Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned last night, the hon. member for Port Natal was speaking, and as usual, his eloquent delivery impressed us. As usual, his words struck the House like pounding surf. It reminds me of my schooldays in a small country town when a new minister was appointed. This minister had a deep, musical voice. Suddenly all the girls in the school were anxious to go to church. One day the matron asked the girls why they were so keen to go to church all of a sudden. They replied, “There is a new minister, and he preaches so beautifully, even though we cannot remember what he said. ”

There is one aspect of the speech made by the hon. member for Port Natal, however, to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. It concerns the importance of faith in a crisis situation. I agree with the hon. member that faith in oneself and in one’s cause is an important factor, especially when there are problems to be overcome. But then faith must be accompanied by a plan, a policy, a strategy. I shall illustrate this further in the course of my speech.

†As has happened at a number of occasions during recent years, we have now again had a debate of a general nature at a time when South Africa is moving towards a critical period in her history. Internally we stand before great decisions, especially in the field of labour now that the report of the Wiehahn Commission has been submitted. We also stand before great decisions in regard to our new constitutional form of government and in regard to the whole field of race relations and the elimination of discrimination. Whatever the problems are internally, externally we are faced with immediate dangers against a background of increasing isolation and mounting pressures.

I want to touch on three aspects which hold imminent dangers for us without developing detailed arguments. Firstly, I refer to South West Africa where developments are of critical importance not merely to the people of that territory, but also to the people of South Africa. We all know that the advantages of success in achieving an internationally recognized settlement are so great and the consequences of failure to achieve this could be so grave, that we have reached one of the most important moments of the session in the history of our nation. I think it is common cause that the advantages of success would be peace and development for the people of that territory, the removal of a potentially explosive commitment from the shoulders of the Government of South Africa and the removal of a flashpoint of conflict thereby opening up the possibility of greater co-operation between the states of South and central Africa. I have no doubt that if a settlement could be attained it will not only improve South Africa’s stature, but would also enhance Western influence and prestige in Africa. The consequences of failure would be, as most of us are aware, an on-going and escalating violence with all the international implications this holds for South West Africa and South Africa. It is not appropriate at this stage to discuss the merits of the particular situation which has arisen. We are assured that there will be an opportunity to discuss this in the relatively near future. Consequently I will content myself by saying that the Government has a responsibility to be resolute in the discharge of its responsibilities. The Government must be firm, but must also bear in mind, in a tough negotiating situation where the stakes are so high, the difference between matters of detail and matters of principle which are fundamental to the success of a settlement in Namibia.

To the north of us we have the situation in Rhodesia, which is racked by a civil war with its savage and tragic loss of life. Immense damage is being done to the economy of not only Rhodesia, but to the economy of the whole of Southern Africa. We are all aware of the danger of the internationalization of the Rhodesian war and the ever-present risk there exists of South Africa being drawn into the maelstrom of events north of the Limpopo.

Since the no-confidence debate we have also had the collapse of the power of the Shah in Iran with all its implications for South Africa. This was an event which, because of its speed and its decisiveness, caught the Western powers flatfooted. Because of the magnitude of its implications the West is being forced to review its economic and military strategies. There is no doubt that the fall of the regime of the Shah has weakened the position of the West economically, militarily and politically. Conversely, it has swung the pendulum of power towards the so-called non-aligned bloc. Ironically, viewed in strategic terms, it has increased the potential importance of South Africa to the West, but at the same time it has undoubtedly increased our vulnerability.

If one looks at the overall scene in the field of foreign relations, one regrettably finds that the isolation of South Africa and the pressures against this country are mounting. The shift of power which has been taking place within the international community is making it more and more difficult for others to support or defend us. What I find most disturbing is a trend towards support for what is called “the armed struggle”. In the years during which I have been to various countries of Africa, I saw a shift away from dialogue to isolation, to pressure to latterly support for the armed struggle. There is no doubt that these hardening trends externally will inevitably also result in the hardening of attitudes internally and with this the narrowing of options for a peaceful resolution of our internal problems. Seen against this background, what South Africa requires at a time like this is a comprehensive strategy, not only for withstanding the pressures, but one which is designed for breaking out of the ring of pressures and isolation to a point where relations with the West and States in Africa could be normalized.

Let me put a question to the hon. the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. What is the Government’s strategy in this situation? Does it have a strategy, a comprehensive plan to deal with the problem we find ourselves faced with in the field of foreign relations? Or is the Government merely trying to batten down the hatches and ride out the international storm for as long as it can? Let me make it quite clear that it would be fatal for us in South Africa if we were to allow ourselves to slide to the view that there is nothing that we can do to remedy the situation or improve our relationships with Africa and the West Outside the country, much has been said about South Africa that is emotional and negative, and much is said outside South Africa which is, to us inside the country, irrational and offensive. It is a fact that there are some foreign States whose antagonism towards South Africa is so entrenched and prejudiced that we just have to accept that for the time being we are unable to bridge the differences that exist between them and us. This is not, however, the whole picture. There are those in the West who acknowledge the role that South Africa could play in a global strategy. There are also States in Africa which acknowledge the role that South Africa could play in the economic development of the African continent. So we would like to know from the Government what its comprehensive strategy is, not just for withstanding the pressures that are building up, but also for breaking out of the enclosing ring of isolationary pressure.

In terms of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Yeoville, earlier in this debate members in these benches dealt with strategy in the economic field—an important aspect. They dealt with the need to stimulate the economy, the need to reduce unemployment and the need to create internal stability in the face of external pressures. In later debates there will be an opportunity to discuss military aspects of this strategy.

What I should like to do is to devote just a few minutes to what I believe are the essential, basic elements of a political strategy capable of dealing with the crisis in which we find ourselves. I want to put forward four points as the basis for a strategy in terms of which South Africa can deal with an external crisis.

First of all I believe that the Government has to make a conscious decision to promote unity and a common South African loyalty amongst all sections of our people. This has to be a conscious decision. To my mind this decision has already been taken in the military field. It is my belief that a decision to promote unity and a common South African loyalty is critical for our survival in the face of external pressure. What we would like to know, however, is whether this is basic to the Government’s policy. We have heard the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations talking about a common loyalty, but we have waited in vain for other people to follow his lead. We have heard why people should be divided into separate nations and why the country should be divided into separate States, each with its own separate ethnic loyalty. There has been talk, once again in this debate, of partition. We have even heard that when the Government knows that it cannot achieve this separateness, it still perpetuates the myth of separateness in order to rationalize the fact that Blacks do not have basic rights in this country. I want to put it to this House that it is sheer lunacy, when we are faced with the external pressures amounting to a crisis situation, to go in for a policy of division and separation at a time when we should be going in for a strategy of unity and of common loyalty. National unity should be a fundamental part of a strategy in the present crisis situation.

Secondly, I believe the hon. the Prime Minister and his Government should accept, as a basis of this strategy, that we are all South Africans, whether we are Black, White or Brown, and that the vast majority of us are going to remain South Africans for as long as we can plan into the future. This is quite fundamental. This is not a solution, but this is a starting point, a point of departure, which is fundamental to a strategy for survival in this crisis situation. I must say to the hon. the Prime Minister and the rest of the Government that until such time as the Government makes it clear that it will accept this as a starting point, it will be unable to devise either a sensible policy or a sensible strategy for the crisis situation in which we find ourselves.

You will get an even bigger conflict.

There are glimmerings of change within the NP, change away from the line taken by Dr. Verwoerd, Mr. Vorster and Dr. Connie Mulder. The words of the hon. the Minister of Health last week, although perhaps not intended as a profound political declaration, nevertheless reflected his inner feelings and his convictions that there would always be Black citizens of South Africa. There was the joint statement by the Ministers of Plural Relations and Development and of Community Development saying they were going to review the position of the permanence of the Blacks in the urban areas. These things we welcome. We know that the reality is that there will always be Blacks, Whites and Browns in this country. However, the confused talk we have heard over the last few months is not good enough and therefore we want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister where he stands on the issue of us remaining South Africans. Where does he stand on the acceptance or rejection of the concept that there will always be Black citizens in South Africa and that these people are entitled to their normal rights? We know where one man stands. I refer to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Plural Relations and of Education and Training. He has made it quite clear where he stands. I believe the time has come for the hon. the Prime Minister to tell us in simple language where he stands on this cardinal issue.

The third fundamental factor in any strategy for facing the crisis situation is for the Government to recognize that to an increasing extent South Africans of all groups are going to have to share power and take joint decisions on matters that affect them all as South Africans. Whether the Government likes it or not, that is basic to the whole trend which is developing within South Africa. The Government must stop running away from this issue. Joint decision-making is taking place in almost every walk of life in South Africa and in due course it is going to have to take place at the political and governmental levels. The Government’s draft proposals contain an element of joint decision-making. Yet the Government seems to be trapped in a conflict between joint decision-making and self-determination. This was highlighted in the hon. the Prime Minister’s speech in the no-confidence debate. When asked about separate sovereignties, he said on the one hand (Hansard, 7 February 1979, col. 246)—

On the other hand he went on to say (col. 248)—

I believe the hon. the Prime Minister must tell us what the position is with regard to the common areas. Which portfolios of government represented by the Ministers sitting in front of us have to be retained in the hands of the Whites as part of “Blanke selfbeskikking” and which portfolios of government can be shared between Whites, Coloureds, Indians and perhaps Blacks one day because they are part of a common destiny? I ask the hon. the Prime Minister: Is defence something that is necessary for White self-determination? Is finance necessary for White self-determination? Is police necessary for White self-determination? Or are these the common areas of South Africa? If they are the common areas of South Africa, I believe the hon. the Prime Minister must tell his followers this and must get on with the job of fashioning a constitutional system which will give effect to this reality.

Fourthly, for a strategy to have any value, it must be related to a time scale. As I said the other day, whatever reforms are coming about under the present Government, there appears to be no sense of urgency, the moves appear to be casual and un co-ordinated. What we are not getting from the hon. the Prime Minister neither from the NP is a real message, a thrust, a sense of dynamic movement in one or other direction.

This year is going to be a critical year for us. One would have hoped that we could have had many months to resolve our internal problems. However, if one looks at the developments in Rhodesia and the new tensions over South West Africa, it becomes clear that we must face up to the fact that we run the very real risk of an internationalization of conflict in Southern Africa far sooner than we feared. We have less time than we imagine to create a South African unity which should be at the heart of our strategy. It calls for something more than the patchwork kind of adjustment in terms of NP policy. We have called for a national convention to review and draw up a new constitution for South Africa.

The hon. the Prime Minister has rejected that, and for the moment, let him win the verbal argument. But in this crisis situation we call upon the hon. the Prime Minister at least to call a national conference of leaders of all sections of the South African community. In terms of his own constitutional proposals there is one day going to be a presidential council of people to advise the Government or the President of the day on critical matters. Because we find ourselves in a crisis situation, we call upon him to set up an informal conference of leaders who will be as representative as possible of all sections of the community. They may have no formal status other than being an advisory body to the Government, but let those people—Black, White and Brown together—explore a strategy to cope with the crisis. Let them try to identify the priorities for change and let them by their very presence in response to the initiative taken by the Government indicate that what we want to develop in South Africa, is a spirit of national unity which will transcend ethnic, racial or linguistic barriers in this country. What we need from the hon. the Prime Minister is some visible form of action which will lift the Government and the country out of the trough of scandals, bawdy jokes, political back-stabbing and patch work policies. I believe millions of people are asking when the hon. the Prime Minister is going to start giving that kind of dynamic lead they want. This is what we are appealing for. He has said to us that he has a comprehensive strategy, a strategy related to the realities of the South African situation, and that he matches this strategy with a real sense of urgency.

Of course, before implementing that strategy the Government has to clear up two other matters, matters which hang like albatrosses around its neck. First of all it still has to get the Information scandal off its back. The fact is that so far it has failed to do so. The public remains concerned. The Government is hiding behind commissions and reports, but day by day the Information story grows and more unanswered questions come to the fore. What has happened in the last day or so? Dr. Eschel Rhoodie has now been found by the newspapermen and not by the Government or Government agents. I think the public immediately wants to know why it is that the Government with its vast resources could or did not track him down while the newspapers were in a position to do so. Dr. Rhoodie is reported as having said that he is in communication with the Government. I have heard a modest repudiation of that from the hon. the Prime Minister, who has said that there has only been communication on one or two occasions. However, I believe we are entitled to know whether the Government has communicated with Dr. Eschel Rhoodie all this time or not Has he been in touch with the Government? In what manner has that communication taken place? If it is correct that communication has taken place through Mr. Gross, an attorney from Pretoria, what were the issues involved in the contact between this attorney on behalf of Eschel Rhoodie and the Government of South Africa? We want an assurance from the Government that there is no thought of negotiating any form of immunity from prosecution after what has happened to Gen. Van den Bergh. What the public of South Africa wants to know, is what the Government is going to do now. What is the Government going to do by way of practical steps to see that Dr. Rhoodie complies with the request to surrender his passport? What is the Government going to do to ensure that Dr. Rhoodie returns to South Africa? These are questions which obviously arise and we believe that the Government must answer them, because every day one opens a newspaper, reports, whether they are internal or external, show that the lid has not yet been taken off the whole Information scandal. It is having a paralysing effect on the Government and a disconcerting effect on the public. I shall deal briefly with two matters which flow from the Information situation, directly affecting the responsibility of the Minister of Finance.

The first one is the sale of The Citizen to Perskor, something which happened, not in the time of Dr. Connie Mulder, but during the last few months in the time of Prime Minister Botha and the hon. the Minister of Finance. We must make it quite clear that in many ways that is as disgraceful a deal as anything that was done by Dr. Connie Mulder. As an act of deliberate policy and in the full knowledge that R19 million of taxpayers money had been used to promote The Citizen, it was allowed it to be sold to a pro-Nationalist publishing company without public knowledge or without public tender. That is what took place. By doing that the Government completed the work which was started by Connie Mulder and Eschel Rhoodie. Apart from the principle involved— which is bad enough—we believe that there are a number of unanswered questions pointing to this whole transaction as being highly irregular. I want to put to the hon. the Minister of Finance as the custodian of public funds in this field a whole series of questions. When there was first a rumour that the sale was about to take place, he was contacted by the hon. member for Yeoville and was asked to hold back the sale. He said that the Government would take no action until it received the report of the Erasmus Commission. The evidence, however, is that the Government already surrendered control of The Citizen to an unnamed group of people or persons on 17 November 1978 or thereabout, two weeks before the hon. Minister of Finance gave the hon. member for Yeoville that assurance. The hon. member for Yeoville is entitled to an explanation for that action of the hon. the Minister.

Secondly, in column 19 of Hansard, the hon. the Prime Minister read out from the report of the Pretorius Committee the decision to offer to the owners of South Africa Today the opportunity to run the newspaper for their own profit or loss. In other words, the Government decided to offer it to the owners of South Africa Today to run it for their own profit or loss. The Erasmus Commission said that The Citizen was totally controlled by the Government and that, therefore, the Government were the effective owners. Mr. Van Zyl Alberts said that he held shares only as a nominee for the Government and not on his own account. What we want to know is: Who were the owners referred to by the hon. the Prime Minister when he said that he would allow the owners of South Africa Today to take over The Citizen? Who were the individuals concerned? Had they put any capital into The Citizen or into South Africa Today, or were they in fact nominees for capital which had been injected by the Government? He then said that they had signed certain guarantees and undertakings. What were the nature of these guarantees and undertakings? We understand that they took over the R16 million liability that we were told the State had in respect of that printing contract. Could these two individuals have taken over this liability unless they were merely the link-men to enable Perskor to buy The Citizen without its assets being put out to public tender? We are told that Perskor paid R2,3 million for The Citizen. This included a press, electronic equipment and a newspaper with an established 60 000 circulation at the cost of R19 million of taxpayers money. We want to know from the hon. the Minister whether this R2,3 million was paid in cash and if it was, who received the cash? If it was not paid in cash, if it was a book entry, must we understand that Perskor wrote off nearly R14 million of the R16 million claim which we were told they had against the printing contract?

