Order! I announce that the President of the Senate and I have on behalf of Parliament accepted a painting of the former Prime Minister, the Hon. B. J. Vorster, D.M.S., by Dr. Irmin Henkel. The painting was presented by the artist during his lifetime and will be hung in the Main Dining-room of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (1) That this House be adjourned today only upon its own resolution;
2. (2) that Mr. Speaker be authorized to receive messages from the Senate in his Chambers.

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, in the calmer atmosphere—hopefully so—of the Third Reading debate it is desirable, indeed essential, to make a projection, if possible, of the success, the effectiveness and the consequences of the measure which this hon. House is now considering in its final stage. This measure has been introduced ostensibly—this is what has been stated—to counter corruption and combat the dishonest handling of State funds. Various elements are involved here and it may be worthwhile to dwell briefly on each of them.

The first is, of course, the question of the complainants, members of the public. Whether there are going to be members of the public who will feel justified and safe in approaching the Advocate-General to report suspicions or produce proof with regard to corruption and the dishonest handling of State funds, is an aspect that justifies consideration. We have already dealt with the question of public confidence. In the course of earlier debate we pointed out that public confidence in this regard was absolutely essential. Apart from the amendments that have been moved and accepted, the question arises whether it may be said that this measure is going to instil confidence in the public to be frank and honest towards the Advocate-General if they have any suspicion or knowledge with regard to corruption and related matters.

The first problem that arises here is, of course, the question of whether members of the public, particularly people in key positions who may have such information at their disposal, will be prepared to sign an affidavit before the Advocate-General and in this way irrevocably commit themselves to the proceedings that may follow, particularly in view of the fact that the hon. the Minister intimated clearly yesterday that complainants would not be kept anonymous. He intimated incorrectly that the S.A. Police were following the same method. The S.A. Police consistently refuse to disclose the identity of complainants or to make this known to any outsider. However, the hon. the Minister does not agree with that.

[Inaudible.]

Then he does so voluntarily. However, if he is not a voluntary witness in the case, his identity is never disclosed. That is a fixed arrangement. The hon. the Minister was not prepared to give the same assurance about this. The question therefore arises as to whether a key person who might hold a senior position and who has suspicions, evidence or proof, will be prepared to approach the Advocate-General on these conditions. The second essential requisite here is the co-operation of the media, the Press and others. I do not wish to dwell unnecessarily on the fact that this legislation originated because of the Information affair—from the disclosure of facts, evidence and suspicions in respect of the Information affair. Permit me to state, however, that an editor who may be prepared in terms of this legislation to have an investigation instituted into alleged corruption at his own expense and with the manpower at his disposal, will in fact reconsider the matter very carefully before embarking on such an undertaking. [Interjections.] The reasons for this are very obvious. In the first place, clauses 8 and 9 contain a number of pitfalls into which he may stumble if he undertakes anything of the kind. In the first place he will have to ascertain whether there is not already an investigation in progress in connection with the matter he wishes to investigate. If he publishes anything while such an investigation is in progress, he will be in danger of being charged with contempt of court, or something similar in the case of the Advocate-General Bill, and summarily punished.

The hon. the Minister was asked yesterday what the position would be if a newspaper was entitled to publish something in consequence of the dishonest handling of State funds. The hon. the Minister was either unable or unwilling to reply to that.

But I did give an assurance on this.

The fact of the matter is that we have legislation here that is vague and full of uncertainties. No clear indication is being given by the Government of how it is going to operate in practice. The newspapers and the other public media are therefore being deterred from embarking upon a venture that is full of risks.

In the third place, I should like to deal with the question of the Advocate-General himself. An impossible task is being entrusted to him. If my surmise is correct in respect of the first two points I have mentioned, the Advocate-General would of necessity, when he received complaints, be burdened mainly with wild rumours. The really responsible people— those to whom one can at least pay a certain measure of attention—who have information that is relevant, would, in the nature of things, as the Bill stands now, hesitate for a very long time before reporting anything to the Advocate-General. The result would be that the functions of the Advocate-General would possibly degenerate into an altogether ineffective instrument for countering corruption and tendencies towards dishonesty. However, the rub of the whole matter lies in the fact that the Government will be able to shield behind this measure as proof that there is no corruption and that it is not necessary to investigate suspected dishonest dealings because, after all, the Advocate-General is there. That was the case with the Erasmus Commission. It was said time and again: “Do not ask questions; do not express suspicions; go and give evidence before the Erasmus Commission”. This is obviously a substitute, so that the Government can state ultimately that they accept no responsibility for dishonest conduct because if there were anybody who had knowledge of such a matter, he should have gone to the Advocate-General, since there the Government had, after all, in all goodwill, created machinery for the handling of such cases. In other words, with this Bill we are not really progressing along the road to the promised clean administration. Ultimately it will merely be a loophole and an excuse for people who are unable to maintain proper control over State funds and their disbursement, as the public of South Africa expect them to do. Consequently we are now, after the debate during the Committee Stage, more convinced than ever that this is a haphazard measure, that it should have been postponed and that we should have displayed some common sense in these matters. That would probably have restored the confidence of the public, the media and everybody concerned.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether, if facts come to his knowledge that indicate the type of irregularities covered by the legislation, he intends reporting them to the Advocate-General?

Mr. Speaker, that is a difficult question. [Interjections.] Talking of information coming to one’s knowledge, I have already referred one person with a complaint to the Advocate-General and requested him to place his case before the Advocate-General as soon as he is appointed. However, I am unable to judge whether his case has any substance. That is impossible for me. In practice, there is an immense difference between a suspicion that something is wrong and actual and concrete indications that something is wrong. The matter covers a wide spectrum of various arguments and norms. Therefore, to ask whether, if I were to suspect that something was wrong, I would go to the Advocate-General, is a silly question and has no sense at all. [Interjections.] If I had concrete proof, the simplest procedure would be to go to the police and to request them to investigate the case. Why should I go to the Advocate-General? Why is he better than the police? It happened many times during my career that when I knew of some irregularity or another I requested the Attorney-General or the Chief of Police to investigate. There were immediate investigations and the matters were disposed of properly. As far as I am concerned, there is therefore no further necessity to establish a new post here. Consequently we are still totally opposed to this Bill at the Third Reading since it makes no constructive contribution and since it entails dangers the scope of which we cannot ascertain at this stage, notwithstanding all the facetious remarks.

Mr. Speaker, we come to the end of a debate on a measure which I think is symptomatic of this whole session of Parliament—symptomatic of Government action, reaction and over-reaction to the whole Information affair. The original Bill, which has developed into the present Bill before the House, at this final stage, did tremendous harm to South Africa, in my opinion, in its mere introduction. It did harm to South Africa because it attacked a fundamental corner-stone of our whole democratic system. Fortunately public pressure from every comer of South Africa prevailed, and because reason prevailed, we have now before us a Bill which is very much improved, having removed the element which made it a possible symbol to be held up by those who wished to say that South Africa was no longer a free country. Those provisions, which could have been used as a possible weapon, against us, have now been removed from the Bill. We therefore welcome the Bill in its final form as an improvement on the original.

Unlike the official Opposition, we in the NRP accept the appointment of an Advocate-General. In fact, we agree with the hon. member for Johannesburg North who said that they would have accepted the principle of the appointment of an Advocate-General were it not linked to other issues. We want to look at this Bill as a Bill, however, and therefore it is not other issues which must determine our attitude. It is what is in the Bill that must do so. We accept the appointment as such, but there is one phrase in the Bill which makes it, in its final form, still unacceptable to us. I am referring to clause 8(1)(a) which still contains an element which we believe, intentionally or unintentionally, is an undesirable one to have on our Statute Book. I say this because the Government has been unable to clarify the exact extent to which this clause inhibits free reporting. There are too many unclarified and vague aspects of this for us to be able to vote for it being placed on the Statute Book. There is no indication of the extent to which this would be used, or could be used, to limit investigative journalism and reporting on anything concerning proceedings or the outcome once an issue is in the hands of the Advocate-General. I believe that the hon. the Minister and the rest of the Government is being plain stubborn over this. I do not believe that he really needs this clause. I think it is unfortunate, however, that this has been the trend of so many debates during this session.

The official Opposition has chosen to attack the whole Bill, and therefore those hon. members have engaged in what is frankly a nit-picking assault of all sorts on all the clauses. Thus even when there is reasonable opposition to an unacceptable or unnecessary clause, the Government will not listen. There is, for instance, no indication of why the Government is so obstinate about retaining the prohibition on anticipating proceedings of an investigation. If the Government would remove that provision, this party would support the Third Reading. If the Government would remove that limitation, which we believe could be used as a gag provision, we would have no other major objection to the Bill, though we do have minor objections. For example, we do not like the fact that an investigating officer, who is really operating as a commission, should have the power of a court to pass sentence, but that is not a fundamental objection to the Bill. It is this one issue, a provision that could still muzzle the Press, that we believe should be removed because we believe that it would be interpreted as a gagging provision and that the image of South Africa, as a country with a free Press, would be dented, even if not destroyed as it would have been by the Bill in its original form. If the original Bill had gone through, the whole picture of a free country with a free Press would have been destroyed. I accept that the Bill in its present form will not destroy it, but it can dent the image. Because and as long as that one provision is there, we will have to vote against the Third Reading of the Bill.

I believe I should say in conclusion that I do not believe it is good for Parliament to have the sort of debates we have had— debates in which measures are opposed on the grounds of suspicion, in which they are opposed not because of what is in them but because one wants to use them to create suspicion or because one has suspicion about aspects other than the contents of the Bill concerned. I do not think it is good for Parliament or parliamentary government that we should have the sort of debate in which one goes on and on looking for things which often do not exist simply to create arguments.

Therefore, on the strength of the one basic clause we disagree with, we will be taking our stand. It is true that in connection with some of the other matters justifiable arguments can be raised, but I do not believe that this is how one should deal with a measure which, I accept, could help to clear up corruption; and anything that can clear up corruption is something we support. We are sorry that in this instance we cannot do so because of one provision. If the Government feels there is so much corruption that we have to have a full-time investigating officer, we will support the Government in that appointment. [Interjections.] Yes, the Government obviously feels that it is necessary and therefore we will support it. We cannot, however, accept the gag on the Press.

Mr. Speaker, when this Bill was published, we were unhappy about the Press provisions it contained. We made representations to the hon. the Minister handling it and, through him, to the Government, expressing our concern. Having accepted, as we did, the principle of the appointment of an Advocate-General, we made out a case in the House of how we thought it would be possible for the Advocate-General to function in harmony with investigative journalism. We believe we made out a case here for the two functioning happily together. Unlike the other Opposition parties, we requested the appointment of a Select Committee. We made a request for a Select Committee before the Second Reading, but the Government granted a Select Committee after the Second Reading. We think that as a result of the appointment of that Select Committee and the deliberations in that Select Committee the Bill has been greatly improved and comes to the House in an improved form in many, many ways. We think the Government was wise in listening to the representations not only from us and other politicians but also from the newspapers themselves, from the National Press Union and from other interested people. We think the Government took a wise step in withdrawing the objectionable provisions in the Bill.

We also accept, as the hon. the Prime Minister has said, that this is to an extent an experimental measure. We want to see how it is going to work in practice. In so far as we can possibly make a contribution towards the functioning of the Advocate-General’s office in practice, we shall play our part. However we are unhappy about some of the clauses. We think some of them are vague and others tentative and open to different interpretations. Reference has been made to some doubts that have arisen in relation to clause 8, for example. We work on the old principle that we have tried our best to improve the Bill. We have made our representations and the Bill has been improved, but there still exists some doubt and we are not happy about that. There is an old saying “If in doubt, don’t”, and on that basis we shall be opposing the Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have come very close to the end of this debate. So I think it is time to attempt to look objectively at the way this Bill has come about, what it is about and what it is likely to do. I think the original intention was to father two offspring, one directly designed to prevent the Press from playing its traditional role of forthwith investigating and publishing information relating to alleged abuses in the control of State finances, and the other to prevent corruption by providing an alternative method for the receipt, investigation and selective publication of the results of an inquiry into alleged malpractices.

What we now have before us, after having received help from a Select Committee, acting more or less as a midwife, is a piece of elaborate machinery to perform the second function, but because of the nature of that second function, also an indirect method of restricting and delaying the Press in its traditional investigative role. I say that the machinery is elaborate, because clauses 2 and 3 propose setting up an office which, predictably, will require the services of possibly a large number of judicial and administrative officers. These skills will have to be employed for the purpose we are now examining. It is elaborate because clauses 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 have clothed the office with many of the functions and quasi-functions of a full court of law. To this hybrid machinery we have, in addition, given certain executive and parliamentary controls.

We have produced neither a horse nor a donkey, but a mule, which I think is an apt description because it is fairly predictable that this machinery will prove to be sterile and will not do what it is expected to do for reasons such as those outlined by the hon. member for Johannesburg North. I want to say that it is also an engine to create delay, in spite of the use of words such as “forthwith” and “in seven days”. We know from experience of other inquiries into administrative malpractices that these malpractices can be highly complex and extremely difficult to probe if the conspiracy is widespread or if the participants are protected by seniority, personal loyalties, fears of career prejudice or even ministerial incredulity that such practices have occurred at all. Moreover, such practices could give rise to widespread and varied rumours.

If, for example, petrol rationing were to be introduced, it could happen that wide-spread rumours would flourish about alleged malpractices in the issuing of coupons. From numerous sources and in a varied manner accusations may be made that officials were in fact, favouring some at the expense of others. We hope that there will never be a need for this kind of thing, which may have the result I have described. However, purely theoretically, this kind of thing could give rise to a wide range of allegations, one different in nature from the other, allegations which could involve different people and which would presumably have to be reported to this new tribunal we shall have set up. I believe that the time taken to investigate these matters could be extremely long. I believe that there could be protracted delays in exposing malpractices and in giving satisfaction to the public and that such protracted delay could destroy public confidence. The Bill does contain time limits, but it contains no time limit for the duration of an inquiry by the Advocate-General. It is in the inquiry that time is most material. We have had previous experience of administrative or quasi-judicial tribunals. In the case of the Publications Act, for example, we created an elaborate machinery to do certain things and gave that machinery a degree of respectability by attaching to it a kind of court of review to which certain matters could be referred. The purpose of the Publications Act was selectively to pluck out certain noxious weeds and, because of its cumbersome nature, the heavy machinery produced, we actually produced an engine of destruction which has done serious damage to some of the most beautiful flower beds in the garden of South African literature. It has gone too wide and has done much damage. The Advocate-General Bill, with all its elaborate machinery, was originally designed—I think it is fair to say—to prevent the Press from further embarrassing the Government by independent investigations.

That is an absolute untruth.

I say it was one of the objects of the Bill to prevent the Press from acting again as it acted in regard to the Information scandal. I think this is a direct consequence of that event.

I say it is a blatant untruth.

I leave it to the hon. the Minister to form his own ideas about the cause, but it seems to the public outside and to us that that could be a very good reason. [Interjections.]

But you are not representing the public outside.

I say that the Bill has been made to look respectable by clothing the machinery created with some of the attributes of a court of law. I believe it will succeed only in destroying the effectiveness of the Press in one of its most vital democratic functions, which is to keep a sharp searchlight focused on the activities of Government and administration. Nobody can doubt that this is a vital function of the Press, and there is no doubt either that the Press, in coping with the provisions of the Bill, will walk a wide circle around certain areas for fear that it may get itself into serious trouble or be frustrated in its traditional function. The area of uncertainty was underlined yesterday when the hon. the Leader of the Opposition put certain questions to the hon. Minister about clause 8(1)(a). The hon. the Minister, for understandable reasons, was unable to give a clear reply to these questions. He was unable to give a clear definition. [Interjections.] Under what conditions may a person not anticipate the findings or proceedings of an inquiry? It is an extremely vague concept and I do not believe that anybody can walk with certainty through such an uncertain minefield. I believe that the existence of a free, vigorous and critical Press is one of South Africa’s major assets in the international field. It has been the experience, I think of everyone who has defended South Africa abroad, that one of the trump cards one can play is to refer to our free Press. Critical, imperfect and irresponsible as it may sometimes be, the existence of such a vigorous Press is one of South Africa’s major assets. It is a great factor in retaining confidence in South Africa as a free society, in spite of the other criticisms made against us. To undermine this role, to destroy that confidence and to weaken the validity of that asset, is to do South Africa far graver injury than any good we may do by protecting the administration by machinery such as this. I believe that in passing this Bill we are not doing a service to South Africa. I believe that it is predictable that this Bill, in its functions and in its future use, will prove to have been very largely a misstep and a redundant piece of machinery which cannot perform the essential functions of assisting to maintain open and honest administration in South Africa. I believe the Press has got, and continues to have, a vital role to play together with the Opposition and with all other men who stand for open administration. It has a vital role to play and we cannot do without it. I do not believe this Bill totally destroys that function, but it certainly impairs it. For that reason we shall oppose this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin by stating that I have no objection to considering and replying to the arguments of hon. members. Hon. members will appreciate, however, that I cannot answer their suspicions or allay their fears.

To start with, I wish to refer to the hon. member for Johannesburg North. I do not wish to talk disparagingly of any hon. member of the House, but I cannot but have misgivings about the correctness and the standards of his argument. The hon. member began by stating—and I endorse what he said—that the effectiveness of this institution would depend to a great measure upon public confidence. The hon. member also said there were three elements in this regard which could create, neutralize or affect public confidence. However, he committed one of the most important elements. If the hon. member had really been interested in public confidence in the office of the Advocate-General, I should imagine that as a reasonable man he would himself have displayed that confidence. However, hon. members on that side of the House have specifically created suspicion about the Advocate-General as an institution. If I were a member of the public and I had to listen to the hon. member for Johannesburg North and to the hon. member for Constantia in this regard, I could not have confidence in that office since, after all, people in the legislative authority are disparaging it before it has even started to function.

With good reason.

The second statement I wish to make—hon. members will have to account to themselves for this—is that their arguments do not even have a factual basis. The hon. member for Johannesburg North stated, for example, that the police did not disclose the names of complainants. Where on earth does the hon. member hear that? Complainants appear in court in criminal cases and then …

As witnesses, yes, but not before the time at all.

Of course, if they are witnesses. What complainant in a court is not also a witness? The hon. member talked about common sense but my question is: When did he start losing it?

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

No. I am not prepared to answer questions now. The hon. member for Johannesburg North is evidently confusing the concept of informers with the concept of complainants …

They are identical.

No, they are not identical. The hon. member argued yesterday evening that the Advocate-General should be appointed from the ranks of the judges, but permit me to state that there are various standards and norms in this regard. On the basis of a misreading of the facts, the hon. member for Johannesburg North argues the principle of a piece of legislation here in the House. This hon. member alleges further, on the basis of his argument and also on the basis of the argument of the hon. member for Durban Point, that we might as well dispense with the police because according to their arguments there is no reason why we should have a Police Force at all. Let us pursue the argument of the hon. member further. He starts off by stating that people would go to the Advocate-General only …

[Inaudible.]

No, please. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

If the hon. member for Bryanston wants a mirror, I shall buy him one. He can then see something to be frightened of. [Interjections.]

Order!

Please just give me a chance to finish my argument. After that, I shall answer questions. The hon. member is trying to display prophetic talents here today. He is trying to peer into the future. He says responsible people will not approach the Advocate-General for fear of the disclosure of their identity. But only yesterday that hon. member argued that it should be an open inquiry. [Interjections.] I am really trying my best to understand the basis of the argument of those hon. members. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I did not interrupt those hon. members. Why do they not allow me to state my argument? [Interjections.] I did not interrupt those hon. members.

Order! This Bill evoked a heated political debate here in the House at its previous stages. The Third Reading stage now offers the various parties a final opportunity of stating their point of view. I believe hon. members have had a full opportunity to state their case. Consequently I request hon. members please to abide by my ruling when I ask them to give the hon. the Minister, too, an equal opportunity.

The hon. member also advances a second reason why, in his view, there will not be confidence in the office of the Advocate-General. He says responsible people will not approach the Advocate-General for fear of having their identities disclosed. I should like to know from him what his definition of responsible people is. I thought responsible people in the country also had the responsibility of assisting in maintaining a clean administration.

[Inaudible.]

Older!

The hon. member also referred to the police. Why, now, would a person complain to the police and have no fear about the disclosure of his identity as a witness, whereas it would happen in this case? What logic is there in that argument? The hon. member states furthermore that as a result of the establishment of the office of Advocate-General, the Government—by that means—is shifting its responsibility for a clean national administration on to another body. When the Government established the judiciary as an institution, did it also divest itself of its responsibilities for the administration of the country by the establishment of a Police Force? That is what the argument of the hon. member amounts to. What ridiculous arguments does the hon. member use in this House?

Kowie is getting old.

Is it not a fact that precisely by establishing an institution that, after it has come into existence, will function independently of the executive, and that precisely by making that body answerable to the highest authority in the country, Parliament, clean administration is being ensured? Surely the hon. member cannot argue that the position of the Auditor-General and that of the Advocate-General now under discussion are not analogous. Surely he cannot advance such an argument. Does the Auditor-General, with regard to the expenditure of State funds and the fact that he derives his authority from the executive—after his appointment his responsibilities are to this House—not perform a function? After all, I do not wish to get involved in a Press debate. Neither do I want to get involved in a debate on the Information debacle. That is not relevant in any event.

However, I do wish to make one point. Who started the investigation into the irregularities in the former Department of Information? Surely, it was that same Auditor-General. The office of the Auditor-General is, after all, a creation of this Parliament. What I am saying now is not based on mere presumption. I state this as a fact Hon. members on the opposite side, hon. members of the official Opposition, are not concerned about the Advocate-General. They are concerned about their own masters. Their masters are certain Press groups in the country. [Interjections.]

They do not even know who they are.

They do not even know who they are. But they will know yet—I assure them of that. That is why, this morning—like the hon. member for Constantia who normally makes a reasonable contribution in this House—they are making a Press debate of this. The reason for that is that the hon. member is trying to create the impression here that this legislation gags the Press. However, for the first time now we have succeeded in separating the ways of the responsible Press from the ways of the irresponsible Press. The responsible Press does not share the suspicions of the official Opposition. On the contrary. They welcome the measure. They judge the measure objectively for what it is and for what it is intended to be.

I now come to the hon. member for Durban Point. This hon. member might not believe me but I want to tell him with sympathy that he and his party are going the same way as the party from which they originated. I should like to tell him that it will not help to establish an extra-marital political liaison with the official Opposition. However, the hon. member wants to have the best of two worlds. He said they were supporting the legislation and accepting the concept, but that because of clause 8(1)(a) they were now going to oppose the Bill. Let us consider what the hon. member is opposing. Let us read the paragraph.

Only one phrase of it.

The hon. member is now saying that they are not opposing the Bill because of the entire clause 8(1)(a). He is now saying it is only because of a phrase in the clause. The hon. member now wishes to go out of this House and bruit it abroad that he was in favour of this legislation but that since it assailed the freedom of the Press he voted against it on the grounds of a phrase in clause 8(1)(a).

That is a very good reason.

I grant him that. I want to warn hon. members on that side of the House that they are reading the people of South Africa wrongly.

He himself reads like a comic.

Do hon. members know what the overall impression is that they will be leaving after this discussion? It is that they are not interested in clean national administration. That is the impression they will be leaving..

I wish to conclude by drawing attention to the origin of the legislation. With great respect, the hon. member for Durban Point is quoting the hon. member for Johannesburg North wrongly. The hon. member for Johannesburg North did not say yesterday evening that he would have supported the legislation if it had not been connected with the Information affair. The hon. member stated—and he can correct me if I misunderstood him: If it had not originated under those circumstances.

The concept of an ombudsman.

Yes, that is correct. The hon. member for Johannesburg North therefore did not state what the hon. member for Durban Point says he stated. What was the principle of the Bill in its original intention and concept, basically …?

To gag the Press. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, may I please argue further? I am asking sincerely that the hon. member for Johannesburg North display the courtesy towards me that I displayed towards him. What was the principle and what was the main object? It was to establish an accessible forum or institution where people could go if they had facts or suspicions founded on reasonable grounds in respect of alleged irregularities or allegations of irregularity, as defined in the Bill. In the second place, it was intended to ensure an effective investigation in consequence of allegations of alleged irregularities so that a report could be submitted to this House on such alleged irregularities. Formulated in simple terms, it sought to establish an instrument, in addition to what is already in existence—for example, the police, the Attorney-General, the Auditor-General and other institutions—to help ensure clean and honest national administration. It was necessary, then, in order to achieve these objects, to place restrictions on the publication of certain allegations, not as an end in itself but as a method. This was done in order to ensure that the main object could be achieved in a way that would not harm the national interest but would promote the national interest. What was the reaction of the Opposition in this regard? The reaction of the Opposition—with which I do not agree but which I do not wish to debate again today—was that this was actually a covert form of Press censorship. I wish to repeat that this was never the intention and that for the attainment of the main object, namely establishing an instrument to assist in ensuring clean national administration, the Government has decided to abandon that provision. I also wish to repeat what I stated yesterday, namely that this reasonableness of attitude is now being confused with weakness or defeat.

The Government regards it as being of cardinal importance that there should be general confidence in the Advocate-General as an officer of Parliament, and I want to express the hope that the fact that that restrictive provision has been removed will be conducive to the creation of that confidence.

Having said that, I wish to state a point of view on behalf of the Government, and that is that this does not derogate at all from the Government’s point of view that there is an obligation on everybody, including the media of the country, to approach alleged irregularities in a responsible way and not in such a way as to harm the interests of the country. In this regard, the Government accepts the assurances it has received from the media that they will co-operate on a voluntary basis in honouring this obligation which also rests upon them. Consequently the Government accepts the offer to have discussions with the media during the recess on how this can best be arranged so that we can achieve the objectives which, after all, should be the objectives of a responsible Press, and that is to verify the truth of reporting that may harm or affect the lives of other people. We must have no doubt about that.

I wish to conclude by stating that I have great appreciation for the hon. member for Waterkloof and the hon. members of the Select Committee for the work they have done. I am thoroughly aware of the enormous task this was for the hon. members of the Select Committee as I also had to take over and study the legislation at short notice and at a late stage. They had to dispose of their task within a week. The report of the Select Committee has been accepted in its entirety and I thank all hon. members who served on the Select Committee most sincerely for their contribution towards streamlining and improving the legislation. In the nature of things this is technical legislation and, when one has a Select Committee composed of professional people, it is not so easy to reach consensus. I wish to express my thanks to the Select Committee once again.

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

Order! I put the question!

Sir, that is not fair.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Johannesburg North was on his feet and he wanted to put a question.

I watched the hon. the Minister resuming his seat I did not hear the hon. member for Johannesburg North.

Mr. Speaker, would you be prepared to reconsider your ruling and allow the hon. member an opportunity to put his question?

If the hon. the Minister is prepared ply to the question, I may just as well as now the hon. member the opportunity to put his question. I have, however, given my ruling.

Mr. Speaker, I accept your ruling.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Parktown commenced his speech last night by saying that this had been a very remarkable session. It has indeed been a remarkable session. It has been remarkable too in this respect that this was probably one of the few times when one could say that the first speaker on the Opposition side in actual fact seconded the introductory Third Reading speech of the hon. the Minister. I think the hon. member for Parktown made a very responsible speech. We want to express our appreciation for it. Actually he had no alternative because the speech of the hon. the Minister was really a remarkable speech that really summarized the situation in South Africa briefly and concisely.

This has been a remarkable session in the sense that it has been a difficult session for this Government. It has been a difficult session for the hon. the Prime Minister. From the very outset of the session we had to deal with an international political situation the handling of which required great skill. The inability of the West to play a positive role in international politics was very clearly evidenced. We also had to deal with the increasing aggressiveness of the communists. Furthermore the Government had to deal with the Information debacle which we hope has now finally come to an end. The hon. the Prime Minister had to deal with adjustments and reshuffling which was also difficult. The Prime Minister had to put his team together anew. He had to fill certain posts. Everyone always knows better than the person who has to choose the team. This reminds me of the occasion when Dr. Danie Craven assembled the Press and told them: “Now you choose the Springbok team.” everyone of them then chose a different team.

In the same way there will probably always be criticism of the shuffles and moves of the hon. the Prime Minister. Last night the hon. member for Durban Point expressed considerable criticism of the moves of the hon. the Prime Minister had made, but I want to tell him that I think that they were good moves. The country’s eyes are focused on the hon. the Prime Minister and his team. During this session the hon. the Prime Minister has grown in stature. Today he is strong and he has his party with him.

This party is a remarkable one. I want to say that at present there are few political parties in the world which in spite of so many onslaughts on them are not only surviving the situations in which they find themselves but are also capable of outgrowing them. During this session we had by-elections in circumstances in which everything was against the party but despite that the party grew and is in a strong position today.

The Opposition in this House has become irrelevant in South African politics. However, under our party domestic peace and peace with our neighbours has prevailed. I want to say that this party has become the cornerstone in South Africa in the political as well as the economic sphere. It is not only the cornerstone for Southern Africa but for the West as well. It will be expected of this party, the Government—and it will do so—to bring about stability in world politics.

In his absence I wish the hon. the Prime Minister a pleasant recess. We think he deserves a respite.

The hon. the Minister of Finance too has a difficult session behind him. Complaints and charges were brought against him, but on various occasions he has been exonerated of them. We appreciate his dignified behaviour and the dignified way in which this hon. Minister controlled himself under extreme provocation and extreme pressure. We are very pleased that the hon. the Minister, who has a mammoth task to fulfil in this country, has received assistance in the form of a Deputy Minister. We are also very pleased about the capable officials surrounding the hon. the Minister and who are still assisting him. We have very great respect for the hon. the Minister. In Die Burger of 21 June 1979 I read the following—

We appreciate this greatly because we know that the hon. the Minister is highly respected internationally. We want to congratulate him on the budget he presented this year, on the financial measures he applied and on the new loans he entered into for South Africa.

The hon. the Minister announced in his Third Reading speech that he had amended various foreign exchange control measures. I think it is of the utmost importance that we should take cognizance of these measures he has now announced on foreign exchange control because they show confidence. The hon. the Minister would not have been able to take these steps if he had not had the fullest confidence in the economy of this country. These steps have been taken with courage and can only be successful if we have economic stability in this country.

The relaxation announced with regard to foreign exchange control means that we need not protect our money behind an iron curtain of foreign exchange control measures. This is a result of the two-fold exchange rate system, the financial rand on the one hand and the commercial rand on the other, that was accepted and introduced earlier this year by the hon. the Minister. This speaks of unshakeable confidence in South Africa’s inherent strength with regard to its economy.

We greatly appreciate that, and we share it with him; in fact, last night the hon. member for Parktown also expressed his appreciation that the hon. the Minister had had such unshakable confidence in gold over the years. Since 1948, when I learnt about economics for the first time, it has been clear to us that in America in particular there are two schools of economists, the one school that has constantly endeavoured to denigrate gold and to demonetarize, and the other school that finally won. One should bear in mind in particular—and the hon. the Minister mentioned this in his Third Reading speech too—that with the 20% gold coverage, the so-called money snake of the EMS, we should now finally accept the fact that gold can never be demonetarized. It is important to us in South Africa that there should be confidence in gold, not only in South Africa but worldwide as well.

International economics is full of problems. When one looks at what the leaders of other countries, for example, the French President and West German President, and eminent economists have said during the past month since the beginning of the oil crisis, one realizes that there is a certain amount of concern throughout the world in regard to what is to happen to the world economy. We in South Africa are concerned too. For example, I read a report in Sunday’s Sake-Rapport that Dr. Johan Cloete, the chief economist of Barclays International Bank, whose opinion I respect, had stated that—

In his Third Reading speech the hon. the Minister of Finance said the following (Hansard, 21 June 1979)—

I should like to elaborate a little on this aspect. The present inflation rate prevailing in South Africa is being forced upon us, but it is a very dangerous philosophy to accept that we simply have to live with it, as Dr. Johan Cloete has said. I want to motivate why I say that it is a dangerous philosophy simply to accept a high inflation rate and to live with it. We must resist it. The hon. the Minister is quite justified in saying that he is extremely concerned about this inflation rate because what does it do? I want to quote what the English economist and politician, Hugh Dalton, said many years ago on the question of inflation—

In my opinion this is important because if the inflation rate is allowed to continue unchecked, people will lose their confidence in money. He went on to say—

Furthermore he said—

This is the unfortunate situation, a process one cannot really avert. That is why I say that one cannot accept as fundamental philosophy that we should simply live with inflation.

It is of the utmost importance to South Africa that confidence should constantly be increasing in our monetary unit, the rand. Since January the rand has undergone an effective appreciation of approximately 4%, while the discount on the financial rand fell to approximately 20% where previously it was approximately 46%. As a result of the abnormal increase in the oil price and consequent pressure on the South African balance of payments position, the rand would already have been under very great pressure had it not been for the fact that the gold price rose so phenomenally and other monetary units necessarily depreciated according to their gold value. This is a very dangerous situation.

We must not allow confidence in the rand, in view of Dalton’s observations, to weaken internally or externally. Neither must we allow inflation to undermine our stimulation process with which the hon. the Minister began this year. It is of the utmost importance that we continue with that, and I believe that everyone in this House will agree with me in this regard. Without confidence in the monetary unit of this country, even this year’s tax concessions of R500 million will not be able to stimulate the economy. Dalton said: “The continuance of inflation destroys the confidence.”

Some people may argue—and I know it is done—that inflation stimulates production because in conditions of inflation, businessmen and industrialists are anxious to start new enterprises particularly with loan capital because in loan capital there is a certain degree of hedging against a depreciation of the monetary unit. However, as has been proven by economic history over the past ten years, this type of stimulation by means of inflation is of a temporary nature. Furthermore it is unsound because it carries the germ of a consequent recession.

The fact of the matter is that particularly cost inflation which we are having to contend with nowadays undermines the real buying power of the public and the profitability of business undertakings. The higher prices rise, the less people can buy and the lower the consumption. This leads to decreased turnovers which in turn gives rise to lower profitability and the under-utilization of the production capacity.

Unutilized production capacity is the reason why we do not have real investment at the moment. We are saddled with superfluous production capacity. When this happens, investment by the private sector, something we so badly want, does not take place. The result is then that employment opportunities cannot be created for the fast-growing population. It is easy to refer here to the creation of employment opportunities. The hon. member for Yeoville often refers to the fact that we should create employment opportunities. That is true. However, how does one create employment opportunities without stimulating the economy, without additional production capacity being created?

A further result of the trends I have outlined is that when surplus capacity occurs because there is no longer pressure on enterprises for higher production, the productivity of the workers falls. When the productivity of workers falls, the unit costs of the manufactured product rise. This is a further stimulation of inflation. That is why I say that we must seek solutions to our problem of inflation. We cannot handicap the economy by applying measures that are too drastic. This is the dilemma we find ourselves in. However, there are certain things we can do. We must utilize all possible ways and means to become independent of this tremendously expensive oil, for at the moment it is, as it were, our Achilles heel. We must try to obtain fixed contracts in this regard so that we do not have to buy our oil on the open market. I know this is a difficult matter. However, we must try to do so.

That is why we should also try to make our international relations as friendly as possible. We must give greater attention to coal. When one reads overseas magazines one notices that there is a movement back to coal. The large built-up coal reserves in the industrial countries of Europe are enjoying afresh the interest of those countries.

We must utilize all other means. We must employ all the means we possibly can to conserve energy. We must try to save on our import account. We must also try to perform the same tasks with less fuel. We must improve our productivity. Price and wage increases must be contained. In a previous debate I also warned against the so-called inflation psychosis to which we so easily fall prey. People must learn and understand that they cannot demand a wage increase with each price increase because that works counter-productively. We must control our money supply and guard against curtailments which could result in a recession. I believe that we do have the necessary mechanism to apply control in this regard.

We must grow. We must also curb inflation.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened with interest to the hon. member for Malmesbury. His remarks, particularly those concerning the rate of inflation, were quite interesting. We agree that we would be running certain dangers if a high inflation rate were allowed to continue. On the other hand, however, there are other dangers too. The most important is the danger of increasing unemployment. The hon. the Minister will therefore have to strike a balance between measures which have to be applied to combat inflation, and on the other hand, measures which have to be applied, to stimulate the growth rate. If it is necessary to choose between these two evils—that is how we see it—the evil of inflation is perhaps not as dangerous to South Africa as is the evil of increasing unemployment in the cities of South Africa. If the emphasis is to be placed anywhere, it should be placed on stimulating the growth rate in order to combat unemployment.

†Mr. Speaker, before I return to the budget, I should like to refer to something else. There have been a number of changes in the House since we had the budget debate. I am not going to comment on all the changes that have taken place. However, I should like to comment on four anticipated changes. We are aware of the fact that four hon. members of this House, including yourself, Sir, as Deputy Speaker, have been appointed to administratorships in the four provinces. We have the unique situation in which we will say farewell to four hon. members who will in future be occupying the high and dignified offices of administrators of the various provinces. On behalf of the official Opposition we should like to congratulate you, Sir, and the hon. members for Germiston, Eshowe and Durbanville on their appointments. We wish them well in the service of the people of their provinces, and we hope that their presence and experience in this House will help them to promote a smooth working relationship between the two tiers of Government, namely the provincial tier of Government and the central Government. We bid them farewell and wish them well in their offices.

I want to return to the budget and comment on the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Finance in introducing the Third Reading yesterday. The original budget was a balanced budget and was generally well received, especially in business circles. It was mildly stimulatory and it certainly contained incentives for the entrepreneur and seemed to place the accent on a thrust towards the private enterprise system. It certainly reflected a very healthy balance of payment. As the chief spokesman for finance in the official Opposition has pointed out on numerous occasions, it suffered from two defects. It failed to provide adequately for the poor and the insecure in our society and it failed to assist in closing the wealth gap—the gap between the haves and the have-nots in our society. [Interjections.] Since then the hon. the Minister has indicated that it has been overtaken by events like the energy crisis with its staggering rise in the price of oil as well as the sharp increase in recent weeks in the price of gold. The hon. the Minister of Finance reviewed the impact that these two events had on his budget, when he introduced the Third Reading yesterday. As he correctly pointed out, it has resulted in an even more healthy balance of payments, which has allowed him to relax exchange control regulations.

