Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, when last week we debated the motion then moved by the hon. the Leader of the House that this House would sit on all evenings the following week, I suggested that that was an intolerable situation. This proposal now makes that situation even more intolerable.

I think the hon. the Leader of the House must obviously realize that he is committing this House now to sitting morning, noon and night for the whole of next week—from 10h00 until 22h30. I believe that this is totally unacceptable. Last week I wondered what hon. Cabinet Ministers did during the recess. Well, whatever they do, it is perfectly obvious that they do want to get out of this place as soon as they possibly can to enjoy whatever they do during the recess. [Interjections.]

Enjoy? You really do talk absolute nonsense. [Interjections.]

It is perfectly obvious that they are prepared to run this House in this fashion in order that they can get away. They are taking risks. It is not as if this is the end of an ordinary session. The hon. the Leader of the House will know that we are dealing now, and shall be dealing next week, with one of the most important constitutional measures that this House has ever had to consider. We shall be in the Committee Stage of Fifth Constitution Amendment Bill. He will also know that we will be dealing with the Limitation and Disclosure of Finance Charges Amendment Bill, one of the most important measures affecting the commercial and mercantile community in this country. We are going to have to deal with these two measures, apart from all the other measures still on the Order Paper, in this kind of situation, where everybody will be dog-tired, where everybody will obviously be tense and …

Do not forget, we are fast thinkers!

Yes, some of us are. Some of us, however, are not quite so fast. [Interjections.]

What about Kowie?

I think that on previous occasions I told the House that the judges of the Supreme Court never sit after 16h00, because they believe that justice cannot be done after 16h00. [Interjections.] I do not believe that legislation can be properly handled by people who are tired and edgy. I want to state that we shall certainly oppose this motion, and I do not think the hon. the Leader of the House had any expectation to the contrary.

There is still another factor. That is that I wonder if the hon. the Leader of the House realizes what a totally impossible situation he is putting before certain hon. members of this House. If, for example, we sit from 10h00 until 22h30, there are also still Select Committees of this House, and commissions consisting of hon. members of this House, that will be sitting. When are they going to sit? I understand that the idea is now that the Commission of Inquiry into the Development Schemes Bill—again one of the most important measures affecting business in this country—is going to have to sit from 08h00 on three days next week—Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. No wonder we believe that this Cabinet cannot run the country. They cannot even run Parliament properly …

Let alone the country. [Interjections.]

This is not the way to run Parliament. Sir, we will oppose this measure and we will oppose any other measure which takes this hon. House for a ride.

Mr. Speaker, we too are very sorry to see that the hon. the Leader of the House has deemed it necessary to introduce the motion before us now. As we understand the situation, the rules of this House were changed some three years ago to accommodate the very problem that besets us at this moment. We introduced the system—with full agreement of all parties— of having standing committees sitting in the Senate Chamber to debate Votes so as to relieve the amount of work in this hon. House, and at the same time to streamline and expedite the throughput of the work.

We do find, however, that we still come back to this situation, which, I do believe, is due to bad planning, because we fall foul of reaching a stage where we plan for a specific day by which we believe we can finish. People get wind of this, plan accordingly, and we find that we come to the end of the session and we just cannot cope. There are just not sufficient hours in the day, or, for that matter, in the night, to enable us to cope and to keep up with the work satisfactorily.

We have said—and we say it again—that we are happy to stay here in Cape Town in order to do the work because we feel it has to be done properly. We did say last week that we believe that, with this important legislation before us, we must be seen by the whole of South Africa to be doing justice to this legislation. In order to do this we must be, as I said, on our toes, and we must—let me hasten to add—be wide awake. I can only make the appeal at this stage to the hon. the Leader of the House please to avoid a repetition of this situation. We oppose this, as we have opposed it over the years. In fact, it has become a tradition. I do not think this is necessary. I really do not, because it does not augur well for good parliamentary procedure. But while we oppose this motion, we understand that it is going to come into effect anyway, and since we must accept the inevitable, I should like to make an appeal to all parties that we all do what we can to allow the wheels to run smoothly in the last few days that we are here. Let none of us do anything that is going to obstruct the smooth running of affairs here. Let us all remember that it does not matter much to those of us who sit here, but let us remember that any inconvenience that we may cause each other is a tremendous inconvenience also to the officials of Parliament. Let us try to remember the officials in whatever we seek to do to each other.