What about the R1,6 million for the Advowson Trust?

Did the Government ever establish that that claim was valid in law? Did they ever establish the legal liability, and who were the legal advisers who gave them that opinion? If this claim was based on a printing contract dating back to 1976, what were the terms of the contract? Is the hon. the Minister prepared to lay that contract on the Table? Who were the parties to the contract? Did the Government provide any guarantees in connection with that contract? If there were guarantees, what were they? If there were no guarantees, how could the Government be said to legally liable for a claim of R16 million in respect of a company whose assets were valued at only R400 000? Were any of the directors of Perskor, a directorate which at that time included three Cabinet Ministers and one influential Senator, aware that this printing contract, which carried a liability of R16 million, was backed by the Government to the extent of that R16 million? Were any of the directors of Perskor aware of that contract and the fact that the Government was standing security for it?

If those directors and Cabinet Ministers did know, what did they do about it? Were they told who was underwriting the contract, not only in 1976,—when it was first set up—but also in February 1978, when The Citizen was sold to the so-called new owners? Did the Government—I ask this once again—obtain legal advice about its liability in terms of the contract? Was it ever put to the directors of Perskor that because of the fraudulent use of public money in the funding of The Citizen, Perskor should be prepared to release the Government from its contract, and if not, why not?

Until satisfactory replies—not in terms of broad generalities but in terms of this particular transaction—are given, the public will continue to believe that they were defrauded of their funds and of their rights in this transaction.

The second point I want to raise is with the hon. the Minister of Finance on the question of what he signed or did not sign in relation to the R14,8 million when he initialled a certain document and subsequently cancelled the initialling of that document I do not want to probe it from the point of view of whether he knew or not. What I want this hon. Minister to say, however, in order to satisfy this House, is that in respect of that R14,8 million, he did his duty and fulfilled the obligations and the undertakings he had given to this House when he introduced the Secret Services Account Act, in March 1978. He has admitted that that money was budgeted under the Secret Services Account Act According to him the legal advisers said there was a way other than by means of his signature of authorizing the expenditure. What we want to know is this. The hon. the Minister gave us the assurances—I do not have the time now to read them all out—that he would accept the responsibility and that this was a way of getting Cabinet responsibility, and that of the Treasury and the Minister of Finance in particular, for the control over the allocation of money for these various secret projects. The provisions of the Act which he asked to pass last year were very clear. According to the Act “The Minister of Finance may, at the request of any other Minister, and in such manner and subject to such conditions as he may after consultation with such other Minister determine, make available … the moneys …”.

In respect of that R14,8 million, did he in fact authorize the contract? Did he include it in the budget and did he accept personal responsibility for the manner and the conditions that he imposed?

What budget are you referring to?

I am referring to the budget of last year. That was the budget out of which the R14,8 million was taken. The hon. the Minister said so, both here and in the Other Place. However, the Act goes on further and refers to “ moneys in the account for utilization for services of a secret nature determined from time to time by the Minister of Finance and such other Minister as being in the national interest”. In other words, it says that money can only be spent if the hon. the Minister of Finance has determined the nature of the services. We want to have the assurance from the hon. the Minister of Finance that for every rand and for every cent spent out of this last budget, including the R14,8 million from which he withdrew his initials, he in fact carried out his legal responsibility, that he imposed conditions on Dr. Connie Mulder in respect of how that money could be spent and that it was he who personally determined that the secret operations were in the national interest. In terms of the law he has an obligation to do so.

The Information scandal will carry on until the Government really rips the whole lid off the can. I put it to the hon. the Prime Minister that, in an attempt to allay at least some of the public fears, he should stand up and say that in so far as the evidence that was used to come to the decisions in the first report of the Erasmus Commission is concerned, he will ask the Erasmus Commission to make that evidence available for publication. [Interjections.] We ask the hon. the Prime Minister to give this House an assurance that all evidence which is not of a highly classified nature affecting sensitive areas of national security, is going to be published, and that he is going to ask the commission to release that evidence as soon as possible. We cannot carry on. We have a crisis situation and tensions building up around South Africa.

The hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs smiles about it Apparently he likes being in a crisis situation. [Interjections.]

What we need is a Government which is not encumbered by the albatross of the Information scandal, but a Government that will tell the whole story. Only when it has done that can it apply its mind as it should do to a strategy which will ensure that we in South Africa are going to survive the crisis situation as a stable and orderly community.

Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to participate in the debate for very long. There will soon be an opportunity for the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to put all the questions again which he has put so many times before. We shall then reply to them again. Mr. Speaker, allow me to refer to just a few matters which he has now raised.

Firstly, he broached the question of The Citizen again. However, I read out to him the relevant sections of the Pretorius report and in addition made the report available to him. In that report he could have found all the reasons why the Government acted as it did.

If the hon. member did not understand them very clearly, let me read them to him again (Hansard, 7 February, col. 213)—

The hon. member asked whether the Government had an interest in it. My answer is “yes”.

I did not ask that I know the Government had an interest in it.

After all, we said so in the Pretorius report. Then why is the hon. member still asking the question? [Interjections.] The hon. member is asking a question the answer to which is known to him. The report goes on to state—

This Government issued this directive and said that the subsidy should immediately be stopped. That is the reply to the hon. member’s second question.

In regard to his third point we said that the committee was confronted with the naked reality that if the newspaper were to be closed down immediately, the State could be held indirectly responsible for damages which, according to calculations, would be in the region of R16 million. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition appears to doubt this. He is smarter than the Pretorius Committee that investigated the matter. He knows that this was not the case. [Interjections.]

Order!

The report goes further …

Mr. Speaker, am I not in the situation …

Order! The hon. member for Orange Grove should not interrupt continuously. I will allow the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to ask one or two questions. I will allow him to do that and not the hon. member for Orange Grove.

The report of the Pretorius Committee states further—

Why is the hon. member asking the question? He has the answer in front of him.

We did not ask that question.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition writes out the same questions and then rattles them off again here in this House.

The committee went further and said—

Why were tenders not called for? [Interjections.]

The Pretorius Committee went further and stated that the Government had decided … This is also in the hands of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and he therefore knows this …

You are replying to the wrong question.

That hon. member is like a cock-sparrow. He cannot keep quiet.

Reply to the question. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition knows that the committee received instructions to notify South Africa Today that it should accept responsibility for the profit or loss of the undertaking.

Why does the following appear in the Pretorius report: “… aan die eienaars van South Africa Today die geleentheid gebied om die koerant vir eie wins of verlies te bedryf…” Who were the owners of South Africa Today?

Messrs. Van Zyl Slabbert … [Interjections.] I apologize to the hon. member for Rondebosch. It was Van Zyl Alberts and Jussen. The Government had no share in it. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Leader of the Opposition had a full opportunity to put his point of view, and he was listened to in silence.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition does not know how to handle these matters. On 17 November 1978 a cash amount of R450 000 was repaid and deposited to the benefit of the State. With that we disposed of this matter.

What about the R16 million …

Order! The hon. member can take that matter further at a later stage.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to know who was responsible for this decision. It was the Government, under my leadership, that said that the matter must immediately to an end.

It did not then come to an end.

Of course it did.

And then you gave it to your “pals”.

That is a disgraceful remark.

I did not say that The Citizen should be destroyed. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must obey the Chair; if not, I shall take stricter action. I am now asking hon. members to give the hon. the Prime Minister a hearing, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was given a hearing. The hon. the Prime Minister may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bryanston said that we then gave it to our “pals”.

That is right.

I am not ashamed of my “pals”, but I do not know whether the hon. member will always want to bring his “pals” into the open.

Therefore you admit it.

I did not say that the newspaper should be sold to Perskor. All that I said was that the State’s contributions to it should be stopped, and that was complied with. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition gave us notice that he was going to discuss a certain matter in Parliament today. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition always gives notice in the Press the previous day of what he is going to discuss the next day in Parliament. In today’s Argus we have already read what he would come forward with and say here in Parliament. That hon. member runs out into the Lobby here, delivers a piece of news there and comes and repeats it here in the House. [Interjections.]

In regard to Dr. Rhoodie I just want to say … The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must not interrupt me again; he must now behave himself like a decent person and keep quiet.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. the Prime Minister entitled to usurp your function as the Speaker of this House and to admonish me?

Order!

The Government has no direct contact with Dr. Rhoodie

And indirect?

… and does not know where he is.

Do you not read the newspapers?

Mr. Speaker, may I be afforded an opportunity to reply to the questions of that group of hon. members?

Order!

If that hon. member would listen now, I shall furnish him with the replies. In the first place I want to say that we have no direct contact with Dr. Rhoodie.

What about indirect contact?

Order! From now on I am not going to allow any further interjections …

[Inaudible.]

Order! That also applies to the hon. member for Welkom, as it does to every other hon. member. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition may, if he wishes to put a question, do so in a proper manner, as I indeed expect him to do. But hon. members must understand clearly that I am not going to allow any further interjections. The hon. the Prime Minister may proceed.

In the second place I say that we do not know where he is. But the hon. the Leader of the Opposition will of course not accept this assurance. He still owes me an explanation concerning the reflection which he cast on the members of the Cabinet As long as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition questions our integrity, he will not receive from us that treatment which a Leader of the Opposition deserve.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: In terms of your ruling during the debate to which the hon. the Prime Minister is referring you required that I withdraw certain words relating to this allegation. I withdrew those words, and I believe that it is now incumbent upon the hon. the Prime Minister to accept that those words were withdrawn in terms of your ruling.

Order! If the hon. the Leader of the Opposition gives me the assurance that he withdrew any reflection which he may have cast on members of the Cabinet, I accept it and ask the hon. the Prime Minister to accept it as well until such time as I have again checked the relevant Hansard reports.

Mr. Speaker, may I address you on this point? Does this mean that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also accepts that none of the Ministers of the Cabinet had any knowledge of the irregularities?

No.

Then I do not accept what he said. To get back to Dr. Rhoodie, his attorney made certain representations on his behalf. These were referred to the Pretorius Committee. In addition, his attorney personally handed a letter with no address to the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which letter was replied to through the attorney. I am not telling this to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition because he does not accept my word. I am telling this to the country. I may add that the Pretorius Committee is still engaged in trying to safeguard the interests of the State. The Government is not prepared to enter into any agreement with Dr. Rhoodie in respect of the matters which have been or may still be identified by the Erasmus Commission and which may or will lead to other investigations by other persons or bodies. The Government is prepared to cause a travel document to be issued to Dr. Rhoodie to return to South Africa upon surrender of his passport. His legal advisers have been informed accordingly. In accordance with the recommendations of the Erasmus Commission, certain matters have been referred to the S.A. Police and the State Attorney. That is my reply to those in the country who are asking these questions. I do not owe the hon. member for Sea Point any reply.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Prime Minister whether he can tell us what progress has been made by the police in regard to the case against Dr. Rhoodie.

This will be told to the country at the right time and not at this juncture to the hon. member for Sea Point. The question of “Government agents” was raised here.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order …

Mr. Speaker, these people are wasting my time.

Order! The hon. member for Yeoville wishes to raise a point of order.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I understood you to say that you would act if there were any more interjections.

Yes, while the hon. the Prime Minister is speaking. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, may I raise two points of order? The first point of order is whether it is proper for the hon. the Prime Minister to say that he will not answer the hon. the Leader of the Opposition when the rules of this House … [Interjections.] … require the hon. the Prime Minister to answer and address you. By indicating that he will not answer is he not reflecting on the chair? If you will deal with this aspect now, I shall raise my second point of order in a moment.

I cannot uphold the first point of order in the sense in which the hon. member for Yeoville wishes me to uphold it, for if the hon. the Prime Minister rises in this House and addresses the Chair, then it goes without saying that he is speaking to the country. I want to say with all due respect to the hon. the Prime Minister that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament is in the nature of the case speaking to him. I also expect him to address the hon. the Prime Minister properly at all times, and it is sound parliamentary tradition that this should be reciprocal. I would appreciate it if the hon. the Prime Minister would act in this spirit. I do not think it is necessary to have any further points of order. The hon. the Prime Minister may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I now wish to raise my second point of order.

Order! Would the hon. member then make it as quickly as possible?

Yes, Sir, I shall be as quick as I can. You have ruled that there shall be no interjections …

No, I have already ruled on that.

No, Sir, I am raising a point of order and you must please hear me out.

But I have given a ruling.

But I have not put my point yet.

You are wasting my time.

Sir, you have indicated that when I speak, for example, there may be interjections, but when the hon. the Prime Minister speaks there may not be interjections.

Order!

What principle is there that allows you to discriminate between members of this House when it comes to allowing them to interject or not to interject? [Interjections.]

Order! Since this House has a Chairman or a Speaker, surely it is for the Chairman or the Speaker to exercise his discretion and to rule on the conduct of debates in this House as he sees fit from time to time. I have given my ruling in regard to interjections and, in any case, I apply different standards to the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and to hon. Ministers and other front benchers. If the hon. member is not satisfied with the way in which I am handling this debate, there are channels through which he can pursue the matter further.

Mr. Speaker, …

Order! The hon. member must resume his seat. The hon. the Prime Minister …

Mr. Speaker, I rise again …

Order! I am not taking any further points of order. The hon. member must resume his seat.

Mr. Speaker, are you not allowing a point of order?

Order! I am not taking any further points of order. The hon. member must resume his seat. The hon. the Prime Minister must please proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to make your task difficult and I give you the assurance that I shall obey any ruling of yours. However, I want to add that if an hon. member in this House tells me that he does not accept my word, I shall not take him into consideration. Until the hon. the Leader of the Opposition applies other standards, therefore, he shall not receive the correct treatment from us. If he accepts the word of this side of the House, my word and that of the other hon. Ministers, I shall treat him with the same courtesy, but as long as he continues to apply those methods, I shall deal with him in another way. Let us understand one another clearly on this point He shall not enter my office as long as he behaves himself in this way. [Interjections.]

Order!

Disgusting!

Disgraceful!

Yes, that is what I say! I may perhaps come forward with something else which will cause the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to be unpleasantly surprised! [Interjections.] Yes, which will cause him to be unpleasantly surprised!

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Would you please consider whether the hon. the Prime Minister’s conduct at the present moment is not, in fact, contrary to the ruling you gave just now about the ways in which …

Mr. Speaker, may I address you?

Order! I feel that the Chief Whip should now assist me in this matter and allow the hon. the Prime Minister to continue with and finish his speech. I also want to appeal to the hon. the Prime Minister, since I think he has made his point, to carry on with his speech.

Mr. Speaker, I was still addressing you. If the hon. the Leader of the Opposition accepts my word, in other words if he treats me as an hon. member, he will receive the same treatment from me. However, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition must not adopt the attitude that he does not want to accept the word of honour of a Minister, and then get away with it.

And Connie Mulder?

He will not get away with it.

It was asked why “Government agents” were not able to track down Dr. Rhoodie abroad. Must South Africa now instruct its police, in conflict with the rules of other countries, to go and look for South Africans in those countries? Did the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs not make it clear how the Government negotiates with other States in this connection? Did he not say that we can only make representations to another State, and that we had in fact done so throughout the world? Now we are being asked to send out secret “agents” to pry into the internal affairs of other countries. Is this what we may expect from the party opposite if it should ever come into power? It will not be allowed to do so. Must we act in this irresponsible way? I want to add that the Government will not allow itself to be blackmailed by the Opposition or by Dr. Rhoodie. Let us understand one another clearly.

