as Chairman, presented the Report of the Select Committee on the subject of the Water Amendment Bill [B. 64—’80] (Assembly), as follows—

N. F. TREURNICHT,
Chairman.

Committee Rooms,
House of Assembly,
3 June 1980.

Proceedings and evidence to be printed.

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

Report, proceedings and evidence to be printed and considered.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Select Committee on Co-operation and Development.

Report and proceedings to be printed and considered.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, this measure is one that is intended to make it possible for the trials of individuals in the Defence Force who have allegedly committed offences, to be more readily and conveniently conducted. The concept behind this is to deal with certain problems that have arisen in regard to the conducting of certain trials by military courts.

It is therefore not inappropriate to deal with certain issues that relate to this and to point out that the S.A. Defence Force is not only a military force intended to defend the territorial integrity of the Republic and to assist in the maintenance of law and order. It is also a Force intended to defend certain values. Everybody who serves in the S.A. Defence Force has a duty, not only to defend the country and to help maintain peace, but also to maintain the prestige of the Force and to safeguard certain values and standards.

The enemy is the terrorist, but in fighting this enemy, part of the job is to have a contented local population. Particularly after what was said last night, it is perhaps necessary to repeat that the maxim that a terrorist cannot successfully operate in the long term in a society that is hostile to the terrorist cause, is one of which this House should be reminded, in particular the hon. member for Durban Point. This is a generally accepted concept of anti-terror activity, and to advance this is not to justify terror. On the contrary, it is advanced in order to seek to fight terrorism effectively. The correcting of social and economic imbalances and the creation of acceptable constitutional structures is not only morally correct. It is also a survival mechanism, as necessary as the armed forces themselves. In every Defence Force there are unfortunately people who act in a socially unacceptable manner and who, by such behaviour, do harm to their country’s cause. The test is not that there should be no such behaviour, though obviously one would like there to be no such behaviour and though obviously everything should be done to keep such anti-social behaviour down to a minimum. The test is how the authorities deal with such behaviour. The record of the Republic in this regard is, to my mind, good. It is, however, in the country’s interests—and in this regard I should like to appeal to the hon. the Deputy Minister—to have military trials open to the media and to the public. Only in the cases where the national security is most clearly jeopardized should proceedings be held in camera, and even when they are held in camera, it should still be made clear to the public that firm action is taken against those indulging in anti-social behaviour. In our view it is important that these aspects should be kept in mind, because the value standards for which our people are fighting are important and must never be forgotten; otherwise the struggle will lose a part of its meaning.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill is directed at two aspects in particular. The first of these is that members of the Defence Force should enjoy more protection in their operations against the terrorists. The other aspect is that the population should know that the Defence Force, too, is subject to the laws of the land.

It is a fact that one would like to meet all reasonable aspirations of all persons in the country in order to live together in peace. But unfortunately it is also true that the aspirations of some people are unreasonable and absolutely evil. As far as such people are concerned, it may be said that the S.A. Defence Force consists of people who are intent on protecting this nation against the onslaughts of Marxists.

Consequently it is a great privilege for me to support the Third Reading of the Bill and to say that I have full confidence in the efficacy of our Defence Force.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Pretoria West for his support. I also thank the hon. member for Yeoville and his party, the hon. member for Durban Point and the South African Party for the measure of support they have pledged for the Bill.

It is necessary that I should just reply to a few aspects as far as the hon. member for Yeoville is concerned. I also wish to refer to his Second Reading Speech in this connection. The S.A. Defence Force realized at a very early stage that as far as the combating of terrorism is concerned, purely military action is not the only solution. The S.A. Defence Force realized that terrorism should also be countered by arming the people who are the targets of terrorism, in the sense that they should be spiritually and economically strong enough to stand up to it. The S.A. Defence Force had no alternative but to take the lead in this regard, also in the operational area, in co-operation with other departments as far as possible. I wish to say that the S.A. Defence Force succeeded admirably in handling that other aspect of warfare in what we call their civilian action. The S.A. Defence Force has succeeded— and the hon. member for Yeoville has witnessed actions of this nature—in creating greater scope for the local population, not only by means of military action, but also by means of economic and socio-economic action. In this way they have succeeded in teaching the local population to resist the onslaughts of terrorism. The hon. member for Yeoville has availed himself of several opportunities of visiting the operational area with us, and I think it is a pity that he did not highlight this positive work that is being performed by the S.A. Defence Force. Mr. Justice Melamed, who made a finding of extenuating circumstances in a certain case, pointed out this very dilemma of the South African soldier in this regard. That was the very reason why I referred to that during the Second Reading debate. Mr. Justice Melamed said that the dilemma of the South African soldier lay in the fact that he also had to direct his civilian action at the local population. It has to be a positive, strong action that will enable the country to resist the appeal of terrorism. It is an action of co-operation, in other words, an action in which the people live in co-operation with one another, whether it be in connection with the repair of a windmill, the dosing of cattle, or the education of their children. The South African soldier fives with those people. What happens now? While these people are deriving benefit from the action of the Defence Force in co-operation with other departments, they may, owing to intimidation or under some other political pretexts, be promoting terrorism by harbouring terrorists, supplying them with food, and betraying the South African soldiers and troops of that particular racial group in that area. That was the tenor of the judge’s finding as far as terrorism was concerned. The hon. member for Yeoville knows about this. I am sorry that he availed himself of the opportunity of distorting in that way the fact that I had mentioned it in this House.

I was talking about the speech made by the hon. member for Durban Point last night.

I am now talking about the argument which the hon. member advanced during the Second Reading debate. I did not have the opportunity of replying to it at the time, and consequently I am doing so now. It is necessary that I should correct this. The hon. member for Yeoville knows very well that this was the reason why the judge found that there were extenuating circumstances in favour of the accused, and why he passed that particular sentence.

I now wish to deal with the procedure of having these trials held in camera. These trials mainly take place in respect of offences committed in the operational area and sometimes even beyond the borders of the Republic of South Africa, because we have to deal with hot pursuit operations, etc. It is the intention that we should not disclose the strength of the S.A. Defence Force, its movements, the personalities of its officers and leaders, or its plans; in other words, the details of the whole operation. Each of these aspects could be raised in the course of such a trial. It could become the subject of cross-examination or of an argument for a sentence to be commuted. Consequently discretion is exercised at these trials, not in the interests of the accused, but in the interests of South Africa and of the S.A. Defence Force, to have the trials held in camera. So I cannot give the hon. member for Yeoville any assurance. I refuse to do so. I have told him that whenever it was considered necessary in the interests of security, these trials would be held in camera. For the rest, I thank him for his support.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

I stand here today in the profound realization that the proposals contained in this Bill point to the road of consultation and evolution instead of the road of confrontation and revolution. The hand of co-operation is being extended to all those who wish to act in the interests of future generations, their own as well as those of their fellow-countrymen. If it is spurned, future generations will be able to see which of their ancestors were brave enough to make those sacrifices that were necessary for their survival and which of them could not or would not do so.

I believe we are all aware of the seriousness of this moment in our history, as well as in the history of many other peoples, for if we were to lapse into chaos at the southern tip of Africa, few nations would be unaffected. Therefore I believe that the debate will be conducted on a high level and that there will be no attempts at petty political point-scoring. The moment is too great for that.

We all know that during the 1979 Parliamentary session, a Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament on the Constitution was appointed and that at the end of that Parliamentary session, that Joint Select Committee was converted into a Commission of Inquiry into the Constitution. From its appointment up to 6 July 1979, when a start was made with the drafting of the interim report, this commission of inquiry took cognizance of 214 memoranda containing constitutional proposals submitted by individuals and bodies, and heard the verbal evidence of 61 witnesses, which ran to approximately 1 509 typed pages.

Mr. Speaker, it gradually became clear to the commission that certain measures should be taken even at this early stage to give partial effect to its terms of reference. Consequently it was decided to publish an interim report containing certain proposals.

The proposals contained in the amending Bill which is now being submitted to the House for its consideration arise mainly from the recommendations in the majority report contained in the interim report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Constitution, which was tabled in both Houses of Parliament on 8 May 1980 and accepted by the Government.

Before explaining the various proposals contained in the Bill, I first want to convey my sincere appreciation to the commissioners for their excellent co-operation and for the positive spirit and attitude they maintained throughout, in spite of the fact that there were differences of opinion about certain matters, as is evident from the interim report. I also want to mention with gratitude the frank and open way in which commissioners stated their points of view during the deliberations of the commission. Then, Mr. Speaker, I want to convey my sincere thanks to the Secretary to Parliament and his staff, as well as to my own departmental head, the Secretary for the Interior, and his staff, for the very able way in which they performed their task.

†Mr. Speaker, one of the key issues on which general consensus was reached in the commission is that the Westminster system of government, in an unadapted form, does not provide a solution for the constitutional problems of the Republic and that, under the present constitutional dispensation, the so-called “one man, one vote” system will probably lead to minorities being dominated by majorities and to serious conflict among population groups in the Republic, with disastrous consequences for all the peoples of the Republic, and does not provide a framework in which peaceful co-existence in the Republic is possible. The commission arrived at this conclusion after a careful analysis of all the relevant written and verbal evidence presented to the commission, and after penetrating questioning of witnesses of all population groups and discussions during the course of the commission’s deliberations.

Our existing constitution is largely based on the constitution of Great Britain. The British constitution, however, developed over centuries to accommodate the requirements of a homogenous population, and bearing this in mind, the commission was unanimous in its finding that our constitution, which served us during the last 70 years, must be adapted to provide a solution for the present constitutional problems of the Republic arising from the heterogeneous nature of our population. Consequently, in the Bill before the House various adaptations of our present constitution are proposed, namely—

1. (i) the establishment of the office of Vice-State President;
2. (ii) the abolition of the Senate; and
3. (iii) the establishment of a President’s Council.

It is furthermore suggested that the number of Ministers be increased by two and that the composition of the House of Assembly be altered to provide for an additional 12 members.

In clause 5 of the Bill it is recommended that the office of Vice-State President be established. It is proposed that the ViceState President will serve as chairman of the President’s Council and that he will act as State President whenever that office is vacant or the State President is for any reason unable to perform the duties of his office. It is furthermore suggested that the same provisions which are applicable in connection with the election, qualifications, period of office and removal from office of the State President, etc., be applied also in respect of the Vice-State President.

It is quite evident, therefore, that the office of Vice-State President is intended to be very important and dignified, and that as chairman of the President’s Council the Vice-State President will have to be a person who possesses great skill and objectivity.

Another issue of major importance on which general consensus was reached in the commission was the abolishment of the Senate. It is therefore proposed in clause 16 of the Bill that those sections of the South Africa Constitution Act, 1961, dealing with the Senate be repealed. As I have mentioned during the course of the recent Joint Sitting the decision to abolish the Senate was not taken lightly, and does not imply acceptance of the principle of having a unicameral Parliament. At this stage I wish once again to thank hon. Senators, especially those serving as members of the commission, for the very unselfish way in which they supported this recommendation of the commission.

*Mr. Speaker, there was general concensus in the commission on another very important matter, namely that in the process of designing future constitutional structures, there should be the widest possible consultation and deliberation with and between all population groups in an attempt to raise the level of acceptability of any proposals in this connection. Therefore i5 is necessary to create an instrument which will make meaningful consultation and deliberation with and between all population groups possible in the future, and for this reason, the establishment of a President’s Council is being proposed in clause 34 of the Bill.

It is recommended that the President’s Council should consist of nationally acknowledged experts in their respective disciplines and persons recognized as leaders by their respective communities. The State President will divide the 60 members of the President’s Council into at least four standing committees, namely the Constitutional Committee, a Committee for Economic Affairs, a Planning Committee and a Committee for Community Relations, and will designate a member of each committee as the chairman of that committee. A member of the President’s Council may be a member of more than one committee. When we come to the functions of the President’s Council and its committees, it is proposed, on the one hand, that the President’s Council shall at the request of the State President advise him on any matter referred to that Council by the State President for its advice. On the other hand, the President’s Council may in its discretion advise the State President on any matter, except draft legislation, which, in its opinion, is of public interest. When a matter is referred to the President’s Council for its advice or when the Council is of the opinion that a matter is of national interest, it may refer such matter to any of the standing committees for its advice. The President’s Council shall also transmit to the State President any advice received by it from its standing committees, with or without its comments thereon, and that advice shall be tabled in the House of Assembly. However, the State President is not advised on draft legislation referred to the President’s Council for its advice by a legislative body.

However, it will not be possible to refer draft legislation of local authorities to the President’s Council for its advice. Apart from the provision for standing committees, it is proposed that the chairman of the President’s Council also be authorized to constitute ad hoc committees from members of the President’s Council to report to the Council on any other matter. It is also proposed that the President’s Council or a committee thereof may, for the purposes of the performance of its functions and in its discretion, consult with any person or State institution on any matter, and that for this purpose, consultative committees may be established consisting of members of the said council or such committee, as the case may be, and members of any council or board established by the State President in terms of any other law. Furthermore, the President’s Council or a committee thereof may in its discretion and for the said purposes, and shall when the State President requests the Council that it be done for those purposes, consult with a council consisting of Black South African citizens and established under an Act of Parliament, or with any committee of such a council.

Although the commission could not agree on the establishment and composition of the President’s Council, I believe that the proposed President’s Council will be acceptable to those who endeavour in all sincerity to make peaceful co-existence possible for everyone by way of consultation and deliberation between all population groups in the country.

In clause 17, it is proposed that the Constitution as such be amended to provide for the reconstitution of the House of Assembly. The Government gave very serious consideration to this aspect, and although the commission proposed that the number of members of the House of Assembly be increased by 20 members, it was decided, upon reconsideration, to recommend that there should be only 12 additional members, four of whom are to be nominated by the State President, one from each province, while eight members will be elected by the 165 elected members of the House of Assembly according to the principle of proportional representation, each voter having one transferable vote. The Government’s primary object in proposing that the members of the House of Assembly be increased by 12 is an attempt to get knowledgeable people into the House of Assembly who would not obtain a seat in the House of Assembly by way of an ordinary election.

When the programme of rationalization of Government departments has been completed, there will be at least 23 Government institutions. In the interests of good administration, which is so essential especially in this struggle for survival, it is necessary that every Minister should be able to give his full attention to his own portfolio in these demanding times we live in, and this is a very difficult task indeed if that portfolio involves the administration of two or more Government institutions. At the same time, the administration of the rationalized Government institutions will be more demanding, because virtually every one of those Government institutions will be burdened with more functions than before. Many of those functions are highly specialized, and therefore require specialized knowledge of the Minister, which he is only able to acquire if he can devote all his attention to his duties. For that reason, it is proposed in clause 11 that the Constitution be amended to provide for the appointment of 20 Ministers, instead of the present 18, to administer the Government institutions established by the State President. By way of comparison, I just want to point out that, for example, Israel and France each has 21 Ministers and 18 deputy Ministers; in Australia, Britain and Canada there are 28, 22 and 33 ministers respectively, and in Britain and Canada there are 20 and 28 deputy Ministers respectively.

†Clause 37 contains the short title, commencement and transitional provisions. Apart from those sections mentioned in subsection (2), which shall come into operation on a date or dates fixed by the State President by proclamation in the Government Gazette, it is proposed that the Act, except the provisions of clause 37, shall come into operation on 1 January 1981. The provisions of clause 37, however, will come into operation on the date when this Bill becomes law.

Hardly ever in the history of our constitution have such far-reaching changes as contained in this Bill been brought to this House for consideration. I wish to reiterate that these changes are considered necessary in view of the fact that under the present constitutional dispensation the so-called “one man, one vote” system will probably lead to minorities being dominated by majorities and to serious conflict among population groups in the Republic.

The proposals in this Bill are primarily intended to create machinery of consultation and deliberation with and among all population groups in an attempt to raise the level of acceptability of future constitutional structures which will be designed to obviate conflict and ensure peace and stability in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I have already conveyed my thanks, during the First Reading debate, to the hon. the Minister for the way in which he acted as chairman of this commission, as well as to the officials whom the hon. the Minister mentioned in his Second Reading speech, and I just want to confirm that again.

The terms of reference of the commission, as laid down by this Parliament, are of historic significance for South Africa. Those terms of reference require the commission to investigate the introduction of a new constitution for the Republic of South Africa. With these terms of reference, the South African Parliament accepted that the existing constitution was not suitable for effectively accommodating the political process in our country. The question which immediately arises is: How, then, is satisfactory and acceptable constitutional development to take place in the light of the dilemma we have identified? This question was more and more strongly emphasized while the commission was engaged in its activities. Many documents were received—and the hon. the Minister has referred to them—and a great deal of evidence was heard. There was no lack of constitutional models and frameworks. Almost without exception, the evidence and the documents emphasized the fact that the constitutional status quo was untenable and inadequate.

Less frequently, attention was given in documents and evidence to the question of how one moves from point A to point B in the constitutional field. Those who did give attention to this made a very strong impression on the commission. In this way, for example, Prof. Rautenbach of the RAU and Prof. Vosloo of the University of Stellenbosch pointed out that it would be premature of the commission to produce final constitutional proposals unilaterally, that the other population groups should be involved in the process of constitutional development and that interim institutions should be created with this in view. This line of thinking found general favour with the commission, and this consensus is reflected in paragraph 8(b) on page 4 of the majority report, with which the minority report is in agreement, and I quote—

What are the implications of this statement, seen against the background of the commission’s terms of reference? The implications are, firstly, that the terms of reference recognize the untenability of the present constitutional dispensation; secondly, that constitutional development cannot simply be forced by one specific group upon others; thirdly, that all population groups should be involved in constitutional development; and fourthly, that the acceptability of constitutional proposals do not depend only on Whites or any other particular group. These are important considerations, and the proposals of the majority report should be measured against them.

Another important principle which is implicit in the majority report is that “recognized leaders” of the various population groups should be involved in the process of constitutional development. In the preamble to the recommendation concerning the President’s Council on page 5, it is clearly stated that such a body should be composed of “persons recognized by their own communities as leaders”.

As far as we are concerned, all these considerations, which have been agreed to and concerning which there is consensus, are positive developments in the right direction, and they are clearly reflected in the minority report of my party as well. In this minority report, on page 10 of the interim report, it says, for example—

It goes on to say—

It also says—

I quote further—

But in that case, why did you oppose the introduction of the Bill?

The first two quotations were taken almost verbatim from the policy document of the PFP which was unanimously adopted at our national congress in 1978. Today we believe even more strongly that these points of departure for constitutional development are vital if we are to neutralize violence and terror and embark upon acceptable constitutional development.

I repeat: Involve all population groups; try to achieve general acceptability; and talk to recognized leaders of the various communities. As far as we are concerned, this is the only formula for peaceful constitutional survival, and these considerations serve as clear guidelines in terms of which our constitutional proposals should be evaluated and studied.

I want to emphasize that there was general consensus about this in the commission. We achieved consensus, and to me that was the most important progress that took place in the constitutional field. To me it is important that there is consensus in this House about the fact that acceptability does not depend only on this House, but that leaders of all population groups should be involved in a process of constitutional development. Precisely because there is consensus about these aspects—I do not doubt the bona fides of the other side in this connection—one should examine very critically the specific constitutional proposals which have been produced and are supposed to give effect to this constitutional premise about which there is consensus. For that reason, against this background, we may examine some of the constitutional proposals.

The first one we should examine is the question of the President’s Council. Judged by the requirements I have just mentioned, the proposed President’s Council is quite inadequate to keep alive the proposed constitutional debate. I want to motivate this point to the best of my ability and I hope that I shall be able to live up to the standard set by the hon. the Minister and that we shall be able to debate it on the basis of logical arguments.

It is not true that we have adopted or are still adopting an “all or nothing” attitude towards the question of constitutional development. The hon. member for Durban Point referred to me in this connection in the First Reading debate and said that we wanted to adopt an inflexible “all or nothing” attitude. We were prepared to bring about consensus by way of compromise even concerning matters which we feel very strongly about.

But only according to your plan.

Our own proposal for a constitutional advisory council, for example, was clearly a compromise proposal in the light of our policy, because it falls far short of the characteristics of a national convention as we should like to see it. It is not representative; it is constituted by nomination after consultation, and so forth. In fact, it differs from the proposal concerning a President’s Council in that it would be multiracial and that it would be more interim and less permanent than the President’s Council. In our opinion, this was the absolute minimum which would be required for initiating a constitutional debate, and even then there were enormous risks attached to its acceptability.

However, one can only compromise up to a point. This I want to make quite clear now: There is one thing I stated clearly and repeatedly, in private conversations as well as in the commission. I said that if Blacks were excluded from any interim measure which might be proposed, no support for it could be expected from us. I said so consistently. I also want to make it clear that we tried to co-operate constructively until it became clear to us that this was exactly what was going to happen, and then we had no other alternative than to produce our own proposal and to vote against the majority recommendation.

To allege, therefore, that I have made a volte-face or that I am the prisoner of some wing of my party is a blatant untruth, and I reject it with the contempt it deserves. I have more than a good idea of who planted these stories in some newspapers, and this has convinced me that I should place a higher premium on my good faith. In any event, not a single journalist from any of the newspapers that made these allegations took the trouble to check with me what the actual state of affairs was, and this is sufficient reason to doubt the reliability of the reporting.

In our minority report, we make it quite clear that our principal objection to the President’s Council is the deliberate exclusion of Blacks. In our report we put this beyond any doubt. Not a single member of the commission who signed the majority report could or even tried to show on constitutional grounds why Blacks should be excluded from the President’s Council. This is an aspect I want to emphasize specifically. I challenge any hon. member of this House to do so now, if he feels like it.

The only reason has absolutely nothing to do with constitutional arguments. It is a political argument, and it has everything to do with the tensions within the NP itself. [Interjections.]

Order!

I want to put it to hon. members on the other side that a proposal which included the Blacks would not be accepted by the caucus of the NP. That is the only reason. [Interjections.] At this moment in our history, therefore, and with all the serious threats we are faced with, to expect the pace of constitutional development to be determined by the appeasement of people in the extreme right wing of the NP caucus is deliberately to sabotage our chances of peaceful survival. [Interjections.] This is definitely so.

There are in fact those hon. members on the other side who know that it makes constitutional nonsense to exclude Blacks. I see one of the hon. members opposite walking out. It is the hon. member for Klip River. He knows it is nonsense to exclude Blacks from the constitutional planning for the future. [Interjections.]

An hon. member whom I hold in high esteem, for whose intellect I have great respect, is the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. He is a political scientist.

What does he say?

He would have to violate his own intellect if he had to acknowledge that it is a good thing for Blacks to be excluded from a constitutional advisory body. He knows that this is so. Therefore I now ask whether any hon. member is able to advance a meaningful argument as to why, for the purposes of constitutional development in South Africa, 8 000 Chinese should be given representation, while millions and millions of Blacks should be excluded.

A good question. [Interjections.]

I have nothing whatsoever against the Chinese community. They are entitled to political representation, just like any other person. [Interjections.]

What are you doing in a White Parliament, then?

They are entitled to political representation, just like any other person. [Interjections.]

Order!

However, to include them while excluding the Blacks is the grossest insult imaginable. I wonder what the Afrikaners would have said if they had been excluded from the national convention of 1908.

Why then do you not tell the Blacks … [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Moorreesburg should be able to realize how the Blacks must feel about this. Can any hon. member advance an argument on a constitutional basis to show why Blacks should be given representation on a body with an inferior status to that of the President’s Council, and one which is to operate in an advisory capacity to an advisory body? If this is not so, and that Black body has an equal status, why is it being initially excluded at all?

What could have happened to give rise to this state of affairs? Certain things are clear, I believe. The Government appointed a constitutional commission. It saw that circumstances required the commission to produce proposals. The Government also knew that there were tensions in its own caucus. This whole Parliamentary session has proved that. [Interjections.] So it went back to its draft proposal for a new constitution to ascertain whether there was not something in it that could be used to take interim measures to initiate the constitutional debate. The reason why they returned to the draft proposal was that it had already been accepted by the NP’s congresses and its caucus. It was not necessary to produce anything new. It had already been accepted. Only oom Cas Greyling had had the courage to call it “nonsense”, which in fact it was. [Interjections.] The rest all accepted it.

Where is oom Cas now?

For that reason, a watered-down version of the President’s Council in the draft proposal was dished up to the commission as a constitutional measure to keep the constitutional debate going. I say it was watered-down version of it, because it was not even formulated as strongly as the original draft proposal. Just as in the case of the draft proposal for a new constitution, however, the Blacks were excluded from this as well.

What I said at the time with regard to the draft proposal I want to repeat with regard to the President’s Council. If any party wants to play buffer politics between White and Black in South Africa with the Coloureds and the Asians, that party is gambling with the security of our future generations. I want to urge the Government as strongly as I can to open its eyes and to see how the process of polarization, away from the Whites, among the Coloured, Indian and Black youth is accelerating daily, and at a disturbing pace. Constitutional debate and development should be directed at counteracting this process of polarization and not at the prejudices of the minority in the White electorate. I deliberately say “minority”, because the latest opinion polls show that the majority of the Whites are prepared to involve Blacks in constitutional development. Rapport of 18 May said: “Kontak met Swartes kry hoogste lof.” This supports the hon. the Prime Minister in this connection. There is also the research of prof. Slemmer, which was published in the Sunday Tribune. He said—

And he is talking about Whites—

He says—

He goes on to ask what the policy preference is and in what direction we should move. He says “racial justice” is number one among Afrikaans- and English-speaking people. In other words, there is a climate which can be used to initiate this process in a proper and effective way.

