Mr. Chairman, I request the privilege of the half-hour.

In politics one can evaluate the climate at any given stage, test it and gain an overall impression. One’s overall impression of politics at the moment is that the Government is to a certain extent marking time as far as the future of South Africa is concerned. Seldom before has there been such an overwhelming impression of confusion, inertia and a lack of direction as there is at present. Why is this so? This is something which particularly troubles me.

I have reviewed the past few months and tried to examine the contributions and the part played by the hon. the Prime Minister in particular in this regard. There has been talk of initiatives, of strategies and of plans. I have studied the speeches of the hon. the Prime Minister in an attempt to determine where the possible source of the prevailing confusion could be. An important speech was the one of 15 August 1979, at the NP’s congress in Durban. There the hon. the Prime Minister announced a national objective, as well as a 12-point plan, which formed the basis of a national strategy to achieve the national objective. This objective was formulated as follows—

I do not believe there is anyone in this House or outside who could find fault with such a national objective. In that speech of his, the hon. the Prime Minister described the 12-point plan as the only alternative or option in terms of which we could achieve this objective. I studied this 12-point plan carefully and came to the conclusion that, because it is susceptible to ambiguous interpretation, it is one of the most important reasons for the prevailing confusion and inertia. This is not only my personal interpretation. There are many other people and bodies who have the same opinion. There are, for example, certain academics at the University of the Orange Free State, in Bloemfontein. I quote from Die Volksblad of 18 August 1979—

Prof. J. E. Venter, of the department of Applied Anthropology at the same university, said—

The same is evident from the fact that Pro-Nat of March 1980 considered it necessary to explain the 12-point plan. In that explanation the following is said—

The same was done by the hon. the Minister of Public Works in a brochure he distributed in his own constituency, Waterberg. In it the hon. the Minister, together with his MPC, tried to explain what should be understood under the 12-point plan. These are all indications that confusion exists about what the true and clear interpretation of this plan should be. The one who should clarify this matter is the hon. the Prime Minister himself. He can hardly expect co-operation for a national or a total strategy if confusion exists about the basis of co-operation, if there is no clear guidance about this basis. We find that, viewed from a certain angle, the 12-point plan is nothing but a restatement of the policy of separate development or apartheid. [Interjections.]

Order!

Consequently it is then impossible to regard it as a basis for a national strategy, because separate development is the most important source of conflict in the status quo. Therefore, if we view it from this angle, it can hardly be seen as a strategy which can demand the cooperation of the other political parties and groups.

You are too academic.

No, I shall illustrate this for hon. members. Seen from another angle, the 12-point plan can form the basis for important and essential reforms in South Africa, in a movement towards a new constitutional and socio-economic dispensation. If clarity cannot be obtained between these two interpretations, the appeals made on the basis of the 12-point plan by the hon. the Prime Minister as well as other Cabinet members are nothing but a kind of ritual incantation whenever there is division and confusion in their own ranks. Consequently there is no point in their saying each time that they do have unanimity on the 12-point plan while that unanimity suffers from the possible ambiguous interpretation that could be attached to it.

What, for example, is meant by the following concepts?—

If an ordinary supporter of the NP, were told that one of the principles in which the Government firmly believes is vertical differentiation on the basis of the principle of self-determination, I should not blame him …

You really understand very little of it.

Order!

I should not blame him if he asked exactly what that meant. There have been efforts to explain it. Pro-Nat says for example—

In the circular distributed by the hon. the Minister of Public Works, in reply to the question of what this means, the following answer is given—

[Interjections.] However, a question now arises. [Interjections.] I am not the one who is saying this. It is the hon. the Minister of Public Works and Pro-Nat that are trying to explain.

You do not understand it.

That is why I am asking for clarity, because there is confusion. What does this mean? Is this vertical differentiation voluntary, or is it unilaterally imposed upon people? Who decides how differentiation should take place? Is this a joint decision, or is it only the NP that decides how differentiation should take place? Clarity must be obtained about this, for surely one cannot ask other groups and bodies for co-operation if there is no clarity about this matter.

Let us take another point of the 12-point plan, and this is an important point about which clarity must be obtained as well. I am sure the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development also wants some clarity about this matter, because he discussed it earlier. I am referring to the question of the removal of “hurtful and unnecessary discriminatory measures that create ill-feeling.” I think this aspect of the 12-point plan evoked a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and excitement among many people who are not supporters of the NP, for here there was a clear standpoint of principle as part of the national strategy, viz. that hurtful and discriminatory measures should be removed. It is really this point of the 12-point plan that was probably responsible for people beginning to ask: Is apartheid dead or is it not dead? The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development said apartheid was dead; the hon. the Prime Minister said apartheid, as known to the outside world and South Africa’s enemies, was dead, and I see the hon. the Minister of Public Works says in his brochure that apartheid is not quite dead and that some aspects of it are still alive. However, it is important that we ascertain what is dead and what is not. [Interjections.]

Order!

Let us examine what Afrikaans academics are saying. Prof. Hennie Coetzee asks: “Apartheid is dood?” In his article it is said—

Here he refers to the fact that apartheid is connected with a number of laws—

In other words, what is he saying? He is saying that the concept of apartheid is associated with certain laws, and as long as those laws are on the Statute Book, one really cannot say that apartheid is dead or that we are moving away from hurtful measures.

The same is said by Prof. Olivier of the University of Potchefstroom. He asks: “Watter wette is dit?” Then he mentions seven laws which he regards as being of cardinal importance in the whole question of the concept of apartheid. He mentions, for example, the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, section 15 of the Immorality Act, the Separate Amenities Act, the legislation on Blacks, Act No. 67 of 1952, and the Blacks (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act. To him, these specific laws are the ones which make it impossible for people in this country and abroad to speak of the death of apartheid. If we do want to talk about moving away from hurtful discrimination, from unnecessary discriminatory measures, if we want to obtain clarity about this point of the 12-point plan, we must in some way obtain clarity about the standpoint of the hon. the Prime Minister on these laws.

Up to now, however, we have only been concerned with clarifying a concept. There are certain aspects of the 12-point plan which, as points, require clarification. I am referring, for example, to point 4—

I want to repeat what I have said before. One of the most dangerous things we can do in South Africa is to play buffer politics with the Coloureds and the Indians between White and Black. This is a dangerous thing. If we are going to create the impression that we want to create an artificial solidarity between White, Coloured and Indian, and on the other hand to exclude the Black man from a future constitutional dispensation, we are putting a rod in pickle for ourselves, because this will simply accelerate the process of polarization. I think everyone will agree that the existing state of affairs in respect of the relationship between the Coloureds and the authorities is the poorest it has ever been in history. If any proof is required of the collapse of the 12-point plan in this respect at least, it is furnished by the present situation, and the share of the hon. the Prime Minister cannot be entirely overlooked. The unfortunate episode between him and the leaders of the Labour Party has undoubtedly contributed to the dead-end politics between the Government and the Coloured community at present. The Coloured Council which is soon to be nominated, is, as far as I am concerned, a perfect example of an uninspiring, powerless political institution. It attests to an intellectual and political bankruptcy on the part of the Government. I think this is generally accepted in the Coloured community as well as by us in this House. The whole tragic situation is emphasized by the present boycott of schools and the Government’s inertia and lack of direction in this regard.

†Prof. Van der Ross summed up the situation this morning in The Cape Times by saying—

Amongst the Coloureds.

Order! The hon. member for Langlaagte must stop making interjections.

Obviously, if the hon. member had read the article which appeared in The Cape Times, he would have seen that this is exactly what is meant there. I am therefore not refuting his remark. Prof. Van der Ross goes on to say that there are certain minimum conditions necessary if we are going to meet the present crisis in Coloured education. I shall mention only one of them, viz. his fifth condition—

That is the Government—

He goes on to say—

He is saying that co-operation with the Government by Coloureds up to now has been seen as a badge of betrayal and that the Government must re-establish a situation of credibility. How can that be done? That can only be done by the Government allowing the recognized leaders to come forward and negotiate with them as equals, and not in a situation of “baas, Klaas”. That is the point.

The question that arises is whether the 12-point plan can fulfil this function. Can the 12-point plan meet these minimum conditions laid down by someone like Dr. Van der Ross himself as the minimum to meet the present crisis in Coloured education? We know what the causes are for the present unrest. They have been stated often enough. They have now been stated by the schoolchildren themselves. Recently we had the Cillié report stating them very clearly. Let me quote from that report (Paragraph 30.24.4)—

These are all the factors that has been isolated and identified by Judge Cillié himself, showing what underlying factors are responsible for the present unrest in the Coloured community. What we need is a clear statement from the Government on how the Government is going to meet those conditions, how the Government is going to act in regard to those factors; not a short-term reaction depending on the Minister of Police to contain the situation, but a long-term plan in which iis spelt out what the Government intends to do to meet this crisis. I want to repeat: We know what the factors are, but what we want to know is what the Government is going to do to cope with the situation.

I also want to repeat in this respect that one cannot have fundamental and necessary reform and maintain separate development at the same time. Which of these two options does the 12-point plan in the opinion of the hon. the Prime Minister really support? The hon. the Prime Minister himself must give us guidance and speak clearly in this respect.

Let me get to point 12 of the 12-point plan, viz. the maintenance of a free enterprise system as a basis of economic and financial policy. This appears to be a fairly straightforward and simple principle, the principle of free enterprise. What we want to know is what the hon. the Prime Minister understands by it and how committed his Government is to it. We know that the hon. the Prime Minister went to the Carlton Hotel to meet businessmen there on 22 November 1979, and he spoke to them about the need for co-operation between the private sector and the public sector. I want to make some quotes from the speech that the hon. the Prime Minister made at that conference. On page 12 of the little booklet that was distributed by the Department of Information under the title Towards a Constellation of States in Southern Africa, the following is stated—

It states further on—

It is stated in the following paragraph—

I repeat—

Now my final quote—

I think that that is just about the clearest commitment to the principle of free enterprise in our economy that I have heard from any hon. member on that side of the House and, in this case, particularly from the hon. the Prime Minister himself.

Hear, hear!

And yet, coming to the hon. Minister of Agriculture, here in the Western Cape we have a Coloured preference labour policy which is clearly economically irrational and leads to friction and frustration. It contradicts the very principle of private enterprise. I myself have been saying it for years, but it is now being said with increasing force from different sources, objective and scientific sources. They speak about the fact that this policy is not working; in fact, that this policy in the Western Cape is actually counter-productive, both economically and in terms of race relations.

*I quote from a report of the Department of Sociology at the University of Stellenbosch, viz. Die Arbeidsituasie van die Swart Man in die Wes-Kaap met Besondere Aandag aan die Toestand in die Kaapse Skiereiland. I quote from page 46 of the report—

The same was said by two prominent members of the former Erika Theron Commission. Prof. Theron herself recently said that the commission had been wrong in its recommendation in respect of the preference policy. I quote from The Argus of 11 October 1979—

This is clearly put. The hon. the Prime Minister knows that the hon. the Minister of Manpower Utilization published his own commission report recently, when his Vote was under discussion. In this report, it is also stated very clearly—the hon. member for Houghton has already referred to it—and I quote on page 20, paragraph 3.6.2—

It cannot be put more clearly than this. Here we have objective guidelines from Government bodies as well as experts. They indicate that this policy is not working, in fact, that this policy is detrimental to economic development in this area, as well as to race relations.

The twelfth point of the 12-point plan indicates very clearly that the Government is committed to the principle of the free market mechanism. Here we have an example of where the Government’s commitment must be manifested in practice. What guidance is the hon. the Prime Minister going to give in this regard? Because we must have guidance. We cannot keep vacillating about what is to apply in respect of the Western Cape. This must be spelt out clearly.

What is Harry’s alternative?

The hon. the Prime Minister himself has said that we in South Africa will have to adjust or die as well as that we are standing at the crossroads. This is true, and I have already told the Government that I agree with it. What role is the 12-point plan going to play in this choice? I have also said that I do not condemn the 12-point plan out of hand. I have said that there are aspects of the plan which deserve support and that we must co-operate to realize these, but because it is vague and ambiguous in certain respects, it also creates confusion and results in inertia and a lack of direction. It creates the impression that the hon. the Prime Minister and the Government, as I have said, are marking time at the crossroads of our future. The hon. the Prime Minister cannot use the 12-point plan as a piece of political sticking-plaster to heal the wounds in his own ranks. The NP will have to choose between the maintenance of a traditional solidarity which, in my opinion, means a negative interpretation of the 12-point plan, or they will have to use it for fundamental reform, which could mean a positive interpretation of the 12-point plan. The longer we waver between these two options, the less chance there is of expectations being realized and the greater the frustrations are going to be.

The hon. the Prime Minister finds himself in a lonely position where difficult decisions will have to be taken. The mark of a statesman is that he has to tell people what they have to hear, not what they want to hear. In respect of the 12-point plan the people of South Africa are asking the Prime Minister to tell them what they have to hear so that all of us can work together to achieve the national objective, the objective of improving the quality of life of all peoples in the Republic of South Africa. If we can receive clear guidance from the hon. the Prime Minister on what exactly is meant, only then can it really be expected of all South Africans—Black, White and Brown—to devote their energies to the achievement of this national objective.

Mr. Chairman, to begin with I want to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that it does not befit him to say that the hon. the Prime Minister and his Government are going ahead with the future of South Africa in a haphazard way and are now marking time. What else is the fact that several commissions are at the moment involved with the most crucial questions of South Africa in order to come up with workable solutions for South Africa, if it is not the development of practical, workable plans? That is not all. How many recommendations of expert commissions have not been set in motion in recent times in order to solve the very problems that we are faced with today? We are all amazed that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has progressed so far as to say that he agrees with a single point of the 12-point plan. However, I think he is being unnecessarily stubborn in his allusions to the ambiguity thereof. I think if he really wanted to put on an objective pair of spectacles, he would have seen that the 12-point plan is a masterly summary of the course that South Africa must follow in future.

He does not know what pair of spectacles to put on, because he has two in his party.

I think his statement that “fundamental reform in South Africa can only take place if separate development is to be done away with”, is an outrageous political statement, and borders on opportunism. After all, what he considers as fundamental change in South Africa, which is going to result in chaos and conflict which is going to destroy all systems, is definitely something that all of us are trying to avoid. What is at stake in South Africa? There are two basic human rights, and in South Africa, just as in any other place in the world, one person’s rights can never be suppressed by another. In other words, in the first place, one can never suppress another person’s political rights on a permanent basis, and in the second place, one cannot suppress their right to participate in the economic system.

Apart from the extreme rightist groups, who are seeking out and out confrontation, the political debate in South Africa is not about whether these human rights must be complied with or not, but how they must be complied with. This is what the political debate is about, and I think that the 12-point plan is very clear on this matter. We all know that if one suppresses the political rights of others, one creates an explosive situation which is ultimately going to deprive one of everything that one tried to preserve. The point of vertical differentiation in the hon. the Prime Minister’s 12-point plan clarifies this point without any doubt, viz. a plan which places no restriction on the course of development of the peoples in South Africa.

Moreover, it is the right of every person to be able to achieve the maximum standard of living in an economy according to his God-given talents and his personality traits.

We all agree on these matters, and if we say that we too on this side of the House are striving for these things with determination, then in doing so we do not want to allege that it is possible on an absolute level. We want to say that at most one can have an approximation of the ideal conditions, particularly in a difficult situation like the one that we have in South Africa with regard to the composition of our population. Then one also realizes that there has been a tremendous over-emphasis of political rights in particular in South Africa, due to the fact that there was no proper division of wealth in the past. This is an over-emphasis which can be politically and economically destructive in South Africa if a better dispensation does not come into being. Are these not the steps that have been taken in recent times by the Government, on a high priority basis? Have stumbling blocks not been removed from the paths of Black people with regard to training and participation in the free enterprise system, particularly in Soweto with regard to shops, as well as participation in certain professions which were closed to them previously?

After all, we know that the establishment of these two human rights is complicated a great deal in South Africa by the composition of our population, and I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition today: “What expectation of a future South Africa can a Black leader have today if he looks first of all at the vision of the hon. the Prime Minister and then at that of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition?” A Black leader who looks at the policy of the Government can be sure of the following things on the political level: He can be sure that there is an objective contained in the 12-point plan, viz. that of a constellation of independent States in South Africa; he can be sure that he is able to participate in the constellation of States on the basis of the security of his own ethnic power base without having to find a political stand for himself across ethnic boundaries in the political dispensation that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party foresee.

On the other hand, to take it just a step further, as far as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party are concerned, what vision can a Black leader legitimately have? Will he have to find a stand for himself in a system which has not yet been successful anywhere in Africa? Will he have to cross ethnic foundations to find himself a stand in a situation in which the greatest number of revolutionary ideas will most probably reign supreme? Is this the legitimate expectation which a Black leader may have with regard to the plan of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition?

That is why I want to point out three legs very briefly today which emanate from the hon. the Prime Minister’s 12-point plan which ensures that it is a workable one. The first is that there is an objective. I referred to an objective of a constellation of Southern African States. The second is that there is action taking place to set it in motion. We are not marking time; there are people who are in the process of working on this actively and establishing practical landmarks on the way to that goal. In the third place, there is the question of creating confidence, because one thing is certain: If one gives people a goal and one tries to include them on the road to that goal, and nothing happens, or they do not have the confidence to travel with you, then it is a frustrating, counter-productive action from start to finish.

However, now it happens, that the Opposition cannot outbid us with regard to our objective and the expectations that a Black leader may have if he looks at our policy, in comparison to the expectations that he may have when he looks at the policy of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. Nor can they outbid us when it comes to the steps we are taking in order to achieve peaceful coexistence in South Africa according to our ethnic policy and the policy of vertical differentiation with self-determination for every nation.

That is why they are acting like a lot of “spoilers.” They are acting like a lot of “spoilers” because they are bedevilling us with every step that we take with regard to the action concerning the second pillar, as well as with regard to the third pillar, viz. that of confidence. They and the extreme rightists evidence this “spoiler” action. Why? Every step that is taken, is disparaged and criticized as worthless, whilst, if one sees every forward step that we take in the context of the objective that is being strived for, then it definitely has a specific meaning. Furthermore, if one looks at the question of creating confidence, who has done more in South Africa to create confidence between the different leaders of the various population groups than the hon. the Prime Minister? Is the 12-point plan not a design which can give these people greater confidence in the future?

I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: Is it not true that it is absolutely counter-productive and that it delays the settlement of these people if one undermines the Government in this way by trying to cause the confidence between the hon. the Minister and Black leaders to miscarry? I think it is a fair expectation on the part of this House that people who take the future of South Africa seriously, will contribute towards creating a situation of confidence between White leadership and the leadership of the different population groups, because without that confidence that we are heading for a communial objective of peace and prosperity, the necessary round-table cooperation which could really give us hope for the future, will never take place.

That is why I want to ask all leaders to accept the concept of an evolutionary development, so that once we have created the human rights of meaningful political participation and of meaningful economic participation, we will not destroy these two systems as such, viz. the political and economic, as the rest of Africa has done. Once we have established those rights, we and the Black people who will then be obtaining a considerable portion of those rights for the first time, will all be stronger for it both as regards the political system and economic participation. Is this not an objective for which we can at least join forces with the Opposition so that we can convince Black leaders that the road we must follow, must be an evolutionary one? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, nothing is further from the truth than the statement by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that there is a lack of planning in the Government of the hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is drawing the attention away from the lack of planning and the lack of direction in his own party.

The hon. the Prime Minister has set out clear guidelines and a clear plan for South Africa, and he has spelled it out repeatedly. If we place the full glare of the searchlight on the hon. the Prime Minister here today, on his policy, on his initiatives and his Government, then we see that he emerges with flying colours. The hon. the Prime Minister led us out of the Information crisis with a firm hand and he did so in such a masterly way that the shouting and scolding of the members of the Opposition stuck in their throats. Now they are as quiet as mice after having wanted to topple the pillars of this Government.

With his fresh, positive approach the hon. the Prime Minister has brought new momentum to the course of matters in our country. From the very outset he showed that he wanted to do great things for South Africa during his term and that he wanted to lead us out of dead ends. Under his guidance, we have already progressed far along the path of working out a just dispensation for the people of South Africa. We are on the threshold of great things. We are on the threshold of a new constitutional dispensation, of more meaningful consolidated Black States and of a national strategy which will give South Africa power and teeth. The hon. the Prime Minister is looking ahead with vision and in his vision there is peace and prosperity for South Africa, greater co-operation in Southern Africa, a constellation of Southern African States and joint action against communism.

In fact, it is true that the hon. the Prime Minister has opened new vistas for South Africa on a wide front with his initiatives, but what is important, is that an acceleration of action has taken place everywhere in order to put our house in order and to draw the people of our country together in one great national strategy. These initiatives of the hon. the Prime Minister have also been received very well abroad. During a parliamentary tour at the end of last year to America, Germany and England we held discussions with influential politicians, industrialists, bankers, businessmen and church leaders. We received a single message from them and it is that they like the approach of P. W. Botha. It was clear that this approach is opening doors for South Africa and keeping them open.

The circumstances in which our country prevails, have forced the hon. the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to decide on a concept of a national strategy. The 12-point plan or the 12 national objectives is the point of departure for this strategy. This 12-point plan was essential and it was in good time, because it contains clear guiding principles on how South Africa must act in future. It is not true that it creates confusion as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said. Since the priorities and objectives of the Government are set out clearly in it, it should bring a new mobility to the politics of the country.

However, in actual fact this 12-point plan is nothing new. It is nothing but a rewriting in modern idiom of the objectives and policies which the National Government has been following over the years. The principles upon which this 12-point plan are built, have remained constant since the time that Afrikaner nationalism was given stature in 1912 with Gen. Hertzog’s De Wildt speech in which he placed South Africa first.

The NP is an evergreen, mobile party that took the initiative in all the renewal that there has been in this country. The P. W. Botha régime is continuing the great developmental task of its predecessors. The difference is simply that time is beginning to catch up on us, and that is why the Botha regime is taking action on the homefront as no other Government before it has done.

It was the NP that put South Africa on the path to living from its own resources. This 12-point plan has that very objective. It is thanks to this standpoint of living from one’s own resources that our country is almost totally independent at the moment in a hostile world that seeks its destruction, but cannot break South Africa’s inherent economic power. That is why the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Information was able to tell the UN recently: We are not afraid of your threats; we shall not allow ourselves to be blackmailed.

Just as the NP was born from the deep-seated need of the Afrikaner nation to control its own destiny, so the NP Government wants to share this privilege with the variety of peoples in South Africa. That is why its policy of separate freedoms is based on the fact that every nation must govern itself within its own ethnic context. The successes that have already been achieved here, must be viewed as one of the greatest achievements of the NP Government. There are already three independent Black States that are endorsing the success of the NP’s policy and showing the way for further success in the future.

South Africa’s salvation lies in the 12-point plan of the hon. the Prime Minister. It is absolute nonsense to say that it is a confusing plan, because our objectives are spelled out so clearly in it that they must be clear to anyone in politics. Our salvation lies in this plan because it contains a formula for success for working out a happy, orderly dispensation for everyone in this country, for improving the quality of life of all population groups in the country, creating good race relations, defusing tension and averting confrontation.

Show me a country that was overthrown by revolution whilst there was political, economic, social and ethnic hope and self-fulfilment, like this plan offers us. If the 12-point plan of the hon. the Prime Minister with its 12 objectives is followed through to its full, logical consequences, we need not fear any revolution or rebellion in this country, because this plan contains all the elements for making South Africa one of the happiest, most progressive countries of the world.

[Inaudible.] [Interjections.]

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition over there, may do well to support the NP Government in the plan in the interest of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I request the privilege of the second half-hour. The hon. member for Bloemfontein North has said something which many South Africans fear to be the truth. It is that the 12-point plan of the hon. the Prime Minister is nothing new. This is something South Africa is beginning to fear: The plan is in fact nothing new, it is mere make-believe, and has no real substance.

That is not what he said.

Those were the very words he used. He used these words: The 12-point plan is nothing new. I wish to know whether this is indeed the case, because if it is indeed the case, where have all the expectations come from?

He also added something.

He tried to link it to the past as we have experienced it since 1912—a re-writing of the policy of the NP since 1912. Is that all it is? If that is so, then what have we been talking about this past year?

Vause, tell us more about your 14 points.

No, I am leaving the questionnaire of 12 quotations on the 12 points to the hon. Leader of the Opposition. He was at least consistent in making 12 quotations on the 12 points.

The hon. the Prime Minister is now dealing, as it were, with the first discussion of his Vote, for last year the discussion took place under the cloud of the Information debacle. This is now the first time that he really has to account to the House for his administration.

†It has been a busy year for the hon. the Prime Minister. If he is looking a little jaded today I do not think it is really Fauresmith that caused it. I want to try, however, to bring the debate down to earth, like that man on the balcony at the hon. the Prime Minister’s Fauresmith meeting, who came down to earth a little harder than he meant to do. [Interjections.] I think this is one of the problems. One of the problems is to get the Government out of orbit as it were, to get it down to the ground, to get its feet on the ground. That is one of the real problems of South Africa at the moment. [Interjections.] I see this debate of the hon. the Prime Minister’s Vote as the end of a beautiful honeymoon; in fact a whole series of honeymoons. [Interjections.] In true African tradition he has spread his favours wide. I want to take a look at some of those weddings and their honeymoons. I think for instance of the one with the Press, when he gave the first outline of his twelve-point plan. Then there was the one with the public, who welcomed it, and the one with the homeland leaders, when he visited them. There was also the one with Soweto and the one with the private sector. The time has come to have a look at those weddings and to see in what state they are now, a year later.

No babies yet? [Interjections.]

The wedding of the year was, of course, the “public relations spectacular” with the businessmen in Johannesburg, in November last year. This was a spectacular effort, and from it there has been one baby, though perhaps not from the wedding. There was at least one golden wedding gift. That was the R1 000 million budget bonanza. The other bridegrooms, however, sitting over there, gave gifts that turned out to be nothing but gilt and glitter. There has been much shining promise. I am thinking for instance of the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development and all his promises. But where is the reality a year later? Underneath there has been too much of the mixture as before.

Like all marriages they started with great hope, but the test is when one wakes up in the morning and finds the bride in curlers and with no lipstick or cosmetics. [Interjections.] That is when one sees how that wedding is going. [Interjections.] I want to suggest that the hon. the Prime Minister’s own wedding gift, his 12-piece gift that aroused such great hopes, that was applauded by everyone …

Are you talking of Malcomess’ curly hair? [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs is now referring to Shirley Temple. [Interjections.] The hon. the Prime Minister’s 12-point plan was applauded by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. It was applauded by me personally, and also by South Africa. To many it is starting to appear as Ersatz.

As the hon. member for Bloemfontein North admitted, it is nothing new. It is still the NP policy of 1912 all over again. I must warn the hon. the Prime Minister that that bride is beginning to look at the wording of the antenuptial contract. [Interjections.] Already we have the Federated Chamber of Industries, in a statement on 20 April, beginning to lay down the conditions on which their support for the hon. the Prime Minister’s initiative will continue—

And this is the essential one—

So here we have the first questioning doubts and conditions.

Let us look at the other wedding, that with the homelands. The hon. the Prime Minister paid the “vula ’mlomo”. That is the beast one pays to talk to the father. Now they are looking for payment of the lobola. Is the price that the hon. the Prime Minister is expected by those homelands to pay within South Africa’s capacity to pay? I ask this because I believe that there are other suitors waiting to woo the homelands, and they are the radicals who are pushing the moderates in the wrong direction and who are eroding the goodwill that exists. The high expectations of a year ago are turning to doubt and frustration. From all that one hears and sees, that wedding is not going as well as it should be going.