We welcome these relaxations. We think it will make for greater efficiency and we hope it will engender more confidence abroad in the South African economy. It certainly reflects the very healthy situation that does obtain as far as our balance of payments is concerned. In particular we have to thank the high price of gold for that happy balance of payment. [Interjections.] However, what the hon. the Minister did not indicate to us was what the effect have been of the increase in the gold price on the Revenue Account, on the increased taxation which will be derived from the profits from those companies operating in the gold-mining industry.

What we would like the hon. the Minister to tell us when he winds up with this debate, is what he is going to do with this golden bonanza which he must have in his Revenue Account. We raise this point because the effect of the energy crisis, with all its inflationary consequences, is going to tend to make the poor poorer and the insecure more insecure, while ironically enough the increase in the gold price will make the rich richer and those who have will have more. These two factors combined are now going to aggravate and widen the already dangerous gap between the South Africa’s haves and have-nots. [Interjections.]

In Rapport of 17 June 1979, there was a report on what Mr. De Kock said about the people in the gold-mine industry. He pointed out, and I quote—

In other words, those involved in the gold-mining industry, who are working with big capital, will be enriched whereas the man in the street, the man who is insecure, will suffer as a result of the inflationary spiral. We put it to the hon. the Minister that he should take this into account. In his speech he indicated that there would be adjustments to the Government’s financial and fiscal policy. He indicated that he would, wherever possible, alleviate hardships caused by change of relative prices and the distribution of real income.

We ask him very seriously to bear this in mind, when considering the extra revenue that he has received as a result of the high price of gold. We ask him to take this into account in three ways. Firstly, we come back to the very real problem of the aged and insecure, i.e. the pensioners, the people living on fixed incomes and the people who are actually living on declining incomes who have to meet the rising costs of services and who can visibly see their standard of living dropping. I know of elderly people in my constituency who are terrified of becoming ill and having to call in a doctor and then having to get expensive medicine, because they just cannot make ends meet. These are some of the people who should derive some benefit from the hon. the Minister’s golden bonanza.

Secondly, there are the millions of people in South Africa who live today on or below the breadline. There are millions of people who are just about making ends meet, and these are the people who cannot be wished away; they are with us and form perhaps an important element in our society. They will be hit by the price increase in the cost of transportation, of heating and lighting and basic foodstuffs. Once again we ask the hon. the Minister to bear in mind the millions of people in South Africa who are living on the breadline and who are struggling to make ends meet. It is vitally important that if anything can be done by way of subsidizing basic foodstuffs and transportation, it should be done, because it is in this area that there is a chance of a revolutionary spirit developing.

Thirdly, I want to refer to the point raised by the hon. member for Malmesbury. We believe that in spite of the inflation which will take place as a result of the fuel crisis and the rise in oil prices, the accent should still be on stimulating growth as a means of reducing unemployment. We do not want to see the hon. the Minister losing his nerve on this matter. We think it is absolutely imperative, no matter what the inflationary trends or how regrettable this evil is going to be, that the hon. the Minister must continue to see unemployment as South Africa’s enemy No. 1. We cannot afford to have an increasing unemployment rate, because there is a very real correlation between the incidence of crime and the incidence of unemployment. But quite apart from that, we are far more likely to be able to solve our racial problems in South Africa if there is full employment in our country, and far less likely to solve them if people are out of work or if people are hungry.

Having made these comments, I want to move on to not a review of the session, but to take a look at the situation in which we see the Government today. We want to look briefly at the Government and put to them some issues which we believe should be dealt with during the recess as a matter of some urgency. There is no doubt that this parliamentary session has suffered as a result of the Information scandal. The debates were essential in order to cleanse the sore. Nevertheless, the session as a whole was too inquisitorial and critical and into sufficiently analytical and constructive. For months the Information scandal distracted the attention of Parliament away from key problems that confront us in South Africa … Mr. Speaker, it seems as if the hon. the Minister of Finance wants to put a question, or he is just speaking across the floor of the House?

I was speaking to one of my hon. friends across the floor of the House.

Well, I wonder if I could have the hon. the Minister’s attention? [Interjections.] Some of the things that we should well have been looking at are the whole question of the socio-economic problems which flow from urbanization, the question of crime which is building up in the urban areas, the problems of public transport as a result of the fuel crisis and the relative roles of the State and private enterprise in gearing our economic system towards closing the wealth gap. Constitutional alternatives were scarcely touched upon and we scarcely touched upon an examination of the practical ways of getting rid of race discrimination in South Africa.

There is one other matter we did not refer to in the course of the session, and that is the most regrettable increase in the incidence of urban terrorism in South Africa. It is increasing in the frequency of its acts and increasing in the sophistication of the training and the equipment used by the terrorists. If one reads one’s papers and reviews, one finds an increasing number of incidents of urban terrorism in South Africa. There are clashes with the police, raids on police stations and bombs placed in public buildings. These are the realities. These occurrences have regrettably increased in frequency during the last year.

It is correct that we should be on our guard against these things. It is correct that we should have our police properly trained and properly equipped. It is correct that we should take counter-action. We also know, however, that if we want to eradicate this sinister phenomenon, we also have to decide on what political action we should take. Should we not take more note of what is being said at the trials, of what emerges from the trials of the young people, the young Black South Africans who are committing these acts of sabotage and terrorism? Should we not be identifying who these people are? Who are they? We shall find that in the main they are young people, in the main they are from the urban areas, in the main they are neither uneducated nor unsophisticated and all of them have lived all of their lives under the system of apartheid.

If we analyse it as a problem—because it is an insidious problem; it will grow insidiously until we find ourselves trapped in an escalating spiral of violence—we have to ask ourselves why these people have become the victims of terrorist recruitment. What has caused them to leave the relative safety of their homes for the danger of a life pitting their wits against the security forces? Why have they become the advocates of a radical and destructive ideology? What political action should we take, what reform should we bring about to make sure that their numbers do not increase and in particular to make quite sure that they do not enjoy the silent support of the masses of the people in our Black urban areas? I believe we should look at this very seriously before we find ourselves trapped into a spiral of escalating violence.

It is a matter of regret that the report of the Cillié Commission has not yet been made available. We understand that the report is now being translated. We would ask the hon. the Minister of Finance to convey to the hon. the Minister of Police or to whoever appointed that commission: Please let the public of South Africa have that report as soon as possible after it has reached the Executive. It is important that we should try to understand the problems, the frustrations and in particular the dangers to all of us which arise out of the conditions in the Black urban areas of South Africa.

As I say, we have lost valuable time as a result of the Information scandal, as a result also of the way in which the Government handled it. We still believe that if the Government had told the public of South Africa everything it knew and then allowed the Erasmus Commission to add further information, it would have been a better way of doing this. Whatever damage the Information scandal did to the debates in Parliament, it is nothing compared with the havoc it has done to the ruling NP. Last night we heard the hon. the Minister of Agriculture talking about the party unity. Disunity, however, is written large across the faces of all hon. members on the other side of the House.

It must be because of what has been done to the hierarchical structure of the party. Dr. Connie Mulder, Transvaal leader of the party, out without even having had an opportunity to defend his case before his party or its executive or before this Parliament. [Interjections.] Mr. B. J. Vorster, leader of that party, unanimous choice for State President seven months ago, out without a single hon. member on the other side prepared to defend him.

That is a lie.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order …

Order! The hon. member for Von Brandis must withdraw that statement.

Sir, I withdraw it.

I find the action of the NP…

It is untrue. You know it is untrue.

… one of the most remarkable turnabouts in the political history of South Africa …

Order! The hon. member is permitted to say “it is untrue”, but he cannot say “you know it is untrue”. He must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Sir and just say it is untrue.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw it without any further comment.

I withdraw, Sir.

The hon. member can have a chance to speak later on. [Interjections.]

*Order! The hon. member for Bryanston need not give a ruling too. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition may proceed.

Another member who is out of office, although he is not out of the NP, is Mr. Louwrens Muller. Until a few days ago Leader of the House, he was outmanoeuvred by those people who he was entitled to believe were his friends. There are visible strains of a personal, a provincial and an ideological kind throughout the NP.

But the havoc the Information scandal created in the structure and leadership of the NP does not, however, compare with the ideological chaos which characterizes the NP today. I want to say—and I shall demonstrate it in a minute—that the NP is without any clear sense of direction. Its policies are completely lacking of any ideological legitimacy.

You have none at all.

The Government professes an on-going commitment to apartheid. Does it? [Interjections.] It professes an on-going commitment to apartheid and separate development, and at times it even tries to reinforce apartheid, but it knows that all the time forces are operating within the South African society which are pulling it in the opposite direction. There it is now with its split personality.

To see this, one has only to look at the tensions that have been created by a couple of well-meant speeches by the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development in the United States. Let us just look at the situation. That hon. Minister went to the United States and made two prepared speeches, one in Washington and one in Palm Springs, in which he gave the most interesting and fascinating personal interpretation of Government policy.

Of South Africa’s policy.

Having done that, he answered a whole series of questions off the cuff. He departed from the prepared text, and, even more interesting, his answers indicate an even greater departure from Government policy in his interpretation of it. Then, of course, he used words and phrases before a United States audience which are bound to create in them a certain set of expectations and anticipation of what party policy was, expectations I do not think are going to be realized if one takes into account the reaction of the hon. the Minister of Public Works.

If you want to talk about America, let us hear about McHenry.

Let us have a look at some of his statements—

There was deafening applause. He got a standing ovation. Meanwhile we have passed a Bill here which makes people pay a fine of R500 for employing Blacks …

Illegally.

… who are not in possession of valid documents. That is a negation of what Piet Koornhof has been saying. He says the urban Blacks will be a permanent reality, that they will be here for all time.

That’s what your newspapers say.

Yet only recently the Government stuck to its point of view that, while there may be Black people, there will be no Black citizens of South Africa. Thirdly, he suggested that this country, our country, might follow the federal example of the United States.

He did not say that at all.

He did not say that.

Order!

That was in response to questions. I thought the Government had always rejected the federal concept and I am surprised that it could ever be Government policy that there should be a non-racial geographic federation with an entrenched bill of rights. What happened was that there was an almost instant and vigorous reaction from the leader of the NP in Transvaal.

Why do you not read his speech?

The hon. the Minister of Finance must realize that apart from delivering a prepared speech, the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development also made some extemporary statements. I shall refer to the prepared speech in a moment. The hon. the Prime Minister was then asked for guidance in this respect. The heading of Die Burger of today, 22 June 1979, reads as follows—

*This is an admission that guidance is necessary and that it does not exist. We must now wait until the NP congresses have clarified these matters. Once again this only reflects the discord and the ideological absurdity existing in the NP at the moment.

†The hon. the Prime Minister described the formal text of the hon. the Minister of Cooperation and Development’s speech in Palm Springs as being “vreesloos”. According to Die Burger of today the hon. the Prime Minister said—

We are not interested only in a “positiewe beeld”. We want to know what the NP’s policy is. Let us suppose that it was a reasonably intelligent audience to which the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development delivered his speech, which, according to the hon. the Prime Minister, was “vreesloos” and a fair reflection of NP policy. I quote from his speech—

Surely we all agree with this. He went on to say—

Of course, he was not referring to everyday life in Transkei, in Venda or in Bophuthatswana. He was referring to South Africa and not to republics outside South Africa. I quote further—

He only had South Africa in mind—

Is that the Government’s attitude? What about the urban Blacks? Are they going to be participating in the decision-making process in his South Africa? He said—

He refers here to himself and not to the NP—

Does this mean that everybody will have equal opportunities and enjoy equal and free education? Is the Public Service going to be thrown open to everybody on a basis of merit? Is everybody going to be allowed to participate in trade-union activities? Is that the policy, or is it a generalization of policy? He says he believes in the right of every man to equality before the law, while there are hundreds of statutes which make Black people unequal before the law in South Africa. Are they going to have a full and equal say and a share in the benefits of the public purse? Furthermore he said—

Does this entail full and equal rights to move round the country without a pass, to take up jobs and to have full home-ownership? Do they enjoy full and equal rights when we have a Group Areas Act, a Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and race classification? I do not mind saying that these statements reflect the philosophy of the PFP, but not that of the NP. Then we heard all the nonsense about whether apartheid is dead or not. Is apartheid dead? [Interjections.] Does the hon. member for Stilfontein want apartheid to die?

I want to come back to the speech of the leader of the NP in Transvaal, the second most powerful man in the NP at the moment. He has said—

That is the policy. Right? [Interjections.] However, he then goes on to say—

Now, I wonder whether the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development would have received a standing ovation if he had come with that statement. It is all very well for spokesmen of the NP to go to Palm Springs, in the USA, or even to Washington, and to get standing ovations on the basis of such generalities. I want to challenge the hon. the Minister of Public Works, the Transvaal leader of the NP, to take this same speech, to stand up at the Transvaal congress of his party, to deliver it there and see whether he gets a “dawerende toejuiging” there. [Interjections.] I believe all this will have to change entirely. I believe that the NP has got to come clean. [Interjections.] The problem of the hon. the Prime Minister is that his party is in a state of ideological chaos. [Interjections.] They are in a state of absolute chaos. Not a single one of these hon. members knows what he will be voting for next year.

Order!

What is going to happen if the hon. the Prime Minister allows this to carry on without giving the lead that he should be giving? He is going to lose out to the verkramptes in his own party. He is going to lose out, and the NP is going to lose out to the verkramptes in the HNP. [Interjections.] That is already happening. [Interjections.]

I put it to the Government that they should come clean and to agree that there is a state of ideological chaos and confusion within their ranks. Let them put that right. Let us give to the people of South Africa a crisp, clear charter. [Interjections.] Let us give them a charter for co-operation. Let us say exactly what we mean. [Interjections.] Let the Government of South Africa say that they give an undertaking, not to get rid of caricatures, not to have something taking a long time dying, but let them give an undertaking to repeal all apartheid laws in South Africa. That is a crisp undertaking. [Interjections.] Let them appoint a multiracial commission right now, a commission of Blacks, White people and Brown people, to help the Government decide on a timetable, to decide on how this should be done. Let the Government tell Piet Koornhof to go back to Palm Springs and to tell the people there: “I come with a mandate from my Government. We are going to get rid of all apartheid laws in South Africa.” [Interjections.]

Or are we going to say that we want to get rid of the caricatures while we are going to maintain the substance? Certainly he should make it clear in unambiguous terms that the Government has a commitment to create equal opportunities in the economic field for all South Africans. Let them say that this means that we will remove all restrictions on any citizen participating fully in the free enterprise system. Will they say that? No. Even the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture is silent now. [Interjections.]

When Piet Koornhof talks about full human rights and full citizenship, are they prepared to throw open the Public Service of South Africa to all South Africans on the basis of merit only?

[Inaudible.]

Will they throw open the Public Service on the basis of merit only? [Interjections.] Will they allow all South Africans free and equal education within one educational system?

No.

Why not? [Interjections.] So they will not have it. They will continue to have discrimination and not bring education within the framework of one system. The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens says “No”. I want to tell hon. members that within three years—just as sport had to be integrated—education in South Africa is going to be brought together under one organization. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. Leader of the Opposition?

No, I do not have time to answer questions. [Interjections.] Let the Government make it clear that they will take the necessary steps to assist those in South Africa who have been deprived for years. Let the Government assist them and see to it that equality of opportunity becomes a reality. [Interjections.]

In the constitutional field, let them make a simple commitment and say: “We, the Government of South Africa, are willing to meet with representatives of all sections of the South African people in order to negotiate a new constitution for the Republic of South Africa.”

That is Prog policy again.

Mr. Speaker, why not? We are going to have to do it in due course. Those negotiations do not have to start on matters of detail. They must start, however, on three fundamental principles. The first principle is that we are all South Africans. The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development says: “Full citizenship for all people in my South Africa.” We are all South Africans.

Secondly, as South Africans, we are all entitled to full citizenship rights. Thirdly, given the plural nature of the South African society, there should be no domination of one group over another.

We believe that a charter of this kind— simple, straightforward and direct—will cut through all the ideological confusion. It will give this Government and the people of South Africa some sense of direction so that before it becomes too late, it will be possible to bring the people of South Africa together in a national convention, in a negotiating situation, in order to bring about a new constitution for our country. The Government already knows it, because it has appointed a Joint Committee to examine a new constitution. This is a step in the right direction, but the writing can already be seen on the wall. Already the Coloured leaders have said that they would not even submit representations to that committee. We think this is regrettable. All indications are that significant groups within the Coloured, the Black and the Indian community will not submit representations to the Committee. We shall try to get those representations …

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the hon. member a serious question. In regard to the attitude of the Coloured community towards the Joint Committee on the Constitution: Will the hon. the Leader of the Opposition indicate that it is his wish that they make representations and use this occasion to make such a plea to them?

I am a member of that committee, and as I have just said, we shall try to get representations from as many people as possible, and we invite the Coloured people, the Blacks, the militants and all others to participate. But that begs the issue. It is already being seen as a White committee drawing up a constitution which is going to have a bearing also on the other sectors of the community …

You were party to it.

We shall continue with that work because I believe that the committee can do valuable exploratory work …

Oh!

… and there is nothing wrong with it doing valuable exploratory work. But before the suspicion grows and before its work carries the stamp of “Whites only”, we ask the Government to give an assurance that this is only the first step and that in due course there will be a representative convention or conference with negotiation taking place which will include all the people of South Africa. Let us get this quite clear. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister has said that what we now need for a real lift-off of our economy is confidence. Confidence is a critical factor in South Africa in the weeks and months that lie ahead. But confidence does not only stem from the intrinsic strength of our economy. In the end people outside and inside South Africa are going to look and see whether we within this country have found the means of reconciling the differences and the aspirations between the various racial communities. That can start only when this Government commits itself to on-going negotiation and a convention of the people of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is appropriate at this late stage of the session to spend a little time taking stock of the political parties in South Africa. It is perhaps appropriate for us to note what has happened in South Africa in the past two years so that we can see where the official Opposition of South Africa wants to go with South Africa. We must examine in particular the game they have been playing over the past 15 months in this country. In this regard we will do well to examine the role played by the NP in this regard in South Africa and the direction in which the NP is going with South Africa and its people.

The PFP’s objectives are very clear. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition today advocated a majority Government and total integration—nothing but that. In my opinion this is the fundamental difference between those of us on this side of the House and hon. members opposite. This, too, is why there are 133 hon. members sitting on this side of the House and only a miserable 17 on the other side. The people of South Africa have repeatedly rejected them and will continue to do so in future. This Opposition was elected on 28 November 1977. They were placed before the people and the people rejected them by returning only 17 of them here. The English Press made them larger than life, supported them, put them on a pedestal and said that a “brains trust” would be coming to the Parliament of South Africa, led by a young architect of the University of Cape Town, the brilliant Mr. Eglin. According to these newspapers he and his “brains trust” would usher in a new political dispensation in South Africa. In the first week after their election the same English Press said the following: “He has got butter fingers, the ball fell through.” When the motion of no confidence was moved in the first week of that session, the Whips forgot to count themselves. This is a good indication of the condition of the South African Opposition. What did they do then? Not a month had not passed when the same English Press wrote off that Opposition by saying: “You can’t flog a dead horse.” That is what their own people think of them. [Interjections.]

What happened then? All at once a star appeared on the horizon. Oh, how grateful they were when they heard of the “Info” scandal, the Information scandal, because then they saw that they could batten on it with their typical vulture-like political policy in South Africa. At that they pushed aside this policy which to this day has not yet been put forward and is purely hypothetical, and said that they now had something to batten on. They said: We must examine the sewers and the trashcans of South Africa to see what political carcasses we can get from them.

What did they do then? To do it, they first had to go into the life history of their 17 members to see who they should use as vulture number one. They paged through the book and came to the description of a refined fellow with a nice long crooked nose that he could get in under all the rocks and in all the holes, a reasonably intelligent sharp nose that could smell out many things. However, they looked further. They also had to consider the man’s political record. Who should they use to do this vulture’s work in South Africa? They also saw that it was on this man’s record that he had already murdered 10 or 12 people politically in South Africa. He wrecked people’s politics.

If one opens that cupboard, whose heads does one find inside it? The first head one finds inside it, is that of Mr. Marais Steyn who is serving in this Government today. He had to pay the price owing to the hon. member for Yeoville and a few of his satellites who are still sitting in this House. He had to pay the price, because, as he was still too pro-South African, he had to be banned from the party. If one opens that cupboard further, which other heads does one find there? One find that of Mr. George Oliver, a former member for Kensington. He had to pay the price for a Nic Olivier. Whose head do you also find there? Ettiene Malan’s head is lying there. However, that was not enough. An association was then created with the name “Grow”—get rid of Wiley—inspired by Mr. Schwarz, together with Messrs. Enthoven, Dalling and others. They interfered with every party branch in every province and sabotaged the people. They collected funds for this purpose and never reported to the United Party’s executive committee on what they had done with those funds. These are people who speak of morality and integrity. Who murdered those people? They murdered Mr. Wiley, they murdered Myburgh Streicher, they murdered Tony Hickman, and among other things they tore the United Party apart. Where is Mr. Boet van den Heever? Where is Mr. Bill Deacon? This is the record of those people. Over the past 15 months they have used Mr. Schwarz to see what carcasses are lying in South Africa.

Where is Connie Mulder?

The hon. member asks where Connie Mulder is. They are the people who first brought him to a fall and they devoured him. Once they had brought him to a fall, they wanted to blame the NP because he had not had a hearing. So they did it with the one after the other.

That man, with that sharp nose of his, lifted the lid of every rubbish bin. He entered the sewers and committed character assassination of political leaders in South Africa. They carried on unashamedly.

However, the Government said that it was going to investigate the matter. The Government laid open the Information scandal to the bone and said that it should take its normal course, and if a person had to pay the price, he paid it. Therefore I can say today unequivocally that this side of the House does not approve of it. This is a bitter period in the history of South Africa. The people do not approve of it either. However, the people of South Africa still do not reject the NP. [Interjections.]

Hon. members of the PFP had thought that they could gossip this party and this Government out of office. I grew up on a farm. Have hon. members seen what happens when a lot of vultures descend on a carcass? They scratch and snap at one another. That is what that political party is like today.

However, one cannot be negative; one must be positive. The voters of South Africa want a political party that will lead them and will not indulge in scavenger politics as that party has done. They had the opportunity to be positive. If, then, their policy is so acceptable, why did they fare so badly in Swellendam? They obtained a miserable 300 votes. What happened after all this gossiping, the character assassination they committed in South Africa and the political stench they brought to the surface? They were totally rejected. In Beaufort West they did not have the courage to appoint a candidate. However, Randfontein was a fine opportunity and they went there. There, where the former leader of the NP in the Transvaal is now out of politics. Nowhere could one find a better climate. The vultures then descended, because there was once again a carcass they could scavenge. However, what did the voters of Randfontein do? They were only able to win 600 votes and lost their deposit.

After all, many by-elections are going to take place now. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, who was so loquacious and critical, but has not yet stated his policy, must now do so in Brentwood, Prinshof, Koedoespoort, Germiston and Empangeni. He ran away from the South Coast. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must go and state his policy and test the voters of South Africa. I want to tell him that he will fare worse than he has done so far. This is the record of that party over the past 15 months. They have scavenged, became negative, gossiped and committed political character assassination in South Africa. [Interjections.]

What has the record of the NP been over the past 15 months? [Interjections.] It is a proud record. When the world economy collapsed and was at rockbottom, the hon. the Minister of Finance took the necessary steps. He kept South Africa, one of the countries that could not isolate itself from the world, on its knees. As late as the end of 1977 the Government, that looks after its voters and the inhabitants of this country, was able to come forward with the first stimulus in the economy as expressed by the hon. the Minister, when he announced a scheme which would extend over the following five years and cost R250 million. They stimulated the building industry.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to the unemployed in South Africa. We have á great deal to be thankful for if we compare ourselves to other countries. With this injection that has been given to the economy, employment opportunities were created. Who does the most work in the building industry? The Black man in South Africa is in the majority in this industry. In the 1978 budget, when there was doubt in the world, this Government pumped a further R50 million into public works and housing. The Government reduced the 10% surcharge on taxpayers. They pumped R200 million into the economy of South Africa. At that stage, when it was necessary, this Government repaid the loan levies in advance. To create confidence and stability in South Africa, this Government took R350 million from the Stabilization Fund and pumped it into the economy. They did not take it from the taxpayers’ pocket.

However, what were those negative people engaged in? They were busy with the Information scandal. They did not act positively. The hon. member for Parktown tried to create a climate in the outside world. He said that if one were a foreign investor and examined investment possibilities in the world, one should examine South Africa clinically and analyse the situation clinically before being able to invest money in South Africa, specifically because of the policy of separate development. This is the contribution made by the “great patriots”, while South Africa was locked in battle.

This year, after the Information scandal, the hon. the Minister of Finance came forward with even better proposals. Indirectly he pumped R762 million back into the economy of South Africa. In this way every taxpayer benefited. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition speaks of “taxing the poor”. I want to ask him whether he recalls the speeches by the hon. member for Yeoville last year when he said: “You fat-cats tax the poor.” That is the accusation he made.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, when proceedings were adjourned, I was outlining what the hon. member for Yeoville had said last year during the debate on the Sales Tax Bill to hon. members on this side of the House. He said “you are taxing the poor”. He also referred to hon. members on this side of the House as “fat cats”. At that stage the hon. member for Yeoville, who is not present in the House now, and his party broadcast to the world during the budget debate that the Government was laying an unfair burden on the poor man, and in particular the Black man. However, what happened in the budget this year? In this year’s budget the biggest concessions ever granted to the Black man in South Africa were made. In the past, the Blacks were taxed above the income limit of R300 per annum and this year this amount was raised to R1 200. What does the “black cat” for Yeoville have to say about that. [Interjections.]

He is a white cat.

A white cat? No, Sir, a white cat does not walk around during the day; only at night.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition tried to tell the world today that the South African Government was unreasonable and “the poor will get poorer and the rich will get richer” because our taxation system is supposedly unreasonable. Why does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition not tell the world that the Government granted concessions to the Black man in the budget, in terms of which he will only be taxed on an income above R1 200?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition now wants to exploit the rise in the price of fuel, which is a matter beyond the control of the Government, by saying that against the background of the rise in the cost of living the Government has not met its responsibilities to South Africa. However, what has the Government done? The taxation scales in terms of which the taxpayer is taxed, have been lowered. In the past, an unmarried person was taxed on an income of above R750, and this limit has now been raised to R1 000. The limit for a married person who in the past was taxed on a salary of above R1 200, has now been increased to R1 500. The direct primary rebate on children has also been increased. In addition, the medical and assurance rebates have also been increased. Is the Government acting unreasonably towards the worker in South Africa when it makes concessions of this nature? Furthermore, the Government increased the rebate on annuity insurance and pension deductions. Increased medical rebates were also granted. These taxation concessions affect each individual taxpayer in South Africa, but the hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to tell the world that the Government is unreasonable towards the taxpayer in South Africa. However, that will not get him anywhere, because his party was unable to come forward with any positive proposals in all these budget debates. While the other countries were experiencing problems, South Africa was boosting its economy. The Government gave the economy a further boost by means of the budget. The tax surcharge of 15% on companies, was lowered to 10% which means an input of approximately R111 million. Furthermore, the Government advanced the repayment of loan levies, amounting to a total of R160 million. Further concessions were made, such as the fact that the surcharge of 10% to which I referred, has now been abolished. Each individual taxpayer in South Africa has benefited from this positive policy followed by the NP, while the Opposition messes around in the sewers to see to what extent they can slander South Africa.

Order! That was an unnecessary expression and the hon. member must withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker, if it pleases you, I shall withdraw it. However, one cannot find a lower ditch in which they moved around. Therefore I shall not mention it by name, but they crept in everywhere and snooped around to see whether they could not harm their fatherland. That is their primary aim. The gentleman of Yeoville who walks around with his Jekyll and Hyde face is on one day the proud patriot in whose mouth butter would not melt, but the very next day he will sell himself and then he is probably the bitterest person one could find in this country. The Government has done all these positive things. For example, they reduced interest rates. In addition there are the Government stocks that elapsed in February, and did not have to be redeemed. These were all means whereby to stimulate South Africa’s economy.

Those hon. gentlemen spoke of unemployment. We know that there is unemployment all over the world, but in South Africa it is decreasing. These are positive things, but all they do is gossip. As a city dweller, I admit that agriculture in South Africa has had a hard time of it. We know that due to the recession the agriculturist has not received his rightful price for his products. We must realize this. However, when public servants also contributed their rightful share in the Public Service and in this country, they did, however, slander the officials and the Public Service indirectly. While the S.A. Police were ensuring the security of this State—and just recently more policemen lost their lives—the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and McHenry lay sleeping under the same blanket, and one does not know whose feet were sticking out at the top and whose at the bottom. [Interjections.] This is what is damaging South Africa. [Interjections.] While we are defending our country, these people come forward with their negative policy.

Order! The hon. member must refrain from referring to “people”, he must refer to “hon. members”.

Very well, Mr. Speaker, I am referring to hon. members of the official Opposition. I now want to conclude …

Hear, hear!

People speak of discrimination in South Africa. However, we had the Wiehahn report in terms of which discriminatory measures against any worker, on the basis of race or colour, were eliminated. However, what did those hon. members do? They did not have the courage of their convictions to tell the world that they would not find a single measure or section in the Industrial Conciliation Act of South Africa which effected discrimination on the basis of race or colour. That they will not do. Meanwhile, however, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is arousing and inciting the young Blacks of South Africa in this country. That is what we have come to expect of them. When there was a protest march of students, where was the hon. member for Houghton? She was running around there like a cock of the walk. [Interjections.] She could not move left or right. Where was the hon. member for Houghton during the Soweto riots? She was the first to hurry there to see photographs, because after all, she is the most humanitarian person in South Africa, the protector of human rights!

We have an hon. Prime Minister who sets the course in this country and who did not hesitate to say that he believed in clean State administration. He said that he believes in the rationalization of the Public Service, and this was clearly demonstrated by the appointment of his Cabinet. He said that the consolidation of the homelands in South Africa should be reconsidered. He had the pluck and the courage of his convictions to create those independent States. He said that he was giving them a body, but also a lung with which they could breathe. He had the courage to do so. He is also ensuring peace and prosperity in South Africa, while those hon. members have done nothing positive. Everything they have done, has only been negative. From morning to night they are slandering and denigrating South Africa. Then they speak of patriotism!

I can tell hon. members what the target for the future is going to be. It will not be the policy of the NP, because they will want to carry on with their character assassination. They will go for the Prime Minister, Mr. P. W. Botha, and for Owen Horwood because he is an English-speaking person. We know what they do. Can you recall, Sir, the day when Howard Odell crossed the floor and made his first speech on this side? Because he was an English-speaking person, he was barracked. Can you recall, Sir, when Harry Lewis crossed the floor? Because he was an English-speaking person, he was barracked, because surely there was no place for him among the Afrikaners. We recall how a Frank Waring, and a former Minister of Labour, Mr. Trollip, were treated. We know what the attitude is towards a Kent Durr, a Dennis Worrall and an Owen Horwood. This will be the target in future. However, let me say that with a leader such as P. W. Botha, South Africa can go ahead, because he will ensure security and prosperity.

What about a Marais Steyn?

Sir, the hon. member now making interjections, is a victim of the hon. member for Yeoville. I want to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that heads have been placed in the cupboard. I want to warn him. As sure as I am sitting here today, another head is going to roll in a few years’ time. The same hon. member for Yeoville and his henchmen, the hon. members for Bryanston, Green Point and Wynberg, who had a role here in the Cape and who were disqualified by the old United Party who kicked them out because they were disloyal, are still going to demand the head of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. Sir, South Africa can proceed without restraints. We have the NP, that will ensure the future of this country.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark has a very good memory. I can attest to that. [Interjections.] Of the years of the undermining of the United Party, I have better knowledge than most other hon. members in this House. The hon. member said that my head was in the cupboard, but I want to remind him that I am still alive. As far as I am concerned, the fight against the leftist liberals in South Africa is still being waged.

Who are the leftist liberals?

You!

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. the Minister of Finance and his department have followed a sensible, conservative and balanced financial policy for some time. I think they have got closer to the old South African tradition than the hon. the Minister’s predecessor did. They, and particularly the hon. the Minister, are respected in business and financial circles. I would say that I do not think that the hon. the Minister is the most successful politician who has ever lived. I do not believe he should try to be a successful politician. I believe that he—and perhaps it is no fault of his—is sometimes out of his depth in political waters. However, I want to say in all humility that I believe—and I think it is time it was said from the Opposition benches—that the hon. the Minister is not for one single moment an untrustworthy man, as his critics would have it. On the contrary, I believe that one of his best attributes is the fact that he inspires confidence and trust in financial circles, even in those financial circles which have political ideas and aims which, to quote Dr. Anton Rupert with approval, are the same as those of Rhodes and Jameson were. Not only in financial and business circles, but also among his many friends and acquaintances he is respected and trusted.

The hon. the Minister’s policies are policies we must examine here today. I want to plead with the hon. the Minister to alleviate the plight of the man in the street. In the first instance I want to ask him to appoint a special committee of inquiry to examine, with a view to State subsidies, the worst features of the problem of rising costs for the man in the street and for the man on the farm. It could be a small committee, which could even consist of only one man, which would have instructions to report to him within, say, two months. Production costs are now critically high for the farmer and the industrialist. The cost of the production of basic foodstuffs must be such that the farmer is allowed a reasonable profit or he will leave his farm, and this will create problems in urban areas quite apart from the security problems and other problems of a community nature he will leave behind him in the area he vacates. In addition to production costs, the farmer is faced with sky-high fuel bills and with transport costs which have risen very steadily over the last five years. The fuel price rises will have a ripple effect in the whole economy. Nothing whatsoever is likely to escape their effect. Apart from affecting the production costs of basic foodstuffs, fuel prices will affect the industrial workers in the towns, both directly and indirectly. They will add to the already grave danger of unemployment which is the greatest fear of all of us. The consumer must be able to buy products at prices within his means or there will be surpluses and at the same time there will be hunger.

In my opinion it is absolutely essential that the Government should subsidize basic food and transport costs. The hon. the Minister has had a record income from gold and other raw materials. I think he will receive increased revenue from sales tax as time goes by. I believe he is in a position where he must subsidize foodstuffs and transport Quite apart from the workers with pay-packets that will not meet the costs of essential commodities to keep them and their families living at basic levels, there are hundreds of thousands of pensioners and people living on fixed incomes who will not be able to keep their heads above water as a result of the enforced higher living costs and the falling interest rates. The hon. the Minister must realize that they must be helped out of a situation which is not really of their making in any way. I believe he can do this if he subsidizes both food and transport costs.

I wish to say something about Rhodesia. Our neighbour has been under enormous pressures to accept the principle of Black majority rule for a long time. It has done all that it has been required to do by outsiders. Do hon. members remember Nibmar—No Independence. Before Majority Rule? Well, now it has majority rule, but still there is no recognition. Bishop Muzorewa has bitterly, and with justification, complained that recently in Ghana there has been a “Staatsgreep” (a coup d’êtat) assassination and murder, but that immediately thereafter there was recognition by Britain and America. However, Bishop Muzorewa and Rhodesia still wait for recognition. In Rhodesia itself the basic political divisions are tribal ones. This was easily predictable before the new Government took office in Rhodesia. Now these very divisions on a tribal basis are being used by the West as a reason for non-recognition. In addition to that the cry goes up that Mr. Smith must resign to enable Rhodesia to obtain recognition. The next cry will be that the Patriotic Front of Nkomo and Mugabe must be brought into the Rhodesian Government before it can be recognized. The British have never ever forgiven Ian Smith for declaring unilateral independence. One of the men who has been his greatest critic, is the unlamented ambassador of Great Britain in South Africa who left South Africa some days ago. So there will never be an end to the demands which are being made on the poor Rhodesian people. The Patriotic Front is backed by the communists, and both the American and the British leaders lend the Patriotic Front their support in their anxiety to avoid confrontation between the East and the West. In Munich the same sort of appeasement took place 40 years ago. The fact that the Patriotic Front is supported, financed and armed by communists and the fact that the war has escalated even after a Black Government has been elected in Rhodesia, are surely proof that the war is part of an ideological struggle for Southern Africa by the communists, and not a racial one. There are tens of thousands of terrorists at large throughout Rhodesia at the present moment Security forces are killing scores of them with comparatively small, but ill-afforded losses. The White security forces are asking what they are fighting for. They have accepted majority rule, they have witnessed the non-removal of sanctions and have seen and felt an escalation of the war which Black leaders told them would cease if they were elected to power. As a result of all of this, the morale of White Rhodesians is at its very lowest. The rural population is showing signs of disintegration in many sensitive areas. It is known that Rhodesia now urgently needs additional military manpower owing to the continued exodus of young Whites. The Whites have been leaving Rhodesia in a steady stream ever since the fatal visit by Dr. Kissinger to Southern Africa some three years ago. Bishop Muzorewa has appealed to them to stay, but what is needed are not pleas by Muzorewa, but some sort of guarantee of permanency and safety if they stay in Rhodesia.

I want to say to hon. members that there will be an avalanche if things get worse. Where will the Rhodesians go? Some are already by-passing the Republic and leaving Africa altogether because they have lost confidence in the White man’s future in Southern Africa. It is not impossible, unless something is done to stop it, that South Africa may well face an influx of White and Black Rhodesians—possibly 100 000 or 200 000— all needing houses, food and jobs and coming into this country with only what they have been able to flee with, just like the Angolans and the Mozambicans. For every possible reason South Africa cannot allow this situation to take place. It is essential that Rhodesia be kept going and especially that it maintains its White population, because if not, economic and military collapse will take place in this neighbouring country of ours. Rhodesia remains the frontline for Southern Africa and it requires help at this moment.

*Rhodesia cannot remain standing without South Africa and it will be more difficult for South Africa to fend off the onslaught without Rhodesia. Therefore South Africa cannot stand aside, in the first place because what happens south of the Zambezi vitally affects each and everyone of us in every possible way and, secondly, because we in the Republic are the actual target.

†Rhodesia is just the obstacle, the geographic obstacle that stands in the way of those who want to get at us in the Republic. I say that South Africa must support the present Rhodesian Administration in every possible way, because in doing so we are defending our own position and defending ourselves. It must be done now and not at some time in the future. Then it might be too late. It must be done now when there may still be time.