There are other objections to shortcomings in the proposed President’s Council to which my colleagues will refer. However, when we go back to the points of departure concerning which there appeared to be concensus in the commission, namely the involvement of all population groups, an attempt to achieve general acceptability, as well as dialogue with recognized leaders of the various communities, then the President’s Council as a constitutional measure clearly does not pass muster, for in its composition, the vast majority of people in South Africa are not recognized. This in itself is sufficient reason for opposing this Bill.

Another measure which is contained in the Bill and to which we object most strenuously is the one in connection with the enlargement of the House of Assembly, which is a representative body, by way of nomination. It does not matter whether the number is 20, 10 or 4; the principle remains the same. It is a principle in which, I used to think, the NP itself also believed. I refer to Hansard of 13 February 1968, column 487, where the then Prime Minister said the following—

And he is referring to people in Parliament. Since then, however, there has clearly been a shift of emphasis in this connection.

An additional objection is that an artificial majority will be built into what is primarily a representative body. The motivation which has been advanced for this measure and to which the hon. the Minister referred is not at all convincing. To argue that specialists, experts, can be brought in, is not only an implied insult to those who have been elected, but is simply not valid. Nothing prevents an expert from coming to Parliament in the usual way, or from being brought in under the 12-months measure which was passed by Parliament this year—a measure with which we on this side of the House also had problems.

One cannot escape the impression that this measure was actually designed to strengthen the hand of the hon. the Prime Minister in the caucus and in the Cabinet. This is an extraordinary way of balancing interest groups within the Parliamentary caucus system. If this is the consideration—and I am waiting for a motivation in this connection, for no motivation has hitherto been supplied—it is short-sighted and indefensible in the parliamentary democratic system.

†A third objection we have to this Bill concerns the introduction of the post of Vice-President. We have stated, in the minority report, that no evidence for the creation of this post was presented to the commission. I must add that the hon. the Minister when introducing the Second Reading gave no additional evidence or motivation for this either.

The argument has been raised that this post is necessary in order to enhance the prestige of the President’s Council. If this is so, it simply adds insult to injury by excluding Blacks. Surely, this cannot be a serious consideration. One could, for example, let the chairman of the President’s Council act as President in the absence of the President. Now the Vice-President is imposed on the President’s Council by a White Parliament. The President’s Council does not have any say in the election of its own chairman.

Another argument is that with the disappearance of the Senate, the order of succession for the Presidency may be affected. This may be so, but this is not an insurmountable problem. The Chief Justice or the Speaker can simply move up in order of succession and perform the duties formerly performed by the President of the Senate.

Although it is basically a matter for the Committee Stage, I should just like to alert the hon. the Minister that we should like additional information on certain matters. Clause 8 refers to the dignity of the President, and now also the dignity of the Vice-President, not being affected. Simply for purposes of information I should like to ask to what extent this would perhaps be unfair in the sense that, as the Vice-President acts as the chairman of the President’s Council, which obviously will involve itself with political issues, he will become politically involved. He will then be protected in that one cannot actually engage him in a political discussion whereas he can, by virtue of his position as chairman of the President’s Council, engage in political discussions himself. How is one to get around this problem? I would appreciate it if the hon. the Minister would devote some attention to this.

We believe it is premature to come now with constitutional measures which have an element of permanency, of finality, to them. We are in a period of constitutional transition in which the major goal must be to broaden the base of participation in constitutional deliberation through creating interim measures for this purpose. I want to repeat: We are in a period of constitutional transition in which the major goal must be to broaden the base of participation in constitutional deliberation through creating interim measures for this purpose. These measures must facilitate the formulation of constitutional proposals which can enjoy the greatest degree of acceptability.

In conclusion I want to say that our country finds itself in extremely anxious and threatening times. It is a time when options for change are narrowing dramatically. The hon. the Prime Minister himself has often referred to this. We here in Parliament have only one realistic option. We happen to be the only institution that has the power and the ability to initiate the process of constitutional change which is so necessary in our society. This is an historical and great responsibility, for our actions can mean the difference between confrontation and negotiation in our land. There I want to identify myself with what the hon. the Minister has said. It is our actions as an institution that must decide between the two in South Africa.

It is no secret that over the years this House took decisions which have polarized the races—we all agree to that—and brought us to the situation of constitutional deadlock in which we now find ourselves. However, we are now confronted with the proposal for a President’s Council as a mechanism to remedy our constitutional dilemmas. As a party we have no objection in principle to participating in bodies or institutions created by Parliament, but we also have a responsibility to evaluate the viability and effectiveness of each one created and whether we participate in it.

For all the reasons I have mentioned, and judged against the background of the pressing political, economic and social problems in our land, we can come to no other conclusion than that the President’s Council as envisaged in this Bill is not good enough by a long shot and that as a party we will have no part of it. It is inconceivable that one can attempt to bring about acceptable and effective constitutional reform by excluding the majority of people from the most important body which has the responsibility to initiate the process of constitutional reform.

Mr. Speaker, I move as an amendment—

Mr. Speaker, not everyone is cut out to frame a constitution. I concluded from the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that he too discovered the truth of this statement while participating in the Schlebusch Commission. That is why I find it an even greater pity that the hon. the Leader of Opposition, although he tried to comply with the appeal made by the hon. the Minister of the Interior for the debate to be conducted on a high level, could not resist the temptation of availing himself of the opportunity of playing petty politics, for he stated that the Government’s proposals were intended solely to curb the tensions within the ranks of the NP. He made another statement as well, viz. that the proposed enlargement of the House of Assembly was merely an effort to strengthen the position of the hon. the Prime Minister in the caucus of the governing party. I see in these statements made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition the quandary of a person who has to choose between being either an academic or a politician.

Right at the outset of his speech the hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated that the problem of framing a constitution lay in the following: How does one move from point A to point B in an orderly way? In this respect I want to agree entirely with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. This is the problem of the situation. I hope his participation in the Schlebusch Commission will give him broader insights into that problem than those he expressed this afternoon. If that is the problem in general, it is intensified in the case of a country such as the Republic of South Africa which has a complicated population structure. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also said: “How are we to move from point A to point B in an orderly way?”

I maintain that to try to create a constitution is not the work of one day. Nor is it the work of one year. I want to link this to what I have often said outside the House, i.e. that no constitution in the world has ever been final in the past, and no constitution will ever be final in future. The best example is the constitution of the United Kingdom, from which we derived our system. The constitution of the United Kingdom developed over a period of 700 years and is at present still subject to further developments.

Such as the entrenchment of the Coloured franchise.

Order!

I want to elaborate on my statement by saying that societies or countries that have tried to finalize a constitution have failed in their efforts, for eventually the constitution was changed, even though this was by way of revolution. Consequently, this often happens in the case of dictatorial societies or dictatorial States. So no constitution has been final in the past or will ever be final in future.

I want to describe a constitution as the overall framework in which the total activities of a country are co-ordinated. That is why a constitution must be flexible, in accordance with the needs, development, activities and the population structure of the country from time to time. What I like about the Schlebusch Commission’s report which forms the basis of the legislation before this House, is the very fact that the interim report and the legislation give expression to the precise truth that no constitution has ever been or ever can be final.

By means of the legislation before this House a process is being set in motion which will specifically relate to the needs which could arise from time to time in the development of our country with its plural population situation. It will specifically ensure that, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also advocated, we shall be in a position to move in an orderly way from point A to point B, and eventually to point C, and perhaps ultimately to point D as well. A process is being created here. Whatever criticism the hon. the leader of the Opposition levelled today at the legislation before this House, I am convinced that this country, which is an orderly country, and this Parliament, which is a sovereign Parliament through which any development must be initiated and embodied in legislation, is in fact leading the Free World at this juncture with regard to the process of the recreation of constitutional structures in order to keep pace with the requirements of the time. I do not think that at this juncture there is a comparable example of progress as we have it in the legislation before us in any other comparable country.

However, if one is restructuring one’s constitutional framework one must also take into account not only the requirements of the times, but also one’s history and the realities of the times. The simple solution of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition—if he cannot have that solution, his answer is a relentless “No”—is that everyone in this country, the lesser developed Black population groups as well, should be involved in this process. I want to concede in part that he is right. This is in fact what is stated in paragraph 8(b) of the Schlebusch Commission report, viz. that in order to raise the level of acceptability of constitutional models, one must obtain the greatest measure of co-operation from everyone who is involved and must constantly engage in dialogue with the other population groups involved. In that respect I want to concede that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is right. However, I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, who is after all himself an academic and is aware of the problem of the stages of development of population groups and peoples, whether he intends to make a concerted attempt to devise a constitution within one specific body with people for whom certain concepts do not even exist, but who are in the majority. Does he think this is feasible? I am merely mentioning the one aspect. I am referring to only one specific aspect. I am not even referring to the statistics of the situation. I am speaking specifically to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition who is a sociologist. Does he think it is feasible that people whose thinking processes are even slower than those of most of us who are here, should be involved in this matter? I see the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is turning up his nose at this, but surely it is the truth.

Does the hon. the Minister know what he is saying?

I know what I am saying.

I do not think the hon. the Minister knows what he is saying.

I know that the Black man takes longer to decide on a matter than we do. Surely this is the hard reality.

They are ripe for independence but not for participation in the President’s Council.

Order! I want to tell hon. members that I shall under no circumstances allow this debate to degenerate into a debate of interjections. Of course I shall not prohibit hon. members completely from making interjections, but I shall watch the hon. members carefully. The hon. member for Bryanston has already made three interjections in this short space of time and I am not going to allow him to keep on doing so for much longer. If hon. members are in any way dissatisfied with my ruling, I ask them to look at Standing Order No. 106. They will see that in terms of that Standing Order they are not entitled to make even a single interjection. The hon. the Minister may proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I want to be understood clearly. What I have now said, I am not saying in a disparaging way towards a member of any other nationality. I am saying this as the truth, as a person who has experience of the fact that people come to you and say: “But give us more time to consider certain situations you want to create.” After all, I have had experience of these matters. Surely I, too, held many discussions with our Coloured population. The hon. member for Sea Point can shake his head until one can hear it rattling inside. Surely I know what I am talking about. When a person with sincere intentions has discussions with people, and also with the proper intentions from their side, and they plead with you to give them more time because they do not as yet understand what these things are all about, is this then so difficult to understand? For me it is difficult to understand the simple solution of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition when he says that if Black people are not involved in this process, his party wants nothing to do with it. For me the revelation in this debate is our inability to bring home to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition the realities of this country in which we live.

Surely the Black people are not being excluded from the process which is being created by this legislation. Surely the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, his bench fellow and others who have served on the Schlebusch Commission know this. I do not think there was any sign from any commissioner not to afford the people in this country an opportunity of discussing the process of constitutional development which affects everyone. Surely we are concerned here with the method of achieving that. We are concerned here with the question of how one moves from point A to point B in an orderly way, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself said. That is why I say that one must also take the historical and factual situation into account when setting such a process in motion. Part of the historical story is in fact that the constitutional course of development of the White, Coloured and Asiatic sections of our population has been totally different to that of most of the Black population groups within our present national borders.

Surely history teaches us that they were deprived of their opportunity for achieving self-determination at a point of time in history when it was popular and when it was generally acceptable for West European powers to compete with one another for the possession of colonies in Africa and to deprive people of their freedom. Surely it is not an unknown fact that this Government is inexorably committed to the course of returning those freedoms and of returning them in a far better way than has been done by the imperial powers of West Europe during the past two decades. They precipitately abandoned the peoples in Africa whom they had deprived of their freedom for their own interests, without building and developing proper constitutional structures and without placing those peoples on their own road to freedom. This is what this Government has pledged itself to do, and this is the process which is already in progress. Three of those peoples have already obtained their freedom and I think I can say a better freedom than some of their kindred received from the United Kingdom. I am referring here to the former protectorates. Our peoples obtained their freedom in a far more systematic way, and surely the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is also seeking an orderly path of constitutional development. This is the path this Government is following while it is also engaged in constitutional development.

That is why I want to say today that to me the most important message in the report of the Schlebusch Commission, of which I was a member, is this statement which was made in paragraph 8(a)—

All the parties who are represented on the Schlebusch Commission agreed on this point. Is this not a summary of the problem our country has with the international political platform, specifically the UN and the USA Government, which also dream and think that a system which works over there in a more or less homogeneous set-up, not only can but must be transplanted here, lock, stock and barrel? All parties in this House agree that such a system cannot work here. But what is actually involved? Two matters are involved: In the first place the right of self-determination of peoples or communities. This principle is not foreign to the world for it is embodied in the UN Charter, although, for reasons of expediency, it is being applied selectively in the world. Where it does not suit them it is not implemented. The USA dreams that it can apply that, or its opposite—the “one man, one vote” system—here in our country. What is involved is the principle of the right of self-determination of peoples, that latent desire of every nation, even though it is not always alive or visible, to decide its own fate. This recommendation of the commission is concerned with that desire. It is a recognition of that principle. But what is more, it is a recognition of the principle that minority groups must be protected against domination by majority groups.

This is the problem of our country and its population structure. This is what we must try to extricate ourselves from, as well as those to whom we must provide guidance to move from point A to point B in an orderly way. Since the position is such that any development in this sphere, any development which can be envisaged, must have its origin in legislation which is passed by this sovereign Parliament, a better method could not be found than the creation of a body such as the President’s Council to examine at the highest level a diversity of national issues, of an economic, a scientific and, inter alia, a constitutional nature as well.

Too advanced for the Blacks?

Yes, by means of its constitutional committee that body—as the hon. member ought to know by now for he, too, was a member of the Schlebusch Commission—will be able to keep that process going, not only of negotiation with the Blacks, but also of guidance as to what a constitution means. [Interjections.]

I do not believe it. You are, honestly, not serious.

The hon. member says: “I do not believe it.” He can look at Africa. If he does not believe me, he does not believe the history of Africa which is unfolding before his eyes.

That is very different.

The committee will be able to provide people who are not yet acquainted with the various aspects of constitutional models, with guidance. The whole process of providing information and guidance on the constitutional course will be able to take place through the mediation of this committee of the President’s Council.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition quoted from an opinion poll which had been conducted by a Sunday newspaper and had been reported under the title “Kontak met Swartes kry die hoogste lof”. There is nothing wrong with that. The process being envisaged with and embodied in this legislation is just that, viz. to make contact with the Black people, but on a path of orderly development, as has also been envisaged by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

The official Opposition have objected to the enlargement of the House of Assembly. If I listened correctly to the hon. the Leader, he said that this was a principle which was quite foreign. But I must point out to him that this principle of appointing people to Parliament is really not a foreign one, for that principle is at present contained in the way in which the Senate is constituted. Since all parties have unanimously decided that the Senate in its present form has become impractical in view of the deficiencies of the Westminster system, surely it goes without saying that if the principle of appointed members from the ranks of serviceable people can be continued on a limited scale in the House of Assembly, that principle is not going to be detracted from in any way.

The hon. the Leader also objects to a Vice-State President being elected for our country. This is perhaps a new concept, but at the moment it is the case that the incumbent of a specific office acts as State President. That office which he normally occupies is one of exceptional responsibility. However, if it has been decided that a responsible body such as the President’s Council should exist—note that the office of President is linked to the name of the body—it makes sense to me that the State President cannot be expected to occupy his time chairing every session of the President’s Council himself. Furthermore it makes sense to me that a person who can liaise directly with the State President, i.e. the Vice-State President, should be entrusted with that. Furthermore I believe that if the chairman of the President’s Council also serves as Vice-State President, this would be accepted by public opinion as a demonstration of importance of the President’s Council. Such an arrangement would also leave no doubt among our population groups who are less developed as to the importance which is being attached to the decision-making by the President’s Council.

The Parliament of South Africa is sovereign and whatever development may come or must come—I believe development must come—it must have its origin in Parliament. As a matter of political reality I believe that this could only happen if it goes hand-in-hand with the advice of such a body as the proposed President’s Council, in which people will have confidence. Confidence will not only be in one direction, for confidence will also emanate from the President’s Council to the various population groups inhabiting our country.

Mr. Speaker, I shall react to the speech by the hon. the Minister later on, because I first wish to express my thanks to the hon. the Minister of the Interior for his leadership and handling of the Commission of Inquiry into the Constitution during the past year. I do not believe that any member of any party has anything but the highest appreciation for the way in which the hon. the Minister has performed his duties as chairman. I also wish to place on record my thanks to the officials of both the department and Parliament. Often, and especially during the final shift of the commission’s operations when we sat long hours and expected minutes to be ready by the next day and draft reports to be rewritten, they made a tremendous contribution. I should therefore like to express my thanks to them too.

†Mr. Speaker, I believe that the attention that is focused on this debate in this Parliament today places an awesome responsibility on all of us who take part in it. It is not just all our own people in South Africa who are watching Parliament today. I believe that from all over the world interest is centred on what we do with and say about this measure that is before us. It will be put under the microscope and measured in the light of the international isolation of South Africa, our rejection by countries in the West, the pressures that are on us, the terrorist onslaught, both on our borders and within South Africa and the internal tensions which nobody can deny exist in South Africa, tensions expressed in unrest, frustration, hopes and in some cases unfortunately in bitterness and inter-racial hatred. What we do and say in this debate, will be judged against this background. The potential of the Bill before the House will be measured in order to determine whether it is the start of a new road for South Africa or an invitation to confrontation and exploitation. I believe in that respect the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications has done a disservice to South Africa in his speech here this afternoon, by the attitude he adopted towards the Black peoples of South Africa— by what was in fact a sneering approach to their ability to take part in the process of shaping our future together. I believe he is an example of the “problematiek”, the dilemma which South Africa faces. His attitude this afternoon was typical of South Africa’s basic dilemma. However, I shall come back to and deal with this later. The one thing about which I agree with the hon. the Minister is that no constitution is final or can be final. It is this approach which guides me in my approach to this measure, because I see it as the first step, after the technical Joint Sitting to deal with the entrenched clauses, in moving towards a new political system. All parties are agreed that the Westminster system in its present form does not serve South Africa. What this measure is doing is to create machinery to help to design its replacement. This is, I think, the essential thing we have to understand. We are creating machinery to design a replacement for our present constitutional structure. We are cutting loose the old constitutional anchor to which we are accustomed and we are seeking a new form, a new system for our future Government.

I believe that the recommendations of the commission, on which it was my privilege to serve, can, if rightly handled, open the door to a complete new future for this country, but not if it is approached in the way the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications has approached it, because what this commission demonstrated was that there was potential for negotiation, for consultation and for the reconciliation of differences.

Let us look at what happened. We started with totally irreconcilable attitudes towards our task. The Government placed before the commission a draft constitution setting out its point of view, a draft constitution which expressed the Government’s attitude. Against that we had, on the one side, a call for a national convention to draft a new non-racial constitution for South Africa. And from these two completely opposite poles we were able to move, by way of negotiation, and by way of discussion, towards a broad consensus on a whole range of issues. Even where that consensus was not complete, it brought us nearer together. That was demonstrated by the hon. Leader of the Opposition, who said they were prepared as a party to move away from their stand of a non-racial common roll system for South Africa. He stated they were willing to move towards a form of consultation between the communities and different racial groups. This was a fundamental move away from an originally firm stand, and similarly and to a great extent, the Government moved away from other basic attitudes. By give and take, by discussion and compromise, we ultimately came out with something very different from the original draft constitution first submitted to the commission.

I believe that there was in fact a much greater consensus reached in that commission than is being demonstrated here in this debate today. In that commission we agreed in principle on the establishment of a council. We agreed that it should be called the President’s Council. We agreed on the number of 60 as the membership of that council. We agreed on its purpose, which was to create machinery for consultation and negotiation with a view to drawing up a new constitution. We disagreed on the method, but we agreed that its chairman could act as Vice-State President of South Africa. We disagreed only, as I understood it, on the racial limitation of the membership of the President’s Council to White, Coloured, Indian and Chinese. We also disagreed on the nominated membership of this Parliament, and there was disagreement too, in one party, on the election of a separate Vice-State President.

I believe that, with that vast area of agreement, and the limited disagreement on really only one fundamental principle, we could have reached a consensus, with our reservations recorded. We could have reached a consensus and an agreement which could have formed the basis for moving forward together. If we think of just where we started, as I pointed out—from a draft constitution laid upon the Table, and, as was said in this Parliament, and recorded in Hansard: “Ons het die tafel gedek. Indien julle nie daarvan wil eet nie, hoef julle dit nie te doen nie” …

Nobody said that.

It is recorded in Hansard: “We lay the table. If you don’t want to eat, you do not have to.” It was not actually said in the commission, but it was the attitude when the first draft constitution was produced and rejected by members of the Black community. As I have said, we moved away from that point of view …

Are you sure of what you are saying now?

It is recorded in Hansard.

I do not have it here, but I can get the quotation. We moved away from the point of view of “We, the Whites, will produce it”, to deciding unanimously that any constitution which was to achieve acceptability had to be the combined work of all the peoples of South Africa. What we agreed on was machinery for involving all South Africans.

This is the essential issue. We are only drafting machinery to involve all South Africans in the process of constitution-making, of participating together in planning the future. I believe we made almost unbelievable progress. Let us just have a look at the progress we made. Part of the progress made is that we all agreed unanimously— and I want to draw attention to the specific wording, because the words used are terribly important—and I quote from point 8(b) on page 4 of the interim report—

I repeat “and deliberation”—

There are two very important words there. The one is “deliberation” and the other “all population groups”. In the original proposals which were before us there was no provision for any Black South Africans being represented or involved in any way. Secondly, we, except for the official Opposition, agreed that there should be a council for Black South African citizens. Once again this is an important recommendation. The idea is that it should be a council consisting of Black South African citizens and established under an Act of Parliament. This is not just a casual decision. It has a fundamental meaning. It means that the commission accepted, and recommended, that there are—and will continue to be—Blacks who will be South African citizens and that there should be a council for Black South African citizens.

Second class.

Hon. members in this House will remember the arguments we had about whether there were or were not going to be Black South African citizens. When an hon. the Minister, the then Minister of Health and now the Minister of Industries, said there would always be Black South African citizens, the statement was repudiated by the then Prime Minister and the then Minister of Bantu Affairs. Here, however, we have reached the stage of recommending a council for Black South African citizens.

There is another important proposal, and that is the proposal for a joint consultative committee, and I quote from point 10(f)(i) on page 6 of the interim report—

There is thus machinery for sitting down with committees of other councils. That moves a tremendous way from the original approach.

A fourth important step is that towards the creation of a committee for community relations. Here again we create a body which can seek out, identify and make recommendations about points of friction and disagreement which harm inter-race and inter-group relations. I see all these as significant, fundamental attitudes which are basic to whether we have a peaceful future ahead of us or not.

Let us now look to the other side. I have heard interjections from behind me, but I want to deal with this in the same spirit as the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition have done, i.e. on a basis of merit and fact. We had reservations. We submitted a minority report, an addendum to the interim report expressing the point of view of the three commissioners of the NRP. In that minority report we stated that we—

Then we record—

Our disagreement was placed on record clearly and specifically, and in the Committee Stage we shall oppose those provisions with which we then disagreed and with which we still disagree. We, however, had to clearly define what this measure did. What it is not is a new constitution for South Africa. It is not even a blueprint. It does not purport to be a new constitution. It does not pretend to be a new system of government. It is the mechanism for negotiation with other communities and other groups in an effort to draft such a constitution. The only constitutional changes are, firstly, the abolition of the Senate. All parties agree on that. The Senate lost its place in our constitution in 1955. It lost it when it ceased to have equal representation for the four provinces thereby serving as a check on chance majorities in the House of Assembly. From then on it became, more and more, simply a rubber stamp, a duplication of this House, and all parties agreed that it no longer had a function in our system.

The other constitutional change is the nominated MPs, something with which we disagree. We shall argue that matter in detail in the Committee Stage. Then there is also the new office of Vice-State President. For the rest there is no constitutional change incorporated in this Bill. What it creates— and I want to repeat this—is a President’s Council which is not a body to replace the Senate, but a negotiating body which is not part of the legislative machinery or of Parliament. It is also specifically excluded from advising Parliament on legislation unless it is asked to do so.

Therefore, the only test we have to apply is whether the President’s Council can provide machinery for consultation, can provide a forum for all to participate in planning and working together.

Let me look at its limitations. The Blacks are in a separate council. I disagree with that. This was a clear compromise—nobody is bluffed in that regard—between the point of view that the Blacks have no place in our constitution-making and the point of view that they should be incorporated on an equal basis.

There are, however, also positive aspects to it. The positive aspects are that the Blacks are recognized and accepted as part of the constitution-making process and, secondly, that there is provision to end up around the same table discussing the same future. We may not like the route by which that is arrived at, but the end result of these proposals will be a joint committee where White, Coloured, Indian, Chinese, urban Black and homeland Black will sit around one table and contribute together to shaping the future destiny of South Africa. To my mind that is more important than the means one uses to get there. I would have preferred one such body established directly. There are, however, reasons why it might be better at this stage to go about it as is proposed. I believe it will develop to the establishment of a joint body in the end anyway. The reason why it may be better to do it as has been proposed is that nobody has yet identified the aspirations of the urban Black man in South Africa and where he fits into the pattern. Here we have proposed a body of Black people who can debate amongst themselves and say where the urban Black man belongs and whether he fits into the homelands or does not fit into them. That is better than if we as Whites determine where and how he fits into our structure. It is as well that that should be done and this is a valuable interim step towards whatever the final position is going to be.

