus. Of course, I am not suggesting that anyone in the State service should be fired. However, the Government must, firstly, disinvest itself of most of the State-owned corporations and, secondly, must reduce its number of public servants. It must reduce them by means of a planned non-replacement programme. The stupid and the unthinking on the Government benches will say that this will create further unemployment. That, of course, would be rubbish. It will result, primarily, in a lowering of taxation, which in turn will lead to increased take-home pay without costs and, therefore, inflation being increased. This, of course, will in turn lead to a more prosperous economy, which, coupled with lower marginal tax rates, will lead to higher profits. That will inevitably result in more investments in private, industrial and commercial development. This is what we need in South Africa today. To a degree, the foreign taps have been turned off. Money is not coming in sufficiently to develop our enterprise and to develop our growth at the same rate at which our population is expanding. We therefore need to have more investment in private enterprise, as well as in commercial and industrial undertakings in this country. However, what has happened in fact? We have a high marginal tax rate, and the money that would perhaps have been invested is now siphoned into Government. If we could have more investment in private enterprise it would lead to job opportunities being created, and to a consequent fall in the number of unemployed. Thus the whole spiral will be reversed.

Perhaps this is an over-simplification. However, the basic truth is nevertheless there. During Second Reading I dealt to some extent with the high marginal tax rates and their evil result. Let me repeat that we in these benches welcome a reduction in the marginal rate for companies and individuals. We believe that there should be a better balance between direct and indirect tax. Therefore, the oft repeated political parrot cries of double taxation and of taxing the poor, cries that have emanated from the hon. member for Yeoville, have, in my view, been totally irresponsible. [Interjections.] In seeking the votes of the poor he is in fact selling the poor down the drain. The marginal rates of tax have been too high for a number of years, and are in fact still too high.

You are a nineteenth century capitalist! What should we expect from you? [Interjections.]

You know, Mr. Speaker, it is amusing that hon. members of the PFP should accuse another Opposition party of being capitalists. As I have said, the marginal rates of tax have been too high for a number of years, and are in fact still too high. However, will the hon. member for Yeoville stop to ask himself where the money that feeds private enterprise comes from? Where does that money come from? Only a reduction in marginal rates will create more investment capital. Thus new industries and more jobs will be created for those very poor for whom he pleads. [Interjections.]

It has been noticeable that the same please have not come from the hon. member for Parktown, someone who has adopted a far more responsible approach. One would have thought that he would back up his party’s chief spokesman on finance in his calls regarding taxation of the poor and double taxation. We have had double taxation in this country for years. We have had double taxation in that companies have been taxed, while the shareholders receiving dividends are taxed on exactly that same income.

In conclusion, I think I need to stress again what we need to cure our economic disease. We need a reduction in inflation. This is a precondition for a return to full employment.

We need a better balance between direct and indirect tax. Finally, we need a reduction of bureaucratic dictatorship, thus leading to reduced taxation and to a full return for South Africa to the full benefit of the free enterprise system.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for East London North launched an attack on the Government’s political policy and on its financial policy, while his own party is still playing children’s games with their own policy. [Interjections.] I believe, however, that the hon. member for East London North said certain things here this afternoon in connection with the financial affairs of South Africa that I dare not leave unanswered. I shall therefore refer to some of these aspects in the course of my speech.

In spite of the fact that an Appropriation Bill is chiefly a financial measure, there has been progressively less financial comment in these debates, in recent times in particular. The Third Reading of an Appropriation Bill is no exception in this regard, especially since it follows the Committee Stage which was debated over a long period and which dealt chiefly with policy matters. For that reason I want to devote my time this afternoon chiefly to a discussion of certain financial aspects, and refer to political aspects only in passing. I think there has been ample evidence in recent times, from observers outside this Parliament as well as from the Press, that during the past session we have had one of the poorest shows from an Official Opposition in the history of this Parliament. This does not exclude the NRP either. Had it not been for the unfortunate death of a Steve Biko or the Auditor-General’s report on certain matters concerning the Department of Information, I think this session would have been a complete political disaster for the Opposition.

I am quite prepared to concede that political events have a very serious effect on the economy. It is a phenomenon that occurs throughout the world. I think, however, that we are entitled to request the Opposition to adopt a less unfair attitude in this regard. All these rash generalizations about politics, which are not true in most cases, do us serious economic damage, irrespective of the policy being followed. The policy of no party in this House can satisfy the outside world.