I, in my turn, have a question I want to ask. Was Dr. Rhoodie indirectly or directly in communication with the Opposition? I should very much appreciate receiving a reply to this question from them.

Who is “the Opposition”?

Was the official Opposition directly or indirectly in communication with Dr. Rhoodie? Were they in communication with him through the Press which supports them or through any member on that side?

Definitely not.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is furnishing a reply, but does that hon. member know about everything that goes on in that party?

I said “no”.

But surely the official Opposition must know where Dr. Rhoodie is because their Press knows.

I do not know where he is. I read about it in the newspaper.

We read about it in Die Burger.

Why, then, did they not take the necessary steps to communicate with him?

But we do not know where he is.

Sir, they know everything, do they not? They know things which we do not know. Why do they not tell these things to the Erasmus Commission?

It is stated in the newspapers.

We are dealing here with an Opposition which is prepared to make any statement under the sun. However, when one asks them to prove it before the Erasmus Commission, a judicial commission, they do not want to hear about it and stay away.

I want to put another question to them: If they say there are things which the Government did not divulge to the country and which it should divulge, has one of them so far appeared before the Erasmus Commission?

I was there.

Can the hon. member tell me if there was anyone else as well?

I shall go again if they ask me to.

Very well, but do they have to ask the hon. member? Do you have evidence other than that which the Government has?

I have no evidence for which I have the proof.

If they do not know anything more, why are they kicking up such a fuss?

It is not us. It is Connie Mulder and Gen. Van den Bergh. [Interjections.]

Not at all, Sir. Surely we are not a lot of children here. It is very easy to sit down and write out 30 questions, just any nonsensical questions under the sun that one can think up, and come and ask them here in Parliament in an effort to make a great impression.

In conclusion I want to refer to the allegation made here that South Africa is becoming increasingly isolated. I do not want to elaborate on this today; I shall do so on another occasion. However, I do want to say that not a week goes by in which we do not have delegations from other countries in South Africa. Not a week goes by in which we do not have trade missions, direct envoys and representatives from Government circles of other countries in South Africa—they come from Africa, Europe and other parts of the world—to hold talks with this Government. But without any grounds the standpoint is adopted here that South Africa is isolated, as though no contact whatsoever is being made with South Africa in any sphere.

I want to choose my words very carefully and say that if South Africa under this Government is expected to act in such a way that the outside world can prescribe to us how this country should be governed, we prefer isolation to humiliation.

Hear, hear!

We are prepared to talk to any country in the world on an equal foot and on an equal level. We are prepared to strive and search for peace with all countries that also strive for peace. We are prepared to co-operate further in Southern Africa in the spheres of agriculture, technology, science, health and research. In this connection we have already made a great deal of progress. It is part of our strategy. However, if it is expected of us in South Africa to pay the price and to dance to the tune of other countries in order to obtain their co-operation, we prefer to choose our own course. There must be no doubt about this. If the Free World expects us to capitulate in order to satisfy them, South Africa will pursue a course of greater independence, also in respect of the rest of the Free World. There must be no doubt about this either.

Reference was made to the matter of South West Africa. I do not really want to discuss this now—I shall do so later—but I just want to say that if an attempt is made to force South West Africa at the barrel of a gun to do what its population does not want, South West Africa will be supported by South Africa in order to implement the will of the people of South West Africa.

I think that I have, with that, replied to the most blatant collection of statements and irresponsible charges ever made by an hon. member. I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition ought to be ashamed of himself.

Mr. Speaker, to make one’s first contribution in this House is a special privilege and a great occasion, and a great opportunity, particularly if the privilege falls to one to do so after such a great man as the Prime Minister has resumed his seat.

The extremely important and responsible nature of the activities of this House makes one, as a member, feel small and makes one realize how great one’s obligation is towards the Government institutions of one’s country as well as towards those who elected one to represent them in this House. It makes you consider where you came from. Approximately 200 km east of where we are sitting, the town of Swellendam is situated. In 1743 the Political Council decided to establish a type of magistracy for the interior east of the Breë River. In 1745 it was partitioned as a new district from the district of Stellenbosch and in 1747, the year in which the Drostdy was completed, it was given the name Swellendam in honour of Governor Hendrik Swellengrebel. Since that time the centuries-old Cape waggon road, today still the main street of Swellendam, has brought explorers, scientists and other travellers to the Drostdy where they are given accommodation and assistance. Around this Drostdy Swellendam, the third oldest town in the country, has gradually arisen. Today the Drostdy is a museum, the only 18 th century Drostdy to have been preserved intact. After the Castle in Cape Town it can be considered the most important historical building in the country. With its beautiful antique collection, its craftsmanship and its watermill, probably the only mill in the country which still grinds coarse flour with millstones, its fame reaches beyond our borders. Another piece of the history of this proud old town: Graaff-Reinet, stronghold of the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and Swellendam, both became Republics in 1795, the first in the country—Graaff-Reinet in February and Swellendam in June. However, Swellendam’s republic had a president; this was not really so, because he was only president or chairman of the National Assembly, but that is the legend. Graaff-Reinet never had a president; only officials.

President Reitz grew up on the farm Renosterfontein near Witsand. President M. P. Steyn’s father, Martinus, was a son of P. G. Steyn of the Drostdy, Swellendam. President Boshoffs forefathers were from Montagu, at that time part of Swellendam and still part of the constituency today. President Kruger’s mother was Elsie Steyn, one of the Voorhuis Steyns of Swellendam. The farm Voorhuis is still in the possession of the Steyns today. President C. R. Swart is a descendant of the Heuningrug Swarts of Bredasdorp.

As though it was Swellendam’s allotted right to practise conservation, one finds one of the most beautiful and rare animals in the world in Swellendam. The Bontebok has never been found anywhere else but in the coastal strip between Caledon and Mossel Bay. Towards the middle of the 19th century only 17 were left, and had it not been that the Van der Byls, including the almost legendary political personality, Major Piet van der Byl, and the Albertyns applied strict conservation measures on their farms, they would have been extinct today. At present they are flourishing in the Bontebok Park, an area to which they are particularly well suited.

In an autobiographic narrative My beskeie deel, the late MER, better known as Swellendam’s “tante” Miem Rothmann, one of the great spirits of Swellendam, wrote the following about Swellendam during her childhood, and I should like to quote just a small part—

In the same chapter she goes on to say—

If we follow MER’s advice, and travel through Cogmanskloof to the second step of Africa, as she puts it, the Little Karoo, and then eastwards past the back of the Langeberg, one finds the towns Montagu, Barrydale, Vanwyksdorp, and, a little further north-eastwards, Ladismith. The latter town is the birth-place of the late C. J. Langenhoven. There in the Hoeko Valley is situated the simple farmhouse where Langenhoven was born and spent his early childhood years. About this great man and his performance before the Stellenbosch students MER briefly tells the following, and this is a very clear indication of the farsightedness and insight which someone like Langenhoven had already envinced in his time with regard to the political situation in South Africa—

To the west of Swellendam, on the banks of the Breë River, lies Bonnievale, and a little further on is Ashton. The former is a pleasure to the eye on account of its outstretched, unbroken vista of vineyards as far as the eye can see. Ashton is the home of the Langeberg Canning Factory. McGregor is a picturesque village to the south of Robertson, a little place which, due to its unspoilt condition, still to a large extent resembles its original state. It is the birthplace of the present President of the Senate.

To the south of Swellendam is Bredasdorp. This town was established in 1838, when the farm Langfontein was purchased for R1 700 in order to build a church and lay out a town. This was the first settlement with the suffix -dorp and was named after Mr. Michael van Breda, first mayor of Cape Town and owner of the estate Oranjezicht He was also the owner of Zoetendalsvlei, near Agulhas, where in 1870 he made a start with the first crossbreeding between the imported Spanish merinos and the indigenous broad-tailed sheep. The first six merinos were imported from Spain, via Holland, by Colonel Gorden in 1779, and kept at Groenkloof, at Darling. After Gorden’s death, in 1795, they were sold. It is interesting to know that 29 of them were taken from here to Australia, where they were the initiators of the Australian merino wool industry. The merino has been scientifically bred and developed for 162 years by the Van Bredas of Zoetendalsvallei. Through the efforts of the Van Bredas, the Reitzes of Renosterfontein, and the firm Barry and Neefs of Swellendam, the Overberg became the centre of the wool industry.

Of great importance in the vicinity of Bredasdorp is the long coastline which has already been the undoing of many a ship and has had a special influence on the place names in that area. Skipskop, Reispunt, Northumberland Point and Skoonberg Bay are a few examples of ship’s names which have stuck. In 1673 De Zoetendal was stranded. In search of fresh water the survivors discovered an inland lake, which they christened Zoetendals Vallei. That is the farm to which I referred earlier. On 30 May, 1815, the ship the Arniston was shipwrecked near the seaside resort which was named after it. This was probably the greatest disaster of those times. 372 people drowned when it stranded. Excluding the ships sunk by sea mines during the war, as well as fish trawlers and uninsured ships, 145 shipwrecks have been recorded between Cape Hangklip, near Gordon’s Bay and Breë River Mouth. The most recent ships, wrecked in the vicinity of Arniston, were the Oriental Pioneer and the Wafra. This involuntarily reminds one of oil pollution. An interesting point is that Agulhas, the most southerly point of Africa, the name of which, when translated into English, means Cape of the needle, was probably not, as was previously believed, derived from the rock formation of the Agulhas Bank which is in the form of upright needles. It appears that Bartholomew Dias named it the Cape of the Compass Needle, because the magnetic north and true north correspond in that place and, therefore, no direction can be determined there.

Apart from the Van Bredas, the Albertyns, the Swarts and other well-known surnames of Bredasdorp, there are also the Uyses, who have played a valuable role in the history of our country. Here I have in mind, inter alia, the former Minister of Agriculture, “oom” Dirk Uys, who holds the record for occupying the agricultural portfolio for the longest time. My predecessor the former Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Oubaas Malan, is another in the line of agricultural leaders from Bredasdorp. I extend to him the constituency’s sincere thanks and appreciation for the 12% years service he devoted to it I also express my personal thanks to him for genuine friendship and sincere co-operation over the past 10% years, during which time we represented the constituency together.

The Southern Cape, including my constituency Swellendam, apart from the continuation of its agricultural activities and seaside resort development is largely dependent on the tourist industry for future development. From a letter in Hoofstad of 3 January 1979, entitled “Toerisme se waarde nie altyd begryp nie”, we read the following—

South Africa also shares in this international tourism. Further on in this report we read that these visitors who have come to South Africa, spent an estimated R300 million in foreign exchange here in 1977. This means that the monetary value of the foreign tourist, the tourist industry, is our sixth biggest export product after precious stones, precious metals, other metals and minerals. In addition, we read that on questioning 30 000 of these tourists, it appeared that they would all like to return to South Africa.

These are encouraging facts, a potential which must be exploited and developed at all costs. Since the Southern Cape with its historical background, coastline rich in seaweed, excellent angling waters, scenic beauty and special tourist attractions is suited to be a tourist Mecca, I want to make an appeal with due modesty to the authorities concerned to market the excellent tourist attractions of the Southern Cape more specifically and more systematically in their advertisement programmes.

†An exceptionally valuable contribution towards the tourist attraction of the Southern Cape region is the valuable collection of antiques exhibited in the various museums. Concern has been expressed by museum boards and others concerned about the totally inadequate preventive measures to ensure the safety of some of the country’s most valuable assets. In this regard I would like to read excerpts from a letter which explains part of the problem experienced by museums. It reads—

*According to the final paragraph of this letter, the opinion exists that the Government, through the CSIR, should institute an investigation into methods of preventing fires in museums in other ways than dousing them with water. The dousing method causes irreparable damage since the water pollutes and often irreparably damages everything in the building. A carbonic acid gas containing foam solution which can be applied under great pressure, is mentioned as an example. These processes will of necessity be expensive and cannot be financed by museum boards. For that reason I am making this appeal that the Government makes a contribution from Government funds.

In the past Swellendam has done its fair share and in the coming by-election it will again do its fair share.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Swellendam, who has just resumed his seat, has taken us on an historical and interesting tour through his constituency, and I enjoyed it very much. From the history he has told us one can deduce that the hon. member comes from a very important part of the country. It is also a very beautiful part of our country. We are looking forward to the by-election which is to be held in that constituency, and I hope that he will still have to swallow his words as far as the by-election is concerned.

†The hon. the Prime Minister ended his speech by saying that the Government and South Africa would not allow in any way being dictated to by people from overseas. There is no one in the House who would really have any kind of objection to this statement of the hon. the Prime Minister. I believe that all South Africans are absolutely determined that they will not be dictated to and that they will not be prescribed to. We have a system of our own, a system which to my mind is unique in the world. I go on record as saying that I do not believe that the Western World has yet come to a clear realization of what we are doing in South Africa. But the significance of what we are doing will be borne in upon them one of these days. When that day comes, I think a great deal of what is happening to us today, a great deal of the animosity, the bad feeling, the boycotts, etc., will be seen by the Western world to have been wrong. I think we can look forward to that day, because the realities of history are closing in upon the Western world. One of the things that the Western world needs more than anything else today, is a clearer identification of what its mission is in the world today with the threat of communism spreading right across the globe. In that situation South Africa has an absolutely crucial role to play. That is what this Parliament is all about and what the debates in this House is all about.

I wish to enter the debate by putting certain questions to the hon. the Minister of Finance relating to certain aspects. As a starting point, I should like to say that we are living in the TV age, a visual aid permitting everybody to see how a policy is applied. We in the NRP have gone out of our way to produce a federal/confederal model of our policy and to present it to the people as something which they can see. Over the past three weeks we have had several groups of people from West Germany who have spoken to us, and it is quite extraordinary how people who have a federal background, as they have in the Bundesrepublik of Germany, can immediately see the point of this model which we have set up.

We challenge hon. members on the other side to produce a model of what they offer so that people can see what they are being offered. We issue the same challenge to the hon. members of the official Opposition. We would like to see something concrete, something which can be seen and can be summed up. We challenge them to appear on television with us at any time. Let us then discuss what is going to become the important political issue in this country, and that is changing the constitution of this Westminster-based Parliament to something else. The hon. the Minister of Finance is a member of a Cabinet which went to the country with a certain set of proposals. But we now hear from the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations that “Die hele storie is nou deels herskryf.”

*Negotiations are still in progress and the story is being re-written in parts. We hear from the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development that Blacks in the cities are being consulted and that things may happen now. What is going to happen? We hear nothing. We cannot get anything from the NP with regard to the permanent Black citizens of South Africa—the words of the hon. the Minister of Health—in the urban areas. When we asked questions yesterday about the permanent Black citizens of South Africa, the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke said that that was the personal opinion of the hon. the Minister of Health. When we asked the hon. member what his personal opinion was, he intimated that it was not relevant.

There will always be Blacks in South Africa.

“There will always be Blacks in South Africa”, says the hon. member. We should like to know what point of view the NP holds in this regard. Are there, or are there not, going to be permanent Black citizens of South Africa to all eternity? We should like an answer to this from hon. members on the opposite side of the House.

†In this debate an hon. member opposite made the point that the tendency in a federation was for the federal power always to increase its power at the expense of the constituent States. We have seen this happen in the United States and we have seen it happen in other countries. Why does this happen? It happens because the tax power is in the hands of the federal element of the Government.

Is that wrong?