The other wedding was the Soweto wedding, a week of nightly TV euphoria, and then the disillusionment. But before I speak about the disillusionment, let me pay a tribute. I believe that the new chairman of the committee, Mr. Rive, and the new manager of the West Rand Administration Board are trying their very best and are utterly sincere in wanting to make a good job of Soweto. Almost within weeks of the hon. the Prime Minister’s visit there however, with all the promise it carried, there were questions. Then we had the promise in regard to the 72-hour experiment by the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development. He said he would withdraw the 72-hour occupation limitation as a test. Then followed the outcry, the screams to high heaven from within the NP, from the leader of the NP in Pretoria, and the experiment disappeared into the limbo of “investigation”, and that is the last that has been heard of it.

And what of housing? There have been promises, but how many houses have been built? I do not want to go into detail in this debate. We shall do so in a later debate. Where is the reality in relation to the promise? What about the schools? What about the tragic situation in hospitals, with patients lying on the floor and under the beds? Those are the realities. The other thing that is missing is the muscle for the community councils, the power to act and to do things, the power to carry out what people want to see, the tools to fulfil the expectations of the people. There, too, the glamour of the honeymoon has passed. From my own discussions with leaders there it is clear that there is growing disillusionment and a growing loss of expectation.

Now we come to a new wedding, and this is what worries me most of all. I am referring to the wedding involving the hon. the Minister of Public Works. I see today that the wooing that started has come to a conclusion. On Saturday night an article referring to the hon. the Minister of Public Works stated—

[Interjections.] This is the wedding of the Transvaal NP with the hon. the Prime Minister. Let me warn the hon. the Prime Minister that this wedding is incompatible with the others. It is not one that the other brides will accept. It can only have one result, and that is stalling, marking time, alienation and ultimately conflict and divorce.

In passing let me just say that there is another honeymoon that is ending. I am referring to that of the political superstar, the new Leader of the official Opposition who at some stage had to come here and translate image and generalization into specific alternative proposals. Today was an opportunity, but I have not heard those specific alternative proposals. Lots of “mother love is good”. There have been nice vague phrases, but no specifics. There are some things on which we have clarity, e.g. no group political rights and no right for a community to determine the character of its own neighbourhood. Ethnicity is a divisive factor—a la the hon. member for East London North—and should disappear. That is why we have tensions in that party. I read an interesting article yesterday, an article on ethnicity, on group identity, on not thinking that one can bargain with the power of the White man, that one can surrender it or that one can negotiate with radicals over it. I liked that article and agree with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I agree with the article entirely. However, it does not seem to click; it does not seem to “gel”, with “free Mandela” campaigns and things of that nature, or with the hon. member for Yeoville, who I see is not here. These are facts. So here we have another honeymoon which seems to be striking a few rocks.

What about your honeymoon?

Order!

I did not react at the time, but I shall react now to those who asked: “Where is the hon. member for East London North?” This party, the NRP, small and vulnerable as it is, is the only party that has had the guts to say: “This is our philosophy; this is where we stand; this is where we are going.” It is the only party that has had the guts to face the consequences, and as for those who are prepared to trade those principles, sad as it may be to lose them, it is better to lose them. What is, however, wrong with the party in power? They have divisions in their ranks, divisions on philosophy and on principle, but they do not have the guts to face those divisions and to say: This is the parting of ways. My party was not prepared to trade its principles for temporary expediency. We know, and I believe that a growing number of people are beginning to know, that the only alternative to confrontation and chaos in South Africa is going to come along the road this party has signposted.

Good-bye Edenvale.

Sir, there we have the trouble with both the NP and the PFP. All they are worried about is winning votes, trying to create an image, and not about a direction for South Africa. [Interjections.] Every party wants to win votes—that is all very well—but there comes a time when one has to make a positive contribution, when one has to try to put an alternative which can solve problems. That is what is happening at this moment. Because there is a by-election at Fauresmith, the NP is talking in generalizations.

Where is your candidate?

Where is that hon. member’s? He is having a battle. We shall leave it to other people to get thrown off balconies. That is not our scene at the moment.

What is the duty of a political party? It is not to mislead the public, but to provide alternatives which can offer solutions. I want to ask: After all these honeymoons I have referred to, what is different in South Africa? What has really changed since the hon. the Prime Minister announced his 12-point plan? I give credit for the labour legislation and the changes that are taking place in labour, and the creation of more business opportunities. Those things are moves in the right direction. They do not go far enough, but they are moves in the right direction. When one hears members like the hon. member for Stilfontein making speeches like he did in the debate on the Labour Vote, here at least is a field in which some progress seems to have been made. If one accepts those changes in the labour field, other things flow from that. The hon. the Prime Minister is, however, not prepared to face the logical consequences which flow from the changes in the labour pattern and the economic opportunities he has introduced. One cannot divorce those from the other problems of South Africa.

If one is prepared to create those opportunities, one must create with them the other opportunities which go towards ensuring a peaceful and stable development. There is much pious intention, fiddling on the fringes of problems, government by permit and exemption, but the basis of apartheid still stands. The basis is still there, enshrined in the core legislation reflecting the philosophy of the NP. As long as that core legislation stands and as long as the practices within the Government continue, all we will see are fringe changes which will not remove the root causes of the problem.

In the meantime other urgent human problems remain unsolved. There are always excuses and immediate and urgent problems are shifted onto the “sometime, never” schedule. If money is to be found in South Africa for projects such as Sasol 2 and 3, Iscor 2, the Koeberg nuclear station, Richard’s Bay, Saldanha and the rest, the money is found,—billions and billions of rand—when we have to find money, even for white elephants like Pongola and Ruacana. Surely human priorities are as important as these material priorities. Why is it that the Government can find the money for economic development, for things like that, but when it comes to the human difficulties they apply a different yardstick and ask what they can afford?

I want to warn that the Government is misjudging the seriousness of the problems of many thousands, perhaps millions, of people. The Government is misjudging the frustrations and problems of ordinary people, both White and non-White, who are not included and carried along in the prosperity which others are experiencing. I believe it is a mistake always to talk of poverty as though it only applies to Blacks. It also applies to White people. The erosion of money renders it more and more difficult to live.

I do not have to tell the hon. the Minister of National Education about the reaction of teachers or the hon. the Minister of Police about the reaction in the Police Force.

Leave me out of it.

The hon. the Minister says I must leave him out of it. With six policemen …

You know that is a lot of nonsense.

There is only one White policeman on outside duty at night at the Point police station in my constituency.

No, there are more than one.

The hon. the Minister must then show them to me. What about the Coloured students? The hon. the Minister responsible only threatens and blusters. I was shocked to read some of the language used in calls for solidarity issued by White students today. They say: “Your time is up.” They talk of “racist gutter education”, of “standing together”, of “asking for trouble”, etc. It is inflammatory language, but it becomes possible because weeks, months and years go by while the underlying problems are not solved because the Government says it does not have the money to repair schools and to buy books. Admittedly the Government can not supply teachers overnight, but they can buy books, mend windows and create the physical amenities which are necessary. The Government can at least demonstrate the road ahead to prevent the sort of tragedy that is happening now. One of my colleagues will deal with this matter in more detail.

Let us look at the position of the White teachers for a moment. A document was shown over television setting out what the teachers had asked for and what they had received. But what is going on? Now there are denials and nobody knows anything about it. The hon. the Minister of National Education does not know about it, the Information Office does not know about it and the department of the hon. the Minister of Finance does not know about it. Out of the blue there comes a so-called official document and it is splashed on TV on the eve of discussions between the hon. the Minister and the teachers’ organizations. It is a blatant manipulation of the media, and now nobody knows anything about it. I must therefore ask the hon. the Prime Minister where that document came from. None of his hon. Ministers can answer. Therefore I have to turn to the hon. the Prime Minister and ask whether he and his department know anything about it. Where did it originate, and is it true or not? The fact is that it was issued.

Finally, on this occasion, I want to deal with what I see as the two fundamental issues which the hon. the Prime Minister has to face and which he can no longer duck. The first is power-sharing; the second, the question of the urban Black and where he fits into South Africa’s future. I know that power-sharing is a swear word, a Frankenstein to the NP. Yet it is no longer an issue of whether we should share power. It is how we share power so that it is safe, secure and in the interests of all South Africans. We in the NRP believe that it is safe, secure and in the interests of all South Africans. We in the NRP believe that the key to this is group identity and the accommodation of groups within the structure. This is the reality of South African politics, whether one likes it or not. It is the reality of life in South Africa. Any party which excludes that group accommodation has excluded itself from the mainstream of politics. The other is the urban Black, the blind spot in both the Government and the official Opposition, who presume to know the answer. We do not presume to know the complete answer. One thing is clear, however, and that is that both parties are missing an essential aspect. That is that there is no single solution for the question of urban Blacks. The task is to identify the different categories of urban Blacks, those living outside their homelands, and their aspirations, and then to plan with them where they can be accommodated in the future of South Africa. The weakness of White politics is that we all think we know all the answers, but I have come to realize more and more that we only assume we know and that the answer is not merely a simplistic White, Black or Brown problem. It can only be solved by real negotiation, and not by half-hour interviews, like the hon. the Prime Minister had with the homeland leaders. One does not negotiate in half an hour. It is an on-going process. I believe that there is an urgent need now to sit around a table and talk to people, and not to presume to know all the answers.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Durban Point did not achieve anything. He referred to the fact that his party is actually the one which has the true, correct policy for South Africa. The only problem, however, is that the voters of South Africa do not believe him. In fact, not even his own fellow members of Parliament believe him. This is why, in the relatively short while since the previous election, he has already lost two of his members.

They did not join you.

This is the true, harsh answer to the statements that he made here. He worked hard at a comparison with a marriage which was a polygamous one at one stage. However, all we have seen, are two divorces in his party. Moreover, the hon. member once again arrived at what he considers the crucial problem, the problem of power-sharing. I say that through the 12-point plan, the Government, the hon. the Prime Minister, has given a very simple, clear answer to the crux of this matter. Instead of trying to build a unit State and a joint nation State, an unfounded figment of the imagination, the hon. the Prime Minister set out the idea of a constellation of Southern African States, a confederal ethnic situation in South Africa. This is a very much more simple ideal for which to strive than the objective which this hon. member tried to set out or the one which the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition tried to set out. They have never yet succeeded in clearly setting out what their plans mean to the voters of South Africa or to this Parliament.

It has already been set out clearly.

The hon. member for Mooi River must bear in mind that his game with the balls has not impressed anyone yet.

You stole it.

No one has accepted it yet, and the election results prove it.

There are some very elementary premises that we must take into account. In the first instance, we in South Africa are faced with a situation where every nation is striving to get ahead. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that we are faced with a multi-ethnic situation in South Africa. In its striving to get ahead and to improve the economic position of its people or to develop its country, every nation in South Africa finds itself in a minority situation against all the others. We must take this into account, because neither the Whites, nor the Zulus, nor the Tswanas, nor the Xhosas are prepared to sacrifice their national identity. This is one of the premises—the hon. member for Mooi River will grant me that, that we must take into account. It is in view of this harsh truth that not only this hon. the Prime Minister, but also former hon. Prime Ministers, upheld the ideal of the development of sovereign States in South Africa, completely independent States in which the national striving of every nation may be fulfilled, in which every nation can fulfil its sovereignty, in which every nation can develop its own ethnic character and every nation can develop its own country in the light of its own ability and in the light of its own ideals. If we look at our national objective, as the hon. the Prime Minister summarized it in the 12-point plan, it is very clear that we must work at this ideal rather than at the complicated schemes which hon. members on the opposite side are trying to submit to us. This is the basic premise. This is the start of something which may lead to greater things.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition raised the objection that the hon. the Prime Minister was simply raising expectations. The hon. member for Durban Point said it is “all promises”. The hon. the Prime Minister has never said he thinks that this national objective, the fulfilment of the 12-point plan, will be able to be brought to fruition in one year or in five. These are merely guidelines that we are laying down along the path of a long-term endeavour at which we will have to work very hard and at which not only the Government and the White Parliament will have to work, but at which the Parliaments of the different Black States that have already obtained their independence and those who will still possibly become independent and who are simply self-governing States at the moment, will have to work hard. We shall bring the ideal of a South African nationalism in the varied forms in which we find it here, to fruition along this path, and we are making space for the variety of nations, instead of, from a political viewpoint, heading for a clash if we try to follow the plans of the Opposition parties in all their variety. That is why the Government is committed to recognizing the striving of the different peoples and to take this into account in the development of our national objectives. It is not the Government’s only responsibility to encourage the striving towards independence of the different nations, but also to assist in developing the interdependence of the independent States; to assist in planning the development of those States and to encourage the development of a national pride and nationhood. We are not trying to encourage nations to become independent in order to get rid of them. On the contrary, when the hon. the Prime Minister talks about a constellation of Southern African States, then there is a specific link between the different States.

There is a special responsibility towards one another which the States must accept and then there are certain joint objectives which can be strived for and developed. This is extremely important to me. There is a variety of spheres in which we foresee joint action. We do not foresee that we are going to land in a situation of conflicting States in the fulfilment of the future plan. We foresee that we will pool our powers from the point of departure of independent States and that we will pool the powers of the different nations on this path and will strive together in order to achieve certain objectives. For instance, I am thinking of combating the onslaught of communism. This is not something that must be brought about by White resistance alone, but it is an ideal towards which every State that is already independent and those which will possibly become independent in future, will have to work together with the Whites in order to achieve it. They must work together with the Whites in maintaining our democratic dispensation, our Christian way of life and attitude to life and the independence of the variety of nations. I say it is extremely important for us to realize that we are not simply making nations independent in order to discard them, in order to cast off our responsibility, but in the very fulfilment of our national striving, along the path of the development of a multiple dispensation in South Africa, a variety of independent nations, we want to develop greater power with a view to combating the forces that are ranged against us. I think, and this is how I foresee it, that a great deal of work can still be done on the finer details with regard to the future dispensation. For instance, I can imagine that it will not be necessary for all the independent nations to seek representation in the international community and to have their own consulate or diplomatic link in every other country, but that we should take joint action with regard to the outside world and represent one another mutually, or find mutual representation, without jeopardizing the sovereignty or national striving of a specific nation in the least.

This gives one an indication that there are very interesting, great possibilities. I can well imagine that the future development of some of the States, the development of their natural resources, will mean that one State will produce things, for instance minerals and certain metals, which the others do not have. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I think today’s speech by the hon. member for Piketberg was the first after his recent illness. I congratulate him on it and say, on behalf of all the members, that we are very pleased to have him back with us in harnass.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Chairman, last year this time the hon. the Prime Minister had only been in office for six months and it was therefore too early to judge him on his performance during that short period of time. I said at the time that I thought it was possible to commend him on the general direction that he was taking and that we would look forward to further action on his part, because he is a man of action. I think the first thing that we would like to commend him on is the visit to Soweto. I think it is strange indeed that he was to be the first of South Africa’s Prime Ministers ever to have visited such a large city as Soweto. That was obviously a step that has received the blessing of all South Africans of goodwill. Secondly, the hon. the Prime Minister’s visit to the homelands was also something that I think all South Africans commend him on. The homelands are in different stages of development. He saw not only those that have taken independence, but also those that are on the way to independence. Judging from the reactions of the leaders of those homelands, those visits, too, have been very well received.

The restoration or the maintenance of good race relations is top priority for any Government in the Republic. It is essential that we White people in this Parliament achieve, through our leaders, a unity of purpose with Black leaders in their homelands and in the cities. That is why for years and years we have thought in the direction of what the hon. the Prime Minister now calls “a constellation of States”. I think that what we have referred to as a “confederation” in some cases and in other cases a “federation”, a linking of those with common interests and the giving to various racial groups the power to deal with those matters of intimate concern to themselves, is to a greater or lesser extent embodied in the concept of a constellation of States.

It may well be that the creation of good race relations is priority No. 1, but one will not have good race relations in South Africa unless one has a strong economy and military preparedness. That is why we have agreed with the attempt made by the Government, also for the first time, to obtain the cooperation of the business leaders for economic purposes. Tied up with this there has been a far greater outspokenness and an emphasis on greater economic freedom and private enterprise. To achieve greater economic freedom and more private enterprise, it has been necessary to streamline the structure of the Government. For a long time we have asked for the streamlining of the Civil Service of the Republic. We therefore approve of the restructuring of the Civil Service, but we should like to see this extended also to the provincial administrations and to the third tier of government, the municipalities and the divisional councils. We think that there is still far too much red tape, restrictions and unnecessary delays which harm economic expansion and the tempo of economic expansion. That is why it is appropriate today that we look again at that book written a few years ago by Dr. Wassenaar under the title Assault on Private Enterprise. Much of what that gentleman said then and which was discredited at the time, has now been accepted as Government policy. I think many of the things he referred to at the time are being given effect to in changes of attitude by the Government at the moment. But there are committees and commissions which have been appointed and which still have to report. Therefore I think it is only fair for me to say that it is still too early to judge fully on the result of the hon. the Prime Minister’s stewardship, although one can say the prospects look good for the future.

During his speech last year the hon. the Prime Minister referred to the Government’s relations with the Press. He referred at length to the necessity for good relations between the Government and the Press. He said that shareholders in various newspapers companies would be made known. I want to ask him what progress has been made in negotiations between the Government and the Press Council and what has happened in relation to the future position of the Press Council. Last year the Maintenance and Promotion of Competition Bill was passed in this House. I want to ask the Government what steps have been taken to investigate the monopoly of newspaper power in the hands of The Argus and the Saan group. I want to say to the hon. the Prime Minister that as long as the shares in The Argus and Saan company remain in the hands of small groups, of secret trusts and secret nominee companies, instead of in the hands of the South African investing public, there will never be racial peace in South Africa. The control over English-language media will have to be in the hands of a wider spread of South Africans. At the moment it is in the hands of small groups of people with ideas and objectives of their own. I want to submit that their aims and objectives are wholly unrepresentative of the vast majority of English-speaking South Africans.

I want to ask the Prime Minister another question on a matter that I think is a very worrying one, and that is what seems to me to be a growing confrontation between the State and some of the churches. We have seen what has happened elsewhere in Africa, where the activities of activist churchmen has led to the undermining of the authority in Mozambique of the Portuguese, and one has seen exactly the same thing happening in Rhodesia. There have also been attempts at the same thing in South West Africa, and as I see it there is a looming confrontation between Church and State on the horizon. It seems to me that some of the church leaders are openly seeking a confrontation with the Government. Church bodies overseas are providing funds for political trials and for political prisoners. I should like to ask the hon. the Prime Minister what is going to be done about this. This is flagrant intervention in the internal affairs of South Africa. Church leaders here at home also seem to be using remarkable language for churchmen. It seems to me that there is a deliberate attempt to seek confrontation between Church and Government.

Lastly I want to say something about the Coloured schools. I believe that there are many reasons for dissatisfaction, that things must be improved and that communication between the Government and the education leaders among the Coloured people must be restored. We in these benches, however, cannot and will not, under any circumstances, condone attempts by Coloured children, and those who are instigating them, to dictate to the Government of the country. Schools should be kept open, we think, for those who wish to attend those schools, and those people should be given proper protection. So the names of those who continue the boycott must be taken, and I believe that disciplinary action should be taken against them. Let us not forget, however, that Coloured rioters burned down their schools in 1976, but we have to pay for the restoration of those schools. We think that children go to school to learn and we think that students go to universities, at great expense to the taxpayers of South Africa, to study and not to take part in political activity.

Do Coloureds not pay taxes?

There are proper channels for the ventilation of grievances, and these must be re-established. We, the people of South Africa, will not counternance mob rule or scholar and student agitation and insurrection. The hon. the leader of the NRP referred today to a document that is being circulated, apparently by the SRC of the University of Cape Town. I want to say that we despise that document. We think it is a scurrilous document and we hope that appropriate action will be taken against the people concerned. This must be clearly and firmly made known to them. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Simonstown devoted a good portion of his speech to drawing attention to some of the initiatives of the hon. the Prime Minister, and added a request that some of these initiatives be followed up or speeded up. I have no fault whatsoever to find with this. At the end of his speech he referred to three different matters. I should like to single out one only, viz. the one concerning the relationship between the Church and the State. There is the principle of sovereignty within one’s own circle, which means that the State will not trespass in the sphere of the Church, because the Church is sovereign within its own circle. However, it is true that the Church has recently been interfering in matters of State, and in doing so the Church is therefore violating that principle of the State’s sovereignty in their own circle and we are entitled to ask churches to take this principle into account when they interfere in politics. The hon. member for Simonstown spoke, with appreciation at times, about the initiatives of the hon. the Prime Minister. After all, the hon. the Prime Minister has undertaken a wide range of initiatives, because in South Africa no one knows better than the hon. the Prime Minister what the extent and intensity of the total onslaught on South Africa is, an onslaught that is not aimed at the Whites, but at the rich natural resources and strategic position of Southern Africa with all its people. That is why some Black people must not be so naïve as to believe that this onslaught is directed primarily at the White regime or at the policy of the Government. This is a false assumption. Nor must some Whites be so naïve as to believe that this total onslaught does not really exist, but that it is simply being theorized by some politicians. Nor must we be so naïve as to believe that the Defence Force is strong enough to combat every threat. This is a false assumption too. This total onslaught is in fact being planned against South Africa in the council chambers of the world, often with America at the head.

Now I am not necessarily talking about a military onslaught at all. Knowing full well what the consequences of such a total onslaught will be for South Africa and all its people on the long term—because let me say at once: It is not only the Whites alone who will perish and die, but everyone in Southern Africa will perish and die with them if we are driven to that point—knowing that these may be the consequences for Southern Africa, the hon. the Minister is tirelessly making plans covering a wide sphere for the continuation of life itself for all nations in Southern Africa. Listen carefully to what I say, Sir: For the continuation of life itself for all the peoples of Southern Africa!

Why cannot a person who strives for this, obtain the support and loyalty of everyone for whom survival has become important, out of the party-political context? This is our final choice. It is the choice of the White man and of the Black man too, viz. that we will continue to live together in such a way that our own identity and cultural possessions will be guaranteed, or that we will all die together if we are driven to that point. That is why no population group must be so foolish as to believe that it will triumph together with the enemy, who is initiating this total onslaught, or even emerge from the struggle as the victor. There is no such possibility. There will be no victor, only total destruction. The destruction will be so great that it will not be able to be restored for generations. That is why it will be no use or no gain to the enemy. The hon. the Prime Minister is tirelessly involved in drawing up plans covering a wide range in order to prevent such a state of affairs. He ought to have the support and active co-operation of all population groups in this in order to achieve certain goals in South Africa.

That is why it will not benefit some Black people—forinstance Chief Buthelezi and other Black leaders—always to be talking of rebellion and revolution against the Whites. Nor will the Black peoples of Southern Africa survive such a revolution either. The unimpeded continued existence of the Whites in this country is also the guarantee for the unimpeded continued existence of the various Black population groups of Southern Africa.

However, the contrary is also true. There must be no illusion in this regard. A happy, well-developed and well-cared for Black population also guarantees the continued existence of the Whites in South Africa. In order to ensure this, the hon. the Prime Minister has come up with a wide range of initiatives, but of course this is also to combat the total onslaught against the Republic of South Africa. If this is not possible, it is in the final instance to combat this total onslaught successfully. Of course, it is not only a strong Defence Force that is needed for this, but allies too. We no longer find those allies in the West. They are not to the north of us. Nor are they to the East. Our only possible allies are in our midst. These are the Black people of Southern Africa itself. However, we must still recruit them as allies. How does one do this? Of course, we must not take it for granted that they are in fact our allies at the moment. There is only one way to bring this about. We must have a strong, well-to-do Black middle class, who will not only be satisfied with the high standard and quality of life, but who will also satisfy their political aspirations in a way which will cause not only their human dignity, but also their ethnic dignity to be fulfilled.

The hon. the Prime Minister is tirelessly making plans for these objectives.

I should just like to refer to a few of his initiatives in this regard. On the inter-State level, the hon. the Prime Minister has once again directed an inquiry into consolidation with a view to creating economically viable Black States of which the residents will be proud and which will also enable them to take their place with dignity in the world line-up of nations.

The second initiative that I want to point out, is the following: The hon. the Prime Minister is proposing a constellation of States on the political level which may not only bring about a dramatic re-arrangement of the political dispensation in Southern Africa, but which is also going to have tremendous advantages for those who are going to participate in it. For instance, an economic power bloc may arise which will be able to withstand world sanctions, because the Black nations around us will not be able to escape the sanctions imposed on South Africa.

Another possibility is a military alliance to oppose the imperialist expansionary urge of Russia, because the Black States around us will not be able to escape that either. There is also the possibility of a communications and transport network throughout the whole of Africa, which will open up this continent to its own benefit. There are health services that can change the lives of the people to the north of us dramatically. There are so many possibilities—too many too mention.

In the sphere of domestic politics and our own politics, we find initiatives such as a new constitutional dispensation with a meaningful involvement of the urban Black people in local governments with a status higher than those of White municipalities.

Let me say at once that some of the hon. the Prime Minister’s predecessors have also worked on these initiatives, but these initiatives create a great deal of goodwill and good relations between the peoples of South Africa, and the hon. the Prime Minister has skilfully strengthened these by personal visits to all the national States last year. He followed up those visits this year by conducting interviews in Cape Town with the Cabinets of those States or self-governing territories.

In the sphere of law and order, together with the vigorous expansion of our security forces which is essential for the stability and security of all, so that every individual can continue to do his own thing in order to create prosperity and progress without interference every day, we find that the hon. the Prime Minister is granting recognition in a meaningful way to all our population groups by placing them in these services on a considerable scale.

As far as the quality of life and the high level of personal development for each one is concerned, we find that, apart from the initiatives that I have already pointed out, equal pay for equal work, a better trade union dispensation, better housing under the 99-year lease system, the electrification of Soweto, the introduction of a television channel for Black people and many other matters, is the type of initiative that is being used to defuse tension and confrontation situations, to prevent revolution, to forge new alliances, possibly to avert the total onslaught threatening South Africa—yes for the sake of the continuation of life itself for everyone in South Africa.

These initiatives are the elements of a total strategy with a view to being able to combat a total onslaught. Is it not disgraceful that the hon. the Prime Minister practically has to beg us to stay alive instead of dying? If we do not do all these things, we will all die. Is it not disgraceful too that the hon. the Prime Minister cannot rely on everyone, White and Black, to achieve this goal? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I think everyone will agree with me that from the Opposition’s point of view, the debate is rather flat at this stage. We read in the newspapers that a rousing debate would be initiated by the other side during the discussion of the Prime Minister’s Vote, but at the moment the whole situation is flat. Then a Whip came to me and said that he had heard that I actually wanted to participate in the debate from a different angle, and whilst things are so calm, he thought that I should do so right away.

An important task which the hon. the Prime Minister accomplished after he became the Prime Minister of the country, was to bring about reform in our State set-up. There were three of the things that the hon. the Prime Minister did which captured my imagination immediately. The one is the fact that he took the Department of Environmental Planning under his wing. I recall that after the late Dr. Verwoerd had created the department in about 1963-’64, I discussed the future of the department with him on one occasion. Now I find it remarkable that on that occasion the late Dr. Verwoerd told me that he foresaw the day when this department would actually fall under the office of the Prime Minister, because in the first instance, the Department of Planning has a co-ordinating function and actually belongs in the department of the Prime Minister. The hon. the Prime Minister has now brought this about. Secondly, we have the imaginative, creative work of the hon. the Prime Minister in creating the Department of Nature Conservation. However, I do not want to talk about that now. Then there is the Department of Fisheries. Sea fisheries fell under the Department of Industries for many years and the emphasis was mainly on granting quotas and making a great deal of money from the sea. Now the emphasis has shifted. Sea Fisheries now falls under the Department of Agriculture. I think that this was an extremely brilliant move on the part of the hon. the Prime Minister. The underlying philosophy with regard to Sea Fisheries can now be changed from making money to farming at sea, if I may put it like that.