The other limitation is that the members of the President’s Council will be nominated and not elected. This is, however, the factual position. There is no alternative. The factual position is that only the Whites and the Blacks of South Africa have an elected political leadership. The Coloureds have nothing at all and the Indians have only an indirectly elected political leadership. This is a charge against the Government which it must deal with urgently. It is vital to create for the Coloured and Indian people an elected leadership which is seen to be accepted by their people. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition made a very important statement when he said that persons must be recognized by their respective communities as leaders. It must not be the people we point out, we say are the leaders, but the people the Coloureds and the Indians themselves pick as leaders. However, the weakness of nominated leaders rather than elected leaders is something over which we have no control at this stage.

Then there are other aspects on which I do not need to expand, such as the nominated members of the House, but I do believe and maintain that if this measure is adopted, as it will be, against our opposition, then those MPs should be nominated, as the Senators were, by the provincial councils and the members of the Assembly sitting as an electoral college. One could then bring in the other tier of government and then perhaps give some meaning to this. However, I believe that simply to nominate people whom the Government want to nominate is completely wrong. I also believe that the nomination of four members not linked to the proportionate system is totally unjustified. A majority party cannot nominate persons who could hold the balance of power in a close election. If there are to be any additional members, then it has to be proportionate to the voting, or they have to be nominated by an electoral college consisting of members of the Assembly and Provincial Councils. It is completely wrong to simply nominate MPs.

We are not going to play politics as far as the provision for two extra Ministers is concerned. I believe there is such a tremendous growth and responsibility in government that two extra Ministers are perhaps justified.

So we have had to weigh up the imperfections and the advantages against each other, and we have come to the conclusion that this is the first step at national level towards interracial communication on an official level. We have done it in Natal on a provincial and local level. We see this now as the opening of a door which we hope responsible non-White leadership will use to come in and participate in shaping the future. The alternative to this is rejection, which means that we will be back to square one. If one votes against this, one goes back to a situation where the Whites determine for themselves, then try to sell it to the other population groups or impose their will. The choice as regards this measure before the House is that you either give it a chance or you oppose it and say that you would rather have nothing. There is no other alternative. If we reject this Bill, we will revert back to a Whites only constitution-making system. If we reject it and withdraw from participating in it, as I gather the official Opposition means by saying they will have nothing to do with it, which means they will not participate in it …

Yes.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition confirms they will not participate in it. If we were to do that, we would be excluding ourselves from making a contribution to the most urgent problem which is facing South Africa. We would make ourselves completely irrelevant in politics, because we would be excluded from shaping the future of this country. Imperfect as it is, we are prepared to support this measure, to give it a trial and to play whatever part we can in using it to help to guide us into the future ahead of us. We believe that we have a contribution to make, and I am very disappointed at the disagreement in the reception of this measure, in the sharp divisions that have appeared. I do not want to play politics, but the Government party is divided. [Interjections.] I have here a cutting of 9 May headed: “Sommer baie basiese verskille tussen die twee vleuels van die Nasionale Party herbevestig.” The article states—

Who said that?

It appeared in a column of Die Vaderland. I could quote a dozen others. There is dividion in the English and in the Afrikaans Press. For once I agree with the Sunday Times. It is years since last I have agreed with the Sunday Times. The Sunday Times says that we must give this a chance, and we agree with that. We must give it a chance. Some say it is too much and some say it is too little, but its rejection is an open invitation to radicals and to those who seek confrontation to exploit the situation, to exploit it by discrediting and making the President’s Council unacceptable to responsible leadership, and without them there will be a vacuum.

I want to conclude by saying that we have also measured this against the NRP’s model for the future. As I see it, the White, Coloured, Indian and Chinese communities will be linked to a central consultative body. The Blacks will be in another body, linked with it indirectly. Then there is the hon. the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, linking homelands and independent States. Here, for consultative purposes, is the same pattern as that of our concept for constitutional development, a federation in the common area, which leaves only the urban Black still to be linked in to become complete, and a confederation with the homelands. We hope that from this consultative machinery there may develop the same sort of model we foresee as the ultimate constitutional model. I hope that this will be the start on the road to the new republic which this country needs.

We shall play our part and help to shape it as much as we can, but a tremendous responsibility rests upon the political leadership of White and non-Whites in South Africa today. But the biggest responsibility rests upon the hon. the Prime Minister’s shoulders. I believe he recognizes that responsibility, because it is in his hands to make this work or not to work. And I say to him, like Hamlet: “The time is out of joint, Oh cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right.” That is his task. In the mess in which South Africa is in now this is the time to set it right. The NRP hopes that he will do a better job than was done in Hamlet and we shall give him all the help we can to try to make this work and to try to set South Africa on the road to the sort of new republic which we would like to see for South Africa.

We shall vote for the Second Reading.

Mr. Speaker, essentially the hon. member for Durban Point made a very constructive speech, and except for certain things which he apparently said with a view to making a little party-political capital, I cannot really differ with a great deal of what he said. In fact, I should like to develop his line of thought. However, before doing so I think it would be appropriate if I, too, as a member of this side of the House, paid tribute to the very sympathetic and patient chairmanship of the hon. the Minister of the Interior in this commission and also for the very active and enthusiastic participation of the hon. Ministers in the commission. I should also like to pay tribute to the Secretariat of the House of Assembly and the Secretariat of the Interior for the tremendous task they performed in order to have this interim report ready in time for the drafting of the Bill for us today. They even sacrificed evenings and weekends to do this work.

I do not think the official Opposition is doing South Africa a service with their relentless opposition to this Bill. Surely they must concede that the Government has gone out of its way to make an effort to have the whole population of South Africa participate in this exercise. The official Opposition could just as well have taken part in this exercise without sacrificing any of their standpoints concerning matters of principle. I did not gain the impression from the hon. Leader of the Opposition in particular, during the sittings of the commission and during our discussions, that he was so vehemently opposed to this proposal that he would not only oppose the Bill at the Second Reading but would even utilize the extremely strong form of objection to this Bill of opposing it even at the First Reading. After all, there were so many things on which we could have agreed with one another. The hon. Leader of the NRP referred to them. For example, there was the abolition of the Senate.

In their minority report the official Opposition said that no evidence had been received to motivate the creation of the office of the Vice-State President. Surely that is not even correct. Apart from the fact that clause 11 of the original Bill already mentions that a member of the President’s Council will be Acting State President if the State President is not available, there is also evidence which motivates the appointment of a Vice-State President in a different way. For example I want to refer to page 3 of document UU. It is a memorandum submitted by attorneys from Johannesburg, Mr. Rhoode and others. They want to know why provision is not made for a Vice or Deputy President. In their opinion such a person could become fully acquainted with all the aspects of the work of the State President and could succeed him automatically if for any reason he was unable to perform the duties of his office. Then too, there is the memorandum of the hon. member for False Bay. There is evidence suggesting that a Vice-State President be appointed in the way proposed in this draft Bill. Therefore that allegation in the minority report is totally unfounded. Even had there been no evidence concerning the office of the Vice-State President, surely a commission does not operate like a court of law which only makes findings strictly in accordance with the evidence submitted to it. The evidence and the memoranda before it serve to stimulate the thinking of the commission, and in the course of the deliberations one reaches certain conclusions.

There are important aspects on which we reached agreement, as the hon. member for Durban Point also mentioned. For example there are aspects such as the creation of a President’s Council. There is unanimity as regards the establishment of such a council, that a workshop be created in which dialogue could be carried on with a view to the achievement of consensus. There was consensus on that. The dialogue concerns not only the new political dispensation, but also all matters that are referred to the council or which the council wishes to deliberate on of its own accord. After all, there can be no objection in principle to the establishment of a President’s Council, particularly not such an objection as to cause one to object to the Bill even at the First Reading. The fact that they opposed it at that stage casts suspicion on their motives as far as I am concerned.

We have come to the end of a long, rich and exciting period in which the White group in South Africa struggled for 70 years to achieve consensus. We began with the principle “South Africa first”, and the problems that involved. We reached agreement in that regard. We argued with one another about the equal rights for the two languages. The various population groups in South Africa reached agreement in that regard. Over the decades we have argued with one another about the right of neutrality. We reached agreement in that regard. We argued with one another about the policy of separate development. We are still disputing that issue. We argued with one another about the establishment of a Republic. We reached agreement in that regard as well. Today we already have members of a New Republic Party in our midst. We have reached accord with one another in a new South Africa. It would have been exciting and filled everyone with so much enthusiasm if the official Opposition, too, had seen their way clear to joining with us so that the whole of White South Africa could extend a hand to all population groups in South Africa with a view to finding a new political, economic and community dispensation by means of this instrument, under which everyone would benefit and would enjoy contentment, freedom, protection and the right to the realization of all our aspirations in a plural community, to our mutual advantage.

Let us just look back along the road which the Government has already travelled as far as this matter is concerned. It had its origin in recommendation 178 of the Erika Theron Commission report, a recommendation which arose out of the unanimous finding of the commission that the Westminster system of “one man, one vote”, which was subject to the principle that the winner took the prize without the minority being able to exercise the right of veto, would not work in a plural community in South Africa. In following that up the Cabinet Committee, under the chairmanship of the hon. the Prime Minister considered the matter in a sincere endeavour to find a modus vivendi. This led to a public debate, to deliberations in which academics, the Press, cultural organizations and politicians of all population groups have enthusiastically taken part. The result of this intensive and purposeful exercise has been a constitutional plan with which the Government has gone first to its caucus, then to its congresses and subsequently to the people of South Africa. Surely this attests to a zealous and bona fide search for solutions. Surely it demonstrates a certain sensitivity on the part of the Government and an impatient and restless striving to find a better dispensation for all of us.

This constitutional plan, that has been accepted by the people of South Africa, has been rejected by the official Opposition. The hon. member for Groote Schuur—the Chief Whip—rejected this Bill in advance. He wanted no part of it, despite the fact that in the first place, Coloured and Asian leaders, after hearing about it, associated themselves with the plan and intimated that they could not imagine how the Government could have persuaded its congresses to accept this plan for a new dispensation. That was the first reaction of the Coloured and Asian leaders, but the official Opposition totally rejected this plan.

Nevertheless, in its sincere striving to find at least a point of departure and establish a dialogue, the Government decided to refer the matter to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. Fortunately the official Opposition agreed to serve on this Select Committee. Therefore the progress we have made is remarkable, but that is not all. In spite of criticism even from people who helped draw up the original plan, it was widely announced in the Press and on television that everyone could submit memoranda to and give evidence before the commission. Representations were also made by people who were not well-disposed towards the Government or the plan for a new dispensation. Representations were even received from abroad.

This Select Committee was later converted into a commission, and as we know, a vast number of memoranda were received. I want to mention that it redounds to the credit of the people in our country that they take such an interest in the political development of South Africa as to come forward in such numbers to submit memoranda and give evidence. Let us have no illusions about the progress already made in this regard.

There is overwhelming consensus in South Africa that the process of change should be a peaceful one. This consensus exists not only among the parties represented in Parliament, but also among influential figures in all population groups throughout South Africa and among people who were vehement opponents of the Government. There is consensus that the Westminster system does not afford a solution to the problems of South Africa. Just consider the progress we have made in this field. Consider for example the progress made by the Chief Whip of the official Opposition. When he was Senator, he said on 11 May 1976 (Senate Hansard, 1976, Vol. 2, col. 2177)—

The hon. member for Houghton said—

But Japie Basson does not think like that.

So the hon. member for Houghton, too, has moved towards greater consensus. The hon. member for Sea Point also reached the conclusion that we are living in a plural community with profound ethnic and cultural differences. He has come a long way from the days when he still believed that we should do everything in our power to eliminate group loyalties, feelings and prejudices. We have come a long way along the road of consensus, as is also evident from paragraph 8(b) of the majority report of the Schlebush Commission to which the hon. leader of the Opposition referred. I quote—

We agree on this.

The official Opposition would like Black South African citizens to be brought into the President’s Council. Our view of history as it has evolved up to this stage and our view of the history of South Africa is that the Black people move in a totally different sphere to the other population groups in South Africa. Therefore, when one brings the Black South African citizens into the sovereignty of the other population groups in the country, the right of self-determination of the minority groups is prejudiced thereby. By accepting this Bill, however, we are keeping all our options open. Neither the Opposition nor the NP are forfeiting anything that is not negotiable. Let them, therefore, oppose the Second Reading if they want to do so. Let them oppose the introduction of the Bill too. However, I call upon them to participate in the President’s Council, to follow the lead given them by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. After all, his conduct is that of a true South African. [Interjections.] His conduct is the conduct of a person who means well by the vehicle we are seeking to create here.

Long live Japie! [Interjections.]

Japie Woltemade. [Interjections.]

We all agree that this Parliament is the instrument by means of which a new dispensation must come into being. It is this Parliament that must now establish a body which is to review our constitutional progress on an on-going basis. The Opposition argues that we are creating a permanent body. In the first place this is an interim report. We are presenting with an interim report and creating a vehicle. Who knows what is to become of this vehicle? We really hope and trust that this vehicle will bring into being something which will elicit our admiration in a few years’ time, which in the future we shall be glad to have created, and to have had a share in doing so. How, then, can we dissociate ourselves from such a body? Surely that would not amount to constructive participation. The fact that nothing is permanent is proved by this very Bill. The fact that we are taking our leave of the Senate at this stage … Are hon. members of the Opposition dissatisfied because we do not mention specifically in the Bill that this is a point of departure, or that it is only a temporary means to an end? Who could say such a thing in advance?

The Opposition goes on to say that we must only consider constitutional matters in the President’s Council. Why? Why only constitutional matters? That is what they say in their minority report. Why should the President’s Council not make a point of taking cognizance of the economic development and economic recourses of South Africa? After all, one cannot develop a constitutional plan if one does not take full cognizance of the economy of the country. When one is engaged in a political exercise one must surely also take cognizance of community relations as they manifest themselves and are identified from time to time. However, in the process one must plan; that is to say, if one has in the President’s Council not only a constitutional subcommittee, but also an economic subcommittee, a community relations subcommittee, and a planning subcommittee, then one has the whole set-up together in one body. And that is to the best advantage of the political development. We have seen how many memoranda have already been submitted to the commission. We have taken cognizance of the evidence of a number of witnesses. If the commission had been a court, I have no doubt that there is no unanimity whatsoever or even a balance of probabilities that would have become manifest out of what we have before us at the moment. However, there are a few things about which there is clarity. They are that we cannot switch to a new constitution overnight. I believe there is no doubt whatsoever on this score. In the second place, it is clear that a process must be initiated to enable us to establish a new dispensation. Moreover, it is also clear that a constitution is not static. Then, too, I think there is something else that has become manifest from this evidence. It is that at this stage the political atmosphere is not suitable for the establishment of an ideal and final constitution. I think it is necessary and important that we should first rub shoulders in constitutional practice in an effort to find one another and abjure our mutual suspicion. As I see it one thing is clear. We shall have to move gradually from the known to the new, and ultimately the new constitution will be based on the experience that is gained from this point onwards. I think we would all do well to take another look at the evidence of people like prof. Rautenbach. The hon. Leader of the Opposition also referred to his evidence. In his arguments and recommendations he states—

Surely there can be no dispute about this. Let us give effect to this new development instatecraft with great enthusiasm and optimism. Let us from this point on build the future of every man, woman and child in South Africa. It is a pity that we cannot take this step as a united South Africa. I should like to support this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. members who have previously spoken. I heard the hon. member for Brakpan say that the Government is continually striving to seek solutions to the problems of South Africa. Why he misses the boat, however, is because he does not seem to understand that the solutions to the problems of South Africa do not He in the hands of the Government alone. For solutions which have been proposed and legislated for to have any sort of lasting effect at all, it is absolutely essential that those solutions meet the minimum aspirations of the people whom they purport to affect. It is our contention that in the fact that the minimum aspirations have not been met, lies the failure of the legislation before us. [Interjections.] I shall motivate that further as I go along. The hon. member for Durban Point said that rejection of this legislation would mean that there is no alternative other than to go back to the drawing board, to go back to square one, to go back to White domination, if I understood him correctly. That is a fallacious argument. It is an argument that holds no water, because there are other solutions offered to South Africa, both in the commission and by the polices of the various political parties. There is a minority report before the House. There are the policies offered by the NRP as also policies of other political leaders. So far from the rejection of this legislation leading to a stand-still situation, and far from the NP policy being the only alternative to chaos, I say that NP policy and proposals are, quite to the contrary, a recipe for escalating discord.

You can talk nonsense from time to time.

I see that the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications is no longer in the House. He seems to have left the House.

I should think that he would, too.

I am not surprised.

I hope he does not come back.

I say that because we were all shocked by the comment he made in this House this afternoon. I and my colleagues sat on the Commission of Inquiry into the Constitution for several months, and during that time no constitutional or other major argument was put forward to indicate why Black people should not be included in the policy-making body, the State President’s Council, except arguments relating to White electoral problems. We nevertheless have had presented in this House the argument, by a Minister of State in South Africa, that the reason why Black people are excluded from the State President’s Council is because they need more time to make decisions than Whites, that they are slower in their thinking processes and that they are an underdeveloped people. From the comer of the House, as the hon. the Minister was saying that, came the comment: “And they are in the majority.” Can anyone deny that that was what was said? Perhaps that is where the truth lies.

Read his Hansard again.

The comments of the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications are a supreme insult to the Black leadership and the Black people of South Africa. They show a paternalism such as we have not witnessed here since the days of Lord Milner.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister of the Interior whether he subscribes to the view that Black people are slower-thinking, slower in their thought processes.

Make your own speech.

May I then ask the hon. the Minister of Community Development whether he will not repudiate that shocking comment, or has he, too, not the courage to do so?

I am still going to speak in the debate.

The Government is prepared to give independence and the power to run countries or States to Black people within this territory and yet they do not think that they are quick-thinking enough to serve on a nominated advisory body such as the President’s Council.

You are being utterly irresponsible.

What sort of shocking comment is that to come from a Minister of State? What sort of insulting comment is that to come from a Minister? The hon. the Minister says that one of the reasons why Blacks may not serve on the President’s Council is that we still have to teach the Blacks what a constitution actually is. I wonder what the hon. leader of kwa-Zulu, Chief Buthelezi, will have to say about that. I wonder what the leaders who have used the Government institutions to take part in the constitution-making of South Africa will say to that sort of comment. That hon. Minister has done more than any other person in this House to sink the credibility of the legislation before us by making a comment such as he has made.

He let the cat out of the bag. That is what he did.

A major South African tragedy is that change is seen differently through different eyes. Through the eyes of the average White South African change in recent years has been far-reaching, it has been rapid and in the eyes of some it has even been radical. We look to the sports fields, we look to the changes in the attendance of theatres and occupation of hotels and we even look to changes in aspects of economic life. In some eyes change is seen as being so radical and so fast that warnings have been issued. Warnings have been issued by people giving evidence to the commission and even by some commissioners themselves to fellow commissioners, warnings that a right-wing backlash and violence from that quarter is in fact a real threat. In that context I believe that the majority proposals which are before us today are probably about as far as the Government can or is prepared to go to test the electorate in trying to find avenues to meet the critically urgent constitutional reforms which are required.

It is a great sadness that these proposals have about as much chance of succeeding as a block of cement has of floating in Table Bay harbour, for they ignore a basic requirement of change as seen through those other eyes, the eyes of the vast majority of Black, Coloured and Indian South Africans. In the charged atmosphere of post-Zimbabwe, of rising expectations, of escalating impatience, the picture takes a different form from that seen by White people. It is a picture of status quo, of continuing poverty, of intransigent apartheid legislation, of lingering political impotence, of growing frustration.

It was against this background that I and my fellow PFP colleague on the commission had to deliberate. It was against the background of Zimbabwe, the Silverton attack, the Booysens Police station attack, world hostility and what we know of communist infiltration into South Africa that we had to deliberate. We also had to deliberate in the realization that constitutional reform could provide the key to future peace, that whatever changes are brought about, can only legally occur with the consent of the White electorate and that inadequate change would do no more than precipitate a momentum of unguided events which would not be capable of control. It was against these stark realities that we had to formulate our attitude. Here something quite remarkable happened, for when we, the PFP commissioners, discussed it amongst ourselves, we found that we had but one single motive—not a partisan party motive or a motive orientated by own political gain—but a motive … [Interjections.] Hon. members may not believe me, but I speak sincerely when I say that that motive was to find a formula, a consensus mechanism, a means of creating a body, a forum, an acceptable vehicle, to initiate the constitutional debate, to keep it going and to assist in the defusion of a potentially chronic explosive situation. Our deepseated feeling and desire to achieve an agreed view is evident from our actions on the commission. But nearly all the evidence, certainly the most authoritative evidence from people like Prof. Rautenbach, Prof. Vosloo, Prof. Welsh, Prof. De Crespigny and others, convinced us that one criteria in working towards a new constitution overrode virtually all others—and that was the criterion of legitimacy, or in our terms, the criterion of acceptability. Consensus was reached on even that point, as the unanimous finding in paragraph 8(a) of the interim report evidences. It has already been quoted. The report goes on to say—

We, as did the other commissioners, sought a vehicle, a mechanism, for the constitutional debate to be commenced. We realized, as everyone else did, that the Schlebusch Commission itself could not provide that forum. It had to be something else and so we debated that “something else” amongst ourselves. However, we knew, both from the evidence before us and from our own knowledge of South African politics, that acceptability, or legitimacy, has at least two prerequisites. Firstly, that whatever forum is devised, it must originate from consultation, from negotiation and agreement. Until that has been achieved, permanent and unilaterally set up constitutional structures must be avoided or be established only at the grave risk of rejection from outside. The second element of acceptability relates to its representativeness, its capacity to attract loyalty and respect and particularly its capacity to attract participation of those on whose behalf it deliberates. That is why we agreed at one of the earlier meetings of the commission—I think it was on 14 March 1980—to paragraphs 1 to 8 of the majority report and assisted in its drafting.

That is why, in an effort to clear the way for the creation of such a forum, so vital to the future of all of us, we went even further in an attempt to reach unanimity. Although we are not supporters of a unicameral system, we agreed, and we still agree, that in the light of the present State of ossification of the Other Place, it should be abolished. So, putting aside our main objections for the moment, we were, and still are, prepared to make concessions on many aspects of constitutional reform. Even in the legislation in front of us, on the functions of President’s Council, its name, the remuneration of members, the detail, the procedures and even the committee structure, we are prepared and have been prepared to make concessions. Even on the question of the appointment as opposed to the election of its members we are prepared to make concessions. An appointed council, with advisory powers only, is not our first choice, but it is a concept upon which a compromise might be made. If such an advisory body could be made representative of the recognized leadership of South Africa, it is not impossible that it could act as a catalyst for the meeting of minds, to be directed jointly at identifying further avenues of negotiation and progress. Such a body could conceivably initiate a meaningful process of reform with the support of the majority of South Africans of all colours. Our objection was, and at this very moment still is, not to the setting up of a council or of a body to start the negotiating process. But it was not to be.

Why not support the Bill then?

When the crucial issue was finally discussed, after much of the detail had been dealt with, it became clear to me, and to my fellow-commissioners that the Government commissioners did not harbour the courage to give effect to their own conclusions, namely that all South Africans had to be involved. This would have been taking too big a risk with the White electorate, right though those conclusions may have been. And here—I regret to say it—the NRP in its pathetic and transparent attempt, at the expense of all other considerations, to curry some semblance of electoral favour, has let South Africa down.

That is cheap politics.

I believe that because their commissioners state in their addendum—

While they wrote that in their addendum, we put the following proposition on 30 April—

It is almost virtually word for word identical with what is stated in the addendum of the NRP. But when we put that, the guts and the key to the issue of constitutional reform, the commissioners of that political party voted against it.

Disgusting.

They voted in favour of the proposal to create what they do not want, as set out in this legislation. No, I say, and I am sorry that I have to say it, that by their short-term, cynical and politically bankrupt stand on this Bill, they have forfeited the right to whatever vestige of respect they may have enjoyed in the past.

We shall see.

When all that is said, we are still faced with the decision of what to do about this Bill. Even at this late stage, in the quest to reach an agreed view, we would be prepared to walk away with less than the whole loaf, to accept a new body even though it is not exactly as we would have designed it. The times demand compromise and concession, not only amongst Whites, but also between Whites and the other population groups in South Africa. However, if the kernel prerequisite to possible success—and that is the inclusion in the President’s Council of representatives of Black citizens of South Africa—is vetoed, the council becomes an exercise in futility, a futility which could yet cost South Africa dear. What do we have before us? We have before us a multiracial body of Whites, Indians, Coloureds and Chinese—the latter numbering only 8 000 in the whole of South Africa—a chairman chosen by the Whites only, a separate and obviously inferior committee for our 18 million Black citizens, a committee which is seen as being so unimportant by this hon. Government that legislation on this aspect has not even yet been formulated. To add to this major defect, all the organs are to be appointed and will be advisory only, and this institution, as also the office of the elected White chairman, are to be enshrined in the permanent constitution of South Africa long before other communities have offered their agreement or support. The result, the tragedy, of this is so predictable. Not only will it fail as a medium for introducing reform, but its very composition will exacerbate and worsen race relations, and I believe that it will do the very contrary to what the Government would like to see. It will serve to polarize. The President’s Council has been dubbed a prestige body. By setting the remuneration very high, some well-known people may perhaps even decide to accept appointment. These people will, however, very quickly be alienated from their own constituencies.