This also holds good for the policy of the Official Opposition. The onslaught against South Africa goes much deeper than merely the question of policy aspects, and I think the Official Opposition ought to know that. The time has arrived for us to show the outside world a united front in this specific period in view of the specific economic challenges facing South Africa. South Africa is not going to change overnight. Changes which are necessary, will in fact be effected within the framework of our party-political philosophy.

I should like to agree with what was said by the hon. member for Sunnyside, in contrast to the very negative attitude adopted by the hon. member for Yeoville, viz. that we were on the eve of an economic upswing in South Africa. This economic upswing, however, will, as I have already said, depend on political peace in the coming year. That is why I feel at liberty to make this request. We ask the Official Opposition to drop these extra-parliamentary actions of their, which are outside the party context and which must lead to racial friction. As I said, there are strong indications of an economic upswing in the coming year. In addition I want to allege that over and above various additional factors, this remarkable budget contributed largely to this upswing that is ahead. In the coming year it will contribute to it even more.

I say this is a remarkable budget because, if we analyse the background against which this budget was presented, we shall find that it was in fact a sombre picture. We started the year with a very low growth rate. The growth rate was less than 1%, and in contrast to that there was an inflation rate of more than 11%. We had a relatively high unemployment rate, and the standard of living had in fact dropped during the previous year; we cannot deny this. There was deficient consumer spending and investment confidence. There was also considerable excess capacity in our industries, to which reference has already been made this afternoon. In 1977 industrial production reached a low. The gross domestic fixed investment dropped by no less than 10% in the previous year. The only real rays of hope—as has already been pointed out before—were the remarkable recovery of the balance of payments on the current account and the improvement in the gold price. The hon. the Minister of Finance, however, succeeded in achieving his goal of the previous year, viz. to restore the balance of payments on the current account. This was his objective, because without it, no worthwhile growth could take place. In other words, what the hon. the Minister announced is a sound policy of growth with financial discipline. This policy of the hon. the Minister was welcomed almost universally by the business sector and the banking world. A gradual, stable growth that can ensure the greatest economic and financial stability, is being envisaged.

I want to agree, however, with the hon. member for East London North that we cannot afford the luxury of the late ’sixties and the early ’seventies. At one stage in South Africa we were spending R106 for every R100 that we earned. The economic indices show that we must grow in the coming year unless unforeseen political factors enter the picture. According to various investigations that have been made, there is already considerably greater investment confidence and general business confidence. Some of these investigations have been quoted in this House today. There are signs of a considerable upswing in the manufacturing sector, and it is not limited to the motor industry. Growth rates of 5% or more can already be found in this sector, despite the fact that the consumer expenditure created by the present budget has not yet taken effect.

According to some estimates, the increase in consumer expenditure is already exceeding 10%, in comparison with last year. We therefore cannot share the pessimism which is shown by the hon. members of the Opposition today. Recent figures, especially those of the most important price indices, show an upward trend. The indices for locally manufactured goods are already lower than those for imported goods. Long-term interest rates are showing a consistent downward trend, which of course also indicates greater business confidence. I want to point out, however, that long-term interest rates will have to drop even more in South Africa. An entrepreneur sometimes has to capitalize the interest on an investment. One finds that a factory takes approximately five to seven years before it really comes into full production, and by that time its capital outlay is already so large that it is difficult to produce economically. The unemployment problem in South Africa can only be solved by an imaginative new investment in the long-term, and too high interest rates for the entrepreneur may hamper this objective very seriously.

A further indication of renewed business confidence is reflected on the stock exchange. After the original drop that took place, prices are now stabilizing. It is also pleasing to see in recent Press reports that considerable capital expenditure is being envisaged by foreign, as well as local companies. I also welcome the message of the hon. the Minister of Finance in this regard, after his recent return from Europe, viz. that he faces the future with confidence. If we see these economic trends in the private sector against the background of the additional stimulus arising out of the budget, we can indeed have great expectations. The measures that the hon. the Minister announced in the budget, simply must result in greater growth. I shall refer to this again later.

However, the fact must be noted that although the economy was stimulated on a fairly broader level, this stimulation remains moderate and selective, because we are obliged to take into consideration the disadvantageous consequences that it may have on the balance of payments. To refresh hon. members’ memories, I want to point out that in the last budget, the hon. the Minister announced various measures to stimulate the economy on the broader level, but at the same time he did so so selectively that it will not be to the further detriment of our country. The amount set aside for export promotion is 40% higher than last year—an amount of R92,2 million. The capital for the National Housing Fund was increased by 16% and the construction works of the Department of Public Works were increased by 23%, as has already been mentioned this afternoon. All of these are measures by which the Government is also creating more employment opportunities and stimulating the building sector. Provision is also being made for the long term by making greater provision in this budget for education. The amount for Bantu education alone in this budget was increased by 22%.