The Kissinger intervention and the subsequent betrayals, lies and deceit have not only cost Rhodesia dearly, but have also endangered the future of all of us in Southern Africa. I believe that historians will record one day that the invitation to America to get involved in the affairs of Southern Africa, by whoever it was conceived, was a disastrous decision. It would have been far better for us in the Republic to have continued to support Rhodesia economically and para-militarily as she was doing at the time of the Kissinger visit.

The same arguments apply, perhaps even more so, to the situation in South West Africa. Just as the events which take place south of the Zambezi affect us, so the events which take place south of the Kunene River line vitally affect us in the Republic. The hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs has just returned from seeing the new British Foreign Secretary. I had hoped that he was seeing the British Foreign Secretary as the representative of the British Government; so I am sorry to read that he in fact has been seeing the Foreign Secretary as the representative of the five Western powers. It is my view that the sooner we end negotiations with those agents of the United Nations, the better for us and for South West Africa, because it is my belief that diplomatic relations with individual countries will pay us far, far better dividends than negotiating with the group of five. The five are dominated by the United States, and the United States, at least in this matter, is in fact McHenry, Young, Carter and the Black caucus in America. Dealing with men such as these will never be to our benefit. They seek our downfall and not a solution to our problems. My argument is that the five Western powers have shown themselves at every single stage of the negotiations as being unable to be relied upon. These negotiations have been long and protracted. May I remind hon. members that we reached an agreement with the five Western powers last year, but because of the breaching of that agreement, both in the letter and in the spirit, to accommodate Swapo, I maintain that that agreement is at an end. Let me therefore remind the Government that the agreement envisaged independence for South West Africa by the end of last year, that the terms of the agreement were said to be in final and definitive form and that terrorist activities were to have ceased immediately after the agreement. I surely do not have to remind the Government of the volte face that was done by the Western powers over the issue of Walvis Bay. I want to appeal to the Government today to abandon that agreement. Surely the hon. the Minister cannot still believe that it is in the interests of South West Africa that 7 500 United Nations troops, from that motley assortment of nations selected by Dr. Waldheim—to many of whom we unsuccessfully objected—should enter South West Africa as a peace-keeping force? Surely, the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the light of continued and intensive terrorist activities, cannot envisage that South Africa’s troops should be reduced to a miserable 1 500 and that the storing of arms—this is not so often realized—by farmers and commandos in South West Africa in town halls under United Nations supervision, take place, leaving those farmers and their families unarmed and defenceless. If the hon. the Minister believes this, then he does not know the mood of the South West African people at present. I honestly believe that the presence of United Nations troops in South West Africa is an absolute guarantee for disaster in Southern Africa. Does the hon. the Minister really think that, after they have established themselves in South West Africa, they will leave Southern Africa after they had been given a toehold? No. They will regard it not as a toehold, but as a bridgehead.

The struggle for South West Africa, like that for Rhodesia, is not a racial one, but instead part of the communist plan for domination of Southern Africa, the capture of our minerals and control over the Cape sea route. Like in the case of Rhodesia, South West Africa is not the real target. We are the real target. If South Africa follows the same way that Rhodesia seems to be going, we shall have communist aggression—whatever guise it might take—on the borders of the Republic instead of on the borders of the buffer States to our north. Apart from the danger to ourselves, every single Prime Minister, from Gen. Botha to Mr. Vorster, gave solemn pledges to the people of South West Africa that they would not be let down. To hand them over to the tender mercies of the United Nations is not to let them down, but to throw them to the wolves.

We cannot wash our hands of our responsibility for South West Africa, and we cannot shield behind bland statements that South West Africans must decide their future for themselves if, when they make a Turnhalle Agreement on the basis of consensus, we persuade them not to go ahead with it because of the fact that the five Western powers intervened, objected to it and put pressures on us. Two years of political uncertainty has created a situation of political chaos in South West Africa. The Whites are on edge; some have left South West Africa and others are making contingency plans to come to the Republic. The White people are the backbone of South West Africa, as they are of Rhodesia. Without them, or with them in a state of uncertainty, distrust or confusion, the potentially great country, South West Africa, cannot be properly administered or make progress. There is sullen resentment at what is taking place there. There is resentment at the DTA dominated National Assembly which, in spite of being elected only as a first step towards electing a Constituent Assembly, is now making and unmaking laws for all in South West Africa, whereas the White Legislative Assembly is still existing as a legal authority in South West Africa. There have been ugly demonstrations and threatened racial violence. There have even been talks of rebellion. From an absolutely fantastic achievement in racial consensus, the Turnhalle Agreement, only a few years ago, the South West African picture has changed today for the worse. The only way in which it can be put right, is for South Africa to go ahead with the holding of fresh elections for a Constituent Assembly, inviting international observation and supervision, but without the presence of the United Nations troops, as was done in the case of Rhodesia. Concomitant to this thesis South Africa should obviously guarantee the result of this election, as well as the territorial integrity of South West Africa. Morale and confidence has been systematically destroyed in both Rhodesia and South West Africa by the political uncertainty which has followed Western and United Nations intervention and delays, with South Africa’s acquiescence under duress. This has not gone unnoticed by the Whites of South Africa, nor by the non-White people of the Republic.

The Whites in South Africa are being psychologically conditioned by events and by the leftist media to accept that it does not help to fight against, what they refer to, as inevitable majority rule, because—as they say—a terrorist war can never be won. That is not correct. The non-Whites are being encouraged to make demands which we in the Republic cannot and will not meet. They are encouraged by the spectacle of White confusion and the lack of confidence in our neighbouring States and in our own future. Therefore, the Government cannot allow this state of affairs to continue indefinitely. The Government must restore confidence and eliminate uncertainties about our own future.

Allow me to remind hon. members that South Africa is a strong country. We have mineral resources which the world needs. We have gold which is indispensable to the world’s needs. We are of great strategic importance in the struggle between East and West. We have a powerful defence force. So, we have good cards in our hands. If we play them well, I believe, we will survive and flourish. If we neglect to play those cards, or if we fear to play those cards, we jeopardize our future. I do not believe that we are playing our strongest cards as we should play them. I feel we are reluctant to do so.

What I want to say to hon. members in this the last debate of the session, is this. I plead with them to see to it that there is strong, decisive and fearless leadership, and not hesitation or doubt. They should see to it that there is a restoration of confidence among all of us in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, a famous orator once laid down three guidelines for a good speech: “Stand up, speak up, shut up.” I undertake to abide by those guidelines in the future, particularly the last one.

I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to convey my sincere thanks to every hon. member of this House, hon. members on both sides of the House, for the friendliness with which they have overwhelmed me. They made me feel at home at once. Then, too, I want to take the opportunity to express my thanks to my predecessors, the late Dr. Diederichs and Dr. Mulder, for the way in which they served the interests of the constituency of Randfontein in this House.

Occasionally a great deal is made, as the hon. member for Simonstown has just done, of the Marxist onslaught on the Republic of South Africa in the sense of a Russian imperial threat—and quite rightly, too. Without wishing to detract from the gravity of this threat, I do just want to take this opportunity to draw the attention of hon. members of this House to a similar danger which, I fear, is sometimes overlooked. Here I am referring to the Maoist onslaught on the Republic of South Africa, and perhaps in a wider context, on the countries of Southern Africa. Moreover, I refer to this specifically in the sense of a Chinese imperialist onslaught.

In the past, the opinion has been aired in responsible circles that the Chinese communist philosophy is only limited to their domestic policy, that they have no land hunger, as in the case of their Russian brothers, that there is no question whatever of expansionism and that it is accordingly possible to co-operate with this communist power across a wide spectrum.

I do not wish to express an opinion this afternoon on the merits of co-operation with Red China. All I want to say is that the Chinese communist philosophy is also inherently expansionistic, that they have as much land hunger as the Soviet Union, and that as a result they are no less dangerous than the Russian imperialists. Indeed, it seems almost as if the Red Chinese imperialist threat, in the name of communism, poses a greater threat to the countries of Southern Africa in the long term than that of Russian imperialism.

The ultimate ideal of the Red Chinese has always been a world community of peace, a so-called “great harmony” under the guardianship and management of the Chinese Communist Party. Ironically enough, the road to this world community of peace is still one of violent revolution. Allow me to quote the words of Mao Tse-tung in this regard. He says very clearly—

What makes the matter worse is the fact that Africa, and the countries of Southern Africa in particular, fit the Red Chinese strategy like a glove. No wonder, then, that the former premier of Red China, Chou En-Lai, remarked as long ago as 1963, when he was visiting Africa, that this continent was ripe for a revolution. These countries in Southern Africa fit this Red Chinese strategy like a glove.

In contrast to Russia, the revolution in China began in the rural areas and from there worked through to the cities. This resulted in the Chinese coming forward with a new world-dividing line. It is no longer to the same extent a matter of the traditional capitalist countries on the one hand and the socialist countries on the other, but the rural, non-industrial countries, the so-called oppressed countries on the one hand and the urban, industrial countries, the so-called oppressors, on the other.

Taking such a division as a point of departure, this means in the ordinary sense that if one adopts the Chinese point of departure, countries like the USA—however paradoxical it may sound—the Soviet Union and the RSA, too, are countries belonging to the urban and industrial sector. They are countries that find themselves on the side of the oppressors. In contrast, China is on the side of the non-industrial, rural countries, the oppressed, on whose behalf it accordingly acts as liberator and champion. When this process of liberation of the oppressor has been brought to a conclusion, the process of socialization may be attended to without disturbance.

Chou En-Lai also confirmed that China was indissolubly linked with the countries of the Third World. He put it as follows—

The Republic of South Africa—and we must cherish no illusions on this score—is regarded and singled out by this power as a country belonging to the urban, industrial group as an oppressor. It is singled out as an oppressor of its surrounding neighbouring States and even of the States-in-embryo that represent the oppressed. These oppressed ones are to be liberated from the oppressor.

This process of liberation has assumed phenomenal proportions over the past 10 years. During 1970, and up to 1976, China has spent 1 815 million dollars on the continent of Africa, as against the 1 019 million dollars spent by the Soviet Union. That is almost twice as much.

Apart from that, China already maintains diplomatic relations with more than 40 African States. Between 1971 and 1977, 32 deputations from Africa visited Peking, and since then the number has increased. True, there have not yet been any military adventures in Africa instigated from Peking. However, that should not cause these people to be written off as less dangerous.

In contrast to the Russians who, in accordance with the teachings of Marx, believe that if one wants to change man, one must first change the world in which one lives, the Chinese believe in the teachings of Mao Tse-tung to the effect that if one wants to make a country a communist country, one first has to change its people and win their hearts for the communist ideal.

Consequently all aid projects and all diplomatic relations entered into by this power aim at one thing only: A subtle re-education process. This re-education process which has to pave the way for eventual military take-over is in full swing here in Southern Africa. In this regard I deem it to be my duty to point out to this House that China’s so-called goodwill towards the West and specifically towards the USA should be taken with a pinch of salt.

This phenomenon can only be understood if one takes their philosophical point of view into account. Two principles are at stake here, namely the permanence of polarities or the permanence of the revolution and in addition the relatedness of polarity. The Russians recognize only the one polarity, namely that between socialism and capitalism. However, the Chinese recognize a variety of polarities which have to be solved in order of importance. If, for example, it were to appear that the Russian military threat for the moment posed a greater threat to this power, they would be quite prepared to enter into an alliance with a former enemy, the USA, in order to eliminate this important enemy. As soon as this important enemy was liquidated, they would be fully prepared to declare their former ally to be once again Enemy Number One, and to eliminate him.

Any power which has China as a friend will have to take account of the fact that sooner or later it will become the principal target of this country’s aggression. In terms of their philosophy, the Chinese are unable to conclude lasting relations of friendship with anyone, not even with themselves. If it is borne in mind that China will soon have an army of 260 million soldiers, which is more than the total population of the United States, and if it is also borne in mind that it is already a nuclear power par excellence and that it is the only country in the world with the distinction of being able physically to survive a nuclear war as well, that some of its leaders have already regarded a nuclear was as the short-cut to Chinese world domination, then we have all the components of a formidable enemy which I think the Western world, but certainly the Republic of South Africa, too, must take into account.

The honourable member for Germiston.

Mr. Speaker, I take pleasure in congratulating the hon. member for Randfontein on his maiden speech. The hon. member has already overcome two obstacles. He has won an election and he has become a member of this House, but fortunately he has now surmounted the biggest obstacle of all, namely his first speech in this House. Whereas he has, as it were, unlocked his opportunity to speak this afternoon, I am closing the door behind me. However, I shall come back to that subject in a moment. The hon. member also mentioned his approach to the making of speeches in this House, viz. “get up, speak up and shut up”. That is a very good policy, but I want to say to the hon. member that there is something else that goes with the making of a speech, which I believe in, and that is that “the man who thinks by the inch and speaks by the yard, should be kicked by the foot”. [Interjections.] I trust that we shall never want to apply that medicine to the hon. member.

The hon. member touched on a subject, namely the Maoist revolution and Chinese imperialism, a subject about which he knows a great deal. In the course of a brilliant academic career he studied these subjects and can discuss such matters with authority. It was a pleasure to listen to a person who is master of his subject Furthermore, this is a very relevant matter and one which we must take the fullest cognizance of in the world in which we are living. We are pleased that there is someone on this side of the House who is well versed in these philosophies and in the strategies applied, inter alia, by Chinese communism.

The hon. member also has certain qualities that count in his favour. He has a fine voice that carries through the House and he is an authority who is well-versed in many subjects. I wish him a happy, long and fruitful period of service and stay in this House. He also has an advantage over the rest of us in the sense that whereas we in our constituencies are often abrupt with a voter and want to send him to the wrong places, the hon. member, as a former clergyman, may not deal so harshly with those people and will send them to quieter places than we were sometimes inclined to do. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, in just the same way as you called on me to speak now, I was called upon to speak from that same back bench from which the hon. member who has just spoken, by Mr. Speaker Klopper on 13 March 1962 to make my maiden speech, having been elected as a member of this House in October 1961. I must admit that my turn, as is usually the case on such occasions, was also a chastening experience. When I rose to speak, my voice had a tendency to sit down. You, Mr. Speaker, were aware of this, because you were sitting two seats away from me at the back where I had the most junior backbench of those days. However, I should not say “had” because in fact I occupied it, and it felt to me as if the occupation of that seat at that stage was about the only contribution I could make in this House. [Interjections.] It may interest hon. members to know that the discussion which I took part in on that day concerned the Railways and Harbours budget of 1962-’63. I have the Hansard before me here. The members who took part in the budget debate were the hon. members for Von Brandis, then the hon. member for Turffontein on that side of the House, the hon. member for Parow, now the Deputy Minister of the Interior, the hon. member for Durban Point and myself, and now I, too, am leaving their ranks. I must say at once that I am grateful that you, Mr. Speaker, announced me today as the hon. member for Germiston because I have had the privilege of representing Germiston in this House for 18 years, a name which was supplanted a short time ago by the name of the ministries which I have had the privilege of representing here for a time. Accordingly I convey my thanks to Germiston and all its people who have afforded me a fine opportunity in politics. It is not always easy, as it was in my case, to represent chiefly the central part, and in addition the southern suburbs, of the third biggest city in Transvaal, but I found it a challenge and a privilege, and in doing so I built up a special relationship with the people of Germiston, to such an extent that I was in fact returned to this House unopposed in 1977. I wish to convey my sincere thanks for the opportunities to serve Germiston and its people. My sincere thanks, too, for the loyalty and support which I have received over the years—it was an enriching experience. If my judgment was sometimes faulty, if, in my intercourse with my people, I sometimes acted thoughtlessly and if I was sometimes lax in rendering service, then all I can do is offer my humble apologies.

I must say that in general, politics has treated me well. Within and outside this House I have been privileged to occupy virtually every imaginable post relating to Parliament. Apart from the fact that I was also a temporary chairman, I have never been officially nominated to occupy any of the posts of chairman. Moreover, if I may express it that way, I was concerned with the lot. I must add that the time that I was able to serve here as Deputy Minister and Minister also had its nervous moments, depending of course on what the Opposition did. However, I always came through reasonably well, if I may pass an opinion on myself. However, those were exceptional occasions. I am pleased that in a great deal of the work I did in ministries I was able to devote myself, inter alia, to the interests and welfare of Black people and others in South Africa and that by doing so I could serve the whole of South Africa and accordingly the interests of White South Africa which have always been a matter of the deepest concern to me.

On this occasion I want to convey my sincere thanks to the hon. the Prime Minister, who put his confidence in me and gave me an opportunity, and also to colleagues with whom I served in the Cabinet, whose confidence I enjoyed and who gave me opportunities. These are people with whom I was able to work together in an exceptional team and from whom I had co-operation seldom equalled anywhere else. I myself indicated that I was interested in the administratorship of Transvaal and that if I were deemed suitable, I should like my name to be put in the hat together with those of others. I was fortunate, and I am grateful that I have been afforded the opportunity to serve in public life in this way as well and to continue in that sphere.

Mr. Speaker, the progress and development of people is often measured against many yardsticks. I think—and to me this is a determining factor—that what emanates from the highest council chambers of the people, viz. the order, stability and development in all spheres of life that are generated from that source and that have a practical effect on the life of people and are stabilized there, constitute one of the yardsticks of the level of development and the level of civilization of people. I can only hope that in the opportunity I have had, I have been able to contribute to some extent. My prayer will always be that this will emanate from this council chamber in the interests of South Africa and all its people.

†Mr. Speaker, the wise Solomon wrote in his Book of Proverbs: “Show me a man who does a good job, and I will show you a man who is better than most and worthy of the company of kings.” If I were to suggest that I ever reached that high level of society or that very high position on my own, I would be a braggart and a swank. What I attained and the levels I did reach is for others to judge. However, with a clean conscience I can candidly confess that in all this I did my level best.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Speaker, my sincere thanks to all my colleagues on both sides of the House for their goodwill and friendship. This applies in particular to members of study groups which I have been concerned with over many years. I shall have to become accustomed to no longer having them around me all the time. Fortunately, however, it is true that friendships once forged, create a strong bond and draw people closer, even where there is physical separation.

Mr. Speaker, these sentiments of gratitude that I am expressing towards colleagues, I should also like to express towards you and all the officers of this House. If it has perhaps been necessary to issue a warning “Order!” to me, then I apologize. However, you were not as strict on me as Mr. Speaker Klopper was. On one occasion when I was a Whip, I made a reverberating remark just after he had called for silence and order. He then threatened to make me come and sit on the stairs of the Chair so that he could keep a close watch on me.

My congratulations, too, to my colleagues who have been nominated as administrators. I know them all. We are friends. I am looking forward to co-operating with them. May they do well in their respective kingdoms, but I hope that there will also be the free association by means of which we shall be able to discuss matters on occasion, too—since this class of word is being bandied about quite a lot in politics at the moment.

It is maintained that after the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon gave the veterans who had survived the battle a beautiful medal on which, apart from the name of the battle, Austerlitz, one inscription appeared, viz. “I was also there”. In the same way I shall bear with me in my memory a medal of the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa and in my memory these words will always appear as the inscription: “I was also there.”

I have consistently attempted to be master of my will and slave of my conscience, and my conscience has been addressed by a Power outside me, a Power greater than me. Therefore, to God alone the glory and all my gratitude.

Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege for me to congratulate the hon. member for Randfontein on his maiden speech. I want to tell him that he acquitted himself well. He spoke with insight and we are looking forward to further contributions from him. To my old friend, the hon. member for Germiston, I want to give a hearty handshake of farewell and wish him all of the best for the future. He is leaving in the knowledge that he has done his job here well and not merely tried his best. I believe that that will be an inspiration to him to undertake the major tasks he must tackle in the future with the same diligence.

†As we know, we have the most remarkable Minister in charge of this debate, viz. the hon. the Minister of Finance, the leader of the NP in Natal, they say. He has the habit of signing things while not reading what he is signing. I thought that was only confined to documents pertaining to the Information affair. But from the south coast of Natal I have received an election news pamphlet which contains a special message by Senator Owen Horwood under the heading “A new vision for South Africa”. I quote—

Once again the hon. the Minister of Finance has signed something without reading it.

While I am referring to the south coast, I should also like to say a few words about the irresponsible statement of the hon. member for South Coast in connection with the germ count of Blacks after they have been operated. I do not want to waste the time by going into the question whether he has said that it is a lie or not, as we can consult Hansard to that effect, but I want to say to him to be very careful not to mislead the House about certain things.

The hon. member for Brakpan—I am very glad he is here—said last night that the newspapers corrected his statement. That is rather strange, because I have in my possession a letter which this week has been published in the Natal Mercury in which the hon. member for South Coast said the following—

And yet the editor published the following footnote—

This is a statement that they have done a germ count and yet, two days later, he said that this is what people said and that he did not say it because he was not a medic. However, if that is true, he must simply tell us what the truth is. If he did not say so, he must say that quite clearly and categorically, otherwise he makes himself guilty of “skinderstories” and rumour-mongering. I believe it is irresponsible, especially in the situation in which we find ourselves.

One of the most common mistakes we as South Africans make, is that we do not realize and appreciate the tremendous economic wealth and potential of our country. We tend to look upon ourselves as a small nation and yet the fact is that with plus-minus 25 million people South Africa counts amongst the 25 largest nations belonging to the United Nations. The second basic mistake is that we appear to be oblivious of the fact that our date with destiny has arrived and that we are standing now at the crossroads. This is not in five years time or 10 years time, but now. Depending upon the policy decisions which we make, South Africa could become one of the top 10 trading nations of the world.

We are one already.

Already? I shall deal with that situation. Or we could slide into becoming an impoverished Third World community. To put this choice into political terms, it is a matter of choosing today between confederation or fragmentation. Let us look at the facts in support of the top 10 theories. The claim that South Africa could be in the top 10 trading nations of the world is supported by a wealth of facts. Last night hon. members heard the brilliant analysis of our mineral resources from the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. But there are others as well. For example, South Africa’s favourable geographical situation for trade with Africa, South Africa’s water resources, South Africa’s reasonable balanced climate which makes the cultivation of a variety of agricultural crops possible, our potential to become the granary of Africa and, added to that, the tremendous potential internal market.

Presently it is estimated that the disposable income of Blacks is R11 million per day. Given a reasonable growth rate, this could become R16 million per day by the turn of the century.

What do you want?

I shall prove that we could slide into becoming an impoverished country. South Africa’s land area accounts for 4% of the total area of Africa and our population for 6% of that of Africa, yet we account for 25% of the GNP of Africa.

Come to the point.

Assuming an inflation rate of 10%, which under present conditions is reasonable, the GDP could reach R900 million by the turn of the century. It is also calculated that between now and 1985, nearly 5 million new Black consumers will enter the market. In addition, we should also remember that the purchasing power of the Whites is diminishing and that by the turn of the century consumer goods and services will become largely non-White orientated. Taking all things into consideration, however, we can look forward to an increase in per capita income. Yet, when one mentions these facts —and the hon. member asked me what I was trying to prove, and I can see why he wants to know this—hon. members of the NP have a complete false sense of security. They believe that the present prosperity can continue forever. If in fact we want to achieve what is predicted for us—and this is my point—we must not fragment our country’s resources politically. If we do so we shall destroy the economic equilibrium which exists between Black and White today, an equilibrium which flows from the tried and tested system of total integrated economy. What hon. members do not realize is that the present prosperity which we are enjoying and the past performance on which we base our future predictions have been the result of the successful application of the system of economic integration which commenced immediately after Jan van Riebeeck established a permanent White settlement in the Cape. The hope that this system will be maintained, and this is our sole hope, by a loose, nebulous constellation of nations, is totally unrealistic and devoid of any substance. This is what one reads in the newspapers. [Interjections.] Let us just consider the facts. South Africa can become the steel producers for the world, because we are in an unique position to do this, but fragmentation will destroy that possibility.

Why?

I will prove to that hon. member why. In regard to confederation I once again want to welcome the insight which the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development displayed in Washington when he realized the wisdom of following a confederation system. Through confederation it can become a reality, and that is the choice we have today. I now want to link my thoughts with the speech made by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg-South. To be able to produce real good quality steel, a certain combination of minerals play an important part. In the processing one has to have iron ore; coal and coking coal for energy, and chrome. Without chrome one cannot produce stainless steel, because it provides for the hardness, the creep, the impact strength and the oxidation. Yet, if we have an honest consolidation plan—and we must have one—80% of South Africa’s chrome supply would be lost to us …

Is that your problem?

Yes. That is my problem, but we can discuss it later.

†Let us look at another important mineral. Vanadium is a steel alloying element which provides for the strength of steel and is therefore widely used in steel constructions such as machinery, pipelines and similar constructions. Then there is also titanium which is used in steel alloys together with vanadium. This serves to provide a surface coating which imparts whiteness and high gloss. Fluorspar is required for the fluxing in the production of steel. Yet, under one of the Sabra proposals, which is an honest type of proposal, South Africa could lose all its supply of this element.

Why?

I shall deal with this later. Nickel alloys for steel production provides strength and is of course corrosion resistant. Manganese is also a well-known alloy which provides malleability and flexibility. As long as South Africa retains its unique position of self-supply of all these essential minerals, it will be in a position where no one can hold it to ransom, and we shall be immune to blackmail in so far as fuel production is concerned. In fact, if we should stop exporting chrome, the world will beat a path to our door to buy products in which chrome is essential. Not only could we become the Ruhr of the world, but an industrial revolution could be triggered off which could bring about unprecedented prosperity to all the people and races in South Africa.

In a confederation where one can have a division of political power, the minerals still remain in the hands of various confederal units. We do not want to take those minerals away from those people, but what will happen, is that they will be in a position to share with others in the usage of those minerals so as to generate greater capital for the benefit of South Africa and themselves. [Interjections.] I think the hon. the Minister wanted to know how fragmentation would influence this.

What will happen if the rich decide to break away?

We shall still discuss that. Let us look, however, at the situation of how and why fragmentation will destroy this possibility. Even in the most favourable consolidation proposals—this can be with or without the inclusion of these minerals—all existing and potential independent Black States will still remain mini-States because of a lack of land. They will still lack the necessary ingredients to become viable, and the real problem is that they will still primarily remain just sources of labour supply to South Africa. They will still remain exporters of labour only. They will also be forced to exploit their valuable mineral wealth not in a processed form, but as raw material.

Let us take as an example any of these independent States …

[Inaudible.]

I shall deal with that later. Let us take as an example a State which has only one mineral like vanadium, for instance. It can only export vanadium as a raw material. It cannot be otherwise exploited. It cannot use it in the manufacturing of steel products, because it lacks the other seven or eight mineral components required for this process. This leads to only one thing, viz. the rape of valuable natural resources. The exploiter is usually the highest bidder. One cannot blame an impoverished country for trying to obtain the highest income for its people from whoever is prepared to pay most. If it has only vanadium to sell, it will sell the lot. It has nothing to do with the question of whether the State is a Black or a White one. Impoverished White States and White politicians will react in exactly the same way. They have done so in South America and in the Middle East.

Secondly, history has proved that squabbling is inevitable among impoverished States. Maximum fragmentation and political independence would easily result in the same sort of difficulties experienced in pre-Union South Africa in connection with customs and transportation disagreements. Even if one should forget about the “Uitlanders” and Lord Milner and the British imperialists and Paul Kruger, a study of the causes of the Anglo-Boer War clearly indicates that a show-down with the two Boer Republics and the two colonies, and even between the two Republics, was inevitable, because of economic reasons.

Yet, all of this can be prevented if the Government is prepared to act decisively now, and first of all, call—as the hon. leader of my party suggested some time ago, when the independence of Venda was discussed—a moratorium on the future political fragmentation of South Africa. [Interjections.] Secondly, the Government should set in motion the necessary machinery to work out, in full consultation with the various homelands and other communities, a confederal constitutional structure in order to be able to retain the wealth of the country, and so that wealth can be generated from our natural resources, to the benefit of all the inhabitants of the country. [Interjections.]

Thirdly, the Government should secure the participation of independent States, such as Bophuthatswana and the Transkei, in the process as well. It is in their interest as well as in ours. They should be placed in a position in which they can have a full share in the capital generated in the process. Impoverished States can be bought by super powers. In fact, small impoverished States can be bought by multimillion international companies. I think this is an apt time to remind hon. members of the way in which Cecil John Rhodes acquired Rhodesia. I quote from Geskiedenis vir Suid-Afrika by S. F. N. Gie—

Mr. Speaker, £100 was a lot of money in those days. This proves my point that people can be made an offer which they simply cannot refuse. Let us look at what Gie says further—

Well, this is a lesson of history. [Interjections.] This proves that when people are in possession of an item which they cannot utilize on its own, they will sell it. However, in a confederation they will be able to retain it.

In conclusion I should like to point out that it is my contention that the Government places its faith in the economic interdependence of a loose constellation—whatever that may be—of States in Southern Africa. However, I believe, that in a super power world something of this nature will not work. It will indeed be irrelevant. This is how I see the picture. Support for the NP Government is support for fragmentation and for economic ruin. Support for the NRP is support for a confederation and for a method to build South Africa into one of the top 10 nations of the world, with a high standard of living, where all our people can live in dignity, peace and harmony.

Mr. Speaker, the problem with the NRP is apparently one of escapism. When one listens to the hon. member for Durban Central, it is clear that they have tried very hard over the past two years to create the impression that they are a new party. They are very anxious to make the voters of South Africa believe that they have a new message for South Africa. They have apparently had a limited amount of success as evidenced by the remarks of the hon. member for Durban North who is a new figure in their party. However, when one listens to the other hon. members of that party, it becomes clear that their greatest problem is to get away from the image of the old UP. In point of fact, however, they are nothing more than the old, tired warriors of that dead party, tired warriors who in their approach and remarks do nothing more than reflect the same old attitudes and points of view of the old United Party. Nowhere was that better illustrated than in the speech of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South last night and today in the speech of the hon. member for Durban Central.

Just like the United Party the representatives of the NRP suffer from the same weaknesses. One can summarize this in two ways. In the first place, when they are confronted as they are being confronted today in regard to the by-election in South Coast they attack the person rather than the policy of the other party. That is a very old tactic they are using. They are employing a tactic that was employed by the Romans 2 000 years ago and that was called suppressio veri, suggestio falsi. That is, suppressing what is the truth and suggesting what is untrue. That is their line of attack.

As far as their own actions are concerned—and they do this just as much in then handling of the affairs of the province from which I come and from which nine-tenths of the hon. members of that party come—they are doing exactly the same as the old United Party did, and that is to say one thing and to do something else.

It was clear from the speech of the hon. member for Durban Central this evening that he was launching an attack on the hon. member for South Coast who is not here to defend himself.

Whose fault is that?

He came along with this so-called germ story. That is the fault of nobody else but the Press that supports that party in Natal. In spite of repeated denials the hon. member for Durban Central came along with the story about a tape-recording. I also saw that letter. It makes no impression whatsoever. Does the hon. member for Durban Central not know that it depends on where one starts a tape in order to transcribe what is on it? If someone says he has a letter which states “they have made tests” and one starts transcribing at that point, it will surely sound as if he is the one …

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for South Coast stated repeatedly at each of those three meetings and in this House that he had raised complaints that had been lodged with him at those meetings. He said so in newspaper reports. If the hon. member for Durban Point and the hon. member for Durban Central …

I spoke to the newspapermen today and they confirmed that that was how they had reported the tape-recording. [Interjections.]

The hon. members for Durban Point and Durban Central must decide whether or not they accept the integrity of hon. members of this House. It is very easy to juggle with a tape-recording.

Is that the latest thing that newspapers do?

It is not even necessary to refer to what the hon. member for South Coast has said. Let us look at what is happening in South Coast at the moment, Sir. The NP candidate alleges that the proposed take-over of a school in Natal is nothing less than a scandal, and it is clear now that those hon. members are very petty because they run to their Executive Committee and to the Attorney-General because this is supposed to be defamatory. They employ the tactic of attacking the person throughout. At the time of the provincial by-election in South Coast the hon. member for South Coast in this House and the NP candidate in the by-election, Mr. Allison, became accustomed to the NRP attacking them personally. In fact, they expect nothing else.

I also said that that was one of the tactics employed by that party. The other tactic is to say one thing and to do something else. I do not intend reverting to the allegation made by the hon. member for Benoni last night when he quoted from various publications of the NRP and said subsequently that the publications which were supposed to set out the policy, in fact conveyed nothing. He said that it was merely a summary of a number of beautiful, rosy ideals and that it failed to indicate how the NRP intended realizing those ideals.

Tell us something about your policy.

The hon. member for Mooi River asks me to tell him something about my party’s policy. During the past five months hon. members on that side of the House and the hon. member for Mooi River himself have had the opportunity of investigating and criticizing the policy and administration of the Government. If he does not yet know what the policy of the NP is, he never will know. [Interjections.] I do not think we can provide him with the grey matter that he needs for that. [Interjections.]

The NRP has come forward with a document and that is the only official document that we have in fact had from that party. The document appeared under the heading “Aims and Principles of the NRP”. I want to give two examples only of what the NRP says it will do and what it in fact does. As far as residential areas and local government are concerned, the NRP says the following—

That means that that much vaunted idea of local option—the local option about which we have heard such a great deal during the by-election in South Coast—means that the local community itself will be able to decide whether or not it wants to be open or closed. In ordinary language that means whether it wants to be White or mixed. They say that they want to give the local community the option to decide whether or not they want to be open or closed and that that choice will be left to the local authority. But what does the NRP do? They make sure that the local authority that has to decide is a mixed local authority. Last month that party which is in the majority in the Natal Provincial Administration passed an ordinance which provided for mixed Coloured, Indian and White local authorities in Natal. I challenge hon. members of the NRP to deny that.

That is a complete misrepresentation.

If the hon. member for Durban Point can convince us that the recent amending ordinance passed by the Natal Provincial Administration cannot give rise to mixed city councils, he should also tell that to the electorate of Natal.

But that is not all, Sir. Not only does the NRP make provision in the Provincial Council where it is in the majority for mixed city councils between Whites, Coloureds and Indians but it goes further in this sense that the MEC responsible for local government in the Natal Provincial Council says that the reason why Blacks as well will not be included in local authorities in Natal as voters and as councillors is because “our responsibility does not cover kwaZulu and the Black areas”. He says further—

In other words, this ordinance does not only provide for mixed city councils in Natal. The MEC responsible for local government matters says very clearly and unequivocally that if they had their way city councils themselves would be completely mixed, with the inclusion of Blacks.

That is totally untrue. Why do you not highlight the basic principle?

If ordinary English no longer means what I think it means, I shall never be able to understand these words.

You are twisting it.

I do not understand how this can be twisting words but it is very clear that the hon. member for Durban Point thinks that it is.

When are you joining the HNP?

But that is not all. That same member of the Executive Council let the cat out of the bag. He says that the ordinance that they passed in the Provincial Council of Natal to make local authorities mixed, was not passed so much on the basis of their policy but rather that they had capitulated to an ultimatum by the Indians and Coloureds. [Interjections.]

There were consultations.

I want to quote again.

[Inaudible.]

The MEC says—

Those are the Coloured Local Affairs Committees and the Indian Local Affairs Committees—

In other words, what this side of the House has been saying for 30 years namely, that if that side of the House takes the first step on the road in terms of their policy it will be impossible for it to avoid the logical end of that road, their member of the Executive Committee has conceded ab initio. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member is making his speech and the idea of debate is to have a proper reply once he has finished.

What does that amount to? Self-righteously they tell the electorate of Natal that they want to give every local community the opportunity of deciding whether or not it wants to be closed or open. They say that the city council of those people will decide. But then they make their city council multiracial, a mixed city council. Once that city council has decided that a community within a local authority will be a mixed or so-called open community, what hope is there for that community ever to exercise its local option again?

Very briefly I want to give another example of how they say one thing and do something else. That has been very clearly illustrated by the speech of the hon. member for Durban Central and that of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. They have a great deal to say about their federal-confederal policy and that is all one reads about in this information document of theirs. They do not spell out what a federal-confederal policy is.

Do you not know what federal-confederal means?

However, we have some indication by the hon. member for Durban Central as to what they mean by a confederation. I shall tell hon. members what their idea of a confederation is. Their idea of a confederation is the old colonial idea of the imperial power with its subservient colonies. It is the old idea of an empire. Because of the fact that certain areas in our country have raw materials they want to keep those people in a state of perpetual subjugation. Then they dress up the idea beautifully by calling it a confederation. Wherever in the history of the world has there been a confederation consisting of one independent state and a number of small dependent and subservient states, and not even small states but merely areas which will never be given their independence? And then they call that concept a confederation! But it is an empire. That is what they want.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to enter the argument which the hon. member for Umlazi has started with the NRP, except to put one reasonable question to the hon. member for Durban Central in connection with a matter that has still not been cleared up: Is it not true that there may perhaps be some confusion between a confederation and a federation? As I understand it, the outstanding characteristic of a confederation is that no decisions can be taken that are binding on member states. Consequently one has no say over the minerals that are found in a member state—that is apart from the merits of the argument. It is only when binding decisions can be taken that one can talk about the possibility of sharing and dividing. I think it is in that respect that there may possibly be a contradiction. But I leave it at that. I do not want to start an argument.

No wonder you want to go back to university.

At this stage of a session one usually makes a survey of what the session has produced. Like any hon. member, one is asked outside this House what one thinks has happened etc. Last night while I was preparing this speech of mine the first sentence I wrote was—and I say this quite honestly—that at the moment the Government has not given us a clear lead politically. That was what I wrote last night. When I opened Die Burger this morning, I read the following headline: “P. W. Botha sê duidelike leiding kom.” I thought that was a remarkable coincidence. Last night I told myself that in fact there had been no clear political leadership and the first thing I read this morning was that…

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he has ever during the past 30 years accepted the guidance of the Government?

Sir, I have in the past accepted the guidance of the Government in respect of many matters. For example, when we became a Republic I accepted their guidance. I supported that decision enthusiastically. But I am talking about this session. I am only saying what my honest opinion is. Hon. members opposite will probably say that the Opposition has many shortcomings. If I were asked what I considered were the basic shortcomings of the Government at the moment, I would say that they had not given us any clear political guidance. I shall try to give my reasons for saying that. I am not going to discuss that in vacuo.