That is a nice thing to say.

The fate of Ian Smith’s chosen moderates in Zimbabwe of today, I believe is no idle example. The chance of the President’s Council achieving acceptability with the majority of South Africans in its present form is virtually nil. It has been rejected by the leadership of the recognized Coloured parties, not to mention the less moderate groupings. It has been brushed aside by almost every known popular urban Black leader. I do not think that a single homeland leader has had anything good to say about it. As an instrument for negotiated constitutional reform, the President’s Council is as dead as the proverbial dodo. Because it does not provide the bare minimum required to give it a chance of success, we have no alternative but to reject the introduction of a President’s Council in the form it is proposed here.

I should like to speak about one other aspect of this Bill, and that is the infamous proposal to increase the number of members of Parliament by four nominated members and eight indirectly elected members. No evidence in support of this proposal was received by the commission. I do not believe that this proposal is needed to further the aims of any of the objects of the Government proposals.

How can you say that?

Let us take into account all the excuses offered, such as the experts who are required and who are not available through the normal electoral processes. The hon. Leader of the Opposition was quite correct in saying that this is just another ploy to bolster the minority position of the hon. the Prime Minister within his own party and to consolidate his power at the expense of the Transvaal members. Hon. members from the Cape can shout at me. They may do that, but I want to tell this hon. House that when we are outside and talking man to man, there are very few hon. members from the Transvaal who do not denigrate this provision of this Bill. [Interjections.] There should be no room in a House elected by the people for nominated members who will represent no one except the person or power to whom they owe their good fortune. As the PFP we cannot accept this foreign and discordant intrusion into the democratic process in the Republic, and accordingly we reject it completely.

Will you elect a member?

Let me say one other thing. Let me come back to where I started at the beginning.

But answer me.

When I asked that hon. Minister a question, he told me to make my own speech. Now he can just wait and then, later on, make his own speech.

I am going to reply.

I should like to come back to what I said at the beginning. The degree of change is in the eye of the beholder.

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

No. Please do sit down quickly. I want to carry on. The provisions of this Bill may well constitute a giant step for the NP, but they will mean little that is positive in the period of conflict which seems to be looming. At this eleventh hour, a time when impending crisis seems almost to be upon us, a time in which we in this society are facing boycotts, marches, riots, strikes, sabotage and terrorism, a time in which, despite all, there are still a few options available to us to institute peaceful change, I believe it amounts to a sin against the young sons of South Africa to have discarded this opportunity to create a meaningful instrument for reconciliation. The price that all South Africans will yet pay for this short-sightedness will be painfully high.

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that the hon. member for Sandton is frustrated. He and his party would very much have liked to react. I want to tell him that the kind of atmosphere he tried to create in this debate this afternoon is totally inappropriate to a debate in which we must deliberate in a calm atmosphere on a new constitutional dispensation for the future in an orderly system in South Africa by way of the introduction of a President’s Council.

The hon. member made the statement that the NP’s policy was a recipe for the escalation of violence. I want to reject that statement here and now with contempt.

The hon. member told us at length about the debate they conducted among themselves. They wanted nothing to do with this President’s Council because its composition was not acceptable to them or to other groups.

In my opinion, like the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member did not speak here this afternoon merely to air his opinion on the composition of the President’s Council, but rather to arouse feelings outside this House. I shall come back to that again later. This afternoon the hon. Leader of the Opposition publicly forbade the hon. member for Bezuidenhout to take part in the proceedings of the President’s Council, or is the hon. member for Bezuidenhout going to decide for himself whether he will participate in it or not?

The approach of the hon. Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Sandton to the President’s Council is illustrated by the words of the hon. Leader of the Opposition that “We first want to evaluate the viability of institutions” before they will take part in them or give their support to them. But long before they investigate them, they shoot those institutions down in advance. This proves to me that the official Opposition is certainly not prepared to make any bona fide effort or adopt a positive attitude to stabilize the future of South Africa by way of talks and consultation.

The hon. member for Sandton was intent solely on belittling the composition of the President’s Council and the members who will take part in it. However, I shall come back to that.

It is to me an exceptional privilege to be a member of the Schlebusch Commission under the leadership and chairmanship of the hon. the Minister of the Interior, and I should like to associate myself with the tribute paid him by other hon. members for the outstanding way in which he leads the commission. I should like to pay tribute, too, to the hon. the Minister of Transport for his conduct as Deputy Chairman of the commission and I should also like to associate myself with the tributes paid here today by the hon. member for Brakpan.

This legislation places us on the road of constitutional consultation, and from the time of the acceptance of this measure until another constitution is adopted by this House in the future, there are going to be several comprehensive and in-depth discussions and debates, at all times, however, within an orderly State system. We recognize that our complicated population structure will set extraordinary demands on the development and establishment of the new constitution, but with the implementation of this measure we are finally under way to a new constitutional dispensation.

Clause 16 of the Bill provides for the repeal of several sections of the Constitution, and in terms of this brief, almost inconspicuous clause, read together with clause 37, the Senate is abolished as from 1 January 1981. May I express my full appreciation for the work of the Senate, and for my valuable friendship with hon. Senators? In the 70 years of its existence the Senate, as part of the legislative authority, has played an exceptional role in the constitutional development of South Africa. I am told that approximately 360 Senators have sat in the Other Place since 1910. Hon. members will recall that in earlier years the period of office of a Senator was limited to 10 years. I am informed that throughout the life of the Senate there have been only 15 Senators whose terms of service will have been 15 years or longer, and six of them are serving Senators. I calculate that the number of volumes of Senate Hansard will be 281. In this regard I should also like to convey a special word of appreciation to Senator P. W. de Villiers, formerly a long-serving provincial councillor of Klerksdorp and at present also chairman of our caucus, for his exceptional contribution and services, including services he rendered unselfishly to the community of Klerksdorp for many years. The Senator and his wife still enjoy sincere respect in our community.

The Interim Report of the commission mentions in paragraph 8(a) that it is of the opinion—this too has already been quoted here this afternoon and for the purposes of my speech, I too should like to refer to it—that—

It is known that this finding of the commission which is mentioned in the majority report is supported by the commissioners of the PFP in their minority report. Indeed, it is stated in the minority report that they largely agree with it. A very important admission is made by the commissioners of the PFP, namely—

It is my opinion that this admission is not made by all the hon. members of the official Opposition, but it does represent progress.

For example, we can look at what the hon. member for Houghton said in Johannesburg at a lunch-hour meeting in the City Hall the day before yesterday. Present were public representatives of the PFP, various clerics, representatives of the Black Sash and so on. I quote from Die Transvaler of Tuesday, 3 June 1980—

But of course.

I do not hear any denial from the hon. member.

She said “Of course”. [Interjections.]

I must point out that what she said here was an absolute contradiction of the standpoint adopted this afternoon by the hon. Leader of the Opposition and by the hon. member for Sandton, who have just said that they are prepared to give a body the opportunity to cause a political system to develop. The hon. member has already formulated his standpoint. Indeed, I believe that the hon. member for Houghton is in a great hurry to see another dispensation come into being in South Africa. Therefore she cannot permit a new constitutional system to develop in peace and quiet.

Boraine, too, of course.

I fully agree with the hon. member for Barberton. I believe that the hon. member for Pinelands, too, is just as hasty as that hon. mother of the PFP.

There are three of them. [Interjections.]

And Mandela, too.

The majority report … [Interjections.] In paragraph 8(b) of the majority report the following is also mentioned—

The hon. member for Sandton is not in the House at present. However, I want to put it to him once again that we are convinced that this motivation in the majority report has been taken into account and that it is being given effect to in this Bill by way of the establishment of the President’s Council. Moreover, all the commissioners agree with this recommendation. Indeed, the hon. Leader of the Opposition confirmed that during the First Reading. Talks among and with all population groups, and consultation and deliberation, are indispensable for a peaceful future. If talks, consultation and co-operation were to cease in South Africa, South Africa and all its people would have problems. Every person in South Africa is affected by this consultation. I believe that everyone should work together to create a positive climate among all population groups in order to facilitate and promote the work of the President’s Council and its committees. Therefore it is inappropriate in the extreme to make statements of the kind we have had to hear here this afternoon.

The President’s Council will in particular be the body which, as a council, and by means of its committees, will deliberate and advise on a continuous basis. In the majority report it is recognized—

The commission is making a sincere, honest and respectful submission to South Africa for the establishment of a medium, or a means, of expert deliberation, discussion and consultation with and among all population groups. It is being done with a view to raising the level of acceptability of the proposals and decisions with regard to the future constitutional dispensation. We want to co-operate in a positive spirit in promoting the interests of all population groups while remaining convinced that every nation wants to govern itself. At the same time we are co-operating to develop full political self-determination for all peoples and population groups that are still moving in that direction.

However, the minority report submitted by the hon. commissioners of the PFP contains a few subtle allegations, allegations, which to my mind, do not attest to an objective approach to the creation of an instrument for deliberation. I found it interesting when the hon. Leader of the Opposition put certain introductory paragraphs to us this afternoon. However, to supplement them I should like to quote to him two further paragraphs of their introduction. In the introductory remarks of the minority report it is stated on page 10—

In the first place, it will not be possible to establish a constitution acceptable to everyone in South Africa. Secondly, the word “unilaterally” is in my opinion prescriptive, and they are bringing emotion into an issue which should be dealt with calmly. I believe that the use of these words is aimed specifically at arousing feelings against the President’s Council. After all, this is not the final constitution that it is now being written, or that is being recommended in the interim report. As far as the President’s Council is concerned, the minority report states on page 11, and I quote—

The minority report does not state it as an opinion, but as if it is a fact, that the President’s Council and its functions, and its committees and their functions, and I quote point 10(f)(ii) of page 6—

… will not promote the process of peaceful constitutional development in the Republic. I say that this is a prescriptive statement which is not intended for us in this House of Assembly. Nor is it for the purposes of a peaceful, frank discussion and consultation in a council in which there will be opportunity for each to think for himself and take part. No, it is being said in an effort to keep people out of a council of Black South African citizens and in an effort to keep people from taking part in the President’s Council. It is being done in order to build up prejudices. Indeed, I think that the speech by the hon. Leader of the Opposition stressed just that this afternoon.

We do not belittle the political institutions of the national States nor those of the other population groups. Indeed, we recognize and respect their institutions. In my father-land I have to consult with the Coloureds and Chinese in the President’s Council with a view to advice on a political dispensation for the future and a meaningful division of power and joint responsibility on matters of common interest. In the national States there are no demands for political accommodation by other people. The national States can concern themselves consistently with the development and stabilization of their countries and people and political institutions. It is also foreseen that consultation, as it is stated in the Bill, will take place through the Council of Black South African citizens and its committees, with committees of the President’s Council. The official Opposition fears that the instrument created in terms of this legislation and the instrument that is still to be created, will work and will make progress. Unfortunately a climate of misgiving must always be created specifically in order to make negotiation difficult. In contrast, the main report very clearly seeks, in an objective way, to create the climate for negotiation and consultation so that ultimately, duly considered and well-founded advice may be given. I am sorry about this negative attitude on the part of the official Opposition. If people and population groups entertain fears and suspicion that they will not be justly treated in the process of consultation and the development of a new political development, we shall not make progress. We are dealing here today with an honest and purposeful effort to have a new political dispensation developed which will incorporate the maximum degree of acceptability for the maximum number of people in South Africa while at all times maintaining an orderly state of affairs. It is our constant endeavour at all times to have orderly, stable and effective government, because without that there will be no reliable guarantees for anyone, and certainly not for minority groups. We do not wish to prescribe to others. We do not wish to govern other peoples or population groups. We do not want people to live in servitude. We do not want to act in a superior way. However, we want to promote loyalty towards South Africa and a common attitude of pride and dedication. In this spirit we accept the challenges on the constitutional road that lies ahead, while standing firm on the principle that we want to govern ourselves, that we do not wish to forfeit our rights to self-determination.

There is no data bank containing models for a constitution. Nowhere in the world is there an example which applies to our complex population structure. The President’s Council may not become a nest of grievances. On the contrary, it is a unique vehicle which I trust will be used positively and correctly. It is important that the President’s Council should be depoliticized to the maximum extent and should carry out its activities in a peaceful and calm atmosphere with expert consultation, and that people themselves be afforded the opportunity to take part in consultation in an impartial fashion.

The hon. Opposition would like to think for others, whereas they are usually unable to think for themselves, not even here, necessarily, as was again evident today from the hon. member for Sandton. Indeed, they deny the realities of South Africa. The official Opposition is opposed to the introduction of the high office of the Vice-State President, inter alia, because they argue that no evidence was submitted to the commission advocating the introduction of this office. Despite other motivations, as was also rightly indicated here by the hon. member for Brakpan, it is surely true that the commission has to think for itself and may consider the formulation of proposals and is not merely a conduit for evidence. It is typical that the official Opposition cannot think for themselves, but because their newspapers think for them, they now also wish to think for the other population groups. I believe that those people are becoming tired of them.

To conclude, I should like to say that I wish the first President’s Council and its first chairman who will do pioneering work, every success. In the debate during the joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Assembly on 22 May this year the hon. member for Sea Point said (col. 25)—

I want to say to him that the constitution, whatever form it may assume, will never be acceptable to all South Africans. There can only be an effort to obtain the optimum level of acceptability. A constitution will have to grow in the hearts of the people and I trust that all citizens will co-operate positively and with enthusiasm in building the future of South Africa in this regard.

We are taking these steps in good faith and integrity, trusting that good judgment, understanding and the loyalty of all to the best interests of South Africa and all its population groups, will be decisive. I take pleasure in supporting the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Klerksdorp made a very positive speech with which I should like to associate myself. Before I proceed to do so, however, I just wish to refer to a few remarks which were made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition as well as the hon. member for Sandton. Firstly I want to refer to the way they appealed to witnesses before the Schlebusch Commission, including Prof. Rautenbach of RAU and Prof. Ben Vosloo. The hon. Leader of the Opposition said that Prof. Rautenbach had stated in his evidence that consultation in the forming of a constitution should take place as widely as possible.

No, he did not say that. He said other population groups should be involved.

I am pleased that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is spelling it out so clearly.

I wish to return to the documents which were submitted to the commission. I am referring to exhibit 5Q, and the captions to arguments on page 5 thereof, where Prof. Rautenbach stated the following under the subhead “Blacks”—

And Prof. Vosloo?

Prof. Rautenbach went further and defined the Constitutional Council basically as that from which these present proposals of the Government resulted. In the written documents of Prof. Vosloo, which were submitted to the commission, there was no reference whatsoever to this. In his evidence he also emphasized that there should be dialogue and consultation on as wide a front as possible. Surely the point is not that it was proposed by either of the two witnesses or others that this should be done specifically in this one body, the President’s Council.

The principle is there.

Surely there are other ways in which that can be done.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also said that we would not be able to present any constitutional argument to the House that Blacks should be accommodated in a separate body in the course of this process.

So far no constitutional argument has been advanced for doing so. That is what I said. I am not saying that there is no constitutional argument.

I think the hon. the Leader also implied that no constitutional arguments existed. He said by implication that he had advanced constitutional arguments for the establishment of a President’s Council on which all population groups were represented. The arguments advanced by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition were not constitutional arguments. Surely they were political arguments as well. They were psychological arguments, but they were not constitutional arguments because it is not a constitutional body which is being created. It is an instrument which has in fact to do with the politics and the psychology of the human being. We are working with the science of the possible.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also said that a motion in terms of which Blacks shall serve on the President’s Council would not be accepted by the NP caucus. However, I want to put the opposite argument to him. A motion that they be accommodated in a single body, but in a total process, was not acceptable in his party’s caucus.

That is correct.

Then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition must not level reproaches at another party.

I also wish to refer to the hon. member for Sandton who said that the PFP members of the commission joined the Schlebusch Commission with the motive of causing it to succeed and in order to set about matters in a positive way. I am prepared to accept that, but the hon. member for Sandton will have to consider his position. I am specifically mentioning the hon. member for Sandton, but there are other hon. members of his party as well who I believe did indeed have a positive motive to establish something which in their opinion could cause the constitutional process in South Africa to succeed. However, they came up against a majority in their caucus. The time has come for them to choose whether they want peaceful change or whether they really want to polarize to the point of violence and revolution in this country.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also referred to clause 8 of the Bill, which deals with the envisaged addition to section 13 of the Constitution Act—in other words, with the dignity of the Vice-State President. I think it is obvious that in a body such as the President’s Council, where there are important interests involved, the person who is chairman of the body must behave in the most impartial way and when that happens, his dignity must also be protected. If we made him a political figure such as a Deputy Prime Minister, one could not protect his dignity.

I now wish to refer to the idea of a national convention which was stated here as a alternative. In this connection I do not wish to go into details, but merely put a few questions to the hon. member for Houghton. According to Press reports she recently had an opportunity of visiting Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. I should like to know from her whether the reports were correct. I heard that the hon. member is going to participate in this debate later. Consequently she need not reply to me now. She can reply to my questions later. I should like to know from her whether she asked Mandela whether he still stands for violent change in South Africa, yes or no? She need not merely say “yes” or “no”, she can elaborate on this point.

[Inaudible.]

Have you not yet been to Robben Island?

Fortunately I have not yet been on Robben Island, nor do I intend staying there any longer than is necessary for a normal visit. I should like to avail myself of the opportunity which the hon. member for Houghton had. However, I wish to ask her …

I promise next time I go I will ask him that.

I want to thank the hon. member for her comment. The hon. member says the next time she visits Robben Island, she will ask Mandela whether he has changed his opinion in respect of violence. [Interjections.] The point I wish to make—and hon. members must please give me a chance to do so—is that that hon. member had an opportunity there to clear up a major issue in her own party, but failed to do so. There are people in that party who differ materially on the position and the role of Mandela in South African politics in future. The hon. member for Houghton had an opportunity to resolve this issue, but she did not avail herself of it. Naturally I cannot say that the hon. member was not telling the truth when she said that she did not ask him. In fact, she did not say it; she only said that she would indeed ask him next time she went to Robben Island. However, I should like to hear what her comment on this issue is.

In my further comments I wish to confine myself in respect of this Bill simply to the establishment of the President’s Council and the surrounding structures. The structures which are being created have two fundamental aims in mind. The one is to create a favourable atmosphere within which a total dialogue can be conducted to achieve an acceptable constitutional solution for South Africa. The second aim, which we should not allow to pass unnoticed, is that it also seeks in a certain sense to create a practical workshop in which people can co-operate and reach consensus in a process which is going to be essential for the future.

The ideal constitutional dispensation is one which grows. What is the ideal today, is perhaps unacceptable tomorrow and what is unacceptable today, is perhaps the ideal tomorrow. What is at present before this House is historically probably one of the most important developments which South Africa has ever had in its entire history. I wish to contend that in the constitutional history of South Africa only Union was on the same level as what is being discussed constitutionally in this House today. The development with the Status Laws and the constitutional development arising out of Dr. Verwoerd’s vision of the development of national States is secondary to what is being discussed in this House today. I think we must take cognizance of this. A prospect is now being created of everyone being able to confer together on the political future. We are not all seated behind the steering wheel of this vehicle which is coming into existence. Not all of us are even sitting on the front seat. Some of us are sitting on the back seat, and some of us are perhaps sitting in the dicky, conversing through the back window. [Interjections.] But this is because there are as yet no vehicles available today which can accommodate everyone, and that is what we are seeking. Therefore hon. members must give this development a chance to work.

The admission is that historically the Whites had the absolute say over any constitutional development in South Africa. With this measure this standpoint is being swung round to that of a mutual say over how constitutional development should take place. It is going to be a long process, and we have decided that the process must be peaceful, and not only we but also members of other groups decided that it should be peaceful. It is frequently said that today’s generation of Blacks is the last generation of Blacks which will still be prepared to talk. We must also consider that today’s generation of Whites could perhaps be the last generation of Whites which is prepared to talk.

The official Opposition is not a factor in politics for the future if we speak of a positive factor. Nor is it a danger to this Government as an alternative Government, but the danger for the future is in fact the White right-wing school of thought in South Africa, to which the hon. member for Sandton referred. However, the hon. members are gleefully helping to achieve the same goal as would be achieved if the people on the far right of the complete White political spectrum were to come into power. This would lead to complete chaos and confrontation in this country.

Let us just see what opportunities are indeed being created here in terms of the legislation. In terms of the proposed section 103 a President’s Council is being established on which members of the White, Coloured, Indian or Chinese population groups may have representation. In terms of the proposed section 106(4)(b) a council of Black South African citizens is being envisaged. In the proposed section 106(4)(a) it is being provided that the President’s Council may consult with any person or State institution. The expression “any person” in turn allows the dialogue to be conducted further afield than merely as far as Black South African citizens.

The proposed section 106(4)(b) provides that the President’s Council may consult with the Black council and may form joint committees, but it is also being provided that the President’s Council shall in fact do this if it receives instructions to that effect from the State President. In other words, if it is said that it may do this and that this will not necessarily follow, it is an argument which does not really hold water. In fact, this process is taken so far that it is possible to advise on legislation at request, and this expands the possibilities even further. It is possible, as I have spelled out to this House, that non-Black citizens may also in fact be involved in the consultation process.

Let us examine the standpoint of the official Opposition in this connection for a while. I am referring specifically to page 10 of the report, on which, as Annexure B, the minority report appears. The representatives of the hon. members state there that their major objection is that Black South African citizens are disqualified from membership of the President’s Council. However, they said that they were seeking a vehicle within which everyone could confer. I state this again: Why should it specifically be one body, one constitutional institution in which this dialogue must be conducted? Surely it makes no difference what form the body takes, as long as a total dialogue can be conducted.

They go on to say in their conclusion on page 11 that the task is that of evolving a constitution acceptable to all groups of our population. They then state that this is one of the most urgent and important tasks which the Government must undertake. If it is really so urgent, surely these hon. members ought to support the proposals. Surely there is then an opportunity here to build something on this foundation. Hon. members have conceded that it is an improvement on the status quo. I agree that it has not met their requirements. However, is it meaningful to reject this measure and still say afterwards that they are not prepared to play any part in this President’s Council or any of its functions?

I think the official Opposition must realize that if this process should fail, they would at least have been co-instrumental in such failure as a result of the negativity in which they have enveloped this entire dispensation. I do not accept that that is the attitude of all hon. members of that party. However, I do think that they have become irrelevant for the purposes of the dialogue and that a dialogue is indeed being conducted with our Black co-citizens in South Africa.

Those whose thought processes are slow.

I think that they love South Africa just as much as I and any other person in this House loves South Africa. However, their leaders must also realize, though, that just as they have power bases which they have to satisfy, the Whites also have a power base which they have to satisfy. Just as the Whites have a task of shifting its power base in a peaceful way to meaningful changes, the Black leader also has that task of shifting his power base to the point of consensus.

We are imposing the minimum demands for a dialogue. We say that we should like to conduct a dialogue on the basis of only three fundamental requirements for us. We believe in the opportunity which everyone should have to be able to preserve his own identity. We believe that we shall best be able to achieve this by the methods which we are proposing, viz. that each group shall at least retain power over himself, and that there shall be consultation on contact level to achieve an agreement. Secondly, we believe in the realization of two Christian values. As I have said, this means the non-prejudicing of others. It means the non-benefiting of myself at the expense of others. That is what we are striving to achieve.

In the third place I wish to say that it will have to be done in a peaceful way if it is to culminate in a dispensation in which it is possible to preserve the peace and maintain law and order, and in which there can also be effective government. I have said that we believe that the formulae which we advocate are the best, but we are nevertheless prepared to talk. This opportunity is being created here, and I think we will be able to conduct such a dialogue in brotherhood and amity. Hon. members on that side of the House must reply to only one question: Have they in talks they have had with Black leaders told any of these Black leaders to give this dispensation a chance, or have they told those Black leaders that they should please not accept it? Hon. members must reply to this question. They need not tell us the answer, they need only answer the question for themselves.

We do not advise the Black leaders.

The hon. member for Sandton has said that they do not advise the Black leaders, but surely he states his opinion when he is conversing with them. Can I rephrase the question? Has the hon. member for Sandton pointed out to any Black leader any positive aspects in these proposals, aspects which could point to possible success? Has the hon. member done that? He is looking at me as if he had never even considered such a possibility. [Interjections.] It is true that our options are becoming fewer. The world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place for us. I think that our chances of establishing a truly democratic dispensation here are small. They have always been small, but one thing is certain and that is that if we, who aspire to peaceful change and have set as our goal a democratic dispensation, are not going to try to accomplish these things, we shall never be able to accomplish them. We must accept that. If we wish to accomplish these things, let us please, in heaven’s name, act in a positive way and try to do so.