Another coincidence was that, while the hon. the Minister was taking over the department to which I referred, it coincided with a paper which appeared entitled: “A Spatial Development Strategy for the Western Cape.” This was issued by the office of the Prime Minister and I think it is a very important document. Since the ’sixties I have regularly been talking about this matter in Parliament. I did so to such an extent that I was later given the nickname “Piet Weskus”. For all practical purposes, the hon. the Prime Minister’s new department has come up with this paper, which deals with matters that I have been requesting for many years.

If I may summarize this matter, it amounts to three points. The first is a recognition of a form of over-concentration in the Cape metropolitan territory. Secondly there is the recognition that in our course of development along the old developmental line which ran from Maitland through Goodwood, Vasco, Parow, Bellville and the Paarl-Wellington valley, some of South Africa’s best agricultural land began to be lost for development. For many years we asked for the developmental pattern in the Western Cape to be directed along the west coast with its poorer agricultural land and that we should ultimately have an arm of development between the existing Cape metropolitan area and the area that is going to be established in the region of Saldanha. During the past year, this line of development has begun to take shape in a very fine way under this Government. Thus today we have projects like Atlantis and the nuclear power-station. A short while ago the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs introduced legislation here to link Atlantis to Cape Town by rail. At the same time the hon. the Minister also said that he foresees the day when Atlantis will be linked up with Saldanha.

The document to which I referred, is a fine piece of work about which I unfortunately cannot go into detail now. However, I want to say that there is one deficiency in this fine piece of work. In this developmental axis that is being created, we must build in a situation of colourful conservation, if I may call it that. We must bring the two poles of conservation and development together. If there was ever an opportunity to do so, it is in the creation of this developmental axis.

This developmental axis must develop from five different angles. One of them is that we must incorporate all the islands along this coast line and develop them so that a visitor can also go to see the bird life in the area concerned. I have repeatedly requested in the House that we should incorporate Robben Island and see it as part of this set up.

It would be a boring day, from a planning point of view, if all of us thought in the same way. I am aware of the fact that the hon. the Prime Minister differs completely with me on this point, but I want to tell him at once that I am of lesser importance and abide by his view. I would have liked matters to be different, but I must keep to my view. He now has the Department of Planning, the department that co-ordinates and initiates growth patterns for the future, under his control and therefore I want to ask for his assistance.

I want to ask him to help me to incorporate these islands teeming with bird life, like Dassen Island and Malgas, to mention only two, in this planning structure. At this stage Dassen Island still has about 200 000 penguins. Since we are no longer able to remove penguin eggs from the nests, it seems that the penguin population is showing something of an increase again. There are also 26 000 tortoises on this island. [Interjections.]

What I am proposing now, will not cost money, because it simply requires a departmental directive between the Department of Industries and the new Department of Environmental Planning which the hon. the Prime Minister has now created. I want to ask him to help me now, in compensation for Robben Island. [Interjections.]

Secondly, I want to discuss the sea area. We have a beautiful stretch of sea landscape along our coast. We have created reserves in the country where people can go and watch elephants and lions, but we have never taken a section of the coastline and made it a reserve, except perhaps with regard to the conservation and protection of crayfish. I notice that the former hon. Minister of Industries is listening attentively to me. However, we also need a piece of coastline that we can set up as a reserve. There is also the Langebaan lagoon which is one of the most beautiful recreation areas in the entire world. The hon. the Prime Minister knows what I am talking about, because he has a similar set up in his constituency. Consequently, I want to ask him to see that his new department is also involved in such a project. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I hope the hon. member for Moorreesburg will forgive me if I do not follow him in his argument. I want to come back specifically to matters relating to the Coloured community.

Together with hundreds of thousands of South Africans of all colours I was bitterly distressed late last year when I read of the dismal breakdown on 9 December 1979 of the relationships between the hon. the Prime Minister and the leadership of the Coloured Labour Party. I was very unhappy, as many of us were, because I believe that our Coloured community are an integral component of the South African society and that without the goodwill of the elected Coloured leadership peaceful change, which is so essential to the growth of South Africa, may be beyond attainment. Yet, I felt, as many of us did, helpless and unable to influence in any way the deterioration of relationships which were staring us all in the face. Many of us were even more distressed when we received through the post a copy of the verbatim transcript of the conversation between the hon. the Prime Minister and the Coloured leaders. I went through that document, I went through it very carefully, and as I read it I felt in my mind’s eye that I was sitting in that room and felt there, with the people who were in discussion, the tension and the issues that were at stake. It was an afternoon of lost opportunities, of misunderstandings, of obstinacy, of short-temperedness, of mistrust and, regretfully, even of rudeness.

By whom?

That discussion and the spirit in which that discussion was conducted was, I believe, a tragedy for South Africa. Yet I honestly believed, reading that document, that all was not lost. I pulled out a few quotes from that document to support this view. I should like to quote one or two. On page 2 of the document Mr. Hendrickse said—

On page 11 the hon. the Prime Minister himself said—

Later on the hon. the Prime Minister said—

On page 15 Mr. Curry said—

On page 18 Mr. Curry said—

Then the last two quotes. On page 43 the hon. the Prime Minister said—

Then, in reply to that, Mr. Hendrickse said—

The above thoughts that I have quoted to hon. members gave me some small hope, hope that at least some of the issues could be resolved. At least two issues were capable of resolution. There were the questions of giving evidence to the Schlebusch Commission and of Mr. Middleton, serving on the Republican Festival Committee. It was a naïve thought, perhaps a silly thought, but nonetheless a noble one. So—and this I must tell hon. members—without consulting my leader and without consulting my caucus, I came to Cape Town early in December last year and saw Mr. Hendrickse and Mr. Middleton. I told them that I had come, not as a representative of the PFP, but as a private individual and that I had come because I was a member of the Schlebusch Commission. I referred them to some of the quotes which I have just read out and told them that I believed it was vital that they, the Coloured leaders, should put their views before the Schlebusch Commission, particularly because of their status as leaders of that community. I urged them to believe that by giving evidence they would not be bound by the recommendations of the commission, that they would not be prejudiced by the findings of the commission, that they would be free to negotiate with the Government on any blueprint produced by the commission, but that by giving evidence greater weight would be given to their views when the real negotiating started. I told Mr. Middleton that I understood his difficulty in the decision that he had taken relating to serving on the Republican Festival Committee, that I understood the history of the matter, but I also expressed the view to him that if the Labour Party would make a move on these two issues, such an initiative could open a new era of understanding and negotiation which could head off impasse, which could stop a further polarization of what was happening amongst Coloureds and Whites. It was a long discussion. Unfortunately I cannot tell hon. members the whole story, but I can tell them the end of the story, after an hour and a half discussion. To my delight, the response of the Coloured leaders to me was remarkable and it was positive, but there was one stumbling block. The question they asked me was: What about District Six? District Six, as they put it, was the symbol of their impotence.

When was this?

The decision on District Six, they believed and I believed, had gone to the very heart of Coloured alienation from the White Government. As they see it, it was theft of their very homes. I said to them: If the Government can be persuaded to reconsider the matter and to look at the matter again, will you, Mr. Hendrickse and Mr. Middleton, reconsider your attitude to the other questions that I have raised to try to find room for reconciliation? Mr. Chairman, I can report to you that the answer from those two gentlemen was: Yes, we will. We will reconsider our attitude; we will try to start again.

Within hours I was in Pretoria and I put this proposition, which is so vital to all of us, to a member of the Cabinet. As was the case with me, he was pleased and excited that there was even a slight possibility of starting again, and he promised to put the case to the hon. the Prime Minister. My own role had then been completed. There was nothing further for me to do. But from then on, nothing happened. I heard nothing. On 20 December the hopes of the Coloured people were dashed when the hon. the Prime Minister summarily announced that District Six was finally to be declared a White area. The subsequent history is known to us. The Labour Party has been alienated. The CRC has been abolished. The puppet CPC has been established. There is Coloured unrest and there are school boycotts. There is no representative participation by the Coloured community in the making of a new constitution, all because of the opportunities that were not grasped and because of the wicked stupidity of the decision on District Six.

I want to say that I believe that the hon. the Prime Minister owes an answer to South Africa. If the message was not delivered, that was a negligence, but I do not believe that that was the case at all. I believe that the proposition was put to the hon. the Prime Minister. If that message and that proposition, which was given seriously and in the interests of South Africa, was received and ignored, I believe that that is almost a criminal act against South Africa. If it was ignored, I ask the hon. the Prime Minister why it was ignored. Was it because of the wrong advice that he was given by his hon. Minister? That hon. the Minister is always giving the hon. the Prime Minister the wrong advice. If that is the case, I have no alternative but to say that we cannot allow an hon. Minister who gives that sort of advice to remain in the Cabinet. [Interjections.] Even if it is because of the hon. the Prime Minister’s own short-temperedness, does he not think at this stage that it was a folly to deny a possibility of seeking reconciliation when it was offered? Finally, I should like to say to the hon. the Prime Minister that he should not believe for a moment that the Government, or he himself, can by-pass the Labour Party and set up puppet negotiators. He cannot do it, because the hon. the Prime Minister will “Muzorewarize” everybody whom he attempts to negotiate with on that basis, all to no benefit. However, I want to say that there is still time. The Labour Party is not intransigent. It has shown a measure of goodwill. It is affronted and spurned, but I want to make an appeal that the hon. the Prime Minister should today, at this late hour, make a gesture to the Coloured people of South Africa that shows his goodwill, not from weakness, but a gesture of goodwill from strength, a positive, tangible gesture which will affect the lives of the Coloured people of South Africa. The hon. the Prime Minister should seek reconciliation and not allow this slide to animosity to continue. He owes it to us all. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the only thing I appreciate in the speech by the hon. member for Sandton is the fact that he wants the talks between the Government and the Coloureds to continue. I want to tell him that he is surely not the only person who has conducted discussions, and let me state my standpoint here this afternoon. He said that on that occasion the point at issue was District Six. I, too, have conducted discussions, not, it is true, with the leaders of the Labour Party, but, on two occasions, with former members of the Labour Party of the CRC. We held long discussions, and we, too, wanted the discussions to continue. On that occasion they told us that they were not prepared to speak to the Government and submit evidence to the Schlebusch Commission if the Black people were not also involved. I want to make the statement this afternoon that if other hon. members again speak with members of the Labour Party, they will advance other reasons for not wishing to speak to the Government. I want to say to the hon. member for Sandton that one overture after another has been made to the Coloured leaders over the years by this Government. We have gone out of our way to eliminate all points of confrontation that have existed. This Government has gone out of its way to develop this population group and create all possible opportunities for them. Whereas matters have come to a standstill, I place the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the Labour Party. The members of that party must bear the full responsibility. The hon. member for Sandton referred to the talks which the hon. the Prime Minister held with these leaders. Let me say that we fully support the hon. the Prime Minister. Outside this House, too, the hon. the Prime Minister enjoys full support. The hon. the Prime Minister was entirely correct in his actions with regard to these leaders, in that he told them that they had to come and submit evidence before the Schlebusch Commission, the institution created by Parliament. These people refused. However, Inkatha did not refuse. Inkatha and other people from the Coloured population gave evidence. Why were members of the Labour Party, the so-called leaders, so obstinate, and why did they stubbornly refuse to do so? Do these people, then, not wish to work in the interests of their own people?

What about District Six?

Now the hon. member again raises the issue of District Six. I want to tell him that I inferred from his speech that he only wanted to refer to the aspects which cause confrontation. That is the only issue. By referring to District Six, he wants to create an opportunity to drag the issue of District Six into this debate again. Other hon. members who speak after him will want to refer to other points of contact which could give rise to confrontation. I want to say to the hon. member that we shall get nowhere in South Africa by following that path.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition devoted much of his speech to the 12-point plan of the hon. the Prime Minister. I want to indicate to him the difference between the NP and his party. The NP has a plan that everyone stands by.

Everyone?

Yes, everyone. Earlier this year the hon. the Prime Minister stated that people who did not stand by this plan should leave the party. Can the hon. member for Pinelands give me the name of any person who has left the party? No one has left this party. We are all sitting in this House as Nationalists.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, however, has a major problem, and that is that his party has a number of plans. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is unable to tell me what his party’s plan for South Africa is. After all, it is true that there are hon. members on his side whose plan involves a unitary State in South Africa. There are, after all, hon. members on his side who advocate a “one man, one vote” policy for South Africa. Surely they are sitting there in the ranks behind him. On the side of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition there are members who believe in the unconditional freeing of Mandela. He himself, as hon. Leader of the Opposition, believes in the conditional freeing of Mandela. Therefore hon. members can see that the hon. members in his ranks have various plans for South Africa and advocate different ways of dealing with and solving the situation and the questions of South Africa. If I may give the hon. the Leader of the Opposition some very friendly advice, then it is to tell him that he must sort things out in his party. They had better think up one plan for South Africa and come forward with that plan which will indicate their path and direction. They would do better to leave the NP and its plan alone. Our people understand that plan. Our people know what vertical differentiation and built-in self-determination mean.

Tell us what that plan is.

A week ago I made a speech in which I told hon. members what it was. I am very sorry if the hon. member cannot understand what it involves. I can explain it to him, but if the Good Lord did not give him the intelligence to understand, then I can do nothing about that.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also referred to the Coloured labour preference policy in the Western Cape. I want to tell the hon. Leader of the Opposition that I believe it is our task and duty to protect the Brown people in the Western Cape. From a purely economical and financial point of view, he can condemn this policy, but he may not approach a population group from that angle. I want to tell him that when we consider the Coloureds, that is certainly not the angle from which to approach them. There are also the social and socio-economic aspects which must be duly taken into consideration. I want to tell hon. members that the Coloureds prefer it.

That is untrue.

Oh, really, the hon. member must not only speak to the leaders. The hon. member must forget about such conversations for a change and speak to the ordinary Coloured people in the street as well.

For whom does the ordinary man vote?

They, too, have within them a feeling for these things. I shall invite the hon. Leader of the Opposition to come with me …

Can I also come along?

The hon. member can also come along. I shall invite the two hon. members. They can come with me and I shall take them to ordinary Coloured people whom they can talk to, and then they can hear the standpoint of these people with regard to this whole matter. Let me tell the hon. member that he will be amazed, because there are also people who want to be protected, who want to survive in South Africa and who do not want to be supplanted by other people who flood into the Western Cape, where they were born, where history has established them and where they have lived over the years. [Interjections.]

Then, too, there are the unfortunate occurrences in the Coloured schools at present. I want to tell hon. members that a great deal of emotion can be aroused with regard to these events, and extremely irresponsible statements can be made. Let me say this afternoon that the behaviour of the school children is to be condemned in the strongest terms. There are reasons for this. To me the first and most important reason is that children should not be misused to their own detriment. This is precisely what is happening at the moment in the Coloured community. Children are being used to boycott schools, and this is to the detriment of the children. Leaders who misuse children to achieve their aim, lack backbone. Leaders who use children to convey their message, have no message, nor the courage to bear the message themselves. A second reason why the boycotts are condemned is that they cause undermining of authority and discipline among the children. This must, after all, have an effect on parental authority, and people who are responsible for that … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just dealt with the matter of the Coloured children, made a few very good points. I think it is a pity that the children are using this method to voice their protest. I am unable to condone this, because I have never believed that a boycott is the correct weapon to use for obtaining something. I have said that I believe that negotiation and consultation is the correct way.

†I still believe the only way to deal with problems is to talk about them, to thrash them out and not to resort to this sort of demonstration. That, however, is also a two-way issue and I believe that the Government too has failed to play its part in the situation.

Coming to negotiation as such, I want to say that in 1977 my party’s Natal Administration, launched what was known as the “Natal Indaba”, an initiative to talk. Out of that indaba arose, as the hon. the Prime Minister knows, an agreement with the Coloured and Indian peoples, which I have raised here before and which I do not intend to deal with in detail. It was an agreement in respect of local government, and the Natal Provincial Council sought the authority to extend that sort of discussion in order to entitle it to deal with kwaZulu. These requests were rejected by the Government. The attempts to expand the field of negotiation were vetoed. The ordinance was not approved, and the request for additional powers was refused too. Nevertheless, the Natal Administration, under the NRP and acting within its powers, appointed a Natal Consultative Committee. That committee has met regularly to discuss problems and matters of common interest and of common concern. That is the way, I believe, one solves problems and settles differences. Meanwhile, with so much progress already made, and with the Chief Minister of kwaZulu now appointing his own commission to discuss the future of Natal, we find a new situation. While referring to the commission appointed by the kwaZulu Government, allow me to point out that the NRP has agreed to participate in working with kwaZulu on this commission and in making representations, because it is part of this party’s philosophy of negotiation and consultation.

I do not see the hon. leader of the Natal NP in the House now. I do think, however, that the decision will come from the hon. the Prime Minister in any case. I should, nevertheless, like to know whether the NP is going to participate in the work of this commission. I want to know whether the NP would accept an invitation to serve on that commission. Again this is an opportunity of talking, an opportunity of exchanging ideas and of seeking solutions. Of course, everybody is getting in on the act now. Yesterday I saw there was a committee of academics appointed, a committee seeking a new constitutional dispensation. The NP itself has been holding talks with Inkatha. Even the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South has come forward with his own Natal plan. I also hear, through the grape-vine, that the Eastern Consolidation Committee is also moving in a direction of seeking a new constitutional solution to the situation in Natal, in the knowledge that consolidation cannot solve that problem.

I should like to put it to the hon. the Prime Minister that if his Government had not blocked every effort of Natal to engage in dialogue, in negotiations to seek agreement; if the Government had not put obstacles in the road, all these different efforts could have been co-ordinated. Even the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South need not have resigned, because he would have been part of the negotiations. Because the Government has consistently prevented the NRP Administration of Natal from taking action we have all this separate, fragmented effort. It is not too late, however, and therefore I want to make an earnest call on the hon. the Prime Minister today. We have heard from one of the hon. members opposite that the hon. the Prime Minister is always opening doors. We have heard of the doors he has opened to the future. I want to ask him to open this door. I want to ask him to open the door for Natal to continue with its Natal indaba as the administration of Natal vis-à-vis the administration of kwaZulu; as one Government to another Government. If the hon. the Prime Minister will open that door, I believe, it will set an example that will be of tremendous value to South Africa. Let us get on with the job. It is our province after all. We live there. We are the ones who were elected to control and administer Natal. It is the NRP which controls Natal, which has been put there by the electorate. Now, let us get on with the job. [Interjections.] I believe Natal has a tremendous experience in finding agreement, which we can offer to the Government and to South Africa.

Do you want to fragment South Africa?

No, I do not want to fragment South Africa. We are committed to one South Africa. [Interjections.]

What does that mean?

We are committed to one South Africa. [Interjections.] We want to create a mechanism within South Africa which can lead to peaceful constitutional development, and we believe we can do it in Natal. All we are asking is the opportunity of proving that we can do it, instead of having doors slammed in our face. [Interjections.]

The hon. member who talked about the hon. the Prime Minister opening doors said very little about the doors the hon. the Prime Minister closes. That is why I ask him to open this door. Let us look at this opening and closing of doors. I want to say quite frankly that neither the official Opposition nor the NRP is the major force in opposition at the moment in this Parliament. The real Opposition in this Parliament sits on the other side. The Prime Minister is, in fact, the leader of the biggest opposition in South Africa. That is why he cannot move. He cannot move because he is leading the biggest minority group in Parliament, and it certainly is a minority group. That is why, although he holds the position of Prime Minister, he is in reality leader of an opposition in Parliament. [Interjections.] That is why he cannot do what I know and believe he wants to do.

I believe that he has the courage—why does he not use it?—to challenge his right wing. If he were to do so, he would find that the bogymen are not such big bogymen as they seem. He would find—and I want to give him this free, gratis and for nothing— that if he showed the courage to act, there would not be the backlash that he and his party fear. He would then no longer be a minority Prime Minister, the leader of an opposition group. He would then become the real leader of his party and the real leader of South Africa. I do not know why we are so scared of these bogymen called “Herstigtes”, “Nasionale Konserwatiewes” or “Right-Wingers”. They make the noise, but the hon. the Prime Minister ought to know about this, because he is not inexperienced in how meetings are broken up. [Interjections.] In the old days when the United Party was dominant, it only took a small minority to smash up a meeting or create a lot of noise. Let us not, however, be bluffed by the noise. The hon. member for Potchefstroom knows something about that sort of meeting too. He goes along with the noise sometimes, instead of taking a stand against it, instead of saying: “This is where the Prime Minister is going, and this is where I am going too.” He was the first Minister in this House who said there would be no power-sharing of any sort as long as the NP is in power. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, we have had now, from the hon. member for Durban Point, another attempt to create the impression that he and his party—particularly his party in Natal—are the only ones in this country who are prepared to open up negotiations with other groups in this country.

Who succeed with negotiations.

I think that every thinking South African realizes that we have the present hon. Prime Minister to thank for having, more than any other public figure in South Africa, given new stimulus to the public debate on the constitutional future of Southern Africa. Apart from other initiatives, I need only refer in passing to the three items that the hon. member for Parys referred to. There was the appointment of the Schlebusch Commission in regard to the relationship between Whites, Coloureds and Indians in South Africa. This hon. Prime Minister set in motion steps to ensure the accelerated development of the national Black territories, and he is also the one who has proclaimed a vision of a constellation of Southern African States and who has taken positive steps to achieve that ideal.

I think it is important to note that all these steps were taken by the hon. the Prime Minister within the framework of the NP’s policy of fostering group identities. Although this was the case, opponents were quick to cash in on the expectations raised by these measures to further their own aims to bring about a so-called non-racial or open society, and they did so either through the stratagem of a national convention or by means of other stratagems which will only have the net effect of whittling away group identities and the constitutional framework within which these identities can flourish. Among these persistent efforts are attempts to create the impression that Natal is unique in the South African setting, and that our province must be used as a guinea pig to show the world that power-sharing is a viable concept. First we had the so-called Natal indaba between the NRP-controlled provincial administration and Indian and Coloured personalities, personalities selected by the NRP, I ask you …

No, elected leaders of the Coloured and Indian Councils.

This resulted in an abortive local government draft ordinance which was never put to the test of the Natal Provincial Council voters and which ran counter to the policies of the Government of the country. It is noteworthy—and I think that this is important in relation to what the hon. member for Durban Point said just now about Chief Buthelezi’s commission—that the Zulu people of Natal were not included in that indaba, not even those living outside the borders of kwaZulu, on the pretext that the Natal Provincial Council had no jurisdiction over kwaZulu.

That is right.

I shall come back to that in a moment.

Now we have had to witness two further efforts in the same direction. Firstly, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South proposed a so-called Natal alliance in this Chamber, although by whose authority and with what electoral support I have yet to learn. Then, a week ago Chief Buthelezi announced the appointment of a commission of inquiry of the kwaZulu National Assembly. The terms of reference of the kwaZulu commission are of extreme importance. Unlike the Quail Commission appointed by Ciskei, it is clear that this investigation is an investigation— and I quote: “Into the present position of Natal and kwaZulu within the constitutional and political structure of South Africa”. It is required to make recommendations on the constitutional future of the areas of Natal and kwaZulu within the context of South Africa and Southern Africa, and to relate its conclusions to the issue of the constitutional future of South Africa as a whole—and I want to emphasize that.

Our position on this matter is clear. We believe, firstly, that the political and constitutional future of that part of South Africa which falls outside the self-governing or independent States is a matter for the voters, their elected parliamentary representatives and the Government of the day, and for them alone, to decide on and that any outside efforts to prescribe to them constitutes unwarranted interference. Secondly, we believe that Natal outside kwaZulu is an integral part of South Africa and is in fact the only partner to the contract of union to have become so after a referendum. In this sense Natal could thus be said to be more committed to the joining of the former colonies than any other province. Thirdly, we believe that the Republic’s Constitution, as was the case with its forerunner, the Union of South Africa Constitution Act, provides for a unitary State without leaving room for any one province to opt for federal status. In effect the hon. member for Durban Point has just reaffirmed that his party is committed to one South Africa, South Africa as a unitary State.

No, I did not say that. Do not distort what I said.

I do not believe that the Cape Province would take kindly to a political dispensation proposed for it by the Ciskei National Assembly, or the Free State to one inspired by Qwaqwa. Similarly, while no one would quarrel with an inquiry by the kwaZulu Government into its own political and especially economic future, even including those of its people who live outside kwaZulu, I cannot visualize this commission with these terms of reference producing a report of more than purely academic interest.

What I think is more important to the people of South Africa and to the House in particular is what the reaction of the NRP was. Do we hear their leaders reiterating the constitutionally correct argument that the Natal Provincial Administration’s jurisdiction does not extend to kwaZulu and that, similarly, the jurisdiction of kwaZulu does not extend to Natal as a whole? No, Sir: Senator Webber, the leader of that party in Natal, said according to a newspaper yesterday circulating in Natal that the provincial council’s jurisdiction does not extend to the kwaZulu Government, thereby reiterating the position as far as the indaba is concerned, but then he continued: “By taking this step, Chief Buthelezi has overcome the problems we were experiencing. It is a logical extension of the Natal indaba”.

In other words, his administration in Natal excluded the Zulu people because they had no jurisdiction over kwaZulu, but it does not adopt the same principle as far as a kwaZulu-inspired investigation into the territory over which they do have jurisdiction is concerned. Secondly, the hon. member for Durban Point has just reiterated that the key to successful negotiation is group identity. It is stated very clearly in his party’s pamphlet. The pamphlet says that the NRP stands for a decentralized political system in which each group, while controlling its own affairs, will have no power to interfere in the affairs of other groups. Do we now find that the NRP, with this commission which has been announced, points out that the political and economic development of the Black homelands is an essential cornerstone of its policy as its pamphlet says and that any effort to blur those identities would render its federal/ confederal policy even more unworkable than it is? No, in the same newspaper Mr. Frank Martin, a member of the Natal Executive Committee, says this has been their thinking for a number of years. In other words, they preach one thing when it suits them, but they practise another when it does not. It is time the NRP realized that their future, if any, lies in the constitutional channels available to them and in persuading the voters of the validity of their policy, and not in efforts to form a common front with other bodies at the expense of their own electorate.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Umlazi referred to conditions in Natal, and he will excuse me if I do not follow him in his train of thought.

†I want to tell the hon. member for Durban Point, who referred to marriages and possible results of honeymoons, that perhaps he should apply his own tactics by discarding his curlers, applying lipstick more profusely and perhaps also consult the weight watchers, because I am of the opinion that he has experienced quite a number of divorces in his lifetime. These divorces were not caused by malicious desertion, but rather through desperation. I think the examples that he gives are not very convincing.

*I wish to refer to the Steyn Commission report. I think this report should be read attentively by as many citizens as possible from all the various strata of the population, and particularly by politicians, clergymen, journalists …

And particularly by the Progs.

… and particularly the Progs, as the hon. member has just said, who are interested in placing a premium on the security of the State and in the continuation of the total constitutional development process and strategy. They really ought to make an in-depth study of the report and the references it contains. It is a valuable document which has been compiled with the utmost perspicacity and which contains lessons for all of us.

The prevailing idea that the news media have been exonerated, is certainly erroneous. The commission emphasizes that only the State is able to determine what is dangerous to the State and what is in the interests of State security, and that it is expected of the news media to respect this fact. In the struggle against terrorism, in particular, there is a great responsibility on the Press and greater prominence may simply not be given to terror and revolution, as is also apparent from page 633 of the Cillié Commission report.