What we have had so far have been contradictions, refutations and vacillations at numerous levels of Government in the country. I want to give specific reasons for saying that. Hon. members opposite may say that we have contradicted one another and that we have clashed with one another. I do not believe that that is true but even if it is, it was still not to the extent to which the Government of the day were guilty of it, especially in view of the fact that this is a White government. It is this White Government whose responsibility it is to see to it that there is peaceful constitutional development or whether we are moving in the direction of protracted confrontation. I maintain that it is at this very stage when we need clear political guidance that we have these contradictions, refutations and confused thinking.

Let me give my reasons for saying that. In the first place, we had the Wiehahn report this session. That report raised many hopes regarding the peaceful settlement of labour disputes. A White Paper was issued on the Wiehahn report and it reflected the good objectives of the Wiehahn report. We must admit, however, that the spirit of the Wiehahn report was not evident in the Industrial Conciliation Amendment Bill. That was very clear.

Not at all.

The Government has in fact introduced political categories into an economic problem.

But there were consultations with the trade unions.

Yes, with the White trade unions. Secondly, we had the Riekert report. That report was regarded as providing the answer to White/Black relations in South Africa. However, when one studies the White Paper of the Government and one thinks of the Laws on Plural Relations and Development Amendment Bill one realizes that once again the Government has vacillated between the rational utilization of our manpower and adherence to an apartheid ideology that has served its purpose. The best example of that is the limit of 72 hours. Both the Riekert report and the White Paper of the Government in that regard say that that is a purely racist measure which applies only to the Blacks. Those fundamental measures …

[Inaudible.]

That is what the White Paper says. I know the hon. member has reading problems but he should really try to read up on that.

In view of the latest events I should like to know what is going on. I want to know in all sincerity what is going on between the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development and the hon. the Minister of Public Works, of Statistics and of Tourism. It is old news that there is strife and tension within the ranks of the NP. One cannot ignore what one reads in the newspapers today. On the first page of Die Burger …

Did you read page three as well?

Yes. On the first page of Die Burger there is a report to the effect that Dr. Koornhof’s speech is a fearless exposition of the policy of the Government. That is how the hon. the Prime Minister described it. On page three of Die Burger of today there is a report under the heading: “Koornhof stel nie beleid, sê Treurnicht.”

Who writes the headings?

It makes no difference who writes the headings. I am sure intelligent people write them. One Minister says apartheid is dying and another Minister says apartheid has been reborn. The one declares war on the pass law and on discrimination while the other one says we must not be in too great a hurry. The hon. the Prime Minister himself entered the debate and took sides. Surely it is obvious that a Government which makes such contradictory statements in the heat of battle is up to some skulduggery. They try to tell this to one section and that to another section. In a policy document of the Government, namely Skietgoed of October 1978, the following is said about the present Prime Minister—

What is the policy to which the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development is referring and what is the policy to which the hon. the Minister of Public Works is referring? The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development says that he is stating the policy while the hon. the Minister of Public Works says that the hon. the Minister of Cooperation and Development is not stating the policy. [Interjections.] However, this is not merely a newspaper quarrel; it goes much deeper. I want to refer, for example, to the Cabinet committee on the urban Black man. During the no-confidence debate—I can quote this from Hansard—the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development said that the Cabinet committee should go into the question of the constitutional position of the urban Black and make recommendations as to how the urban Black man is to fit into the new constitutional set-up in South Africa.

He said exactly the same thing in America. Did you read it?

Yes, but that is contradicted by the hon. the Minister of Public Works. He said that the Cabinet committee would not go into the constitutional position. I want to know from that hon. member who is making such a lot of noise whether the Cabinet committee is reconsidering the constitutional position of the urban Black man, yes or no.

I am not a member of the Cabinet. [Interjections.]

The hon. member is very eloquent. When I made that remark he said that the hon. the Minister had said exactly the same thing in America. However, when I put a question in this regard to the hon. the Minister of Public Works—it appears in Hansard—he said that that was not so and that the Cabinet committee was only considering how the Black man could be better integrated with the homeland authorities.

That is correct.

Is that correct? In other words, the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development is wrong. [Interjections.] Surely both cannot be correct. Either the one or the other is correct. [Interjections.] It is in Hansard. I said at the beginning of my speech that we were dealing with contradictions, refutations and confused thinking. Allow me to refer, for example, to the question of the consolidation of the homelands. Numerous reports appeared in the newspapers in that connection. Some people became very excited and the hon. the Prime Minister made very important statements in that regard. It says here that the instruction to the consolidation committee, as the hon. the Prime Minister put it during the no-confidence debate, was to use the 1936 legislation as the basis for consolidation. And the hon. the Prime Minister stated quite clearly that it was Government policy not to exceed the quota in the 1936 legislation. But, he added, in exceptional cases and where necessary, that consolidation committee could exceed it.

That is correct.

That statement is correct. I think that ought to be explained very clearly to the people.

Except the “exceptional”. That does not appear there.

Right. It does not appear there but he did say “where necessary”. May I put it differently, Sir? The actual wording is that, if necessary, they can take it further but then it must be properly motivated and all the consequences clearly spelt out I would say that is an exceptional condition, but…

No.

In any case, what I in fact want to say is that this point should be clearly put to the public at large because they are confused at the moment. Some people believe there will be large-scale consolidation. We have the Roelf Botha plans, the future plans in which huge chunks will simply be cut out, cities pushed aside, etc. That is the one picture people have of consolidation. Then there is the other picture of consolidation where land is purchased piece-meal, a farm here and a farm there. That is, in fact, what is meant here but the new chairman of the consolidation committee said the following, according to Die Burger, and I quote—

He says “maksimale sinvolle konsolidasie”. Of course that can mean whatever one wants it to mean. If one takes it to mean maximum and meaningful and as large as possible, the enlightened wing will say: That is in fact what it means. If one takes it to mean maximum and meaningful and that it will be in accordance with the 1936 legislation, that too will be “all right”.

Why are you making these points?

I shall explain just now why I am making those points. The chairman of the consolidation committee went on to say—

As against this I should like to quote from the speech made by the hon. member for Pietersburg during the debate on the Plural Relations and Development Vote, because in that speech he made it abundantly clear that he was not at all enthusiastic about the whole question of a new kind of consolidation. On that occasion he was addressing himself directly to the hon. the Minister and he even quoted from the Bible. On page 331 of the debates of the Standing Committee he says the following—

Then he says we should pay heed to what is stated in the Bible and he quotes from the Book of Proverbs—

Do you agree?

I want to find out what you people agree with. Then he quoted with approval the question which Adv. Strijdom asked namely, whether the original idea was not that the Natives themselves should in due course purchase the land. He went on to say that we should not really go further than the 1936 legislation. The only conclusion I can draw from this— and hon. members opposite can deny it as much as they want to—is that this question of land runs like a razor-sharp knife through the centre of that party. There are those who say there should be more meaningful consolidation and there are those who say “Not an inch more land.” That is what I have heard during the short time I have been in this House. That is a bone of contention in that party. They can say what they want to, Sir, but they know that is so. These are merely a few illustrations. What really disturbs me, Sir, is the fact that there is confusion in a field in which we really cannot afford it, namely the field of constitutional change. As far as this is concerned, I want in all honesty to make an appeal. This year and last year as well the Government appointed three bodies and the terms of reference of each one directly involved constitutional implications.

I should like to refer to each of them briefly. The first one is the Joint Committee on the Constitution. The terms of the reference of that committee were the widest, namely to draw up an alternative Constitution for the Republic. Their terms of reference allow them to discuss such questions as a federation, a confederation, citizenship, partition and whatever they want to discuss. Those terms of reference are therefore extremely wide. The other two bodies are respectively the Cabinet Committee which has to investigate the position of the urban Black man in respect of citizenship and civil rights, and the Consolidation Committee which has to investigate the question of homeland consolidation which has to deal mainly with land. The terms of reference of all these committees directly involved constitutional implications. Now this question arises: Is the Government sincere in its terms of reference to the Joint Committee on the Constitution or not? Which constitutional matters has the Government already decided upon in spite of the terms of reference of the joint committee? Can questions such as land, citizenship and population groups, for example, be negotiated in terms of the terms of reference of that committee? If so, I want to ask the Government to withdraw the other two committees or incorporate them with this Committee so as to obviate contradictions and overlapping. If they are not prepared to do so, they should say this clearly to the people outside so that no false expectations will be raised in connection with constitutional changes.

I think the examples I have given indicate clearly that there is confusion, inconsistency and lack of clear leadership. As a matter of fact, Sir, I would say that that has been the hall-mark of the situation ever since the new hon. Prime Minister took office. I am not attacking him personally in the least. Under the previous Prime Minister one at least knew that one need not expect anything but under this hon. Prime Minister one does not know at all what to expect. Consequently, uncertainty is rampant. The situation is moving to and fro continually and in this respect we need clear political leadership. But what we need above everything else, Sir, is a meaningful debate on the constitutional question in South Africa; not a debate on other population groups but a debate among the population groups. In this respect the PFP states clearly that it is in favour of a constitutional convention in which such a debate and such negotiations can take place. Each one of the various groups can then submit its policies and those can be discussed.

The PFP has formulated its policy in this respect. As far as this is concerned I must say that the most responsible and well-considered criticism of the policy of the PFP that I have heard on the part of the Government, has been that of the hon. member for Randburg. I asked that hon. member in particular to be present here this afternoon but he told me that unfortunately it would not be possible for him to be present. I think he went to some trouble because during the budget debate he gave a detailed analysis of our policy and dealt with it in detail. Of course, it is impossible to do so in respect of the policy of the Government or that of the other Opposition party because their policies lack detail. Our policy does contain detail, in fact. The hon. member went into it in detail and subjected every detail to precise criticism. His criticism was both valid and invalid and I want to consolidate the hon. member’s criticism briefly into five main points. The hon. member alleged that our 14 principles which are not negotiable had been reduced to seven and then to two. But that is not true because the two principles which I formulated, namely that there would be no domination or discrimination, simply constituted a condensed version of the 14 principles and can be traced back to each of those principles.

Secondly, the hon. member said that we had adopted Lijphart’s policy of consociative democracy … [Interjections.] Sir, I am reacting to the criticism of hon. members. The hon. member for Randburg alleged that we had adopted Lijphart’s consociative model holus bolus. That is not true. I spoke to Lijphart personally and he indicated clearly that there were important points of difference between the two policies. We investigated a whole series of societies at various stages of development. One thing became clear in that connection and that was that one could not take over a policy, a solution or a formula artificially from one society and transplant that on South Africa. That was why we fought shy of miracle formulae and tried to find our own solutions and draw up our own guide-lines.

Thirdly, the hon. member said that we had adopted some of the principles of the NP, especially with regard to groups. But it is precisely in respect of groups that there is a fundamental difference between us and the NP. We believe in the principle of free association while the NP believes in enforced association as far as group membership is concerned. The hon. member made a fourth statement and that was that our policy would destroy groups and group identities. That is another contradiction, Sir. That is definitely not true. According to our policy the artificial formation of groups is precisely what we do not want; we want to allow people to seek out and form their own groups on the basis of free association. [Interjections.]

What machinery do you use to achieve that?

Allow me, Sir, in this connection to quote from the Du Preez report. As I understand it, one of the main reasons why the Labour Party in the CRC will not co-operate with the Constitutional Committee is to be found on page 21 of the Du Preez report. It reads—

Every constitutional attempt in which this is done, in which an effort is made to apply race classification, does not have a snowball’s hope of succeeding in bringing about peace in South Africa. That is one of the fundamental points of view.

†Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I want to point out that the South African society is on the threshold of siege. [Interjections.] It is on the threshold of siege. It is poised on a knife edge between the declining possibility of peaceful constitutional change on the one hand, and the very real possibility of violence and confrontation on the other hand. The major agent that can prevent this is the White Government of South Africa, because it has the power to create the conditions for peaceful change or to precipitate violence and confrontation. A major condition for peaceful change in this country is that the Government will have to realize two things. Firstly, one cannot bluff people about the cardinal issues of conflict in South Africa, issues such as land, citizenship, the franchise, political power and independence. Secondly, the Government cannot force a new constitution down the throats of unwilling subjects. Any Government that deliberately ignores these things wilfully prepares the way for violence and confrontation. I am saying this advisedly because it is so serious.

The constitutional crisis which South Africa is experiencing becomes further complicated by the following factors, some of which partly flow from this crisis. I am referring to the increasing alienation of young Black people and their infatuation with socialism, the breakdown of communication with moderate Blacks, increasing racial polarization, the problems in the economy, where we have a soaring cost of living, and unemployment I am not going to argue the merits of all these factors. However, they are being compounded by external factors, such as increasing isolation, international hostility and rejection, wars on our borders, etc.

It is against the magnitude of these problems that I want to lodge a plea with the Government. The Government labours under the vain glorious illusion that it can solve its problems by relying on a numerical majority in this Parliament. It thinks that by calling a small White Opposition insulting names and by belittling them with derision, it strikes a blow for patriotism and good order. They can forget about it. We must tell them it is not going to work. [Interjections.] The problems of South Africa are not going to be solved by us working up hysteria on these green benches. They are only going to be solved by this Government going out and confronting those people, and by this Government entering into effective negotiation with those people. If it does not do so history will prove that when this Government was prepared to talk the rest were only prepared to fight. When that happens there is no longer the possibility of rational politics because we will finally have passed that threshold and we will have entered into a cycle of confrontation, to the detriment of all the children of South Africa. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, as many hon. members before me have probably stood in these benches with shaky legs—as I am doing today—I find comfort in the thought that I shall overcome it as they did. I shall probably survive the ordeal.

I want to convey my gratitude and appreciation to you, Mr. Speaker, as well as to every hon. member in this House, for the friendliness and goodwill which I have been accorded here.

It is with gratitude that I say that it is a great privilege for me to be able to represent the Beaufort West constituency in this House. It is a beautiful constituency, with very fine people. I can also state with great pride today that the former hon. Leader of this House, who has just retired, is a son of Beaufort West. The same applies to the present hon. Leader of this House, the hon. the Minister of Manpower Utilization. He is also a son of the Beaufort West constituency, and was born and went to school in Prince Albert. This is a fact which is perhaps not known to everyone, and I wanted to have it placed on record. In this way there are many hon. members in this House who took their first steps in the Beaufort West constituency. I am thinking of the hon. member for Pinetown, a Fraser-burger by birth, the hon. member for Verwoerdburg, who spent half his life in Fraserburg, and the hon. member for Springs.

Just as prickly pears grow everywhere, there is an exception among us as well. The hon. member for Green Point is also a Willistoner by birth, a town also situated in the Beaufort West constituency. [Interjections.]

To this list of political figures many others may still be added. One thinks of Dr. Chris Barnard and his brother, A. G. Visser, Ena Murray and Paula and others. Enough said about this.

On this occasion I also want to pay tribute to my predecessors who represented the Beaufort West constituency. They left a deep imprint I am referring to the late advocate Eric Louw and Dr. Hilgard Muller. They were of inestimable value to our country, not only at home but abroad as well. My family and I personally were deeply shocked at the death of my predecessor, not only because of our family relationship, but also because he and I were together elected unopposed, he as a member of the House of Assembly and I as a member of the Provincial Council. During the time we worked together, we acted with great respect and appreciation for one another. There was always the greatest and most cordial co-operation between us. He represented the Beaufort West constituency for 12 years in the provincial council and for a short while it was granted to him to do so in this House. During the time he represented Beaufort West, he did so with great zeal and loyalty. I represent the second-largest constituency. It is the “land of the vast expanses”. If one listens to the weather forecast, one will hear that it is fine and warm over the remainder of the area. That is the Karroo. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, you yourself, as a son of the Karroo, can testify that it is the heartland of the world. It is a wonderful place. That is where one is still able to find the hardy individual, but also the person who can go down on his knees at night and pray to the Almighty. Our continued existence in that part of the world is closely linked to nature. It is a sparsely populated area of vast expanses and one which very often has to do without privileges such as television because of its sparse population. It is an area which is unlikely to have great and spectacular development possibilities, owing to its size and lack of the means of communication and water.

Beaufort West, however, is a growing and developing town, where there are many possibilities for industrial development. I hope and trust that this will also take place here. There is constant prospecting for uranium, and new options are being taken out I hope and trust that uranium in that area will still make a great contribution to the economy of our country in future.

In the remainder of my constituency the land and its people are the greatest asset. As I have already tried to point out, the inhabitants there are hardy people who are anchored to the Karroo. As the animals which are farmed with there, the inhabitants of the Karroo must also become a part of it and must have grown up there to be able to adapt himself to it. As far as the farming pattern is concerned, it is an extensive stock farming area. Wool and meat are the two main products, and I could mention that three districts in that area, viz. Victoria West, Beaufort West, and Fraserburg produced wool to the value of more than R8,3 million during the 1977-’78 wool season. Consequently it is pre-eminently an earner of foreign exchange, with the exception of meat, that is. The Karroo is known to be the principal sheep farming and mutton-producing area. Meat of a very good quality can be produced there.

All these means of production are, however, closely linked to nature and, as I mentioned jokingly a moment ago, this region is known for its cyclical droughts, as is at present the case again in large parts of this constituency. Consequently I want to express my gratitude and appreciation to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture on this occasion for the auxiliary measures that have been announced in that area, and which are of tremendously great value and assistance to our farming population there. We also pray for early deliverance for those areas that have not yet had any rain. However, we can mention with gratitude that there are in fact areas that have had rain.

Society in the rural areas is very closely linked to the farming situation because, as I have already said, it is a sparsely populated area and when the farming conditions are unfavourable and a few families move, it has a very prejudicial effect on the entire social life of the community, such as the school, church and commerce. How favourable the farming situation is determines how well things go for the community. Consequently I want to confine myself to farming and related matters. Furthermore I want to refer to the drought cycles and desert encroachment which are two of the principal problems in the Karroo. For the rest it is a very healthy and pleasant part of the world.

The cyclical droughts are something which no one can do anything about. They are a constant feature of the north-western area of our country and of the Karroo. Coupled to this there is the encroachment of the desert, which is constantly creeping nearer. In this connection I want to quote Dr. P. W. Roux, Director of Agricultural Technical Services for the Karroo region. He said—

He went on to say—

Dr. Roux is of the opinion that precedence ought to be given to the Karroo region in respect of veld reclamation, so as to counteract in that way the detrimental effect of desert encroachment, or to reduce it to an acceptable rate. Dr. Roux went on to say—

According to Dr. Roux there are good reasons for believing that the nature of the rainfall contains the key to the gradual drying up of the Karroo areas.

The plea I want to make is therefore that there should be constant research to confine the effects of desert encroachment in the Karroo areas to the minimum. As for the cyclical droughts, my plea is that there should be constant assistance for the farmer in the north-west, so as to enable him to equip himself for the droughts—which often become disastrous—in better times, thus making it possible for the farmer to build up his own fodder bank. Unfortunately the Karroo is not a fodder-producing area, and when droughts occur, fodder has to be brought from the irrigation scheme at tremendous cost. Apart from that—when the Karroo areas need the fodder—it is not obtainable and the grazing is depleted and trampled to the utmost in that the farmer has to rely primarily on concentrates, and this also has an effect on desert encroachment. This will also enable the farmer to invest, to make provision for these times of drought. In my opinion, this will in turn result in positive steps. There will be a constant market for fodder, while we now have the problem that lucerne-producing areas, such as the Lower Orange River area are ploughing out lucerne and planting vines and other cash crops. It may be possible to avoid this if there can be a stable market for that fodder.

Secondly, it will stabilize employment. In the north-western areas agriculture remains the most important provider of employment, and droughts also have the effect of causing unemployment, precisely in times when work is very scarce. A third point is that this will obviate the State having to make major decisions on large amounts of money which suddenly have to be made available to drought-stricken disaster areas. It will now be possible to do this over a longer period.

Our veld reclamation scheme was to me one of the most wonderful examples of positive results with long-term planning. It reawakened the farmer’s awareness of conservation. It made him aware of his veld, and of rotation grazing in particular. And this is one of the main reasons why the disaster-stricken areas of the north-west have been able to hold out as well as they have been able to up to this stage. Rail transport is also a great cost item for the farmer owing to the long distances over which he has to convey his produce to the markets, and from whence he has to obtain his commodities. Consequently I want to advance a plea here today. Owing to the high fuel price, but also owing to the problems we are experiencing with fuel, I want to ask that a positive attempt be made to make provision for the conveyance of livestock in two- and three-tiered waggons, something which will make it possible for the farmer to restrict his costs to the minimum.

We cannot stop droughts. It is not within our power. What I am advocating today is that when the opportunity presents itself we should fill the granaries. We should fill the lamp with oil so that we shall be ready when the droughts come.

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Beaufort West very sincerely on his maiden speech. It was a very calm and excellent speech and he spoke from the heart about his constituency and the people he loves, and I can testify to that, for I once visited various parts of his constituency in the company of ex-Minister Hilgard Muller. It must be an exceptional privilege to know that one has come to this highest Council Chamber in South Africa with the confidence of the people of Beaufort West to represent those fine people and that beautiful area. I should like to wish the hon. member and his wife a long life and a fruitful one. I trust that this will be only the first speech of many which he will be privileged to be able to make here, to the benefit and strengthening of the cause of the NP, and in the interests of South Africa.

The hon. member came to the House of Assembly from the provincial council, while I am going from the House of Assembly to the provincial council. It was the hon. member’s first speech here, but this is my last. That just goes to show that we are living in a world of constant “comings and goings”. Consequently I am not standing here today without a touch of sadness in my heart, realizing that this is indeed the last speech which I may make in this hon. House. However, I am also standing here with gratitude in my heart. Gratitude for the exceptional privilege which I have had of being able to be in this House for a period of six and a half years. There was first a period of one year and four months when I represented the constituency of Malmesbury, of which my home town Durbanville formed a part. Then, since March 1974, I have for the ensuing five and a quarter years been representing the new constituency of Durbanville, a constituency which only then came into existence. This constituency, unlike the Beaufort West constituency, is not the second largest or the largest in area, but it is apparently the largest or at least the second largest as far as numbers are concerned. It is a fine constituency with wonderful people. Not only did I represent the voters, but my voters became friends of mine. I lived in very close contact with my voters and that is why it is all the more difficult for me on this occasion to realize that this is the last occasion on which I can speak on their behalf.

I would not have exchanged the past 6½ years for all the money in the world. I have been afforded an opportunity of being here, of forming a very small and humble component of the large and powerful parliamentary machine, which might at first sight appear to be clumsy, yet which functions very effectively. It afforded me the opportunity of being able to learn from dutiful, kind and hardworking colleagues. It afforded me the opportunity of ascertaining political trends by listening to the contributions or lack of contributions by political parties in the House. It also afforded me the opportunity of learning at the feet of motivated national leaders. We were privileged to have such people in recent years. I also came to realize that in this process one was only a humble pawn, that one is only an instrument, an object, in the hand of the Almighty from whom one receives one’s guidance every moment of the day.

On this occasion I should like to pay a short tribute to my constituency of Durbanville. I believe that this constituency has, since its inception, made a remarkably positive contribution to the South African politics. In the first place I should just like to dwell for a moment, from an historical point of view, on our former State President and former esteemed Prime Minister, Adv. B. J. Vorster. It is interesting that it was in fact in Durbanville that he had the privilege of making his very first public political speech. It was on the occasion of the election campaign prior to the general election of 18 May 1938. Durbanville was at the time part of the Stellenbosch constituency. Our candidate was Mr. Bruckner de Villiers and the United Party candidate was Adv. H. A. Fagan. At the time it was rather a pro-United Party constituency. At that time candidates and their representatives held meetings in the same constituency on the same evening at different venues. While the candidate, Mr. De Villiers, was due to speak at Stellenbosch one evening and an English-speaking NP organizer, Mr. Montgomery, had to attend a meeting in the Strand, another speaker had to appear in Durbanville, but he had become indisposed a few hours previously, as a result of which the candidate, Mr. De Villiers, directed Mr. Vorster who was then a student in his final year and a “Dagbreker” on short notice—it was a question of two hours—to get dressed and address the meeting in Durbanville. He was brought there by car. His instructions that evening were not to speak for 10 or 20 minutes, as the Whips allow us to do here, but to speak until such time as Mr. Montgomery was finished in the Strand and could race through to Durbanville to take over there. Mr. Vorster had to speak for an hour and a half before Mr. Montgomery turned up. i The most interesting part is that there were two very intelligent questioners at that meeting who fired a spate of questions at Mr. Vorster—two fellow “Dagbrekers”. The one was the well-known writer, Mr. F. A. Venter, and the other became a very well-known politician. I am referring now to Mr. Japie Basson. [Interjections.] I would like to say that Mr. Vorster won a vote of confidence at that meeting …

Which side won?

… but unfortunately the NP lost. [Interjections.]

The second milestone in respect of which I should like to pay tribute to my constituency was when our present hon. Prime Minister participated—in March 1974 we became a marginal constituency—and dynamically took charge of our closing meeting, after which the outcome of a majority of more than 3 000 changed Durbanville from a marginal constituency to a safe NP constituency. A few years later, on 2 March 1977, Durbanville was privileged to be able to strike a far more telling blow, not only for the NP but also for South Africa. The faltering UP participated in that election in Durbanville and that party was led by Sir De Villiers Graaff who was a voter of Durbanville. It was also led by its Cape leader, Mr. Myburgh Streicher, who was also a voter of Durbanville at the time and who has, during the past year, devoted himself in a particularly dedicated way to the cause of the NP. It was in other words a struggle between the NP and the old United Party, with all its leaders as voters in the same constituency. As our other opponent we had the PFP, a party that had with great pomp and circumstance announced a year before that it had set its sights on the Durbanville constituency. It then appointed certain organizers because that was the constituency in which it had to be proved that Afrikaans speaking people were coming over to the PFP. The outcome of the election there was that the candidates of both Opposition parties lost their deposits. A feature of the election there was that it was the very last election in the whole of South Africa in which the United Party participated. It was also a special occasion in that the NP increased its majority within a question of 2½ years from more than 3 000 to considerably more than 6 000.

The third privilege which was accorded to Durbanville was to succeed, during the general election in November 1977, as a result of a wonderful spirit of spontaneous cooperation among voters of all the communities, in establishing a South African record in the sense that the largest number of votes ever polled in a constituency in favour of a particular party was polled in Durbanville for the NP, i.e. 10 965. That is why I should like to thank the NP on this occasion on behalf of Durbanville because the party gave Durbanville the opportunity, as a constituency, of saying thank you to the NP.

During the past 6½ years I have had great and almost famous bench companions. My very first one was Dr. L. A. P. A. Munnik who shared the same bench with me for 2½ years. Perhaps it is partly owing to my good influence that he was promoted, after little more than two years, to Administrator of the Cape. It so happens that it is now my privilege to replace him in that office.

He was followed by an equally competent hon. member whom I should like to mention by name: The hon. F. W. de Klerk, the present Minister of Mines and of Environmental Planning and Energy. He also spent approximately two years under my wings, and was then promoted directly to the Cabinet.

His successor was Mr. Dawie de Villiers. Well, he learned very quickly because within a matter of a year he became ambassador.

I find now that I learned so much from my three bench companions that, although it took me longer, I am also being promoted after 6½ years.

Since I have now been referring to my former bench companions, I must say that I have not yet mentioned the name of the greatest of the great. I am referring now to my good friend Oom Sporie van Rensburg, or rather the hon. member for Rosettenville. Occasionally he and I were referred to in this House as Sadat and Begin. [Interjections.] I may have the appearance of an affluent European magnate, but that appearance certainly creates the wrong impression. On the other hand the curve in my bench companion’s nose is in exactly the right place. I believe that we were a unique team here. He is a good person, a person with absolute integrity and of unimpeachable character. If Oom Sporie van Rensburg does not go to heaven one day, none of us have the slightest chance of doing so either. [Interjections.] I include in that the hon. member for Pinelands and all the clergymen on this side of the House.

I have been exceptionally blessed to have this wonderful appointment as Administrator of the Cape fall to my lot. I am delighted to be able to represent the mother province of South Africa in this capacity in future. It is said that the civilization of the South moved to the North.

It is told on very good authority that when the trekkers began their trek, when they left the south and trekked northwards, a large number of them grew tired at the halfway stage. At the halfway stage they rested, and those who remained there became Free Staters. Those who still had sufficient strength got up and continued the advance, and half of them were able to read. They followed the signpost pointing off to the right to Natal, and became Natalians. The rest trekked on until they could go no further and they, so I am told, are now known as Transvalers! Despite all the shortcomings of the other three provinces, I nevertheless feel that we shall be able to co-operate very satisfactorily.

It is my particular privilege that the other Administrators were my colleagues here, that we know one another very well and that we will consequently be able to co-operate most cordially. I want to give them the assurance that the Cape will always play its part Even though they take our culture and our trophies away from us and even if our children may not be able to play rugby any more, at least we shall still be able to play cricket and in this way the Cape will always play its part.

It is a tremendous challenge for me to accept the post as Administrator of the Cape. I believe that there is an enormous task to fulfil, particularly that of laying the foundations on which the new constitutional disposition will have to be built deeply and securely. I believe that we will have to be in earnestly about developing a sound system and infrastructure on which our entire system of local government can be based and on which it can be firmly constructed. In the same process, I think, we shall have a great task in developing ethnic relations, race relations, human relations and attitudes to the utmost of our ability and strength. In this respect as well I want to try to make my humble contribution and if I am so privileged as to succeed in that, I believe that it could be something wonderful. I have no illusions about my task, and I undertake to do it to the best of my ability.

The hon. the Minister of Finance is now among us again. A very fine relationship has developed between the hon. the Minister and the Durbanville constituency. I believe that if there is one province in South Africa which is very close to Natal, then it is the Cape Province, for obvious reasons. Whereas I am sincere and in earnest and I believe that we have a tremendous task to perform for South Africa, we shall not be able to do so without money. I do not know very much about the provincial council, but I do know that for what we want to achieve, we shall need money. I also know that occasionally we shall have to ask for a little more money. I have confidence in the hon. the Minister and believe that he in order to help us with this task he will, to the best of his ability, come down a little harder on other people to help our provinces, and in particular the mother province, the Cape, a little. I am thanking him in advance because he is nodding his head in confirmation, in the presence of so many witnesses. [Interjections.]

In conclusion I say thank you very much to the Press. Sometimes they did not report me, sometimes they did report me and added a sentence or two which I had not spoken, but what they added was always a little better than I would have been able to say it myself. I had only the best relationship with them, and I am very satisfied with them and I should like to continue this relationship in future as well. It was wonderful.

To you, Mr. Speaker, with your deputies, I want to say thank you very much. You were competent, quiet and reliable adjudicators, and it was a privilege for me to be able to serve under you as well.

Thank you very much to the hon. the Prime Minister for his powerful leadership: As leader in the Cape of the National Party, as Leader of this House for a long time and at present as our esteemed Prime Minister. My sincere thanks to the hon. the Ministers and the Deputy Ministers for their particular assistance, kindness and the privilege of being able to learn from them as well.

My sincere thanks to the Whips who always reprimanded me in a friendly way. My cordial thanks to my good colleagues for their good fellowship.

My sincere thanks to the Secretary and his staff for their helpfulness.

My sincere thanks to my parents and parents in law for their encouragement and in particular to my father from whom I learned my politics and who died 12 years ago. My sincere thanks as well to my wife and children who stood by and supported me in a special way with their love.

In conclusion my sincere thanks to a Guiding Hand from above that supported me with strength and mercy and that will have to help me further in future.

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to congratulate the hon. member for Durbanville on his promotion to Administrator of the Cape. In his speech this afternoon this hon. member referred quite extensively to the political history of the Durbanville constituency, as well as to the great spirits that have been active there. Inter alia, it was also my privilege to play a small part in this history of that constituency. Early in 1977 I came a cropper there and lost my deposit, but fortunately I can also add that that was apparently the stepping stone to this House, for in the same year I succeeded in capturing the Wynberg constituency. Perhaps it was in fact owing to the experience which I gained in Durbanville. With regard to Durbanville there is still this one statement I wish to make: In the by-election, early in that year, I polled approximately 1 500 votes, and in the general election which followed a few months afterwards, the PFP increased its total number of votes to more than 2 200, if I remember correctly.

Gosh, but that is a lot of votes!

We are making progress, and if one is able to increase one’s total number of votes by 50% every time, then one is well on one’s way.

On one’s way to where?

At the same time it is my privilege to congratulate the hon. member for Beaufort West on his maiden speech. The hon. member has just left the House, but I still wish to say that we are pleased to have an additional agriculturist here in this House. I am certain he will be able to make a good contribution here.

Furthermore, I wish to avail myself of this opportunity of referring to the agricultural industry. I am sorry that neither the hon. the Minister, nor the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, are able to be here, but there are a few other agriculturists who could perhaps react to this later. In April this year I asked the hon. the Minister of Agriculture whether the time had not arrived for the Government, and the hon. the Minister of Agriculture in particular, to announce an agricultural policy for South Africa. I said that it would be to the long-term advantage of South Africa if the hon. the Minister were able to do so. I also said that it was clear that the time had arrived for a comprehensive agricultural policy to be worked out for South Africa, so that the smaller as well as the middle-ranking farmer could see what was awaiting him in future, and what he could expect from his industry. That same day the hon. the Minister reacted to my question, and replied as follows (Hansard, 1979, col. 5241)—

In the next column the hon. the Minister came to that and said—

I think it is in fact in a country like South Africa, where we experience problems with weather conditions, and where we experience problems with the marketing of our produce, that an agricultural policy is absolutely necessary. I want to suggest tonight that the Government, up to this stage, has not really taken the trouble to work out a comprehensive agricultural policy for South Africa and to make that policy known to South Africa’s farmers. In my opinion this is the principal reason for the critical situation which prevails in the agricultural sector today. As a matter of interest, it seems as though Die Burger is absolutely on the side of the PFP today, as far as politics is concerned. In this morning’s edition of the newspaper we read the following. The headline of the report is—

Now I wish to quote from the report itself.

Is this Prog policy now?

Everything which is shocking is Prog policy.

Mr. Speaker, I quote—

It seems to me that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture cannot be held solely responsible for the situation. When one listens to agriculture debates in this House and also when one looks at the estimates, one gets the impression that the entire Cabinet does not really care about…

That is absolute nonsense! [Interjections.]

… the producers of foodstuffs in South Africa. [Interjections.] It is frequently said …

You are talking in your sleep.

Mr. Speaker, it is frequently said that food prices should be kept low. Then hon. members on the opposite side are usually proud of the fact that the price of agricultural produce is being kept low. Frequently, too, comparisons are drawn between what applies in South Africa, and what applies in overseas countries. This may be the case. However, the question which one should put to the NP Government is this: How long can we go on expecting 70 000 producers to pay to feed the people of South Africa? If the price of agricultural produce, and particularly that of foodstuffs, has to be kept inexpensive to a certain extent, the subsidies for that purpose should be increased so that everyone can make a contribution to this. To ensure that there is no misunderstanding about this, it is necessary for me to remind hon. members that the burden of debt of the farming community during the past few years—I am referring now to the period 1976 to 1978—increased from R2 305 million to R2 878 million.

This is the third time this year that you have said that.

It is in fact the third time that I have quoted these figures. However, for the third time now, nothing is being done about the situation. [Interjections.] I shall continue to repeat these figures until the hon. the Minister and his hon. colleagues in the Cabinet try to do something to rectify this situation. [Interjections.] Hon. members on the opposite side do not understand these figures. Nor do they understand the implications of the figures. [Interjections.] During the past five years producer prices increased by 11,8% per annum, while the prices of farming requisites rose by 14,8% per annum. This gap is growing all the time.

I come then to the next statement I want to make. In 1977 South Africa’s fuel account amounted to R400 million. It is now calculated that, with the new fuel prices, the country’s fuel account will soar to R600 million per annum. In addition it must also be made clear that the Government’s shortage of an agricultural policy …

You probably mean the lack of an agricultural policy?

… or rather, the lack of an agricultural policy, does not take into account that there are more or less 30 people dependent on each of the approximately 70 000 farmers. Consequently, when I discuss the problems of the agricultural policy and the agricultural sector, I am also referring to approximately 2 million people whose welfare is dependent on the welfare of the farming community in South Africa.

Two weeks ago new fuel prices were announced in this country. This means that an additional amount of approximately R150 million will be added to the input costs during the next few months. Which hon. Minister, Minister of Finance or senior hon. member of this House put forward any suggestions as to how the farming community will be able to cope with these new input costs? It is clear that no attention has yet been given to these problems.

Oh please, surely you are talking nonsense now. In what debate should this have been done?

In this debate, if not on another occasion. Where in this debate has the hon. the Minister of Agriculture replied to these problems facing the farming community?

Where were you yesterday evening?

That does not matter. I was here. The hon. the Minister did not discuss ways in which the new fuel prices could be recovered.

Did you tell him you were going to speak today?

I told him that I was going to speak today and he explained that unfortunately he would not be able to be here.

Why did you not say so?

Who is going to reply to the questions I am asking?

Your questions are not important! [Interjections.]

In addition I think it will be necessary for the PFP to put forward a few suggestions on behalf of the farmers of South Africa. [Interjections.] In this way we shall at least be able to deal with some of these problems.

In the first place I would say that the State should consider whether it is not possible to take a far smaller bite out of agricultural diesel fuel. What I mean by that is whether the tax and other levies on agricultural diesel fuel could not be reduced to a far greater extent. This is the first suggestion I want to put forward. Secondly, an in-depth cost calculation should be of the fertilizer industry in South Africa to establish whether that industry is not making unreasonably high profits. Does the hon. member for Parys agree with me on that score?

I do not have the reports on that at my disposal.

Thirdly, I would say that if the South African fertilizer industry cannot reduce the costs sufficiently and the possibility exists of importing fertilizer, the Government should really see whether this cannot be done. Does the hon. member agree that this is also in the national interest?

Yes.

Right. Fourthly— and this idea is not unique—we suggest that the general sales tax on such foodstuffs as bread, milk and maize should be lifted.

All your ideas are old ones.