I believe that there are fewer doors which are open to us, and that certain doors have been slammed shut. However I believe that most Black leaders prefer peaceful change. I believe that the will to succeed—as it is in us—is as strong in them as it has ever been before. I believe that the motivation which exists, in particular in this Government, is irresistible. I wish to make an appeal and say that we should deliberate together in amity and conduct a dialogue in warmth and not, in white-hot rage, try to tear one another’s throats out.

Mr. Speaker, during the course of my speech I shall deal in general terms with the comments by the hon. members for Klerksdorp and Randburg. The hon. member for Klerksdorp said it was necessary for a constitution to grow out of the hearts of the people. I want to support him in that view. That is certainly true. Having said that, I want to say to him that the one way of ensuring that a constitution will not grow out of the hearts of the people, is to proceed with this type of constitution-making which excludes large sections of the people who are going to be affected by that constitution.

The hon. member for Randburg appeared not to be concerned about the fact that there are more than one consultation body in regard to a new constitution. There need not be only one body; there could have been two bodies. But he did not tell us why it was necessary that there had to be separate bodies. Why should separate bodies be better than one single body on which all people could sit in order to discuss a constitution? [Interjections.] That he did not tell us.

The hon. member for Randburg did make a very interesting comment. I am glad the hon. the Minister of Public Works is in the House, because I want to ask him whether he agrees with the comment made by the hon. member for Randburg that the NP had changed from a policy of White decision making to one of joint decision-making. I ask the hon. the Minister of Public Works, of Statistics and of Tourism whether he agrees with that. Has the NP changed from White decision-making to joint decision making, and if so does it have the approval of that hon. Minister? He remains silent. Perhaps he will have an opportunity to participate in the debate later. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Randburg attached a great deal of importance to this legislation. He equated it with the Status Act and the Act of Union, and he believes that we are involved in a very historic occasion here today in discussing this legislation. I too believe this is a Bill of fundamental importance to South Africa, because it does affect the constitution of this country. Amending the constitution of a nation is always a highly onerous operation and cannot be undertaken lightly, and I believe all hon. members of this House are deeply conscious of that while we discuss this Bill today. When a measure of this nature is debated it is, or ought to be, a solemn occasion, and I believe a very great responsibility rests upon the legislature whose responsibility it is to consider the proposals before it with the greatest possible care. It is a step which is not taken often, and which ought not to be taken often in any stable society, because when we deal with our constitution we are dealing with the instrument upon which the very fibre of our society is based. It is the ultimate instrument of authority and power, the instrument from which this Parliament derives its authority and power and the instrument from which our judicial system derives its authority to interpret and enforce our laws and to protect the rights of individuals. It is the instrument which gives the Government the right to govern. In short, it is the instrument which is the very basis of an ordered and orderly society and which is of prime importance to every individual within that society.

In these circumstances, the ideal would certainly be that any change in our constitution should have the unanimous support and approval of Parliament or should at least be representative of a very broad consensus of those whose responsibility it is to pass amending legislation. But much more important than that, any change in the constitution of a nation should also reflect a broad consensus of opinion amongst the people of that nation. In most democratic countries it might be claimed that a consensus of opinion of the members of the responsible legislature should be synonymous with the consensus of opinion of the people, because it is they who elect the legislature which would then be representative of them. However, this cannot unfortunately be said of South Africa, because there is not necessarily consensus between the views expressed in this Parliament and those of the mass of the people of South Africa. We know that we in this Parliament are not representative of all the people of the country. We know that we in this Parliament are representative of a White minority constituting 20% of the population of South Africa. We are the sovereign Parliament in South Africa, but we are elected by the minority of the people of South Africa, the Whites. Therefore one must pose the question on this occasion, notwithstanding the constitutional right which history has given us to take momentous decisions to amend our constitution, as to what moral right we have in this day and age to make constitutional changes and to set up a constitutional mechanism which deliberately excludes the largest section of our population from joint and equal participation with the other sections of the population. How wise is it that we should attempt to do that? How effective and how enduring do we believe that the changes and mechanisms we are discussing will be in these circumstances?

I know that it is argued that this is an interim measure, as is the report of the Constitutional Commission upon which this Bill is based. It is argued that as such it opens the way for changes in the years ahead. But, as I said, one does not change the constitution of a country lightly. This Bill seeks to effect fundamental changes to our constitution. It sets up an office of Vice-President with specific power and responsibilities and it provides for the enlargement of the membership of this Parliament by Government-nominated members and others to be indirectly elected. It establishes the President’s Council, to be advisory to the State President on a wide variety of matters, including future constitutional development, a council which is a nominated body and which will specifically and deliberately exclude representatives of the larger section of our population, the Black population. In these circumstances, who will say that the changes included in this Bill are interim or temporary? Who will say that these changes are not going to be a permanent feature of our constitution?

Sure. That is quite correct.

Who will say that these changes are not going to be made to set the pattern and guidelines for future constitutional development and change in South Africa? We are setting out on a course. We are not setting the pattern for future changes. When one looks at the provisions in these circumstances of the setting up, for example, of the President’s Council, one must come to the conclusion that a principle is being enshrined in the constitution which is thoroughly bad and dangerous and totally unrealistic in the light of present circumstances in South Africa.

Which principle is that?

The principle that we are setting up a mechanism which is going to discuss, amongst other things, future constitutional changes, but which deliberately excludes the larger section of the population of South Africa. That is the principle, and it is thoroughly bad, thoroughly dangerous and totally unrealistic in present circumstances in this country.

Here is an attempt—and one must accept the sincerity of some of the hon. members who have spoken—presumably a sincere attempt, by the Government to set up an advisory body to advise on, inter alia, future constitutional developments, a body which will include Whites, Coloureds, Indians and Chinese, but which will exclude the Black population of South Africa. I wonder why this should be so. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked that question this afternoon. Well, one reason is that it is owing to divisions within the NP. We want to know what the reasons are for the omission of Blacks. If this is really a sincere attempt on the part of the Government to set up a mechanism which can allow proper consultation, the proper consultation which, the hon. member for Klerksdorp said, he supported … [Interjections.] The hon. member for Klerksdorp said that we were now being set on a road to proper constitutional consultation, and he believed it was reasonable consultation. If that was the view, why on earth did the Government miss the opportunity, exclude the opportunity, of making it real and meaningful consultation by including all sections of the South African community? That question has still not been answered. To exclude the Black population from a measure of this kind …

They are not excluded..

The hon. the Minister of Community Development says they are not excluded. But they are specifically excluded from membership of the President’s Council.

They are not excluded from this measure.

Are they not? They are. [Interjections.] There is no provision in the Bill which we are discussing now which refers to the Blacks being included in this consultation. There may be future plans of the Government in this regard, but the Bill with which we are dealing now, where it sets up the President’s Council specifically mentions the groups that will be represented on that council. They will be the White group, the Indian group, the Coloured group and the Chinese group, but not the Black group. That is what the Bill is about. I believe that this is a studied insult to the Black population of South Africa. I believe it is a calculated insult to the Black population group of South Africa. How on earth can the Government, any Government which is serious in its desire to achieve peaceful and effective constitutional change, exclude the largest population group in South Africa from equal and joint participation in the deliberations about these changes? I do not understand it. I believe it is a tragic error of judgment on the part of the Government, and I fear that this disastrous exclusion of Blacks from the President’s Council will doom the Government’s proposals to failure right from the start. [Interjections.] I say it is a tragic error of judgment because I believe that the Government has thrown away a magnificent opportunity at a critical time in our history, an opportunity of involving all sections of our population on an equal and joint basis in the decision-making processes relating to constitutional reform.

Again it is said that this is only an interim measure, that it is only a start, but even if it is only a start, on the issue of the exclusion of Blacks from the President’s Council, the Government could not have got off to a worse start, and hon. members of the Government must realize that. It ought to be common cause in South Africa today that the time when one racial group could make decisions for another or others is over. We cannot embark upon a programme of constitution-making, and hope to succeed, when we start by assuming that four minority groups can deliberate together on these matters, in one body, but that the majority group cannot. We cannot have a hope of ensuring a decent and acceptable programme of constitutional reform on that basis. What is more, the very fact that the Government has operated in this way has resulted in their producing a concept that is in itself self-defeating, because the Government must surely be sensitive to the fact that there is an ever-growing move towards solidarity amongst the groups in South Africa that have no representation in this sovereign Parliament. In those circumstances, to include some groups in joint deliberations and exclude another, is to embarrass those who are offered inclusion as against the group that is denied it. The other minority groups will therefore not welcome the chance to serve on an advisory President’s Council, knowing that the majority group is deliberately excluded.

Why?

For the very reason I have mentioned, because it puts them in a totally embarrassing position. Why should they be favoured or preferred when the bulk of the Black population is excluded from that President’s Council?

Why should they be embarrassed?

I believe, as I have said, that the Government has missed a great opportunity, and whatever the Government’s plans for the future may be, I believe that the Government has missed the psychological moment, and I am glad the hon. the Prime Minister is here. I believe they have missed the precise psychological moment, and that moment is now, the moment for showing a preparedness to meet together with all sections of our population to deliberate about the future.

There has been talk before about high expectations of a new dispensation for all in South Africa, very largely as a result of the hon. the Prime Minister’s verbal initiatives last year. His visits to the homelands and to the Black areas last year, and his commitment to continuing consultation with them, encouraged those hopes. Against that background, more than ever before, the Blacks of South Africa were entitled to expect that if any changes were to come from the recommendations of the constitutional committee, and were to involve the other racial groups, the Blacks themselves would not be differentiated against. They were entitled to expect that, and I believe they did expect it. I paid a visit to some of the homelands a couple of months ago, during the Easter recess. At that time Government newspapers were reporting pretty freely and fairly accurately on what the Government’s proposed constitutional plans were to be, and when one discussed this with Black leaders they were quite incredulous. They did not believe it. They said they could not possibly be excluded from this sort of thing because they had been told to believe that there was a new dispensation opening up for them and that they would be consulted. They were appreciative, as I have said, of the attempts made by the hon. the Prime Minister and of his statements that he would remain in consultation with them. So they did not believe that it would be possible for the Government, having raised their expectations, to create a council of this kind and to exclude them from participating in it.

We have already seen some of the reaction. We saw the reaction over the weekend when Inkatha took a decision and said it would have nothing to do with the liaison committee which the Government apparently intends setting up at some future time, a body which somehow or other would fit in at some level with the President’s Council. I am afraid there will be other similar reactions.

The hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications said it was all a matter of the principle of self-determination, and he seeks to justify the exclusion of Blacks by way of that argument. Does that principle, however, not apply to the other race groups that are included in the President’s Council provisions. Let me ask Government members again: What is the reason for excluding Blacks? Reasons have been given. Maybe it is a matter of the problems within the NP, as has been suggested. Maybe the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications let the cat out of the bag this afternoon in his appalling speech. I think it was a totally disgraceful speech by a member of the South African Cabinet. I believe that that speech will do more harm and do more to condemn this measure to doom, as far as the Black population is concerned, than anything else. We hear so much talk in this House—and accusations are levelled at us day in and day out—that we are responsible for harming the good name of South Africa, that we are responsible for damaging the Government’s programme, that we are responsible for sabotaging the Government’s programme in South Africa. The speech made by the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications this afternoon, however, was the greatest act of sabotage, as far as the Government’s plans are concerned, that could possibly have been committed. [Interjections.] It was a thorough disgrace.

It is a total insult to the Black leaders of South Africa to suggest that they cannot serve on a constitutional body together with the other racial groups because their thought processes are slower or different. It is a gross insult to the Black leaders. I wonder how the hon. the Prime Minister or the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development will explain to Chief Buthelezi, Chief Phatudi or Chief Ntsanwisi the fact that a member of his Cabinet believes that those people have thought processes which are too slow and that for that reason they cannot be allowed to participate.

You are twisting his words.

Do not worry, I have got his Hansard.

The hon. the Prime Minister must not shake his head. I believe the hon. the Prime Minister must take the first opportunity of repudiating the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.

If he does not repudiate him, we will have to conclude that he agrees with him.

I believe that that is absolutely essential. That hon. Minister made an appalling speech which will do considerable harm to these proposals and also to good race relations in South Africa.

What other reasons can there be for excluding Blacks from participating in the proposed President’s Council? Is it perhaps yet another manifestation of the fact that the NP continues to take it for granted that the Blacks are not part of South Africa? This is a myth which has persisted in the NP through the years. It was given prominence a few years ago in the days of Mr. Connie Mulder and it has persisted since then that in some mysterious way in terms of Government policy they can just erase the Black population by putting them in their own groups so that they will not be a problem for South Africa. There is a constant assumption that, because three Black areas have taken independence, the others will automatically follow. There is often a tendency to assume that the magic wand has been waved and that in fact all the Black areas in South Africa are now independent and are no longer part and parcel of the Republic of South Africa. I want to ask again whether that is perhaps the reason why the Government in this legislation excludes the Blacks from the President’s Council. Are they just anticipating that in time the Blacks will all be in independent States so that they need not worry about the urban Blacks and the Blacks in the non-independent homelands and they need not involve them in the discussions on future constitutional proposals?

Whatever the Government’s reasons for this, there is no doubt that the manner in which they have composed the President’s Council, as envisaged in this Bill, is so grave a defect that it makes it impossible for anyone to support the Bill. One can add to this the other provisions which have been referred to: The introduction of the principle of nominated members to the House, and the appointment of a Vice President without any apparent reason. What this all amounts to is a tinkering with the constitution of South Africa. It is a piecemeal tinkering with the constitution of South Africa. It is a half-baked measure which certainly will do us no good in the future and which will not assist us in providing the proper consultative processes which are so essential in this country.

Mr. Speaker, this is obviously a very important debate. It is taking place against the background of unrest and turmoil in our society. It is taking place against the background of tremendous pressures on our society, and not just as far as South West Africa is concerned, but psychological pressures on all population groups. One would have expected that the official Opposition in their approach to this debate would have risen to the occasion, but with the exception of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition one has had speeches from that side of a remarkably arrogant, presumptions nature. Implied throughout these speeches is the assumption that we could do better …

There is no doubt about that.

… is the assumption that we know the answers. One of the most remarkable things that has emerged from the official Opposition’s attack on this Bill is the fact that their criticism is more categorical, more sweeping and more dogmatic than any response of any person of colour or any Black leader in our society has been. That is a reflection on the official Opposition. There is another aspect to this which interests me. The hon. member for Musgrave talks about the moral right of this Parliament, which he says is a minority Parliament because it has been elected by a minority, the Whites, and wants to know what the moral right of this Parliament is to make arrangements and take decisions of this kind. There is another aspect to this. One can turn the coin very easily and put it to the hon. member that he as an elected member, elected by Whites, has a moral duty to his White electorate to act in the interests of those electors in the first place. In the second place we have a second moral responsibility and that because we are the representatives, the effective sovereign representatives of all the people of this country, and thus we have a moral duty and responsibility to act in the interests also of those who do not have the same political rights. That is the basis on which I approach this legislation. I want to say to that hon. member that if he wants to talk morality, then he must start speaking about his responsibility towards White South Africans and he must start speaking about his responsibility, his duty also to the other people of this country. The reformer in South Africa sits on this side of the House, he does not sit on the other side of the House. The people who sit on the other side of the House are people who merely talk and have no real responsibility, who do not exercise power, and who are so far away from exercising power that they do not know anything of the anguish and difficulties that go with the exercise of power. The real reformers in our society know that, in the first place, reform is never easy, that there is a tension between the habits and attitudes of the past and that people carry their traditions with them. That is part of the process of reform. He understands that, and he knows too that he must strike a balance between the interests of White South Africa, the people who placed him here and thus have a certain sense of entitlement to expect certain things on the one hand, with, on the other hand, the demands and expectations of persons of colour in our society. That is not an easy task. Those people, with great respect, do not understand that in general terms and they have done a disservice to the political process by the speeches which they have delivered in the House this afternoon on this particular piece of legislation.

I wish to deal with two aspects of this Bill. I wish to speak first of all on the abolition of the Senate. I want to say in this regard that the Senate no doubt played a very important historical role in our politics. Secondly, the fact is that in the Senate at present there are men of great talent and ability, men who have made a great contribution to our politics, and one wishes to pay tribute to them.

And the ladies.

Yes, as the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs reminds me, we must also pay tribute to the lady Senators. The fact is that one wishes to pay tribute to them, to the Senate. As a member who has had some experience of the Senate by virtue of being a Senator, I can add, and hon. members may not believe me, that the Senate is actually a more difficult debating chamber than this House. It is a more difficult Chamber to debate in because it is more intimate, and I think the hon. member for Mooi River will agree with me. It is a more intimate Chamber, a more immediate Chamber and altogether a more exacting and demanding Chamber in which to debate. To my mind there are three reasons why the Senate has increasingly failed to fulfil the expectations which were originally created for it when it was introduced at the time of Union.

Firstly, one finds in the Westminster parliamentary system in general that the Cabinet tends to be able to be responsive to only one Chamber. It is the case in the United Kingdom, in Canada, in Australia and it was a reason why the Senate, the Upper House, was abolished in New Zealand in 1950. But this happens to be a peculiarity of the parliamentary system, and it has happened here too, that the Cabinet tends to gravitate towards a single Chamber, to the detriment of the other Chamber.

A second reason for the decline in the role of the Senate is the basis on which it was elected, the fact that it was indirectly elected. As a consequence, members of the Senate had a sense of dependency upon persons within the legislative process. I do not believe that that is a desirable relationship to have and I believe that that definitely weakened the Senate.

Thirdly there is the fact that the Senate was created as a House of review. That was the original intention, and as the legislature has declined as a policy-making body, which has happened throughout the world—it may be a regrettable thing, but it has happened— so the role of the Senate as a review body of policy has declined. For these reasons I believe the role of the Senate has declined and for these reasons I believe that the Commission of Inquiry on the Constitution was completely correct in recommending that at this stage it be abolished. That is the one aspect on which I wish to speak.

The other aspect relates to the President’s Council. I shall deal with the real issues that the hon. member for Durban Point raised.

I said that the real reason was that the Senate had ceased to be a balancing factor.

With great respect to the hon. member, if he did not understand me, that is what I meant in relation to it being a House of review. However, I should now like to get on with my speech. The fact is that the Commission of Inquiry on the Constitution recommended the establishment of the President’s Council for two basic reasons. Firstly, as we received evidence, members increasingly felt that we ourselves were not able to draw up a blueprint constitution for South Africa. As a result of the advice of people who appeared before us and who told us that this was a process and that constitution-making should not be seen as a one-shot affair, we realized that it would not be possible for us, for the commission, to draw up a constitution to lay before this Chamber. In the second place, I think we all came to the conclusion that a body representative only of the political parties in this House was not capable unilaterally to draw up a constitution for South Africa. I think all of us realized this, and this is in fact reflected in the interim report of the commission, in paragraph 8(a) and (b). Those two points are reflected there.

There is something very important in paragraph 8(b) and I wish to draw the attention of my hon. colleagues on the Opposition side to it. Paragraph 8(b) states—

The principle is stated there very clearly indeed that the widest possible deliberation with and among all population groups will take place. Therefore, when the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asks whether I will justify the exclusion of Blacks from the President’s Council—which I will presently do—I just want to point out that as a matter of fact there is a commitment in here, and I believe that this signal must go out to the country. There is a commitment in this commission, because it is accepted, as part of this legislation, that we believe that the constitutional future of South Africa must involve a process of consultation and negotiation no doubt with all population groups. That is accepted policy. The hon. the Prime Minister has announced that and as a matter of fact there are on-going processes involving the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development all the time in this respect. But that aspect of this commission is completely downplayed and ignored by speakers of the official Opposition. I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition delivered a reasonably logical speech in which he was clearly determined to do justice to the occasion and to the issue. However, that is not true of the hon. members for Sandton and Musgrave, and I doubt whether it will be true of other hon. members in those benches who will speak later on in this debate. That is an important point.

One needs to look at this President’s Council. Its intention is not purely constitutional. As has been pointed out by other hon. members, there are other committees, e.g. a planning committee, a community relations committee and an economic committee. The fact is that we have recognized, in the design of the President’s Council, that however brilliant a constitution may be, however well drafted and well designed it may be, the fact is that if it is to work, it must be supported by the socio-economic milieu in which it is intended to function. What the operation of this council will mean is therefore that there will also be social and economic changes and, no doubt, race relations changes if it is to work. That particular aspect of the President’s Council is completely ignored by hon. members on that side of the House. There is no doubt either that the President’s Council is intended, as one of the hon. members pointed out, as a mechanism to depoliticize issues in our society. It is generally recognized, in mixed societies or societies with a high potential for conflict, that one of the responses in that situation is to depoliticize issues by taking those issues and problems around which there are potential conflicts out of politics. I believe the intention is that the President’s Council will perform that task. If one analyses the arguments that were advanced from the Opposition side, one finds that there are three fundamental criticisms of the President’s Council as it is at present constituted and as it is intended to operate. The first is the fact that it is advisory, and closely related to that is the fact that it is appointed, which is the second point of criticism. The third criticism is the exclusion of Blacks. With respect to the first points of criticism, that it is advisory and that it is appointed, I want to point out that it is not an unusual body in this respect.

It is intended in the first place to be a non-political body and, in the second place, to serve as a de-politicizing agent in our politics. Closely related to that is the fact that there are analagous institutions in other societies. There is, for instance, the National Security Council in the United States of America, the field of which is, admittedly, one of foreign policy. But it is an appointed and an advisory body, yet its influence is enormous. This is the body of which Brzezinski is chairman. Its influence on American foreign policy is enormous.

There is also the Social and Economic Council under the Dutch constitutional system which is similarly an appointed and advisory body, but with very considerable influence. The same is true of the Conseil d’Etat in the constitutional system of the Fifth Republic. This also is an advisory and appointed body, but which nevertheless has very considerable influence.

Now I want to come to this question of the exclusion of Blacks from membership of the President’s Council. By way of preface I want to say that the fundamental problem with which we are concerned in our society is the problem of making democracy work despite the heterogeneity and the diversity of our society. It is not a problem which is limited to South Africa or to the developing countries of Asia and Africa; it is in fact a universal problem. I can give examples which are known to hon. members. It is a problem in modern countries like Belgium, Canada and even in the Netherlands. More recently it has become a problem in Great Britain, where the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish were demanding greater autonomy from Whitehall. This is therefore a very general problem. In fact, one might describe it as the central problem of modern democracy.

The concept of majoritarian rule, the idea of the classic model transferring political power on a universal franchise basis in a society which contains all the potential for conflict, has been rejected by political scientists and constitutional lawyers ever since John Stuart Mill wrote that free institutions are next to impossible in a society in which there is not a single sense of nationhood, or words to that effect. There are numerous experts who have rejected this and I can refer to the experience of so many societies and countries which disproves this.

I do not believe that even the hon. Leader of the Opposition and his party support that point of view, although it surprises me that while in this debate they say that they accept the report of the commission in this respect, they are pleading in the provincial council for a common-roll franchise as far as the Cape is concerned. That is the remarkable sort of paradox of that political party.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Simonstown points out that the hon. member for Houghton has said something along those lines as well. However, that point of view nobody accepts. Even in the book by Drs. Slabbert and Welsh this particular approach is rejected.

One is therefore left with three established and recognized possibilities.

The first is the assimilation of a very mixed population. No expert would recommend it for South Africa. The second is the so-called consociational model and the third, partition. These are the three recognized, acknowledged possibilities.

The recommendations of the commission and the provisions of the Bill before us come closest to the consociational model. In terms of the sort of concept that I used the Presidential Council may be regarded as a consociational type of body. The difficulty is that this model has limitations. Prof. De Crespigny has pointed out, for instance, that it would not work in the whole of South Africa. Here one comes to the fundamental flaw in Opposition thinking, because the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in his book, dealing with the possibility of democracy for South Africa, says in chapter 6—

In other words, the authors of this book conclude that democracy on a consociational basis for the whole of South Africa, in other words including Blacks, is unlikely to work-—the odds are against it—but nevertheless we must attempt it. The sheer absurdity of their position is spelt out right at the end of the book when they say the following…

Read what they say about your ideas.

They tell hon. members as practical politicians, as people who are seriously representing the interests of the country here, in regard to accepting the consociational model for all population groups (page 171)—

That is the fatal flaw. Having concluded that consociationalism cannot work for our society because the odds are against it and experience elsewhere is against it, they say that we must nevertheless try to make it work. We must attempt the impossible. [Interjections.] It is my experience as a political scientist that this is an impossibility. We can make consociationalism work as far as the Whites, Coloureds and Asians are concerned, but as far as the Blacks are concerned our fundamental response is one of partition. That is my personal view, and I believe it is the view also of this Government.

Do you think it is going to work?

The fundamental division between non-Black and Black, bearing in mind the various population groups, will be on a territorial line. [Interjections.]

You sound like Connie Mulder.

That does not mean that no provision will be made for persons in the interface and it does mean that persons who are domiciled outside the Black States will not get political rights and have no form of representation. That is not excluded. [Interjections.]

I disagree with you.