And the departments.

Yes, and the departments. We oppose this motion.

Mr. Speaker, why should we be so pious today as those hon. members who are adopting that pose here today? Surely this is not their first day in this Parliament. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened. What I am proposing here does not differ in any way, after all, from what my predecessors have proposed over the years. I have been sitting here for 22 years, and for 22 years I have been used to sitting morning, noon and night every day during the last week of the session, and going on until we have finished on the last night, as we did last year. Actually I am being very considerate towards hon. members. I am coming to this House well in advance to tell hon. members this. I might just as well have done it next week. I have looked it up, and I am actually coming to this House a day earlier than usual to say what our programme for next week will be. This procedure does not differ in any way from the manner in which this Parliament has functioned over the years. However, those hon. members adopt a pious pose here to tell the public that they are very keen to be here and that we are the ones who want to run away. They want to pretend that they are the people who want to stay here to work. I can still stomach that argument, but what I cannot stomach is the insult or reflection from the hon. Chief Whip of the Opposition in implying that the Government does not want to work and wants to run away. No, we do not want to run away. This Government is second to no other Government, inside or outside South Africa, when it comes to dedication to duty. Therefore I reject the hon. member’s reflection with the contempt it deserves. That hon. member, who is now sitting there glaring at me like that, advanced the argument that we should take note of what the judges do, that a judge only sits until 16h00 and then feels that his mind is no longer clear and that he must not sit any longer. What does that hon. member want to do after 16h00 which makes him ask us to keep to the same hours as the Bench? This will not do! Where does he want to go in the evening while we have to sit and work here? No, he should not be so pious and try to hide behind the officials. No official has complained to him about the burden of work. I challenge him to say that any official has complained to him. Not one has complained to me, because the officials of this place are loyal people and have come here to work. They take pride in finishing their work as well. On their behalf, therefore—I have received no such brief from them, however—I want to object to the fact that he hides behind the officials every time. Of course the officials of this House work hard, and we respect that fact and we tell them so. Of course we are proud of our good officials, but does he wish to suggest that they are so spineless that they cannot bear the extra burden for a week? Of course they also want to get the activities of this place behind them, just as we do. The hon. member must not advance that kind of argument.

Then the hon. member also referred to the activities of Select Committees. He spoke about Select Committees last week as well. Sir, I have gone out of my way this year to assist the completion of the work through the creation of Select Committees. I have gone out of my way to co-operate. We have gone out of our way for a year to bring the legislation before the House as soon as possible. Where hon. members have given the slightest impression of needing more time, I have been the first, in co-operation with my Whips, to give them that time they needed. However, what do I get in return? No gratitude, but only the kind of reflection we have had from them today. Parliament is functioning this year as it functioned last year, and as it will function in the future as well, in my opinion. Much cleverer people than he established the tradition of this place in the past, and I cannot see why I should deviate from the tradition of those clever people, and that simply at the insistence of that hon. member, who wants to inflame emotions here without good reason and especially to cast a reflection on this side of the House.

Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned last night, I was making the general remark that occasions arise in the lives and histories of countries and nations, and in this House as well, where political parties and hon. members who serve them are expected, for the sake of the continued order, stability and development of our country, to be able to rise above previously formulated standpoints in the interests of a larger cause we have to promote. I submit that the discussion of this Bill is one of those occasions. In fact, without being melodramatic about it, I want to make the general statement that this may be one of the last opportunities we shall have to create instruments which may enable us to find peaceful and constitutional solutions to the problems of the country. If hon. members agree with my approach, one has to evaluate the contributions and the conduct of hon. members and their parties in terms of their ability to rise above their own short-term interests.