It is an old idea, but it has to be expressed once again because the hon. members do not want to understand it, give no attention to it and have made no suggestion as to what could in fact be done. [Interjections.] If it is being done or if there is any intention that this will in fact be done, I should like to hear a reply on this matter from the hon. the Minister of Finance. [Interjections.]

Fifthly, I wish to suggest that consideration be given at this early stage already to increased subsidies on foodstuffs. I said that we cannot expect the farmer to bear the cost of food at low prices himself. It just cannot be done, and everyone agrees on that. [Interjections.] If it were then to be necessary to keep the prices of those products artificially low, which I in fact believe is going to be the case, the hon. the Minister of Finance will have to start giving attention to this matter even now. In the sixth place …

It is nice to be able to play Father Christmas with other people’s money.

It is my money as well, and the general taxpayers money. We shall have to rectify our priorities. It is no use talking about Father Christmas, because the country needs food which it can afford to buy. I am sorry the hon. the Minister of Agriculture is not present, because I also wanted to raise a few matters concerning agricultural councils, but in any case I see that my time has expired.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened attentively to the speech of the hon. member for Wynberg, although I was more interested in the earlier speech by the hon. member for Rondebosch. I always thought I knew very little indeed about agriculture, but now I feel much better, for I have encountered one member who knows less about agriculture than I. [Interjections.] It amazes me that there are members of the PFP who pose in this House as representatives of agriculture. They are limited to a shrinking comer of a few cities in South Africa, with a certain type of our population who will never become a majority in South Africa. The PFP has never contested a rural constituency in our country with any semblance of success, and in the latest by-election they contested in a rural area they lost their deposit in a humiliating way. The hon. member for Wynberg is a farmer himself, but as long as he belongs to the PFP, he cannot speak about the farmers with any conviction whatsoever.

Why don’t you do something about the problems of the farmers, then?

I want to mention just one example of the superficiality of the hon. member’s argument, because I do not want to waste my time on him. Probably in order to gain popularity among his voters in the cities, the hon. member says that general sales tax should no longer be levied on agricultural products …

He is quite right.

Is the hon. member quite right? The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South is somebody else who began to farm in his old age and who has learnt nothing. [Interjections.] If those goods are to be exempted from taxation, the funds will have to be found elsewhere.

That is exactly what I said.

That is exactly what has happened in other countries. In Britain one finds, for example, that they have a similar tax in the form of value added tax. Until recently, VAT was 10%. Then the Labour Government began to give one exemption after another, and that tax has now risen to 15%. The hon. the Minister of Finance informs me that if all agricultural products …

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

No, I am in the middle of my argument now. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister of Finance informs me that if all agricultural products and processed agricultural products were to be exempted from this tax …

No one suggested that all agricultural products should be exempted. [Interjections.]

Wait a minute. Give me a chance. If this were to happen, our tax would probably have to be increased by 50%. [Interjections.] This means that everyone in the country would be worse off. The other day a member of the NRP said by way of interjection that the reduction was not for the farmers, but for the consumer. It is no use saying it is for the consumer, because both the farmer and the consumer would have to pay more in taxes. That is why I say that I really do not want to devote much attention to the superficial and ill-considered arguments of the hon. member for Wynberg, who is a member of a party who cannot lay any claim to representing the farmers of South Africa.

I was more interested in what the hon. member for Rondebosch had to say. I listened to his speech with great interest, because he came somewhat closer to doing something for which I and many other hon. members on this side of the House have been waiting almost six months now. That is to tell us something about the PFP’s national congress which they held and the new constitutional plan they accepted there, mainly on the basis of recommendations made by a committee they appointed under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Rondebosch. For almost six months we have been waiting to hear about it in this Parliament, so that it may be discussed, analysed, tested and argued about. [Interjections.] This afternoon, for the first time, the hon. member for Rondebosch said something about it. He did not really tell us anything, except for answering a few questions put to him by the hon. member for Randburg, and making a few denials. For six months they remained bashful, furtive, scared and unconvincing … [Interjections.] It was so bad that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had to say only today … [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must give the hon. the Minister a chance to complete his speech.

Only today the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had to say he was sorry that the session had in many respects not been a realistic one. He said that too much time had been devoted to matters such as the Information scandal. But who is principally responsible for choosing the subjects of debate, especially in the financial debates and in the general debates such as the one on the motion of no confidence? With whom does the initiative lie? It lies with the Opposition. It lies largely with them. Surely, in the space of almost six months, they could have devoted two half-hours to a discussion of this constitutional matter across the floor of this House. However, they did not do so, and I say with great conviction that they dared not do so, for if ever there was an ill-conceived affair, if ever there was something which was doomed to failure from the start, if ever there was something which would have made people roar with laughter if they had been expected to take it seriously, it is the constitutional policy of the PFP. [Interjections.] They concentrated on the Information affair and on what I to call political gimmicks. As an example I may mention their deplorable conduct the other day with regard to the motion concerning the address to the former State President, Mr. B. J. Vorster, and that simply in order to score a few political points in an attempt to impress the people. All they are doing, however, is to disgrace themselves. They make other people feel ashamed that people can behave in such a way in the Parliament of South Africa.

The so-called Information scandal— because they have exaggerated it endlessly— is something that the people are sick and tired of. The people realize that this Government has thoroughly investigated the matter, that this Government has scrutinized the affair and taken all the necessary steps to put right what was wrong and to make sure it never happens again in the future. The Government has done so by means of legislation such as the measure with regard to the Advocate-General, the Information Service Special Account and the State Trust Fund. All this has been done. They have had their chances. They had a chance in Swellendam and in Randfontein and in fact they exploited the situation up to the hilt. In both cases, however, they lost their deposits. In both cases the NRP did better than they. Can they not see that the peoples of South Africa expect every party in this House to give a clear explanation of its vision of the future of South Africa with its great problems? However, they allow a whole session to go by. Last year they did the same thing. They said they would hold a congress and come back with a policy, but not a single hon. member of this House has learnt anything about that policy over the past five or six months. This is really disgraceful, pathetic, pitiable. South Africa deserves something better than an Opposition such as the one we have, a point-scoring Opposition without any policy or direction or backbone. [Interjections.] That is what has happened in connection with the Information affair. But then there is also the question of Mr. B. J. Vorster.

The hon. members of the PFP will not determine the place that Mr. B. J. Vorster will occupy in the history of South Africa. Time and history will determine this. I am glad and grateful that this Government had the courage to state emphatically the other day that we found nothing in the report of the Erasmus Commission that reflected upon the integrity of Mr. Vorster, and we stand by that. I also say with the greatest confidence that the historians in South Africa will give Mr. John Vorster his rightful place in the future as a remarkable man, as an outstanding leader and as a courageous man, a man who had the right insight at the right time and place. That is what will be written about him in the history of South Africa. The petty conduct of that little party of petty people will in no way detract from that. Their tactics have failed pitiably. However, that failure is only a part of that party’s failure, not only in Parliament, but outside as well. As a party they are on the decline. They are fast losing the respect of the public of South Africa, including their own voters. They have already lost the respect of most of the voters, seven-eighths of them, and now they are losing it among the other eighth as well.

In order that hon. members may realize how stupid one can be in politics, I want to point out some of the mistakes made by that party. The one is that in the year 1979, 19 years after we become a Republic, they actually made another attempt, as they are constantly doing, to create racial conflict in South Africa between English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people. One has only to read The Cape Times. Day after day they make heated attacks on the Government. That is their right, of course, and I shall fight for their right to do so. But they do not attack the Government or the NP. They always attack “Nationalist Afrikanerdom”. “Afrikanerdom” is always being mentioned in the editorials of The Cape Times. “Afrikanerdom” is the target of heated attacks and scathing criticism. But all the time they mean the Government and the NP. In this morning’s Cape Times, there is an article under the heading “South African editors tell United States of Muldergate”.

It is disgraceful.

Yes, it is disgraceful. Two editors, one of them Mr. Alistair Sparks of the Rand Daily Mail, made speeches before the Press Club, I believe, in Washington, bitterly attacking the Government throughout. It is not in very good taste to attack the Government abroad. Every time, too, the Government is identified as “National Afrikanerdom”. Why do they do that? They speak of “the whole monolithic edifice of Afrikaner nationalism” and “the Afrikaners under Dr. Verwoerd”. They do not talk about the NP, but about “Afrikaner Nationalist leadership”, etc. Surely that will get us nowhere. Nor is it true that the NP represents only the Afrikaners today.

The NP—one must be objective—came into power for the first time in 1924 thanks to a political agreement with a predominantly English-speaking Labour Party under colonel Creswell and men such as Mr. Samson, Mr. Madeley and others. That is how the NP came to power. It was not an exclusive national Afrikanerdom. Dr. Malan said time and again—and I did not believe him at the time, but I shall show hon. members how true his words were—that it was the standpoint of the NP to bring together under its wing those who belong together. This is happening before our eyes today. Just look at the English-speaking members of this House and of the Senate today. As we advance—and we are still advancing—the representation of English-speaking Nationalists in the Parliament of South Africa will increase. It is inevitable. Just look at this House. Bastions of English-speaking parties opposed to the NP are today represented in this House by Nationalists. One thinks of Albany, Griqualand East, East London City and Pinetown. Could anyone have thought for one moment a few years ago that those seats would be represented in this House by Nationalists? I am not saying this in order to boast. I myself have no reason to boast. It is my party that has done this. But let us consider what happened in Turffontein. Turffontein was an NP seat. In the 1973 elections, the member of Parliament for Turffontein predicted that his party would win by more than a thousand votes, but in spite of that the NP won the seat by 330 votes. In 1974, the NP won that same seat by 6 660 votes—the same seat, with the same boundaries and the same voters’ roll. This increase was owing to the English-speaking people, because the Afrikaans-speaking people were already voting for us in the 1973 election. But the PFP, and its Press in particular, persist in telling their followers and their readers that they are engaged in a struggle against an unreasonable, racist, anti-English “Nationalist Afrikanerdom”. In this way they are doing South Africa a disservice, and that is unforgivable. It would not serve any purpose for me to ask them not to do South Africa such a disservice, because they do it every day of their lives. Perhaps it will help if I tell them that they are doing themselves a disservice and destroying themselves. The people of South Africa are sick and tired of that old form of racism which existed in South Africa 30 and 40 years before we became a Republic. At that time, this kind of feeling existed between White groups in South Africa. But because of this kind of conduct on the part of the PFP, the numbers of such racists are declining and they are being rejected and despised. This is the reason, too, why they are doomed to perpetual failure in South Africa. I should like to quote from a newspaper report on what Mr. Sparks said, as follows—

It is one of the chief spokesmen of the PFP who is saying this, the editor of the Rand Daily Mail. He is their one-man think tank. This is what he tells the Press Club in Washington. Are these really the only two alternatives there are for South Africa? Must we on the one hand cling blindly to White domination until we are bound to lose, or must we on the other hand begin to make concessions, knowing full well that this will mean our eventual disappearance, except as a minority in somebody else’s country? Surely that is not true. It is true, though, of the PFP. That is their view of the matter. They do not want White domination, and now they want to make concessions, knowing full well that those concessions will lead the White man to become a tolerated minority in somebody else’s country. However, there are some other alternatives as well.

†The New Republic Party has another alternative. The hon. member for Mooi River has repeatedly tried to explain that policy to us. He came here with a contraption consisting of balls to explain his policy. I am sure that the symbolism of that will not be lost on the public of South Africa. [Interjections.]

Will you debate this with us over television?

I am debating this in the Parliament of South Africa. I debate where debate matters, and that is in the Parliament of South Africa. The NRP has an alternative policy. I grant them that. The National Party has an alternative policy as well. We have an alternative policy and that is based upon the principle of self-determination for the peoples of South Africa. We have a policy based upon the independence of the various Black peoples in their own States. We have a policy based on the independence in their own States of the Black people of South Africa and we have a policy based upon the principle of bringing together the Coloureds and the Indians in a proper constitutional device.

What about the Blacks?

Order! The hon. member for Bryanston must please contain himself.

We have a clear policy for the Coloureds, the Indians and the Whites of South Africa and we are willing to put it before the people. There is a Select Committee which is going to sit until next year to give everybody a chance to look at our policy, to criticize it, to improve upon it or to give us acceptable alternatives if they can. But we do have a clear policy.

Let us now look at the policy of the PFP. I see that the author of this policy, according to Mr. Joel Mervis in the Sunday Times, is the hon. member for Rondebosch. He wrote the policy. He is responsible for it, not the committee, according to Mr. Joel Mervis, the editor of the Sunday Times. But where is he now? I was hoping that he would be here, because we and the people outside want information about that policy. [Interjections.] I want to look at this policy. Firstly, they say—and this is the only sensible thing they say—that the principle of “one man, one vote”, as exists in the Westminster system, is not practicable for South Africa. They are departing from the unitary system, the Western system. They follow the NP, who took the suggestion from the Erika Theron Commission two years ago. They now admit that we are right and try to follow us. However, that was the only sensible point I could find in their whole plan. The rest is nonsense, as hon. members will see.

Secondly, they say that they reject majority government. Instead of majority government they want government by consensus, government by consensus on the level of a national council, their lower house, and even in the Cabinet, according to Mr. Joel Mervis. There will have to be consensus all the time. There will also be proportional representation, even in the Cabinet. Mr. Mervis gives the example of a Cabinet with 50% of one group, 30% of another group and 20% of yet another group, according to the result of an election on the basis of proportional representation. In other words, they ensure a built-in conflict in their whole plan. But then they even go a little bit further and say that in addition they will give a right of veto to any minority group having 10% to 15% of the people supporting it. This is another built-in point of frustration, not only of the people, but also of the Government under the PFP in power. I have had the opportunity of looking at the constitutions of many countries in the world. Many of them have built-in safeguards in which I believe; many of them have a federal system; some of them have vetos, but not by 10% of anybody; they have vetos, for example, by the President of the United States. But each one of them, without exception—the only exception I have ever discovered is in the plan of the PFP—has machinery for the resolution of deadlocks. That is why I miss the hon. member for Rondebosch now. He has apparently run away. I asked this question in the no-confidence debate and I said that I looked forward during the course of the session to learn from the PFP what machinery they had in their constitutional plan for the resolution of deadlock. We are still waiting.

What machinery have you got on your Cabinet Council? Absolute baasskap.

Order! Does the hon. member wish to ask a question? The hon. member must stand up if he wishes to put a question.

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

I am not prepared to yield to the hon. member, but I shall tell him what he wants to know. First of all we say that if there is a difference of opinion which cannot be resolved by consensus in the Cabinet Council, the matter concerned will be referred to a Select Committee of each of the three Parliaments. They will get together and try to find one another. If that fails, however, the responsibility will fall on the elected State President of South Africa to give a decision … [Interjections.] Wait a minute. They may like it or not, but I am not asking them to like it. One cannot have a constitution without machinery to resolve deadlocks, and this is our machinery. What is their machinery? What is their plan, and how will they make it impossible for a recalcitrant minority to paralyse government in South Africa? They say the only things that will not be subject to this veto are the election of the Prime Minister, financial matters and certain administrative matters. Everything else, e.g. the defence of the country, the declaration of war, even a defensive war, can be vetoed by a recalcitrant 10% of the population, and they have no machinery to resolve that deadlock. Yet they want the people of South Africa to take such a plan seriously and to look upon it as a plan for the future constitutional development of South Africa.

They go further and talk about dividing South Africa into geographic states, and they maintain that the smaller these states are, the better. In this regard I want to say that they should have a look at a very interesting publication, “South Africa: A Cartographic Profile of a Plural Society,” published by the Geography Department of the University of Pretoria. This publication shows that the White people of South Africa are in the minority in every magisterial district of South Africa, except two. The one is Pretoria, and the other I cannot clearly identify, but is somewhere in the Vereeniging/Vanderbijlpark/Sasolburg area. It is therefore no wonder that they advance this idea of proportional representation, because how else can they ensure representation by minorities? It should be remembered that the constitutional problem in South Africa relates to the security and the future of minorities. They therefore have to make concessions to ethnicity. Last year they told us that ethnicity was abhorrent to them. They would not concede it.

No. We have never said that.

Now they have changed their minds.

*The hon. members write as follows in one of their publications—

So this is another concession, and although it is very reserved and meaningless, it is nevertheless an intellectual concession to the sound standpoint of the NP. It is simply incredible. The hon. members say that if a group or a combination of groups represents 10% to 15% of the population, it will be able to paralyse government. They also say that these groups must however recognize ethnicity as well. Apart from ethnicity, the groups can also be formed on the basis of culture, language, religious belief, economic interests, regional interests, ideologies and other aspects which they do not mention. Can hon. members imagine the jumble and the absolute confusion which can result from this?

Harry is a group on his own.

Yes, the hon. member for Yeoville would be a group on his own on the basis of his interests. I cannot understand it. After all, the hon. members are all adults, they are over 21 and most of them have university qualifications, but in spite of that they go to the people with such nonsense. In the light of this we can understand why we have waited the whole session, 5½ months, without hearing a single word about what was probably meant to be the most important congress in the history of the PFP.

The hon. members make one more important statement which in my opinion is the only credible aspect of their policy. I do not think it could succeed, but still, it is something in which they can really believe, i.e. that if they came into power—it is very difficult to imagine this, but one must indulge in flights of the imagination to be able to discuss it—this type of government and the system we are following at the moment will continue unchanged until a national convention can be held at which everyone will be represented, except those people who advocate the violent overthrow of the State. About this principle, the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Houghton fought bitterly at the congress, because originally these people were also included. They say the Government will continue unchanged, until the national convention has worked out a new constitution for South Africa, a constitution drawn up in detail and on the basis of consensus. They say that consensus must be so clear that there will not even have to be a vote at the national convention. [Interjections.] It must be so clear that it will not even be voted on at the national convention. So the consensus will have to arise spontaneously, like something created by the hand of the Almighty. [Interjections.] [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Community Development has, as is his custom, thoroughly castigated the Opposition.

Castigated?

Never mind, Andrew, you wouldn’t know what that means in any case.

As is usually the case, it was sheer pleasure to us sitting here at the back to listen to his logical reasoning and the way in which he tore the so-called policy of the PFP to pieces. [Interjections.]

Actually, I do not wish to participate in the debate itself. I am merely providing a little respite so that the hon. members of the Opposition may recover their breath. I therefore request the indulgence of hon. members for a small task I have to perform.

On 5 June, when this House discussed the premature supplying to certain newspapers of copies of the Supplementary Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Alleged Irregularities in the Former Department of Information, the hon. the Minister of the Interior undertook to report to the House on the investigations into the events. Since there has been no other opportunity of reporting to the House, I am now supplying the following information to the House. I am doing so on behalf of the hon. the Minister of the Interior—

That suffices as far as this matter is concerned. Then, the hon. member for Durban Point returned in his speech yesterday to a matter he had raised during the debate on the Supplementary Report of the Erasmus Commission. He asked here whether an assurance could be given to him that persons would be compensated for financial losses, as recommended by the Erasmus Commission. I read again from the report of the Minister of the Interior—

Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank the hon. the Deputy Minister for making the statement he has just made. As he said, it is not really part of this debate. Yet on behalf of hon. members in these benches I should like to say that we appreciate the fact that he has come here to make this statement. We are also very pleased to hear that the official in the office of the Government Printer, has not been found guilty of any ulterior motive.

I am also pleased to see that the hon. the Deputy Minister has seen fit to report on a request made by the hon. member for Durban Point. I am pleased to hear that this has now been referred to the Public Service Commission. I just want to assure the hon. the Deputy Minister that we shall be watching this very carefully to see the developments. I thank him for having responded in this way to the questions of the hon. member for Durban Point.

Getting back to the debate I must say that I am very disappointed in the hon. the Minister of Community Development. Yesterday, during the debate, the hon. member for Durban Point issued a challenge to hon. members on that side of the House. He said that South Africa was waiting to hear the Government’s viewpoint on the clear dispute which had developed between two hon. Ministers of this Government. I would have thought that a senior hon. Minister such as the hon. Minister of Community Development would have taken this opportunity to have said something about it. However, it is becoming extremely clear that the NP, especially their spokesman on certain important matters, are becoming South Africa’s past-masters at evading the issues.

I believe this is something we can all agree on. They are evading a very topical issue which occupies the minds of nearly all South Africans at the present time. They are also, I believe, past-masters at manipulating people. We saw the hon. the Minister of Community Development trying to stir the pot of nationalism again this afternoon. He accused the Opposition of using nationalism as a political weapon, but it is he who is stirring it up in the House. The Government plays on the emotions of people and I believe it is shocking the way they manipulate people and especially the love that patriotic South Africans have for their country. We saw «this during the 1977 election. We saw how the then Prime Minister used the power of television to project an image which led to the cry of “Be safe with Vorster”. The whole tenor of the election campaign was that the Government would stand against the total onslaught against South Africa. “Back me, back my party, and we will protect you,” was the cry we heard. And what happened? We know today that that whole election campaign was a case of manipulating people’s minds and we know now that the real issue was that the Info bubble was about to burst on us.

We saw it again in this debate on the issue over South Coast. We have heard what the hon. member for South Coast said about Black germs. The truth is on a tape for all to hear. But why do they use this sort of tactics in an election campaign? Once again they are trying to manipulate the fears that some people may have about these matters. Another hon. member, I think it was the hon. member for Umlazi, started to criticize the actions of the Natal Executive Council, in response to a statement by the NP candidate in South Coast. There is one thing the NRP can say and that is that if there is any question about the honour of the NRP or any of its members it will be taken straight to the Attorney-General. We do not duck and dive as the NP has done. [Interjections.] We will take it and ask for a legal opinion on it; we are not like the NP. These tactics are, however, wearing very thin. There are fundamental questions which have been raised in this debate and we want to know which direction the NP is going to take. The first question is whether the NP will follow the strict apartheid line, or will they move South Africa towards a form of federation or confederation that the hon. the Minister who is responsible for Black affairs in South Africa is talking about? One cannot go overseas, say one thing and then come back home and say something else. That is the sort of double talk that is damaging South Africa’s image overseas. [Interjections.]

One thing that South Africa does know is that so far the Government, after 31 years in office, has won no real friends outside South Africa and it has won no friends in Africa or in South Africa. [Interjections.] The facts are there for all to see.

My hon. leader said yesterday that leaders in Botswana have said that they are not interested in the grand vision of the Prime Minister of a constellation of States, because as long as people in South Africa are fighting for their freedom they do not want to have anything to do with South Africa. A little bit closer to home, what happened in the kwaZulu legislature a few weeks ago when it was announced during a debate that Mr. Vorster had resigned as State President? The reactions of the Zulu representatives were cries of “hear, hear” and “amen”. That is what happened when the representatives of the major Black group in South Africa heard the news.

The NP may not like these thoughts. They may say it is “a shame”, but that is the reality in South Africa today.

Chief Gatsha Buthelezi has rejected the NP’s independence fragmentation policy for South Africa. This very week we saw him on TV, and I heard with my own ears that Gatsha Buthelezi said that he was not interested in the Government’s policy but that he was interested in federation or confederation, as did Chief Sebe of the Ciskei and Professor Ntsanwise of Gazankulu. They are willing to accept the policy of the NRP. [Interjections.] I invite any hon. member to list the successes of the NP over the last 30 years in winning the hearts and minds of South Africa’s Black and Coloured population.

You can use a postage stamp!

Surely the only criterion for measuring political success in a plural society like South Africa is whether one can win the hearts, the minds and political souls of the people. I want to agree with the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, who is not in the Chamber at present, and the hon. the Minister of Community Development. They said that the NP—they bragged about it—had achieved great successes at the polls, and I agree with them. They are, however, only appealing to White people. The successes they have achieved they have achieved through exploiting White nationalism. He did it again here today. He is manipulating the people. He accuses the Opposition of doing this, but they do it with their own people. They manipulate the Afrikaners. They talk about “boerehaters”. Where, however, does it start? It starts right in those benches. [Interjections.] I have said in this House that I have nothing against the Afrikaner. I have said that English speaking people, such as myself and other hon. members sitting in these benches, are the Afrikaners’ greatest allies in Africa. That I have said. So let no hon. member on those benches say we are stirring up “boerehaat”. It comes from that section. [Interjections.]

Order!

You are worse than a “boerehater”. You are a jingo. [Interjections.]

I must warn hon. members on that side that they will reap the whirlwind. They might not live to see it, but our children and our grandchildren might.

There is another form of nationalism emerging in South Africa, and that is Black Zulu nationalism, as a reaction to the White nationalism of hon. members in those benches. [Interjections.] During this debate my colleagues have tried to indicate—and they have succeeded in doing so—the difficulties and the dangers facing the economic development of a fragmented South Africa. The greatest flaw in NP policy is that there are no common loyalties. Whenever they are in trouble, they run back to their nationalism. That is the flaw in the NP. There is no common objective for people in South Africa. There is no common cause. There is no common sense of responsibility for the well-being of all the people in Southern Africa. They are only interested in their own little group. They thrust the different people in South Africa into different directions and push them towards different destinies. The consequences of this are going to be extremely serious, not right now but in a generation or two. This can be seen, not only in terms of South Africa’s physical sources of energy, but also in terms of South Africa’s human energy resources.

Let us, however, just look at the physical sources of energy for a moment. Let us consider the locations of South Africa’s electrical generating plants. One will note that all these have been constructed close to coal supplies, and those coal fields are located in so-called White South Africa. The question that Black South Africa is going to ask itself—a question I believe they are in fact already asking—is why they should, in view of their birth right, be denied access to these sources of energy for the development of their ethnic homelands. They will also ask why they must constantly be subjected to the potential threat involved in that energy resource being denied to them if their relationships with White South Africa should deteriorate at some time in the future. Surely such a fear does not instil mutual confidence in the various groups in South Africa. We have many precedents in our history. The most recent one is Ruacana. That was a great plan which was envisaged to develop the northern parts of South West Africa. Where is it today? Terrorism has destroyed it and it is now lying idle, a wasted asset.

Who do you blame for that?

We had the potential risk with Cabora Bassa. Already we are building new power stations to compensate for it if we should lose it in the event of Mozambique closing its borders with us. The risk also applies to our transport, communications and pipeline network throughout South Africa. We have seen the damage done to a strong economy in Africa, and I am referring to Zambia. What happened when the rail links to the Atlantic ocean were cut?

You should go and stand on the Parade.

Today Zambia is almost bankrupt. [Interjections.] We therefore ask whether such a threat or danger will not always face independent homelands, and will we not always be faced with such a danger too? Surely we have learned, in recent times, just how much a boycott can cost South Africa. Do we—and I am referring to oil— know what the cost is?

I believe South Africa is being held to ransom. I believe hon. members on the other side do not know exactly what the cost to South Africa is. We are not supposed to talk about these things, but if one reads publications like the Financial Mail, one gets all the facts if one is prepared to dig for them. After listening to the speech of the hon. member for Smithfield yesterday—he is not here at the moment—I doubt whether they know what it is costing. I have his Hansard here if anybody wants to question what I want to say. That hon. member said that the cost of buying oil overseas today is R1 300 million per annum. That is, however, an incorrect figure. The real figure is close to, if not more than, R4 000 million per annum. I have with me a Press release of the former Minister of Economic Affairs—and I do not see him here either—in which he said that the increase in the price of oil was going to be around R2 000 million per annum. I want to ask whether other nations pay for their oil what we pay for our oil. The fact is that they do not. We are being ripped off because we are unpopular in the world and because the people who deal with oil know that they have got us over the barrel good and solid.

What does this mean? I have made some calculations and I should like South Africa to know what it costs. The extra amount of money we are paying for our oil because South Africa is unpopular in the international field is about R1 400 million per annum. That is the extra cost of South Africa having to afford apartheid. Let us bring it down to the man in the street, the man driving a motorcar. I want to say to the people of South Africa that every time they fill up their motorcars with R30 worth of petrol, R10 of that is the price they are paying for apartheid. [Interjections.]

You are talking nonsense.

I want to challenge the hon. members opposite when they go back to their constituencies, to congratulate and compliment their voters on being so “patriotic” as to pay R10 out of every R30 of petrol for keeping the NP in power. It is about time South Africans knew what it costs. [Interjections.]

Order! There are still quite a few members who will participate. They will therefore have an opportunity of replying to the hon. member. The hon. member may proceed.

Thank you, Sir.

South Africa’s motto, as my colleague has said, is “Unity is Strength”. The NRP believe in this implicitly. I believe it should be the major political objective of Parliament to unify all the peoples of Southern Africa into a strong, dynamic, prosperous, safe and secure confederation, federation or democratic State based on pluralistic principles which we know the hon. the Minister of Cooperation and Development believes in. Really, I believe he should be in our party and not in the party opposite. The achievement of the ideal I have mentioned depends on another form of energy, namely human energy. It is a form not only of muscular energy but also of mental energy. It is humans who build nations and create prosperity, but unfortunately and regrettably it is also humans who destroy nations and create misery. The choice before us is to build a greater South Africa or to fragment and destroy it. This must surely depend upon the ability of political ideals, ideals which should be prevailing in the House, to win over the minds and political souls of all the people who live and work in South Africa to defend and build a greater South Africa.

In connection with the constant warnings that are being made, I want to quote a newspaper article headed “Attack on South Africa relentless”. It states—

It went on to say, and I quote—

On that same day, 13 June, the following was reported in the Daily News—

Mr. Speaker, who said that?

Magnus Malan.

Magnus Malan, the Broederbonder, who is the head of the South African Defence Force.

In conclusion I should just like to say this: I was in Rhodesia last week. My brother has lived in Rhodesia for 24 years and during a discussion with other Rhodesians he asked the question: Would we Whites be giving the Blacks in Rhodesia what we are giving them today if it had not been for the power of the gun? The general consensus was: No, we would not. In my opinion, an admission such as this is an admission of political failure. It is no use these hon. members saying that Rhodesia is different, because after all their talk, when they have fragmented South Africa and the so-called White South Africa is left, you will find within this area more Blacks than Whites who will all be aliens. What will happen in our children’s or grandchildren’s time? Those people are going to take up guns to fight for those things which they believe are rightfully theirs just as the Blacks in Rhodesia have. It is a warning of what could happen. Therefore, I appeal to hon. members on that side: Shed your old apartheid propaganda. It is dead. Go along with the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development. Join the pluralists of South Africa and let us really save South Africa.

The hon. member for Smithfield.

Fauresmith, Mr. Speaker.

I beg your pardon. The hon. member for Fauresmith.

Mr. Speaker, your giving me such a slap in the face on the last evening of the session is something I shall not hold against you!

At least it is still in the Free State.

Yes, it is still in the Free State. I shall not hold it against you, Mr. Speaker, but while I was listening to the debate this evening it struck me that my two predecessors were able to congratulate two new members. However, I cannot congratulate the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. I shall not go any further into that but I would like to say that I am glad that I am not the chairman because I was thinking to myself: Ammunition, on target every time this evening as far as his speech was concerned. I leave it at that.

Mr. Speaker, I was wondering what message I could pass on to the House this evening and I decided that this was not the time for messages. There are many messages from me recorded in Hansard which hon. members can read. Some are good and some are bad. I leave it at that, however, and shall confine myself this evening to a few words of thanks.

There is a story—I take it that it is merely a story—of a man, let us call him Van der Merwe, who arrived at the gates of Heaven and wanted to enter. When he came to Peter he noticed three people inside in chains. Naturally he was very disappointed because he had had all sorts of illusions about what a wonderful place it would be. But Peter quickly put his mind at rest and said: Never mind, don’t worry, they are only three Free Staters who are bothering me to return. [Interjections.] I too have been in this heaven and the time has also arrived for me to return. People may ask how it feels to go back. That time arrives for everyone of us, let me remind hon. members of that. And my time has arrived. When I think of the men who have left and how rough the going can sometimes get here I say to myself: Nak van der Merwe, you are reasonably fortunate in leaving in the way you are. Many of them did not even have the opportunity of making a farewell speech; they did not even have the opportunity of saying good-bye. [Interjections.]

In the first instance, I want to express my sincere thanks to my constituency. It is a special constituency that has made it possible for me to represent it for so many years in this House. It is a special constituency that was represented in this House, inter alia, by great men before me. I have in mind, for example, people like the previous Administrator of the Free State, Mr. C. T. M. Wilcocks, Minister Klasie Havenga who served in this House for many years, Dr. Dönges who was here for five years and Minister J. J. Serfontein who was here for a number of years. You will realize, therefore, Mr. Speaker, that this is a special constituency, They are beautiful people, wonderful people, people whom it has been a privilege to represent here. Whenever one visited one of them at his home one was treated as a friend. I am deeply grateful to Fauresmith.

I am also very grateful to the hon. the Prime Minister and the Cabinet who appointed me to this post. It will be a challenge to me and although my friend, the Administrator-designate of the Cape Province, says they are the tired fellows who stopped pulling their weight halfway, I wonder how tired those fellows were who never saw their way clear to give way. [Interjections.] I regard it as a privilege that the Cabinet has enabled me to accept this position. It is also my privilege as a Free Stater.

Somebody asked me the other day whether my leaving Parliament meant that I had been promoted. I told him that any appointment to a position in the Free State was a promotion. I want to thank the hon. the Prime Minister and those members of the Cabinet who are still here; the others have already left.

While I am on my feet, I also want to thank my hon. colleague of the Cape Province who took up the cudgels on behalf of the Cape Province in order to get more money for that province. The hon. the Minister of Finance told me yesterday that the problems of the Free State and Natal were more or less the same and I trust that the hon. the Minister will realize that one cannot live on bread and thin air alone. Thank you very much for that.

The Transvaal has to pay. [Interjections.]

Of course. After all, that is “die wet van Transvaal”! Mr. Speaker, I hope you will allow me to direct a special word of thanks to you. It has been my privilege for two pleasant years to serve this House under your leadership. I can tell hon. members that you, Mr. Speaker, are not the most difficult person to get along with. As a matter of fact, you are one of the easiest people to get along with. Sir, your attitude towards this House and towards your two assistants is greatly appreciated and we shall always be grateful to you for that.

It is also my privilege to thank the Secretary to Parliament, Mr. Victor, and Mr. Venter and the assistants. Without their assistance and advice it would be very difficult to occupy this sort of position successfully. They are officials who are thoroughly acquainted with their task and who perform it faithfully and in the finest detail. During all the years that I have been in Parliament I have heard one or two complaints about every department but never about the attitude of the officials of this institution, Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, you will permit me too to say a word of thanks to the good old service officers whom it was my privilege to meet and who see to the needs of the various offices. In this connection, I think, for example, of uncle Happy Coetzee who is on duty in the cross-passage near the NP caucus room. Recently he said to me: “Doctor, you are all leaving now; I do not think I will return next year.” Then he went on to mention the names of all those who had had offices in that cross-passage. He said: “Mr. Louis le Grange was the first, then Mr. Dawie de Villiers, then Mr. Kobie Coetsee, then Mr. Janson, then you, Sir. And now the hon. Frederick Wentzel is also leaving. I think I too will get away from this passage. ” I say to uncle Happy: “Thank you very much; you are a nice person.” I also want to say thank you to my friend, Mr. Du Preez. It was my privilege to have him as my service officer in the passage where my office is. If I may give some good advice to the rugby players of the Western Province and my colleague, the hon. member for Durbanville, I just want to say to them: “If you have any difficulty with your selectors, appoint Mr. Du Preez because he knows rugby.” [Interjections.]

I also want to express my gratitude to the ladies on the telephone exchange because they perform a special task there. That also applies to the Postmaster, Mr. Sproule. I also wish to direct a special word of thanks to Mr. Van Wyk, the reservation officer. If there is one person whom I would be prepared to certify as being absolutely sane, it is Mr. Van Wyk. There are many people, Sir, whom I would not be prepared to certify likewise! [Interjections.]

I also want to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Pretorius and Mr. Dreyer in the dining-room who have treated us to so many tasty meals. When I look at myself, I am inclined to think that perhaps they fed us too well! I also want to say thank you to the Whips, the former Chief Whip and the present Chief Whip and the other NP Whips. Out of habit and as is typical of me, I have been sitting here with my piece of paper since last night waiting for an opportunity to say a word or two. It was only this evening, shortly after sunset, that I got the opportunity.

You can be pleased it is before dinner.

Yes, I can be pleased that it is before dinner.

Mr. Speaker, you will allow me also to say a few words to my old friend, the Deputy Chairman, Mr. Hannes du Toit. I cannot think of a better assistant, friend and supporter in this place than Hannes du Toit. I want to congratulate him most sincerely on his appointment as Chairman of Committees of this House.

I also want to direct a hearty word of thanks to the hon. members of the Opposition. Had hon. members of the Opposition not accepted me, Sir, my position in this House would have been quite untenable. I am deeply grateful to everyone of them.

Helen too.

Yes, Helen as well. [Interjections.], even if she did say the other day when she was walking a few yards behind me in the passage—I take it she meant me to hear it because just a few moments earlier she and I had had a small altercation in the Chamber—“Well, there is one thing I can tell you. The Free State is in for a tough time.” [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the hon. member for Orange Grove is not here this evening. I would have liked to apologize to him for having ordered him to leave the Chamber the other day. I think he is the only person I had ever ordered to leave. I do believe, however, that he will be the first one to say that I was merciful in that I did not do so more often. [Interjections.] However, I apologize to him for having done so.

Sir, there is something else I want to do and which I know I ought not to do but you will be lenient with me this evening, Mr. Speaker. I notice my wife up there in the public gallery. You will allow me, Sir, to direct a sincere word of appreciation to her.

Hear, hear!

Naturally, I have no illusions. I realize only too well that once I leave here I shall never return. I will still have friends here but there will no longer be any room for me in this Chamber. I realize too that this little card with my name on it will be pulled off my desk and thrown away. With your permission, therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would prefer to pull it off myself and put it in my pocket. [Interjections.]

I think I have already said too much. I want to conclude. What I am about to say, Sir, is in no way intended as a reflection on my English-speaking friends. As far as I am concerned, I want to conclude by saying the most beautiful words in the most beautiful language that I know—“Baie dankie”.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Speaker, it is my particular privilege to congratulate the hon. member for Fauresmith most heartily on his last speech in this House. I am convinced that hon. members of this House will miss his presence in future. I am convinced furthermore that all of us will remember his witticisms, his subtleties and the neat way in which he could sum up and handle a situation. All of us will remember the hon. member for Fauresmith with affection.