People who have a lot to say about so-called “just government” and “just wars” would do well to read paragraph 51 and the subsequent paragraphs of the report. No struggle of one ideology that is ostensibly justified, can be tolerated at the expense of another ideology. So, to talk of a war of liberation as a just war, is Soviet propaganda. All forms of violence, except when applied in self-defence or in terms of the authority of a lawful decision of the UNO, are objectionable. I am emphasizing that the decision has to be lawful. It is correct that a just government is defined in accordance with the measure of freedom that is allowed—that is to say, freedom of speech and freedom of the Press—but a government that fails to prevent the overthrow of a State, is itself an unjust government.

It is also significant to find that the Rand Daily Mail, which was the only newspaper-member of the Press Union that was specifically singled out for sharp criticism in the report, was also the first to reject the well-founded conclusions of the Commission. In the anxious times in which we are living, it is unacceptable to the Rand Daily Mail to play a constructive role as a partner of the State. The Press has been defined as an instrument of the Government. That is in accordance with the view of the Steyn Commission. To the Rand Daily Mail, that is unacceptable. The Rand Daily Mail says as soon as the Press becomes a partner of the authorities, it loses its credibility as a watchdog. Now, that is the attitude of this newspaper in connection with a strategy for survival. It concludes by stating—

This was after the commission itself had emphasized that the Press should be free, and on page 94 of the report had made various references to the freedom of the Press in South Africa. Please note that the sources of the Commission included newspapers of the stature of The Times and the Sunday Telegraph. Then the Commission concludes with these words—

In other words, the Commission insists that partnership with the State does not entail the loss of freedom of the Press. Would the next speaker on the side of the official Opposition tell us whether he supports the view of the Rand Daily Mail, so that we may know where they stand in respect of this extremely sensitive matter?

The correct, judicial approach of the Commission to the freedom of the Press, its independence-in-restraint and its freedom-in-restraint, also coincides with the well-known dictum of Judge of Appeal Rumpff, when he stated—

The Commission appeals to the Press to uphold accurate reporting. It also emphasizes the inherent right of the State to defend itself when its survival is at stake.

Here we have a scientific document that fully endorses the standpoint of the Government with regard to the objectives of the West on the one hand and of Russia on the other. South Africa is the target of both contending groups. South Africa is the country in respect of which they find consensus, after all, but each with its own objectives. On the one hand, the objective is to make South Africa a Soviet satellite and to establish a Soviet state here; on the other hand, the objective is to establish a friendly government here with which the West could negotiate without embarrassment vis-à-vis the Third World. A logical consequence of this is that persons or organizations that are active in South Africa in propogating foreign schools of thought, policy and objectives, ought to register here and that their activities ought to be monitored and evaluated by the Department of Justice.

The role which the Information Service of the USA plays in Soweto, for example, has long been suspect, and here we have proof of the motive behind it. Their argument that in terms of the UN the Charter, the campaign for the protection of human rights outweighs the prohibition on interference in the domestic affairs of an independent state, simply does not hold good. The steps recommended form part of the judicious and protective handling of the so-called aggressive South African heterogeneity. Let us take to heart the findings of the Commission, namely that at present the RSA finds itself in a serious conflict situation. We have to take cognizance of the fact that the nature, the form and the contents of the entire South African position in the comity of nations, is in jeopardy. The struggle is fierce, merciless, all-embracing, continuous and escalating. The Commission refers to it in paragraph 492 of its report. In our struggle for survival, the equilibrium between the Government, the Press and the citizenry should be maintained to the maximum. In the time of Hannibal, there was a Roman senator who ended every speech he made in the Senate, with the words: “Carthago delenda est”—“Carthage must be destroyed.” Let it become the oath of every right-minded South African that terrorism and everything which it stands for, and everyone who collaborates with and allows it to prosper, should be exterminated and destroyed.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to say immediately to the hon. member for Brakpan that I shall not be responding to his speech on the Steyn Commission’s report, because we shall be dealing with this matter under the Defence Vote, where it actually belongs.

I do want to say just a brief word in response to the hon. member for Oudtshoorn, who very kindly extended an invitation to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and myself to visit him and to talk with ordinary members of the Coloured community. I am not sure whether he wants us to meet in the Cango Caves. We are rather particular in that aspect because of separate entrances and separate exists. [Interjections.] However, I want to suggest that we should perhaps meet in District Six. We are prepared to talk to people he knows. Perhaps he will also listen to some of the people we talk with. That would be a fair exchange.

I shall accept that invitation.

Thank you. I should like to say to the hon. the Prime Minister and to this House that one of the most pressing problems facing South Africa is one which I think we will all agree on, namely the socio-economic circumstances under which the majority of South Africans are labouring today. I agree that this affects all South Africans, including White and Black South Africans, but inevitably the facts of the matter are that the vast majority of those who swelter under very difficult circumstances are Black. If one thinks in terms of housing, transport, unemployment and education, this is one of the most critical and difficult areas in South Africa today, because those who are labouring under this problem are becoming increasingly aware that this, their life, their very daily existence is different in quality and quantity from that of the majority of the minority who happen to be in power. As one particular example of this, I want to quote from the recently published report of the National Manpower Commission. They have published a number of very interesting figures, and this one includes the average monthly income of Whites and other groups. In the mining sector the average monthly earnings of Whites in 1970 was R356.

Where were you then?

That of Blacks was R18 per month. That constitutes a difference of R338 per month. In 1979, however, the average monthly earnings of Whites was R899 and those of Blacks R140 per month, a gap of R759. If one takes the manufacturing sector, a similar tragic and disgraceful situation is disclosed. In 1970 Whites were earning R300, while Blacks were earning R52. In 1979, Whites were earning R805, while Blacks were earning R188. This constitutes a difference of R670. In 1970, Whites in the Public Service earned R264 per month, while Blacks earned R42. In 1979, the average figure for Whites was R573 and for Blacks, R149, a difference of R424 per month. The point I want to make is that more and more of those who find themselves on the bad side of that equation, are becoming aware of the fact that one of the major reasons why they are in those circumstances, is because they do not have direct access to political power. I believe this is a conclusion which is growing in the whole body of South Africa, and therefore I believe the hon. the Prime Minister must be asked to give direct attention to this growing crisis. The majority in South Africa is at an overwhelmingly weak disadvantage because it does not have access to political power, which is necessary to change its basic situation. They cannot make decisions about their own housing situation, their own transport, their job opportunities or even their education. In the final analysis this is controlled by those of us who sit in this place, in particular by that side of the House, the Government, the people who are in power. The name of the game is power. That’s what it is about. More and more South African people who are at a disadvantage are becoming aware that there are in such a position because they do not have the power to make the necessary changes, and a very natural corollary to this is that their voice is rising in a crescendo in demanding access to this political power which will enable them to exert direct influence in issues which affect their lives and indeed the lives of their children. That is the one side: a growing political consciousness amongst ordinary Black people in South Africa who demand a voice in the political power block in South Africa. That is the one side.

On the other side there is a Government which in itself represents a minority in the country, but which seems to be determined that all meaningful power is going to be retained for all time by the Whites.

That is not so.

The hon. Whip on the other side of the House tells me that this is not so. I should like him, one of his hon. colleagues, or the hon. the Prime Minister himself to outline to this House any meaningful power which Black people have which directly affects their daily living, their transport, their housing, their job opportunities and their education system. That is where the rub is, not in the sophisticated terms we have been using, but noticeable in their and their children’s daily experience.

Disturbed by internal dissent and alarmed by recent events in Southern Africa, the NP appears to be implacably opposed to any form of power-sharing. Indeed, it seems that the very concept, the very word, is regarded as dirty, something one does not even talk about. That is why again and again the debates in this House become sterile. On the one hand we are advocating that the only alternative to counteract, to resolve this growing demand for power amongst those who are powerless, is to have meaningful power-sharing, whereas on the other side of the House there is a determination to say “No” to power-sharing for all time. The disenfranchised in our country are becoming more and more desperate and angry while those of us who have the power, seem to become more fearful and more hopeless every day. There is undoubtedly a growing loss of morale and a growing cynicism that the situation is inevitably moving towards conflict. I believe that the country is on a collission course, and if we do not recognize that and try to stop it, we are going to be in very, very deep trouble in the future. This places the hon. the Prime Minister in an incredibly responsible and I believe a very powerful position. I believe that the hon. the Prime Minister is perhaps the only one who can prevent collision, who can stand in between to make sure that the collision does not take place. He, above all others in South Africa, must choose between war and peace, because that is the ultimate, the pressing, choice in South Africa. If he chooses peace, and I hope he will, he will have to choose in some instances between his party and his country. I would ask and plead with the hon. the Prime Minister to demonstrate that the paralysis which seems to have overtaken him in the last few months will be seen to be nothing more than a temporary set-back and that he is determined to move, not by way of minor adjustments, but by way of major initiative. Here the 12-point plan is but a framework. We plead for political content.

Mr. Chairman, in my opinion the speech by the hon. member for Pinelands goes to the heart of the political debate in South Africa today. South Africa is a country with a population of minorities and a nation of peoples. We in South Africa have various Black peoples, each of which differs from the others in regard to language, culture, tradition and so on, and there are people who feel it incumbent upon them to overthrow the Whites, the White Government, to replace the existing order. There are people in South Africa who are working to achieve an aim which will have the effect of not only changing the position of the Whites in South Africa dramatically, but making it a subordinate one. The issue here is one of polarization. The issue is a process in terms of which one places the White people of South Africa on one side and, in terms of a specific unity, the Black peoples and, hopefully, the Asians and the Coloureds with them, on the other side. Basically, this is the strategy of the enemies of South Africa. That is what the Black Power movement wants. The rise of Black Power concerns matters such as this.

When we talk about the Black Power movement, we must consider what its origins are. The whole Black Power movement does not come from Africa. It is not an African nationalism, because the Black Power movement has no language or cultural basis nor any tradition of its own whatsoever. It does not have any history in Africa either. It is something that has blown over from the USA. It was brought here by people like the Rev. Basil Moore’s University Christian Movement, of which the hon. member for Pinelands was a member. The political strategy of the enemies of South Africa is to bring about a White/Black conflict in South Africa and to bring war and revolution.

The hon. member for Pinelands made a few important remarks in this regard, and one should try to see his remarks in context.

The question in South Africa is: Who causes White/Black polarization? I think we agree that White/Black polarization poses a threat not only to the White man but to the Black man as well. It poses a threat to the whole dispensation, the whole system in South Africa. Who causes White/Black polarization?

It is caused by people on both sides of the NP. On one side it is caused by people to the left of the NP—the PFP and its kindred spirits. On the other hand, it is caused by people like the HNP and its kindred spirits.

Connie too.

In my opinion we have had a display in this House today by two hon. members—the hon. member for Sandton, to a lesser extent, and the hon. member for Pinelands, to a greater extent—which has contributed towards bringing about polarization between White and Black in South Africa. [Interjections.] We must see how it is done. In the first place, it is done in that the ethnic cohesion of the various Black peoples in South Africa is disparaged, constantly held in contempt and presented as a non-factor in South African politics. It is done by showing contempt for and belittling the best intentions of the South African Government, taking them out of context and blowing up people’s grievances out of proportion. Let us look at what the hon. member for Sandton said here today. When the Government of the day is spoken about in terms such as “wicked stupidity”, and the allegation is made that the Government only wants to talk to puppets, when the hon. member for Sandton invites the Coloureds to give evidence before the Schlebusch Commission and then tells them that that will not be to their detriment “when the real negotiations” begin, then we are dealing with things which contribute towards polarization between White and Black.

Far worse still, however, are the things that the hon. member for Pinelands said here today, and of course the show he put up here. In the first place he quotes income figures to point out the difference in income between Whites and Blacks. After all, they differ just the same in Zimbabwe, in Kenya and elsewhere. There are other factors causing those differences. My main objection to the hon. member for Pinelands is that he maintains that it is because the Black people do not have a say in the political processes of the day. Does the hon. member for Pinelands really want to maintain that where Black people have a bigger share in the political processes of the day, they are economically so much better off? In what place where the Black people do indeed have a bigger say in the political process of the day has their economic position improved? [Interjections.]

Now the hon. member maintains: “The name of the game is power.” I agree with him, of course. It is a matter of power and that is very important. However, to maintain here that the poorer economic position of the Black man, of all the various population groups, vis-à-vis that of the Whites is due to the Black people not having political power, and that political power is the solution, is a statement which only contributes towards the political polarization between White and Black in South Africa. The hon. member is contributing towards a future confrontation between White and Black people in South Africa. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Pinelands goes on to say: “The majority is in a weak situation because they do not have political power.”

That is quite right.

To preach that sort of thing to the Black people of South Africa is surely untrue.

Where does the power lie? It lies here, in this Parliament. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Pinelands is missing the point completely. He says: “The majority is in a weak situation because they do not have political power.” Surely that is untrue. I challenge the hon. member to say that if there had been no White people in this country and the Black people had all the political power, the position of the Black people would still have been better today than it is. [Interjections.]

He ought at least to know that.

The hon. member uses expressions like “disgraceful situation”.

But it is a disgraceful situation.

When the hon. member for Pinelands argues along these lines in this House, he contributes towards the polarization between White and Black. What he must do is to recognize the Government’s efforts to bring about development. He ought to recognize what the Government is doing on a daily basis to develop the Black people in South Africa. What effort has the hon. member made to encourage and praise and commend the Government in this House for all the development programmes it is engaged in? Instead, only the negative side is constantly emphasized. The Black people are constantly being told from the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa that they, the Black people, are in a difficult situation because they are being cheated by the South African Government. The hon. member for Pinelands and other hon. members opposite are apparently under the impression that polarization can be brought about between Black people and the NP Government. No, that cannot happen. However, polarization between the Black people on the one hand and all the Whites on the other, can indeed be brought about. That includes the PFP. [Interjections.]

The political process which the PFP is engaged in is undoubtedly dangerous not only for the Whites, but also for the position and the standard of living of the Black people in this country. It is also dangerous for the Coloureds and the Asians. The hon. members of the Opposition must assist the Government to carry out its programme of development. They must assist in creating the attitude which is necessary to solve the political problems in South Africa and create a political dispensation under which we shall all be able to live very happily in future. Just as that hon. member on the left is carrying on and creating polarization, we also have the HNP on the right wing preaching hate and encouraging discrimination.

They are proclaiming far and wide that the Government of the White man is doing too much for the Black man. That of course results in the same kind of polarization. When Mr. Jaap Marais states in the Free State that to do away with discrimination constitutes treachery towards the White man, he is stabbing the White man in the back, because he is engaged in promoting White/Black polarization. The NP is saddled with these two groups of “spoilers”—as the hon. member for Florida said today—to its left and to its right. They are both spoilers that prevent the NP from carrying out its policy, because what the policy of the Government amounts to is the creation of a dispensation in which the natural nationalism of each national group in South Africa is able to develop to full maturity so that there will be no tension between the various peoples, and so that we may coexist with one another in this country in justice and equity to the common benefit of all, and so that we can create a safe place for our children here on the southern tip of the troubled continent of Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Pretoria Central became very excited and agitated when he was told a few home truths about the previous record of his party.

I think, however, it was very simplistic of the hon. member for Pinelands to have simply said that the Blacks are poor and the Whites are rich because the Whites have political power. I think it is a far more complicated situation than that, and to say that merely by giving the Blacks political power would rectify the entire balance, so that there would then be rich Blacks, etc., is something I am sure the hon. member for Pinelands did not really intend to say, and I say that because I know he has a great deal more intelligence than that. [Interjections.] I think that every hon. member in this House, every party in this House, is looking for a solution, and the solution revolves around the protection of minority rights and how minority rights can be entrenched so that they cannot be affected and so that the creation of a Black majority cannot threaten the rights of other groups. I know that we are all at one, and what strikes me as being increasingly interesting is the word “confederal” which is coming from the NP in increasing measure. The hon. the Minister of Police mentioned the “konfederale beraad”, and the hon. member for Piketberg referred to “confederation”, etc. A couple of months ago, however, we did not hear the word “confederation” at all. It was then a matter of a “constellation”. The Prime Minister, however, then said the constellation might become a confederation. Now suddenly “confederation” is the in-word, and now all the Nationalists can use the word “confederation” as though it really means something and has been part of their policy for years and years.

The hon. member for Pretoria Central refers to all the dirty words being used in the Free State to inflame people’s feelings, etc. We remember the days, however, when such words were used against us by hon. members of that party. We now see the wheel having turned full circle. Now those hon. members have moved as they have done, under the leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister, onto ground that was never the ground of the NP. Now they are experiencing the backlash of their own people. The old chickens have come back to roost on the heads of members of the NP, with the results we see in statutes. [Interjections.]

We never chucked them off balconies.

That is right, we never threw them off balconies. That is for sure! The hon. member for Parys said something I found very interesting indeed. He and I were both members of the party that went overseas. He said: “The total onslaught is not only one against the Whites of the country, but also against the Blacks.”

*That is the truth. Every Black man in this country is being threatened by the very same danger threatening every White in this country if the onslaught on us continues and intensifies. It is for that reason that we are now making this point. The hon. the Leader of my party said the hon. the Prime Minister was sitting there with a party that was at the same time Opposition and Government. That is also the truth.

†One of the most significant things that has happened in our country recently was the trouble in the party on the other side. If there had been a split in that party, the members who would have moved across the floor would have outnumbered the present Opposition members. That is a most significant thing.

That will be the day.

The only trouble was that the members concerned did not know who was going to win. They did not want to come to this side. [Interjections.] That was the problem.

I want to say to the hon. the Prime Minister that the shooting war against the establishment in South Africa has already started. It is here and nobody who listened Rowan Cronje speaking about experiences in Rhodesia can doubt it. Mr. Cronje said that with concealed arms caches already being found in our country the third phase has started. One of our problems is that the Government, which today is not capable of the rapid movement that is required, cannot speak to the people who are waging the war against South Africa. They cannot get through to them. They cannot stop the war. The only language the people waging the war will understand from the Government is total surrender. That is the problem we face. The steps that have to be taken to build up the total strategy we have been talking about should include the rest of the population. Everybody talks about this total strategy, but what is required is action on the part of the Government.

They do nothing.

That is the sort of thing we have been asking for and the sort of thing we want to see from the Government.

One of the biggest problems we have is the reaction of Black people. The survey done by Professor Simpson recently, which was published in the Press and which the hon. member for Durban North brought to the attention of the House, has revealed a most serious situation. It has revealed a cynicism amongst the Black population towards any action taken by the White community. There must be clear evidence from the party on the other side and from the hon. the Prime Minister himself, who is in the leadership position, that they are going to sweep away what are the relics of the past, the relics of Verwoerdianism and the whole idea of a totally separate dispensation for peoples or, as the hon. member for Piketberg said, totally independent States which will form part of the constellation of States.

Certain States like KwaZulu have said that they do not wish to take independence. If they wish to co-operate with us in a confederation, I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister why he insists that they have to go to the lengths of becoming totally independent States before they can be included again in a confederal arrangement. Why can they not develop to the point where they can take additional powers and slot into the confederation with the other homeland areas in this greater Southern Africa we are seeking to create? The hon. the Prime Minister owes us an answer to that, and he owes us an answer to the point my leader raised in connection with Natal. We have the situation there that we have achieved a considerable amount of success in negotiating, in putting our heads together and working out practical arrangements. What we want in South Africa today is not huge airy-fairy theories of constitution making. We want the daily practical steps whereby the practical things, achieved by people who put their heads together and work out solutions, will lead us into a new constitution. That is what is going to achieve peace in our country. People, including the Black people, must see that they are part of the process, that they are included and take part in the discussions, and achieve things for their own people.

Their own people will then see the doors to the future opening through the efforts of their own leaders. That is how one builds a constitution in a country like ours, and not by coming along with a Schlebusch Commission looking for a blueprint. That blueprint can be implemented only through step-by-step day-by-day negotiations, which is what practical constitution making is. That is what we have initiated in Natal. I think it ill becomes any member of the governing party to cast aspersions on our party because we happen to be there and live there with an Indian, Zulu and Coloured community and have succeeded in achieving an extraordinary goodwill, on which one can build.

White South Africa will be immeasurably poorer if we are not allowed to continue with our process. That is why we make this appeal to the hon. the Prime Minister. We do not have the power to force him to do it, but White South Africa is waiting on the implementation of this process, carrying it a step further and working out practical solutions which, if you want, is the genius of the Provincial Administration in Natal. If one looks at the record of the Natal Provincial Administration one will see that all the water corporations, town and regional planning, etc. are practical steps taken to meet specific problems which the Natal Provincial Administration has put right. I appeal to the hon. the Prime Minister not to look up on this as an attempt to break away or to do anything fancy, but to see that we are seeking practical solutions. We are seeking the power to implement something that we have begun and which should be allowed in the interests of White and Black South Africa to proceed to some kind of reasonable end so that we can achieve something in Natal which will enable the ¾ million Indians, ½ million Whites and 3½ million Zulus to live together in Natal within the context of a greater Southern African constellation, confederation or whatever one would like to call it. We want to be afforded the opportunity to try to achieve this in Natal.

The Government is a spoiler.

Mr. Chairman, I do not have much fault to find with what the hon. member for Mooi River said. Indeed, we agree wholeheartedly with his whole argument that we should establish a future political dispensation which can function in South Africa. In fact, that is the basis of the NP’s political philosophy for the future, viz. that we must define a structure in which the interests and endeavours of all of us in Southern Africa can be accommodated. I believe that the appeal the hon. member made to the hon. the Prime Minister and to us members of the NP was scarcely necessary.

I should like to come back to what the hon. Leader of the Opposition said in connection with the 12-point plan. He said that the 12-point plan spelt out by the hon. the Prime Minister was confusing. He also said that the policy of the NP was the most important problem in the 12-point plan. He went on to say that the removal of discrimination was an essential point in the 12-point plan and he wanted to know what the NP was doing about it. Finally, he added that we were playing buffer politics.

I want to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and all his members that the 12-point plan announced by the hon. the Prime Minister stands precisely between the two poles of thought of the hon. Leader of the Opposition, viz. the pole of a conference table, which we regard as capitulation, and the pole which the Opposition describes as the pole of violence. I call upon the Opposition to give serious consideration to the two poles within which they formulate their political ideas, namely the pole of the conference table and the pole of violence. We must take account of the practical realities of life around us, and therefore I want to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that even if we repealed every single Act of Parliament, we could not undo the concept of discrimination. As long as there are different nations and races in South Africa distinctions will be drawn, whether it be by way of legislation or whether legislation in that regard does not exist. As long as a distinction is drawn there will be people who brand it as discrimination. That, too, is why it is vital that in our communications with the Black nations and non-White nations we should choose our words in such a way that the Government and, by implication, we as Whites, will not stand accused of perpetrating all kinds of oppressive and discriminatory measures, but that we shall display understanding of the problems and the complexity of the various peoples and races in one society.

I have a number of newspaper cuttings that I could quote. I have a nice thick pile of newspaper cuttings which I could give to the hon. member for Pinelands. He can come and read in it how there is potential for conflict and real conflict and discrimination in every country of the world where there are different races. We have an eternal potential for conflict in South Africa and we may not exploit the emotions surrounding it. We may not play politics with the emotion which surrounds the complexity in South Africa. I have before me an article concerning what is going on in England. I have articles about what is going on in France, Holland Argentinia and in almost every other country of the world. The point I want to make is that the Opposition must be very circumspect in using the concept “discrimination”.

It is not an art to show up what is wrong in South Africa. The Opposition must know that. It is no art to point out all the problem areas, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did today, and to ask the Government: “What are you doing?” That is not the art. The art in South Africa is to govern in practice in such a way that there is stability and so that the aspirations and expectations of people are satisfied.

In a previous debate the hon. member for Bryanston spoke about expectations. Therefore I want to say to the Opposition that the NP does create expectations among all people. The NP creates expectations among the White voters, among the various Black nations and also among the Coloureds and the Asians. A Government and a party which are incapable of giving people a modicum of vision for the future, a Government which is also unable, in this complex South Africa, to hold out expectations in regard to progress and expectations in regard to political realization and expectations in regard to social progress to the Black peoples, will go under, and the NP is not such a Government.

The basis on which one wishes to satisfy those expectations is what counts. Surely there is a substantial difference between the basis upon which we want to satisfy the expectations and the basis on which the Opposition wishes to do so. Therefore I want to say to the hon. member for Pinelands that the NP is not an integrationist party. The NP is not a party which strives towards integration. The NP sees only conflict in the striving for integration. Therefore the NP’s policy is a policy of equal co-existence. We have said repeatedly—and this is also contained in the 12-point plan—that in our co-existence in Southern Africa and in the vision for the future which we see for all the peoples in this plan of co-existence, we see equality of people, the equality of diversity. We see in it the recognition of the human dignity of many people, of all people. Accordingly, we also see in it changes in the road that lies ahead.

If, then, it is so easy to carry out all those changes overnight, then we should have done so long ago, after all. It would have been the easiest thing for the Government to do so, but even the Opposition is struggling in its own ranks and with its own policy as regards changes which they must or must not effect. Every single congress held by the Opposition is a congress of conflict and emotional tension among their members, among the extreme wings in the party. The one group says: “Full franchise” and the other group says “Never, over my dead body.” The one group says: “Mixed schools,” and the other group says: “Never in eternity.”

Why, then, do they say that our policy is the problem? Why do they tell us that we must set everything right overnight? We work within a framework, a framework of order, and that is the only way one can work. There is no doubt about that. After all, there is uncertainty and confusion among the voters in South Africa. This confusion and uncertainty, however, does not centre around the NP’s policy as alleged by the PFP; it is caused by the world we live in, it is caused by the Africa we live in, and it is caused by many things other than political policy.

One element of that is that we live in a world today in which people have lost many of their spiritual anchors, and one of the anchors which people are grasping at present, is the anchor of material things. However, that is not an anchor which affords anything of real value. Therefore we as politicians also have a role to play in South Africa, in holding out a vision for our people that is greater than money, an anchor of security and certainty for the future, an anchor which can be hung on the NP’s policy, and not an anchor, because there is no anchor, to the chaos of the uncertainty which would arise out of the Opposition’s policy.

Many of our people in South Africa, and many people throughout the world, are at present searching their hearts to find the sense and meaning of life. It is a spiritual characteristic of the world we are living in that people are asking: “What is the sense and the meaning of life?” In South Africa, with all its potential for conflict and pressure from outside, it is still more certain that people will ask that question.

Accordingly, there is a heavy responsibility on us as politicians to guide our people on the road ahead. The NP speaks to the people frankly. We are not afraid to tell our people frankly how we see the road ahead. Crises are the most important factors in the life of a country and a nation which can determine priorities. Therefore I want to say that the whole international and African crisis into which we in South Africa have been plunged is in a certain sense the factor which will cause us to determine our priorities.

I want to call on hon. members of the Opposition not to put political rights first in our determining of priorities, because as sure as we are sitting in this House, the practical socio-economic problems which the non-Whites are struggling with are the top priority in South Africa. I believe that the NP means well in doing everything within our power, with the capitalistic free market system as a basis, to uplift the Black population groups in our country in the socio-economic field. We realize that to the extent that one uplifts people, expectations rise. I believe that the problems we are having at present with the Coloured population is one of the best proofs of this. The Coloured population group is one of the groups in South Africa which we have already uplifted socio-economically to the greatest extent. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to refer to the speech by the hon. member for Pinelands earlier this afternoon. That hon. member really disappointed me a great deal today. He reminded me of the words of Kwame Nkrumah: “Seek ye first they political kingdom,” and then one will get all the other things. That hon. member made a statement here today which was so irresponsible that I cannot believe that an hon. member of this House could say such a thing. The hon. member for Pinelands fanned the flames of revolution in South Africa today.

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must withdraw that allegation.

Mr. Chairman, I shall withdraw it. What the hon. member for Pinelands said here today could awaken thoughts of revolution in the minds of people of colour in this country.