I want to state very briefly what the fundamental differences are on this Bill between my side of the House and the hon. Opposition. Firstly, we differ in our concept of South Africa and the composition of its population. We take the view, and the Opposition is coming round to it very slowly, that South Africa is a multiethnic and multi-national community; secondly, we disagree on the question of the feasibility of democracy for South Africa. We take the view, and it is our commitment —there is no difference between us and the hon. Opposition on this particular point— that we must achieve a system of government in which the interests and aspirations of all population groups are met, because if we do not achieve that then we will not survive as a community. It is as simple as that, and we intend surviving as a self-respecting community. They take the view that it is possible against all the odds of experience and of scholars in their writings. Thirdly, we are concerned with substance, with policy proposals, while all the hon. the Opposition can speak of is a process, a national convention. Where is the substance of their policy? What do they stand for other than for a process?

Where is the substance of yours? All you talk about is a President’s Council.

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Speaker, I think that we all gained the impression this afternoon and this evening that we are dealing here with a very important occasion in the parliamentary and constitutional history of South Africa. This is no ordinary Bill. It is a Bill which is intended to create machinery which could to a large extent determine the future of our country and of our people. As quite an old member of this House, I consequently wish to express my appreciation to certain hon. members of the Opposition and to hon. members on the Government side, who participated in the debate, for the high level which they maintained, for their awareness of solemnity of the occasion and for the valuable contributions they made.

Because the hon. member preceded me, I shall refer now as an example to the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. Just before the interruption of business he reached a high-water mark in a speech which was characterized by knowledge, study and sincerity. It was an exceptionally interesting speech. I should like to express my appreciation for that contribution. The hon. member usually makes good speeches. As far as I am concerned, however, that was the best speech he has ever made here.

In the same spirit I wish to refer to my good old friend the hon. member for Durban Point. He knows he owes me nothing. Nor do I want anything from him. Consequently I wish to thank him for and congratulate him on his contribution. He differed with us. In fact, he made it clear where he differed with us. However, he acted in a manner befitting a true South African Opposition member, a person who differs with the Government, but who stands by South Africa. For that I extend to him my sincere thanks and appreciation.

As far as the official Opposition was concerned, the picture was the same as before.

A sorry one.

A sorry one, but also a little wilful. With their amendment that this Bill be read this day six months, they expressed the strongest form of disapproval of this measure of which an Opposition in this Parliament is capable. This is the strongest form of disapproval. This, too, is something which I cannot understand, because they did not give us the impression during the discussions on the Commission that they disapproved strongly of what took place on that commission.

I listened to the motivation of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Sandton of why they are adopting the standpoint which they have adopted today. It was extremely unconvincing, as I shall demonstrate. I only hope that there will be an analysis from the Government side, from an authoritative source, of how the attitude of the Opposition to this matter developed. If that should happen, I shall listen to it with great interest.

Hon. members of the official Opposition raised three objections to this measure. Their first objection was based on the fact that some members will be nominated, while others will be elected in accordance with the principle of proportional representation. They objected vehemently to that.

Our objection is to the nominated members.

To the nominated members, yes. They objected vehemently to that. However, they object to the whole idea of Parliament being augmented in that the majority will have an opportunity to elect a larger number of members.

Do you still remember the enlarged Senate? [Interjections.]

Order!

We are in the process of reforming our constitution and of moving away from the rigid Westminster ideas. However, when one changes something, one does not reject everything pertaining to it. One always tries to take with one those things which are good and which have been proved to be good. We have in fact had the principle of nomination for Parliament and of an election on a proportional basis as part of our constitution since 1910. The Senate is after all elected on a proportional basis. Since 1910 the Government has had the right to nominate eight members, two for each province. Consequently the principle is not new. In the Senate that practice proved that it served a good purpose, and for that reason we do not wish to discard it; we wish to take it with us into the future, because it was proved to be good in the past. But hon. members of the Opposition do not wish to perceive this.

Furthermore another major objection of theirs was to the creation of the office of Vice-State President.

We are afraid you might get that position.

Yes, it seems to me they are afraid of something. They are afraid of spectres.

Then all one need do is buy them a mirror. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition furnished a more intelligent reason than one would ever have expected from the hon. member for Bryanston. His reason was that there was no evidence to justify it. However, the same commission took a far more drastic step than that of creating the post of Vice-State President. The same commission unanimously proposed that the Senate be abolished. Where is the evidence which we heard, recommending that the Senate be abolished? This is also an idea which arose on the commission, just as the idea of the Vice-State President arose on the commission. [Interjections.] They are so lacking in argument that they seize upon anything without realizing that they are contradicting themselves and are condemning their own actions in other respects.

Then comes the major argument, the trump card which they played. The hon. member for Musgrave said that these measures excluded the Black people of South Africa.

That is true.

Of course the measures do not exclude the Black people of South Africa.

The President’s Council excludes them.

If one looks at the proposed section 106(4) one finds that special provision is being made for the President’s Council to consult a Black council which will be established in terms of an Act of this Parliament, and that it is able to establish Standing Committees, joint committees in conjunction with that council. So the Black people are being consulted, and special machinery is being envisaged for consultation.

Why are they separate?

I am coming to that. Of course it is only people who have no sound arguments who argue in such an exaggerated a way as the hon. member for Musgrave, who is now trying to imply that they are being excluded from the measure. They are not being excluded. This measure is intended to involve them in a meaningful way, as they have never been involved before, in planning for the future of South Africa.

I shall elaborate on this further at a later stage, but now I just wish to say that it would be very wrong, stupid and short-sighted of the parties supporting this measure to support it if the measure made no provision whatsoever for consultation with the Black people. Our Black people of today are no longer primitive people, as they were a 100 or 200 years ago, if one has to generalize. The Black people have in the meantime produced an élite which may be compared with any élite in the world, and I have already made a great deal of contact with them. They may be compared with any élite in the world and are a credit to the success of the policy of this Government and other Governments which created opportunities for them to make progress to the highest levels of which they are capable, according to their own insights and with their own institutions. How many times have we not said that it is the policy of this party to afford all the people of South Africa an opportunity to progress, in their own context, to the heights to which they are capable? And that élite exists.

For that reason I deplore the fact that hon. members opposite, particularly the hon. member for Sandton, ascribed to the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications something which I did not hear him say. I did not hear him say that these people are less intelligent or anything of that nature, as that hon. member alleged. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Sandton attacked the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and accused him of having insulted the Black people as a result of the remarks which he made about them. He spoke of a “gross insult”. I did not hear it, and I was listening carefully. [Interjections.] I did not consult my hon. friend, and I did not scrutinize his Hansard. I am going solely by what I heard. What he said was that the Black people were inclined to deliberate for longer than we do, to deliberate more thoroughly than we do. [Interjections.] That is what I understood him to say. I cannot judge. That is my honest opinion. It is no insult. If it were, the Black people would perhaps be able to say that we do things more precipitately than they. That would then be their opinion and I shall not take it amiss of them. It was a cultural characteristic he was describing, not an inferiority which he ascribed to them.

I shall send you a copy of his Hansard.

Order! Hon. members are aware of Mr. Speaker’s ruling. He ruled that the minimum of interjections would be allowed and requested hon. members to look up Standing Order No. 106 in this connection. I am applying that ruling.

That was not his ruling.

It was his ruling.

It was not.

Then I shall give my own ruling. I rule that I am now prohibiting all further interjections.

Sir, I submit that that is unreasonable. [Interjections.]

What did the hon. member say?

I humbly submit that that is most unreasonable.

That is a reflection on the Chair. The hon. member must withdraw it immediately.

Sir, I said it was my humble submission that your ruling was unreasonable.

Which ruling is the hon. member referring to?

The ruling that there shall be no interjections.

That was Mr. Speaker’s ruling this afternoon. The hon. member must immediately withdraw his remarks.

What must I withdraw?

The hon. member must withdraw the reflection on the Chair.

What reflection, Sir?

The hon. member said that it was not a reasonable ruling. He must withdraw that.

Certainly, Sir, I withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker, may I address you on this matter? I am sorry but I did not hear the exact words he used. Have you now ruled that no further interjections are allowed?

I did not want to rule that no further interjections will be allowed. That was my ruling, but I shall just apply the ruling Mr. Speaker gave this afternoon—

Mr. Speaker, could I ask you again whether you have now ruled differently, viz. that no interjections will be allowed?

That was my ruling, but I shall withdraw it. However, I want interjections kept to an absolute minimum.

Mr. Speaker, may I address you with regard to Standing Order No. 109?

Standing Order No. 106.

I mean No. 106 … [Interjections] … which reads as follows—

1. (a) to call attention to a point of order or a question of privilege;
2. (b) to call attention to the absence of a quorum;
3. (c) to call attention to the presence of strangers; or
4. (d) to move the closure.

Are we to understand that you rule that every interjection is deemed to be an interruption? In terms of Standing Order No. 106 it is quite specifically defined what will constitute an interruption.

It is the prerogative of the Chair to decide which interjections to allow. That is the sole prerogative of the presiding officer.

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

No. [Interjections.]

Order!

I am asking, Mr. Speaker, whether I may put a specific question to the hon. the Minister?

Mr. Speaker, after the hon. member’s behaviour this evening, I am not prepared to reply to any questions of his. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to call upon you as witness that this interruption was not attributable to me. Consequently I hope that I will receive a little injury time.

I said that, thanks to our policy, an élite had developed among our Black people which compelled the regard, admiration and respect of all of us. It would be very short-sighted to think that we can determine the future of the whole of Southern Africa without consulting intimately, actively and sincerely with those people as well. Whatever the official Opposition may say, we are committed to doing this, because it is our honest conviction, and we are trying to create the machinery for this purpose in this Bill. I shall return in a moment to this subject in a different context.

We believe, and I know that the people of South Africa share this belief of ours, that with the creation of a President’s Council we are making an honest attempt to do nothing more than to create an instrument which can help us to shape the future constitutional dispensation of South Africa. It is nothing more than that, nevertheless it is very important. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in the course of his speech— I do not wish to quote his words, but only convey the gist—that Parliament was the only body with the power to initiate consultation in order to avoid confrontation or worse things. I think that was a fair statement. The hon. member for Sandton stated it in ever stronger terms. He said that we could not afford to maintain the status quo in South Africa and that we had to make urgent changes if we wished to avoid a disaster in South Africa. That was his standpoint, and I can understand it. I, too, believe that we shall have to act if we wish to preserve peace in South Africa and really wish to grow in order to achieve our objectives. If hon. members of the Opposition really believe that Parliament is the only body which has the power to do so, why do they refuse, in the strongest possible terms, to allow Parliament to create an instrument by means of which it can exercise this power in a practical way, in consultation with the entire population of South Africa? They are contradicting themselves. They admit that only Parliament has this power, but then they attempt to prohibit Parliament from using that power in a judicious way which will involve all the communities in South Africa. What must one think of the logic of that standpoint?

The President’s Council is the instrument which follows on an admission which all of us share, which is that we cannot fob the people of South Africa off with a ready-made final constitution. The more difficult the circumstances of a country are and the more complex its population structure, the greater the truth of this statement. A constitution for a country such as South Africa must develop, be adapted and there must be experimentation. Sometimes it has to be withdrawn, and reformulated again in future. The countries with stable constitutions which we have come to know over the centuries, are countries which adopted this system. For me the most splendid example is the mother of this Parliament, viz. Great Britain. In England, and subsequently in the United Kingdom, the constitution was not created by means of one law. To date there is still no written constitution in Britain. Ninety per cent of the constitution of Great Britain is based on conventions and practices and the willingness of both sides in the political structure of Britain to act according to these conventions and practices underlying the constitution. It is wonderful. Yet there are certain important beacons, bright spots and turning points which occurred on the road on their constitutional development. One thinks for example of the Magna Carta, a milestone along the road of constitutional development of Britain, one thinks of the Bill of Rights, the Ship Money Trial, which confirmed by means of court judgments the principle of financial power in the representative assembly of ordinary citizens. Then there is the Reform Act of the ’thirties, the general franchise, the franchise for women and the limitation of the powers of the Upper House. These are all individual recognizable events in the constitutional development of Great Britain.

I believe history is going to demonstrate that the establishment of this President’s Council will stand as one of the major beacons along the road of the constitutional development of South Africa. I am proud and grateful to be able to participate, together with my party and other parties with responsibility in this House, in this historical moment in the development of a stable South Africa. I am pleased that we are creating this instrument. It is, if I may now use a slang expression, going to be a think tank.

Like another High Court of Parliament.

If a person has so little understanding of a matter as that hon. member, it is better to ignore him. The events in South Africa are too great for little people like the hon. member for Musgrave. But I have sympathy for his lack of stature. I understand his quandary. For me it is a privilege to participate in this great occasion, for we in South Africa must realize that this is a period in our history where we need fresh, clear and courageous thinking. South Africa today is the target of an onslaught, from various quarters, and we do not know where it is going to end. We are of the most sought after prizes which the communist world wishes to capture in the struggle which they are waging today for world domination. We are one of the keys to the entire communist strategy of world domination, and when agencies are created among us, sometimes wittingly and sometimes unwittingly, to promote the objectives of this communist onslaught, we must learn to adapt ourselves, to make adjustments and to risk a counter-strategy which can defeat that onslaught. There are three things we can do. We can persist in a negative refusal to identify the onslaught. That would be obdurately stupid. Or we can do what a millepede does which one treads on accidentally in the veld, and curl up and pretend to be dead. We can do that, too, we can pretend to want to have nothing to do with it. Then one joins the PFP. But thirdly, one can examine one’s own conscience, involve one’s own ethical insight, and do what is right and essential to be able to survive in a world which makes high demands on the righteousness of people who bear the responsibility which the Whites bear in the Republic of South Africa.

†If we accept that we have this tremendous responsibility of making the necessary adaptations in our thinking and in our actions which will be necessary for the survival of civilized standards in South Africa, then we have real reason to be grateful that we have to face this challenge at a time when we are proving to be one of the most blessed nations on the globe, one of the most fortunate nations on the globe. In its wisdom Providence has blessed South Africa with resources, with riches, with skills and with human qualities, which in many ways are unparalleled in the world. Our greatest resource is the people of South Africa, of all colours, creeds and of every type. Some of those belong peculiarly to the Republic of South Africa, and when I say that they peculiarly belong here, I think of the White people, the Coloured people and the Indian people. They have no separate homelands. They have been growing together inevitably because of their proximity to one another and because of their common interests with one another. I believe it is Providence’s wish that we must find a modus vivendi in this land together. But then there are other people who also share the responsibility and the opportunity for the future of South Africa in the greater context, the context of Southern Africa, which is much larger than the concept of the Republic of South Africa. That includes our Black people. We cannot refuse to acknowledge that they too have a part to play. They have rights which they can assert against us—and I use the word “against” in the semantic sense and not in the emotional sense—and if we accept that, we have to think as we are thinking in this Bill. We must think together as people who belong to the intimate, close union of the Republic of South Africa, but we also work together, confer together, plan together, and do things together with all the people who will share the future of Southern Africa with us.

Why cannot they sit in the same council?

That is the philosophy behind this measure. That is the thinking behind this measure. This measure is the visible acceptance of our responsibility towards the Republic of South Africa and towards a greater South Africa with all the peoples of Southern Africa in it.

Why exclude them?

I say that we are blessed in this country. We have great resources. Many blessings have been showered upon us. The more I look at it, the more I am constantly amazed at the possibilities of the potential of South Africa. For example, most of the world today has a major problem in regard to the continuing increases in the price of oil. It shakes the dollar and upsets the trade of nations. It brings recessions to great parts of the world, but as far as South Africa is concerned, everytime the dollar is shaken, the price of gold goes up and we are more than compensated for the sacrifices we have to make in paying a higher price for oil. We have unlimited resources in minerals, gold, diamonds and base minerals.

Where else in the world is there a country the size of South Africa that could in the course of the past decade create two new major cities as harbours, one on the west coast at Saldanha Bay and the other on the east coast at Richards Bay, only to transport the mineral resources of South Africa for export to a mineral-hungry world? I visited Saldanha Bay last year, and they told me that as far as tonnage was concerned, Saldanha Bay had become the biggest harbour in South Africa. I visited Richards Bay a little later. I told them this at Richards Bay. They laughed and said that it was true, but pointed out that by this time this year Richards Bay would be handling the largest tonnage of any harbour in South Africa. Where else in the world does one see achievements like that in a country the size of South Africa, with the population of South Africa?

Do you want to throw all that away?

With regard to Sasol 2 and 3 at Secunda, I want to say that we are establishing in South Africa, for economic and other strategic reasons, an economic engineering undertaking which will be the largest in the world. We created this single undertaking in a single complex from the ground up. It will cost R4 000 million. [Interjections.] It is unbelievable. I have not had one intelligible interjection from hon. members of the official Opposition. I would be so grateful if I could get even one audible interjection. I get this murmuring, groaning, grunting and other noises that are more typical of a pigsty than of Parliament.

Who wants to cast his pearls before swine?

To think there is a prospect that, within the lifetime of younger hon. members sitting in this House today, we shall see a second Witwatersrand arising in Namaqualand at Aggeneys and Pofadder.

Order! The hon. the Minister must come back to the Bill.

With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I am describing the South Africa for which we are trying to determine a constitutional plan for the future. [Interjections.] I want to say that a second Witwatersrand will arise, with some of the richest mines in the world, for lead, silver and similar minerals. I have a long list here, but in deference to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I shall now discontinue this argument except for saying—and this is most relevant—that this is a blessing beyond our deserts. If we look upon this merely as an opportunity to enrich ourselves in a selfish way, we shall not deserve this blessing, but if we see it for what it also is, namely an opportunity with the means given to us to do justice to all the peoples of this land, then indeed we shall deserve these gifts and benefit in the highest sense of the word from the blessings that have been given to us. That is how I see the future of South Africa, a country blessed and privileged beyond measure, a country with people big enough and great enough to accept those privileges as giving them the opportunity to do what is necessary and just and is demanded from us because of the times in which we live.

I want to say to hon. members that if one looks at the South Africa I have been describing, one will find that the work that has to be done in order to develop the country in the interest of all its people is so great that no single community in South Africa can undertake that work. No single community in South Africa has the talents, the skills and the management abilities to do so. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I think most hon. members in the House will agree with me that the very eloquent Minister of Community Development has once again developed a theme with which we can largely agree. At the same time, however, there were also certain aspects of what the hon. the Minister had to say with which I think the majority of hon. members in this House disagree, and with which I shall deal shortly.

In the first instance we agree with his vision of the future of South Africa, a country blessed with mineral wealth and human resources unequalled and unparalleled in the world, especially if we look at the potential for the development and the maximization of the value of every and each member of every race group in South Africa. That is with which this specific amending Bill deals. This amendment to the constitution truly does mark a red-letter day in the constitutional development of South Africa. We are ad idem with the hon. the Minister of Community Development when he says that this will still be a beacon day, throwing fight on constitutional development in South Africa. However, as my hon. leader, the hon. member for Durban Point, has said previously, there is also an unfortunate aspect to the Government’s introduction of this amending Bill. In this respect I wish to say that after so many hours, days and weeks of hard work and the really tremendous effort which the commissioners and the hon. the Minister of the Interior as chairman of the commission have put in, it is unfortunate that the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications made certain remarks which undoubtedly will detract from the probability of a successful launching of certain aspects of the amending Bill. I should like to tell the hon. the Minister of Community Development that his colleague the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications did introduce most unfortunate concepts in his speech here today. For the benefit of the hon. the Minister of Community Development and other hon. members on that side of the House, I think it necessary to repeat what the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications has said. Addressing himself to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, he said, inter alia (Hansard, 4 June 1980)—

That is what the hon. the Minister said.

The Minister of Posts and Torpedoes.

I regret this inference that there are people whose cultural development indicates that their thinking processes are slower than that of a large number of other people, because it introduced a most unfortunate note which will, regrettably, have an effect on the Government’s proposed changes to the constitution. I leave it at that. The hon. the Minister himself can go and read the Hansard. I think it is necessary to point out that it is unfortunate, after the magnificent effort of the commission, that greater discretion was not exercised by the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.

He is a commissioner.

And a commissioner at that. I believe that under the circumstances the Cabinet may well have considered the possibility of an alternate first speaker.

I would like to leave it at that, however, and continue expounding our perception of the amending Bill.

The hon. member for Durban Point has indicated—and it is stated clearly in the minority report of the three commissioners from my party—where we differ with the recommendations of the commission, and obviously also where we will find certain aspects of the amending Bill unacceptable to our party. In this respect I wish to point out, firstly, that obviously the amending Bill is not a perfect instrument. We recognize this, and in the Committee State we will be coming back to those specific clauses where we feel an improvement can be made. We agree with the hon. the Minister of Community Development, and the hon. members for Cape Town Gardens and Randburg, that although it is not a perfect instrument at the moment, it does present the very real possibility of a change in the method of constitutional design in South Africa. Which hon. member in this House could have envisaged, two years ago, that we would be discussing a Bill here today that changed the constitution so that members of all population groups could participate in constitutional design? The think-tank or talking shop which has been created here must truly mark a red-letter day in South African constitutional design.

This is where one must come to the complexity of South African society and a full appreciation of the magnitude and complexity of the task which faces any party, Government or body which attempts to bring about constitutional reform in South Africa in order to bring about a just society. One must look at the background of cultural diversity, for nowhere else in the world does one find as complex a cultural mix as we have in South Africa. There are 11 minority groups stretching over aeons of development and cultural diversity. We find, in the macro-division, cultural groups that support democracy and private free enterprise which is an expression of a value system with a multiplicity of diversity factors as compared to those other groups which still do not believe in the democratic government process or private free enterprise. We must also look at the microcosm of cultural diversity in South Africa. When one examines the multiplicity of differences between only the Xhosas, Vendas, Zulu, Whites, Indians and the Coloureds, for example, the degree of difficulty one has in bringing about a totally satisfactory constitutional design which will satisfy all the aspirations of all the people, as requested by the hon. members of the official Opposition, will be appreciated. Despite the fact that we also have differences with the recommendations of the commission and the legislation before us today, I find it very difficult to understand why the official Opposition has taken the stance it has and why those hon. members find it necessary to reject this Bill with one of the strongest measures possible, viz. that it should be read this day six months.

I can only go to some of the arguments given by the hon. Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Sandton who tried to justify their stand. Do they not appreciate that we have had tremendous improvement in South Africa? I ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: As compared to two years ago, is this Bill not a material and significant improvement? [Interjections.]

We had an election in 1977 on proposals like this.

I do not think he will give us a straight answer to my question this evening.

This Bill is worse than the proposals of 1977.

The hon. member for Sandton made high of morality here this evening and stated that we, as a White group, cannot take it upon ourselves alone to evolve a constitution for other groups. To a certain extent we agree with him, but the very instrument being created will avoid the situation of the Whites creating a constitutional design on their own, and the hon. member for Sandton was a member of the commission. He should understand the improvement and the significance of the steps being proposed by this Bill. However, what is very interesting is that the PFP, the official Opposition, is going to totally reject this Bill and refuse to participate in the President’s Council. [Interjections.]

What does Japie Basson say about it?

That is what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said today in reply to a question from the hon. member for Durban Point. If I have misunderstood his answer, he must say so now. [Interjections.] They have said that they will not participate in the President’s Council. I ask the hon. member for Bryanston whether that is correct.

Yes, that is precisely what we said.

That is exactly what they said. The hon. member has confirmed it. [Interjections.] That is because it is not a perfect system, and the major objection by the PFP can be found at the top of page 11. I quote—

That is their stance. We do admit, however, that it is not a perfect system. Nevertheless, it is a means to start a process of dialogue and of understanding the different viewpoints of the different population groups. We agree that it is not a perfect system, but I cannot understand the high-handed attitude of the hon. member for Sandton, and of the hon. Leader of the Opposition who now refuse to participate in this once this measure becomes law, when our constitution has been constitutionally changed into what is proposed in this Bill. Obviously the PFP is taking the stance that half a loaf is not better than none at all.

That is not correct at all.

They do not want evolutionary transitional development.

Tell us what is your argument. [Interjections.]

I can find no other justification in any of the speeches made by hon. members of the official Opposition, except that because the Blacks are not included— and in fact they are, as the hon. the Minister of Community Development pointed out— and that, because it is not a perfect President’s Council, they will not participate.

The worst form of a President’s Council one could ever have conceived of. [Interjections.]

All right, while one is talking about morality and about the fact that on this principle the PFP will not participate, I should like to ask the hon. member for Sandton how many Blacks voted for him in 1977. [Interjections.] How many Blacks voted for him in 1977?

More than voted for you. [Interjections.]

In terms of the principles of the PFP, if a system is not perfect they refuse to participate. [Interjections.] Then, however, they must be consistent in the application of their morality and their principle, because the hon. member for Sandton and all his hon. colleagues in the official Opposition are sitting here in what they term an imperfect system. [Interjections.] They were elected under an imperfect system, but they are utilizing this forum in order to bring about progressive change. Is that not correct? [Interjections.] They are sitting here despite the fact that they were not elected by a single Coloured, Indian or Black member of the South African society.

Those are the facts of the matter.

Do you hear that, Mr. Speaker? [Interjections.] Without any qualms of conscience these hon. members are sitting in what they consider to be, according to their own principles, an imperfect system. [Interjections.] Then I should also like to ask hon. members of the PFP—and specifically the hon. Leader of the Opposition—if, in terms of this amending Bill, they were to be allocated one of the nominated members of Parliament, would they exercise their prerogative and nominate that member to come and sit in this House? [Interjections.] Will they do that? I should like to know.