Mr. Speaker, I know that you have had a high regard for his services as your Deputy. During the time that he acted as your Deputy he has performed that task in a most exemplary manner indeed.

Hear, hear!

I believe we all agree that the hon. member for Fauresmith is well equipped to perform the task that has been assigned to him in the best possible manner and that he will have the strong support of his wife. I know that they will endear themselves to the people of the Free State.

However, I am pleased about one thing, Sir. About two Saturdays ago the respect of the hon. member for Fauresmith for myself was considerably enhanced. This has been the position since the Saturday afternoon when the Free State was trounced by Natal. [Interjections.] However, I want to comfort him; he need not feel too badly about it. He must simply ask the Western Province for a little sympathy. As long as they treat us with a little more respect we shall be quite satisfied.

Including myself, Sir, a round number of four hon. members are now leaving this House to join a provincial council. It is my privilege also to say my last few words here. I suppose every hon. member of this House feels grateful for the fact that at some time or other he was able to be a member of this House. That is, in fact, how I feel. I shall always have pleasant memories of this place and it will give me pleasure to cast my mind back to the time I spent here. I also regard it as a special honour to have been able to represent a particular part of the Republic, namely the constituency of Eshowe, in this House. I am deeply grateful to the electorate of Eshowe who made it possible for me to represent them here. I have a special link with those people and I am very grateful for it. I believe my relationship with them is quite unique but I suppose that is how every hon. member feels about his voters.

I am pleased too that I am making this last speech of mine in a debate which is taking place under the direction of the hon. the Minister of Finance. I have got to know him well during the past few years, mainly because he is the leader of my party in Natal. I have developed a high regard for him. He possesses particularly striking characteristics and I am very pleased that I have had the privilege of spending a pleasant period of time with him.

I want to warn the hon. members for Fauresmith and Durbanville that they need not try to get into the good books of the hon. the Minister of Finance so as to get more money for the Free State and the Cape Province. I have made the necessary arrangements already and all the extra funds are coming to Natal.

Now it is we against him. [Interjections.]

I will not be enticed by that remark. I can honestly say, Sir, that the years I have spent in this House have been interesting and satisfying. Like my hon. colleagues from the other provinces I want to thank those who have contributed towards making my sojourn here pleasant. Something I will always remember has been the manner in which hon. Ministers of the Cabinet and hon. Deputy Ministers have acted. My experience has been that whenever I had to deal with a voter’s problem or state a case, hon. Ministers and Deputy Minister were always very patient with and willing to help me. That has really been a revelation and a privilege to me. I want to thank them for that.

I shall also have pleasant memories of my colleagues on both sides of the House. The lessons I have learnt from them do not appear in any text book or learned essay. It has been an experience to note and to observe the characteristics of hon. members in this House. They were striking characteristics usually, although not always. I have been struck by the accomplishments of members. I have noticed how hard most hon. members worked. I have witnessed loyalty and humour. Those are all positive characteristics. The positive characteristics have by far exceeded the negative characteristics. It has been a privilege to have hon. members of this House as colleagues and I am grateful to them for that.

The service we as members of this House enjoy is really excellent. In this connection I wish to associate myself with the remarks by my other hon. colleagues in which they paid tribute to and thanked the secretariat who, I believe, by any standards, give an excellent service to all hon. members. I want to thank them most sincerely for that I also want to thank the police who are on duty here at Parliament, as well as the security officials, our typists and service officers. Sir, I cannot refrain from mentioning Messrs. Venter and Bezuidenhout who are on duty close to my office. They have looked after my interests in a most fatherly fashion. I am deeply grateful to them for that. I also want to express my sincere thanks to the staff in the booking office, the telephone exchange and the post office for what they have done for me. I also associate myself with what the hon. member for Durbanville has said about the Press. I agree with him.

I want also to refer to the friendliness and hospitality of the people of the Cape. I want in particular to express my gratitude to the mayor and councillors of Cape Town who have year after year made us feel welcome here. I want also to express my sincere thanks to the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. members of the Cabinet for the confidence they have placed in me in appointing me to this particular office. I am fully aware of the responsibilities that this has placed on me.

†I assume my responsibilities with dedication. To the extent that I may be in the position to influence events I will use every endeavour to ensure that justice is done to all the peoples of Natal. We live in interesting and exciting times. Many opportunities present themselves for the economic and social development and advancement of our country and its peoples. Many opportunities exist for the fostering of good relations among the various population and language groups. At the level of government which I will henceforth represent I will grasp these opportunities with enthusiasm. I have no doubt, and I am thankful, that in these matters I will have the full support and co-operation of the members of the Executive Council and of the Provincial Council of Natal.

*Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege finally to thank you for the dignified and impartial manner in which you have handled the business of this House over the years during which I have been a member of this House. I also wish to thank the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Committees and wish them everything of the best for the future.

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege on behalf of the PFP to congratulate the hon. members for Eshowe and Fauresmith on their appointment as Administrator of Natal and the Orange Free State respectively. These two gentlemen have a surprising amount in common. I think the most important characteristic that is common to both of them is their quiet and dignified nature. I think they will bring lustre to the new positions they are to occupy. We accordingly wish them everything of the best and success in their new positions. I want to thank the hon. member for Fauresmith in particular for what he has said about the Opposition. As chairman we have found him to be positive but very friendly. We also appreciate his humour. I can assure him that it was easy to accept him as chairman and to accept his rulings. I wish them both success.

I want also to refer briefly to the accusation made by the hon. the Minister of Community Development. He maintained that we had allowed six months of this session to pass without stating our constitutional policy. With due respect, Sir, that is simply not true. However, I shall say nothing more about that except to ask the hon. the Minister to take a leaf out of the book of the hon. member for Randburg and to ask him how he managed, having listened to a full exposition of that policy, to come forward with intelligent questions and criticism in this House. [Interjections.] Had the hon. the Minister listened he would have known about it. It has been explained on numerous occasions but if the hon. the Minister did not listen, I am afraid there is little hope for him. One cannot really expect a great deal of a person who has been described as the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark described him. He described him as one of the victims in the cupboard of the hon. member for Yeoville, a person who had been murdered politically by the hon. member for Yeoville. It is not surprising, therefore, that the hon. the Minister is no longer with us. Neither is it surprising that he has become so hard of hearing.

It was not so long ago that “racial discrimination” became unpopular words in South Africa, and that may perhaps be due to the efforts of the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Since that time the NP has effected a few changes in South Africa as far as racial discrimination is concerned and I say “a few” on purpose. However, the most important thing that has happened, is that we have developed a new vocabulary. New terminology has been used and political concepts have been redefined. That was done in the first instance to create the impression among those who liked the idea that changes were being effected and that we were rapidly moving away from racial discrimination; secondly, to create the impression among the more conservative people—we might just as well call them “verkramptes”—that in fact no changes were being effected. The entire exercise in redefining political concepts that have over the years acquired a meaning of their own, has in fact contributed nothing to political debate in South Africa.

I want to deal with one single Act this evening, an Act which I think is still exceedingly discriminatory and is a serious bone of contention among hon. members. I refer to the Group Areas Act, an Act which I think causes great misery to people these days. That is an Act which was placed on the Statute Book for one purpose only. However, I should like to give hon. members on that side of the House the benefit of the doubt. They maintain—and I am now using the terminology of the Government—that the Group Areas Act separates the races but that it is not discriminatory. They maintain that it is merely an Act which gives effect to the NP policy of ethnicity. That is how I understand it but hon. members can correct me if I am wrong. Consequently I should like to know from hon. members on that side of the House which national trait—that something which is important to a nation—is protected by the fact that one’s neighbour is of the same colour as oneself. I ask that question in all sincerity.

If you do not know that now, you will never know it.

Let us see whether there is any moral, any respectable basis on which the Group Areas Act can be justified. In terms of the Group Areas Act an Afrikaans-speaking person can live next to an English-speaking person, a Christian next to a Jew, a Roman Catholic next to a member of the Reformed Church, a Portuguese refugee from Angola next to a South African of noble German descent, a rich man next to a poor man. Those people may live next door to one another and it is safe for them to mix. Has that association led to the destruction of South Africa? Has that contributed to the weakening of the social structure in South Africa? I would like hon. members to pay attention to this matter. If the Group Areas Act ignores these differences to which I have referred, what does it take into account? What is it all about? What difference does it in fact take into account? Only one thing remains and that is the colour of one’s skin. That Act categorizes a person for the simple reason that his skin is slightly darker than that of hon. members of this House or in some cases even because it is slightly lighter. The idea underlying that Act is purely and simply racial.

†The Group Areas Act gives statutory recognition to one of the most ignoble notions of the human mind, namely the notion that some of our fellow human beings are in the category of the untouchables because of their skin colour, their ancestory or both.

You should be ashamed of yourself. What are you saying?

You used to say the same a few years ago.

I want the hon. the Minister to listen. This is the Act that prevents a White man and a Coloured man, both South African born, both Afrikaans speaking, both belonging to the Dutch Reformed Churches, perhaps even people who have grown up together on a farm on the platteland, from living as neighbours in a suburb somewhere in one of our cities. That is the effect of this Act. That is the distinction that is drawn by this Act. Even in spite of all these common features people of different colours may have, they are separated on the grounds of only one consideration, namely the colour of their skin.

How does this Act work in practice? I have dealt briefly with the principle involved. Let us now look at what happens in practice. The application of this Act has over the years caused thousands of people to move out of their homes. It has uprooted whole communities. The Government is always very keen to point out that in the cases where people have been forced to move, they have been living in dilapidated houses, they have moved out of areas where social conditions were bad, where the crime rate was high.

What do your voters say?

It is remarkable that when those conditions apply in White areas, urban renewal schemes are instituted, welfare authorities start rehabilitation work and the Police move in and clear up the crime problem. In this respect, to bear out my point, it is worth noting the number of people of different races who have been moved in terms of the Act. In answer to a question by the hon. member for Rondebosch earlier this session, the following figures were given: Since the commencement of this Act up to the end of last year 8 000 Whites have been moved in terms of the Group Areas Act, 172 000 Indians have been moved and 375 000 Coloureds have been moved. Is that not discrimination?

What percentage has been accommodated in better housing to what they had before?

I should like any hon. member on that side of the House to say with a clear conscience that that does not point to discrimination.

Were they better off in shanties?

I have just dealt with that question the hon. member asks me now. Did the hon. member not hear that I said that if Coloureds lived in “krotte”, as he calls it, they are moved, while if Whites do, urban renewal takes place and a completely different approach is taken?

But it is no discrimination!

It is false reasoning to say that people are moved in terms of the Group Areas Act as a result of the dilapidated state of their homes. That is simply not true.

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Speaker, when business was suspended earlier this evening, I was saying that the Group Areas Act could not be justified morally. I do not think it protects the culture of any group in the least.

Where do you get that from?

In theory and in practice that legislation is purely racial and discriminatory.

†Where are those people, who are moved in terms of the Group Areas Act, moved to? They are moved further and further away from the industrial and commercial areas where they find employment. At this particular moment in history this is tremendously important, because the Group Areas Act becomes worse with every extra cent or rand that is added to the daily cost of travelling from home, to work and back.

What about Atlantis?

I shall come to that. Has the Government paused to consider the effect of petrol price increases on the man who is forced to commute to work every week-day of his life because he is prevented, by a racialistic law, from taking the most sensible and most logical step of settling near his place of employment? Do hon. members realize that, according to figures worked out by the Automobile Association, it costs a man R19,20 to travel from Atlantis to Cape Town and back in a medium-sized car? At the present fuel prices this return trip costs R6 in fuel alone. Let us take a look at what it will cost in terms of public transport. It costs between R25 and R30 a month to travel between Atlantis and Cape Town by bus. That means that one has to change over from one bus to another on the way in, and also on the way out.

Mitchell’s Plain is another Coloured city to which people have been moved outside the metropolitan area of Cape Town. They are supposed to be happy, contented and better off there, but it costs a man R12,80 to travel to Cape Town and back by a medium-sized car. This is once again according to the figures worked out by the Automobile Association. R4 of that goes for petrol alone. To travel by bus between Cape Town and Mitchell’s Plain costs R15 to R20 a month.

*That is not the only aspect of the matter because the whole question of the time factor in this connection is of the utmost importance as well. I want to give as an example the position of a Coloured lady I know of in view of the fact that she works with my wife in one of the southern suburbs. This lady lives in Mamre near Atlantis and is obliged to catch a bus at ten minutes past six in the morning from Mamre to Killarney. At Killarney she has to change buses in order to get to Salt River. At Salt River station she has to take a train in order to get to her place of employment at eight o’clock. She has to follow the same procedure in the afternoon in order to return home. Every weekday, therefore, she spends four hours in travelling between her place of employment and her home. What kind of a life is that for anyone to live? How can she rear her children decently and how can she look after her family properly if that is the amount of time she has to devote to them? I think there is only one reason for that Under normal circumstances that woman would have lived comparatively close to her work or at least within a single journey distance from her work. Because of the provisions of this legislation she is compelled to live a ridiculously long distance from Cape Town. That is the sort of practical problem that is experienced daily by the Coloured and Indian people of South Africa as a result of the application of the Group Areas Act. Sir, I sincerely trust that hon. members opposite who may think that this Act does not really create a problem for people or that it is not discriminatory, will reconsider the matter and I hope that when they return to this House they will adopt a different attitude. I sincerely trust that we have succeeded in convincing hon. members that there is no moral basis for the Group Areas Act, as I have already indicated, and that in practice it is one of the most racially discriminatory measures that is to be found on the Statute Book of South Africa at the present time.

Mr. Speaker, within a few hours, we hope, this House will adjourn for this year. Looking back on the five months we have spent here, we realize that they have passed quickly. This session has produced a great many things. It was a session that began with great emotion. It was a session that we shall remember. For some, this session has brought heartache and for others, perhaps temporary joy.

Allow me to congratulate the hon. the Minister of Finance on the budget he introduced this year. It was a budget that gained general acceptance among the electorate of South Africa. It was a budget that took care of all groups of our population. We wish to congratulate the hon. the Minister on this Third Reading. As the Minister of Finance, he is one of the men with five difficult months behind his back. I think he is pleased that we have come to the end of this session. I wish to add, however, that he emerges victorious from this session. I say this has been a difficult time for him.

I am going to state frankly that for the NP it has also been a difficult time. We were sad at having to part with Adv. John Vorster, our beloved leader of the past.

Tonight, however, we have also said goodbye to four of our most brilliant men in this House. I think history has been made in that four Administrators appointed in the four provinces made their farewell speeches in this House on the same occasion. I think that is without precedent in this House. I wish to congratulate those four persons. Tonight, with sadness in my heart, I am parting with my old bench-mate. We came here at the same time and I wish to extend my sincere congratulations to Nak van der Merwe, the hon. member for Fauresmith. I wish him God’s blessing. I know he is going to make a success of his new task, just as he always convinced us in this House.

The official Opposition, in particular, looked forward to the commencement of this session. They came to this House with great fanfare and boasted how they were going to rout the NP and tear us apart on the grounds of the unfortunate events in the Department of Information. However, their fanfare was silenced within a few weeks. If we were to hold a post-mortem examination tonight and to ask for the diagnosis after opening up that political corpse, I could tell the official Opposition that they have no right to continued existence in this country. They have no confidence, either. What party has a right to continued existence if it has no confidence in itself?

A good question!

Yes, a good question. [Interjections.] I am now going to put the same question to the hon. member. They have so little self-confidence. A short while ago they were able to put up their candidates in by-elections, because, after all, they want to rule South Africa. They want to sit in the Government benches. Then the hon. member has the temerity to say to me: “A good question.” [Interjections.] I could reply to that, as the old Gamat did, by saying: “Oh, bless my soul.” [Interjections.]

We are challenging them now. Would they not like to sit in the Government benches?

No.

I hear that friend even says “no”. I ask them again whether they would like to sit in the Government benches and rule the country. If that is not the case, they will have to sit on that side of the House. I am asking them whether or not they wish to rule the country. [Interjections.] If they have any steam left, they must rule the country on their own steam. However, I do not know whether they have any steam left At this late hour tonight I am challenging them to convince the electorate of South Africa that they have a policy to sell to them. What we heard from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Green Point today leads me to tell them that they have no policy to sell to the electorate of South Africa. They will lose even before they have started. [Interjections.]

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

The hon. member is welcome to put a question to me. I am sitting down, with respect [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the hon. member whether he would be prepared to recommend that the hon. member for Houghton be appointed ambassador to the United States of America and that a by-election be held in Houghton. [Interjections.]

I should like to tell the hon. member for Hillbrow that I had occasion to go to the Witwatersrand at the time. If he had told me on that occasion that my party would restrict his party to Hillbrow and Parktown, I should not have believed my own ears. They represent no constituency in the heart of Johannesburg. I am not interested in Houghton, because I should not be able to win there. That is the small comer they still control. Their voters in Houghton, Parktown and Hillbrow will come to reject them in future. The official Opposition is rejecting not only the people, but also South Africa. When I listen to their statements, it is obvious that they are rejecting South Africa. When I listen to their propaganda and read what they state in the Press every day, it is obvious that they are not acting in the interests of South Africa.

You must return to your old policy, if you have such a thing. [Interjections.] I should like you to become the official Opposition, because I could still talk to you. Between us, there is no telephonic communication such as there was with McHenry. We can talk to one another. We differ politically, but I could still accept you as the Opposition. However, then you would have to pull up your socks and stop running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. You cannot do that. You cannot serve Mammon and Christ at the same time. [Interjections.] I shall accept the hon. member’s challenge. I am not afraid of you, because you have nothing. The only respect in which you may have the edge on one is that you may be a more handsome man than I am. However, your policy has lost before you have even started.

Order! The hon. member must address the Chair and talk of “hon. members”. He cannot refer to the hon. members as “you” all night.

I am saying that the hon. members of the NRP should reconsider their position if they intend to become the official Opposition. Then they should cut all the ties they have with the PFP. I see my old friend, the hon. member for Johannesburg North, nods his head three or four times to endorse what I am saying. I wish to tell the NRP that they must not take him, whatever they do. The hon. member for Johannesburg North no longer fits in with the political plan of South Africa.

He belongs to the Progs and not to us.

I know, and the hon. member for Durban Point must not take him even if he nods his head in the direction of the NRP. [Interjections.] It has been a difficult time that we have gone through, but as the governing party we have merely fought the battle that was forced on us. I am grateful tonight that in the absence of the hon. the Prime Minister I can state that he has kept his word and has fully exposed this tragic affair. At this late hour when the Press is not here—I do not talk to the Press in any event—I wish to state that these scandalous reports that harm South Africa every day should now come to an end.

We should go ahead and build on the budget of the hon. the Minister of Finance. I endorse what the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark said about the hon. the Minister of Finance. The hon. the Minister is a man who commands great respect in the financial world. He commands great respect among the various nations of the world, and as an Afrikaans-speaking Nationalist I wish to tell him: My friend, as an English-speaking Nationalist you could not be more welcome in our ranks. We are proud that we were able to draw from your ranks the type of person of whom there are but very few on earth. We pray that you may have strength for the difficult task you have to perform.

I see my other old friend and colleague, the former Minister of Economic Affairs, now the new Minister of Transport Affairs, is also in the House. I should like to tell him: I wish you well with the great organization that is now under your control. If you wish to achieve success with that great organization, you will have to learn to know them. You have to know the soul of the Railway worker, the engine driver and the ticket examiner. You have to know the Administration and the officials, as I believe you will, and then you will make the same success of the S.A. Railways as Ben Schoeman made of it. I wish you every success.

Koeks, are you going to join Connie’s party?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member wants to get me to talk about the ex-MP for Randfontein. Any person can make a mistake. The murderer on the cross was pardoned when he confessed his sins. As far as we are concerned, Dr. Connie Mulder acted wrongly, but Connie Mulder would never stab people of his own blood in the back, and hon. members must accept that. If I have to choose between Connie Mulder and any hon. member of the PFP, or the whole caboodle of them, I should choose Connie Mulder. Any person can make a mistake. I admit that. However, that is something of the past. We are not harping on that, but they are making his life a hell, because they played him off against our previous Prime Minister and former State President. They have the former State President where they want him, but they are still not satisfied, because they want Owen Horwood, too, to go. They want the whole Cabinet to go. However, we will remain steadfast and fight for South Africa, not only in the interests of the Whites, but also in the interests of the Coloured, the Indian and the Black man. [Interjections.] However, I wish to say something to the hon. member for Green Point. The Group Areas Act was not placed on the Statute Book to oppress the Coloured man. It was placed there to protect the identity of the Coloured man, to uplift him—it is true that there is still a great deal to be done—so that he can have the same dignified existence which I have as a White person. But would he go and say this in his constituency as well? Would he make the same speech in Green Point that he made here tonight? Would he make the same speech in Sea Point?

I have already done so.

No. If he did so, what was the result? [Interjections.]

Order!

I should like to issue a challenge to that hon. member. I should like to challenge him to make the speech he made here tonight in Koedoespoort, Johannesburg West, Rustenburg, or Natal, or wherever in this country, and if the results are positive, I shall give up my safe workers’ constituency to him. Then he can come and stand there. He can then stand in Stilfontein. [Interjections.] But he would not do so. [Interjections.]

Tomorrow, we go our separate ways. Allow me, therefore, to express a final thought. I wish to thank everyone who has participated in this debate. But I also wish everyone here, whether I like him or not, every blessing and success. I shall pray that our lives may be spared so that we shall be able to return with a clean slate next year, that the tragedy that has taken place will be forgotten and that we as a nation will escort ourselves for the interests of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, within a few hours this session will be brought to an end.

Is that a promise?

This has probably been the most remarkable session we have ever experienced in this House, at least since 1948, a session in which drastic changes have taken place and in which, during the past 144 days, nine vacancies have arisen or have been announced. It is unprecedented in the history of Parliament that nine vacancies have been announced within such a short period. This has been a session in which considerable changes have taken place. Within a matter of a few hours today, four future administrators have delivered their farewell speeches in Parliament, and two new members have made their maiden speeches—and they were fine speeches, speeches such as we seldom hear in the House. There has been a change in the sense that although administrators have, in the past, been appointed from the ranks of Parliament, in most cases they have been persons with provincial experience. Today, within a matter of a few hours, we heard the farewell messages of four persons of whom not a single one has previous provincial experience, but who are admirably suited to hold the offices to which they have been appointed.

Immense changes have set in, and this session has been remarkable in more than one respect. The NP sits here with the greatest majority ever, but during this session the NP has also suffered the greatest humiliation ever, humiliation because we have had to endure difficult times. What has been the result? One would have expected that since during this time the NP has really had to endure very difficult times, the Opposition would have derived benefit from it. But the official Opposition suffered one humiliation after the other. In two constituencies where they dared put up candidates, they forfeited their deposits. In one of the constituencies they drew just over 300 votes, and in the other, just over 600.

Look at them blush!

That is really remarkable.

Adolf Hitler also got a majority in Germany. [Interjections.]

While the NP was going through such difficult times, the PFP, which was in the most favourable position imaginable to derive benefit from this, suffered humiliation. What is the reason why the NP suffered humiliations under these circumstances? [Interjections.] The PFP is the smallest official Opposition Parliament has seen in years, and yet they are not a unifying party. That is the reason. They are, as one would put it in English, “a coalition of all sorts”. On the one hand, they consist of an international liberalism where they act as the mouthpiece, or should I say, as telephone mouthpiece, of McHenry and of the overseas international liberalism that is bent on undermining and destroying the entire situation in South Africa.

You are talking nonsense.

Seeing that the West is not officially our enemy, I can only say that they are the fifth columnists of those who wish to undermine South Africa.

Order! The hon. member cannot say that.

Then I withdraw it, Sir. As I have said, they are a party without a unifying factor. Among them there are people who are aspirant leaders, but who cannot become leaders.

That is Harry now.

And another member, too. There are also persons among them who, out of frustration in the ranks in which they formerly were, decided to join the PFP. Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a remarkable end to a remarkable session. On the other hand, however, 90% of the NRP consists of representatives of constituencies in one single province. It is sheer coincidence that they were able to win one seat in the Cape Province, because the NP did not put up a candidate to contest that seat. But they took courage when they vied with the PFP for a seat, and the PFP lost their seat and their deposit. However, the best they can hope for, is to form the official Opposition with a fraction of the seats which the old United Party held. I do not begrudge it them to become the official Opposition. However, they are making the biggest mistake ever if they think that they could sway us from our objective with criticism of the consolidation of Black States and of the policy of independent Black States.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South started off his speech in that vein yesterday, and the hon. member for Durban Central continued in that vein. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South intimated that there was vast mineral wealth in the area which he regarded as being part of a Black homeland. He proceeded on the assumption that certain maps compiled by academicians, should be regarded as the final maps. One of these final maps appeared on the cover of To The Point of 9 February 1979. That is pure conjecture. There is no likelihood at all of the map of South Africa ultimately looking like that. However, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South based his point of view on this assumption. On this false assumption he tried to shoot down the policy of the NP. Surely it is the greatest nonsense to put forward a mere conjecture and then try and frighten the electorate by telling them of those particular circumstances. Surely it is very obvious that we in South Africa are engaged in the greatest task we have ever taken on, namely to attempt, through cooperation, discussion and negotiation with all concerned, to achieve meaningful consolidation. The NRP, which still controls the Natal Provincial Administration, is, however, still trying to apply a policy in terms of which they want separate local authorities in areas where it is possible to create viable local authorities for the Coloureds or the Indians. However, I challenge them to state whether or not they are in favour of Chatsworth, in Durban, being developed into a viable, autonomous local authority. They cannot undertake it unless the city council of Durban grants them a subsidy for this purpose. In other words, they would not be able to create a viable local authority there. Because of their criticism of the independence of Black States, they will never be able to proceed from the point of view that Chatsworth could become a viable, autonomous local authority. If, then, they accept that the Indians and the Whites, as representatives of separate wards, should obtain representation in a non-autonomous local authority, then surely it is obvious that the Indians would form the majority in the local authorities of the biggest city in Natal, namely Durban. However, now they are trying to shy away from that. Their executive committee has held negotiations with the Indians and the Coloureds, but they created false expectations and stabbed them in the back with regard to matters on which they had agreed, where they attached different interpretations to matters which they put in different terms. The Indians themselves have stated that basically, they have been defrauded by the promises that have been made. This party, that is so dishonest in Natal, is now trying to make out that whereas they represent 90% of Natal in this House, they will become the official Opposition and possibly, one day, in the distant future, the official government.

This has indeed been a remarkable session and this is a remarkable end to it, since the NP is now indeed growing in strength after this particularly difficult session we have had.

Mr. Speaker, I think the time has come to remind the hon. member for Klip River and the hon. member for Stilfontein—who has once again donned his hat—and other hon. members on that side of the House, that the Nationalist Government has been placed in power by a small minority of the population of South Africa.

You are talking absolute rubbish.

Those hon. members have forgotten that there would hardly be any of them in this House today if the total adult population of South Africa, irrespective of race or colour, were placed on the common voters roll.

Will they vote for you?

They may vote for us; they may not. But one thing I can say is that they will not vote for those hon. members.

Are you going to put them on the voters roll?

We are certainly going to put them on the voters roll. Hon. members opposite keep on asking these ridiculous questions. They asked the hon. member for Green Point whether the speech which he has made in this House would be a speech that he would deliver in his constituency or in the Sea Point constituency. They have only to look at our policy to know that it is our policy. Our policy is to do away with race discrimination.

“One man, one vote.”

One of the most discriminatory laws of all is the Group Areas Act. The hon. member for Von Brandis must stop pointing his finger at me. I object to it. [Interjections.] That hon. member pretends that we have no policy at all. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition devoted an enormous amount of his time during the no confidence debate, the very first debate this session, telling everybody in words of one syllable what the policy of the PFP was, yet member after member has stood up since and said that we did not have a policy, that we did not tell this House what our policy was.

You do not have a policy.

This includes the hon. the Minister of Community Development. He went on to criticize our policy, while at the same time saying he had never heard it expressed in this House.

I got it from Mr. Joel Mervis. [Interjections.]

If the hon. the Minister had been here during the no-confidence debate and had listened to the speech of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition he would have known that right at the beginning of the session the hon. the Leader of the Opposition gave a full and complete explanation of the policy of this party.

We are now at the end of the session and we are dealing here with the Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill, and I wish to say one or two words about that. I want to remind the hon. the Minister, who I know is very familiar with economics—that long ago one of South Africa’s foremost historians, Professor De Kiewiet, said that South Africa had advanced politically by disasters and economically by windfalls. I am sure the hon. the Minister remembers that phrase. I want to say that it is as relevant today as it was when Prof. De Kiewiet uttered it more than 30 years ago. It was the disaster at Soweto and in other Black townships in 1976 which jolted the Government out of its long-held fantasy that the Black in the cities were there as temporary sojourners only and that most of them would sooner or later be streaming back to the homelands. As a result of the jolt which the Government received in 1976, it announced plans for home building in the urban areas, which had been grossly neglected over the previous few decades. Very few houses were built, and that is why we have an almost impossible backlog to overcome today. The Government further announced its 99 year leasehold scheme, which of course, entails the obvious acknowledgement of the permanency of Blacks in the urban areas. The Government also announced a new policy of in-service training schemes in the industrial areas, and not only in the homelands. It further announced self-government for Blacks in the cities, the building of secondary schools, a factor which has also been ignored for decades, etc. The most important announcement of all was the appointment of two commissions of inquiry, i.e. the Wiehahn Commission on labour laws and the Riekert Commission on legislation affecting the utilization of labour. All these moves were very wise ones, and we approve of them, because if there is one thing that South Africa has to do—any intelligent person living in this country knows it—it is to try to defuse the tension and the dangerous dissatisfaction that presently exists amongst urban Blacks in particular. The Government has got to do that if we are to avoid any further violent outward manifestations of dissatisfaction.

If one analyses the speech that was made yesterday by the hon. the Minister of Finance, I think it should be generally agreed that the key phrase in that speech is the “restoration of confidence”, confidence which will encourage investment by overseas entrepreneurs. Investment is the only mechanism we can possibly have to move South Africa’s growth rate out of the dismal less than 1% bracket that it has occupied over the last two years. Investment will provide the jobs which are so desperately needed to employ the unemployed and to absorb the roughly 200 000 additional work-seekers that enter the labour market of South Africa every year.

I would also like to point out to hon. members that it is not the particular brilliance of the hon. the Minister of Finance which has restored our balance of payments and that it is not the brilliance of the Government which has enabled us to meet the tremendous demands of the higher oil price, but that it is due to the enhanced price of gold. That is what has saved our lives once again. That is the windfall that is mentioned in Dr. De Kiewiet’s statement. We have once again economically been saved by a windfall.

Why do you say “once again”?

Because there have been other similar occasions, in the mid-’forties for example, or has the hon. member forgotten about them? In the mid-’forties it was the discovery of new gold-fields in the Free State that saved us at a time when we were in a most precarious situation. This is therefore not the first time that gold had saved the lives of South Africans. Of that I can assure the hon. member.

Why are you so bitter?

Oh, be quiet. If hon. members cannot comment intelligently, they should keep quiet altogether. Gold price or no gold price, I believe the hon. the Minister knows—I know that he knows—that nothing is more calculated to destroy any newly acquired confidence that overseas investors and entrepreneurs have obtained, than a repetition in any form of urban violence or any form of violence like the unrest of 1976 and the succeeding two years. We must avoid any further unrest at all costs. We on these benches, the PFP, believe that the only way in which this can be done is to make changes which are meaningful, which will give Black people hope about their future and about the future of their children.

That brings me to my main theme which is: What have we done in this House during this session, except to rely on the enhanced price of gold, to keep up the confidence of overseas entrepreneurs? I can think of two plus factors which have been accomplished this session and which might bring some hope to Black people. The one was the about-turn on Crossroads, which all of us welcome very much indeed and which enabled the majority of the people to be rehoused a short distance away from where they are at present. The other plus factor was another turnabout— which the hon. member for Sandton was rightly so pleased about—namely the change in the decision about Alexandra township. Those were two definite plus factors, but as for the rest, the main issue, which has dominated the session throughout, was the Information scandal.

That is your fault.

No, it was not our fault. [Interjections.] We were not the ones who perpetrated the fraud on the taxpayers of South Africa. It was the Government who sat by and allowed that to happen. It was a Government Cabinet Minister who had to resign his seat as a result of that. It was also a Government appointee to the Department of Information who had to flee the country. It had nothing to do with this party.

You talked about it non-stop.

We were absolutely right. We had to pursue this matter until we at last got a major exposé of exactly what had happened, which resulted in the retirement from the scene of the former State President.

What about the McHenry scandal?

That was an essential thing for the official Opposition to do. It was absolutely essential. However, one should not bluff oneself that it was a matter which in any way really concerned the Black people of this country. However, what does affect them … [Interjections.]

Order!

… were the two very important commissions that reported this session. At this stage I may say that one important commission report that was conspicuous by its absence, was the Cillié Commission Report. Three years have passed since that commission was appointed and still there is no sign of it. We may just as well not bother to read it when it does appear now because it is obsolete. It is already obsolete. Events have passed it by and have overtaken it already. It may just as well be put into the archives to gather dust.

Your party is obsolete.

However, the other two reports have appeared and they were greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm. Great expectations were raised when those two reports appeared but, alas, as other hon. members have said, those great expectations were dashed to the ground. The chairman of the Wiehahn Commission has been all over Europe and is now in America and he has been telling what are known as labour opinion formers all over the world that a new era had dawned for Black workers in the Republic. He said that a new era was about to dawn.

Do you not believe that?

No, of course not. [Interjections.] When dawn broke we in this House were busy debating the Industrial Conciliation Amendment Bill and that rejected major findings of the Wiehahn Commission and excluded about a half of the Black working force from any hope of belonging to trade unions.

What absolute nonsense!

Order! I believe the hon. member for Von Brandis is about to speak. Surely he can contain himself for a while?

[Inaudible.]

Order!

Blacks employed in the industrial areas all over South Africa who had belonged to unregistered unions and who were looking forward to a brave new deal and a new era, have been bitterly disappointed. That is not going to do the situation in the urban townships any good, but is going to increase the tension.

The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development, who is presently in America, said at Palm Springs that the Wiehahn Commission had recommended and that the Government had accepted far-reaching measures to ensure equal pay for work of equal value for everybody, non-discrimination in jobs and facilities and Black trade unionism. At the same time, he said, the Riekert Commission had suggested sweeping reforms to our labour system aimed at ending racial discrimination and improving the day to day living of the urban Black in South Africa. “Once again,” he said, “we are not only listening, but acting.” Indeed! Are we listening and acting? The whole farcical situation of the Wiehahn Commission has now been repeated in the Riekert Commission because the White Paper that appeared on our desks only the day before yesterday has made it clear that the Government does not have the slightest intention of implementing the major recommendations of the Riekert Commission regarding the pass laws. We maintain that the pass laws are the most hated discriminatory laws of the lot in South Africa. They cause more friction and hostility than any other measure on the Statute Book. It is no good hon. members telling me that urban Africans want these laws because it protects them against their rural brethren coming in taking their jobs. Any urban Black man of any stature whatsoever has said that he does not want the pass laws. We believe that all Black South Africans should have the same opportunities. The Black man does not want to be exposed as he is day after day to the ruthless accosting by the police to see whether he has the right stamp in his book. It is humiliating, costly and creates the most racial friction in South Africa.

The major recommendation of the Riekert Commission was that the 72 hour limitation on Blacks in the urban areas, which is the very crux of the pass laws, should be removed. At the same time it recommended higher penalties on employers who take on unauthorized Blacks. Housing and employment should be the only criteria for the right of a man to be in the urban areas. What has happened? During this session the Government increased the penalties on employers taking on unauthorized labour up to R500 for the first offence and not less than R500 for the second offence. Does nobody realize what that is going to cause to the great number of Blacks who are in the urban areas? They are looking for jobs, not to defy the law, but because they need the jobs in order to feed their families. Nothing in the White Paper reflects any prospects of liberation from the pass laws which the hon. the Minister is holding before the fascinated eyes of Americans during his present whistle stop tour of the United States. Nothing in the White Paper really bears out the hon. the Minister’s hopeful words that South Africa will now, and I quote—

Nothing the Government has done can really be reconciled with Dr. Koornhof’s statement in Washington that apartheid is dying in South Africa. Indeed, his colleague. Dr. Treurnicht, rapidly administered the kiss of life to dying apartheid. He did it without waiting a second.

Only this morning I heard the SABC announcing that the Government has accepted the major recommendations of the Riekert Commission. Whom do we believe? Are we to believe the spoken or the written word of this Government? Do we have to believe what the SABC says or what the White Paper says? What, in all conscience, are Blacks supposed to believe? Are we to believe the promises of the Riekert Commission or the reality of police vans picking up pass offenders by the hundreds?

Finally, what are the crucial questions facing South Africa? The most important is the one that most probably never crosses the collective minds of the Government. That is whether Blacks can now see greater hope of meaningful change that they did before Soweto erupted in flames three years ago. I believe they do not and increasing numbers of young Blacks are going to become despairing more and more of them will resort to change by violence, not because they want violence, but because they see no other way to change the circumstances of their lives, which are filled with frustration and lack of opportunity. [Interjections.] With the escalation of that violence will come the erosion of confidence. This is the message I am trying to get across to the Government. The other crucial question is whether South Africa. What the country wants to know is where this Government is taking us. Is it taking us on the path back to acceptance by the civilized nations of the world, or is it taking us on the path into the laager to defend ourselves against what the Government calls “the total onslaught to the bitter end”? We in these benches opt for the path back to acceptance. We do not believe that that path is via secret projects, aimed at internal or external targets, by the Information Service. We do not believe that it is via any airy-fairy statements made here and abroad by Government spokesmen, statements which have no basis and which therefore ultimately only undermine the credibility of the Government. The Government must realize that when statements are made promising the removal of racial discrimination, when speeches are made to American audiences and the speakers receive standing ovations and nothing practical emanates from those speeches, the credibility of the Government disappears entirely. That is a very dangerous thing. We in the PFP believe that the path back to acceptance by the civilized world is via deeds and not via words and via positive action to translate into practice and reality all those fine sentiments uttered by the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development in Washington and Palm Springs.