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister is making the same statement but simply in different words. Therefore he must withdraw that as well.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw it. What the hon. member for Pinelands said here today borders on the incitement of revolution.

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must withdraw that likewise.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw it. What the hon. member for Pinelands said here this afternoon is absolutely irresponsible towards South Africa. The hon. member says that the people of colour in this country do not enjoy their rightful share in the prosperity of South Africa because they do not have sufficient political rights to be able to claim them and demand them. In other words, what the hon. member for Pinelands came to say here in this House today is that this Government and this hon. Prime Minister are following a policy of absolute dishonesty in regard to the people of colour in this country and that we are abusing our position of political power to deprive them of the prosperity of South Africa. He quoted a long list of income differences between the various colour groups in this country.

According to your own commission.

Of course I do not dispute those differences; they exist. However, the hon. member is now implying that they are the consequence of the political dispensation in South Africa and therefore the consequence of our policy of separate development. That is what the hon. member in fact said here.

What is your reason for saying that?

I shall tell the hon. member the reason if he will just contain himself. There are historic differences.

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

No, I have only ten minutes. Surely there are historical reasons why these wage differences exist in South Africa.

Why does Boraine get more than his gardener?

Yes. [Interjections.] I also want to tell him that there are, after all, differences in the training and skills of different people. [Interjections.] I shall come to training. What is the origin of the difference in income between White and Brown, something that has existed for more than 300 years? Since when has there been apartheid and job reservation? Apartheid and job reservation have only existed for 30 to 40 years. Why did the backlog built up over the 260 years? Was that the result of the policy of the Government and the hon. the Prime Minister? Surely that is an absolutely absurd, illogical and mistaken argument to advance here. When people say such things they must not be surprised if revolution breaks out.

After all, due to the report of the Wiehahn Commission, restrictions are no longer imposed on the opportunities for people in this country. Who has done more for the training of people of colour than this very Government over the past 30 years? Over the past 30 years we have done more than was done in the preceding 270 years. Show me one country in Africa where more is done in respect of the training and education of people of colour than here in South Africa.

I now want to issue a challenge to the hon. member. The Government has geared itself to narrowing the wage gap and the existing gap between pensions etc. Hon. members can take a look at our record.

In real terms it is getting wider and wider.

Parity has already been achieved in regard to the salaries of university staff due to universities being able to make up that small difference out of their own revenue. We have geared ourselves to achieving parity in regard to the tax that White and Black have to pay in this country. In the midst of the severest form of criticism the Government is engaged in narrowing the wage gap in this country.

†On the one hand those hon. members say that we are doing nothing, but on the other hand there stands the other part of the lunatic fringe, namely their colleague, Mr. Jaap Marais, who is their opposite number. He says that we are doing too much about it.

He is my opposite.

That is the position we are in.

Japie Basson does not agree with him either.

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must address the Chair.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say to you that the opposite number of the hon. member of Pinelands is Mr. Jaap Marais. Both agitate equally hard, it is just that they do so on different sides of the spectrum. When one considers the position of education to which the hon. member referred and which is being discussed so much and is so much in the news nowadays, one sees that from 1970-’71 to 1978-’79 there was an annual increase of 13,2% in respect of White education, whereas over the same period there was an annual increase of 19% in respect of non-White education.

What does that mean in real terms?

It was 19%. The hon. member must be quiet when I speak, because I gave him a chance while he was speaking.

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

The fact of the matter is that the share of the Whites in the money spent on the education of our children has dropped from 73% in 1970 to 64% in 1979. In other words, we are contributing a larger share towards the education of people of colour. What is more, while the disparity between White and Black was 9,5% in 1973-’74, it has dropped to 6,3% in 1978-’79. In other words, the Government is moving towards a situation in which there will be a more equal and fair dispensation for all. Will the hon. member for Pinelands, who wants to make everything equal immediately, tell me this: If we are to achieve parity and all that in South Africa, whom are we to take from? Surely that would cause a revolution. To move towards a position of parity, one has to act with understanding, and one has to have stability. Those are prerequisites. We can only achieve equal opportunities, parity among the population groups, if there is economic growth and development in South Africa. As the cake grows, we can bring about a better dispensation for all by using the increased size of the cake. But if we were to take from some people to give to others, we should have revolution. The whole philosophy of the hon. member for Pinelands is socialist. [Interjections.] [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Lydenburg will forgive me if I do not waste ammunition as he did in his speech. I would rather take this opportunity to have a face-to-face discussion with the hon. the Prime Minister on affairs of State that fall under his premiership.

I do so at a time when events in Southern Africa, particularly over the last five years, have been very significant. I do so mindful of the fact that changes are taking place in South Africa. I ask the hon. the Prime Minister whether he has fully appreciated the impact of the independence of Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe on the thinking of our 19,2 million non-Whites in South Africa, upon their leaders and people.

I recall that shortly after the independence of Mozambique I was present at a meeting with Black leaders. We discussed constitutional matters, and one thing emerged. These leaders are today presidents of independent States and some leaders of non-independent States, but one thing was paramount in those discussions, namely “emergence”. They were filled with the spirit of emergence. The Black man had emerged from his centuries of political slumber, the yoke of colonial rule was shed and the winds of change in Southern Africa were howling. We stand here today in 1980 having just witnessed the end of a 14-year struggle and the birth of the new Black-dominated nation of Zimbabwe, despite the discussions and the statements made by an ex-Prime Minister who said “Never in my lifetime”. Yet it happened in his lifetime. He said “Never in a 1 000 years”, but it turned out to be the shortest thousand years in history, because the thousand years became one thousand days. [Interjections.]

There has been a new climate since this emergence. The spirit of emergence has gained even more strength and come closer to home, and I ask the hon. the Prime Minister whether he has assessed the situation in South Africa in what can now be termed the post Mugabe era in Southern Africa. For how much longer will the emerging Blacks tolerate talk with no action following? For how much longer will they be prepared to talk? The spirit of hope is higher and their attitudes are hardening. “Emergence” is not a person. One cannot arrest or imprison it. So I must ask the hon. the Prime Minister what he is doing to meet and deal with the situation. Is it the twelve-point plan? Does it fill the dire need to fulfil the expectations of emergence, the need for meaningful change, the need for scrapping discrimination and the need to provide a paramount and lasting situation and solution for peace, tranquility and prosperity in South Africa? Is the hon. the Prime Minister not disturbed by the changes? What weight does he attach for example to statements made by one Dr. Motlana, who says that he will only be prepared to have discussions if we talk about Black majority rule? That may be a racialist stand, but that is not the point. The point is that an educated, professional man who is a leader of Black people in Soweto shows that there is a hardening of attitude. Even Chief Gatsha Buthelezi said on 14 April that he would not participate in the hon. the Prime Minister’s committee of intent. He says—

How much longer will that hon. gentleman be prepared to have discussions? So far, what have we had from the hon. the Prime Minister? There was the Upington speech in which he said: “Adapt or die”. That clearly raised expectations. What did the hon. the Prime Minister mean when he said those words? To what do we have to adapt? If we say “adapt” we are implying a process of change. What are the changes, however, and where are those changes? There are words, words and more words. We are not short of words from the hon. the Prime Minister. There are twelve points, full of words, in his twelve-point plan. We are told that this plan is a framework within which the policy decisions of the NP will be accommodated. The plan was devised in 1979. It was agreed to by the Cabinet and endorsed by four provincial congresses of the NP.

Let us just take a quick look at the plan itself. The first point refers to the acknowledgement and acceptance of multinationalism and minorities in Southern Africa. When speaking of multinationalism, does the Prime Minister accept that our society is a plural society? What is meant by accepting minorities, and what are the rights of those minorities? Are the minorities the Whites, the Chinese or the Indians? When one says one accepts, what does one accept? What does that acceptance amount to? Is it political acceptance, social acceptance or economic acceptance? Is it all or none of these?

Then we come to the issue of vertical differentiation, with the principle of self-determination on as many levels as possible. Is this another form of apartheid? Is the vertical line vertical to boundaries confining the four groups to their own boxes all the time? Where is the principle of self-determination applied to each racial group? Are these boundaries to remain for all times? Also, let me ask what levels of authority will apply? Is there not the danger, in this vertical differentiation, that it may cut across recommendations of the Schlebusch Commission? Would this not possibly restrict the commission? How does this square up with the possibility of a president’s council? If vertical lines exist, how are the people of all groups supposed to come together?

Then there is the question of the division of power amongst Whites, Coloureds and Indians when it comes to consultation on matters of common interest. Is this a call for three Parliaments? What are the matters of common interest to which reference is made? How will consultation take place, and why is there no accommodation for the Blacks? Where is there any plan for the 16,2 million Blacks in South Africa? How do they fit into the twelve-point plan that has been submitted to us? The hon. the Prime Minister talks about power, but power to do what? What is that power that he is referring to?

Then there is reference to the acceptance of the principle of own schools and communities where possible. Is this a reference to the retention of the Group Areas Act and the Population Registration Act? Is this a reference to the separation of schools and residential areas? If one states “where possible”, one must accept that it is possible in certain areas. So one accepts the principle of different people being together, and if we accept that principle, when is it not possible?

There is also reference to the removal of hurtful and unnecessary discriminatory measures that create ill-feeling. Will the hon. the Prime Minister not concede that every discriminatory measure creates ill-feeling? If he does not, I can bring him a mountain of evidence to support this. In fact, there are 19,3 million non-Whites we can subpoena to give evidence that discrimination is hurtful. One only has to look at the Cillié Commission report. Just look at the boycotts that are also taking place in Coloured schools today. In fact, if I correctly interpret the twelve-point plan, acceptance of vertical differentiation is in itself discriminatory, and so is every apartheid measure on the Statute Book. So I ask that all laws affecting race relations on the Statute Book, and I am referring to laws from 1948 to 1976, be looked at. There are at least 70 discriminatory laws, and I believe that if we are going to get anywhere at all we must understand that all discrimination is both hurtful and unnecessary. Surely one would accept that a hurtful measure is in itself unnecessary. This is actually the biggest bone of contention. There is discrimination in other countries as well, but it is not entrenched in statute. It is grossly unfair to subject all South Africans to laws of discrimination that are entrenched in statute. It is a cancer in our society which will destroy its very fabric. The situation is crying out for action. There can be no survival of our plural society while these laws remain on the Statute Book. Well-meaning Cabinet Ministers who make statements, count for nothing because thousands of officials throughout South Africa are being paid to administer the laws on the Statute Book and to see to it that these discriminatory laws are carried out. Therefore, what notice can one take of Cabinet Ministers trying to make political noises?

I think we find ourselves in a situation in which, if we are going to reach any kind of solution to the problems of South Africa, the onus is now on the shoulders of the hon. the Prime Minister to act now. In the words of a certain Cabinet Minister of Zimbabwe, I urge the hon. the Prime Minister to do something right now. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, while I have been sitting and listening to this debate today, one thing has gradually been becoming clearer to me, and that is why the Opposition parties have become totally irrelevant in the South African politics of today. What are these people talking about? They are not talking about the power base of politics in South Africa. Nor are they talking to the people who represent the power base of politics in South Africa, namely the registered, enfranchised voters of South Africa.

The hon. member for Hillbrow maintained that the Government only talked and did nothing. What he said was, of course, in accordance with what the hon. member for Pinelands had already said before him. The hon. member questions the issue of self-determination. In what century are these hon. people living? That is why they, too, have become irrelevant as far as the politics of colour in South Africa are concerned. The Black people, too, reject them because they also begrudge the Black people the right of self-determination. I want to make the statement here this evening that we in South Africa have an Opposition that is concerning itself with strange things. They are talking about conflict. They maintain that we are heading for conflict and confrontation. However, what idea are they impressing upon the people of colour in South Africa? What idea are they, even from this Parliament, repeatedly putting into the minds of those people? Only this, namely that they are repeatedly pointing out to people of colour that the only way in which they can live in South Africa with human dignity is by getting into their hands the political control of South Africa. That is the implication of what hon. members of the Opposition are saying. What better way to create a situation of conflict? If that happens, we shall have a revolution. That is indeed so.

I want to be relatively crass this evening. I want to maintain that the present Opposition in South Africa does not represent a Greek tragedy, but a democratic tragedy. It is a simple truth that these people, as I say, have become totally irrelevant in the politics of South Africa. A democratic system of government functions simply so that there should be a responsible, loyal and relatively strong opposition to enable the governing party to function effectively. It also functions at its best if there is a high degree of consensus about the ultimate destination of the country and people in question on the part of both the Government and the Opposition. Indeed, it works ideally when the opposition can in fact be the one to prepare the way for actions of the government on the road ahead. However, what do we find in South Africa?

Since 1977 the Government and the Opposition have found themselves in two diametrically opposed ideological worlds. Recently, a short time ago, a new hon. Leader of the Opposition was elected. We had great expectations of this man. He is a young man, a person with good academic qualifications, and on top of that he has a pleasant personality. We greatly looked forward to this first speech in this House. When he spoke earlier today, he turned to the academics in South Africa to pass judgment on the policy of the Government. He did not turn to his own politicians and his fellow workers in the PFP.

His first speech was in the no-confidence debate this year. I just want to quote what he said in this House on 4 February this year (Hansard, 1980, col. 39)—

Then he goes on to say—

Now I ask the hon. Leader of the Opposition and all the other hon. members over there who are so fond of saying constantly that apartheid is dead; to whom in the world are they going to say it? Are they going to tell it to the Don McHenry’s, like the former Leader of the Opposition, who came to grief as a result? Are they going to tell it to President Carter? Are they going to tell it to Mr. Mondale or Prof. Rosberg? Are they going to tell it to the enemies of South Africa overseas? After all, these words are the credo of the hon. member for Houghton. They are her special privilege. She went to America to tell the people there that they should exercise pressure on South Africa. After all, that is how the Opposition speaks to outside people.

You are talking nonsense.

It is not nonsense. It is strange that when one touches the hon. member for Houghton on her tender spots, she reacts immediately. Surely it is only true that they are in the habit of addressing their statements about this kind of thing to people outside. Then South Africa has to swallow that. This has resulted in them becoming irrelevant for the White people in South Africa as far as politics are concerned. Why do they not speak to the enfranchised voters? Why do they tell this to the world? Why do they not tell this to the only people who can bring about a new dispensation in South Africa in a democratic way, viz. the enfranchised voters of South Africa? Surely they are the right people to speak to. It is clear that the new Leader of the Opposition still has the fatal, deadly albatross of the Houghton—Groote Schuur-Pinelands leftist liberal clique around his neck and it will ultimately destroy him, too. [Interjections.]

Then, too, the Leader of the Opposition made the other tactical error of reasoning of saying that apartheid is dead. Surely that is not true. Who on this side of the House ever said that apartheid was dead? [Interjections.] Allow me to correct myself. It has been said by higher bodies and persons that the carica ture of apartheid is dead, the apartheid which exists according to the hon. members opposite, the outside world and our enemies. That is the major error of reasoning that they make. Primary apartheid lives in the hearts of the enfranchised voters of South Africa, to such an extent that the party opposite has been rejected by them in election after election and will be rejected by them to an increasing extent in the future. There is no doubt on that score. That is why a little party like the PFP has become the Opposition party in South Africa. This did not attest to growth in the ranks of the Opposition. On the contrary, it attested to one thing only, viz. degeneration in the ranks of the Opposition. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition realizes it. He has an instinct for that. That is why he is now using the hon. member for Bezuidenhout to give his party more rightist credibility.

It is interesting that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said in yesterday’s Rapport that he had never yet let himself be used by anyone. Why did he make such a statement? Then a formidable article, written by him, appeared in the Sunday Times. I wish to quote from it—

I assume that that is a reference to Mandela, the freeing of whom is advocated by the hon. member for Pinelands—

That is as plain as a pikestaff and I agree with it. What an admission that is! Who are the White men to whom he refers who are prepared to surrender? Has the NRP ever propagated such a policy? They have not. Has the NP propagated such a policy? That is surely simply too ridiculous. I shall not even speak of the HNP. Who, then, remains? Surely it is only the PFP that remains. That is therefore an admission and at the same time an effort to deny that that is the case, that these people were in the past prepared to give away the power they possess.

As a man who is also concerned about the future of South Africa I want to call on the PFP to come back to the relevant things. Let them first convince the enfranchised voters of South Africa of the things that have to be done. We agree with them that there must be changes in South Africa, but let them convince the enfranchised voters, because they are the only people who can sanction bringing about those changes which we all agree must come, in a civilized, peaceful manner. Let them become relevant in regard to the politics in South Africa. They must not be a democratic tragedy any longer. Let them become an Opposition that needs to be taken account of and that is worth listening to. If they do so, they will be doing South Africa a service. If that does not happen, I want to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition—and I say this with a degree of compassion for the young man—that just like his predecessor he, together with his little party, will disappear without trace. I have no doubt on that score.

Mr. Chairman, to a large extent I want to apply the slogan used in advertising to the speech made by the hon. member for Sasolburg, viz. that I agree with one half of what he said, but not with the other half. It is up to the hon. member himself to determine what is relevant in what he said and what is not relevant. I believe he made one big mistake, and that was when he spoke of Opposition parties that were supposedly irrelevant. I think he only meant the official Opposition. In that respect, of course, I agree whole-heartedly with him. What was of very great importance in the hon. member’s approach, was that one has to take into account the real situation in South Africa. We must see to it that the proposals which we make and the blueprints worked out for the division of economic and political power in South Africa are in line with the realities of South Africa, of Southern Africa. I also want to address the hon. the Prime Minister, other members of the Cabinet and other hon. members along these lines today.

I consider it extremely important in the light of the responsibility which the NP and particularly the hon. the Prime Minister have as regards the peace, well-being and prosperity of all the people of all population groups in South Africa that hon. members of the NP ask themselves three questions in particular, and work out the answers. In the first place, it should be asked to what extent the hon. the Prime Minister’s proposal of a constellation of South African States is in line with reality. Secondly, on what basic principles will that constellation of States be founded, and thirdly, should that concept of a constellation within the South African context, and not that of Southern Africa, be rejected by the other population groups in South Africa, what alternative does the hon. the Prime Minister propose to submit to the people of South Africa?

†I believe it is absolutely essential that the hon. the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, in fact all hon. members of the NP, must ask themselves these three questions. To what extent will the blueprint of a constellation of South African States fulfil the expectations of and be accepted by members of the other race groups? Secondly, to what extent does it accord with the reality of the South African situation and, thirdly, and perhaps more important, what alternative is available for peace and prosperity in South Africa in the future if that particular plan is rejected by the other race groups? I believe that when hon. members speak about vertical differentiation in South Africa, then that principle must be accepted as part of the reality for South Africa, and that the vertical stratification of the population groups of South Africa divide South Africa primarily into two groups, that is those groups which support democracy as a political institution in combination with or in tandem with private free enterprise, and on the other side of the coin those groups who do not support democracy and private free enterprise.

Such as?

I will come to that for the hon. member’s benefit in a moment. The reality of South Africa is that any political dispensation, any new blueprint, must ensure the survival in tandem or parallel of those two systems because that is the reality in South Africa. The majority of Whites Indians and Coloureds as well as the urbanized Blacks have accepted democracy and private free enterprise in the economic and political structures of South Africa. In contrast to that, but equally acceptable to the majority of South Africans, the non-urbanized Blacks, the Negroids of South Africa, prefer an alternative political and economic structure. Politically they believe in a quasi-democratic or totally authoritarian system. This is acceptable to those people, to the majority of Blacks in South Africa and therefore the majority of our population. They do not totally support a private free enterprise system. They believe in a social or communal system of economic enterprise. This is the reality of vertical stratification and division in South Africa, which every blueprint must accord with. It must take cognizance of those two major or macro-value groups. That is why the NRP has come up with a confederal/federal solution, our federation to comprise and consist of, and to receive the support, of those four population groups that believe in democracy and private free enterprise, not with group domination, but with group participation and an equal share in supporting that economic and political system. On the confederal side—not in a unitary State, as indicated by the hon. member for Umlazi, but as one geographic unit of Southern Africa—the confederation will accommodate the aspirations, political and economic, of those citizens of South Africa who prefer an alternative to private free enterprise and democracy. No member of this House, nor the leaders of the other population groups outside this House, have the right to deny the right of groups to participate in whichever of the two systems they prefer. Therefore the first question which the hon. the Prime Minister must ask himself is what are the chances of success in terms of his constellation of Southern African States in order to ensure the survival of democracy and private free enterprise in tandem with the other systems preferred by the other race groups who will be accommodated in our confederation. Here I believe the matter to be fairly problematical. The very fact that the hon. the Prime Minister has indicated that his answer to the total strategy of South Africa is based upon the private and free enterprise system, already carries in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction, because the majority of the Blacks in South Africa do not accept that. It is obvious why the hon. the Prime Minister has said that only totally independent Black homeland areas can be accommodated in the constellation of States. That again is going to decrease the probability of success and acceptance, because the home land areas do not want total independence. They still want to share in the wealth of Southern Africa, of South Africa, and that is why the probability is there that they will reject it.

I now come to the kernel of the problem, the real problem in South African blueprints in South Africa, viz. the failure of the Government to recognize the existence of the urbanized Black in South Africa.

That is nonsense.

The hon. member says it is nonsense. That is his attitude, that is what I am concerned about and that is precisely why a constellation of. Southern African States has a low probability of success. One must hold accord with reality, and the reality in South Africa says that at least two million of the Blacks living in the urban areas of South Africa—of which there are nine million—are today still totally committed to private free enterprise and democracy. Those are the people with whom we must share power in the federal area, with the Coloureds, with the Indians and with the Whites. The confederation is to accommodate, as South African citizens, those people who prefer an alternative political and economic structure, viz. an authoritarian, traditional system of government and a communal economic system. That is the reality. And when one examines the proposed constellation of States, my party and I believe that although it goes a long way towards facilitating and encouraging the economic upliftment of people, it must be preceded by a successful blueprint for the medium, short and long term political division of power in South Africa. As long as the Government refuses to recognize those realities, in particular the existence of the urban Blacks, I fear … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am glad of the opportunity to follow the hon. member for Durban North. I must say that I found his speech to be a very peculiar one indeed, because I wonder whether one can just willy-nilly categorize Dr. Motlana as a democrat who is willing to accept the free enterprise system when he has categorically stated—and he is an urban Black—that he will begin with the nationalization of farms, and categorically classify people like Gatsha Buthelezi, Sebe, or Dr. Phatudi as people who are not democrats and who reject the free enterprise system, etc. It is simply not as simple as that. Therefore, when one starts making that kind of stratification, anything that emanates from that type of philosophy has, of course, a much lower probability of success than our constellation, and I should like to demonstrate it. It is difficult to do so, unless one also understands what that party really has in mind. I must say that I was most concerned to hear from the architect of the so-called confederal/federal system, viz. the hon. member for Mooi River, asking the hon. the Prime Minister questions this afternoon that clearly indicated that he had no idea what a confederal structure was. How can one have confederal/federal structure when one does not even know what a confederation is? Coming to the federal part of that schizophrenic monster, I have asked for three years in succession a certain question of that hon. Opposition party. That question was: “What safeguards have you got in your federal dispensation that will prevent it from resulting in an ethnic conflict?” For three years running I have, sometimes benignly and sometimes with acrimony, been promised an answer, and to date that answer is still forthcoming. In the Part Appropriation Bill the hon. member for Durban North did in fact say that he did not wish to deal with the technicalities of the matter, but promised to forward to me a copy of the constitutional proposals that his party had submitted to the Schlebusch Commission. Needless to say, that copy has not been forthcoming. Just in passing, that hon. member also had a lot to say about my manners. I should like to tell him that I consider it the height of bad manners to make promises that one has no intention of keeping.

You should not talk about manners.

If I had the time, I would deal also with the hon. member for Umhlanga. However, I find a pity that I did not get that reply, because I do not think that the constitutional debate in this country is merely a matter of technicality. I think it is vital to the survival of every human being in this country. I think that it is also a pity, because I cannot now determine what there is common between the confederal aspect of that party’s policy and our confederal concept of a constellation of independent sovereign States co-operating together in a confederal structure on matters of common interest for the common good. There is no doubt that all the political parties represented in this House do have aspects of policy in common and do have goals and ideas in common. For instance, we are all striving for a situation in which there will be equality of opportunity for all, politically, economically, socially—in other words, in every sphere of human endeavour. We all realize that a situation in which one nation or group dominates another or others in a poly-ethnic society is untenable and ultimately dangerous. Considering the party he represents, though regretfully he is not here at the moment—and I am not even sure whether he represents that party—the hon. member for Bezuidenhout had some surprisingly sensible things to say on the issue in an article he wrote and which was published in the Sunday Times yesterday. It is therefore not the aims and ideals on which we differ so much as on the means of achieving them. Here I <u>t</u>hin<u>k</u> it is necessary to tell both the main Opposition parties that ideals have never yet been realized in history through impractical means. One should not make realism the antithesis of idealism, but a tool of idealism.

Power-sharing may well be a beautiful ideal to strive for. It could even work if human beings were able to rid themselves of ambition, jealousy, the lust for power and a host of other unpleasant attributes and if they could live peacefully side by side, like the lion and the lamb in paradise. But unfortunately we are not in paradise; we are on earth, and human beings, especially in groups, do not behave like that. Throughout history man has proven himself morally incapable of sharing power, equitably in poly-ethnic situations, and one cannot hope to govern man successfully in terms of how he ought to behave, but only in terms of how he does behave.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout has set out the problem precisely in his article in the Sunday Times. He said—

Now, Sir, of course the colour does not really matter here. It is more a question of nationhood and therefore one could also argue of a Black revolution against Black baasskap. That has been the problem in every power-sharing dispensation that has been tried in the world, whether it be by proportional representation, as one had in Cyprus, or in a federal dispensation, as one had in Nigeria. That is exactly the position, because however one tries to contort such a dispensation, one always has baasskap of one group over another group or other.

In his article the hon. member for Bezuidenhout—and I must really say that I was surprised to see that he had written it—says that we shall have to steer a course between the risk of a Black revolution against White baasskap and the risk of a White revolution against Black baasskap. I think we can forget these references to colour, although the idea is correct. But how does one do that? One does it by the division of power. There are many constitutional models in history that have demonstrated that power-sharing has failed. It failed on the Indian sub-continent. It was the reason for the conflict between West and East Pakistan and the reason for the Palestine conflict in 1947 as well as for the Cypriot and Nigerian conflicts. If power-sharing fails in Asia, in the Levant, in Europe and in Africa, how, I ask with tears in my eyes, can our Opposition parties suddenly think that it is going to work here? Of course the answer lies in the division of power. There are, as the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs have quite correctly stated, no existing constitutional models on which one can base the success of this. However, there are historical analogies. The solution lies partly in the manner in which one perceives South Africa. Does one perceive it as it has been for the greatest part of its history, as a vast subcontinent in which a variety of nations live and have lived and for the most part of their history have governed themselves independently of one another as they have wished or does one see it as a single geo-political entity, which it became 70 years ago by an imperialist act of aggression against all the people living here and which none of them wanted? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Benoni dealt so effectively with both opposition parties that even the hon. member for Mooi River sat still and listened, and I do not think that happens often.

I could not believe it; that is why.

It is traditional that this debate revolves specifically around politics, but I want to touch on a somewhat more peaceful subject. In the first place I should like to congratulate the hon. the Prime Minister on the initiatives that he and the Cabinet have launched.