What do you mean by “Is that wrong”? It happens. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Finance, who is in charge of the financial arrangements of our country: When this new deal with the Coloureds and the Indians comes up, who is going to handle taxation? Where is tax going to be levied and by whom? Who will collect it and who will disburse it, and what is to happen to the Black population which, in terms of the hon. the Minister’s policy, seems to disappear into something else? Those who live in the urban areas disappear because they are no longer Black citizens of South Africa, according to some hon. members on the other side. Some are members of the homelands. The hon. the Minister is in charge of a budget which is going to be introduced whilst the discussion is going on about the substitution of this Parliament by another Parliament, so let me tell him that taxation is one of the safeguards of the White minority that we cannot afford to ignore. Let me put it to the hon. the Minister that one of the safeguards of the minorities is a taxing power. Let me tell him how we see it. Power in a Parliament at a group level, reinforced by a taxing power, means security for the group, and that means any minority group. And what is it that we have proposed? In the federal situation, in the non-homeland areas of South Africa …

Do those four balls represent the federal part?

… there are Whites, Indians, Coloureds and a group of urban Blacks who associate themselves with us.

The balls are all white.

If the hon. member will just try to think a little bit, not hurt himself but just try to think a little, he will find himself able to follow what I am saying.

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

No, let me just finish.

Even those German kids are more intelligent than he is.

That is right. Any thinking person can understand this, but I can understand hon. members on the other side having a little trouble. Let me put it to the hon. the Minister that in a shared area, in which there are four groups of people, we propose that there should be a Parliament for each of those groups. Certain powers from those Parliaments should be delegated to the federal area for joint decision-making. The guarantee for the White minority, the Coloured minority, the Indian minority and even the Black group which is a minority in the total Black population, lies in the fact that they have a Parliament and a taxing power enabling them to maintain the services and all the things that make them different and establish them as identifiable groups. The hon. the Minister is nodding his head. He can see the point. He can understand what I am getting at. I have not done the necessary arithmetic so I cannot say exactly how it is going to be. Let me, however, put forward an argument. It could be that personal tax and direct tax on companies, etc., might be in the hands of the White Parliament, whilst the general sales tax or something like that is vested in the federal area. That is something that can be arranged. I put it to the hon. the Minister, however, that one of the guarantees for the security of the White population in a minority situation lies, in the set-up we propose, with a taxing power in the Parliament which is the guarantor of the rights of the White minority. I invite any hon. member on the other side to argue with me on that particular point. I extend this invitation because it is something we are going to have to sort out. The Government is intent upon changing the Constitution, yet points such as these, which are vital to the security of the White minority, we have heard nothing at all about from that side of the House—not a word, nothing!

I now wish to pass on to another point. What I want to talk about are the politics of achievement. I wish to draw attention to what is happening in the province of Natal, controlled by this party.

Now these are the other balls, not so?

There we have set up an arrangement which brings Coloureds, Indians and Whites into a new system of municipal government. I have mentioned before in this House—and this is vitally important—that we should realize that what we are doing is taking the leadership cores in those population groups and bringing them together in a situation of achievement where they can do things together, learn to trust one another and learn what positive achievement can mean in a multi-racial situation. We are building up a cadre of people who can learn to work together, and when politics brings them to other higher levels, those people will know what they can achieve together and will have a common trust. Let me say something now to the PFP. Without those sort of people coming to the national convention, one is inevitably going to get the sort of grandstand effect, the power-politicking and the threat or pressure from the Black Power base which I think will bring to nothing all the good intentions there might happen to be among the people who go to the national convention. I shall go so far as to say that, if we should reach the situation where we have attained the politics of achievement, a national convention would become unnecessary because we would have structured something that came about through agreement. It is entirely possible for us to reach the situation where there is agreement between the people who inhabit the shared area, the non-homeland, and those who inhabit homeland areas in conjunction with us. This can be achieved through a confederal arrangement very like the one in operation at Brussels. The reason why the West German people can see the logic in our proposals is that they live in precisely that situation. Take the Freistadt Bayern, the country of Bavaria.

It it not the same.

It is not a simple matter. I know there are complications.

Show us your simple way, Daan.

It is entirely true and we know that there are complications. It is not a direct analogy. The British have the saying: History repeats itself. The French are much more subtle. They say: History never quite repeats itself. The Freistadt Bayern, Bavaria, has its own political party, the CSU, in conjunction with the CDU in Bonn. Through Bonn it also has a say in Brussels.

It is entirely possible—and the people who come here can see it—for the White minority group with their own Parliament, protected and entrenched, to act through a federal arrangement here and also through a confederal arrangement with the homeland areas. This is entirely reasonable and it has been proved that it can work. It is working outstandingly well in West Germany.

This is what we have to try to achieve and we have already started with it in Natal. I come back to that point, because it is happening now. It is not something we have to look for out in the wilds or somewhere else: It is working in our country at this very moment.

It is being talked about, but it is not happening.

It has been agreed upon too.

It is not happening yet.

The hon. member says it is not happening yet I should like to ask him whether he will facilitate its coming about or not Is he going to assist us in that effort or not?

Not on your terms. [Interjections.]

That is very interesting. He says: “Not on our terms.”

No.

May I ask the hon. member to tell us sometime what his terms are and how he will vary it. What situation can he see that is different from the one we have proposed?

You will hear about it in good time.

Always the old story: “Julie sal mettertyd hoor wat gaan gebeur.”

Yes, after another 30 years.

It will never happen, Mr. Speaker. I want to put a question to the hon. the Minister.

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

No, let me just finish.

And you want me to answer you!

Speak to your Whips.

I want to put a question to the hon. the Minister. There are discussions in progress in his party about the status and permanence of the urban Blacks. Do the hon. Minister and his party regard this as a new identity group in South Africa or not? I want to say to the hon. the Minister and to the NP as a whole that whether they succeed in making the quantum leap away from the old policy of Dr. Verwoerd to catch up with the modern times in our country today will depend on whether they can adapt themselves to the fact that there is a group of Black people who have dissociated themselves from the homelands and have moved into the urban areas. They represent the only real revolution that has taken place on the continent of Africa. They are new people who have moved out of the old society. I say that, whatever the NP can do, they will never understand that particular problem and as far as I am concerned they will never cope with it.

I want to point out what the tragedy is in our politics. Because of the fact that the NP, this monolith of a party, represents within itself so many different shades of opinion, we cannot move. What is happening is that we are being pushed across the touch-line while the game of Black Power is being played in South Africa. We are becoming spectators at the game of Black Power.

Who are?

The Government, because they will not get to the point where there is an interface between White and Black. They will not participate in that debate. They shut their eyes to it and pretend that if they do not look at it, it will all go away. Meanwhile it is expounding the homeland concept as being the final solution of this whole problem. That party’s source of strength is, as one of their own newspapers has said, the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the hon. the Deputy Minister of Plural Relations.

*The one is a man who has to lead and clear the way for the NP and the other is a man who has to follow behind to ensure that the stragglers arrive. That is the view the NP takes of the matter.

†The problem is that it is not happening fast enough. The problem for South Africa is that time is running short for us while we absolutely cannot see any way in which the NP is going to come up with any kind of an answer.

The hon. the Deputy Minister published a book, Die Credo van ’n Afrikaner, a book which I read with very great attention. But what we need today, is a “Credo van die nuwe Afrikaner”, the Afrikaner who is going to establish a new republic with us.

*That is what we need, a credo based on two things: faith and the individual in the national context.

†One of our problems is that we do not have the opportunity in this House or elsewhere to discuss these matters, their theoretical bases and their practical application. One of the greatest sins that the Government is committing is to refuse to allow a public debate to take place so that the people can see what is happening, for example on television, and so that the people may know what the proposals and alternatives are and what everybody has to say in a situation which is changing so rapidly.

Mr. Speaker, the apparatus of the hon. member for Mooi River tempts one to express certain opinions which one may not express. Towards the end of his speech he said that we should have a policy for the establishment of a new republic. His party’s name—New Republic Party—has always contained an element of nostalgia. During the referendum of 1961 the then United Party advanced 75 reasons why it was wrong to vote for a republic, but now the successors of that party choose the name “New Republic Party” for themselves.

We are now in a new era.

I shall come back to the hon. the Leader of the NRP in a moment With that apparatus in his hand, the hon. member for Mooi River discussed the minorities whose interests should be protected. We understand the matter reasonably well. However, population figures change due to population increase. This always disturbs the equilibrium. The hon. member for Mooi River must take that into account and attach smaller balls to his apparatus to represent the population increase quotient of the various population groups before he can formulate such a system, and he cannot work that out He also referred to the circumstances prevailing in West Germany today. The population units in the various constituent States there develop more or less at the same level and on the same basis, whereas in South Africa we have to deal with a totally different situation.

I want to let that suffice and refer to a remark made by the hon. Leader of the Opposition. Unfortunately he is not in the House at present but I do not want to let this pass unnoticed. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition used the words “a common loyalty” here, and later he maintained that the Information affair would hang around the neck of the Government like an albatross. I therefore want to put the following question to the Opposition. What is the focus and symbol of the highest norm of unity of our State? What is the highest symbol in this country? To me it is to be found in the office and the stature of the State President; in nothing other than the office of the State President. That is the focus of the ideals, the dreams and the vision of generations before us in this House. For us there is something fine in it, something intangible, something which we want to show the world that is cold and chilly towards us. It is something that we want placed in the comity of nations, and what do these people do to that office?

Not the office.

What do they do with the office and the stature of the State President?

It has nothing to do with the office.

It has a lot to do with it Hon. members should just give me the opportunity and I will tell them. How can they have self-respect if they sit in this House on one occasion, viz. during the official opening of Parliament, when the same State President acted in the same capacity, but on an occasion when they were invited to attend an important function, a function to which the State President was invited by his citizens, they boycott him? Then those hon. members declare themselves to be citizens, to be patriots of this country.

We did not boycott the office.

The hon. member for Egypt—I beg your pardon, the hon. member for Hillbrow—must please remain silent so that I can finish what I am saying.

Order! I just want to point out to the hon. member that during a previous debate I said that we had finished discussing the State President, his actions in his former capacity and so on. Therefore the hon. member should not initiate a debate at this stage which will leave an opening for us to return to that subject. That I cannot permit. I permitted him to discuss the office and make his statement briefly.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In this debate we can …

I shall take you to Cairo.

I shall come back to the hon. member in a moment. The hon. member said he will take me to Cairo, but yesterday he asked why our country was faced with terrorism. As a good Palestinian he really ought to know that they themselves have difficulties up there.

The hon. the Minister of Finance will be able to tell us that. We can debate everything in this debate, we can talk about the ideal of full employment, we can talk about economic development, we can talk about the improvement of pensions, of all kinds of things, but the whole matter revolves around the simple, basic point of departure that the State must have a stable Government. Not only must the State have a stable Government; it must also have a Government that is enthusiastic, that is idealistic, but then, a Government that is realistic about the problems of the day. On the other hand, the country is just as much in need of an effective Opposition; not an Opposition that walks out of here when their poor skins get a bit thin. We want people who remain seated and take their medicine. It reminds me of the bankruptcy sale of the businessman who posed as a rich man. One man went to his good friend and said: Do you know what is on that sale? Half a sack of meal, a few old-fashionable hats and a big box of Epsom salts. That is exactly what is going on here. All of them walked out. We have nothing left of this bankruptcy sale. There a few are sitting, “three boxes”; they are still left. We need an Opposition …

We need a Government! [Interjections.]

We need a worthwhile Opposition. At all levels of Government one Minister after the other has given his vision of the future in this House. The hon. member for Mooi River says; “we cannot move.” Were they deaf when our hon. Ministers were speaking? Were they deaf when the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs said that there were major developments under way at Secunda with regards to Sasol 2? At the present moment, 25 000 to 28 000 people are employed on Sasol 2, people who are working there. Surely that is development. Then, too, the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development also sketched the new dimensions that have entered the lives of the Black peoples.

What are you going to do? Tell us!

Oh no, really, did the hon. member for Mooi River not hear for himself? He would do well to go and read Hansard. All these things are happening. The hon. the Minister of Finance tabled the report of the De Kock Commission here, a report containing a penetrating and outstanding vision. We can come back to that later.

Almost every day the hon. the Prime Minister furnishes details in regard to various matters of importance. Hon. members will be furnished with the detail relating to the envisaged new national dispensation in good time. There is no doubt that things are in fact happening. We see them happening around us. Our leaders are having discussions with the leaders of the Black people. It happens every day. [Interjections.] Hon. members of the Opposition are not all leaders (“leiers”). Some of them are “luiers” or something of the kind. As I have said, discussions are being held with all those peoples. [Interjections.]

I now wish to turn once again to the official Opposition and their form of government. Right at the outset of his speech the hon. member for Yeoville attacked the hon. the Minister of Finance by saying that he had allowed an opportunity to inform the people and the House to pass by. With the exception of the hon. member for Rondebosch on a former occasion, I must say that the hon. members of the PFP allow an opportunity to pass by every day to inform the people as to the full meaning of their envisaged form of government. At the moment we are engaged in by-elections. Indeed, the hon. member for Yeoville has already addressed a meeting at Swellendam, with doubtful success, of course. [Interjections.]

Where were you in Hillbrow?

We are coming to those matters. Let us, however, take a look at that Uhuru government of the PFP. Surely that is their Uhuru government, their freedom government According to them the Government are the oppressors. According to them the Government are the suppressors of all human rights in this country, particularly as far as the non-Whites are concerned.

Quite true!

The Government are the oppressors. In other words, the PFP’s Uhuru government, its consensus government, stands against the despotic might of the present Government, the might which deprives people of their rights. However, let us look at that circle where they are going to hold makgotla, where they are going to— figuratively speaking—go and sit around the pot and send around the beer calabash, where they are going to sit and talk.

Yes, go and sit in Windhoek.

Yes, I am pleased the hon. member for Johannesburg North is here. I wish to address him. [Interjections.] If they send around that calabash in good faith, it will not go round the full circle because the majority of those who will be there, are Black people. The PFP cannot deny that. The Black people will not trust them unless they are reassured by the PFP. Some of us have had the privilege of growing up with Black people. My late father sat in the makgotla of Mureleng. I know the customs there. As a child I watched this. The Black people will not pass on that beer of trust if they do not trust you. The first thing they will ask the PFP, is “Can we trust you?” They are going to ask that of the PFP.

We are going to use Bols brandy!

The hon. member for Bryanston will have Bols brandy on his brain just now. This is the question I am now going to put to the PFP. However, let us now apply the criteria, and apply the test ourselves. The kindred spirits of the official Opposition are sitting here alongside them. I now refer to the NRP. Last year, or the year before, they sat at the feet of a learned man. These people have all decided that they want to establish a joint, effective Opposition. They sat at the feet of a learned man. This is not simply boasting. He is a learned man: O.B., A.B., and all those things and then, too, the fourteen-point plan.

A Koffiefontein degree! [Interjections.]

However, they are apart. There are two groups in the Opposition and they are not together. Now I ask the hon. members sitting closest to me—that does not include the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central—and more specifically the hon. members for Mooi River and Umhlanga: Do you trust those people, and would you go along with them on that path that they propose? I ask the hon. member for Mooi River: Are you going to go along with them?

No.

The hon. member for Mooi River states that he will not go along with them. The hon. members who are closest to the official Opposition and recently conducted discussions with them do not want to go along with them. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Rondebosch would do well to listen. That is the simple criterion. Those people do not want to go along with them. Let us test hon. members of the NP. We shall not do so in this House today, but…

Do you want to go along with us?

I say to these people that they can test the Nationalists in the by-elections. [Interjections.]

Order!

You cannot even go along with each other.

Order!

If we were to put this question to the academics—the colleagues of the hon. member for Rondebosch—who approach this matter analytically and are not politically oriented and do not need to ask the voters for a seat here, it is clear that they have an objective view of the case put by the official Opposition. We can hear what Prof. Terblanche says about the case put by the hon. member for Rondebosch.