The early repayment of the loan levies does in fact serve as a further stimulus. The hon. member said here this afternoon that they said as long ago as the Second Reading that the measures adopted by the Government to stimulate growth, were inadequate. At that time, however, the Minister put it very clearly that he envisaged introducing further stimulants in the course of the year. The Opposition says that what has been done, is not enough, but I have learned by now that the hon. members of the Opposition ask for the moon and want to give the sun, for political effect, instead of holding a meaningful debate on basic financial affairs. I want to concede that the hon. members opposite who spoke this afternoon, may know more about the economy than I do. If they ask for more growth, however, and in the same breath say that the Government must limit the rate of inflation unreservedly, they cannot be entirely sure what they are speaking about. The hon. member surely knows by now that it is a worldwide phenomenon that there is a trend, when growth increases, for the inflation rate to increase too. The hon. the Minister took this fully into account in last year’s budget, because our priorities at that stage were to combat the rate of inflation and as a result we had a low growth rate. It is of course the ideal to bring down the rate of inflation. Has the hon. member suggested anything positive in this regard, however, like the freezing of salary increases? No, Sir, they will not say that, since politically it is not a popular step to take. If we are striving to bring about greater growth, and to create more employment opportunities, we shall be obliged to have greater consumer expenditure. If higher inflation is the price that we have to pay for it, we shall perhaps have to accept it, but on condition that it does not affect the balance of payments. This is precisely what the hon. the Minister has achieved in this budget by way of his policy of stability and growth. I am quite prepared to admit that on a previous occasion during a financial debate in the House I said that in order to bridge our problems, we should consider the possibility of excessive growth stimulation as was done in Brazil on one occasion.

I am now convinced, however, that it would ultimately lead to financial collapse, especially in view of the uncertain economic conditions throughout the world, and the risks involved in such u step. One of the gems of this budget is that the hon. the Minister is creating opportunities for people to bring about greater growth if they have the knowledge and enterpreneurship to do so. The introduction of a general sales tax enables the Government to lighten the load on the entrepreneur to an increasing extent in the future by means of indirect tax and to give the man with initiative greater opportunities. This must inevitably be to the great advantage of the country. It must also, inevitably, serve to counteract any socialist tendencies in South Africa because the Standard of living increases especially when free enterprise grows—and in this regard I must agree with the Opposition—as is proved in practically all the capitalist-orientated countries in the world. The principle is correct, but the hon. member for Yeoville came up with a series of technical problems this afternoon, problems that can arise as a result of the implementation of the general sales tax. These are problems that can be eliminated very easily if they should arise. During the last few years, when recessionary conditions were being experienced, the people of South Africa proved they had the will to live. The improvement in our economy would not have been possible if it were not for the inherent self-discipline of our people. Although this also applies to certain parts of our private sector, I want to pay tribute to our public servants in particular today. I want to pay tribute to officials from the lowest to the highest level, as well as officials in the employment of the municipalities, the provinces and the Public Service for the extremely responsible way in which they fell in with our anti-inflation programme. I want to pay tribute to them for the way in which they withheld salary demands with the greatest responsibility. I also want to pay tribute to the workers of South Africa because, in strong contrast to the workers in many other countries of the world, they were prepared to make sacrifices. I foresee that within the foreseeable future, we will enjoy the fruits of these sacrifices. The almost tragic phenomenon in Great Britain, where workers are prepared to destroy practically their entire national economy for the sake of personal gain and unreasonable salary demands, is something that we in South Africa have been free of. I have an unshakeable confidence in the future because we in South Africa are dealing with good human material. Our people have the responsibility and the self-discipline.

Before I conclude I want to make a final appeal to our hon. Minister in connection with the serious problems that certain municipalities are experiencing in South Africa. We are grateful that the hon. the Minister has initiated an investigation into this matter and we are also grateful that a report will be issued during this year. Since the representations were made in connection with the serious financial problems of certain municipalities in South Africa, the position has deteriorated considerably. We want to request the hon. the Minister to expedite this report and steps to be taken in this regard because I believe this is also in the interests of the overall economy of the country.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.