Mr. Speaker, I have known the hon. member for Houghton for a long time. I sat with her in the old Smuts party caucus and I sat with her on the Opposition benches. In all those years I have seen no change in the hon. member. In the years in which she sat in the UP caucus she was always contrary to other opinions and when she speaks in the House she is still contrary to the other opinions held in South Africa. I am sure that hon. members in the PFP have had the same experience in the course of this session. I do not propose to comment on the arguments of the hon. member, because we are accustomed to this sort of speech on every occasion she rises to speak I am convinced that nothing the Government or anybody else will ever do will satisfy the hon. member for Houghton.

I would like to direct a few remarks to the hon. Leader of the Opposition. His speech during this debate has hardly received any recognition in the evening Press. All it received was a few inches of print on page 3 of The Argus, although the speech was well prepared and circulated to the Press by his backroom boys, as is his usual tactic. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition thought he launched a fiery attack on the Government. During the course of my life I have had the opportunity to make a study of the tactics employed by politicians, the use of certain types of persuasion. The speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition here today was an attempt on his part to rescue his situation in his own party, as I will now proceed to show. Before I do so however, I want to take the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to task for a remark made during the course of his speech, and I interjected at the time and said it was untrue.

I have now had an opportunity of looking at his Hansard and I want to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that the accusation he made during the course of his speech, namely that no hon. members on this side of the House raised their voice in defence or consideration of Mr. John Vorster, is untrue. The hon. gentleman was in his bench when I spoke in this House during the Information debate and I went out of my way to pay tribute to what John Vorster had done for South Africa, both in his capacity as State President and as Prime Minister of South Africa. It does not help the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to attempt to go further and to attempt to create an erroneous impression of Mr. Vorster.

You accepted the findings of the Erasmus Commission.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition had a great deal to say about the speech of the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development in the United States, and to bolster his argument he quoted from certain newspaper reports which, I want to say immediately, in no way, as we can normally expect from certain sections of the English-language Press, were a true reflection of that speech. That resulted in my Transvaal leader attempting to put the situation right, as far as these incorrect reports of the speech were concerned. But the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had no scruples. He quoted from those reports and at the end, to bolster his argument even further and to launch an attack on the hon. the Minister and the Government, he quoted from page 4 of the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development before the National Press Club in Washington.

I did not I quoted from …

He quoted from page four. I have his speech here before me. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition posed certain questions in regard to the equality of all the people before the law, about full citizenship rights for all people. [Interjections.] He posed questions about the full participation of all people in the decision-making process. I have his speech here in front of me. [Interjections.] What the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not say, however, was that the hon. the Minister of Cooperation and Development, in presenting South Africa’s case to the American people on the forum he was granted—and not only the NP’s case—did not, in any way whatsoever, try to hide the fundamental basis on which NP policy in South Africa is established, i.e. the basis of separate development and the recognition of the identity of different nationalities in our country.

He did not use that word once.

To show the type of tactics the hon. the Leader of the Opposition adopts, let me say that those were the sentences preceding the questions he posed across the floor of the House. In other words, here we have the usual old tactic of extracting something from its context, twisting it and using in a manner in which one would like to use it to present one’s case.

You are the one who is twisting it.

The hon. gentleman …

Mr. Speaker, may the hon. member, as he very clearly did, insinuate that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was twisting the facts? I do not think that that is parliamentary, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure you will agree.

I did not say that he twisted his remarks.

Order! The hon. member did say that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was taking things out of context and twisting them.

No, I am referring to the manner in which he presented the argument in terms of this report.

Order! Yes, but I heard the hon. member saying that he took them out of context and twisted them. The hon. member must withdraw that remark.

I withdraw it.

Order! Another hon. member said: “You are twisting it”

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that.

I wonder whether hon. members can tell me where the cooler is? [Interjections.]

†The hon. member may proceed.

There was a reason for the speech by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He had to make that speech. He was compelled to make that speech, because his position as Leader of the Opposition is very much in doubt. I predict here tonight that this has been the last appearance of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in this House. [Interjections.] I make that prognostication here tonight. This is the last time that we have heard him as Leader of the Opposition in South Africa. He talks in such wild terms, and then, adopting the strategy of sowing discord and creating confrontation, he talks about urban terrorism, as if we have not talked about it before in the course of this session. He also talked about subsidizing foodstuffs. Wild conceptions without any justification! He then created a new phrase, the “wealth gap”.

You are a wild conception!

Order!

Then he talks about the redistribution of wealth. What does he mean by that? That is the kind of speech that was made here to create a certain impression, and in a few moments I shall indicate why the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made that speech here today. [Interjections.] I shall bring the evidence. Hon. members need not get excited. I have the evidence here before me and I shall quote it in a minute.

Hon. members have referred to this session, so we are entitled to review the actions of the Opposition parties in the course of this session. I think that all hon. members in this House, at least on my side, will agree with me that as the weeks and the months of this session went by the Opposition parties went from one extreme to the other, to the extent of acting in this House with little or no sense of responsibility towards the interests of South Africa.

We shall follow your example in future.

It is hardly necessary for me to list these extremes. They are even evidenced by the type of speech that was delivered by the hon. member for Durban Point and the hon. member for Orange Grove. If I were to have to describe his speech adequately, you would rule the words I used as being completely unparliamentary, Mr. Speaker.

Did you understand it?

The Opposition parties in their political desperation and in their futility in the House, as we have seen, have been completely rejected by the public of South Africa. Proof of that was given by the by-elections we have just had. If they had achieved any political advantage or had had some progressive or new thought to the benefit of South Africa accepted by the public, one would have imagined that at least they would have gained a few votes in these by-elections, but in fact the opposite happened.

Let me point to one other factor which has been very much revealed in the past months in respect of the Opposition parties. It is that they have lost all faith in the future of their own country. The reason for that is that they do not look at South Africa as a whole or at its people as a whole; they look at this side, as the hon. the Minister of Community Development has so clearly shown, as the Afrikaner section dominating the political interests of South Africa. They do not look at the NP or the Government as representing the interests of South Africans regardless of the language they speak; they only look at it in sectional terms.

I also want to say that they exploit without scruples any and every situation in the hope of rescuing their own position.

Who are you to talk of scruples? You do not know what the word means.

They have without scruples in the course of these months attempted to arouse feelings between the English-speaking people and the Afrikaans speaking people; they have attempted to arouse feelings between White citizens and Black citizens; and they have attempted to arouse feelings between Afrikaner and Afrikaner. The fact is, as hon. members of the Opposition well know, that they have no principle or policy which they can place before the country as a clear alternative to the policies of the NP Government of South Africa. Where in all the debates that have taken place—I challenge hon. members now to tell me this—have they come forward with some positive concept of policy in any respect whatsoever? If one asks them about policy, they refer to the few remarks the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made in the budget debate when he attempted to explain their policy of consensus, a policy which, as their own party members admit when they give their interpretation, is completely inapplicable until such time as the NP Government of South Africa creates situations in our midst in which their policy would have any hope of working. Let them talk to their own MPC, Mr. Mervis, the former editor of the Sunday Times.

Another factor is that they have no political leadership at all. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has proved a dismal failure in the course of these debates. The hon. member for Constantia is sitting there roaring with laughter at that. This is, however, a publicly recognized fact. I say that on the basis of the evidence of their own Press. In fact, their Press have made that very, very clear. They did so only last month. The Financial Mail has had certain things to say which I want to quote to the House. Maybe the hon. members of the Opposition are aware of it. In an article that appeared in the Financial Mail on 4 May headed “Quo Vadis, Eglin” the following appeared—

This is the Financial Mail. The tide has not turned in favour of the Leader of the Opposition. He has now had a month to prove his leadership. He has had a month to state where he stands. He has had a month to show that he is worth something as Leader of the Opposition. That is why he put up this performance that we have had in the course of this debate and which has proved to be a dismal, political damp squib. What does the chairman of the official Opposition’s caucus say? If one is to believe what the Financial Mail says—and I believe what the Financial Mail says because it is owned by their own press—the chairman of the official Opposition’s caucus, Mr. Japie Basson, said—

What about the other minority group led by the hon. member for Durban Point? Their official spokesman is the hon. member for Durban Point. We know, and it has been obvious for some time, that there are in their midst certain PFP sympathizers. [Interjections.] It is no good the hon. member for Amanzimtoti giving us all a laugh. We know it. They do not vote as a party in this House. They vote as a group. They vote whither and thither. One never knows to which side they are going to jump when a vote is to be cast in this House, because they have no policy. They have nothing on which one can judge them. I want to say to the hon. member that the Financial Mail is well-informed on occasion. They have to keep their finger on the pulse, and this is what they had to say—

… that is the hon. member for Rondebosch—

Indeed, the Financial Mail states—

There we have it. We are going to see the disappearance of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. We are going to see a new leader of the Opposition. In this process we are also going to see the disappearance or the reduction in numbers of those hon. members who sit there as the NRP. I am prepared to believe the Financial Mail and I think a lot of other people are. It is quite clear that when one sees the reviews of this session that will appear in the English language Press, that the members of the official Opposition will be clearly told that they should get a new leader before the 1980 Session.

Let me sum up.

We as a Government are left with a completely discounted, non-effective Opposition, who can play no positive role in the future of our country. If this is true, then it places, I submit, an even greater burden and responsibility on the NP. If this is true, we carry a greater burden and a greater responsibility.

In the dangerous times that unquestionably lie ahead, the responsibility to protect and foster the vital interests of our country, lies with us in these benches and with us alone, because the Opposition no longer counts for anything in the public opinion of this country. The Opposition is completely and utterly discounted. It is the NP principles and policies that will motivate our people of all nationalities …

Which policies?

… to play their part in building South Africa and protecting its security on the African continent as a nation of Africa. That is why I again say to the hon. member for Yeoville—he is not here now, but he had a great deal to say about this yesterday because I made an interjection— that I believe that NP interest is the interest of South Africa. There is nothing to take the place of the NP in the political picture of South Africa. The foundation of this party’s policy is built on what I believe to be Christian and moral, namely the self-development of the various national groups of our country. If the acceptance of this gives us, the White people, the right to our own identity and self-determination, then it is only moral and Christian that we give the same rights to others in our country.

Welded as we are as a nation of English- and Afrikaans-speaking citizens and bound together with an unbreakable bond of love for our fatherland, and accepting, as we are, that we are part of Africa, we can go ahead and achieve as a people what was considered impossible a decade ago. Failure to recognize this single fact has left the Opposition floundering around, as we have seen during the course of this session, with the silly sort of speech that we heard last night from the hon. member for Durban Point. We are in fact, as has been stated by leaders of this party, in a new era, and in the short months of this hon. Prime Minister’s leadership of the NP we have seen more change than we have seen in the previous five years in South Africa. It is inevitable, because in the development of our own interests and for the protection of our own White identity and the expansion of our own interests, the interests and status of other national groups will also expand at an ever-increasing pace. As a NP we cannot and will not blind ourselves to the changes taking place amongst the people of Southern Africa. If we wish to see respect for our ideals and for our White nation in Africa, we shall only obtain that respect by respecting the human dignity and aspirations of other nations of colour which are different to ours. It goes further than that. We as a White people shall be judged by the peoples of Africa by the manner in which we carry out our responsibilities to those other nations.

All through this session, as through all the years, and again evidenced last night by the speech of the hon. member for Durban Point and by the speech of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in this debate earlier this morning, the Opposition have tried to exploit and caricature our policy of self-development of our multinational population by their presentation of the word “apartheid” as representing racial oppression, something of which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition again made himself guilty in this hon. House today. The Opposition parties without question primarily carry the responsibility for the caricature of South African policy on the world scene. They carry it, and they alone. This caricature of apartheid, i.e. racial oppression and the domination by one group of another, is, as the hon. the Prime Minister said, now dead. It is dead because of the great changes that have been brought about in our multinational society. The development of our policy of self-development has left the Opposition in a complete vacuum. The speech of the hon. member for Houghton indicated tonight that she sits in a political vacuum and that she cannot find a direction to take. She is in a complete vacuum as regards any positive political thinking. Apartheid which recognizes differences, mutual recognition of national group rights, accepts the principle of good neighbourliness, recognizes the rights of people of differing habits and cultures so that they can live in the way they wish to live and which respects the human dignity of others, is certainly not dead in any way whatsoever.

I wish to raise one other point. The Opposition always attempts to create a guilt complex amongst our South African people. They pretend, both inside and outside of this House, that we as White South Africans are guilty of having wronged peoples of other colours in our country. This is the impression they create all the time. What this Government does today, in the changes that it is making, is not to bow to world pressure or to appease international liberalism. We make these changes as a free and independent people handling our own internal affairs in Africa at a pace and in a way we believe to be in our country’s interests. This attitude was clearly stated by the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development in the speeches he delivered in the United States before the Press Club in Washington and before the gathering that he addressed in California.

Mr. Speaker, we are now coming to the end of this session. I want to say at once that I agree wholeheartedly with the excellent speech made by the hon. member for Von Brandis. A week or two before we arrived at Parliament, we heard all the sabre-rattling, the beating of drums and we heard that we were going to get a clear policy statement from the Opposition. We also heard that this vigorous and effective Opposition was going to show the Government exactly what South Africa should be doing and exactly where they should be going. I have two main impressions of the past session. In the first place I think the Opposition, in all fairness, succeeded very well in pointing out and identifying the problem areas in South Africa. I think they even identified problems that do not exist! They maintained that the clock for South Africa was standing at five minutes to twelve—I respect their view in this regard— and that we should deal with the problems that they identified with a sense of urgency. That being so, one could reasonably expect that they would come to this House with reasonably motivated, well thought out, practicable and implementable policies. But what did we get? Almost the moment this debate commenced in the House, they regurgitated the old unpalatable, half digested—some of it wholly digested— Information mess on which they had chewed the cud for the past six months. I think that the Opposition, and the PFP in particular, have in fact been untrue to themselves and untrue to the nation. If it were true that they thought the clock of South Africa in fact stood at five to twelve, one would have thought that they would have acted out their duty; but they did not. They wasted South Africa’s time for six months running about rehashing and restating all of the arguments we have heard ad nauseam. We did not cry “halt”, but we repeatedly and with patience put our case in response to the Opposition— we have respect for what they say. It was the public outside, even the public sympathizers of the gentlemen on that side of the House, who cried “halt”. Whenever I spoke to business people and people at universities, they said that this must stop. It was when the people outside this House cried “stop” that they began to realize that they were gaining no mileage out of this debate at all. That was graphically demonstrated at Swellendam.

This has been a watershed session. This has been one of the most important sessions of Parliament since the last war. Where has the dynamism come from, however? It has come from the De Kock Commission, the Wiehahn Commission, the Riekert Commission, the new look at the consolidation of the homelands, the streamlining of the civil service, the reorganizing of all the State departments, the new constitutional proposals placed before the people and the appointment of a commission in that regard. And so one can go on. It is unquestionably so that the dynamism this session came from this side of the House.

What have we seen from that side of the House? I am now referring particularly to the PFP. We have seen divisive action, attempts to polarize the Afrikaner people by saying: “Are you a Treurnicht man or are you a Koornhof man?” It is a lot of nonsense. They have tried this in respect of my hon. friend from Simonstown by asking people: “Are you a Wiley man or are you a Harry Schwarz man?” They succeeded in polarizing and breaking up the old United Party. Now, as was so graphically demonstrated by one of the speakers on our side earlier, we see that they are trying the same tactics of cannibalism on the National Party. The National Party will, however, never fall for that. I think the hon. members are wasting their time, they had best look for other arguments. They will not succeed in polarizing Afrikaner from Afrikaner; they will not succeed in polarizing English-speaking supporters of the National Party from Afrikaans-speaking supporters of the National Party; and they will not succeed in estranging South African people from what they like to do in the best interests of South Africa.

The hon. member for Houghton made a speech earlier this evening and, listening to her, I was reminded of the words of Fenner Brockway. I don’t know whether the hon. member for Houghton knows Fenner Brockway. He was one of the people who in the early ’fifties and even before the war launched and supported the independence of what was then Gold Coast and of the other West African countries of that time. I remember listening to Fenner Brockway about six or seven years ago, when he was a man of 83. He admitted that in the case of many of the opinions he had held over all those years—it was a great admission, because it would take a great man to make that kind of admission—he had been wrong for 40 years. I have the horrible feeling that the hon. member for Houghton—and I say it with great respect, because I recognize that she has moral courage—is in the not too distant future going to be forced to recognize that what she has been preaching for the past 30 or 40 years has been in vain and wrong.

We all accept that her intentions are honourable, but we must also accept that the results of what she preaches will have the very opposite effect to what she wishes to achieve. [Interjections.] I shall give an example. Is it so that the PFP has in fact in large measure drawn its inspiration from or been influenced by the German model? I have heard from time to time that the German model has had an influence upon the constitutional thinking of the PFP. I am not arguing that the German model is bad for Germany or that it is even bad for a homogeneous country. However, when one looks at this document from the CSU-group in the German Bundestag, a White Paper on the human rights situation in Germany and of Germans in Eastern Europe, it is interesting to note that where one has a homogeneous country this system works better.

Germany is not homogeneous.

Well, it is unilingual and White and certainly when it compared with South Africa, it is a homogeneous country. [Interjections.] If one looks at this document, one finds that, following upon the meeting in Helsinki, this group investigated the rights of the Germans in Eastern Europe. We now had a situation where the Germans were in the minority. There are 2 million Germans in Russia. Dr. Helmut Kahn says in his opening remarks on page 5 of this White Paper—

The document goes on to say the following of the two million Germans who are living in the USSR—

I do not have much more time and therefore I cannot spend much time on this document. However, it ends with this interesting statement on page 97, dealing with the proposals of this group who investigated the plight of these minorities. They require a pledge—

How one can protect minorities with the guarantees which are proposed by the hon. members of the PFP, I do not know.

When one looks at the NRP, one sees that there have been a couple of interesting features this session. One interesting feature was that the hon. member for East London North reached out across the floor of this House and appealed to the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs to launch a new political movement in South Africa. He said that thousands of South Africans would follow him. If that is not a vote of no-confidence in his own party and leader, then I do not know what is.

That remark followed very shortly upon the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South, who said that he had been so inspired by a speech he had heard made by the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development. The hon. members for Pietermaritzburg South and East London North are inspired by hon. Ministers on this side. They say that a new party ought to be formed, and they wish to dissolve their party. That is very telling.

I want to close with just two thoughts. One is that we are living in dangerous times. I think we all realize that, but I do not know whether we take enough cognizance of the dangers which confront us. In The Argus of the 20th an article appeared under the heading “Little joy for Carter over Reds in Africa.” This article referred to Brezhnev himself as follows—

This is what Mr. Brezhnev, who is leader of probably the most powerful country on the globe, had to say. His own country is in its greatest imperialist phase in its history and it is perhaps the third greatest imperial power the world has ever known. The leader of that imperial power says that they have the right to promote the downfall of colonialism and racism in this region. When one looks at the Minsk, that great aircraft carrier that came past our shores and which is just about the most lethal naval weapon the world has ever seen, when one looks at the Cubans in Africa and the Eastern Germans in Africa, one realizes that we live in dangerous times. South Africa then deserves better than a reckless approach from the Opposition. It requires a more considered view and certainly the effect of the Opposition on this session of Parliament has been totally irrelevant.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Maitland during the course of his speech dealt with the question of the protection of minorities and I shall have something to say about that during the course of my speech. An interesting point arose in that when the hon. member for Maitland rose to speak, he thanked the hon. member for Von Brandis for the speech he had made. While the hon. member for Von Brandis was speaking I in fact called across to the hon. member for Maitland to ask him whether he agreed with what the hon. member for Von Brandis was saying. The hon. member for Maitland replied: “I don’t know; I was not listening.” [Interjections.]

I was not listening to you.

It shows how little attention the hon. member was paying.

But nobody listened to him either.

I want to refer to the point raised by the hon. members for Umlazi and Klip River. It is one of the most extraordinary things in this country of ours and in this Parliament that, when one comes to Parliament as an NP member from Natal, one becomes the most bitter and dissatisfied member in the House. This is obviously so for the simple reason that in Natal they have not yet won the Boer War but are still fighting away and bashing their heads against the wall. Therefore, they come with all the old stories that we hear from them time and again in the House expressing their attitude towards the party which governs the provincial council in Natal, namely the NRP.

The hon. members for Umlazi and Klip River raised the question of the integration of the Coloured and Indian groups in the municipal affairs of Natal. Both of them raised the point that, where there were not enough people to form an independent ward in a city council or an independent municipality, they were given representation as voters and they were able to vote for members of the council as members of the White or Coloured communities could do. I want to ask those members what their alternative is, because surely what the Natal people are doing is exactly the same as what the Government is doing in their Cabinet Council.

Nonsense.

The people live in separate areas and they have to co-operate with one another. They then co-operate and work together, while they live in their own areas. This is not integration or anything of that sort. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Community Development, who is also Minister of Coloured Relations and of Indian Affairs, whether he agrees with members of his party who say that members of the Indian and Coloured communities may not be given representation on councils in Natal where there are not enough of them to form a separate ward so that they can vote for members of their own community.

I am not prepared to be taken under cross-examination. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister is ducking the question. He is completely evading it, even though hon. members of his party have been attacking an arrangement which was made in Natal and is public knowledge. It has been known for a long time.

I do not agree with that arrangement.

Why not? Is he against giving the Indians and Coloureds representation on urban municipal councils?

I think your policy is wrong and dangerous.

Well, that is a fine thing! I wonder whether he will sometime explain to us why it is unwise and dangerous. Let me ask the hon. the Minister why it is dangerous, in the province of Natal, for Indian and Coloured people to be allowed to vote, when there are not enough of them to form a ward, with the White people to elect representatives on a municipal council? [Interjections.] That hon. member has had a chance to speak. Let him address his soul in patience. [Interjections.]

Order!

[Inaudible.]

I am talking to your boss. When I want you, I shall whistle. I am asking the hon. the Minister why it is dangerous. What can be dangerous about perfectly ordinary members of the Indian and Coloured communities being allowed to vote on a council together with Whites simply because there are not enough of them to form a separate ward? That is the kind of thing we get from those hon. members all the time. The most bitter, verkrampte members of the council are NP members who come from the province of Natal. That is so because they know that for years they have been battling to establish control over that council, but they know that they do not have a chance [Interjections.]

Where is your constellation of balls?

Yes, I shall be telling the hon. the Minister about that. I have it here and I want to talk about it I wonder whether that hon. Minister will not tell me what is dangerous, in his province of Natal, of which he is the leader of the NP? [Interjections.]

Order!

Why is it dangerous for members of the Indian and Coloured communities to vote with members of the White community? Now that hon. Minister is going to sign something!

Cover it up before you sign.

That is the kind of thing we get from the NP. As soon as one asks those hon. members a question, they look elsewhere, they sign papers and that sort of thing. [Interjections.] One gets nothing out of them at all.

I wish to refer to a pamphlet which has been published by the hon. member for Umlazi who has his name on it somewhere. It purports to show the model which our party has put out. They have done one thing for me, and I am very grateful for it. They have shown the federal area we postulate, a Parliament for Whites, for Indians and for Coloureds and one for the urban Blacks. They have coloured the one for Whites white and the other three they have shown dark. I want to welcome that because it shows that in the policy of this party there is a Parliament that is absolutely a guarantee of the sovereignty of the White community over their own affairs. They have accepted it and have shown it in the pamphlet. There it is in white. I want to ask hon. members on that side what the difference is between that and the model of their policy. [Interjections.] What is the difference between our policy and that of the NP policy with the non-homeland areas and the Parliament for Whites, a Parliament for Coloureds and a Parliament for Indians, and a mixed body which is the Cabinet Council with a president.

Not a mixed Parliament.

What is the distinction between them? In their model there is just as much black as in ours, but that, of course, is the typical “Swartgevaarpolitiek” of the NP. It is the Black peril politics which they have been exploiting for years. It is the old, old story that that party has battened on to for years and years now. If they think they are going to catch the sophisticated voters of South Coast with that kind of tripe and the lot of nonsense the hon. member for South Coast speaks when he gets onto a public platform, they have really got another think coming. It is unbelievable that people should believe a thing like that.

I want to make a point the hon. members must accept I direct it specifically to the hon. the Minister of Finance. In the policy we have put forward, there is a parliament for the White community, the Indians, the Coloureds and the urban Blacks and we propose that each of the parliaments on the periphery should have tax powers so that there will be the guarantee that the central body cannot dominate those groups. We have had experience of what the central Government did to the province of Natal. When Natal had the right to levy tax and the provincial council could run its own affairs …

[Inaudible.]

I am coming to that hon. Minister in a minute. He must stick around; he must not go away. I want to say to the hon. the Minister of Finance that we have built into that system an absolute guarantee of security because each of those bodies will have tax powers. We have not had a chance to go into the details, but it is quite possible, for argument’s sake, to divide the tax revenue in South Africa between the bodies at the periphery and the bodies at the centre. If one has power over one’s own taxation and one has the money to spend, no one can dominate one.

It is a ball tax.

That is right: It is a ball tax.

It is a White ball tax.

I want to say that I am grateful that the National Party have at least accepted that that. White ball is a guarantee of the sovereignty of the White community. The hon. member for Eshowe, the Administrator-to-be, has precisely made my point for me this evening, as all the other Administrators-to-be have also done, because all of them have said to the hon. the Minister: “Of course, when we are Administrators, you will smile kindly on us and you will help us.” In terms of our proposals, one will have one’s own powers of taxation and one will have one’s own services and therefore one will not be dominated by a central Government which has the power to levy tax and to refuse one supplies in any shape or form. I defy the hon. the Minister of Finance to tell me that that is not a practical proposition.

What about the mixed living areas?

Sir, that typical kind of “Swartgevaarpolitiek” is something in which the hon. member for Umlazi excels. It is something that comes out of his pores. That is all he lives on and has lived on for the whole of his political career.

Your policy gives me the creeps.

I believe that that kind of politics in this day and age is unworthy of the hon. the Prime Minister and of the leadership Dr. Koornhof is giving his country. It is totally unworthy of modem South Africa. It is the old “gisterpolitiek” of the National Party and of that sort of member that is holding us back and preventing us from making the sort of progress we ought to be making in South Africa. That hon. member should be made to explain to the Prime Minister why he wallows in this sort of tripe instead of behaving himself and getting on with modem politics.

The hon. member for Benoni, who spoke about our policy last night, explained why he was not able to be present tonight He said during the course of his speech that, of course, he could not understand all this diatomic molecule business. Of course he could not. People who live in the ox wagon age cannot understand the new language of molecular times. That is the problem with the National Party. They cannot understand it. They are wallowing in the old times. They cannot understand the new language of the new Republic that is coming in South Africa. They are totally and completely …

Your new Republic will be a Black one.

It means absolutely nothing to them. [Interjections.] I wish to say to the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, who is waving some pamphlet about …

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications allowed to display nudist literature in the House? [Interjections.]

It is a Playboy. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I have found an hon. member of the NP who is prepared to policy debate with me on TV. The hon. member for Stilfontein is the first hon. member on that side of the House who is prepared to do it. I want to ask the hon. the Minister …

I will put you on TV with your …

That is what I want. Is that a promise?

[Inaudible.]

That is a promise.

He has given me a promise too.

In the debate on the Erasmus Commission’s report I said that the attempt to found The Citizen was nothing but a conspiracy against the minds of English-speaking South Africans, nothing else.

Nonsense.

I want to say to that hon. the Minister in all seriousness that the exclusion of all Opposition parties from the South African Television Service is a conspiracy against the mind of every voter in South Africa. [Interjections.] The Government is denying the voters of South Africa access to the alternatives to the policy this Government follows. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister must not forget his promise. I want to say that at a time like this we ought to be discussing the alternatives. There ought to be a thorough and full-blown discussion about it so that all the people of South Africa can understand what the alternatives are. The problem with the Government is that their whole policy is before committees and commissions. The Constitution is before a commission, which is going to determine what it ought to be. I can also refer to the Wiehahn Commission, the Riekert Commission and other commissions. The Government does not even accept all the reports anyway. The Government has no clear direction of policy to which one can point and say that that is the direction they are taking. The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development has used a typical ploy such as he has used before with the NP.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I shall not answer him. So he can shut up. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister has played this game before. He suddenly makes such a statement, landing himself in this situation. Everybody is now excited about what the hon. the Minister has said. We remember perfectly well the speech he made in regard to the bantons. Everybody was excited about that too, but when he had to explain it away, it came to nothing more than the old story of the NP. It is the old story: Whenever the NP takes a step in any direction, it is always an advance in reverse, it is a step away from the policies they have always followed. However, Dr. Koornhof often jockeys them out of their position and then he has to deny it again and come back to square one, where they have been all the time.

Will you answer a question now?

No, I will not.

Tell us about the balls and the sticks.

Yes, I want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister about them. He must have been asleep when we told the House about it before, because he does not know what is going on. I want to tell him that there is one thing on which we differ from the Government completely. I want to tell him that what we propose is an extension of the policy of the NP brought to the point of reality.

Have you accepted our policy now?

Does the hon. the Deputy Minister mind if I say a word just every now and then? I mean, I do not mind others say something once in a while. I want to say to the hon. the Deputy Minister that here one is introducing a new group of people into this system. Let us understand what has been said by, inter alia, the hon. the Prime Minister, the hon. the Minister of Community Development and the hon. member for Maitland. It is a question of the protection of minorities. The hon. the Prime Minister has said we are all minorities. What we have got to do is to structure an organization which will protect minorities. What we have done is that we have introduced into this equation another minority, i.e. the urban Black people.

Is that what the small balls are?

No, it is not. The other evening I had the chance to debate with the hon. member for Klip River the question of people of Zulu origin who live in urban areas, for instance in Soweto. I am also prepared to debate the issue with the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance who has been chairman of the Commission for Plural Affairs, I put it to him straight that there are people living in Soweto who are Zulus and who are there because they have opted to be there. They have left their background in the tribal area of kwaZulu, they have moved into Soweto—they may have been there for an entire generation—and they have chosen a different way of life, a different set of values and they are therefore people who have opted out of the kwaZulu situation. They have moved into the urban area and they have chosen Western values and the Western way of life. We say that they are a new group of people and we have got to take account of them. I shall tell hon. members why we have got to take account of them. In his maiden speech this afternoon, the hon. member for Randfontein made a very, very significant contribution to the debate.

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

No, I do not have the time. The hon. member for Randfontein made a very reasonable and good contribution to the debate, because he spoke about the revolutionary threat that is endangering us here in South Africa. He spoke about the threat from the Maoists in the rural areas. But we in South Africa have both threats; the communist threat, which is divided into the urban proletariat—the Russian-Marxist industrial model—and the Chinese threat which is the threat to the rural areas. We have both threats in South Africa. What I want to say to the hon. the Deputy Minister is that the most urgent one which we face here is the threat in the urban areas, because revolutions traditionally and classically start amongst the middle class. They start in the urban areas. They do not start among the poor, they do not start in the rural areas; revolutions in our sort of society are started in the urban areas and if one does not take account of those people and if one does not allow for that movement they themselves have made, this type of threat is likely to increase. We have not moved them: They have made that movement in their minds, they have moved out of the tribal system in kwaZulu into the urban areas; their minds have accepted a different way of life and different thought processes. If one frustrates those people, one is going to directly invite the classical revolutionary situation and the threat of which exists in every country of the world. But the Government are compounding it, because the policy of the Government is simply to say to all the groups in the homeland areas that they must go their own way. There will be no link between them. There is no such proposal. All that we have had from the Government in this regard is a vague statement. In an earlier debate I asked the hon. the Deputy Minister three times to tell me about the constellation of States the Government is proposing, but I have not received any answer. We shall go through this debate and we shall go through next year without getting a single answer from any hon. member on that side as to what the constellation is all about.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. the Deputy Minister is a dear friend of mine and I am a great fan of his, but he must please not try to flunk, because that is fatal to a “guy” like him. He must please not try to follow the argument He must just sit there quietly and perhaps somebody else will understand what I am talking about. I want to address my remarks to another Deputy Minister, one who can think, even if he is a bit rusty. I want to say that, where there are groups of people, as in the homeland areas, and where they are scattered about the face of the country, what this party has been saying throughout the whole of this debate is that one has to integrate the interests of those people in the economy of South Africa. They must be bound together. One must take the wealth that everybody talks about as though it belongs to all of us in South Africa and one has to utilize it and put it together to harmonize the interests of all the people of South Africa. I was very interested to see how uptight the hon. member for Klip River became when we said that all those mineral riches would be included in the Black homelands. It sounded as if he was going to go out of his way to see that they would not be so included. What else was he doing and what else was he referring to? I want to say to the hon. the Deputy Minister what we have to do is to structure an agreement, a relationship and to accept the Black man in the urban areas as a new factor. I believe we have to structure an agreement with the people in the homelands. It will involve nothing more than a council of ministers, as in the case of Brussels. It will be a coming-together of administrative heads to administer and to co-ordinate the interests of all the people of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pity that the hon. member for Mooi River has not yet had the opportunity to sit on this side of the House. If the hon. member for Mooi River could have had this experience, he would have acted far more responsibly, would have spoken far less and therefore made far fewer irresponsible speeches. The hon. member for Mooi River must indicate whether the following statement is true or not: During the 1977 election I was informed that some of his campaign managers in his constituency told our voters not to vote against him since he was as close to the NP as could be.

In the second place, I believe that this year’s session is the last one in which the NRP will still have the number of MPs in the House that they have at present, because I see a few of them looking longingly at this side of the House. A few of them are kindred spirits of the NP and I believe that there are a few of them who are willing, when the time is ripe, to cross to our side. The old statement that the NRP governs Natal is therefore a temporary phase. I believe that in a few years’ time—perhaps even sooner—a few of them will be sitting on our side of the House. I am not going to mention names, but I see them watching me very closely.

Since we are reaching the end of a session this evening, we can look back to a few traumatic experiences we have had in the course of the session. In my opinion some hon. members on that side of the House perhaps sank a little low with their arguments. Listening to them, I wondered whether they realized what Parliament is engaged in, what we are struggling with and what we are striving for. The great tragedy is now that the official Opposition is making it very difficult for South Africa—not for the NP—to hold its head high in the world. In this regard I should like to mention a few examples.

What did the hon. member for Houghton say a short while ago? In her latest speech, the hon. member for Houghton told the world that she had no confidence in South Africa. The hon. member went on to maintain that the high gold price was not thanks to or for the sake of South Africa. It is a pity that a woman like this, whose voice is often very widely heard in the outside world, has no confidence in the country where she lives, where she has grown old and where, I believe, she wants to find her last resting place one day.

There is another tragedy which I have remarked on during this session and this evening as well. I note a tendency among the official Opposition to want to close their eyes to the realities of our country. I do not know whether they close their eyes through wilfulness or whether it is due to political short-comings, but they are closing their eyes to the realities of South and Southern Africa.

A third tragedy which I noticed earlier in the session and this evening as well is that there are hon. members in the official Opposition who take pleasure in making inflammatory statements or speeches. Perhaps they do not do so consciously, but they are nevertheless statements of which the ordinary man may have to pluck the bitter fruits in the future.

I want to mention a fourth tragedy. Not one of the hon. members of the official Opposition has ever had the courage in this session to stand up and tell the outside world, specifically the UN: I accuse you of impotence in international politics; I accuse you of acting wrongly towards South Africa. Have you ever heard the UN being criticized from those benches for what they have done concerning our efforts to create peace and order in South West Africa?

The official Opposition—this is to me the fifth tragedy—has, in the course of this session, conducted an incredible, sustained gossip campaign. Why should anyone gossip about me or vice versa? There are three reasons why people gossip. I want to apply them to this party. In this session the official Opposition gossiped because it was afraid. It is afraid that it will never be able to defeat the present Government by way of a normal election. Secondly they are gossiping because they hope that by way of their gossip campaign they will be able to hide their own weaknesses and in some way, perhaps extra-parliamentarily, hurt the Government. Thirdly, they gossiped so much because in their own ranks—perhaps one should not include all of them—there is an intense hatred, to which they are driven by a certain Press group in particular, aimed chiefly at the NP and what we stand for.

I found a sixth tragedy in the things that we have experienced. I want to put a question to the hon. member for Johannesburg North this evening; he is a man with experience of life, a man with grey hair; I always have respect for grey hair. Earlier this year a prominent religious leader in South Africa made a certain remark in his parish letter. This remark met with response at the UN. I am going to read two extracts now and ask the hon. member to tell me this evening whether he identifies with this statement or whether he will repudiate it. This religious leader said—

That is what a very prominent religious leader in South Africa writes to his congregations throughout the country.

The question is too long, I can’t keep listening.

Four days before this man wrote this, a resolution was adopted in the council chambers of the UN. It has been reported as follows—

These dangerous words were uttered within one week. Nowhere, during the last few months, have I read that anyone in that party has expressed opposition to these things. I ask the hon. member for Johannesburg North to tell me whether he supports this or whether he is willing to say here this evening that he repudiates those statements. I know that he does not have a turn to speak now, but he can make it known in the press tomorrow. My time has expired. [Interjections.] Perhaps the hon. member should just say “yes” or “no”. I put the question to him because I have respect for him due to his career as a judge and on account of his age. There are many other hon. members in that party whom I do not respect, and that is why I put the question to him.

[Inaudible.]

To conclude, I wish to ask that we say to each other that South Africa is heading for stormy weather. Let us say that there are storm clouds in the world and they are threatening South Africa. What am I going to do? Am I going to creep into holes like a mouse, or am I going to rise into the air like the eagle and defend myself? My appeal to my colleagues and this House this evening is: Let us be eagles. Again I want to ask the hon. member for Johannesburg North, the hon. member for Durban Point and other hon. members to stand by our hon. Prime Minister. Let us say to him that he must be the eagle in these days of storms; we shall support him. The hon. the Prime Minister has said that he wants to, must and is going to create conditions in South Africa in which every man and woman, irrespective of race or colour, will be prepared to defend this fatherland. Those are the words of this leader of ours, and in the time of storms I regard him as an eagle that is rising. My appeal to hon. members this evening is that we should tell this man that he must be the eagle which rises up against the dangers, and we shall stand by him and assist him to achieve what he must do and wishes to do.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Worcester once again stated that it was the remarks of the hon. members on this side of the House that had greatly harmed South Africa. We do not agree with that. We are of the opinion that it is the actions and policies of the Government that cause that damage. It is our duty to report to South Africa that it is the policy and actions of the Government that cause South Africa that damage.