He is a member of the AB and he is on the board of the SABC.

He states—

The hon. members of the Opposition have not spelt it out, and then they ask for detail as far as our plans are concerned. Prof. Willie Esterhuyzen says—

As in South West!

That is the weakness of their case.

As an educated man, the hon. member surely knows that the situation in South West Africa is far from being parallel to our situation. As a country which has already taken shape …

60 000 Afrikaners!

That is by no means the case. I could mention to hon. members other inheritances which this Government is saddled with, inheritances of 100 years ago. Mr. Van der Merwe, you must go and read your history.

Order! There is no Mr. Van der Merwe in this House.

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I refer to the hon. member for Green Point. He must go and read his history. We are saddled with the question of kwaZulu. There are 13 different States as a result of Sir Wolseley’s decision to form 13 “petty States”. That was 100 years ago, and now hon. members of the Opposition want us to set this right overnight. [Interjections.]

We shall set it to rights.

As far as their policy is concerned—which the official Opposition does not want to put to the people—the hon. members can go and read what people say.

It has been published; what are you talking about? [Interjections.]

The newspapers have given up policy and written it off. Not even your own newspapers want to support your cause.

Order! The hon. member must address the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I come back to you. I am sorry. [Interjections.]

Mr. Percy Qoboza—he is not a friend of this Government—has admitted one thing frankly: The official Opposition does not have a chance. He says it expressly—

The official Opposition have no chance with their policy. Mr. Gatsha Buthelezi—hon. members know him well…

As far as the future is concerned, we have a better chance than you.

What these people express is dreams and wishes. Mr. Gatsha Buthelezi appeared before a meeting of the Jewish Board of Deputies in Johannesburg. He raised some aspects there, one of them being that White domination must be dissolved, or else we will all be doomed. He also states that a national convention must be convened. He goes on to say that he did not get this idea from the PFP, but I do not know whether those hon. members did not perhaps get that idea from him.

No, we get it from the NP.

The PFP does not wish to govern. In this publication they made available to the public, it is very clearly stated at the top of page 10—hon. members must listen to how such a shadow government begins—

Hon. members must bear in mind that we spoke about a stable Government, a Government with prospects and a Government with idealism. We did not begin to govern in 1948 on such a shaky foundation. If the PFP wants to kick off in this way, then brother, they are doomed in any event. The Government does not begin in such a way—not even an adult person does. The father does not even say to his child: “If you threaten me, then I shall run away.” It is interesting to note that they make the following statement on the same page—

What Government in power?

The Government comprised of members from our side.

The prayer of those hon. members is that the NP should continue to govern so that they can carry on with their speculation and petty politics. I do not believe that these people have the right to approach the electorate with what they have dished up to us here.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to congratulate the hon. member for Standerton on his well-considered speech, for I believe he taught the hon. member for Rondebosch something about politics today. I see that the numbers of the hon. official Opposition have swelled again since they ran out of the House this afternoon. Before I come to them, I want to touch upon a matter to which many hon. members referred here today. It is still a topical question, i.e. the conditions in which our pensioners find themselves today.

Yes. It is the Government’s fault.

In this connection I want to tell the hon. the Minister at once that we on this side of the House know that the Government has never neglected our social pensioners. They have always been well cared for. We also know that their interests will be cared for in the future. In last year’s budget, the amount of R369 900 000 was appropriated under the Social Pensions and Welfare Vote. The estimated cost with regard to this Vote for the year 1978-’79 amounts to R419 million. Surely this proves that the Government is not neglecting the aged. The problem experienced in this connection is applicable not only to our social pensioners, but also to our civil pensioners. Where does the fault lie? One speaker after another has risen in this House and referred to the problems of the pensioners, but they have not analysed the matter and shown the hon. the Minister what was wrong.

I should like to point out the gravity of the situation to the hon. the Minister this afternoon. The blame with regard to this whole matter lies with the municipalities. By means of property rates, the municipalities are making things impossible for the White pensioners. I want to try to prove today that this is the problem we have to contend with. The pensioners are not being neglected by the Government; the blame in this connection lies with the municipalities. The municipalities have embarked upon major projects without taking into account the taxpaying capacity of the house-owners. They have embarked upon major projects, which have cost so much money that they cannot recover the money today.

In Port Elizabeth, the municipality appropriated R5 million for sewerage works, at the instruction of the irrigation department. By the time they were completed, they cost R15 million, and the maintenance cost is R2 million a year. The minimum was budgeted when the scheme was introduced to the public, but it cost R15 million when it was completed. The city council of Port Elizabeth said that fly-over bridges and expressways had to be built. The ratepayers’ association asked what it would cost. The city council said that the project would cost R10 million, and now that it has been completed, it has cost R39 million. This happened in Port Elizabeth, and it is also happening in other major cities in the Cape Province.

I own a house in Port Elizabeth, and I want to mention as an example the case of my house, which was valued at R14 000 seven years ago, with municipal rates of just over R216 a year. The house is now valued at R35 000, and the municipal rates on it are R710,91. The city council is driving the house-owners and the pensioners out of their houses and into the bushes. On the one hand, the hon. the Minister is spending millions of rands to provide people with houses, but on the other hand, the municipalities are allowed to waste the taxpayers’ money in an irresponsible and reckless way. The house owner has to pay for this extravagance. We must take a very serious look at the tax system of the municipalities. I think the time has passed when the municipalities could regard the house-owner as their major source of income. It is absolutely fatal to tax the house-owner and to make him pay for the public facilities provided for the community at large in the cities.

I have received several letters from my constituency about the taxes people have to pay. A good and honest man who used to work for the municipality sent me a letter with documents to substantiate it. He had made it his ideal to have his own house the day when he retired. After all his years of service he is now getting a monthly pension of R185 from the municipality. He has saved a little money and he can at least get by. He built a house in which to spend a proud old age. He did not approach the hon. the Minister of Community Development for a house; he built his own house. The municipality is now taxing the poor man’s property to the tune of R318 in respect of municipal rates. In addition, he has to pay an amount of R30 for water and electricity. He pays R30 for services he receives. However, he has to pay R318 to the municipality just because the municipality comes to fetch a few refuse bins from his back door once a week. What do the municipalities do with the millions of rands they get from the house owners in the form of rates every year? The hon. the Minister could increase pensions until he is blue in the face, and the pensioners would still not be able to manage as long as the municipalities kept wasting the taxpayer’s money. What purpose will it serve if the social pensioner gets an increase of R8 or R10 a month and the municipality increases the rates by R10 or R15? Then the pensioner stays where he is, after all. It is time the Government was asked to appoint a commission of inquiry to report on the actions and activities of the municipalities in the Cape Province. We cannot rely on the provincial councils. The municipalities are squeezing the life out of the city-dwellers with their municipal rates. It is happening in Cape Town and it is happening in Port Elizabeth. In fact, it is happening all over the country. Then the hon. members of the Opposition say that the pensioners should blame the Government for this. However, it is not the Government’s fault. It is the fault of the municipalities. I should like to advocate today that the Government should provide another source of revenue, even if it has to be by means of a ½% sales tax, so that we may do away with property rates on houses in the Cape Province. Property rates on houses are absurd. Surely one does not tax a man for wanting to provide a house for his wife and children. Where in the world would one find such a thing? Not even in the communist countries would a man be taxed if he wanted to build a house for his wife and children! In our country, however, it is the source of revenue. Surely this is ridiculous!

I do not have much time left, but I should like to dwell for a moment on the official Opposition. [Interjections.] I have been sitting here listening to the official Opposition for years. I have listened to no-confidence debates and to private members’ motions. Because of this, I am truly convinced today that the official Opposition is something I am not allowed to mention in this House. [Interjections.] Langenhoven in his wisdom said a very true thing when he observed that the water which had flown past would never turn the mills again.

In 1948, the UP swept across the plains of South Africa like a mighty tidal wave. However, the tidal wave became smaller and smaller until a few years ago it dried up under the leadership of Sir De Villiers Graaff. It is well known, after all, what became of the tidal wave. All that is left is the flotsam and jetsam.

The big drought.

Here we now have an official Opposition consisting of the flotsam and jetsam of the political flood which swept across South Africa, and these are the people who want to govern South Africa! [Interjections.] Let us look at the composition of that party. They got Mr. Gerdener and also the hon. member for Johannesburg North with his 14 points. Then, from every quarter, came the flotsam and jetsam of the various political parties, and I shall mention them all here. However, they did not join to form an official political party. What we see there is a political squatters’ camp! [Interjections.] There we have the remnants of the UP, bits and pieces of the Progressive Party, a piece of the Reformist Party and also a part of the National party. I think, for example, of Japie Basson, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. First he was UP, then he became a Nationalist, then he became a member of the Japie Basson Party, then he went back to the UP and now he belongs to the PFP. Then I see there a piece of the OB.

A political hitchhiker.

Yes, along with certain other people.

Oh yes, then there is a piece of the Gerdener Party too. Can hon. members see how many bits and pieces were washed up there? And as I now understand it, that official Opposition is seeking reinforcements. They are seeking someone else, and that person, they say, is to become the leader of the party. Do you know who that is, Sir? Our State President appointed a certain commissioner to investigate the old Department of Information. Mr. Justice Mostert was the man he appointed. What did that man do? Instead of evaluating his findings and submitting them to the State President, he gave them to the Marxist Press in South Africa in an underhand way. All over South Africa, the Marxists and the terrorist fellow-travellers rejoiced. They even went so far as to make stickers and to stick them on the backs of cars, stickers which said “Thank you, Judge Mostert!” This is the man they want to get to become the Leader of the official Opposition.

I found their behaviour in the no-confidence debate very amusing. Have you ever seen, Sir, how a dead animal lying in the veld is covered by blue-bottles, flies and vultures? It is terrible, walking in the sun and up-wind, to see how the vultures and the blue-bottles descend upon it. In this way, during the no-confidence debate, the official Opposition descended upon the dead donkey which was lying there, the old Department of Information which had been dissolved. The Opposition lashed itself into such a fury that one could have sworn it was Rhoodie and the NP who in 1948, when the NP came into power, spent days and weeks burning loads of documents to conceal the corruption of the previous United Party. It was not Rhoodie and the NP who set fire to those documents in 1948: It was done by the UP people. They did it to conceal the fraud and abuses which had occurred at that time.

Mr. Speaker, the official Opposition and the Marxist Press have done South Africa greater harm over the past few weeks than 100 Rhoodies could have done South Africa in a life-time. They talk about secret funds, but I want to ask them for some information: Where does the PFP get its money from? We know that they play with millions of rands during the elections. I want to make the statement today that the official Opposition is getting thousands of millions of rands from the Marxist all over the world. [Interjections.] They talk about a cover-up, but they must tell us where they get their money from.

Order! What does the hon. member mean by saying that the official Opposition gets thousands of millions of rands from the Marxists all over the world?

I ask: Where do they get the money from? Do they sometimes get it from a different quarter?

Order! Does the hon. member mean by that that the official Opposition are Marxists?

No, Mr. Speaker, I am just asking where the money is coming from. We are also collecting money, Sir.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The hon. member is inferring that we are acting illegally. May I remind you, Sir, that under what is known as the Improper Interference Act it is illegal for parties to receive money from outside sources at all?

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that statement.

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker. J shall say that those hon. members have succeeded, together with the communist Press, in denigrating South Africa’s image. I can prove that the Marxists all over South Africa are rejoicing and going on the binge because this party is being denigrated. [Interjections.]

The official Opposition wants to denigrate the NP. I want to tell the official Opposition that they cannot denigrate and kill the NP, because the NP represents the will of the people. They will first have to wipe out the Afrikaner people before they will be able to kill the NP. However, they are not only denigrating the NP, but our great men as well. They are denigrating our Prime Ministers. I just want to say that South Africa is one of the fortunate countries in the world, a country which has produced some of the greatest Prime Ministers. One need only think back to Gen. Botha, Gen. Smuts, Gen. Hertzog, Dr. D. F. Malan, Advocate Hans Strydom, Dr. Verwoerd, Mr. Vorster, and our present hon. Prime Minister. The whole world prays for such Prime Ministers. One respects not only their integrity, but also their wives, for whom one has the greatest admiration. The official Opposition is now denigrating those men. They are also denigrating the former Prime Minister, Mr. Vorster.

Order! Mr. Speaker has already ruled that that aspect may not be discussed.

In 1948 I fought an election. The hon. member for Rondebosch recently moved a motion. The hon. members for Bezuidenhout, Bryanston and Pinelands participated in that debate. [Interjections.]

Years ago, I was standing on the gallery above the Lobby and I heard the voice of the communist, Sam Kahn. I have an ear for music.

You have communists on your brain.

I just want to ask that poor grandma to be quiet Listening to the hon. members who were participating in that debate on the motion, I attuned my sensitive musical ear and I heard the voice of the communist, Sam Kahn. Listening to the hon. member for Pinelands, I could not believe that he was a young minister of religion, who held a Christian view of life, for judging by his speech a new spirit has taken possession of his soul, a satanic spirit which is diametrically opposed to the Christian view of life. It seems to me that he has almost developed a respect for it.

In 1948, I fought for the NP in Port Elizabeth District. Today this constituency is known as Port Elizabeth North. Formerly it was called Drieriviere. There were 2 000 Coloured voters in that constituency. There I got to know the communist. That was the White man who held one inflammatory meeting after another. This was the place where Sam Kahn crept around in the sewage ditches at night along with the other communists. Those same people were restricted by our former Prime Minister, Mr. Vorster. He wiped out those hot-beds of communism. He sent John Harris, who had planted the bomb, to gaol. Hon. members know the fate of Bram Fischer. Those communists have found a political home again, and they are beginning to be seen there again. If an election were to be held in Port Elizabeth or Cape Town, for example, one would see that the communist, the Marxist and the terrorist would be at the head of the election campaign launched against the NP.

And the Antichrist.

Lately, we have been seeing something new: These people have been boycotting the State President! I say it is the communists who are at work; they have a bitter hatred for our State President because he nipped them in the bud. If the Government is worth its salt, we must not be miserable cowards like the Americans who always keep saying, “We are watching the situation.” It is time we eradicated and strangled the Marxists in South Africa. They have found a political home, and they have found it in that party which is sitting over there. They are the political home of the communists in South Africa.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the words that it is their home, but I cannot withdraw my statement that the communists are engaging in the political struggle here and are involved in the political parties in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The hon. member has not withdrawn his words.

Order! He has. He said that he withdrew them.

My time has almost expired. Hon. members must not take too much notice of the hon. Chief Whip of the official Opposition. If he had been in England, he would have been a demonstrator. That is a demonstrator; are they frightened of that? Here in South Africa, however, he is a Chief Whip. He is a leader who also has a say in the party, but I want to sound a warning to the party. I am going to resume my seat now, but I first want to sound this warning to the Opposition. They must be careful. They are provoking the Afrikaners and they are unleashing forces which they will not be able to stop. They must not create Ayatollahs for themselves, because they are going to make a mistake in South Africa. They want to play the part of an Ayatollah. Who brought the Ayatollah to power? The communists did. However, they will not frighten us. The Afrikaner is not going to lie down; we can fight, after all. If the hon. members want to come, they must come out and not cover up.

Whom are you going to fight against?

They must not accommodate unholy elements within the party and then pretend that we shall run away from them. I therefore want to issue a challenge to the Opposition. There are five vacant seats. I shall lay anyone R1 000 or R2 000 that they will not win even one. The hon. members can keep up the noise, but they must go and fight the by-elections.

Are you on the border or are you not?