Then, too, I want to dwell specifically on the planning structure of South Africa. Whether all the opposition parties, the English Press and the foreign armchair critics want to acknowledge it or not, changes are taking place in South and Southern Africa. Let us take a look at Southern Africa. New states are arising on our borders, new governments with new ideologies are coming into being and in South Africa—I am now referring to the South Africa of a number of years ago—new independent states have come into being. New states are always coming into being within the territorial limits of South Africa as we knew it a number of years ago. All this requires not only planning, but also a new vision and new prospects. The planners of today must need to take into account the demands of the times, and what is more, planning must be carried out with a view to the future. As far as political planning is concerned, the politicians—who are responsible for political planning—must carry out political planning in a responsible way. As far as the Government is concerned, it has to plan and develop within the mandate it has been given by the majority of the enfranchised voters in the country. Surely, then, the opposition parties cannot differ with me when I say that that is exactly what the Government has been doing since 1948, and on the other hand the Opposition will concede the point that it is also the task, function and obligation of the opposition parties to come forward with alternative plans and planning. Surely that is a fact.

Then you must listen.

I am so pleased that the hon. member for Durban North put his foot right into it. Surely it is not we who have to listen to that. Once again it is surely the voters who have to listen to that, because just as the voters have given the Government a mandate for the political planning of South Africa since 1948, they have consistently rejected the alternative plans and planning of the Opposition since 1948. Surely that is a fact that has been recorded in the annals of history. After all, that is the one thing we cannot get away from. The hon. member for Durban North must concede that point to me, because surely it is logical. If the majority of voters say: “I do not like your plan, however many little balls it may contain …”

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

Will the hon. member answer a question?

No, Mr. Chairman. I have only 10 minutes for my speech. [Interjections.]

Now the Government has come forward with a new planning structure. Once again the Government has displayed its character, one of constant renewal, with a new planning structure. The six planning branches—the four that existed previously and the two new ones that are being created—have been grouped together under the office of the Prime Minister under one umbrella. The six planning components cover the total spectrum of the planning kaleidoscope of South Africa. The whole idea was not simply sucked out of someone’s thumb; the whole new dispensation arose after a study in depth of the best planning systems in the world had been carried out, and the what was best in them was used.

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Chairman, since this is the last and perhaps the only opportunity to refer to the old Department of Planning, I think it would be appropriate to convey a special word of thanks on behalf of all hon. members, who for 16 years have always been given very good service by the officials of that department, a department which originated in 1964 and is now disappearing after 16 years. In this regard one calls to mind people such as Dr. Piet Rautenbach, Mr. Fred Otto, Dr. Pieter Rossouw, Mr. Bill Visagie, Mr. Rencken and others who were always prepared to answer all the questions we put to the Department and supplied us with information at all times.

It is also true that the old Department, as regards its physical planning, had unfortunately to work in isolation to a certain extent. I therefore believe that since we now have a new dispensation, we shall succeed in streamlining the planning to a far greater extent, and in so doing will save far more time and money. Because we now have the six branches—those of physical planning, economic planning, security, social and constitutional planning—alongside one another under one roof, I believe that it will now be possible to work out a far better dispensation.

One would like to ask the hon. Prime Minister to spell out in more detail what the tasks and obligations of the two new branches—the social and the political—are going to be, and where they are going to fit in in the overall planning structure. Whereas in the past South Africa has never had really comprehensively central social planning, one would also like to see this branch of planning investigating the placement of training institutions, for example, and also undertaking the study of the migration patterns of the various population groups in South Africa, so as to determine the needs arising out of these migration patterns and to make timely provision for requirements such as those of town planning, housing, sports facilities and recreation facilities.

One would also like to see the hon. the Prime Minister’s new planning dynamo being used and the skills made available to South Africa’s neighbouring states. No one wishes to prescribe to our neighbouring states how they should carry out their planning. On the other hand, however, it is also the duty of politicians—politicians on both sides of the House—to create a political climate between South Africa and its neighbouring states enabling these skilled people of ours to convey their knowledge further afield. After all, it is better to have a well-planned state as a neighbour than to have people on one’s borders who jealously begrudge one one’s own progress and one’s own achievements.

Then, too, I believe it is appropriate that one should take careful note of the task of the new Department of Planning. This new planning division will have to make a special point of co-operating and liaising with other bodies.

I believe that there should be the highest degree of consultation at all times. No one, not a single hon. member, least of all the officials concerned, will want to hear the reproach that there are now a group of experts in the Department of the hon. the Prime Minister, who perhaps want to impose measures on others in an authoritarian way. I think the watchword will have to be: Liaison and consultation at all times. I should like to see this liaison taking place between this division and the various departments, as also the various population groups and the private entrepreneurs. I believe that only then, and under the leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister, by making use of this new instrument, will we be able to plan together and, together with these experts, build a better and happier South and Southern Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pretoria East has touched on the question of the overall planning and on the fact that planning is now an important part of the department of the hon. the Prime Minister. I shall touch on that, especially as it affects one section of our community.

This is the first occasion on which the hon. the Prime Minister has to answer for his department and for the additional departments that fall under his jurisdiction. We had thought that the hon. the Prime Minister, bearing in mind the heavy responsibilities resting on him, would have shed some of his political responsibilities in the Cabinet and departmental reshuffle. We now find, however, that the hon. the Prime Minister is responsible for the Prime Minister’s office and for the Department of National Security, which falls under it, and also responsible for a Department of Planning with five subsections, i.e. security, physical, social, economic and scientific. He is also the Minister of Defence who spends one-fifth of our national budget, and half of the Defence budget he has to account for in a special way because it falls under the Defence Special Account and is therefore not accountable in terms of the ordinary audit system. The hon. the Prime Minister is also leader of the NP, and that should create sufficient problems in itself, and he is also the Cape leader of the NP. When one puts all of this together, the hon. the Prime Minister’s formal and informal responsibilities, one realizes that there is a tremendous load of responsibility on him which could result in a dangerous concentration of power in one person. The hon. the Prime Minister is undoubtedly energetic. He has shown that he is one of the most energetic Prime Ministers we have had in the last 13 years.

Hear, hear!

I thought that hon. Minister would have thought that Mr. Vorster was the most energetic Prime Minister. Be that as it may, however, the hon. the Prime Minister has shown an ability in the field of administration. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. the Prime Minister has this aggregation of power of these various departments, as well as his direct political responsibilities, right down to the provincial level. I believe that there is a danger that he will not be able to give the necessary time and attention to certain areas of responsibility. Secondly, because of this time and pressure of events factor, he may tend to rely increasingly on a small but elite group of hand-picked State officials, moving away from the concept of a broader Cabinet-based responsibility towards executive responsibility of an inner group.

We raise this as a potential danger because we think that in the situation in which we find ourselves today the hon. the Prime Minister should be at the helm. He should have his hands on the helm of the Cabinet and the departments. With this overall responsibility he has, he should be careful that not too much power or authority is directed towards the one person. We shall watch the situation to see that it does not lead to a breakdown of administration or tend towards greater authoritarianism in Government.

I contend that the work-load and the responsibility laid upon the hon. the Prime Minister has already led to a breakdown in a certain area of Government in South Africa. I am referring to the question of Government-Coloured relations in South Africa. My hon. leader mentioned that the situation has deteriorated to its lowest point in 31 years of NP rule. We in these benches hold that the hon. the Prime Minister, as the overall man responsible, and the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations, as the head of the department concerned, must accept direct responsibility for the state of affairs that exists in Government-Coloured relationships. It started promisingly last year. Soon after the hon. the Prime Minister took over, on 2 February last year, he had a meeting with the Labour members of the CRC executive. Far from developing into a show-down, these Coloured members were encouraged by the attitude of the hon. the Prime Minister who agreed to hold up legislation. He said he would refer matters to a Select Committee, and they said he seemed much more amenable, much more willing to debate and discuss the key issues than was his predecessor, Mr. Vorster. That was the situation. They praised him, one after the other, for the attitude that was apparent on 2 February. Since then, however, the hon. the Prime Minister announced his 12-point-plan. A few months later, on 9 November, he met the same Coloured leaders, and this ended in an unedifying show-down between the hon. the Prime Minister and the Labour Party members. It ended in an ugly clash and subsequent recriminations. As a consequence, it resulted in the closing down of the CRC. I hold that it also led to the situation of protests, stay-aways and boycotts we are seeing in Coloured education today. That was the rapid deterioration of Coloured-Government relationships during the course of last year.

This situation arose as a result of the failure of the government in three critical areas. First of all, the Government has failed to meet the basic socio-economic needs of the Coloured population of South Africa. It appointed a multiracial commission way back in 1973-’74. That commission reported in 1976. If one looks at the Theron Commission’s recommendations, one finds that either they were rejected because they were ideologically unacceptable to the apartheid Government of South Africa or, where they were accepted, they were not implemented. So, of the Theron Commission’s recommendations—I think there were 128 of them— very few have been applied in practice, even in the socio-economic field.

The majority were …

Lip-service has been paid to them. However, if one refers to the recommendations on education, one sees that part of the present crisis in education is the result of the failure of the Government to heed the recommendations and warnings of their own commission, the Theron Commission.

The Government will say they have done certain things for the so-called Coloured people of South Africa, but whatever steps they have taken have been hopelessly inadequate, considering the backlog, the disadvantage of poverty and lack of education that had to be made up. Whatever has been done by the Government as far as the Coloured people are concerned has always been hampered by the fact that the Government still basically remained committed to the philosophy of apartheid. We had it again this afternoon. The hon. member for Sasolburg said nobody has ever said that apartheid is dead. [Interjections.] In other words, he is saying that everybody has said that apartheid is alive. Whatever the Government is doing is hampered because it remains committed to the basic philosophy of apartheid.

I only have time to indicate two specific areas where the Government has failed in the socio-economic field. The first is in the field of education. The hon. the Minister will point to what has been done. The fact is that Coloured education today is an inferior education. That is the reality. The fact is that there is inadequacy and a shortage of proper books. The fact is that the schools are in a shabby state of repair. The fact is that there is ineffectiveness and lack of training on the part of many teachers. [Interjections.] The fact is that there is a disparity in expenditure, a disparity in public money spent on Coloured people and public money spent on White people. [Interjections.]

Order!

The fact is that there is discrimination in budgeting as far as Coloureds and Whites are concerned. That is the reality. That is one of the reasons why the Government have failed to win the trust and confidence of the Coloured people themselves.

The second factor is land.

Who telephoned you?

Land is a critical factor, whether it be for Coloureds, Whites or Blacks, as far as their development is concerned. If one owns land, one is acquiring wealth. Yet, if one looks at the position of the Coloured people, one sees that they have been hemmed in in certain limited group areas in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. They have been pushed into these group areas. In 1976 the Theron Commission said the central business districts should be opened up for Coloured people, but what has been done? Is the Cape Town central business district open for Coloured people? Has it been opened for them? It is open for them as clients. They can go to the Golden Acre to spend their money, but they cannot have businesses in that area. The Government accepted the Theron Commission’s recommendations in principle, yet four years later the central business districts of South Africa are still closed to Coloured and Indian people. The Group Areas Act is still pushing Coloured and Indian people out of their businesses. How can the Government say it wants to overcome certain economic problems when it actually takes away established businesses and pushes people into the outer areas?

One of the most distressing recommendations has come from the Cabinet itself. The hon. member for Moorreesburg referred to this this afternoon. I refer to the “Ruimtelike Ontwikkelingstrategie vir die Wes-Kaap.” We are in favour of sensible development in the Western Cape. We have indicated that there is a possible potential axis of development along the line towards Saldanha. However, I do not believe that that development should take place at the expense of the poorest in our community. Yet that is what is happening. The recommendations of this commission are, inter alia: No more land for Coloured people in the Cape Peninsula. In spite of the fact that land is available in the Cape Peninsula, if the Coloured people want any more land, they must go to Atlantis, 50 km outside of Cape Town. The commission says: No more land beyond that which has already been proclaimed in the Cape Peninsula.

Quite right.

Well, we have not said that for the Whites in the Peninsula; we have not said it for the Whites of the northern suburbs. It goes still further. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I rise merely to afford the hon. member the opportunity of completing his speech.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. Chief Whip for the opportunity granted to me. The recommendation says that, in spite of the fact that there is going to be a quarter million people in Mitchell’s Plain, there should, other than for business or other local employment for their own internal needs, be no provision for further employment opportunities in Mitchell’s Plain and also no more industrial development near Mitchell’s Plain. This is a decision by the Government. They have placed a quarter million people in houses and now they say there will be no more economic development in that area. They say if the people want to take up employment, they must go along the Cape Town to Kuils River axis and if they want more additional property they must go out to Atlantis. This is an absolute disgrace. The Coloured people travel into Cape Town and they see District Six occupied by Whites who can go anywhere, but they are told that there is no more land for them. When the Coloured people come in from Atlantis they pass through Bloubergstrand, Montagu Gardens and Bothasig and ask why should they be housed 50 km away from Cape Town? I say this decision is not a regional planning decision, but an ugly, racist and ideological decision which has been taken to the disadvantage of the Coloured people.

The second area is the failure of the Government’s administration of Coloured affairs. There are two reasons for this failure. One is that the hybrid system of administration whereby responsibility is divided between a department responsible to Parliament and a sub-department responsible to the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council, was bound to fail. There was no clear line of authority and responsibility. There was no clear line of command and delegation of responsibility and no proper forward budgeting. For 10 years the leaders of the Coloured people have said to the Government that the system is not working. They wanted responsibility and a share in the general government of South Africa. For 10 years the Government has failed to resolve the problem of this hybrid form of administration which is one of the reasons for the general failure of Government policy.

Another reason is the failure of the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations himself. The hon. the Minister is known as a persuasive speaker, but quite clearly he must also go down in history as a totally unsuccessful administrator. [Interjections.]

You are talking nonsense.

There are a number of reasons for this. First of all the hon. the Minister heads two completely conflicting departments. Both the Department of Community Development and the Department of Coloured Relations fall under his control. The Department of Community Development is the department that administers apartheid. The Department of Community Development is the party that tells Coloureds that they are to be kicked out of District Six, pulls down their houses and pushes them out of their businesses. The Department of Community Development is the apartheid department of South Africa. It is the department that administers the Group Areas Act. The hon. the Minister is seen as Mr. Apartheid and as Mr. Group Areas. He is seen in terms of all the discrimination that is contained in the Group Areas Act which is administered by his department. [Interjections.] Because the Coloured people loathe apartheid, they cannot accept that on the one hand the hon. the Minister must reply …

Order! Hon. members must afford the hon. member the opportunity to complete his speech.

[Inaudible.]

Order! The hon. member for Port Elizabeth North must not make so many interjections.

They cannot accept that the hon. the Minister on the one hand can kick them out of District Six and apply apartheid to them while on the other hand he is the person who must intercede on their behalf with the Cabinet of South Africa. Therefore we believe that, because of the disastrous situation that has developed in the department of the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations, the time has come for the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations to go. We believe that he should go in the interests of good Coloured relations and good government so that some of the damage that has been done over the years may be repaired.

As in your case?

Let me tell the House why I think the hon. the Minister must go. First of all he is identified in the public’s mind with all the hateful features of apartheid, although that may not be his sole responsibility. Secondly, as far as the Coloured education shambles is concerned, he has failed to take timeous action to put right the many things which could have been put right, despite the fact that he has been warned week after week over the last few months. Thirdly, he must be held responsible for the impasse which has developed between the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council and the Government, because he presents the Coloured Peoples’ Representative Council and their views to the Cabinet.

Finally, this could never have happened if a sensible Government was actually aware of the intensity of the feelings of the Coloured people. For failing to convince and to convey to his Cabinet colleagues the intensity of feeling of the Coloured people, we believe that this hon. Minister has let the Government down. He has also let the country down. In these circumstances he should go.

Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to react to the latter part of the speech made by the hon. member for Sea Point. He launched a personal attack on me and he is welcome to do so. I was appointed to the Cabinet by the hon. the Prime Minister and I am entirely at the disposal of the hon. the Prime Minister. That is my reply to him.

The last time the hon. member for Sea Point and I clashed, I did not have the privilege of listening to his speech which preceded mine. This evening I did have that opportunity, however, and what struck me was how absolutely right I was last time when I pointed out that the conduct of the hon. member for Sea Point, I am not allowed to say it is that of a political vulture, but that his political conduct is such that he floats in the sky …

Order! The hon. the Minister must not imply something he does not wish to say. The hon. the Minister should rather withdraw those words.

I withdraw them, Sir. The hon. member for Sea Point is always on the lookout for areas where problems have arisen and where there is trouble. Then he descends upon those areas and he comes back to this House, and with little knowledge and without having made any proper study of the subject, he makes wild allegations with a total disregard for the facts. In this way, he tries to gain something for himself and for his party from that problem area which he has discovered. Now the House may decide for itself what metaphor one should use to describe the hon. member’s conduct. Just see what he has done in this case. I could mention many examples, but I want to come at once to one of the major allegations he made against this side of the House. He alleged that we had completely disregarded the socio-economic and educational recommendations of the Erika Theron Commission.

Now I want to address a friendly request to him, and this request is at the same time a challenge, and that is that he should please point out to me any of the recommendations made by the Erika Theron Commission in connection with education which the Government has not accepted. He should please say, too, which recommendations by the Erika Theron Commission concerning the socioeconomic problems of the Coloured people have not been accepted. I do not think the hon. member took the trouble of refreshing his memory concerning the findings of that commission. Those recommendations were accepted in a White Paper and are being implemented to the best of the Government’s ability, and it is a very good ability.

The hon. member must not think that the Government is insensitive to the real problems of our Coloured people. He must not think that we are not taking any positive steps to change the circumstances in which many of these unfortunate people live—not all of them, for among our Coloured people, too, there is an élite which is equal to any élite anywhere in the world, although it is a small one. But there are still many people among them who have to be uplifted and there is still great poverty among them, more than among most of the other population groups of the country. We are aware of that, and we are working on that day and night, in a dedicated spirit. I shall still demonstrate the results. However, our problem is that these South Africans are at an historic disadvantage which can be traced back to the days of slavery, to the days of the British colonial policy, to the fraudulent policy of Cecil John Rhodes, up to the old United Party Government before 1948. True insight only developed and action was only taken in an attempt to rectify and improve this matter after 1948, when the hated so-called apartheid policy came into being. It was then that the problems of the Coloured people specifically came to the attention of South Africa because they were seen as a separate community with its own problems. Problems were identified and steps were taken to solve those problems. Surely to deny this would be to deny the history of South Africa.

However, there is another problem as well. The hon. member for Sea Point is not unaware of this, judging by his conduct this evening and the other day as well. That is that there are agitators who are exploiting these problems of the Coloured people, not in order to solve them, but in order to use some of those problems and the unhappiness among the Coloured people as a starting-point for agitation and disturbances extending beyond the immediate problems they are faced with. That is our problem. Hon. members need not believe me if I make an ex parte statement here, because I should like to discuss this in greater detail.

It became very clear during the course of March that agitation was taking place among the Coloured children. The Thursday or Friday before the weekend of 12 April, Coloured leaders came to see me and discussed this and asked me questions concerning the children who were being exploited. I was able to tell them that we were aware of the grievances and also what we were doing about those grievances. At the end of our talks the Coloured leaders were satisfied and asked whether I was going to issue a Press statement. I told them that I would not do so, but they had to take the initiative, and I said that I trusted them and that they could issue a Press statement Thereupon they made Press statements to Die Burger and The Cape Times. The result was that the following report appeared in The Cape Times on Monday, 14 April, under the heading “Proposed Boycott of Schools is Off’. The report read—

They were satisfied and they abandoned their plans. But immediately people descended upon them and indoctrinated them with new grievances, grievances of which they had not even been aware. These grievances had nothing to do with the schools, but with the social system in South Africa, something they had never thought of before. This makes one wonder, if one is interested. This is where my problem lies. I do not believe hon. members on that side of the House are really interested in the truth about these circumstances. But the public may be interested in it, and therefore I want to bring certain things to their attention.

I have a very important document here which has come into my possession and which originated with the people who are organizing these disturbances and who are not pupils, but outside agitators. The heading of this document refers to the importance of the method in a struggle: “Students must understand how to organize if they are to be successful in their struggle to achieve their goal.” It contains instructions to students, instructions from the people organizing the disturbances. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I rise to give the hon. the Minister the opportunity to complete his speech.

I thank the hon. Chief Whip of the official Opposition for his gesture.

This document is written in a language which is quite foreign to schoolchildren. I do not have time to read the whole document, so I shall only quote extracts from it. I quote—

I shall now omit a section and come to the part where they say how people must be made aware of other problems. I quote—

Just listen to this nonsense—

It goes on in this vein. A little further on it says—

This is supposedly the language of school children—

It sounds like youth preparedness.

I think it is a serious document. I quote further—

I could go on in this way. That is what we are up against. Experts have drawn my attention to the fact that this is the same process used by certain people in other countries, people we can easily identify, in the world struggle of today. They make use of existing grievances to create a state of mind among people through which they are made susceptible to propaganda against the existing order and the State. We must realize that these are the methods and the processes with which the official Opposition associates itself through the mouth of the hon. member for Sea Point, who delivered an emotion tirade here.

So you think there are no grievances? [Interjections.]

I know the hon. member is a most intelligent member. Why then does he act so stupidly? Why does he pretend to be stupid? I have just been making the point that they use grievances which exist and which can easily be identified to create a sense of aggrievedness among the scholars. That is what I have said. In my very first television interview on this issue I said to the Coloured people, to all the people of South Africa, that if I were a Coloured man, I would also feel aggrieved about many things in their situation.

Why do you not do something about it? [Interjections.]

If time permits, I am going to tell the hon. member what we are doing about it.

We would like to know.

However, the way the Opposition is carrying on makes it obvious that they want to deny me that opportunity.

*What we are faced with here is a disgraceful brain-washing of young people and an exploitation of the sorrows and problems of young people. The hon. member for Houghton laughs.

Of course I laugh.

Of course, and I shall tell hon. members why she laughs. She laughs because she knows that I am now touching on the fundamental methods of the communists in South Africa. It gives her a thrill when I do that.

Order! Hon. members must afford the hon. the Minister an opportunity to complete his speech, otherwise I shall have to take steps.

One cannot argue against a communist.

Order! What did the hon. member for Moorreesburg say?

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw what I said.

The hon. the Minister may proceed.

I come now to the question put by the hon. member for Houghton by way of interjection: What are we doing about the grievances? I should have liked to discuss the differences in the per capita expenditure on education between the races, but I shall reserve that for the discussion of my Vote. I shall have more time then.

Let us examine the grievances. They complained about the school buildings, but I have already said in this House that in the past 10 years, the annual capital expenditure on schools increased from R4,7 million in 1971 to R28 million in the year that has just begun. That is a total of R140 million over ten years. Ten years ago, the cost of education for the Coloured children was R46,8 million a year. Now it is approaching R180 million a year. This has happened in 10 years’ time. However, this is not what I find most interesting. I want to quote some other figures. I have already told hon. members that the number of children has increased from approximately ½ million to ¾ million over the 10 years. This is 50% more and far exceeds the population increase. I have quoted the increase in the number of qualified teachers, from fewer than 15 000 to more than 25 000. This is an increase of approximately 70%. Does this look like a Government which does not care? The amount we spend on bursaries for Coloured students to enable them to continue their studies after school has grown from R510 000 in 1970 to R2 804 000. This has happened within 10 years. [Interjections.] Do the hon. members who make such a lot of interjections, like the garrulous lady over there, have any idea of the increase there has been in the number of Coloured people in the professions of South Africa? I want to quote two examples. The number of nurses has increased from 2 600 to 3 700. The number of people employed in the central Government services and related services has grown from 30 000 to 56 000.

I laugh.

Nor are these figures the most interesting ones. See what has happened to the income and the standard of living of the people under this Government which allegedly ignores them and does nothing for them. From 1970 to 1980, the annual amount earned by the Coloured people increased from R550 million a year to R1 950 million a year, an almost fourfold increase in 10 years. [Interjections.] This is a hard fact like a ball one can take hold of, but to the hon. Opposition it does not exist. They are only looking for grievances which they can exploit in the hope of embarrassing the Government, no matter what the consequences may be for South Africa and its people.

And now I want to say only this, and I am not speaking for myself; I am now speaking with great conviction of what I have experienced in the inner Government circles, and that is that the Government will not rest before all the grievances that arise from real injustice have been wiped out. In fact, the Government is willing to make sacrifices to wipe out the legitimate grievances among Whites, Coloureds and Blacks. But now the hon. Opposition must please help us to identify the real grievances, instead of talking nonsense like the hon. member for Sea Point. [Interjections.] He said that the Coloured people were not allowed to own land. Do hon. members know that over the past two years, 20 000 Coloured people from Cape Town have become home-owners for the first time in Mitchell’s Plain? What hope, what prospect of owning their own homes would they have had if the policy of the hon. official Opposition—that squatters’ camps should be established for them—had been the policy of South Africa? Sir, I say this is a real achievement, and I could go on in this vein.

The hon. member spoke about the central business districts of our cities. Does the hon. member not know that I have issued a statement on the authority of the Cabinet, and repeated it in the Other Place on Friday, to the effect that without waiting for amendments to the Group Areas Act, I am immediately proceeding, as the hon. Minister instructed thereto by the Cabinet, to identify areas in our central business districts to make them available to races other than the Whites … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt at all that what the hon. the Minister has been talking about is one of the most touchy issues in the whole of our political life, and there is also no doubt that in a situation such as we have, where school-children are inflamed, it is very possible indeed that it can be used for the purposes of agitators for stirring up the children and starting something of which one can see no end. This is one of the problems we face. How does the hon. the Minister propose to get ahead in the field? This is our problem. To make promises now to rectify the things that they have been complaining about already places one behind in the field, because there are new demands continually being launched.

I think this is one of the situations in which absolute calmness and coolness is required in this House, as everywhere else, in order that a reasonable attitude can be taken up. Knowing the hon. the Minister as I do, and having seen him in action as we used to know him in the old days, damning the Government uphill and down dale, I really notice that his heart is not in it any longer, judged by the way he spoke here this evening. [Interjections.] In the old days, as we used to know Marais Steyn then, he was quite different. It seems to me today that the fires are burning low and that he is not quite the man we used to know. [Interjections.]

Order!

I should like to thank the hon. member for Benoni for having said a few words earlier this evening in connection with the policy of the NRP. He mentioned that he had been trying to get hold of a copy of the document we submitted to the Schlebusch Commission. I shall send it to him with great love and all that, so that he …

With great love?

Rather with affection.

All right then, with affection. It is a better word. He may study this document in order to bring himself up to date on what the proposals of the party are. The hon. member for Benoni said the ideals were not realized by impracticalities.

By impractical means.

By impractical means then. If ever there was a damning statement about the policy of apartheid it came from the mouth of the hon. member for Benoni. [Interjections.] It was damning of all the ideals we have had here over all the years. The hon. member for Pretoria East said: “Die kiesers het voortdurend die partybeleid gesteun”, and all that. Every ideal that we learnt about and heard about in the days of Dr. Verwoerd, in the old days of the NP, has gone overboard because it is impractical. They are not real. They cannot be carried out in South Africa. They are impractical and they cannot work. [Interjections.] All the ideals hon. members opposite have had, they have acknowledged, have gone. The hon. the Prime Minister has said that the policy he is carrying out now … [Interjections.] The hon. the Prime Minister knows and hon. members opposite also know, that those are impractical means, that those are ideals that cannot be carried out. That is why the whole of this House—under the Schlebusch Commission headed by the hon. the Minister of the Interior—is searching for a new dispensation. That is what it is all about. That is what we are trying to do. That is what we must do because of the failure over 32 years of the NP to find a practical solution. Now we are going out and for the first time we are going to the people who have to share this country with us, the Black people, the Coloured people and the Indians. We are not going to them in order to dictate to them. We are going to them to ask them how they feel about it and so that we can put our heads together and find an answer together. Those are ideals that were never the ideals of the NP. Nobody can say that it ever was. It has now come to be an ideal because it is the only practical reality. The hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations and other hon. Ministers serving on the Schlebusch Commission with us know that that is the ideal they have accepted, the ideal which we are all now trying to put into operation. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Benoni wants to know from us what guarantee we can give in our proposals that there will not be conflict in the federal set-up of the White, the Indian and the Coloured, as well as the urban Black population groups. I want him to tell me whether it is at all possible for anyone to give any guarantee that there will not be conflict, in any situation, even in the constellation of States which the hon. the Prime Minister proposes. How can one ever guarantee that there will be no conflict? [Interjections.]