I want to test the standpoint of the hon. member by making three statements. Then I want to ask the hon. member for Worcester or any other hon. member to tell me whether my statements are correct or not. The first statement I want to make is that South Africa is racialistic.

No.

The hon. member says that this is not true. What do the other hon. members say? [Interjections.] What does the hon. member for Vereeniging say? [Interjections.] What does the hon. the Minister of Community Development say? It would almost seem to me as though most hon. members are saying “no”. The second statement I want to make, is that there is discrimination on the basis of colour in South Africa. Is this true?

Your policy discriminates too.

Hon. members must only say “yes” or “no”. [Interjections.] Some hon. members reply “no” and others say that we are moving away from it. The third statements I want to make, is that certain population groups in South Africa are being denied fundamental human rights.

No.

The hon. member says “no”. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Worcester is shaking his head to and fro. This usually means that he is saying “no”. These statements do not originate from the PFP. [Interjections.] These statements come from a speech made by the hon. member for Pinetown. The hon. member for Pinetown is not a representative of the PFP. Nor is he a member of the NRP, nor even of the SAP. The hon. member for Pinetown is a member of the NP. He is one of the leading members and spokesmen of the NP. That hon. member is now travelling in the USA. What he said there, was reported throughout the USA and the world. He says: “South Africa, is it racist?” He replies, “Yes”. “Is there colour discrimination?” and the hon. member replies “Yes”. “And the denial of basic human rights?” and the hon. member replies “Yes.” If such statements greatly harm South Africa, then surely this is being done by members of the NP.

Read the rest.

The rest is irrelevant. It is “Is there agonizing about it?” and the reply is “Yes”, and “Are changes taking place?” and the reply is again “Yes”. No one denies this, but the point I want to make is simply that even a section of the NP believes that to be honest in respect of fundamental problems, it is a good point of departure if one wants to create a good impression, if one wants to win the confidence of people one is addressing, and if one wants to make progress. We believe this too.

When members of this party speak to people of the outside world, either in the outside world or in South Africa, we are not going to attempt to lie or conceal the sins of the NP. However, what we do, and what we always do, is to place all the events in South Africa in the correct perspective, and while we shall not deny the negative side of the matter, because we cannot benefit by doing so, we shall always insist on stating the positive side of the matter as well and, what is most important, point out to those people the potential for change and for progress in South Africa. That is why we in this party are overjoyed that a person such as the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development is at present in the outside world and making statements there that fit squarely within the policy and political philosophy of the PFP. To tell the truth, when the hon. the Minister returns to South Africa I wonder whether he will still be welcome in the benches opposite. Perhaps we should make place for him here on our side.

What was the Prime Minister’s reaction to the speech?

What has the Prime Minister to do with the matter?

I carefully examined the statements of the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development on the basis of the principles and the policy of the PFP. I can see no difference between what the hon. the Minister, speaking in the outside world, said the policy of the NP was, and what the PFP expounds as its policy in its documents in South Africa.

What policy?

There is no difference. The hon. member for Von Brandis is not in this House at present, but I just want to mention incidentally that my hon. Leader referred to the speech made by the hon. the Minister, and I want to quote from page 9 of that speech. An hon. member such as the hon. member for Rissik will not believe his ears and there are many other members on the opposite side of this House who will not believe this either. I am prepared to make photostats of this speech available to members of the NP if they do not believe what I am now going to read to them. The hon. the Minister said the following—

This is a very important statement, because here the hon. the Minister admits frankly, honestly and candidly that we have a system in South Africa that is founded on injustice.

Where does he admit that? It is a general statement. [Interjections.]

Over the years it has been denied by one NP speaker after the other that the policy of the NP is based on injustice.

You would do well to read that sentence again.

It is true, and the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development says this very clearly. He says—

I must differ from that statement. I think he is aware of the fact and the hon. the Minister of Mining is aware of it. There are one or two other Ministers who are aware of the fact, and here and there a member of the NP too. However, the NP as a whole is not aware of the fact that its policy is founded on injustices. However, here we have a frank statement by one of its members to the effect that this is the case. Then Minister Koornhof says, and this is a statement that pleases us greatly—

This is the most impressive statement of the approach and the intention of the NP I have ever seen, and I only hope that it is true, that the NP really means this and that the party will give its full support to Minister Koornhof in this respect [Interjections.] Does the hon. member for Rissik agree with this? Will he support him when he says that discrimination must be driven out of South Africa completely?

Yes.

But that is wonderful! Where is the hon. member for Alberton? [Interjections.] We are making the type of progress this evening that I had never thought possible.

Yes, but you are very stupid.

I quote further—

Now this is an interesting statement, because this is the one thing that the Black man, the Coloured and the Indian have never had under the NP Government. They have never had the opportunity. For them there has never been a joint say or a sharing of power in respect of decisions affecting their own future or destiny. However, Minister Koornhof said that it would be the aim of the NP in future to ensure that all the people, the Black people, the Coloureds and the Indians, would have a share in the decision-making processes of South Africa.

I shall show you NP pamphlets of 10 years ago indicating that.

Of course I accept that this means that the urban Black man, where he lives and has all his interests, will exercise political rights, not in an apartheid structure, but in a system in which he has a say, in other words, in which he will decide together with the White, Coloured and Indian. I quote further—

Is this not beautiful! However, is this going to be the case as far as education is concerned? Is this Government going to ensure that within a short time there are going to be exactly the same rights and opportunities for the Black person as for the White person? Is this true? Can we get a reply? What about the hon. the Minister of Finance or the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs? Is there a person on that side of the House who can tell us whether this is really the case? Is this going to be the situation. [Interjections.] You must not back down now, because we are really making progress now!

Order! Hon. members may not be addressed as “you” and “your”.

No, I mean the hon. members opposite. I quote further—

If the NP accepts that concept, the concept of full, equal citizenship for every person in South Africa, White, Black, Coloured or Indian, we have really made progress. Equal citizenship with equal citizenship rights is the foundation of the policy of the PFP. If hon. members accept that, then we have struck the greatest blow for South Africa for then we have persuaded them to accept that. If they accept that, it means that they accept all other aspects of our policy as well. The hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance has just arrived here. It is a great pity that he has not been here because he has missed a very good speech, but it does not matter now. May I just ask a question, because the other hon. members are having difficulties. Does he accept the statement of the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development that the NP will give equal, full citizenship to all South African citizens, to all persons in South Africa, White, Black and Coloured? Is this true? [Interjections.] Do you want a moment to decide?

May I reply, Sir?

Just say “yes” or “no”.

Mr. Speaker, I want to reply to the hon. member’s question.

Just say “yes” or “no”, man. It does not require a long reply. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, the Government must not send that member to America, because he cannot even give a direct reply.

Order! The hon. member is apparently enjoying this, but he must not address the hon. the Deputy Minister as “man”. He is an “hon. member”, not a “man”. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I trust that that statement is only meant figuratively and not literally.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I do not want to enter into a dispute with you. I am a man. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must not drag sex into this debate as well. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development said finally—

Even for Horace?

Sir, I say that there should be full human rights for everyone; the Blacks, Coloureds and Indians are going to get full human rights in South Africa. Sir, what does this mean? Does this mean that the Government is going to abolish the Group Areas Act?

Never!

The Group Areas Act simply means that full human rights, full opportunities do not exist for all South Africans.

That is rubbish.

Does this mean that the Government is going to abolish race classification? If there is one thing that is in direct conflict with the concept of full human rights, then it is the classification of people according to their race.

Most people are proud of their origin; only you are not.

The Group Areas Act is based on that classification and it is one of the cruellest, most inhuman and most drastic discriminatory measures in South Africa, that also causes the greatest resistance amongst the Coloureds and the Indians against the White man in South Africa.

Is it an insult for you to be classified as White?

I only want to be a South African.

To be classified as a White person gives me a tremendous number of rights and opportunities of which persons who are not classified as White, are deprived. This means racial discrimination and this means tremendous problems for the Government and for all of us in South Africa.

The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development went on to say—

As a whole, Sir, everyone of these standpoints and principles set out by the hon. the Minister, coincide exactly with those of the PFP. I want to ask whether the Government has made one meaningful change in the past five years that has not been an acceptance of PFP policy and at the same time a rejection of the policy of the NP. Surely this means that we are right. Now we see that the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development and the few men who will support him, accept this too. We are very pleased about that. Even the constitutional dispensation proposed by the PFP of a federation in South Africa is, according to the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development, a possible future constitutional dispensation in our country.

I just want to say that the Third Reading debate affords an opportunity for the Government to furnish replies to the crucial questions that came to the fore during the session and to which no replies were furnished. It is the responsibility and the duty of the Government and its leaders to furnish those replies. During this Third Reading debate the Government and its leaders have once again failed to meet that responsibility and to furnish South Africa with the replies. Instead of that there is utter confusion in the ranks of the NP. Political chaos is written on the faces of the hon. members on that side of this House. They simply do not know which way to turn. We are sitting here under these circumstances, the principal characters in this fundamental ideological conflict. It is tearing the Government to pieces and paralysing it, but not one of the principal figures is present to reply. The hon. the Minister of Cooperation and Development will probably go and pay a visit somewhere for a long time so that his colleagues cannot get at him. Nor is the hon. the Minister of Public Works here. He deemed it advisable not to be present to account for these matters.

Let me conclude by saying that the Government, as far as these matters are concerned, has not done its duty. No replies have been furnished, and South Africa will not forgive the Government this.

Mr. Speaker, it would seem that I am going to be the last ordinary person to participate in this debate.

Order! Would the hon. member please resume his seat?

I just want to say that, humanly speaking, this is probably the last time that the Deputy Speaker has sat in this Chair. On behalf of myself, the Deputy Chairman, the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, the Under-Secretaries at the Table and all the hon. members in this House I want to tell him that we take leave of him and that our best wishes accompany him.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Speaker, I was afraid that you would not be on time, and then I wanted to extend the same good wishes to the hon. the Deputy Speaker. By your leave, Sir, I should like to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister on behalf of the ordinary persons in this House that what Fauresmith and we here in this House are losing, the O.F.S. is gaining. Although I am now a Northern Transvaler, I think we shall calmly side with the hon. member for Fauresmith this evening and tell him: “May the Free State team not fare too badly.”

Since this Third Reading debate is rapidly drawing to a close, it is perhaps appropriate to dwell for a moment on the speech made by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. One asks oneself to whom and to what one was actually listening this evening. I would not be wrong if I were to say this evening that this House was listening to the most disillusioned person in this House. The hon. member who has just spoken is the most disillusioned and uprooted Afrikaner this House has ever seen: A person without a past because he sold his past for a mess of pottage, a person without a future because he chose to join that party. That is actually the fourth party he has joined. That party has no future either. For that reason one can only say: Poor man to end up in such a situation; to experience such a frustration!

Then the hon. member tries to put the words of the hon. the Minister in a different light to the one in which they should in fact have been put. The hon. member did not read the actual words. What was the statement?—

Read further.

Wait a minute. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition should exercise patience for a moment, because I want to talk to him.

Then the hon. member quoted three questions asked by the hon. member for Pinetown: Is South Africa racialistic? Is there discrimination on the basis of colour? Are people being deprived of basic human rights? What the hon. member did not add is what that hon. member said in his speech, viz. “But where in the world is it not taking place?” Why did he not say that?

Rectify the matter here and now.

Why did the hon. member omit to mention what the hon. member for Pinetown had said: “We are doing something about the matter, but what are you doing in America and what is being done in other countries of the world?” For the sake of convenience nothing is being said about that.

I want to point out to that hon. member that the NP has a primary function to create a future for all the people in South Africa, and that is a function and a task it has accepted for itself. That hon. member, who has been uprooted, asked whether we were prepared to give full-fledged citizenship to all the people of South Africa. I say: “Yes.” Yes, within the dispensation of the NP policy. Let us first take the example of the Coloureds. Who gave the Coloureds a new dispensation so that they could realize themselves? Who cleared up Windermere? Who cleared up the mess in District Six? Who built more schools, more houses, more churches and more colleges for the Coloureds? The NP.

Through racial tension, through grief, through suffering … [Interjections.]

If that hon. member would just close his mouth so that his ears can open, he will be able to listen.

Now I should like to come to the Black people. Last night I had the opportunity of dining with the ambassador for Bophuthatswana in South Africa. Now that hon. member must listen carefully. We were a large group of people and I asked the ambassador: “Why are you, as a churchman, the ambassador of Bophuthatswana in South Africa?” Then he said: “Sir, because I, as a Christian churchman, felt a calling to serve my people, but now I want to tell you something. Do not think it is the NP that handed us our freedom on a platter.” Then I asked: “What does that mean?” He said: “Mr. Lloyd, I want to tell you that it is our birth right.”

That is an interesting story.

Now I challenge that hon. member. Does he now want to tell the ambassador that he may not accept his birth right? Was it not the hon. member who voted against the First Reading of a Bill dealing with the independence of these people who claim their birth right? He is doing so again now in the case of Venda.

There is another thing I want to tell the hon. member. The ambassador’s son was there too and I asked him the question: “Young man, what do you do?” Then he told me: “Sir, I am studying for my LL.B.” Then I said: “Yes, then you will probably become an advocate. Welcome. What are you going to do?” Do hon. members know what he said? He said: “Sir, I should like very much to become an advocate so that I can go and work amongst my own people.” Surely this is nationalism. One cannot halt it, whatever one does. Then hon. members ask whether we are prepared to grant full-fledged citizenship. Yes, a thousand times yes.

In South Africa?

In their own country. [Interjections.] Is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition so stupid that he does not want to grant Bophuthatswana its nationalism?

Let us take the Indians. Did we, like Uganda, deport the Indians, shoot them down, herd them into camps or load them on to small boats and tow them out to sea? No. This Government created a home and a future for the Indians in South Africa.

Where is their home?

Hon. members would do well to go and ask them. Surely the leader of the NRP has also been in London and is aware of the conditions there. He worked, inter alia, in Nottingham Road and the hon. member will probably know that 30 to 40 Indians and West Indians sleep and live in one flat there. In view of this I want to know: Who does more for these people than we in South Africa? Where are they happier than here in South Africa? [Interjections.]

I do not want to discuss the Whites of South Africa this evening, because the standard of living of our Whites is probably among the highest in the world. We are perhaps a little lazy to work and I believe that we should work a little harder.

The hon. member said that we had to account for certain things and although I do not intend to reply for the hon. the Minister, I do just want to say that the NP will continue to build its Sasols in South Africa, regardless of what the Opposition is going to do. It will also continue to tame the Orange River and to complete the Tugela-Vaal Scheme so that water is available and our farmers can continue with their activities. We shall do this no matter how many millstones we have around our neck. We shall also continue to exploit our mines, and to make use of Saldanha Bay, Richards Bay, and other harbours and projects such as the Sishen project Our Velindabas and Pelindabas will continue to develop without the support of the hon. the Opposition. If the world asks why we are doing this, we reply: For peaceful purposes.

The NP will also proceed to extend the helping hand of a good neighbour. If as a result of drought Lesotho experiences famine, the White farmer with his tractor, his seed and his fertilizer will be prepared to extend his hand over the border to his Black fellow-farmer in another country and say: I am your good neighbour; I shall help you. If famine prevails in Zambia, our trucks and trains will be ready and we shall be prepared to render assistance there as well. We shall still be able to say to Mozambique that there are employment opportunities for its people in our country. To Swaziland and Botswana we shall be able to say, inter alia, that our skill and medical services are at their disposal if they should require them. Therefore the NP will be able to prove throughout, that there is no substitute for a good neighbour. However, one must not bite the hand extended to one. I believe this should also be remembered.

We realize that we are going to experience serious problems during the coming parliamentary recess. We are experiencing problems with regard to South West Africa and Zimbabwe Rhodesia. If I were to be granted one wish this evening—I believe this applies to the Opposition too—it would be that these neighbours of ours and we shall sail into calmer waters and that there will be peace and tranquillity for us all at some stage in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I must say I am very pleased to be able to stand up at last. I have listened attentively over a period of 12 hours to the 36 speakers who participated in this debate. It has really been an interesting debate, but I believe that by this time, we should all like to go home, and therefore I promise not to speak for more than an hour. [Interjections.] I honestly do not believe that I shall be able to last for an hour tonight.

However that may be, this has been a remarkable session, and a remarkable debate too, in several respects, as the hon. member for Klip River correctly remarked. The debate not only produced the two good maiden speeches by the hon. members for Beaufort West and Randfontein—I want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to them—but a few excellent contributions were also made in the financial and economic fields by hon. members. Here I am thinking of the contributions made by the hon. members for Newcastle, Smithfield, Malmesbury, Vanderbijlpark, the Minister of Agriculture and also, towards the end, the hon. member for Stilfontein. Furthermore, I also have to mention the contribution made by the hon. member for Parktown, who, as the hon. member for Malmesbury correctly said, actually seconded my speech. However, I shall leave it at that. I think, nevertheless, that his speech was remarkable in that it was virtually the first time this session that we heard a considered, logical and consistent speech from an hon. member of the Opposition. They concentrated on the Information scandal to such an extent that we did not really get any useful contribution from their side during this session as far as the financial sphere and the economy are concerned. I believe, however, that that hon. member’s contribution was an exception this time, and I enjoyed it to listen to his speech.

I should like to deal with certain factual aspects of the speeches of hon. members. The hon. member for Orange Grove discussed agriculture, at some length, and I think that my hon. colleague replied to him very effectively. He spoke about unemployment, as did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and, if I understood him correctly, he said that more money should have been spent on the infrastructure. We on the Government side are thoroughly aware, of course, of the need for creating job opportunities for our constantly growing population. The hon. member probably knows as well as I do that the downward phase which was experienced by our economy between 1975 and 1977 followed on a world recession which had been caused by the large increases in the price of oil at the end of 1973. We could hardly have expected to escape those price increases. This necessitated financial discipline and that discipline laid the foundation for our present upswing. At the same time, however, it restricted our ability to provide the growing population with sufficient job opportunities. Nevertheless, the Government did a very great deal, particularly by way of well-considered stimulating measures and the creation of infrastructure in the field of roads, the supply of electricity, harbour facilities, education, housing and many other services. All this was bound to provide more employment. The reproach is often made against the Government that this has given the State an excessive share in the economy. I want to quote a few figures to illustrate Government spending on capital projects and goods, as well as investment, because those are measures which have contributed to the provision of more job opportunities over the past few years.

If we look at the economic and the target classification of budgetary expenditure and statutory appropriations as published in the statistical economic review which accompanied the budget, we shall notice under the item “economic services”—an item which includes expenditure on agriculture and forestry, mineral resources and development, manufacture and construction, transport, storage and communication, as well as roads—that all the economic services in that regard and capital expenditure and loans in respect of those services are nearly 20% higher in the 1979-’80 budget than in the previous year. This is an increase from R165 million to nearly R200 million. Lower income housing for Blacks, including the Black States, is nearly 25% higher in the 1979-’80 budget than in the previous year. This figure has increased from R94 million to R117 million. In 1974-’75, the total budgetary expenditure on housing amounted to R111 million. The figure for the 1979-’80 budget is R327 million. This means that the figure has increased threefold, and that in the course of a few years. I could give some other figures as well.

I should like to conclude my remarks on this aspect by saying that the fixed investments by public authorities and public corporations increased from R1 174 million in 1969 to nearly R5 000 million in 1978. Therefore it increased by 315% in a little less than a decade. I believe that these figures are sufficient to illustrate that the State has made and is still making its contribution to the provision of employment. That is my reply to that specific argument.

Then I should just like to say a little more about exchange control. In my introductory speech to the Third Reading debate on the appropriation Bill I announced exchange control measures which constituted a further step in the process of simplifying, streamlining and relaxing exchange control restrictions. I also mentioned the commission of inquiry under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke that is at present conducting an investigation into malpractices with regard to the evasion of the exchange control measures and the methods for combating such malpractices.

The Van der Walt Commission made a good start and has already obtained a considerable amount of evidence. It gradually became more apparent, however, that exchange control measures are of such a technical nature that it will be extremely difficult for members of the commission to make a proper study of the matter, while having to meet all their other obligations, and to submit a report within a reasonable period of time. An attempt was made to provide the commission with technical advice by seconding Reserve Bank officials to the commission as advisers. The Secretary to the commission is himself a senior official of the Department of Finance with knowledge of this specific field.

Meanwhile, many events took place in various fields which overlapped and even duplicated the commission’s area of investigation in some way. One has only to look at the events surrounding the reports of the Erasmus Commission and the creation of the State Trust Board, which will now take over from the Pretorius Committee; at the revised procedures between the Reserve Bank and departments which require foreign exchange; at the relaxation of exchange control measures which I announced yesterday and last month; and, what is very important, the fact that the De Kock Commissions is finding that it has to concentrate increasingly on the field of exchange control policy and its implementation, precisely because exchange control policy is inseparable from financial policy, including exchange rate policy.

I have discussed the matter with the chairman of the commission, and as the hon. the Minister of Finance I believe, and the Government agrees, that the time has now come to undertake a thorough co-ordination of all the available data and to have an evaluation made by two or three highly qualified persons of exactly what has been achieved to date, what our present position is and what course we should take. I should like to hear from this small committee whether it is in the best interests of the country that the Van der Walt Commission should continue with its original terms of reference, whether these should be changed in accordance with changed circumstances, and whether its terms of reference should possibly be terminated at some stage. I want to draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that a real problem has also arisen as a result of all the members who have resigned from the commission for various reasons. In fact, at the moment there are no fewer than four vacancies, including the chairmanship.

I am convinced that we would be able to avoid a great deal of trouble and duplication at this stage and to take more purposeful action afterwards if we first have our present position evaluated by experts before we decide in what way to continue with this inquiry.

†There have been some remarkable statements in the course of this debate. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition seemed to be very anxious to stress how important it was that we should make greater efforts to understand the minds of terrorists and those who go along with them. That is what I understood him to say. One wonders what this obsession in the minds of the official Opposition is with terrorists and their psychological insights. Why is there this emphasis on urban violence which does not exist? Why constantly raise this bogy of urban violence when South Africa is one of the most peaceful countries in the whole world? It is almost as if the official Opposition are trying to flog a dead horse, as they are trying to do with the Information affair, or are they trying to start something? What else can it be? Why do they have this obsession with terrorism?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has asked me what I am doing with the gold bonanza. Let me first of all put this matter in its proper perspective. Of course the gold price has gone up, but so has the cost of the mining industry, very substantially. In the second instance, considerable development is being planned for the gold-mining industry and that involves very heavy capital expenditure at this time when we are faced with inflation, and all those capital expenditures of course may be written off. They are entitled to write it off. And that affects the profitability of the mines very substantially, and my hon. colleague who has been Minister of Mines for some considerable time will readily agree with me as we have often discussed this. We must look at the profitability. The profitability has increased, but what has happened since I introduced the budget in March? Firstly, in April we had to face a rise in the price of petrol and oil. At that time, in order to prevent the rise being as high as it should have been on economic grounds, I agreed to put aside R130 million in the form of a rebate on excise. That R130 million is not provided for in the budget. This amount is additional to the budget. Then we decided it was in the interests of the country to embark on a very substantial expansion of Sasol 2, at a cost which is at best estimated at R3 300 million on Sasol 2. As Minister of Finance, I have to underwrite that project. If any of our plans in regard to the categorization of that huge project, the biggest we have ever attempted in South Africa, should go awry, the Government will have to see to it that that project goes ahead. So I have to make provision for that, as any prudent man would certainly do. But I do not have a great deal to play with in that respect at the moment Since then we have had a further enormous rise in the price of oil. It is a very uncertain aspect. The hon. member asked what I was doing with the gold bonanza. Well, I have just indicated some of the things that are being done with the gold bonanza at present in the best interests of the country. There are several other projects I could mention as well.

The hon. member for Amanzimtoti said he did not think we knew what the oil costs were. He said it two or three times. In fact, he said he was sure we did not know. I want to assure the hon. member for Amanzimtoti, however, that we have made a very detailed calculation of what is involved, a very detailed calculation indeed. Obviously there are assumptions because one has to look ahead. Nobody, inside this country or outside this country, can tell us precisely what the price of oil will be tomorrow, next month or in six months’ time. The hon. member says that we are paying this high price because of this Government’s policies. [Interjections.] It is being said in this House, in the Other Place and elsewhere, that this is due to our apartheid policy. It is not that, however. Let me tell hon. members what it is. It is because this Government, in South Africa today, is not prepared to hand this country over to the communists and the Marxists, because this Government is not prepared to allow this country to be ruined by a system of “one man, one vote” that we are being penalized. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Durban Point must come down to earth and take account of the realities. I wonder what he would do under similar circumstances. What would his policy be? Would it be Black majority rule?

No.

Well, if it is not Black majority rule, they would be in exactly the same position, if they were in Government, as we are today. [Interjections.]

Order!

It is all very well to sit there and make odd remarks, but let us face realities. This Government is not prepared to hand South Africa over on a platter to the Marxists and the terrorists of this world, and that is why we are being penalized as far as the oil price is concerned.

But that is exactly what you are doing. You are handing it over to the Marxists.

That is a voice in the wilderness, if ever there was one. This Government is not, however, going to be diverted from a sound internal policy by this kind of threat from abroad. Fortunately—and I think we deserve it as a country—the gold price has come up to the mark. The gold price, our policy and our overall exports have enabled us to weather the storm. As I said yesterday, our prospects are good and the outlook is sound.

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

No, Mr. Speaker, I do not have time to answer questions now. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Amanzimtoti must just have a little patience because I am dealing with the aspects he broached. The hon. member for Amanzimtoti also said—and it was a very remarkable statement—that this Government had won no friends for South Africa, not only outside the country, but inside the country as well. What does he mean by “inside the country”? What about the representation in this House? Does that not reflect public opinion in South Africa? Does this House not represent public opinion in South Africa? So what is that hon. member talking about? [Interjections.]

Order!

To make such a statement is, in all fairness, quite ridiculous. As for outside the country, let me tell that hon. member that this Government has more friends abroad in many countries, friends that mean a great deal in the world today, than he could ever dream of. I wish I could take him overseas with me when I go overseas shortly to visit six countries. He will find that in all the quarters in which I move, in politics, industry, banking and all the others, he will be absolutely inundated with invitations to attend dinners and luncheons. The hospitality would be overwhelming.

Only because of gold.

The people I am referring to are the world’s top bankers, industrialists and politicians. But the hon. member says we have won no friends abroad.

It is only because of gold, but you will not come out and say so.

Order! The hon. member must not make so many interjections.

Sir, that party must come back to earth.

I should like to thank the hon. member for Simonstown for the kind remarks he made about me personally. The hon. member pointed to the considerable increase in living costs, which is perfectly correct. This is a world-wide phenomenon. He asked us to take early and effective measures, possibly through the appointment of a committee of experts, to study the implications of this whole problem. That is something we have been giving a great deal of thought to and we shall certainly carry it further. I certainly look forward to discussing this issue with him again. He has made a constructive request and we are only too pleased to take it further with him.

*The hon. member for Smithfield apologized for being unable to be present tonight. His speech showed a special understanding of our budgetary policy, such as he has also shown in the past. I want to thank him for his contribution. He asked me to see whether we could possibly give Government aid to the Stud Book Association. I shall take up the matter with the Treasury immediately to see whether we can possibly comply with his request in co-operation with the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. I am aware of the problems which are experienced in this regard.

The hon. member for Malmesbury made a very realistic speech indeed. He spoke about inflation and the importance of measures to combat it. He explained to us some of the most important causes of the present inflation rate. I believe he showed a very good understanding of this complex matter.

†There is something else I should explain. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and one or two other hon. members, including the hon. member for Houghton, referred to the question of confidence and to my reference yesterday to the importance of confidence. That is so. I did not, of course, say that there was no confidence in this country and that we had to create confidence. What I said was that we should constantly be building up confidence. That was the point I wanted to stress.

Confidence, but not in the Government.

I just wanted to be quite sure that that was well understood. Our policy should constantly be to bolster confidence on all fronts.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I should go into all the details. There is one particular point I just want to come to. Reference has been made to various political and constitutional issues and policies and there has been some good-natured bantering about elections, results of elections, what might happen in the future, and so on. I must say in all seriousness that I do think that if a political party says it has reason to criticize the Government, whether it be on economic, political or financial issues, on the Information affair or whatever, and there are the time-honoured methods of testing these things by elections or by-elections, then surely that party is under an obligation to take part in those elections.

Why do you not fight an election?

I am coming to that. Sir, the hon. member for Musgrave talks a great deal. You know, Sir, he is the only member of that party in the House from Natal.

I invite you to fight Eshowe. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Durban Point must not allow the question of Eshowe to worry him already. I want to tell him that whoever we put up as candidate at Eshowe, he will be a first-class man and is going to make life very difficult for the NRP in Eshowe. I want to make a friendly request to the official Opposition, and that is to take part in Eshowe’s election. [Interjections.] They have to take part. [Interjections.] While we are having this rather rowdy reaction, perhaps somebody on that side of the House would like to tell us across the floor on what conceivable grounds the PFP can say that they will not take part in the South Coast election. If an official Opposition is not prepared to take part in by-elections, what is its possible future? [Interjections.] It does not help to be childish and shout across the floor “You stand here” or “You stand there”. Put up a candidate against our candidate! If, as I have said, they put up a candidate, they will get the biggest thrashing they have ever had. The Opposition is very touchy about this issue. [Interjections.] I do not know how good or bad a politician I am. [Interjections.] I may be a very bad politician. However, I want to say that before they start shouting in a raucous fashion, we must take it into consideration—perhaps it is a complete coincidence—that I became leader of the NP in Natal only in 1972, about seven years ago. I then said that if we really took our coats off and we worked flat out, we might by the end of 1980 or 1982 possibly just manage to gain a majority of Natal constituencies in this House.

Not in this House. You refer to Natal.

This was said in public. What happened? By 1977 we had the majority of Natal’s seats in this House! [Interjections.] How do they answer that? In all modesty I want to say that I represent Natal and that I am very proud of it I have every intention to continue representing Natal as long as it is of any use to the NP. I want to say another thing. I realize that one cannot make all sorts of easy forecasts in the realm of politics, but I want to say that we as Natal members of the NP intend to remain in the majority in this House and even to strengthen our position. This will be in Hansard and hon. members can check on it in a year or two. [Interjections.] What does it matter whether Mr. X or Mr. A wins Eshowe? If Mr. X or Mr. A is a NP candidate, he will win Eshowe. [Interjections.]

I want to point to another reason for the quite incredible headway we have made in Natal. When I talked to people four or five years ago they said that we did not have a hope, that it would take years and years. What is the single most important reason why we have taken Natal? [Interjections.]

I sat here listening for nearly two days and I do not suppose that I have made more than three or four interjections. So I think hon. members can give me a little opportunity to make a point which I believe is of fundamental importance. The reason why we have made this incredible headway is that the people of Natal trust us as the one party that can really bring into being true national unity amongst the people of South Africa. [Interjections.] I have put that issue at every single public meeting I have ever addressed in Natal. I have made that one of the most important points. As a result of that we have carried those voters increasingly. And if hon. members ask me what I really have in mind, I say I am talking for the National Party and I do not think that this issue of true national unity in South Africa was ever put better than it was put by the hon. Mr. B. J. Vorster in 1969 in this House in a speech which I think hon. members would do well to read. It is a speech which starts in column 4493 of Hansard, 1969. Mr. Vorster was then Prime Minister. He introduced this issue and said how fundamental it was and then proceeded to quote Dr. Malan. He particularly quoted from a speech which Dr. Malan made in 1950 in Durban. It is worth reading, but I do not have the time to read all of it now. It is worth reading Dr. Malan’s statement in column 4496. In developing that theme he next came to Mr. Strijdom, who was the Prime Minister in 1967. I think Mr. Strijdom put this matter absolutely in a nutshell. Mr. Strijdom said (Hansard, 1969, Vol. 26, col. 4498)—

He then went on to say—

Mr. Vorster then went on to quote at some length what Dr. Verwoerd had said on this fundamentally important issue. In all seriousness, it is quite a moving speech. It is eloquence that is expressed here. He then went on to take all this together and to put his own philosophy on this issue. It is an inspiring speech. It is here, and nobody can take that away. I have used this in public meetings and it has made an impact on the people of Natal, wherever I have been. I therefore say to my friends: Do not let us shout and be superficial on these issues. Let us think about these issues. This is the future of South Africa. We must try to get this great feeling of national unity developed year by year. There is already a greater measure of national unity between Afrikaans-speaking people and English-speaking people today than there has ever been in this country, unless I am completely mistaken. And this feeling is continuing. It is because of this fundamental coming together of these two fine sections of our population that we are now in a position to deal with the other fundamental issue, namely our policy in relation to the Indians, the Coloureds and the Blacks. We are now moving from a position of great strength in that field, just as we are moving forward from a position of great strength in the economic and financial field. It is Government policy, and not merely windfalls as the hon. member for Houghton said, but deliberate Government policy that has brought this about.

*With these few words I should like to thank all hon. members who participated in the debate for their interest. We may differ greatly from one another, but we should discuss matters in a reasonable and responsible way. This is also the spirit of my speech tonight.

It is also my heartfelt desire to express my thanks to my officials and departmental heads who perform their duties in such a dedicated way year after year. They do so in a very able way indeed, and I thank them once again for what they are doing in the interests of South Africa. This applies not only to my officials, but to the whole of the Public Service. Tonight, however, I am speaking in particular on behalf of the financial group, i.e. the departmental heads, the Department of Finance, the Treasury, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Customs and Excise, the Registrar of Financial Institutions, the chairman of the State Tender Board, the State Buyer and the heads of the Reserve Bank and the Land Bank, to mention just a few of the important ones. I should like to convey my gratitude and appreciation to them and all their personnel.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I should like to express my heartfelt thanks to you for your patience and your courtesy. This also applies to the Secretariate of Parliament.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move, subject to Standing Order No. 88—

Agreed to.

Amendment to Clause 4 agreed to.

Amendment to Clause 8:

Mr. Speaker, I shall not delay the House more than a few moments, but I think it is important that the significance of this amendment should be placed on record. This morning I pleaded with the hon. the Minister to make an amendment to one phrase of one clause which made this Bill unacceptable because it held a threat to the Press. I pointed out that the hon. the Minister was reacting to opposition against what I called nit-picking. I pleaded with him to think again. I think it is necessary to place on record that through responsible Opposition in the Other Place, the clause which affected the right of the Press has now been modified so that there is no longer any limitation whatsoever on reporting unless there is a calculated intention to influence proceedings or findings. I thank the hon. the Minister for listening to reasonable and responsible Opposition, and I wish to place on record that as a result of that we have now removed from this Bill its last major … [Interjections.] This party voted for the Third Reading in the Other Place and I want to say now that we would have supported the Third Reading in this House too had this amendment been accepted here.

Mr. Speaker, I must say that this amendment marginally improves the Bill.

Tring tring!

Order! The hon. member for Welkom must contain himself.

In fact, the provision that we asked to be deleted was clause 8(1)(a). The Other Place has now amended it by inserting the words “in a manner calculated to influence such proceedings or findings”. We find it difficult to know how one can influence proceedings. We understand how the findings can be influenced, but how one can do anything to influence proceedings is something we cannot quite understand. In fact, this clause is merely a repetition of what is in clause 9(1). It always said—

So, in fact nothing new has been added. The words “calculated to influence such proceedings of findings” was all the time included in clause 9(1). However, to the extent that this is now linked directly with the Press it is a marginal improvement However, the real test is how it is going to work in practice. We believe that this Bill is still going to be a limitation on the Press and we will have to see in the course of the next few months whether this is in fact so or not.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to react to what the hon. member for Durban Point said. I concede at once that there was a reasonable Opposition in the Other Place. That was why this amendment was effected.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

When this motion is adopted this House will, as hon. members know, adjourn until 1 February 1980 in terms of a resolution adopted on 21 June. This resolution was adopted to give effect to the unanimous resolution of the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders of 11 June this year. As may be seen from the resolution it was decided that the practice of proroguing Parliament at the end of a session will no longer be adopted, but that the Senate and the House of Assembly shall adjourn until the date on which the next session is intended to start Parliament will then be prorogued on the day before the date until which the two Houses have been adjourned. The main object with this procedure is to enable Select Committees to sit during the recess, a need that has been felt for a long time. I want to point out that this new procedure will not exclude the possibility that where it will facilitate the work of a Select Committee, the State President may appoint members of a Select Committee as a commission to continue the work of the Select Committee or certain aspects thereof. For various reasons Select Committees have to sit in the parliamentary buildings in Cape Town and in cases where a Select Committee wishes to sit elsewhere, it will first have to be converted into a commission.

Mr. Speaker, you will also allow me, before we take leave of one another, to thank you personally, the Chairman of Committees and the Deputy Chairman of Committees sincerely for the way in which you took charge of the proceedings in this House during the past session. Personally I want to wish you and your deputies a very good rest. I also want to express the hope that you and your family will find the necessary strength to be able to continue when Parliament convenes again. You will also allow me to associate myself with what has been said here about Mr. Victor and the staff of Parliament. Our impression has been that they acted with great distinction, great dedication and an exceptionally pleasant disposition towards hon. members and everyone concerned with this House during the past session. On this occasion I also want to wish hon. members who are now taking their leave a pleasant rest and a good subsequent term of service until we meet again. I am also conveying these good wishes on behalf of the hon. the Prime Minister. He apologized for not being able to be here tonight at the adjournment.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Opposition we should like to associate ourselves with the sentiments expressed by the Leader of the House and wish you, as the chief presiding officer, and the deputy presiding officers a good rest As far as you are concerned, I am sure that for you it is to an extent with a sigh of relief that we have reached this stage. We should also like to be associated with his comments as far as the Secretary, his assistants and the whole of the parliamentary staff are concerned. We believe they have provided us with an outstanding service. We wish them a good holiday.

And so say all of us.

Order! Allow me, on behalf of all officers and officials, to thank the Leader of the House and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition sincerely for their kind words. We also want to thank hon. members sincerely for their support and tolerance. We wish all of them a very pleasant rest in the recess.