It is a pity that my time has expired, because I am just getting into my stride. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth North is such a marvellous advertisement for the intellect of the NP that I do not wish to heap any further praises upon him. There is just one point on which I agree with him, and that is that communism must be eradicated, but if it is true that this country is still swarming with communists 30 years after his party came into power, he must not blame us, because then he is admitting that the Government is too soft to do its work. I also want to thank the hon. member for my curriculum vitae which he read out here. I just want to reply to that that I have been sitting in this House for 28 years, and in all those 28 years I have been sitting in this House, I have never left a political party. The NP expelled me and the United Party committed the folly of dissolving itself. I did not leave it. [Interjections.]

I have very little time and I should like to reply to the speeches made by two hon. members. In the first place I should like to reply to one matter which the hon. the Prime Minister mentioned here this afternoon, and which he has also mentioned on a previous occasion, almost in the form of a challenge. He wants us to give evidence before the Erasmus Commission. The hon. the Prime Minister ought to know that immediately after the Erasmus Commission was constituted, the hon. member for Yeoville, the hon. member for Parktown and I specially travelled to Pretoria on behalf of the party, had a long interview with the Erasmus Commission, and offered to give the commission all the help and co-operation we could.

On your conditions.

I am not talking now about the request to sit there; I am talking about helping the commission in so far as it may need help. The commission is free to avail itself of that offer and to put any questions to the Opposition or to any member of the Opposition who may be able to assist them.

Up to now, however, the commission has not availed itself of that offer. Let us now approach the matter as adults. The commission was appointed to investigate irregularities, irregularities which had taken place in secret in a Government department. The commission was not asked to investigate the Opposition. They have to investigate the administrative activities of a Government department; they have to investigate things which took place in secret. If I had possessed any proof of anything which had taken place there in secret, or if I had shared in it, I would have been only too glad to give evidence. Then, however, I should have had knowledge and proof. When I asked the question about The Citizen last year, I had reason to believe that the newspaper was being subsidized by the State. It would take too long to explain why I had reason to believe this.

No, explain!

It is very important for us to know that.

But only the Government had the proof. I had no proof. I believed it, but I did not have the proof. [Interjections.] The Government had the proof. After all, it concerned a matter which the Government had subsidized in secret. I had nothing to do with it.

I also have reason to believe that To the Point, The Christian League of Southern Africa and Encounter received financial support from the State. I have reason to believe that they were subsidized. Only the Government has the proof. The Erasmus Commission is interested in proof. It is for the Government, therefore, to prove that no irregularities have taken place. It is not for us to do that. I repeat that we declared ourselves to be perfectly willing to impart to the commission any knowledge which the commission believed us to possess.

The hon. member for Standerton spoke about the presidential tradition of the Afrikaner. He has got it all wrong. The Presidents of the Afrikaner, such as President Paul Kruger, were not above party-political criticism; nor were the other Presidents in the history of the Afrikaner. The great republics of America and France would laugh at you if you said they should have a provision to the effect that the president may not be criticized. The provision in our Constitution which the hon. member defended is a mere relic of the British monarchy. It is ill suited to a true republic, and it is time that people who call themselves Nationalists helped to bring about a true republic in South Africa.

†Mr. Speaker, in this debate I am not going to deal with the scandal angle of the Department of Information. We are still waiting for replies from the Government to a number of important questions concerning that department. We hope that the necessary information will be forthcoming before this session becomes too old. We are also pleased to know that Mr. Justice Erasmus and his commissioners who are investigating alleged irregularities in the former Department of Information expect to have their report ready for Parliament before the end of May. We are taking it for granted that Parliament will then have the normal opportunity of considering that report.

However, there is a political dimension to the affair, which has a significant bearing on our present international relations, and it is to this that I wish to draw the attention of the House. Many people are wondering what is the mystery behind the Information affair. It is true that there is some mystery surrounding the secret employment of public funds and the nature of the project for which these funds were used. There was, however, never any secret or mystery about, the objectives aimed at, who the planners and engineers behind the objectives were, and what the methods were that they decided to employ. The story is a fairly simple one. When the previous Prime Minister took office, he soon learned to appreciate how serious the country’s international position was. He also realized that there were only one of two lines of action that he could take. Firstly, he could decide to make radical changes in policy at home. However, we know that Mr. Vorster had little taste for that. Taken as a whole, the actual changes that he brought about in policy during his 12 years in office were no more than peripheral. At an early stage in his premiership, he decided to take the second option and launch a special campaign to try to “sell” his Government’s policy abroad, as he was attempting to do at home as far as the broader South African population is concerned.

This campaign soon became known as the “outward movement”—“die uitwaartse beweging”. I remember how Mr. Vorster first mentioned this campaign at the Natal congress of his party in Durban. This is what he said at the time—

Outward to sell our policy message to the outside world.

At a public meeting soon afterwards he repeated this and added—

He believed that all that was necessary, was that the policy message should be carried out in a new, dynamic, even in an unorthodox way, and in language which the world at large could more readily understand. We all know that the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, his chief engineer in matters of this sort, was Gen. Hendrik van den Bergh. It was obvious to both of them that there was only one channel through which this “outward movement” could be launched and promoted. Dr. Hilgard Muller, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, was not the kind of man who would have allowed his department to be inspanned for the broad and unconventional political campaign which was envisaged. He was too orthodox in his diplomatic ways. The task therefore fell to Dr. Connie Mulder and the Department of Information, which was under his control. Dr. Mulder immediately started to look for the necessary tools and decided that he needed a specialist from outside the Civil Service. Therefore, against the wishes of the Civil Service Commission, but with the backing of the Prime Minister and the rest of the Cabinet, he brought in Dr. Eschel Rhoodie to become the head of the Department of Information.

When did Dr. Rhoodie become Secretary?

From that point the “outward movement” was beginning to take shape, with the Prime Minister, Gen. Van den Bergh, and Dr. Mulder and with Dr. Rhoodie as the kingpin of the effort.

So one can understand how it became necessary …

You must be very careful what you say now.

… for Dr. Rhoodie and his assistants to be entrusted with vast sums of money; because, to be effective they had to do what they were trying to do in secret.

I said at the beginning that for the purpose of what I wish to plead for today, I am not interested in the scandal angle of the Information affair, but in its grand political dimension. A vast operation, operation “Outward Movement”, was developing, with Dr. Rhoodie as the main operator, the active frontliner of the Prime Minister, Gen. Van den Bergh and Dr. Mulder.

The operation was effectively launched in 1973. The interesting part of the matter is that Dr. Rhoodie openly reported to Parliament what his instructions were, his commission, and also what his methods were going to be.

*I have with me the 1973 report of the Department of Information. It makes fantastic reading, if one wants to read it again. I want to quote from it, but because it is lengthy, I shall summarize it without changing its meaning. Dr. Rhoodie began by making it clear that South Africa could expect an unprecedented attack on four areas, and that it had to prepare itself for a counter-attack. The onslaught would be: firstly, an attack on regulations and laws regarded as racist; secondly, an attack by certain churches; thirdly, an attack by international trade unions; and fourthly, a large-scale attack by trade unions, churches, students and newspapers. He added—

We all know that the opening speech is delivered on behalf of the Government—

He went on to say—

Then he said the following—

Hon. members must remember that this was said in 1973.

No rules.

As far back as 1973 we were informed of what would happen, and in subsequent years he and Dr. Connie Mulder told us every year in their report that they were fighting in an unconventional way, and that they could not disclose all that they were doing, but that they believed that they were achieving success. Today we know that this “outward movement” took the form of at least 138 secret projects inside as well as outside South Africa.

During the years since 1973, under the previous hon. Prime Minister, we had the greatest, the most comprehensive, the most ambitious and the most expensive campaign imaginable to sell the politics of the Government outside its own party-political circle in South Africa and abroad. What has struck me in this connection is that Gen. Van den Bergh said in an interview recently that a monument should be put up to Dr. Rhoodie, that the public would do so in our lifetime and that it would be the greatest monument in South Africa. I do not agree with him, but I know what he means. He is saying that Dr. Rhoodie was not acting in his own right, but that he had a commission. The commission was given him by the political leaders, and the millions that were spent in carrying it out were placed in his lap by the political leaders. However, much people like us may disagree with the nature of the efforts and the methods that were used, Dr. Rhoodie carried out his commission on a scale which it would be difficult to surpass in terms of cost and scope. He said himself that no means, channel or tactics had been ruled out of order; all the “new weapons of our time”—as he called them—were employed on a large scale. I have said that I am referring only to the political dimension of the affair with regard to the former department, and that dimension represents, in essence, the whole outward movement of the Whites to the non-Whites and of South Africa to the outside world.

No one would deny that the taxpayers’ money was used for this purpose in the most extravagant way one can imagine. The questions we have to ask the Government in this connection are: What was the political result of this effort? What has improved in South Africa? What has our country gained by it? These are questions which we would like to have answered. In what respects has our position inside or outside South Africa improved? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition showed this afternoon that the dangers from outside had increased and that the sword of sanctions was in fact hanging over our heads. Inside the country, the Brown and Black population groups are getting better organized and more determined every day to demand full citizenship. In the political field, this supreme effort by the Government, by the former department and by everyone involved has proved one thing beyond all doubt: There is no way in which the Government’s present policy can be made acceptable to the population at large, ensuring peace for us all. Such an attempt to make the National Party’s policy acceptable to people who do not belong to the party cannot be launched again. It has been proved that with all the money in the world and the most professional attempt which could be made, the Government was unable to change anything because the fault basically lies in its policy.

There is no other option for South Africa than to make drastic changes and to put a final end to all forms of White supremacy and discrimination. We all recognize the diversity of our population and the political problems which this creates for us. A nation has the right to exist, to survive, but that applies to all the nations of South Africa. One nation may not seek that at the expense of another. Therefore we cannot say that we are a plural society and leave it at that. It is true that we are one. Everyone in our plural society has the right to participate in the government of his country. We must immediately begin to search for a solution which will enable everyone in South Africa to work together for South Africa without domination and discrimination. There is no greater priority than that, for the old era of apartheid is past.

The ordinary man in South Africa is having a very hard time. People’s burden of debt is rising. The burden of taxation is becoming intolerable. There is no life in the economy. It is shocking to see how many shop premises in Johannesburg are unoccupied, not to mention the many offices which are standing empty. Discord between the various population groups and discord on the borders of South Africa are costing the country dear, and if this continues, the cost of living will rise and the tax burden will keep growing.

†The question of how much time we still have usually comes up in political discussions and often we have to reply to that question. Experience in Africa and elsewhere in the world has shown that, once a situation is allowed to develop whereby people who are denied their legitimate rights of citizenship lose faith in peaceful efforts and turn to violence, it becomes impossible to return to a position of peace. We have seen it in so many parts of Africa. We see how difficult it has become at this late stage to solve the Rhodesian problem. Closer home there is the question of South West Africa. We will await the hon. the Prime Minister’s statement before we debate that position, but what we all know is that once things have reached the point where there is an organized terrorist army striking at our borders with the support of major powers, it becomes almost impossible to achieve a return to reason and to peace. So far we in South Africa have not reached the position where we are faced with a terrorist army, and my plea to the hon. the Prime Minister is that what changes have to be made have to be made now. Make them now, because now we can still make them constitutionally. In a year or more it may no longer be possible.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, also known as the bird of passage of South African politics, said that he has never left a political party. However, he does not tell us how many times he has been asked to leave parties or how many times he has been expelled from parties. Neither does he tell us that the old UP had to be disbanded in order to get rid of him. [Interjections.] I do not believe that one of those parties to which he has belonged would take him back if they still existed today.

The hon. member asked us what the political effect has been of all the work done by the old Department of Information. However, he disparaged completely all the good work that was done. I want to say this to the hon. member. The results of the work done by those people who fought for us in the frontlines of the world could have been much better had it not been that they also had to fight against the remarks of an irresponsible Opposition in South Africa. [Interjections.] In the UN, in the highest council chambers of the world, and even behind the Iron Curtain, remarks against South Africa, remarks of the hon. Opposition here in our midst, have been quoted.

That is the least!

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout creates the impression here that we do not have peace, quiet and prosperity in this country. However, we have never had so much racial peace as we have now under this Government Neither have we had so much prosperity in South Africa as we have experienced during the past 30 years of NP Government.

No thanks to you!

We do not want to deny the Opposition its right to criticize. It is its right, its privilege and its duty to criticize. In the days when we sat in those Opposition benches, we really got under the skin of the Government of the time. We kept on unceasingly, were sometimes devastating, and that kept the UP Government of that time on its toes. We were not such a weak-headed Opposition as this one—an Opposition which was unable to bring any sparkle to the debate over the past three days. As I have said, we defend the Opposition’s right to criticize, as well as their right to criticize us about the old Department of Information. There are, however, limits when one criticizes.

Let us look at the role the official Opposition played in the unfortunate events surrounding the old Department of Information. Their role was a reckless one, as reckless as the action of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in this debate this afternoon. In this whole situation the Opposition did not hesitate to paint everything and everyone black. This they did with all kinds of ridiculous questions, such as those asked once again this afternoon by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

It is not the questions that are embarrassing, it is the answers.

With questions, insinuations, hints and suggestions people’s names are blackened and no one is spared in the process. What we had in this country during the past few months, was not a cover-up, as they call it. It was a smear campaign on a scale we have never seen before in this country.

Yes, as the result of dishonesty on a scale this country has never known before.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who spoke earlier on, do not hesitate to resort to smear tactics. They do not, however, have the courage to accept the hon. the Prime Minister’s challenge to present the allegations they are peddling so freely to the Erasmus Commission for testing.

Mention one such allegation.

Mr. Speaker … there are many.

I challenge you!

They have repeatedly come up with allegations.

Mention one!

It will take me hours to mention all the allegations here.

What you are saying is untrue.

I want to forecast that neither the hon. member for Bezuidenhout nor any other member of the official Opposition will have the courage to accept the challenge of our hon. Prime Minister, i.e. to present the evidence to the Erasmus Commission.

They have no evidence.

Yes, they keep replying on whispering campaigns which they themselves instigate and they will make no contribution to clear the air in this country as far as the Information question is concerned.

Will they accept hearsay evidence?

There is no substance in their gossip—and it is all gossip. They have nothing of substance. The Erasmus Commission has resumed its work. If the hon. members opposite have information, why do they not take it to this judicial forum, this judicial commission? Surely the commission will know what to do with it.

Yes, cover it up as well.

They themselves have a cover-up in their ranks, a cover-up of evidence. If they do not go to the Erasmus Commission, their whole tirade against the Government about the Information matter will come to nought. This is what has actually happened. Their whole tirade about that came to nought.

Mr. Speaker, this Opposition of ours has never liked the Information Service of South Africa. In their eyes it was only good when General Smuts used it to try to defend his war effort. In all these years they have never stopped, in this House and outside, from attacking the Department of Information.

You just tell the truth and we will stop.

Hansard is full of examples of how they attacked the Department of Information. When the Information bomb exploded, it was John the Baptist’s head on a tray to them. They used the opportunity to the full to revenge themselves on a department that has always been a thorn in the flesh to them. It is revenge which has built up over the years, which is finding expression in this debate.

At this stage we all know that only a few people in control of the old Department of Information were responsible for what happened. We know that more than 99% of the men and women in this service had no part whatsoever in any abuse, but do not believe for a moment that the Opposition thinks that. They condemn and pass judgment on everything. In their eyes every man and every woman in this service stands accused. Not one of the Opposition members has stood up here and said anything good about the more than 400 officials in our Information Service, officials who, through this storm, carried on with their task quietly and modestly. The Opposition has conditioned the public to such an extent that these loyal men and women, who played no part in abuse of any kind and were not even aware of it, have to do their work in very difficult circumstances today.