Yes, but I shall reply to that later.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition says “yes”.

I shall reply to that later.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition says he will reply to that later.

He probably has to think about it first. [Interjections.]

I think the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs is quite correct. Hon. members of the PFP do require time to think about it. [Interjections.] If they are going to stand on this principle that they will reject everything that is not totally consistent with their policy, and which is not absolutely perfect, then they cannot accept a nominated member. [Interjections.]

The hon. leader of my party, the hon. member for Durban Point, has already pointed out our objections. They are contained in the annexure to the minority report. It is stated quite clearly there where we stand on this issue. I should like to point out to hon. members of the official Opposition that their credo that a just society is an open society is totally fallacious. Once again we find the application of the PFP principles to be inconsistent and out of kilter with the reality of the South African needs in a plural society; and what is more, the needs, the aspirations and the wishes of members of other population groups.

Do you not agree with a just society then?

For the edification of the hon. member for Pinelands I should like to point out that a just society in a plural society is not an open society. [Interjections.]

Why not?

I shall give one example for the sake of the hon. member for Pinelands.

Do you want a closed society then? [Interjections.]

If the PFP supports democracy and private free enterprise, that principle must be applied throughout South Africa. I ask the hon. member for Pinelands if that is correct.

Yes.

Would he then go to Gatsha Buthelezi of kwaZulu, where they have communal ownership of land, and tell him he must open his trust lands, the land which belongs to his people, to private free enterprise? Would the hon. member for Pinelands do that?

Have you not heard what Gatsha said about that?

In terms of the hon. member for Pinelands’ definition of an adequate society and the application of democracy and private free enterprise throughout South Africa, I should like to state that what happened to the Red Indians in America would happen to the Zulus of South Africa. [Interjections.] They do not have the capital and the experience to compete in private free enterprise with other minority groups. [Interjections.] The land they own today will be taken away from them … [Interjections.] … unjustly so.

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

No, I am not answering a question from that hon. member. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Pinelands …

Why don’t you go and join the Nats?

Order!

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: May I ask you, Sir, to give the hon. member for Durban North the protection that was accorded earlier to another hon. member who was speaking in this hon. House?

Order! With pleasure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to point out to the hon. member for Pinelands that it would be totally unjust to expect every community to open its land to private free enterprise competition, because they could become beggars in their own land in less than five years. Therefore we in this party cannot subscribe to the open society philosophy. We believe there should be protection of minorities, and we believe in a constitutional design that will recognize the realities of our plural society and do true justice to it’s people. This is precisely where the credentials of the Bill before us come into play. The hon. member for Musgrave, who has just entered the House now, made great issue here of the credibility of the President’s Council in the eyes of the leadership of other groups. Let me ask members of the official Opposition again what leadership they have given the leaders of other race groups in tackling constitutional design in South Africa, for example what to do about the mechanisms being created by this Parliament?

They want Mandela.

By the total rejection of this Bill by the PFP, they will find themselves in an even greater dilemma than the hon. the Minister of Community Development pointed out here this evening. He pointed out that they accept the principle that this parliament is the highest authority in the land, and yet when this Bill becomes law, they will refuse to participate. So let me ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition or his second lieutenant—I think that is the hon. member for Pinelands—whether that also means that they will not accept the obligation imposed on every member of this House, and every member of the public in South Africa, to respect the office of the Vice-President when he is appointed.

I cannot answer you because I must give you protection.

The magnanimous attitude of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition really touches me.

Yes, it touches you in the head.

I hope that when he gets an opportunity, however, he will reply to that question. If they are totally rejecting this Bill, as they are by their amendment that this Bill be read this day six months, it also means that they reject the dignity of the office of the Vice-President who will be appointed to an office created by this legislation.

You are talking nonsense.

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

Perhaps the hon. member for Bryanston will take the opportunity to give us his opinion as well. In summary—because my time has regrettably been cut short by interjections—I should like to say that the hon. members on that side of the House know where we differ with them on this Bill. My party believes, however, that this is the first step in what will be a long and difficult journey to find consensus on what will be an ideal constitutional design for South Africa. During the Committee Stage we shall be talking about those specific aspects with which we disagree. Let me state very clearly, very clearly indeed, that the very first prerequisite for constitutional design in South Africa, if such a constitution is to be successful in terms of its acceptance by other groups, is to create a forum to listen to the opinions of other people. That is precisely what this Bill is all about. If that is what is going to happen this year, we shall be giving it our total support in that respect.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Durban North made a fine speech and I shall follow up on it presently. Before doing so, however, I just want to say that after the hon. the Minister of the Interior had stated his case unemotionally this afternoon, a very interesting scene unfolded itself in the front benches of the official Opposition. The first to speak was the new hon. Leader of the Opposition. In a friendly and business like way, and in a specific style, he stated his case here. However, if one listened carefully despite his appearance and style he was more “verkramp” and unimaginative than any Leader of an Opposition I have ever seen in this country of ours.

We cannot all dream.

We are on the threshold of one of the greatest events in the history of South Africa. In 1912 General Hertzog stood under the thorn tree with the motto “South Africa first”. He brought a new dimension into South African politics. I shall never forget how I, as a young man, sat in the gallery in 1959 when the late Dr. Verwoerd rose and introduced a new concept. After his predecessor, the late Mr. Strydom, a man for whom I had very great respect—and I can say this today because it is history—had stood up on various occasions and said, shaking his lists in the air while we applauded thunderously: “In this country the White man will remain master because he has a white skin,” the late Dr. Verwoerd stood up in this Parliament in 1959 and, despite this system, said: “In this country the White man cannot remain, master because he has a white skin. We must divide South Africa territorially. We must create separate territorial freedoms for South Africa’s Black majority.”

For the Coloureds as well.

He said this within the framework of the system in existence at that time. Today we are coming forward once again with an opportunity to make a fresh start, to add a new dimension to our pattern of thinking in South Africa. Then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition stands up, a new man in his ranks, and, business like though he be, just look at how “verkramp” he is, how hidebound he is! He does not have the ability to consider the era in which he finds himself, to consider the year 1980. He allows it to pass him by.

But let me say what the tragedy is. Seated beside the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, a veteran of South African politics, a man who has experienced politics, a man of background. While the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was speaking, I was watching the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and I said to myself: “If Japie Basson were the leader of the Opposition today, he would have participated in the process we want to establish here.” That is the reality. Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition want to deny that?

He will speak for himself.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was indisposed this afternoon and took some medicine, but the hon. member for Bezuidenhout would have taken that step without medicine.

Look what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition bases his argument on. He based his whole argument on the fact that in the new dispensation, this new pattern of thinking which we want to initiate, we want, as he puts it, to exclude the Black majority. He advanced moral arguments. He said that it was an absolutely immoral deed that was being committed against these Black people, this Black majority, in South African politics. He said that that was why he and his party were not going to participate in this President’s Council. If that is morally justifiable, logical and true, why are he and his party—here I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Durban North—sitting in the Opposition benches of a White Parliament today? Why do they not take their hats and leave? Why does the hon. member for Houghton not take her hat and boycott Parliament? They want the President’s Council to be boycotted because the Black people are being excluded, but here they are seated in Parliament. What are they doing here? Is this logic? I see no logic in this situation. I ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: Is this logic, is this morality? Is this how he argues? I do not understand him.

Ask the hon. member for Pinelands.

Yes, I could perhaps ask the hon. member for Pinelands, but he left morality on the pulpit, so I shall rather not ask him.

I want to participate in this debate in a somewhat different spirit. I was sitting and listening to the debate this afternoon and on both sides of this House one key sentence, around which this whole legislation revolves, cropped up repeatedly. This key sentence from the Erika Theron report is being quoted time and again. It reads as follows—

This statement has repeatedly been made by hon. members on both sides of this House. Strictly speaking, it was unnecessary for the Erika Theron Commission to bring this statement to the attention of the NP.

In saying this I am not implying that I ever believed that the heritage of British imperialism here and elsewhere in Africa, was always purely bad. However, in spite of what I am saying here, this system of tolerant co-existence between White and Coloured and White and Black was irritating and counter-productive from the very outset, and no one can deny that. At the time of Union in 1910, the British parliamentary model was virtually a natural choice for us here in South Africa. So dominant and pervasive was the pattern of thinking emanating from this mighty world power at that time, that it would have been unthinkable for South Africa to have chosen otherwise at the time of Union than to embrace the British system. Today this is history. At this very stage of history this system carried with it an aura of what I would call a wonderful, mystical growth and idealism of the “Mother of Parliaments.” That was the position. There was a fundamental belief at that stage that it was by far the best, if not the only way to organize one’s national affairs democratically.

Looking now at all the political intrigues over the years and all the paradoxes in our political life in South Africa, I believe it is indeed one of the wonders of political history is that we have tolerated the Westminster system in South Africa for so long. The failure of this system in the former British colonies, for example, after the Second World War in particular, was so prevalent that nowadays it is political nonsense to single out us as Afrikaners, for example, or the Irish Catholics, as not amendable to the Westminster system. Numerous former British colonies in Black Africa rejected this system a long time ago. This is the situation we are faced with this evening. Hence the one-party states and the military dictatorships which have been established throughout Africa over the years. As far as we in this country are concerned, we are once again in the midst of what I want to call a process of flexing and adjustment in this system. One could also call this constitutional deliberation, if you like. I do not have the time to do so, but I could mention innumerable examples of the way in which we have made adjustments to this system in our own country since 1910. We have never been afraid to do so. As a rule the NP has effected most of these changes. In order to express this attitude in tangible form, we are once again, by means of this legislation—as has repeatedly been said here this evening— creating a starting point where all South Africa’s non-Black persons are able to formulate together a formula for the future in the constitutional sphere, viz. this President’s Council, which hon. members of the PFP want to boycott.

In this process there are five fundamental truths—and this is my contribution to this debate this evening—which I should like to bring to the attention of this House this evening without motivation. I want to do this unemotionally, and without motivating it at length. There are five of them. Now I ask the official Opposition to tell me whether they dispute the following. The first one is that the White man is absolutely essential to our common civilization; not because he is White, but due to his indispensable guidance for the foreseeable future. If the White man’s ability and the guidance were to be contested and undermined today by a majority consisting of a Black proletariat, it would only mean that darkness would descend on all of us in this country. If the level of civilization in this country is to be maintained within the framework of a new dispensation, the managers, the technologists, the specialists, the decision- and the policy-makers on all levels will have to come from the genius or the elite of the White man—if I may call it that—for many years to come. This is absolutely inevitable. Just take scientific calculation today. For all practical purposes this genius or élite in our population structure in South Africa today has already been formed up to the year 2000 at our universities. However, what is the ratio? There are 25 million Black people in this country, and what is the ratio today? For every 10 people coming from our universities who have to occupy these positions, not even 1,5 come from the non-White people in South Africa. In other words, if, in this process of constitutional flexing or adjustment which we are engaged in at present we want to face squarely the concept of civilization and order, the White man could argue that at this stage he is the only conceivable nucleus for any united front of peoples which is to be established in South Africa. Hon. members of the Opposition cannot deny this statement, which is based on fact.

There is a second statement as well.

The White people and the Coloured people in this country have a common path. If there is one thing that the White man can be blamed for today—I have never been afraid to say this in the past—it is that for too long they have pushed South Africa’s Coloured people, who are Western oriented and who sing “The Call of South Africa”, into siding with a Black majority. I am telling the hon. the Leader of the Opposition this now, for he used this as an argument, and when I say this he can accept that I mean this sincerely—I am not intending hostility towards a Black majority—I am merely seeking greater balance in this country, for hon. members will agree with me that numbers are always important.

Thirdly I want to say that I think the functional activities of this proposed President’s Council will for a long time have to be exploratory and pragmatic. It must be purposeful and circumspect, for it must eventually bring us to a sum total which could in fact be far-reaching and drastic. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party are so hidebound that they are unable to perceive this truth on the road ahead.

Fourthly, I want to say that the past 23 years have demonstrated that the NP is the only party with the creativity to effect ultimate change. This miracle party is the only bastion against political exploitation and ethnic tensions. Do hon. members recall the days of the Coloured franchise? Do hon. members recall the days when the Opposition exploited the Coloured franchise between White and White in the political sphere in South Africa? Once every five years the idle U.P. women from Kenilworth and Rondebosch conveyed Coloureds to the voting polls in the vicinity of Vasco, and in the evening, when the polls closed, those “Sap” women returned to their exclusive residential areas and for the next five years the welfare of the Coloured person in South Africa never concerned them. It was the NP that had to bring about change and new creative work in this country. In this process we have placed a great deal of emphasis on it from time to time and that is why I say that this miracle party is the only bastion against political exploitation and ethnic tensions, which must ultimately bring all the children of South Africa to the miracle formula which has to give effect to the colourfulness of its ethnic diversity in the political sphere.

Fifthly we can talk, and we can talk a great deal. In fact we have talked a great deal about a new constitution for South Africa over the past two or three years. In this process we have from time to time placed a great deal of emphasis on concepts such as a joint say, consensus, liaison, political freedom, citizenship and specific forms of political dispensation in South Africa. For example, the hon. member for Mooi River stood up from time to time with his little balls. All of these concepts need one fundamental basis, otherwise they mean absolutely nothing. What is this basis? It presupposes the correct attitude. Ultimately it is civilization which will have to speak. Without a minimum of Christian virtues exercised in practice, no constitutional arrangement could ever succeed in South Africa. This truth will simply have to be digested by all population groups in South Africa that seek to contribute to the formulation of a new constitutional dispensation in, among other things, the deliberations of this President’s Council; there is no other choice, because if they do not, darkness instead of light and freedom will await us in this country.

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by first of all congratulating you on your birthday today.

Hear, hear!

As far as the constitutional development of Southern Africa is concerned, it is in fact true, as the hon. member for Moorreesburg said, that all the development that has taken place in the constitutional sphere on the long road that South Africa has travelled since 1910, has been initiated and effected by the NP. It is also important to note that every constitutional step that South Africa took along that road, was opposed by the official Opposition of the day. As far as today’s development is concerned too, which is being given effect in the Bill that we are discussing here, we are once again faced with a situation where the official Opposition is totally opposed to the steps that are being taken here. And once again they are going to remain behind in the constitutional development of South Africa. One of the main reasons for this is apparently that the members of the official Opposition disagree seriously amongst themselves on some of the proposals that are being made here.

Oh, you are talking nonsense.

They are deeply divided on this issue. This is clear from reports that we read in the newspapers and from rumours that we hear in the lobby.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition—I see he is not in the House at the moment— said in his speech that all population groups must be involved in the discussions on constitutional development. He then added that the President’s Council is not enough to initiate the constitutional debate. But surely this is not correct. In the first instance, provision is being made in this Bill for all population groups to be involved in some way or other in any discussion or consultation on the constitutional development that will be discussed. The President’s Council is not only the place where those discussions can take place. Provision is being made for a separate Black council in which matters can and will be discussed thoroughly. The PFP’s objection to the President’s Council is now being motivated by, as they put it, the deliberate exclusion of the Blacks.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition made a remark which caused me to wonder whether he may have discovered that the NP caucus does not consist of a group of yes-men who accept everything just like that and pass through the gate like a crowd of sheep. He referred to the exclusion of the Blacks, and to me. He then said that I would know that something of this kind is constitutional nonsense. It is not constitutional nonsense, because basically the President’s Council is not there to draw up a final constitution, but it is very clearly an advisory body. In the proposed new section 106, which deals with the activities of the President’s Council, the word “advice” is used ten times, the word “consultation” twice and the word “consultative” once. By virtue of its composition and activities, the function of the President’s Council is merely to act in a consultative capacity, to give advice, but it has no constitutional powers whatsoever. Therefore, if the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is alleging that excluding Blacks from the President’s Council is constitutional nonsense per se he is speaking nonsense himself.

However, we must take into account the fact that problems are in fact being created by not including Blacks in the President’s Council at this stage. But why is it creating problems? The problems are not being created because the Blacks cannot share in any dialogue on the constitution, but because the PFP itself, since its inception, has been reacting emotionally to the idea that Blacks can only be consulted with on a separate basis and are creating the impression that it will only be of any value if the Blacks are involved in a joint authorative body. Since their behaviour has had an emotional effect on the Blacks, it is creating certain problems. However, I want to put it very clearly that the Black council, which can be consulted for advice, fulfils a very positive function. Their advice may concern many very positive and practical aspects, which could improve the standard of living of the Blacks in the Southern African complex.

However, it is true that the official Opposition are only interested in one idea, viz. the political participation of the Blacks. They always put all the emphasis on the political involvement of the Blacks in a joint political council only, according their own formula. However, let us really analyse the situation in Africa. There are more than 50 States in Africa that have obtained their political freedom over the past 25 years. But has this brought about real benefits for the Black citizens of those countries? Has it brought about an improvement in their standard of living? Has it brought about an improvement in their standard of living, in the State in which they have received their political freedom? Surely it has not. I simply have to refer to Mozambique; or if we do not want to refer to such a controversial State, I can refer to Zambia, where political freedom caused a decline in the economy, in fact in the entire development of the country.

That is why the Black council, the creation of which is being provided for here, can be of very positive significance when it comes to the most important aspects that can bring about the increased standard of living of the Blacks in Southern Africa. However, when it comes to the aspect of constitutional consultation, provision has also been made for extensive discussions to take place with the Black council on every level. However, the question arises whether the only method by means of which meaningful discussion can take place, is a multilateral level of discussion. I want to allege that, particularly with the Blacks of Southern Africa, who consist of nine separate ethnic groups, each of which has developed its own national consciousness, and has a whole history and tradition of national consciousness, multilateral discussions will not always be most successful, but that bilateral discussions can be held with them with much more success and in a much more positive way. Now, however, one cannot conduct bilateral discussions efficiently if the Blacks are all included in the President’s Council. Even the Black council will not be the most suitable body to discuss political developments in a positive manner on a bilateral basis.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also put the standpoint that the dialogue should be held with recognized leaders. I wonder whether there is not a radical difference of opinion in the ranks of the official Opposition on the definition, according to their terms, of “recognized leaders”. I should like to know from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he considers Dr. Motlana to be a recognized leader. I should also like to know from him whether he considers Nelson Mandela to be a recognized leader. I do not doubt for a moment that the hon. member for Houghton considers those two gentlemen to be recognized leaders. The hon. member for Pinelands would also consider them to be recognized leaders.

What does Boraine say?

Yes, and what does the Judge say? [Interjections.]

Then I should like to know whether they would attach the same value to Chief Minister Gatsha Buthelezi as a recognized leader. Do they attach the same value to Chief Minister Lennox Sebe as a recognized leader? What was their standpoint with regard to President Kaiser Matanzima or President Lucas Mangope as recognized leaders? Are they recognized leaders in the eyes of hon. members of the PFP? I should like to know this.

Now they are dead quiet.

I should like to know what the attitude of the official Opposition is in this regard. Therefore, if recognized leaders are to be spoken to, surely they are those political leaders that have come forward as recognized leaders as a result of a political process. Now, however, Dr. Motlana has not held any election, on any level at all. Nor has Nelson Mandela held an election of any kind. Nevertheless the hon. member for Houghton would give them preference as recognized leaders. [Interjections.] It is very clear to me what the hon. member for Houghton’s standpoint is.

I now want to refer to a standpoint that was adopted by Chief Minister Gatsha Buthelezi with regard to the aspect of constitutional development and the process thereof in Southern Africa. I want to quote from a lecture that he delivered as his contribution to the Alfred and Winnifred Hoemlé Memorial Lecture. The theme of his lecture was “White and Black Nationalism, Ethnicity and the future of the Homelands”. On that occasion he said the following, inter alia—

However, since I am here as a student …

Take note, he says “as a student”, and not as an emotional political speaker—

Everyone knows what doodling is. It is when one’s soul talks. It is when one allows one’s true soul to talk without any inhibitions, and one then draws this on a piece of paper. Chief Minister Gatsha Buthelezi said at that lecture that he would speak openly, that he would allow his soul to talk and that he would not allow himself to become involved in any political tug-of-war. He said that he wanted his soul to talk there. Then he said, and hon. members must listen carefully to the following words—

I shall just refer briefly to the conditions that he mentioned. The conditions include—

We accept this. In addition—

We accept that. And then—

We accept this too—

Without reservation we can accept all those aspects.

You could have fooled me.

He also said—

Here Chief Minister Buthelezi admits more than the PFP does. After all, the PFP always thinks that the NP’s large majority has given it a mandate to implement PFP policy. However, Chief Minister Buthelezi says—

We have no quarrel with this. Later in his lecture he said, and he referred once again to the constitutional development—

I stress “independence or autonomy of these States”—

We can accept this too. I quote further—

Is this not exactly what this Bill is going to make provision for? Is it not going to pave the way for new constitutional and political arrangements? I quote further—

This is a reasoned standpoint of Chief Minister Buthelezi that he conveyed to a selected audience at a special lecture during the Alfred and Winifred Hoernlé Memorial Lecture. It has been printed in book form and is available in the Parliamentary library.

Since we are now moving in this direction and creating machinery through the President’s Council for consultation to take place on a broad spectrum of matters that do not include constitutional matters only, but economic matters and ethnic relations too and any aspect that is important to Parliament, we have made preparations for being able to provide for a constitutional development in regard to which the decision-making process will be vested in Parliament itself. The President’s Council will be able to give us advice.

I want to point out another aspect. If the President’s Council is to advise Parliament, it does not mean that Parliament has to accept in its entirety all that advice that it receives. Often it does not do so. This happened with the Wiehahn report and the Riekert report and also with the report of the latest Schlebusch Commission. Certain decisions were made which were submitted to Parliament. In the case of the latest Schlebusch Commission, a good number of Cabinet members were directly involved. As I said, that commission made certain recommendations and then, with its knowledge of the total political concept and all the implications thereof, the Government did not necessarily accept those proposals without further ado. It accepted some proposals and amended others. Therefore, if the President’s Council submits advice and it is tabled, Parliament is still free to make certain changes to it or to postpone certain proposals in view of the implications thereof with regard to economic, ethnic or security aspects as well as the practicability of the proposals at a given moment. All these aspects must be taken into account by the Government with regard to the advice that is submitted.

This approach also applies to economic policy. We cannot always act on grounds of certain basic concepts only. With regard to the economic policy, there are times when one must tighten the reins, when one can give matters free rein and even times when one must use the whip. Similarly, there are times when the decisions of the Wiehahn Commission, the Riekert Commission, the Schlebusch Commission or other Commissions that are appointed, can be implemented or postponed. The same principle will also apply to advice submitted to Parliament bb the President’s Council, on which the Government will have to make a decision.

I feel that an important aspect is that the discussion in the President’s Council and most probably in the Black Council too, will be in committee. I think it is very important that this will be so. It is obvious that, if one discusses something in public as is done in Parliament, there is a tendency to say certain things because the people outside will read them or take note of them. In other words, one is talking to the gallery. It is logical and there is nothing wrong with this. However, if one wants reasoned advice, one wants the preceding discussion to take place in committee on the basis of logic and not in public since the advice is still to be submitted to the Government at that stage. Provision is also being made for this in the Bill. The President’s Council must table its advice with 14 days of the decision or 14 days after the Parliamentary session has commenced. This implies that the preceding discussion would not take place in public, but in committee where people can discuss the logic thereof and not attach emotional value to their discussion because they are talking to the gallery. I am of the opinion that it is extremely important for this aspect to be taken into account.

With the creation of the President’s Council, one automatically thinks back to the National Convention that was held in 1909, before Union, when a constitutional set-up was created, and the four colonies came together to form a Union. On that occasion—whether it was wise or not—it was decided that the administrative capital would be given to the Transvaal—this is Pretoria—the legislative capital would be given to the Cape—Cape Town—and that the judicial capital would be given to the Orange Free State—Bloemfontein. On that occasion Natal did not receive anything.

Whilst we are still deliberating, I wonder where the seat of the President’s Council is going to be. Might this not be a suitable time to provide for the seat of the President’s Council to be in Pietermaritzburg, in Natal? [Interjections.] One wonders whether it would not be desirable, for practical reasons, for the President’s Council to be situated as close as possible to Parliament. However, the same consideration applies, viz. that it is desirable for practical reasons for the administrative capital to be close to the legislative capital. However, if we accepted 70 years ago that the administrative capital was situated 1 700 kilometers from the legislative capital, I do not think it is far-fetched also to provide for the seat of the President’s Council to be in Pietermaritzburg, in Natal. Then we could always refer to Pietermaritzburg as the Presidential capital. [Interjections.] I could well imagine that the Cape would object to this matter. [Interjections.] We are dealing here with something that constitutes part of the total dispensation of deliberation and decision making. I nevertheless want to propose that this proposal should not simply be rejected without further ado. This provision could in fact be made for Pietermaritzburg and I submit it for serious consideration.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a fascinating experience listening to hon. members on the other side of the House as they prepare for this new adventure into unknown territory. We have been treated in the case of the last three speakers on the other side to perorations by some of their most articulate members. We have been conducted through a wonderful garden of luxuriant eloquence by none lesser than the Grand Master himself, the hon. the Minister of Community Development, who filled us with admiration, as always, for his grandiloquent modesty, his portentous prolixity and his magnificent irrelevance. This star-spangled collection of speakers was complemented by the hon. member for Durban North, who is also no slouch in the realm of such matters. He inquired from us whether the Bill we have before us this evening is not a major advance on the situation which existed two years ago. I should like to take him back a year further, to 1977, when we fought an election in this country on a constitutional charter prepared by no one other than the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. That constitution, which an election was purported to be contested about, actually consisted of a draft which the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens had some responsibility for. This is the time to congratulate the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens and to convey to him our long-deferred congratulations. Compared with the Bill which we have before us this evening, which is very largely a Bill of executive appointments, we had a charter from the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens which proposed a body of 55 members, of which only 20 were nominated. There were no fewer than 20 elected Whites, ten elected Coloureds and five elected Indians. How we have regressed in the last three years, even if the hon. member for Durban North thinks that there has been progress in the last two.