What really matters is to limit the areas of conflict and then to set up a mechanism which will regulate the conflict within such a structure that if agreement cannot be reached it can always be referred back so that there can be a continuing process of negotiations.

Like we did in Natal. [Interjections.]

And that is exactly what we are trying to do. That is also why we propose what we do propose, namely that in the federal area there shall be a Parliament for each group. They will have a financial power so that they can pay their own way, and in the federal Parliament, where they come together, they will then have limited areas within which they will have to operate so that the possibilities of friction can be brought down to a minimum. That, I think, is the answer that the hon. member has been seeking. I am sure when he has digested them, when he understands them, when he has read the document, he will agree with us that this is a practical proposal that can be carried out.

In the course of what we have been doing over the last couple of months, as I have set out in earlier speeches, I have also stated that there are worse things that can happen to the people of Natal than the establishment of a condominium between Inkatha and the NRP.

A what? [Interjections.]

I am sure the hon. member did not really mean that. He knows what it means. If he does not, however, I shall tell him later.

He only goes as far as the commode.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South issued a challenge to the NRP. It was contained in a letter to The Natal Mercury of 22 April, because the hon. member came along here with a plan he put forward for a new dispensation for Natal. He challenged the NRP to debate the matter with him. I have accepted that challenge. We shall be having a debate, and if hon. members notice that I am not here on the evening of 12 May, they will know where the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South and I are. We shall be sorting out the differences.

I come back to what I said earlier to the hon. the Prime Minister about the importance of Natal as a province which has been sorting out administrative problems on a practical day-to-day basis. We must look at the kind of situation that exists in South Africa. This is the richest country in Africa. Ours is the most successful society in Africa. We offer everyone in this country the hope that within our lifetime they can reach some decent standard of living and share in the wealth that is going to be created. Every single Black person in this country has a hope here, with us, that cannot be duplicated. What is required, however, are practical steps to implement real sharing. The hon. member for Benoni says that power-sharing has never worked. He says it has worked nowhere in the world. How are we going to continue to live together with other groups here in South Africa, however, unless we find a practical means of co-operation? [Interjections.] Hon. members opposite say that is not power-sharing. They say it is division of power. They then insist, as the hon. the Prime Minister does, that the constellation should be made up of States that are being forced out of our orbit and made to take independence, created out of the living body of South Africa and cast out into the outer orbits. Having achieved that status, they are then going to be brought back again into a constellation. The way this party has proposed is a short-circuiting of all that. This is a practical way of doing it. The sooner hon. members on that side realize that, as a practical alternative to what they have been saying, the sooner we are going to get the kind of peace we are wanting here in South Africa and the sooner we are going to get down to the practical details of sharing. This party of ours, in the province of Natal, with the relationship we have got going with Chief Buthelezi, the Inkatha movement and the kwaZulu Government, is ideally placed to explore avenues whereby the White, Black and Indian communities in Natal can cooperate and live together, laying the sort of foundation on which the rest of South Africa can build. I absolutely fail to see why it is that an hon. member like the hon. member for Umlazi, who lives there with us amongst the Zulu population, comes along repeatedly, because of his own selfish, political purposes, and decries the plan without trying to give it any content or substance. The alternative of that hon. member has been proved by history to have been of no importance whatsoever.

Utter rot.

May I, while I am thinking of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South, just put a question to the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, because there may be one or two points I do not know about in the debate. I want to ask whether the hon. member who has been asking people in my constituency whether they would vote for him as an NP candidate or a PFP candidate has been given an assurance by the party that he would be a candidate in the next election. I think it is a fair question to ask.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Mooi River, who has just sat down, said that South Africa is one of the most affluent power houses in Africa, and that is true. Having listened to him, one finds the diatribe delivered by the hon. member for Sea Point here tonight unbelievable. It is very hard not to be unparliamentary when referring to the exhibition we got from the hon. member for Sea Point tonight. His speech is just about one of the most irresponsible speeches I think I have ever heard or read since I entered politics in South Africa.

The hon. member for Sea Point talked about District Six and the slums. He wants people to remain festering in leaking, sweltering slums. He complains about every growth point that is built to provide decent housing beyond the city limits with decent schools, decent clinics and transport facilities. The factories are right there so that the people can walk to their places of work. He criticizes that. He wants people to fester in slums. Then he wants the overflow of those slums to be cast out into the netherland outside the city. He says we must allow them to squat. He says we must not move them, but must allow them to squat in the bush. There we must then allow them enlightened things like site and service schemes. We must allow them to build their quaint little houses there, darling. He says all we have to do is give them a few pieces of metal and a few pieces of timber and we shall be surprised at the quaint beautiful little houses they can build with that. Has he ever thought what that does to people’s minds? Has he thought what it does to people to go from a slum in the city to be cast out beyond the city limits into the gloom of the bush and to grow up in a quagmire like the Cape Flats? Does he know what that does to people’s minds? Does he want us to visit upon our children and our children’s children the syndrome of poverty that will emerge from those slums?

How many people have you dumped there?

We have heard the PFP’s cry about Black aspirations. I am not surprised that people behave the way they do when they get the kind of lead that is given by people like the hon. member for Sea Point. Nobody is more aware than we are of the fact that there is a close interrelationship between social advance, economic advance and constitutional advance; and we have seen born out of the great successes of this society, out of the social advance and economic advance, political aspirations. Those political aspirations are presently being accommodated by commissions like the Schlebusch Commission. I am absolutely convinced that the Schlebusch Commission and the Government will meet the real and reasonable aspirations of people in South Africa. I am equally convinced that we will not meet the unreasonable radical expectations which are often born in this country of foreign ideology. The Government cannot accommodate the unreasonable demands of radicals in this country. If the members of the Opposition are going to be disappointed by the fact that this side of the House does not implement their philosophies and policies, they must just be disappointed.

They say to us that the Government must change. They even describe themselves as agents of change. We know, Sir, that the Government in South Africa must be responsive and sensitive, but it must also be responsible because it has a responsibility to the many fragile members of society. I believe that the Opposition needs to change. From their own lips we hear that time is short. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition tells us that he does not think there is much chance of a democratic solution in South Africa. However, the contributions we have from that side of the House will make what is a difficult job absolutely impossible. They will make it impossible because the noisy demands of radicals in South Africa are regarded by members on that side of the House as being relevant; they are the relevant people. But people of goodwill, people who have powerful convictions and who are working quietly in the best interests of their people, are regarded as irrelevant, or less relevant. For the hon. members opposite the radicals are the relevant people. When barbarians occupy a bank in Silverton, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition sees fit to issue a Press release in which he says this is a sign of the times. He says this indicates that there must be change in South Africa.

You are talking nonsense.

Hon. members on the other side of the House, far from being agents of change, are, in fact, obstructing change in South Africa. They are obstructing change because, unwittingly, they so heighten demands by their attitude that they become agents for revolution.

In rejecting evolutionary advance, hon. members on the other side consider everything that is evolutionary by definition as cosmetic. It is not the forward advance of a society, the political progress, as measured on a linear basis that is relevant, but it is the forward advance of society across the whole broad interface of society that is relevant. It is the constant, sustained, pedestrian progress across that enormous interface of society involving housing, agriculture, health, education, training, industrialization, and so on that is relevant in society and which creates real forward impetus for society. When one measures the cumulative effect of that kind of change, the forward impetus is only to the good of society. Narrow political advance, which is what the other side of the House always preaches, has only led to chaos in Africa, particularly where it has not gone hand in hand with social and economic progress.

The scope and the scale of change in this country, when measured across the whole interface of the South African society, has been profound. We have covered an enormous area under the inspiring leadership, if I may say so, of the Government and particularly the hon. the Prime Minister. We have seen changes in labour relations, in the lifting of economic restrictions, in the narrowing of the income gap, in sport, in home-ownership, in education and in the development of local government. These are the real things that count in society. The real income of Asians and Coloureds has risen by 40% from 1970 to 1979. The wage gap between Black skilled workers and White skilled workers in South Africa is not very different to the wage gap which exists between Black and White skilled workers in the USA. That is constructive change, and not the wild demands or statements that we have heard tonight from the hon. member for Sea Point. Real aspirations have grown from real achievement and will continue to do so under the brilliant leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Maitland on the very fine contribution he made here this evening.

However, I want to come back to the argument advanced by the hon. member for Pinelands who said “this Government is riding a conflict horse”. He went on to say that if we did not stop it, this country was in trouble. I want to agree with the hon. member that the potential for conflict in a country such as South Africa is, of course, great, because South Africa is a country with a diversity of peoples, languages, cultures, religions and other differences. However, the solution offered by the hon. member and his party to solve the conflict situation is, that with a population of 23 million people there must be political power-sharing in one political power structure in an undivided South Africa. This is not a solution to a conflict situation. It is instead like digging spurs into the sides of the conflict horse to which he referred. I want to tell the hon. member that his party’s policy, as the hon. member for Maitland said, has failed in the rest of Africa. If that conflict horse were to be fed with the policy advocated by his party, the horse would throw off not only the NP, but the hon. members of the PFP together with the White man in South Africa as well.

Where in this world has apartheid succeeded?

Furthermore I want to say that the Brown people, the Asiatics and the Black peoples of South Africa may also be thrown off in the conflict if the policy which the hon. member for Pinelands would like to have applied, is applied.

However, I want to agree with the hon. member for Pinelands on another point. He said that the hon. the Prime Minister was the only one who could prevent conflict in this country. I want to agree with him, but add that this is possible only under the policy of the NP. The policy and principles of the NP as embodies in and conveyed and developed by the hon. the Prime Minister of South Africa, the policy of the NP which accords recognition to the diversity of peoples who inhabit the southernmost point of Africa, gives expression to separate freedoms and contributes to bringing about their development.

Consequently I also want to say here this evening that I am very grateful that the Physical Planning Division of the former Department of Planning and the Environment now falls directly under the hon. the Prime Minister. We have always been of the opinion that the Department of Planning should be the architectural department which draws up the architectural plans in accordance with which development and growth in South Africa should take place.

Consequently I should like to express my gratitude to the hon. the Prime Minister this evening and also congratulate him on his initiatives towards involving the leaders of the public sector in the planning and the development of Southern Africa. The solution to the problem of Southern Africa can best be served by the union of expert knowledge and skill which will be available to an adequate extent in a partnership between the Government and the private sector. I trust that the ball which was set rolling in the Carlton Centre on 22 November 1979 by the hon. the Prime Minister, will go a long way towards surmounting the problems of Southern Africa.

I should like to confine myself to a few statements made by the hon. the Prime Minister on that occasion, statements with which we should like to associate ourselves wholeheartedly, and statements that are of cardinal importance in the planning and the creation of a safer and happier future for the diversity of peoples inhabiting the southernmost point of Africa. Firstly the hon. the Prime Minister, when he addressed the leaders of the public sector there, said—

Secondly, he said—

In addition the hon. Minister said on this occasion—

The hon. the Prime Minister determined the following very important guidelines with regard to the consolidation of Black States for the Commission of Co-operation and Development which had to conduct this inquiry—

This evening I should like to say from a planning point of view and as member of the planning group that we are grateful for this unambiguous standpoint of the hon. the Prime Minister, viz. that economic development in our Black neighbouring and national states is absolutely essential for peace, prosperity, happiness and continued existence of the peoples here on the southernmost point of Africa. With his emphasis on, and positive planning of economic development within the Black states we should like to pledge our fullest support, zeal and co-operation to the hon. the Prime Minister. In view of the abovementioned statements made by the hon. the Prime Minister, I should like to make a suggestion this evening. The iron-ore and manganese which occur in my part of the world has brought about economic development in Pretoria, Vanderbijlpark and Newcastle. As a dynamic State corporation Iskor has also demonstrated now with the Sishen-Saldanha project that it can turn the almost impossible into practical reality. With the mineral wealth of the Northern Cape and the skill and drive of Yskor, it is possible to establish a growth point within one of our Black neighbouring states, which could give expression to the ideals set on this occasion by our hon. the Prime Minister. This evening, on this occasion, I should like to address a request to the hon. the Prime Minister, which is that his department should institute an investigation into the possibilities of establishing the next Iskor within our neighbouring state, Bophuthatswana. Not only will this be a demonstration of South Africa’s confidence in its neighbouring states, but it will also be a project which, it it is successfull, will afford thousands of Tswanas employment opportunities within their own fatherland.

We often find that on political platforms battles have to be fought over Black people who have to be trained to do certain work in the White area or anywhere else for that matter. We can with great benefits train Black people to display managerial skills in various spheres as well, thus rendering service within their own fatherland as well. Statistics have demonstrated that the present population of approximately 23 million people will have increased to approximately 50 million by the year 2000. An investigation by BERBD has indicated that approximately 34% of the labour growth rate within the Black States at present have to seek work outside their fatherland. That is why we should like to give the Hon. the Prime Minister our wholehearted support in his efforts and ask him for dramatic efforts to be made by the Government and the private sector to bring about development within the Black states.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with the hon. member for Kuruman that we badly need some dramatic gestures by the hon. the Prime Minister to improve the economic development of South Africa and to set us on the road towards the vision that he proposed in November when he met all those businessmen from the private sector. I should like to ask the hon. member for Kuruman how many of those businessmen who emerged starry-eyed and bushy-tailed from the Carlton Hotel on 22 November 1979 still feel the same way. They all came out elated and buoyed-up with the idea that we were on the road to genuine reform and that the hon. the Prime Minister was definitely going to see that South Africa would advance the whole system of free enterprise, was going to remove the shackles hindering economic development in South Africa and, bearing in mind his earlier pronouncements in August last year, that he was going to do something about removing what he called unnecessary discrimination although “necessary discrimination” is undefined.

Everybody believed the hon. the Prime Minister. They had good reason to do so, because at that time they had no reason to disbelieve him. However, it is now six months later. It is six months on, as they say, and I should like to ask the hon. member for Kuruman, and perhaps even more specifically the hon. the Prime Minister, exactly what has been done since then. We have heard a lot about the removal of restraint on free enterprise, and free enterprise embodies, inter alia, the removal of restrictions on the mobility of labour and the right of employers, for instance, to employ what labour they require. We have had no reform legislation whatsoever during this session. Not a single Bill has been introduced in Parliament this year to repeal “unnecessary” discrimination. I should like to ask the hon. the Prime Minister why this is so. Has he lost courage? Has the fact that all those businessmen who supported him meant nothing to him because of by-elections, fears of the HNP, perhaps diminishing majorities in so-called safe NP seats and massive stay-aways during by-elections? Why has the hon. the Prime Minister not gone ahead and introduced the reforms he told us about?

The constellation is still-born. It is not even a twinkle in the hon. the Prime Minister’s eye. Not that that eye twinkles very often. It mostly has a glare of fury in it. However, it is not even a twinkle in his eye. The constellation is still-born. Not too long ago, nine states of Southern Africa, which must surely have been part and parcel of the expected constellation of States of Southern Africa, met at Lusaka and formed their own economic union which …

You are right behind them.

I wish I had the influence the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications thinks I have. However, in point of fact all nine of these States came out all by themselves and formed their own economic union which specifically excluded the Republic of South Africa, although all of them were prepared to admit that the union would have been stronger with the inclusion of South Africa, because obviously South Africa is by far the most powerful of the industrial States in Southern Africa. It would have been to their advantage to have included South Africa, but because of South Africa’s internal racial policy there was just not the slightest chance that the economic union of the nine States of Southern Africa which met in Lusaka could possibly invite South Africa to join them. So with what are we left? We are left with the non-independent Black homelands and with the three independent homelands which in any case are not, as Mr. Oppenheimer put it when he opened the Rand Show’s “constellation” display, really part of a constellation. They are really satellites. That, of course, is the truth of it. The whole thing has been still-born, because the hon. the Prime Minister has lost courage. He has lost faith in his own vision and he has not been able to go ahead and do anything about it. That is the unfortunate history, so far anyway, of what has happened to this magnificent vision which was put before those bemused businessmen at the Carlton Hotel in November.

In the few minutes remaining to me I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he would not like to give me a few more answers on a subject which I raised with him on earlier occasions in this House, occasions on which he gave me several non-answers when I put those questions to him. However, before I get to him and before the hon. the Minister of Community Development disappears from the scene, I just want to tell him, before I forget, that two announcements he could make which would completely defuse the whole situation at the moment as far as the Coloured schoolchildren are concerned, that dangerous, explosive situation which can spread at any time to other areas and to other races. That would be the announcement that he is going to stop all removals under the Group Areas Act forthwith and that District Six would be returned to the people to whom it belongs. [Interjections.] I just want to say that. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that all the figures he has given us about the additional amounts which have been spent on Coloured education …

What schoolchild told you that?

The grievances which even the hon. the Minister admits exist, exist because of years of neglect and because the Government does not care about people who are not on the voters’ lists. [Interjections.] That is the truth of it. Unless one has a vote in this country, one does not get privileges as a person. It is as simple as that.

Or opportunities.

One also does not get equal rights or equal opportunities, as the hon. member has said.

I now want to come back to the hon. the Deputy Minister. Would he like to tell me who gave the instructions to open my mail?

Oh, no. You are raking up those old stories again.

Yes, I want to know. I am very interested to know. Now he does not know. So why does he not trouble to find out, because the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications has denied all responsibility and I believe him, and I also believe the Postmaster-General who also denied all responsibility. [Interjections.] So the hon. the Deputy Minister of the National … what is it called … Intelligence Service …

You will not understand that word.

Oh, yes, I think I might just about understand it, but I do not ascribe it to the hon. the Deputy Minister. The hon. the Deputy Minister referred me to earlier remarks which were made in the House, both by the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. Neither of those comments gives any enlightenment whatsoever, because the hon. the Prime Minister simply told me about this mysterious individual who was borrowing my notepaper without my knowledge, signing my name on the back and his name inside, while the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and the Postmaster-General simply informed me that there are other ways in which mail can be intercepted. I want to know how that was done, and the hon. the Deputy Minister now has the opportunity of answering my questions.

Do you not think that you are too inquisitive?

Yes, I am entitled to be inquisitive. [Interjections.] I want to say that interestingly enough, since the matter was raised in the House, my mail has been reaching its destination in half the time that it has taken over the last few years. [Time expired.]

Aren’t you glad? [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, in actual fact the hon. member for Houghton said very little to which one can reply. She expressed no criticism whatsoever of the policy of our hon. the Prime Minister. Nor did she state her own policy. I want to tell the hon. member that I think she was particularly ineffectual. In fact she said nothing, and consequently she will pardon me, and she will understand if I do not reply to her. [Interjections.]

The discussion we have had so far in the very important Vote of our hon. the Prime Minister, has convinced me that our Opposition on both sides, the NRP and the PFP, intend to follow a policy of total abdication for the White man. [Interjections.] They are following a policy of abdication and it is against this policy that we have a strategy for survival, so that the people can, in freedom and security, continue to live in peace in this country. [Interjections.] The hon. the Opposition did not state a policy and did not really criticize the policy of our hon. the Prime Minister in any way. [Interjections.]

Order!

We are discussing the Vote of the hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. PFP members for Sandton and Pinelands tried—as the hon. member for Pretoria Central pointed out very effectively—to polarize White against Black in this country, and the idea behind the polarization is the abdication of the White man. They want a “one man, one vote” system, and behind the polarization is the idea of abdication. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Leader of the NRP said a very important thing today, viz. that the present Government was a “majority of a minority”. He said that the Government was the biggest opposition in this country. I want to ask hon. members: If we are the Opposition, who is the real Government? [Interjections.] The hon. member said by implication that the real Government was outside this House. [Interjections.] Ask the hon. member. He said by implication that the real Government was outside this House. It is a charge against the NRP that they said that we are not really a “legitimate” Government. I am astonished that the hon. member adopted this standpoint. That standpoint of his is unworthy of him.

The priorities for this country are too important, and with such an Opposition it is extremely difficult for the hon. the Prime Minister, and it is becoming absolutely unbearable, to make progress on the path of South Africa while at the same time he has to fight to secure a future for the White man as well as for the other peoples in this country. Let me quote something. In order to determine our priorities correctly in these difficult times, I believe it is important that we should note the following words of the hon. the Prime Minister. He said—

Then the next very important sentence follows—

The choice of our priorities is exceptionally important. That is why we must state them correctly. We must continue to choose our priorities in such a way that the Whites will also have a future together with the other population groups in this country. The choice of priority is being set against the choice of abdication. A nation’s priorities vary from time to time. The priorities do not stay the same throughout. It depends on the nature of the onslaught and of the realities within which that onslaught is taking place. The strategy we have to follow cannot remain bogged down in 1948. It has to proceed with the problems of 1980. It is not a question of abdication, but we may not land ourselves in a quagmire of issues. We may not land ourselves in a quagmire in which subordinate and secondary aspects take up all our time, so that we cannot identify the real attack. When we consider the onslaught on us, and the priorities we have to determine, we have to decide and realize how far the onslaught has already progressed. When we wish to ascertain how far the onslaught has already progressed, it is important to refer to the Steyn Report, in which the following is stated. I quote from paragraph 64 of the report—

I wish to dwell for a moment on the internal manoeuvre. “The essential feature of the internal manoeuvre,” it is said, “is the simultaneous development of ‘issues’ aimed at causing confrontation with and the discrediting of the existing political order. During this process an ‘alternative political order’ … emerged.” When we examine how far our enemies have progressed with the internal manoeuvre, there are only a few things which ought to be mentioned. As far as the extra-parliamentary field is concerned, I just want to point out that the PFP’s policy is that of a national convention outside the present political dispensation of our nation. They deny the political situation which entails that the Government has to decide. They are following the course of an alternative order.

Allegations have even been made that national service ought to be abolished. National service is ostensibly wrong, because it is supposedly aimed at protecting the Government’s policy. It is being said that it is an “unjust cause”. We have an escalation of issues. For example, we have the salary issue, the grievances over Coloured schools, the issue of Natal, the issues which are presented so that we have to remain busy with subordinate matters. When we examine these things, we see that the internal manoeuvre of our enemy is coming to fruition under our eyes.

When we examine the external manoeuvre, it is very clear that this manoeuvre is designed to internationalize the internal issues. I put the question: How far have our enemies already progressed in the internationalization of issues in South Africa? I am no prophet, but I can tell hon. members that our entire sports policy, our apartheid policy, the arms embargo against us, and whatever else, are an internalization of the issues in South Africa. What I am really saying is this: The peoples of South Africa must realize that our enemies have made considerable progress in their strategy of completing the internal and external manoeuvre. The time has arrived for us to act positively. We do not have time to waste. That is why the choice of priorities is extremely important. Our choice must be aimed at physical survival so that every nation in this country can exercise its religious, cultural and social life in security, peace and freedom. This is what our priorities should be.

Internal politics of confrontation and mutual aggression between peoples are counter-productive. We do not have time for that. What type of leadership should we now be given? Let us compare a nation with a spinning top. If a top has a high momentum, its axis is perfectly vertical. This is the principle of the gyrocompass. One cannot move it away from the direction it is indicating. However, when the momentum decreases, the top begins to wobble until it eventually falls and lies perfectly still. Our nation’s momentum of survival must be kept high so that we can go in a definite direction. And what is the best method of keeping this nation’s momentum high to cause it to proceed in the right direction along its course? Nothing but the 12-point plan of our Prime Minister. There is no alternative. We must keep the momentum of our nation high. That is why we have no alternative. We have a 12-point plan which presents a vision of all the peoples in South Africa, White and Black, proceeding in the right direction in order to achieve their survival in peace and freedom. Our nation is in a hazardous situation. However, there is a plan that has been established by our Prime Minister, and our priority must be to implement the 12-point plan in the shortest possible time. Since the Prime Minister has done his duty by providing guidance—the guidance has been given—it is the nation’s duty to follow him and to make crosses in support of the guidance which gives us the only chance for survival. That is why I want to tell the hon. the Prime Minister: The nation of South Africa appreciates the fact that we have leadership, because the salvation of the White man, the Black man, the Brown man and the Indian lies in the establishment of priorities by the 12-point plan.

Mr. Chairman, I have now received the document which the NRP has been promising me for so long. I have eventually received it from the hon. member for Mooi River and I want to thank him most sincerely for it. The short reply in which he summed up their federal dispensation, reinforces the suspicion I voiced in my first speech this evening when I said that the problem with those people was that they do not really know what a federation and a confederation are.

Now you must listen carefully, Bill.

That hon. member, for instance, asked the hon. the Prime Minister why kwaZulu must ostensibly first become independent before it can belong to a confederal constellation. The reply is on page 2 of the document which he sent to me. He quotes a Belgian expert, and I quote—

If that hon. member cannot understand the Dutch quotation in his own document, I refer him to the Oxford Dictionary. The same type of definition can be found there in English. In respect of the federal dispensation he said that the federal council will only have limited powers, and he gave the impression that those powers will be so limited that that federal council will not actually be a sovereign body. But surely a federal form of Government is always a sovereign Government in which States which are not autonomous, participate. If it is so loose, however, it is surely much closer to a confederation. Therefore, if those people split hairs in that way between a confederation and a federation because they do not understand the difference, they should rather look at our plan, which is a confederal structure. Then they can rather join us and do something constructive for South Africa. I say this because according to their arguments, they have no right of existence. I have mentioned numerous power-sharing models which ended in conflict, and therefore I said that there is proof that power-sharing does not work. This disappointed the hon. member for Mooi River, because if that was the case he saw no future for us.

If power-sharing does not work, however, that does not mean that nothing works. What will work? A confederal dispensation will work. I have said that South Africa is a subcontinent comparable in size to eight of the nine European Common Market countries. Those countries form a large part of the subcontinent of Europe, for Europe is in fact not a continent. It is a subcontinent of Eurasia, just as Southern Africa is a subcontinent of Africa. That subcontinent of Europe, like our subcontinent, has on various occasions in its history been united, due to the intervention of imperial powers, into an artificial geopolitical unit, for instance by the Macedonian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire and the Napoleonic Empire. What happened? There was always conflict until the nations of Europe, Europe itself, reverted to its natural constituent parts, so that the French had French autonomy, the Germans had theirs, etc. In the same way this geopolitical unit was united into an artificial unit by the imperial intervention of the British Empire, an unit which was to exist for only 70 years. This, too, must now revert to its natural constituent parts so that the Zulus will have Zuly autonomy, the Xhosas theirs, etc. In this way one defuses conflict. This is also the difference between power-sharing and division of power. In this way one also removes ethnic competition which leads to conflict.

In the world in which we live, a world of power blocs and conflicts between superpowers, there also exists a need for a process of growing together, a need for regional organizations on a confederal basis. This is how the EEC and Nato came into being. According to the definition which I quoted here, both are confederal structures in which sovereign States co-operate voluntarily on a basis of common interest. These confederal structures have secretariats and ministerial councils.

Are you serious?

If the hon. member does not listen to me, he will, of course, never understand either. I suppose I shall have to speak English again.

†Every time I speak in Afrikaans the hon. members opposite do not seem to understand, so I shall continue my speech in English.

[Inaudible.]

These confederal structures have secretariats and ministerial councils. There is even a European Parliament. They do not, however, have sovereignty over the member States. They are confederal structures. That is what we have in mind with our constellation, but whereas Nato is only a confederal structure in one area, viz. in the area of defence, and the European Economic Community has so far only operated in the economic field …

So what is new, pussy-cat?