We are not talking about the public servants.

If one talks to the officials, one is amazed at what one hears. These people are working under a cloud of suspicion and distrust.

Who created it?

This was not created, but was fanned by the Opposition, which has overplayed its hand in this matter. Sometimes they are glared at as if they were lepers.

No.

The word “Information” has become a term of abuse for many in this country as a result of the campaigns that have been conducted.

As a result of the actions of the Government.

This reckless smear campaign destroyed the credibility of our Information people. Their hands are bound. They have difficulty doing their work.

It is you who did that.

There are many jokes about the Information affair doing the rounds. Perhaps it is a good thing that we retain our sense of humour in these circumstances, but many of these jokes have a sting which hurts innocent people. We request the public to be more considerate towards these people who are doing a tremendous job for South Africa in difficult circumstances.

The Information Service has now been run down enough.

Not until you give us the answers.

It has been through a crucible and there has a drastic purification which cleaned up this service. What remains, is clean.

Not as far as you are concerned.

I want to repeat it for the benefit of the Opposition: What remains, is clean and they must accept it.

There is still suspicion about you and your Government.

Now we have to ask everyone who is participating so wholeheartedly in this disparagement to put an end to this, so that the rebuilding of this service can begin and that job may be tackled quickly and efficiently. We can probably expect no help from the Opposition. After all, they like to keep on rolling in the mud like certain animals, as we have seen here once again this afternoon. They will probably want to remain in the mud. However, those whose intentions are good as regards South Africa and its interests must now start to shake off this mud and get up out of it so that we can start anew.

We should remember that while our Information Service has been paralyzed during the past few months, the activities of our enemies have not come to a standstill. They were encouraged by what has happened and have redoubled their onslaught against South Africa. A wave of hatred and actions against South Africa has been launched. The United Nations took the initiative in that regard by declaring an anti-apartheid year. Numerous church organizations, of which the World Council of Churches was in the forefront, and a horde of private organizations have launched an intensified campaign of condemnation of South Africa in this time during which our Information Service has been paralysed as a result of a reckless campaign launched by the Opposition and their Press. In the fields of trade, technology, sport and many others, the screws have been tightened against South Africa in this time.

The task of an information service is to fight for South Africa in the front lines against a flood of lies, half-truths and condemnations. Great success has been achieved in this regard.

There was a great deal of criticism when Gen. Hertzog began our first information service in 1936. His motto was: “South Africa first,” and therefore he insisted that correct information on South Africa should be distributed. Gen. Smuts extended this service to a great extent, because it was a handy instrument for him to promote his war effort. Dr. Malan reformed the service to the status of a State Information Office, fulfilling an internal as well as an overseas function. Dr. Verwoerd regarded the Information Service as so important that he transformed it into a full-fledged department with the aim, as he put it, of counteracting propaganda as well as suspicion and bad feeling cultivated amongst the non-White population. Dr. Verwoerd went further and said that it was necessary that the correct information should be given to the outside world, where South Africa is dragged through the mud. Today we realize that the information service has become indispensable. There is almost no country in the world which does not have an information service in some form. Some of them have a State Information Service, like we do, and others use public relations companies or private organizations.

Our unique position makes it absolutely essential that we should have a full-fledged information service with status and power. We know that there were good reasons why the status of the former Department of Information was lowered. However, I want to make a plea today that as soon as the air is cleared the information service be reconstituted as a full-fledged department. This department was one of our most important departments which did a tremendous job for South Africa. [Interjections.] For that reason, no unnecessary time should be wasted in restoring it to its former position of honour, because it is important that it should soon be in a position to develop its full effectiveness and impact.

[Inaudible.]

Order! The hon. member for Orange Grove cannot deliver a running commentary.

That hon. member has already walked out of here once today. We shall have peace if he wants to walk out once again. There can no longer be any doubt that South Africa, as part of the Free World is sustaining an onslaught of powers which seek to convert the whole world into a situation of slavery. In this onslaught, new and subtle forms of warfare are used, i.e. indirect warfare which seeks victory not on the battlefield but elsewhere. Therefore the fight today is described as 20% military and 80% non-military. Apart from these actions, such as guerrilla warfare and terrorist activities, the modus operandi of indirect warfare covers the psychological, political, economic, religious, cultural and sporting spheres, and many other spheres as well. We experience that every day. The method by which these instruments are used, is primarily by way of psychological warfare and propaganda. The intensive use of propaganda has become almost as effective a weapon as the nuclear bomb today. The only difference is that the nuclear bomb is used as a deterrent while propaganda is used destructively on a full-term basis. It is in this propaganda war that South Africa finds itself, and our information service finds itself. This propaganda war is part of the total onslaught on South Africa, and is a very important part of it. If we were to lose the propaganda war, it would be so much more difficult for us to win the total fight.

You will never win it by cheating your own people.

That hon. member does not know what it is all about. I want to put the following question to the Opposition this afternoon: How can one win this propaganda war if one undermines the instrument with which one has to conduct that war, to such a point that it can no longer continue to do its work effectively? However, we should not lose sight of the fact that this propaganda war is also being waged within our borders, as well as within the borders of our Black States. This onslaught is aimed at bedevilling relationships between nations and undermining our ability to defend ourselves. Here, too, our information men are in the midst of the conflict. They are the link in this country and in our Black States between White, Black and Brown, and they are the people who prepare the way and bear goodwill. These people work silently; we do not always know what they are doing. If I had the opportunity today, I could have listed for hon. members everything they do. They do a vast number of things. They are very successful. In the present circumstances, however, these people are in a position where their hands are bound.

By the Opposition.

Yes, by the Opposition. The Opposition undermined these people with its campaign to such an extent that the public do not want to accept them.

Yes, they are hand in glove with the saboteurs.

Another major task these men of the Information Department performed with great success, was the creating of good relationships with the people of the Black states around us. White and Black information men have succeeded, through sound contact, in gaining confidence at the highest level in almost all the Black States. Even in a State like kwaZulu, great success has been achieved with this work. To maintain this good work they are doing, and to develop these favourable attitudes, we need a purposeful information service, a service which seeks to work without hindrance, without constant undeserved criticism from morning till night.

This afternoon I want to ask the Opposition, the Opposition Press and everyone that is having such a fine time gossiping, to give our information people, the people of a new, clean information service, the opportunity to continue unhindered with their work in the interests of South Africa. The public of South Africa may rest assured as far as this matter is concerned. The hon. the Prime Minister committed himself to a clean administration. He will see to it that there is clean administration. He has already laid a sound foundation for this.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bloemfontein North has just discussed the Information issue again. I am in complete agreement with him that there is still a tremendous task to be carried out in this regard. Therefore, I can only confirm what he said about it.

However, I want to touch on another matter this afternoon, and I can actually call it a reaction to what the hon. member for Mooi River said earlier on in the debate. He referred to a system devised by the NRP in Natal. He also tried to point out that this system was already working very successfully.

Is this that thing with the little balls?

No, it is not quite that thing with the little balls. The matter which the hon. member for Mooi River referred to, concerns representation of the various peoples at municipal level. There have been talks between the Natal Executive Committee and representatives of the local authorities as well as the various race groups in Natal. What the hon. member for Mooi River forgot to mention, however, is that since Parliament assembled this year, a very important meeting has been held somewhere in Northern Natal at which one of the Indians who was directly involved in the talks, stated clearly and unequivocally that as far as he was concerned, he felt threatened by the standpoint of the NRP on that committee. He added that he no longer pledged this support to that system. I want to elucidate a few aspects of that plan a little further. Basically it amounts to an NRP proposal that in those areas where it still has a measure of support—I am referring to the larger urban areas of Natal, viz. Pietermaritzburg and Durban—the Indians and/or the Coloureds would have separate local authorities; i.e. separate from the White local authorities. In the rural areas, where the NRP is a spent force, … [Interjections.] … where they have no representation any more, they recommend mixed councils with separate wards for the various races.

In other words where the NRP has no representation in Parliament or in the provincial council anymore, they want to enforce their policy of mixed councils— White, Indians and Coloureds in the same council, but in separate wards. In the deep platteland, as they refer to it so disparagingly, where they no longer have any support at all, and where it is, in their opinion, not practical to have separate wards for municipal representation, they propose the PFP policy, a policy of one man, one vote in the same ward. This is the exact plan which they propose and which they are now trying to sell to us as one which is already working in actual practice in Natal. [Interjections.]

It is simply not true that the system works. In any case it is a bluff and I doubt if it will ever…

Mr. Speaker, can the hon. member for Klip River tell us whether he will support the Natal Provincial Council in May this year when it tries to effect certain changes in order to apply it in practice?

No, I am not prepared to help the NRP implement their half-baked plan which is a mixture of NRP, PFP and NP policies. [Interjections.]

What do you have against the people of Natal?

What would you have?

I do not want to go further into municipal … [Interjections.] I was simply reacting in passing to the proposed municipal system of the NRP. I want to come to the actual system which they have demonstrated here ad nauseam. That is what I should like to refer to now.

The hon. member for Mooi River maintained that visitors from the Federal Republic of Germany showed an understanding of the NRP’s symbolic model because they know federalism.

And they are sensible.

I also spoke to those visitors from Germany, and I could see very clearly that they had a vague idea of the outline of the plan, but that they certainly had no profound understanding of it. After all one cannot compare the circumstances of federalism, or even confederalism in a developed Europe and a similar system in South Africa where the differences are as great as those known in Europe as the North/South differences. In Europe there are even attempts afoot to build a bridge of liaison so as to settle the North/South problem. Here in South Africa we also have that problem, a real problem within our own borders.

The hon. member for Mooi River is now boasting that the people of the Federal Republic of Germany, people acquainted with federalism, showed an understanding of that half-baked system of his. He referred to the Free State of Bavaria, which has been an integral part of the German territory for 120 years and where there are basic similarities in language, customs and traditions; where there are certainly no such differences as those which exist here in South Africa between, for example, the Zulus and Xhosas, not to mention those between the Zulus and the Whites and between the Zulus and the Indians. And that hon. member is trying to equate the differences between Bavarians and Prussians, or even between Bavarians and Hanoverians, in other words the differences between North Germans and South Germans, with the differences existing here in Southern Africa. It is a totally half-baked thing. The hon. member first showed us his one model, the one in which he joined the four little balls together. In that way he depicted the Whites, Coloureds, Indians and urban Blacks.

Permanent Black South Africans.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member referred specifically to the urban Blacks.

[Inaudible.]

Yes. Now I should like to know from the hon. member whether his plan makes provision for the more than 1 million Blacks in White South Africa, i.e. the agricultural workers of the country. Does he in his plan—the plan with the four little balls, with one little ball representing the urban Blacks—make provision for Blacks who reside as permanently as the urban Blacks in White South Africa?

They are not homeland Blacks.

“They are not homeland Blacks?” but are the Blacks on White farms homeland Blacks?

[Inaudible.]

Are they homeland Blacks?

Yes.

Very well, they are homeland Blacks.

[Inaudible.]

No, he has changed his mind again.

It seems to me the hon. member finds it difficult to decide what he wants.

What is keeping your two ears apart?

Mr. Speaker, to refer now …

No, tell us!

If the hon. member wants to refer to the urban Blacks only, to the so-called non-homeland Blacks, I should like to know from him whether he is grouping together those urban Blacks who have traditionally been working in the metropolitan industrial complexes and on the mines of South Africa for decades, but who are citizens—specifically citizens—of Transkei, Bophuthatswana and Venda? Does he include them?

If they align themselves with our policy …

No, I want a straight answer. Does the hon. member include the Blacks who have been working in the metropolitan industrial areas and on the mines of White South Africa for decades?

If they prefer to remain in Transkei, they remain there, but if they prefer to side with us, they are welcome.

Then I want to go further. The hon. member’s plan is almost like a two-faced person. He wants to keep an option open here and one open there. I should also like to know what the hon. member’s standpoint is as regards the citizens of Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana, citizens who have traditionally been working in White South Africa for generations.

They are not South African citizens.

They are equally unattached to their national territory as other Blacks are to Transkei and Bophuthatswana. [Interjections.] In this way I want to illustrate how half-baked the NRP’s viewpoint is.

Then the hon. member then added one other little ball, according to his model the urban Blacks of Soweto and Kwa Mashu— the latter is inside the kwaZulu homeland— and Langa. He also added the Blacks of Mooi River, Paul pietersburg, De Aar, Virginia, Kroonstad and others who have no homeland ties. [Interjections.] That is what he did! He must get away from the idea that only the Blacks of Soweto should be regarded as urban Blacks. In Mooi River Blacks are living in a location which is also not situated in the homeland.

So what is your problem?

They have lived there for generations. I should like to know from the hon. member for Mooi River where else in his plan with its various little balls, are those urban Blacks of Mooi River, Paul pietersburg, De Aar, Virginia and numerous other similar areas included.

Pofadder, Riviersonderend …

I am mentioning these things to indicate how half-baked the policy of the NRP is. [Interjections.] It is very easy simply to present a plan to visitors from the Federal Republic of Germany in vague, general concepts and then state that they obviously understand it. Afterwards he states that if they understand it, it is the ideal policy for South Africa. [Interjections.]

That is just the point.

Order!

The hon. member for Mooi River said, in putting his case, that he was referring to the Blacks who dissociated themselves from their national territory or Government. In this regard I refer to a quotation from a book South Africa’s Urban Blacks—Problems and Challenges. In it is an essay written by Mr. Phillip Mayer. He says, inter alia …

The Department of Information?

This book has nothing to do with the Department of Information. He says …

What page?

It is on page 55. But the hon. member does not want to make use of it in any case, he just wants to waste my time. The author says—

He admits, therefore, that any mention of ethnic affinity immediately unleashes a resistance. The author goes on to explain that aspect—

In other words, he says there is a very clear reason why, when questions are asked and investigations held, the politically conscious urban Blacks dissociate themselves from their ethnic ties. He also tries to show how in spite of their misleading answers, there are in fact ethnic ties among those Blacks.

I should like to know from the hon. member for Mooi River whether they are in earnest about the Black national territories being developed to their maximum potential.

Yes.

Very well. Does the hon. member agree that the ethnic territories should be developed to their maximum potential? If that is the case, I should like to know from those hon. members whether they acknowledge that the urban citizens could pre-eminently be the leaders who could bring about a sound development of the various nations, their national economy and their national territory. In other words, do they believe that the urban Blacks are pre-eminently the people who can bring about that development…

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

No, not at this stage, for my hon. Whips have just indicated that my time is almost up.

You do not have the remotest idea what it is all about.

I just want to mention that the situation of the peoples in South Africa is not at all comparable with that of the peoples in Europe. I should like to elaborate at a later stage on the parallels or the non-parallels between the respective areas. I should like to read a last passage from an essay “Townsmen and Tribesmen” by Philip Mayer. He says the following, inter alia—

Who is he?

It is to be found in a book entitled: “The Urbanization Process of the Third World”. He says—

It is, in other words, not a change of the national community. The urban Blacks are therefore not weaned; cannot and dare not be weaned from their national group and national interests.

Mr. Speaker, I suppose it is hardly necessary for me to react to what the hon. member for Klip River had to say because he was clearly engaged in a quarrel with the NRP. It is always pathetic to see how hon. members on that side of the House jump at the slightest opportunity they can get when a Black leader criticizes the policy of an Opposition party. This takes place despite the fact that every reputable Black leader of every group in South Africa rejects the policy and ideology of the NP, not only the detail, but also its whole underlying philosophy. It is interesting to note that the hon. member quotes Prof. Mayer, because what Prof. Mayer proves, is that the Blacks in the urban areas are in fact rejecting ethnicity for the very reason that the Government is manipulating it bureaucratically and forcibly in order to achieve its own divide and rule approach.