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

No, I do not have the time. They say a week is a long time in politics. The phrase has become famous this past year because of its use by Mr. Wilson. It is nevertheless a phrase which is worth reflecting upon in politics. It does describe a situation which could occur very easily in politics, where one passes very rapidly from high success to deepest despair, where one false step can move one from vaunting ambition to total distress. These things happen to all of us, and it is regrettable that we have had such a case here this evening. In another sense “a week in politics is a long time” can mean that we have no time to waste. We have no time to waste on constitutions that will not work. We have no time to waste on efforts which are ill-judged. We are under pressure in this country and we all know it. We in this country do not wish to undergo the experience of Zimbabwe, where too little was repeatedly done too late.

We must first hold a convention which will take a few years.

I believe that there can be a continuing convention starting now, and that will not be too late. I think it is fair to say to the hon. the Minister who has introduced this Bill that his good intentions are not in doubt. Hon. members who served on the commission have themselves subscribed to the purpose of the discussions which took place. We agree that discussions of this kind are helpful. What we are discussing here tonight is not the good intentions of the hon. the Minister. We are discussing whether the Bill before us this evening is, in fact, a worthwhile Bill, whether it is a constructive and positive step which will do the kind of good which we think is urgently needed in this field in South Africa.

I have said that too little too late is a very grave disadvantage in the situation in which we find ourselves. We in South Africa can no longer afford to attempt to pay for tomorrow’s solutions the price which was valid two days ago. One cannot buy solutions at last week’s prices. We have to pay the full price for the goods we buy. We must be prepared to make the sacrifice which is necessary in each case and which is consistent with the problems with which we are faced. We also have to consider the harm that may be done by taking a mistaken direction. If we muster our forces, if we fall into line and move in a certain direction, we are taking time and exerting effort in doing so. It is therefore of supreme importance that when we move in a constitutional direction we should choose our course correctly and not make the kind of mistake which will force us to back up and to lose some years, and maybe a great deal of goodwill, before we can attempt a new advance.

One thing is surely clear to everybody in this House and in this country—it is no longer in dispute—and that is the essential, mounting and urgent importance of the position of the urban or industrialized Black in our society. Nobody will contest that. Nobody will argue that this is not one of the most relevant facts in our whole society. If that is so, and nobody will contest it, where do those particular individuals, those urban Blacks, those industrialized Blacks, that growing number of articulate, sophisticated and economically active people, fit in this constitutional plan? If one searches the plan, if one searches the Bill, one finds that there is one passing reference, but there is no measure to install those people within our constitutional system.

They think too slowly.

No constitutional change in South Africa can be valid or even pretend to be valid unless we accommodate this factor within it. Where is the Black council? The only reference we can find to it is in the proposed section 106(4)(b). There a passing reference is made to the fact that a Black council, which is non-existent at the moment, will be consulted when, presumably, that Black council is one day created. No intent is expressed to create it. It is pie in the sky. It is something that may happen, but there is no commitment whatsoever, no measure, no intent to create that council.

In that respect, against the background that I have just sketched, surely this Bill is a supreme irrelevance. How can we seriously talk about constitutional reform in South Africa and about interracial consultation in South Africa in the year 1980 and yet make no physical provision in a Bill of this nature, which is said to be a constitutional breakthrough and a masterpiece of constitutional advance in this year, for a Black council? It is merely mentioned in passing. I think that this is the greatest weakness of the Bill. If a man were to come to this country from Mars as a complete stranger and we told him what we were doing, and he took a look at the circumstances within which we are doing this and asked where the Black man fits in, and if we then told him that we have mentioned the Black man in our Bill, but that we have done nothing about him so far, he would think that we had gone absolutely off our heads.

And he would be right.

The commissioners on that side of the House paid homage to the benefit of the kind of consultation which they have conducted in the course of their work as commissioners. They pointed out how they have been able to find common ground. They referred to the differences which existed at the outset between the various commissioners, between the witnesses who gave varying kinds of evidence, and to the fact somehow they were able to find a broadening pool of common experience and common purpose. This is admirable. We praise it. Of course it is excellent. However, if this is true of the people on the commission and if this is going to be true of the President’s Council, and a similar sort of pool of common experience can create a common purpose, why cannot the Blacks be accommodated within it? Surely, if there is one thing we need, it is such a pool of common experience, common endeavour and common advancement with the Black people of this country. Even if the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications thinks the Blacks are a little bit slow, surely this President’s Council is a place where Black people could share in this valuable experience to which the hon. members of the commission on that side have referred in such glowing terms.

What will the effect of their omission be? I dare not attempt to say what the advantages will be. I cannot think of any, but the effects of the omission will certainly be to alienate the Black people, secondly, to alienate many Coloured and Indian people as well and, thirdly, to destroy the confidence of many White people in South Africa who are looking to this Government and this Parliament to produce some on-going and constructive solution which will command their confidence. It will certainly disillusion many of our friends abroad. What benefit is there on the other hand, except possibly to relieve the temporary cause of embarrassment within the caucus of that party? I am not trying to catch any political flies here, but I can honestly not think of any advantage to be gained by excluding the urban Black, the industrialized Black within the common area of South Africa, from this council. I cannot think of one, no matter how hard I try. There must be some curious reason which has nothing to do with constitutional reform.

In the course of what looked like a promising debate earlier this afternoon, we suddenly got an inkling of the kind of thinking that might be so destructive to the proposal that I have been making and the arguments I have been advancing. The hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications turned what merely looked like a near disaster into a total catastrophe. I am very sorry that the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development is not in the House tonight, because I should like to know from him directly what his answer will be when he is questioned about this particular statement by the people who are administered under his portfolio. I hope that he will not hesitate to repudiate it root and branch.

Will you allow me the opportunity to make a statement?

You made one statement and that was bad enough.

You can make an apology.

We are very concerned as to what actually has caused this most promising effort to go off the rails. We believe that there is something else working within the Government party that caused this thing to jump the points and go off the rails at a particular stage of the journey when so much good might have been done. I believe there is a kind of Freudian thing working in the minds of hon. members in the sense that, while they realize that change must come and that this change must be important change, real change, slowly there is building up, perhaps unconsciously, a kind of resistance, a kind of protective device, and that what was meant to be directed towards co-operation, a wider society and a fuller constitutional system, is in fact slowly taking the form of greater authoritarianism. I say this as a considered thought and I put it forward very seriously. I believe that, if one considers this Bill objectively, one finds that its strongest characteristic is in fact a growth of authoritarianism in the constitutional system of South Africa.

We are, after all, dealing here with the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act which is being amended, a very important and serious thing to do. It is being amended for only the fifth time in its history. What does this Bill propose to do? It provides mainly for the creation of an advisory council and for adding a few members to Parliament. Let us look at these things and their effect. Let us first look at the question of the addition of a few members of Parliament. Four of them are going to be nominated by the State President on a provincial basis. I ask the hon. the Minister with tears in my eyes why this House needs an additional representative from Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Natal and the Cape Province. Is there no representative to speak for them here? Are there no experts here on these four provinces? Are we short of people from those provinces? Why on earth must the State President be asked to nominate four members from those four provinces? What is it all about?

It has been explained to you.

Moreover, it is to be done by nomination. Those representatives from the provinces will not be elected, but nominated by the State President. They do not even have to come from those provinces. What does this mean? This House is still operating in a democratic system in which the job of private members on that side of the House as well as on this side of the House, members who are here at the behest of the electors, is to keep an eye on the executive.

It is our job to see that money is well spent, to criticize when mistakes are made and generally to keep the executive on their toes. Hon. members on that side of the House do not do so much about it, because they prefer to praise the executive, but hon. members on this side of the House certainly do and hon. members on that side of the House should keep a very keen eye on what the executive does. In other Parliaments in other parts of the world members on the Government side are critical of the Ministers and watch them very closely. However, that being as it may, we certainly cannot afford an increase of members in this House who are not sent by the electors to maintain this control, but are in fact appointed by the executive itself, because the State President, as we know, is a euphemism for the executive, the hon. gentlemen sitting in the front benches opposite. They are going to have the right to add to the members on that side of the House, four of them from the provinces—in order to do what? We do not know. There is a big silence.

In addition there is going to be a special electoral system, dignified by the term “proportional representation”, which it is not really that because proportional representation, in the strict constitutional sense, means an equilibrium between the electoral Votes and the number of members in the House, and this can very often be used to balance the inequalities which occur in direct representation systems. However, this is a mere mathematical extension as we had in the case of the Other Place where the proportion of elected representatives in this House was simply projected into the Other House; and what we are doing now is almost comical in its effect because we are projecting the proportion of elected representatives in this House into the nomination of the additional members, which is no more than a mathematical trick. What are we doing this for? I do not know. Its only effect is to increase the authoritarianism of the Executive at the expense of the private member in this House. It can have no other effect. That is not a great achievement. I do not think there is anybody in this House who could even begin to claim that this is a great constitutional achievement, and if there is anybody who can find good grounds to praise it, we still have to hear him.

What is the other thing we are doing? We are creating a President’s Council. The 60 members are all advisory and nominated by the State President and will be divided into four committees which will do certain things. The rules have yet to be provided. What, however, are their powers? I think this is very interesting. If we look at the Bill, we see that they have certain defined powers. I quote from the proposed new section 106(1)—

In other words, the President’s Council shall, at the request of the State President, advise him on any matter which he refers to it for advice. It must do this. The clause continues—

It has therefore not got the absolute right to advise the State President on its own initiative. It may, if he asks the President’s Council, give him advice on a Bill which comes to its attention. I think the hon. the Minister will agree that this is a precise and correct interpretation.

The President’s Council has a further power. It—

So it can give advice to a legislative body which asks it for advice on a Bill. It can also give advice to the State President, that is to say the Executive, if the Executive asks the President’s Council for advice on a Bill; in fact it must do so. However, if there is a Bill before this House, for example, and the President’s Council wishes to give advice to the Executive because it thinks the Bill is abhorrent, it may not do so. It may only comment on legislation if it is asked. These are the main powers of this advisory body. I do not think, when one looks at it in this light, that this body is very much more than a servant of the Executive. It is appointed by the executive and it operates within the framework which I have just quoted.

Is this a great constitutional advance in the history of South Africa? I doubt very much whether it has the attributes which some of the eloquent hon. members have attributed to it in this debate today. We heard the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens making comparisons with the Conseil d’État in France and with other great institutions abroad, but I believe that we are dealing here with a very puny and limited body which bears no comparison at all. I cannot understand why we are introducing this legislation. I ask in all sincerity what is really being achieved by this Bill? We on this side of the House believe sincerely in co-operation and in seeking for areas of common consultation. We have, in fact, made that a main feature of our own constitutional policy. We believe, as hon. members on that side of the House said when they praised the work of the commission, that there is much merit in talking to each other and in bringing the various parties in this country together to discuss matters of common concern, and we believe that the conditions of appointment to the President’s Council, the conditions of executive authority which prevail and the conditions under which members operate and the limitations on their rights to operate, in other words their powers to operate, are all of such a nature that they are not much more than an extension of the arm of the Executive. I believe that this is the primary effect of what we are doing in this Bill, and that any other effect is purely secondary. That being so, we find it quite impossible to suggest any other course than to ask that this Bill be read this day six months.

Mr. Speaker, although I do not believe that we have deviated to any extent from the draft constitution which was submitted to the commission, I noted that the hon. member for Constantia began his speech by saying that within this short period there had been a complete change of thinking on this matter. It is in fact true that the NP is not a stagnant party. It has never been a stagnant party. I should in fact venture to say that it is one of the most dynamic political parties that has ever governed this country. [Interjections.] During the years the NP have been in power we have brought about change unheard of before in the history of South Africa. [Interjections.] The hon. member also said we had no time to waste. I want to ask him why he and his party are wasting their time in opposing this Bill, which is such an important measure in the constitutional development of South Africa?

Because it is a retrogressive step.

Because you do not include the Blacks. [Interjections.]

I should ask the hon. official Opposition to give us the chance to get on with the job.

You have already wasted 32 years. [Interjections.]

The hon. member also said we could not afford to pay tomorrow the price we should have paid today. I submit that the PFP is wasting our time to such an extent that we will probably have to pay tomorrow the price we could have paid today, all because of their absolutely negative approach to this whole issue.

The hon. member also said that the Black council was a matter of great uncertainty; that there was no certainty about it at all. I can assure the hon. member that the Government will not let the people of South Africa down as far as that is concerned.

[Inaudible.]

The creation by the Government of that Black council is quite inevitable.

What sort of a Black council?

Although it is not set out in this Bill I should think that anyone with a reasonable bit of common sense will realize that that is in fact the intention. [Interjections.]

Why does the Government not do that now? [Interjections.]

I thought they were in a hurry.

That is an absurd argument to raise in this debate. What the hon. members should realize is that it will happen inevitably.

Will you have a slow-moving council for slow-thinking people? [Interjections.]

The only impression I can gain from the reaction of hon. members opposite is that they are lacking in proper arguments to conduct a debate of this nature. I should, however, warn hon. members of the official Opposition not to become impatient. [Interjections.] If they are only willing to exercise some patience they will certainly get to know in due course all the relevant details in connection with the proposed Black council.

We should like to know what they themselves say about it. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Pinelands is speaking now on behalf of the radicals among the Blacks. I can tell him that responsible Black people …

… are prepared to wait?

… have never been happier. [Interjections.]

Some responsible Blacks, for instance Mr. David Thebehali, who accompanied me on an overseas trip, had the courage to say to the Germans …

Heil! [Interjections.]

… that it was not necessary for them to try to fight on behalf of his people, because he was perfectly capable of doing it himself. When it was put to him that time had run out for South Africa he retorted that that was utter nonsense, and that South Africa had ample time to do everything that was necessary to bring about orderly change and to sort things out in a decent manner.

He also said that they do not want to be condemned to freedom like the rest of Africa, because they want freedom with bread and not without it. During the course of my speech I shall be replying to some other matters the hon. member for Constantia raised. He seems to be in somewhat of a hurry to get away, however, both from this House and from the truth.

*There is consensus with regard to the question of constitutional development in South Africa, and the consensus covers a variety of matters. The first is that the Westminster system does not offer a solution to the problem of the domination of minority groups by majority groups in South Africa. I just want to say in passing that these minorities also include Black minority groups. I have evidence from the leaders of certain Black nations that they are not prepared to be dominated by a Black majority group like the Zulus or any other majority group. The implication of the maintenance of the Westminster system is “winner takes all”. There is also consensus between us and the official Opposition on other important aspects with regard to this matter. There is consensus on the fact that the constitution must be altered, and secondly, that it must be done through a process of negotiation.

In order to estimate the value of the legislation before the House, there are a few premises and conclusions that the Constitutional Commission reached in view of the evidence that we have to single out here. To listen to the speeches of the official Opposition here this afternoon, one wonders whether they were there when this evidence was heard. The first point in this regard— and I think even the official Opposition will have to concede this—is that practically every witness put it very clearly, either by way of his standpoint, or by way of his reaction to the questions that were put, that group representation or a group structure is a prerequisite for a constitutional dispensation, if we move away from the Westminster system. Secondly, in compiling this group, an attempt must be made to bring about the maximum degree of homogeneity. It is often argued that the White group is not a homogeneous one, because the White group consists of Afrikaans- and English-speaking people, of Portuguese, Germans, etc. However, the Coloured group consists of Malays, Griquas and a variety of other combinations, and the Indians in turn consist chiefly of two religious groups and a number of castes. However, we cannot escape the fact that these remain clearly identifiable groups, just as there are also clearly identifiable groups amongst the Blacks as a result of their territorial origin and language differences.

What about the Coloureds?

I have already dealt with the Coloureds. Where was that hon. member when I dealt with that?

Tell us again.

I put it very clearly that they are also a clearly identifiable group. However, Black peoples must be seen as a separate and joint combination.

Separate and joint!

Joint on the one hand, as a result of the similarities with regard to culture, level of education, level of civilization and historic considerations, and separate due to the homeland ties and existing separate territorial authorities, the degree of self-government that they have already achieved and the ethnic differences that identify them as a separate nation.

The next premise on which there is consensus, is in fact that we as a commission or as a White Parliament cannot come up with a blueprint of a constitution that was drawn up beforehand without creating a mechanism for negotiation with the nations involved. Therefore, we must create a constitution with people and not for people. [Interjections.] I do not know what the hon. member for Bryanston is laughing about. Apparently he has a perverse sense of humour. We are dealing with very serious matters here. However, the negotiation process itself has the potential for conflict and that is why this mechanism must comply with certain conditions. The negotiation must take place in the atmosphere of a statutory institution bound to certain rules and certain conventions and traditions in order to ensure that the emotional-political element will be restricted to a minimum. That is why I want to say that the idea of a national convention cannot comply with these requirements because then one is in fact including that same emotional-political element in the discussions. One must make provision for those groups that have the best chance of reaching consensus, taking into account the diversity of background and interests, to meet together. That is to say, the Whites, the Coloureds, and the Indians have the best possible opportunity of reaching consensus in a specific body. In this mechanism for negotiation, these people must be grouped together, just as the Black nations in South Africa must be grouped together because of their origin, in order to have the best possible opportunity of reaching consensus. The Opposition is creating the impression that the Blacks are not being consulted in this situation. I assume that their members of the Constitutional Commission have informed them fully that specific provision is being made for liaison by means of a committee system with the Black Council. This is what is being envisaged. The third requirement is that the stability of efficient government must be maintained and that we should not simply find ourselves faced with an unknown situation or constitution overnight. The fact is, if the experiment does not work, we will not be able to retrace our steps in that case. Therefore, we must bring about change through the process of evolution and the maintenance of order. This is the reason why the commission set a process in motion, by way of its interim report, to maintain the present stable situation so that we can discuss these matters on a proper foundation in future without disrupting order.

The next premise is that the solution must be found in the maximum possible decentralization of power to different groups. It is in fact true that the Black nations have already progressed far in their own constitutional development by means of their decentralized power position. In the nature of things, the particulars of many of these matters will have to be sorted out by the Constitutional Committee of the President’s Council. It will be a considerable task to work out the method of liaison between the groups.

However, I now want to talk more specifically about certain standpoints which the official Opposition have put during the course of this debate. They accept most of the principles and premises that I have already stated, but they are nevertheless fighting the Bill tooth and nail. I cannot understand how they reconcile these two facts, that on the one hand they accept some of the principles and premises and on the other hand they oppose this legislation. Of course, the official Opposition is on the horns of a dilemma. As I have already said, on the one hand there is consensus amongst most of the hon. members of the Opposition who served on the commission on the majority of these premises, but on the other hand there are a few liberals in the ranks of their party who in thought and spirit are working towards a completely integrated community, one that is based upon a “one man, one vote” system within a unitary State. That is their dilemma. It is clear that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition cannot control these elements within his party. The spirit which hon. members of the Opposition have displayed during this session is reflected by standpoints that they put here in direct contrast to the recommendations which were in fact made by some members of the Opposition who served on the Constitutional Commission. The standpoint of the official Opposition during this session can be summed up more or less as follows: “You can stop terrorism and subversion only by giving political rights which are based on a common legislative body without the recognition of group identity.” This is the impression that I gained. Is this not one of the most specious bits of reasoning that there has ever been in politics?

Those are your words, not ours.

We heard it again last night. This standpoint is in direct opposition to the recommendations which hon. members of the Opposition endorsed in the interim report of the Constitutional Commission. I want to ask them whether they do not realize that terrorism occurs all over the world, also in the so-called just societies? Judging by the way the hon. member for Musgrave put it last night, it seems as if he does not realize it. If one reads the minority report of the hon. members of the official Opposition carefully, one finds a repetition in the first part of standpoints agreed on by the commission in general. The only real differences do not concern principles, but the method that must be followed. The differences that they single out, are in fact in opposition to the premises and principles that were accepted in the first part of the interim report. Do the hon. members of the official Opposition now want to tell me that, in view of the fact that they have indicated their strongest possible censure of the Bill before the House by opposing the First Reading and by their standpoints during the Second Reading in spite of the fact that it is not principle that is at issue but method—they are prepared to cause the entire exercise to miscarry, for the sake of this difference in standpoint on method, on the composition of the negotiating mechanism, or on the name of the chairman of the President’s Council—whether he is a Vice-President or simply a chairman—or on the question of whether it is a permanent institution or not? Is the Opposition really anxious to set a negotiating process in motion? I am beginning to have serious doubts about it, because what is the motive? Is the reason why the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is accusing us, not precisely because he has to satisfy certain elements in his own ranks, within his own party, as to why the Opposition is adopting this standpoint? They are accusing people of what they themselves are guilty of. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition says by implication that he and his party, in spite of the fact that they accept the principle of negotiation, are not prepared to negotiate, unless it is according to the pattern and formula that his party prescribes. This is what he is saying by implication. He is saying that he is not prepared to negotiate unless it is according to the pattern that his party prescribes. Is this not arrogance of the first degree? Is it fair if one takes note that the issue is those facts that I have just mentioned? It borders on an arrogance, on an insensitivity which is beyond me.

They say, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has confirmed it this afternoon, that delay will cause increasing dissatisfaction amongst other groups. How does this tally with the delaying politics which the official Opposition is setting in motion in this regard? After all, hon. members of the Opposition know in advance that the standpoints that they are adopting, will meet with a response amongst the other population groups, and particularly the English language Press. One must impress upon them that by withholding their co-operation they are delaying this process. Then one really begins to wonder about the bona fides of that party. So, we shall carry on without them, in spite of their sabotage attempts to delay the constitutional processes. We will build a new and a better South Africa by means of this Bill in which they will not have any share.

I now give to the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications an opportunity to address the House of a matter of personal explanation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity, since I had to leave for several hours after my speech this afternoon on account of other duties. For the sake of the seriousness of the debate, and in order to avoid all misunderstanding, I should like to make the following statement:

In my speech this afternoon, in a reaction to the standpoint of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that his party wants nothing to do with the President’s Council if Blacks do not serve on it, I stated at length that, owing to the historical background, Black leaders react to modern constitutional concepts and development even more slowly than those of us here do. I did not in any way state or intend this in a derogatory or paternalistic way. In fact, my own words in Hansard, in reply to an interjection, confirm that I did not mean it derogatorily, but as the reality. I went through my Hansard. If the words in question, “whose thought processes are even slower” in the specific context may give any offence, I withdraw them and substitute for them the words “whose assimilation of constitutional processes is slower”. My record in public life testifies to understanding and goodwill to all people, and not to derogatoriness.

Mr. Speaker, it does not often happen that the House occupies itself with a discussion, the effect of which only posterity will be able to determine and assess. I maintain that the discussions here this afternoon and tomorrow are the type of discussion to which I have just referred.

Right at the outset I wish to say that there is an obvious anomaly as regards the conduct of the commissioners who represented the various political parties on the commission. I think this tells a tale of the attitude and approach adopted by various commissioners at the time of the discussions on the commission, and at the time of the formulation of recommendations. This trend has repeated itself in our discussions here.

I now wish to refer to two observations made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in the course of his speech and suggest that both these observations were very significant and that certain conclusions are to be drawn from them, until the contrary has been proved. In the Hansard of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition I see that he did not refer to the minority report of certain commissioners, but to the “minority report of my party”. I must conclude from this that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the commissioners who were members of his party, brought their proposals from their caucus to the commission.

That is not true.

Then the hon. member must explain why the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that it was a report of his party.

He said that because the party accepted it.

The second point I wish to make …

That was a very weak argument.

… is that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was terribly upset by the fact that the accusation was made that he had changed his standpoint.

That is a weak argument for a quick-thinking Minister.

That hon. member, who is not capable of keeping his mouth shut and yet does not succeed in saying anything, would do well to pay attention.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was upset because the newspapers, the other media and certain people accused him of having changed his standpoint. What are the facts? In the first place, surely it is a fact that there was consensus among all the members of the commission on the need for a council to be established, and that the name of that council should be the President’s Council.

That is all subject to the one key question.

Will that hon. member please keep quiet and display the same courtesy which other hon. members displayed to him? [Interjections.] Surely there was consensus that the council should consist of 60 members. There was also consensus, with the exclusion of the hon. member for Sea Point, that there should be a Vice-President. Surely the minority report is not in accordance with the consensus which was achieved on this specific aspect. What right does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition then have to argue in this House that they had not changed their standpoint and that those people who alleged that they had changed their standpoint, were telling lies?

Quite true.

Listen to that, will you.

You see, Sir …