… our constellation envisages similar co-operation between the various constituent nations of South Africa in every possible field of human endeavour. That is the difference.

The hon. member for Mooi River should understand this because basically his party does recognize a confederal element. Basically they have much in common with our constellation idea. The question I want to put to him is: Why go and spoil it with a federal concept, a concept which has only led to violence? Since the division of power in the manner I have described has averted conflict in other parts of the world—it is not an identical model, but certainly there is an analogy—I want to ask those hon. members: Why do you not work with us towards the achievement of that? Why do you not join us in persuading other nations to support this idea, because it is the only one that can offer a peaceful solution to the dilemma of South Africa, which is, I admit, a classical dilemma?

We do it all the time.

Why do they shut their eyes to this possibility? Why do they cling to outdated power-sharing models that have led to conflict throughout the world? They do it simply because they cannot escape from the concept of the South Africa that was created by the intervention of the British Empire, against the wishes of all who lived in South Africa. They view this colonial jingoistic concept as the be-all and end-all of everything. The sooner hon. members opposite and their followers can release themselves from the shackles of jingoism and colonialism, and revert to the natural South Africa as it has always been, in which each nation can rule itself as it pleases, preferably in its own territory, and then co-operate on a confederal basis in a constellation of States, the sooner will we be getting somewhere and doing something for the future of everybody in this country. I appeal to people to consider this option and not to try to come with artificial structures which are only designed to perpetuate the crimes of the colonial era.

Mr. Chairman, it is not my intention to enter into the argument going on between the hon. member for Benoni and the hon. member for Bloemfontein …

You must not start throwing things now.

We seem to be getting a lesson in elementary political terminology, and perhaps it is a case of the blind leading the blind. [Interjections.]

I want to come to the speech of the hon. member for Pretoria West who talked about setting one’s priorities and enthused a great deal about the hon. the Prime Minister’s 12-point plan. I want to discuss a particular aspect of this 12-point plan. I want to examine point No. 12 which was a commitment to the maintenance of the free-enterprise system as a basis of economic and financial policy. This was agreed to by all four congresses of the NP and, of course, by all members of the Cabinet. There are many interpretations of the words “free-enterprise”. In his speech to leading members of the business community, in the Carlton Hotel on 22 November last year, the hon. the Prime Minister outlined what he considered to be the respective roles of the Government and the private sector in a free-enterprise system. He talked about the necessity for a clear formation of an economic strategy for South Africa and outlined, in broad terms, the direction in which the Government was going to take action.

Free-enterprise presupposes that the Government will interfere as little as possible by way of restrictions on industry and commerce. They should be able to develop and grow to the greater benefit of the economy, and therefore the welfare of all South Africans within a system of free competition. Free competition is absolutely vital to any free-enterprise system. The Government has a vitally important role to play in regard to the whole concept of free competition, and it is in respect of this role that I believe that there have been very serious shortcomings, in the recent past, on the part of the Government. Virtually every Western free-enterprise country, including South Africa, has realized that a situation of free competition can only exist if one has anti-monopoly legislation. Last year in the House the then hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, now the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs, introduced an improved Bill to control monopolistic practices. This Bill was entitled the Maintenance and Promotion of Competition Bill, and in moving the Second Reading of this Bill he stated the following (Hansard, 2 May 1979, col. 5427)—

This sounded wonderful. The hon. the Minister went on to reaffirm that—

We agreed with every word of this. It was good stuff. He had every hon. member in the House right behind him. This legislation provided for the creation of a Competition Board, whose job it is to look into trends towards monopolistic practices which are not in the public interest. It is the job of this board to advise the hon. the Minister, who can then exercise wide powers, which were given to him by the legislation, to prevent monopolies. This meant that consumer interests were protected because competition would exist. Competition is the one major protection that consumers have. What has happened since that time, since we heard all these grandiose and praiseworthy sentiments that emanated from the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs?

Days before the hon. the Prime Minister addressed business leaders in the Carlton Hotel, reports appeared in the newspapers concerning the merger between South Africa’s two major brewery groups, namely S.A. Breweries and Intercontinental Breweries. Part and parcel of this deal was also the so-called rationalization of the wine industry, but what it amounted to was that South African Breweries would have a monopolistic stranglehold on the beer market while Mr. Anton Ruper’s wine giant had what amounted to monopolistic control over much of the wine industry. The Competition Board created in terms of the new Act had not yet been constituted so that we were in a sort of legislative vacuum, but—and this is what I consider really to be the most disgraceful part of the story—it was reported that this merger was going ahead following a decision of the Cabinet.

Of course, yes. Six thousand wine farmers wanted it.

Presumably this is true, and the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries now says it is true. It is absolutely beyond my understanding that the Cabinet could ever have agreed to such a merger which so obviously is not in the public interest. Monopolies of the sort that were created lead inevitably to higher prices for the consumer. I should like to ask the hon. the Prime Minister whether this matter was discussed in the Cabinet as the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries says, and whether he and his Ministers came to a decision to allow this merger to take place.

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

I do not have the time. I only have ten minutes. If they did, why did they do so?

Because the 6 000 wine farmers wanted a say in the industry.

Well, like the wine farmers at this stage, the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries should realize that he does not only have to look after the farmers: He has to look after all consumers, all South Africans—and farmers are consumers too. That is his job. If we are really committed to a system of free enterprise, the surest way to kill it is to allow monopolies to exist. The inevitable has come to pass and the South African public are now paying much more for their beer and they are paying much more for their wine. I do not know what possessed the hon. the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to allow a disgraceful state of affairs such as this to come about. Are we now going to put things right by trying to unscramble the egg, by separating the breweries? I think it is too late for that. It cannot be done. It should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

One has to accept the fact that there are many other monopolies in existence and that some of these monopolies are damaging the South African economy.

Mention them.

I shall mention another one which is going to have very serious consequences for our whole economic survival. I refer to the monopoly in the brick industry. Any person in the construction industry can tell hon. members that the present shortage of bricks is going to inhibit any sort of revival in that industry to the detriment of many development schemes, housing, schools and this sort of thing, schemes which are vitally important for South Africa. Why is there a shortage of bricks? Gradually, over a period of time, one company, Corobrik, has taken over virtually all the major brickworks serving most of our major urban areas. This is wonderful for that company because it enables them to force price increases which will boost their profits, but it is disastrous for house-building programmes using bricks. It means that the potential home owner has got to pay something like R500 more to purchase a house. Why was this company allowed to manoeuvre itself into a situation where it has the industry and the public by the throat? As far as I am concerned, there was gross negligence on the part of the Government in regard to this. The hon. the Prime Minister talks about a free-enterprise economic system and yet allows free competition to go by the board. I therefore ask him: Are we going to see tougher action from the Government? Monopolies bring about higher prices which accelerate the inflationary spiral and this is one sure way of killing the growth of our economy— and growth is vital if we are going to provide jobs for our unemployed. We have to stop inflation. The hon. the Prime Minister and his Cabinet seem unworried by this. They are going to allow inflation to run riot.

I should like to give another example where consumers, members of the public, have been prejudiced with no protection from the Government. The hon. the Prime Minister might be aware of the trouble that is brewing in respect of group insurance schemes, some of them involving Defence Force personnel, i.e. the Army, Navy and Air Force Fund, as well as police and other public servants. The huge insurance giant, Sanlam, created voluntary group life insurance and assurance schemes which attracted many thousands of participants. It now appears that, unknown to most of the members of these schemes, a clause was written in in small print which allowed Sanlam to change the premiums and the benefits to members at their will, to the obvious detriment of the participants.

My question is why the financial authorities allowed this kind of scheme to come into existence in the first place. It was their job to look after the interests of the public and not the interests of the giant insurance companies that were quite able of looking after themselves. I put it to the hon. the Prime Minister that consumer protection must be part of a free enterprise system. Consumers must be protected from exploitation. I am glad that he included “consumer affairs” in the new name of the department which deals with it, because consumers are perhaps now going to get a little better deal. Perhaps they are now going to be given a little more attention. I do believe that a difference in the emphasis is needed. However, it is not just the responsibility of the Minister of Consumer Affairs to look after the consumers, it should be the responsibility of all Ministers.

I am looking after the consumers.

A greater awareness of the interests of the consumer, rather than the interests of the privileged few, would contribute tremendously to our political and economic well being, but this can only happen in a system of free competition. Therefore the words of the hon. the Prime Minister must be translated into action.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Orange Grove has referred to matters that can suitably be dealt with in detail under other Votes. I therefore do not intend responding to his speech at this stage.

*Since the beginning of this session, and again during the course of this debate, the basic difference in the points of departure of the Government, under the dynamic leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister on the one hand, and those of the official Opposition on the other, has become apparent time and again, as it did tonight as well, inter alia, in the speeches of the hon. members for Sea Point and Sandton, and other members of the official Opposition. The official Opposition proceeds on the assumption that the Whites have no future in this country other than through the goodwill of the non-Whites. Because they proceed from this assumption, they propose that a national convention of leaders of all groups be held to work out collectively a constitutional dispensation for the future. In such a set-up the Black man will obviously, owing to numerical superiority, set the tone. Because this must inevitably, sooner or later, entail Black majority rule …

That is not inevitable.

It is inevitable. … it is argued quite logically that, for the same of the goodwill and the favourable disposition of the Black man, everything should be done or left undone to gain his favour, and in order to make the Whites acceptable to him, he must be given his own way in everything. True to this approach, the official Opposition is continuing to support the extremistic demands of the Blacks and other non-Whites, to excuse their reactionary conduct, as the hon. member for Sea Point did again this evening, and to intercede for their radical leaders. The fact that their policy has been rejected in no uncertain terms by even moderate non-Whites and their conduct has been dismissed as mere paternalistic gestures apparently does not seem to worry the hon. members of the PFP. Their self-respect has already been demolished and undermined to such an extent that they simply accept this, too, in the name of so-called “appeasement” from the non-Whites.

The NP and the Government, on the other hand, adopt the standpoint that the Whites have a God-given right to inhabit this country and to ensure a future for their children and their children’s children here, regardless of what anyone whatsoever thinks, says or does about it. This does not in any way mean that a course of confrontation with the other peoples and ethnic groups which inhabit this country together with us is being followed, but does mean that the Whites will not negotiate with Blacks, or anyone else for that matter, on their right of self-preservation and self-determination.

This difference in approach is basic to the differences in the policies of the Government and the official Opposition in respect of every constitutional, political, legal and social issue which presents itself.

During and since the 1976-’77 riots in Soweto and elsewhere the official Opposition has sought the blame for the events solely in the policy of the Government and tried to lay the responsibility for them solely at the door of the Government and its officials. The rioters were held up to be innocent people who simply could not endure the unfairness of the system any longer. But what are the facts, as ascertained by the Cillié Commission? Admittedly the Cillié Commission found that—

However, the commission also exposed very clearly the devilish role of revolutionary organizations such as the ANC, whose chief goal, if not its only goal, according to the commission is the following—

The commission very clearly brought to light the devilish role which revolutionary organizations such as the ANC, the SACP, the PAC and various organizations played in causing the riots. Nowhere in the Cillié Commission report is there any proof to be found that the riots could have been avoided through a mere change of policy. The unmistakable indication is in fact that the grievances, justified or unjustified, which there were, were seized upon, blown up and exploited to launch a revolutionary onslaught on the Government and on law and order in the country. For this the official Opposition, however, has neither eyes nor ears. They were solely intent on using these incidents as a stick with which to beat the Government. With the present boycott movement by Coloured pupils we see a repetition of this one-eyed, opportunistic and irresponsible approach of the official Opposition, and once again the speech made in the House this evening by the hon. member for Sea Point testified to this.

In view of the continuing agitation from the Opposition side for the abolition of the Immorality Act it is striking that while all kinds of justified and unjustified grievances have been advanced as causes or reasons for the riots, no Black person or Black organization, in evidence before the commission, objected to the provisions of section 16 of the Immorality Act or against the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, and—

The obvious implication of this is that the Black people do not take as much offence at the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act or section 16 of the Immorality Act which the official Opposition would have us believe is the case. Those who are continually agitating for the abolition of the Immorality Act (No. 23 of 1957), ought to account to themselves as to whether they are indeed in favour of the abolition of this Act and are prepared to accept responsibility for immorality occurring on a large scale in the country to the detriment and harm of the State. The Immorality Act, of which section 16 forms only a component, is motivated by moral principles and considerations, against which hardly any objection can be raised, and section 16 of the Act seeks to do nothing but to guard against the lowering of moral standards, in the interests of the State. No person who is honest and realistic can, after all, deny that without section 16 of the Immorality Act there is a real danger that, in the social intercourse between Whites and non-Whites, a lowering of moral standards may occur. [Time expired ]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Mossel Bay will forgive me if I do not directly reply to what he has been saying, except to say that he obviously has pinpointed certain priorities which he believes should be looked at. I believe that that is what the debate is all about. I believe that history has a message at this moment in time for the hon. the Prime Minister, and I believe it is telling him he must get his priorities right, and very quickly, because nationalism as we know it, the nationalism of 1948, is heading for the rocks and the grand designs of apartheid have failed.

If one looks at some of the priorities and the way they have been treated, it is made clear, when we hear the hon. the Prime Minister telling us all about the grand concept of an eventual constellation of independent States, which is a worthy ideal, that the crucial issue in South Africa and the urgent need at the moment is for the meaningful accommodation of the aspirations of the urban Blacks. That is the big divide in our politics. We can talk of spending thousands of millions of rand on the consolidation of the homelands, but we cannot find the money to house people where they are, where they want to be and where work exists for them. That is another failed priority. The record shows that the obsession with the need to have the biggest and the best has failed, and it shows how people today are rejecting the nationalist system which gives rise to such glaring inequalities in South Africa today. We have seen so many great and magnificent concepts, but what South Africa really needed was simply the application of the appropriate technology. What did we achieve by spending over R100 million on a grand SABC headquarters, by spending tens of millions on a White opera house in Pretoria, by overspending throughout the Republic on huge civic centres, when what South Africa desperately needed was simple homes, basic education and better jobs for all its people? We have wasted literally millions of man-hours administering apartheid through its time-wasting systems of licences, permits, exemptions and special situations, while the common, basic and pressing problems received far too little attention. When one thinks of the amount of money ploughed into schemes like separate universities for the fortunate few when existing institutions could have been used, we had at the same time far too little to spend on basic education which the people needed to help them get jobs.

We are a fortunate country in that we earn thousands of millions of rand from our gold exports, yet we cannot find the money to give decent people, living as well as they can, the running water they need to prevent a typhoid epidemic in their community of nearly 100 000. We are a country that exports maize and other foodstuffs, but we are still a country in which malnutrition raises its ugly head in many communities. I am not pleading for a socialist State, but where the inequalities in a State are based on the fact that one group has the power while the other groups do not have it, it is indefensible. The system is bad, and the priorities are wrong. I believe that in the statements he will be making shortly, the hon. the Prime Minister has it in his power to decide whether he wants to take political decisions or to take statesmanlike decisions. He is the only person who can spark a really new dimension in NP thinking. Only he can initiate it. Only he can carry it through, and only he can carry the responsibility for it.

I believe, as I said at the beginning, that the major pressing priority is an accommodation for the urban Blacks. The NRP believes that it is absolutely vital that the Blacks should have home ownership and titles to the land on which they live. The 99-year leasehold scheme has not succeeded, and it will not succeed. We believe there is a desperate need for better education, and we believe that an absolute priority is a meaningful political involvement of urban Blacks in the system.

South Africa is waiting very expectantly to hear the words of the hon. the Prime Minister. We are waiting today and tomorrow to hear what his priorities will be. Only the hon. the Prime Minister, among the White political leaders in this country, has the power at the moment to make the changes that are needed. We know that and he knows that, and he is going to have to choose those priorities. He is going to have to choose them very quickly, because time is running out for us in South Africa. In many ways this country is saying that time is running short. Our whole time-scale in fact began to shorten when Mugabe won the elections in Zimbabwe. The hon. the Prime Minister therefore will be well advised to use his initiative now, while he can still deal with moderate, peace-loving Black leaders, before radical Black leaders perhaps emerge who can appeal to the masses and whose methods are not peaceful.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Berea raised quite a number of matters. I should just like to refer to one or two of them. The hon. member alleged that the Government is wasting money on separate universities, money which could have been better spent elsewhere.

I concede that responsible criticism is to be welcomed. The situation in which we find ourselves at the moment, is one in which constructive criticism is not to be scorned. However, then all the Opposition parties in this House must not come up with a negative criticism that we are continually having to hear from them, and of which the hon. member for Berea was once again a speaking example. It is true that the separate universities for Whites and for other coloured population groups are all over-crowded at the moment. That is why the money that was spent on these universities, has definitely not been spent in vain; nor has it merely been spent on an ideology, but it was in fact being spent positively. As a result of this, all universities in South Africa are without vacancies at the moment, and this proves that the policy of the Government is in fact a positive one, a policy that can justifiably be implemented in order to negotiate the best benefits for every population group.

Unfortunately it is true that, when listening to the contributions that hon. members opposite made to tonight’s debate, one is given the impression—to use the old, hackneyed expression once again—that the Government of South Africa was fiddling while Rome burnt. However, what is the true state of affairs? At the moment, South Africa has a Government that is doing everything in its power to give guidance and direction to all the conflicting elements in our complex community, to the best advantage of each one and in the interest of peaceful co-existence in this country. I want to go so far as to say that to date the Government has succeeded in doing so par excellence. In order to support this statement of mine, I should like to refer to what Mr. Hertzog, chairman of Anglo Transvaal Consolidated Investments, said—

Surely this is a testimonial for the South African Government’s positive expansion of its present policy.

However, let us go further. If the present Prime Minister and the Government in general had merely had shortsighted political gain in mind, it would surely not have been necessary to implement the present policy, the 12-point plan, all the changes and all the proposed changes which the hon. the Prime Minister has in mind and which the Government is in the process of carrying out. If we were merely after votes, if we were merely out to collect constituencies, things would have been very easy for us. If one looks at the official Opposition, one sees how easy it is to collect even more constituencies. Surely it was not necessary to spell out this positive policy and then to try to take it further from day to day, even with opposition from one’s own people. Surely we could have simply beaten the drum, because we know what is acceptable to everyone, what everyone wants to hear. However, the hon. the Minister is playing a completely different tune. He tells the people exactly what he thinks they should know and not what they want him to say. Nevertheless, the policy of the present Prime Minister has been clearly outlined. I should like to refer to a few quotations from a speech in which he said—

I quote further—

I continue—

Surely this implies that the freedom of every population group will be dealt with fairly in terms of the 12-point plan and the present expansion of the hon. the Prime Minister’s strategy for the future.

A great deal has been said about schools. I obtained certain information. Mention was made of the grievances which are the reason for the schoolchildren boycotting schools. However, in 1953, R40 per year was spent on an Indian child. Now the amount is R220. The amount for a Coloured child was R40, and now it is R157. This improvement applies to Black children too. One realizes that there are in fact problems in this regard, but progress is still continually being made under the real pressure of economic circumstances that cannot be changed too quickly.

However, let us look at the other side of the picture. I quote from Intergroup of March this year, in which the following is said—

These are important figures after all, and surely this shows the positive policy which has being implemented along the path of our political development. However, one cannot wondering what the official Opposition would have done if it had been the Government today. How would those hon. members have handled the political situation, and I am not talking about the much debated national convention now. The question is how they would have handled the practical politics from day to day. Other questions also arise if one looks across the floor of the House at the hon. member for Groote Schuur. Would he have done away with the Group Areas Act? His answer is probably “yes”. Would he have done away with the Immorality Act and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act? The answer is probably “yes”. Would he have done away with compulsory national service? Like the first two, the answer is probably also “yes”. However, another question is how they would have changed the franchise. Would they have put the Coloureds back on the general voters’ roll? I should like an answer to that.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Johannesburg North says “yes”. Now my question to him is: Along the same lines, would he also have placed the Indians on the general voters’ roll? Now he is quiet. He gave me the other answer 18 months ago. I want to ask him what the difference in principle is between the first and second case. If one places the Coloureds on the general voters’ roll once again, why not the Indians too? That is why I am asking the hon. member for Johannesburg North this question. If he says “no”, he must also say why not. [Interjections.] Now the hon. member for Green Point says “yes”. Let me put another question to the hon. member for Green Point. After he has placed the Coloureds and the Indians on the general voters’ roll, how can he justify it if he does not now place the Black man on the voters’ roll too? Will he do that too? [Interjections.] If one comes to principles, one must carry those principles through to the end. If one places the Coloured people on the voters’ roll once again, one must carry the principle through and place the Indians and the Blacks on the general voters’ roll too. That is why that party’s policy, as it has now been spelled out by its back-benchers, is one of “one man, one vote”.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Vasco must pardon me for not replying to his questions in detail, for that will take up a great deal of time. Perhaps we could rather table the answers. If he is at all interested in politics and does some reading on the subject, he ought to know the answers to his questions in any event.

I should like to confine myself to the events pertaining to the young people in South Africa. A few weeks ago the hon. the Prime Minister addressed a meeting at Stellenbosch. On that occasion the hon. the Prime Minister dealt with the question of Mandela. At the end of the meeting a question was put to him. According to the media and also according to what I have been told, the question was why the Prime Minister had neglected to inform the meeting, in the course of his address, about the efforts Mandela had made to achieve peaceful change before he turned to subversive activities. For a seasoned politician this is, with all due respect, an easy question and in actual fact a fair one. However, what was the hon. the Prime Minister’s reaction to this? What did he do? He insulted the poor student. He grossly insulted him by saying he did not know what he was talking about.

Were you there? [Interjections.]

He said he ought to be ashamed of himself for what he had said and that he should rather confine himself to his books.

This contemptuous and insulting attitude among National Party politicians towards students and other young people who dare to question NP policy and statements, is increasing to an alarming extent. The same politicians—and this includes the hon. the Prime Minister—will not hesitate for a moment to send a whole host of organizers after these young people to obtain their votes during election times. There is no doubt about that. Nor will the same politicians hesitate to take short-sighted decisions and make bombastic statements which expose those young people to unnecessary dangers when they are in uniform. [Interjections.] A similar attitude was discernible in a senior security policeman who recently said to the Press in Grahamstown that students who confined themselves to their books and did not talk political nonsense, had nothing to fear from campus spies and such people. This is an attitude redolent of audacity and paternalism. This is a dangerous attitude in a person with a dangerous amount of power.

At present there are encouraging signs at our universities, and among our Afrikaans-speaking universities in particular, that many young people, and particularly the students in South Africa, are more critical of Government policy, are becoming more involved in political debating and in that way are exercising their right to participate in the formation of our future and in particular, because they are young, their future.

The Ikeys.

The hon. member is not listening. I said “the Afrikaans-speaking universities in particular”. There is growing impatience with Government standpoints, ambiguities and inability to give a lead in South African politics. I have great sympathy with these young people, the students. This party has great understanding for their impatience with the existing dispensation and their dissatisfaction with a Government that creates expectations with vague plans and wild interpretations of the plans. So far the hon. the Prime Minister has consistently refused to add flesh to the skeleton of his 12-point plan. This is understandable, because whenever details of his plan are provided, there is chaos in the ranks of the NP. [Interjections.]

†Vagueness in their policies and future plans has become essential to keep the NP in one piece. In point 6 of their 12-point plan they talk about the removal of discrimination, but what happens in reality? We only see a redefinition of accepted terminology, a creation of phoney terminology, to justify their actions, or inaction, and a denial that certain practices are discriminatory in their effect. We have had denials that the Group Areas Act is discriminatory. We have also had a discussion on District Six, and the Govern ment does not regard that aspect as discriminatory either.

I just want to raise three questions which I put to the hon. the Minister of Community Development. One question dealt with how many group areas had been proclaimed in the Republic since the inception of the Group Areas Act and what the total relative areas were that were proclaimed for the use of the separate groups. The answer was that for Whites the figure was 761 000 ha, for Coloureds it was 92 000 ha and for Indians it was 45 000 ha. These figures bear no relation whatsoever to the population statistics for those groups. Another question I asked last year was in relation to how many vacant plots in the Cape Peninsula were then available for sale to Coloureds and Indians. The answer with regard to Indians was particularly interesting, because not a single building plot was available in the Cape Peninsula for Indians.

I further asked whether it was envisaged to make more residential plots available in the Cape Peninsula and, if so, how many. The answer was that it was envisaged to make four building plots available in this area. The hon. the Minister went on to explain, and it is obvious that this state of affairs needs explaining, that further plots for Indians could only be provided if a further Indian group area were proclaimed, and this matter was receiving urgent attention. This year I again asked the same question, i.e. how many plots are available for purchase by the Indian community in the Cape Peninsula? Again the answer was that not a single one was available. I also asked whether more residential plots would be made available for these people. Once again the answer was that the Group Areas Act is presently receiving urgent attention for the proclamation of an additional group area for Indians. This is an example of the sense of urgency we see on the part of the Government. No plots were available a year ago, and at this stage there are still no plots available. How can any person other than an idiot say that this is not discrimination?

I want to tell those young people who are impatient and unhappy with the situation and are continuously, to an increasing degree, questioning the policies and standpoints of the Government, that if the characteristic impatience of the youth with politics has a role to play in South Africa, it is to help sort out the muddled thinking, twisted terminology and deliberate vagueness in the policies imposed on South Africa by the Government. It is not only the right of these young people, but also their duty to be involved and to a stand against those in government who have not acquired wisdom with age. The vitally important place of change in South Africa is presently being dictated by the tensions, fears and neuroses in the ranks of the NP, to the almost total exclusion of those important considerations which have such an important bearing on our future. These young people can afford to play this ridiculous game even less than we, who are a little bit older. They stand to lose more, so I want to ask them not to allow themselves to be intimidated by threats and insults. They must get stuck in, because they owe it to themselves.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Green Point should not take so much notice of what he read about the meeting at Stellenbosch. I can give him the assurance that there were approximately 2 500 students and members of the public there that evening, and of the 2 500 only 20 voted against me. Therefore, if the hon. member maintains that I should take notice of the young people, I think I should rather take notice of the 2 500, instead of his 20. It so happens that I am going to discuss the same subject tonight as the one he tried to raise. In addition the hon. member should not simply quote an abridged version of my reply. He could in that way create the wrong impression. The hon. member should rather make certain of the facts first, before he makes that kind of allegation here in the House of Assembly.

I did make certain first.

No, you did not make certain. You just made certain that you were able to come here and say something at the end of the day.

[Inaudible.]

What is the old judge over there saying?

I wish to express my thanks for the relative calmness and the high level on which hon. members on both sides of the House have participated in this debate. There were one or two exceptions—with which I shall deal specifically at a later stage—which were disturbing, but in general I must say that this debate has been the best proof that the steps initiated last year by the Government are making their influence felt in the country. That is why we had a reflection of them in a debate such as this. It is a recognition of the calm approach to, and the expectation and the confidence which the country has in, the planning processes which the Government has set in motion. I wish to thank hon. members on my side of the House sincerely for the positive contributions they made. Some of them spoke more specifically about planning as such, and I shall have more to say about that at a later stage. Those hon. members who did not discuss planning, indicated that they had a thorough understanding of the 12-point plan, which was accepted by the NP congresses, that they were able to defend that plan and that that plan was in fact the only alternative for this country. This afternoon it was asked here: If it collapses, what is the alternative? There is no alternative. We must therefore make a success of the plan, and this side of the House, with ever-increasing support from the part of people who have up to now opposed it, is in fact going to make a success of it. This plan is not only the plan of the NP; it is also the desire of most South Africans who wish to live in peace with one another in this country.

Mr. Chairman, in view of the lateness of the hour, I should like to move—

Agreed to.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.