I should like to refer to something this afternoon which is costing South Africa far too much and in respect of which it is high time that we effected a saving. It concerns the fact that the hon. the Minister of Justice, of Police and of Prisons still occupies that post in the Government today. We must ask ourselves: What do we expect from a person in that position? I want to summarize it briefly by saying that the hon. the Minister of Justice, of Police and of Prisons should preserve order, justice and security in South Africa by fostering true respect for our judicial system and the laws of the land. That can only be accomplished, in the first place, by retaining and restoring, where they have diminished, the independence and powers of our courts as instruments of civilization. In the second place, it must be ensured that all Acts placed on the Statute Book have a moral basis. At this stage that cannot be said of quite a number of Acts at present on our Statute Book. In the third place, evildoers, regardless of persons, should be brought to book. Therein, perhaps, lies a very recent lesson for the hon. the Minister. In the fourth place, he personally should act in the most upright and dignified manner, and it should be clear at all times that the hon. the Minister is the guardian of justice, but at the same time will in no way interfere with the administration of justice.

Sir, we must now assess the hon. Minister’s performance against the background of these guidelines, and I believe these guidelines are acceptable to all hon. members. I tried to do it in a logical sequence according to the guidelines I have mentioned. However, I found it more interesting to trace the hon. Minister’s career and to be astonished by this remarkable person who succeeds in stumbling over every obstacle that lies in or even near his path. Over the years in which the hon. the Minister has occupied this post, a particularly large number of legal claims have been instituted owing to misconduct by his departments, more specifically the Police. An alarming number of these claims had to be settled by the hon. the Minister, while in an alarming number of instances, the claimant was successful in his claim against the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister has won a further unsavoury distinction in that his personal involvement in a claim for damages led to the case of the arrest in 1977 of Mr. O’Malley, the then editor of Daily News. This conduct ran directly counter to the normal practice with regard to arrests, as confirmed by the instructions given by the Attorney-General in the Transvaal. This action also exposed a dangerous obsession with power on the part of the hon. the Minister. It is a pity the hon. the Minister is not here now. He knew that I was going to talk about these matters. Furthermore, this conduct cost the State R3 500 in damages and an enormous sum in legal costs. This case was a result of his personal involvement and not merely in a nominal capacity. It is a disgrace for something like that to happen to a Minister of Justice, of Police and of Prisons. In this case the hon. the Minister personally ordered the arrest of a very prominent person on minor charge and in very unpleasant circumstances. The evidence against Mr. O’Malley was so flimsy that he was acquitted by the court, his Assistant-editor cautioned and discharged and the newspaper company fined the ridiculous sum of R10.

But he was found guilty.

The hon. the Minister saw fit to arrest the editor, which was against normal practice. If ever there was conduct on the part of an hon. Minister which smacked of intimidation of the worst kind, then it was this conduct. At the time the hon. Minister said in reply to questions on this matter that there were other reasons why he personally ordered the arrest To this day we are waiting to hear what those so-called other reasons were.

The hon. the Minister of Justice at one stage tried to contribute his share selling separate development to the Black man. He tried to sell it to Chief Gatsha Buthelezi during an interview which he had with the chief. He pointed out to Chief Buthelezi the dangers which the activities of Inkatha posed for South Africa. In his enthusiasm the hon. Minister tied himself up to such an extent in his own categorizing and re-categorizing of all kinds of people—English speaking, Jews, Greeks, etc.,—that he nearly strangled himself, politically speaking.

Then there is also the Biko case. [Interjections.] It is a pity that it has to be referred to again, but there is still a great deal to be said about it. In the first place, these events shocked the public’s confidence in our administration of justice. It is a terrible thing to say of a country like South Africa where the need for an independent and respected administration of justice is greater than in other countries. In the second place, there was the ridiculous statement by the hon. the Minister during the Biko episode. Shortly after Biko’s death, the hon. the Minister alleged that Biko had died after he had been on a hunger strike for a number of days. If that was not a misleading statement, I do not know what is. The statement was so misleading that the hon. the Minister found it necessary afterwards to say that he had not meant that Biko had died as a result of a hunger strike. After it was medically proved that Biko had died because of head injuries, the hon. the Minister said it could have been self-inflicted because he himself sometimes felt like banging his own head against a wall. I want to concede at once that the hon. the Minister has more reason than any other hon. member in this House to bang his head against a wall, but what impression does it make on the public if a Minister utters such rubbish while the whole administration of justice in South Africa is plunged into a crisis by these events?

†Mr. Speaker, the role of the hon. the Minister of Justice in the Van den Bergh/ Erasmus Commission situation deserves some more attention. Gen. Van den Bergh’s comments on the Erasmus Commission were of such a nature that the commission’s credibility can hardly survive without a test in public of at least the weight of the general’s comments and preferably also the correctness of the commission’s findings vis-à-vis the evidence given before it. In announcing the decision not to prosecute Gen. Van den Bergh, the Attorney-General confirmed that the evidence likely to be given by Gen. Van den Bergh would bring the findings of the Erasmus Commission into question. In dealing with the two aspects of this matter, I begin with the merits of the statement by the hon. the Minister that it was not in the national interest to prosecute Gen. Van den Bergh. Mr. Speaker, we will have to trace the history of this matter. As recently as December 1978 the Erasmus Commission indicated that they were prepared to make available to all Members of Parliament the evidence given before it. If anybody in this country is capable and in a position to judge whether it would be in the national interest or not to make the evidence public, then it must surely be the members of that commission. After all, on the admission of hon. members themselves the commissioners are the only people who know what is in that evidence. No member of the Cabinet can say that he has read all the evidence. The members of the commission were the only people who heard the evidence and who considered the correctness and weight of that evidence. Later on the commission changed its mind, but still they did not say that the release of the evidence given before it, would be against the national interest. When Gen. Van den Bergh made his statement about the commission, the view of the commission was that he should be prosecuted. The commission knew what the consequences would be. This view of the commission has certainly not changed, although they accepted the decision of the Transvaal Attorney-General not to prosecute Gen. Van den Bergh. One of the members of the commission, the Attorney-General of the Cape, who very often has to make decisions similar to those of the Attorney-General of the Transvaal, was adamant that he would have decided otherwise. ’

Why don’t you accept the Commission’s report?

Because we are under no pressure to have to decide and we differ on this. We will always differ. The hon. the Minister cannot call on the Erasmus Commission to back him in his statement that it would be against the national interest to prosecute Gen. Van den Bergh. The other aspect…

You have no respect for the Attorney-General. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister knows nothing about respect. He is prepared to act as judge, prosecutor and as inflictor of punishment at once. He does not know anything about respect. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I deserve some attention.

I further want to deal with the question of the interference of the hon. the Minister of Justice in the decision which has been made by the Attorney-General. We have been treated to a large range of opinions and speeches by hon. members on that side of the House in which they have told us what a terrible thing it would be for a Minister to interfere in the decision of the Attorney-General. However, we have heard that apparently a telephone call was made by the Secretary for Justice to the Attorney-General’s office. Rapport told us that this happened only hours after the case was referred to the Attorney-General. That report has not been denied. It was reported that the Attorney-General’s office was told that no decision should be taken without the hon. the Minister knowing about it. Mark this: The Attorney-General’s office was not told that no decision should be announced; he was told that no decision should be taken without the knowledge of the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister tells us that this is normal procedure. But if this is normal procedure, why was that telephone call made? However, quite irrespective of whether it is a normal or just a specific procedure, I want to say that if there is a rule, whether it applies only in one case or generally, which stipulates that a decision must not be taken without the knowledge of the hon. the Minister, then he is jointly responsible for that decision. If he makes a joint decision with the Attorney-General, he must not tell us that it is improper for him to interfere.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 73.

Mr. Speaker, we have come to the end of a debate which has lasted 12 hours and in which I believe almost 30 members have taken part. I think it is regrettable that the hon. member for Green Point, who spoke last, should have adopted the attitude that he did. I think the hon. the Minister of Justice will deal with him very easily. I was really hoping that the hon. member for Green Point, who had the opportunity of speaking last, would at least have made a more positive and constructive contribution. [Interjections.] The method of personal disparagement which the hon. member for Green Point employed is not only regrettable but is also rather despicable. It does not get anyone anywhere. What effect will it have on the hon. the Minister of Justice or on the public?

That is what we do not know.

They are not impressed by this sort of thing. There is something much more pleasant which I should like to do. I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Swellendam very cordially on his maiden speech. Not only did he speak on a very interesting topic, that beautiful part of the world which he represents, but he also gave such a good account of himself that it was clear that he will definitely be an asset to this House. I think the House as a whole will share my opinion.

It is now a little late to deal with all the different matters raised, and so by your leave, Mr. Speaker, I now move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that this Bill is to become law without the Government having availed itself of the opportunity to reply to one of the most important and vexing questions concerning this Bill. That question is related to the fact that the final implementation of this proposed legislation will result in people who have been summarily deprived of their South African citizenship without their consent, being disqualified, in terms of a provision of this legislation, from membership of the council provided for in this proposed legislation. The hon. the Minister and other hon. members on that side of the House have had ample opportunity to give a clear, straightforward reply to the question as to what specifically the Government’s point of view is and as to what the practical effect of this policy will be. However, they have not availed themselves of that opportunity. Consequently we find ourselves in the very same position today as when this Bill was read a first time in this House.

I should just like to refer to this matter once more. Now that the hon. the Minister has had the opportunity to consult the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development on the standpoint of the Government, he may possibly be prepared to give us a reply with regard to the matter. I should like to put the question to him once more just to refresh his memory. On the basis of the point of view expressed by the previous Minister of Plural Relations, we have to accept that the Government adopts the attitude that when the policy of separate development has been implemented to the full, there will be no Black man in South Africa who will be a citizen of South Africa. That point of view has already been substantiated in legislation passed by this Government in respect of Transkei and Bophuthatswana, legislation in terms of which all people having any ties whatsoever with Transkei and Bophuthatswana have been deprived of their South African citizenship. If the policy of the Government is implemented to the full in respect of all the homelands, will that mean that all those Black people, too, will lose their South African citizenship? In other words, will Black people lose their South African citizenship in terms of the policy of this Government and be deprived of the right to serve on this council if they qualify for membership, or is that not the case? This is a simple question which requires a simple and direct reply from the Government benches. But, Sir, when specific questions on fundamental issues are put, replies from the Government benches are not to be had for love or money. While we are on this subject, may I say I know that the hon. the Minister has been rather reluctant to deal with this specific aspect and has consequently been unwilling to reply to this question. Politically he has learnt to hold his own, to some extent, so he entered into the debate fairly boldly and in a way furnished some replies. I should like to repeat those replies. He said that in his opinion—and he was speaking as a Government Minister—the Government would force no Black man to surrender his South African citizenship. I should like to repeat that statement. The hon. the Minister said that he was speaking as a Government Minister and that he was making the statement that this Government would force no Black man to surrender his South African citizenship. The hon. the Minister also said that opinions expressed by Ministers, first had to be ratified by the NP congress before it became Government policy. This may be so. South Africa has every right, however, to receive a clear reply from the Government now, and if the hon. the Minister does not have that clear reply, surely he has the opportunity to consult the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and to ask him what the specific policy of the Government is in that regard. And if the present hon. the Minister of Plural Relations does not know what the policy is, they can consult the hon. the Prime Minister. This matter has been before this House for the past week or more. To this day we have not yet received a clear reply from the Government benches. We must have that reply before we are able to decide whether or not this legislation is acceptable.

Order! Is this a matter that has to be decided before this legislation can be passed?

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. It affects this legislation directly. That particular matter is fundamental as far as this legislation is concerned.

The legislation does not define South African citizens; the legislation simply provides that a member of the council has to be a South African citizen who is permanently resident in the country.

Precisely, Mr. Speaker. In other words, this legislation disqualifies any person who is not a South African citizen. There are at least 2 million Black people permanently resident in South Africa who have the right and who are encouraged by the Government to qualify as dental technicians. They are invited to qualify as dental technicians, but even if they qualify, even if they practice, even if they have all the qualifications, they are disqualified, because of the actions of this Government, from becoming members of this council. That is why I say that the hon. the Minister owes us and South Africa a reply. In other words, I think it will be a farce if the Government encourages people to qualify, but at the same time tells those people that they are not allowed to serve on the council. In other words, it will be a farce if this legislation is passed on this basis before a clear reply is obtained from that side of the House. This is the hon. the Minister’s opportunity to do so. At the commencement of the debate the hon. the Minister might not have been in a position to speak on behalf of the Government, but after a week or more has passed, we can at least expect—and many other hon. members have mentioned this—to have a reply. The hon. member for Durban Point repeated that question twice during the past week. The hon. member for Houghton asked the same question. Therefore, this House wants to know what the reply of the Government is, and South Africa has a right to know what the reply of the Government is. To date the hon. the Minister has not given the reply. I feel South Africa ought to get that reply from the Government now. I say the hon. the Minister has not yet given the reply, and this Bill is on the verge of becoming an Act of Parliament. If the hon. the Minister does not give that reply, he is giving specific notice to all Black people who have lost their citizenship, or may lose it, that they will not qualify to serve on that council. I feel that that will be a very unfortunate situation as regards this legislation.

Order! The Bill has nothing to do with people who may possibly lose their South African citizenship. It deals with people who are South African citizens at the moment. However, I shall think the matter over: In the meantime the hon. member may proceed.

There are approximately 3 million people who have already been deprived of their South African citizenship, but those 3 million people have not disappeared from the scene because of the fact that they have been deprived of their South African citizenship; they are still here today. Today they are still here permanently and they participate daily in the economy of the so-called White South Africa. Those people, too, were invited and encouraged to qualify.

You have already said that.

I shall repeat that question as many times as is necessary for us to get a reply. The hon. the Minister said that Black people would not be forced to surrender their citizenship. That is in direct conflict with what was said by the previous Minister of Plural Relations. It is in direct conflict with the legislation which established Bophuthatswana and Transkei. Now there is confusion. Which point of view is the correct one? Is the point of view of the Government correct, as expressed by the previous Minister of Plural Relations, or is the point of view of the hon. the Minister of Health the correct one? We must know which of those two points of view is the correct one. We cannot allow the situation to continue where two points of view have been expressed on behalf of the Government by two hon. Ministers—one an ex-Minister and the other a present Minister—and I hope he will not become an ex-Minister, too, because of that point of view. [Interjections.] We want to know which of those two points of view is the correct one. The hon. the Minister should avail himself of this final opportunity in the debate to give a reply to that question. The hon. the Minister also said he believed that there would never be a situation where there would be no Black South African citizens. This statement, too, is in direct conflict with what the former Minister of Plural Relations said. It is also in direct conflict with Government policy. In this regard, too, we cannot allow this House and South Africa being deprived of a clear reply. I hope the hon. the Minister will set his teeth and come up with a reply to these specific vexing questions, a reply which is absolutely fundamental in respect of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, in giving his motivation for this aspect of the Bill I am sure the hon. the Minister did not realize that he was biting off, in this political sense, more than he has been able to chew. [Interjections.] I am sure he did not anticipate the political storm which has burst around his ears.

He needs false teeth now.

It is a pity in some ways that politics comes into legislation on health matters. I know that the hon. the Minister has on other occasions asked that politics be kept out of matters dealing with health wherever possible. On behalf of the NRP I should like to say that wherever this is possible we shall try to debate matters dealing with health legislation without bringing in party politics. Furthermore, I must say that where the legislation which is introduced is obviously in conflict with basic political principles about which we feel very strongly, then it is necessary at the right time and in the right place to mention that politics has come into that legislation and to debate it in a political way. Mr. Speaker, in view of the late hour I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.