In this connection it is important to refer briefly to two remarks made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in his speech. He made one statement that was significant, if words have any meaning. Unlike the other commissioners who are members of the other parties and who signed a report in spite of their political standpoints in the past, the minority report, in the terminology of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, is a minority report of his party. There is only one inevitable conclusion which can be drawn from this, i.e. that that report does not necessarily represent the standpoint of the hon. members serving on that commission, but actually represents an instruction which they received from the party. [Interjections.]

The second remark I want to make concerns the obvious indignation of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition about any suggestion that he and his party have changed their standpoint. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred in his speech to various aspects concerning which there was consensus, but he alleged that any suggestion that he, or his party, I assume, deviated from that or made a volte-face, was nothing but malicious speculation.

Yes.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition says “Yes”. I want to ask him whether he denies that there was consensus about the following aspects of the interim report: Does he deny that there was consensus about the establishment of a council?

Subject to the inclusion of Blacks.

Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition deny that there was consensus that the name of the council should be the President’s Council?

Subject to the inclusion of Blacks.

Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition deny that the council was to have consisted of 60 members?

Subject to the inclusion of Blacks.

Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition deny that it was agreed, not only that the council would be known as the President’s Council, but also that the Vice-State President would act as chairman, and that the only reservation about that was the standpoint of the hon. member for Sea Point?

Please repeat the question.

Subject to the inclusion of the slow thinkers. [Interjections.]

We are thinking a bit slowly.

I can understand that the hon. member for Bryanston should talk about people who are slow thinkers, for that is one of his outstanding characteristics. [Interjections.] The objection of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is now that there should be a permanent amendment to the establishment of the council, apart from its composition. His second argument is that the Black people have not been included on the council.

That is the main argument.

It is not the main argument. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition advanced a lot of arguments. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition must not be surprised if his ability to adhere to standpoints is doubted. Nor must he be indignant when people who normally support him now have doubts about his conduct in this debate. No one would suggest that The Argus is not a supporter of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party. In fact, I am not always sure whether The Argus or the hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke first about a specific matter. However, what does The Argus now say about the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and about the hon. member for Sandton? In their discussion of the official Opposition’s resistance to the introduction of the Bill, they described the quality of the official Opposition’s conduct as follows—

Concerning the hon. member for Sandton, they said the following—

Surely there is no one in this House who believes that the hon. member for Sandton could be lukewarm if he felt strongly about a matter.

It depends on how you spell it. [Interjections.]

I would rather not suggest that. I want to allege, contrary to what was said by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, that the member of his party on the commission who gives the orders is not he, but the hon. member for Sea Point, and that he in turn gets his instructions from someone who is sitting right behind the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and who must be feeling unhappy about where he is sitting and how long he is going to stay there. In all fairness to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, I want to say today that there is a fundamental difference between him and the rest of the hon. members in his party. What is the difference? That hon. member understands nationalism and he understands Black nationalism. I pity him for being forced, at the end of his career, to associate with people who do not understand nationalism. [Interjections.]

I am nowhere near the end of my career!

The Government of the country is often criticized when we take steps to deal with the problems of the country which are caused by the intense divisive factors which exist in our community, when the existing policy is deficient. I think one should be modest about this matter in this House. I do not claim perfection for the Government.

Modesty is not exactly your strong point. Rather forget about it.

Order!

I am not even suggesting that we are not making any mistakes with this Bill, but the success or otherwise of the instruments being created by this legislation will not depend only on the intrinsic value our attempt to make them succeed; it will depend largely on the way in which, and the extent to which, other political entities— the hon. official Opposition inside this House and in other councils—try to help to make a success of this course. To a large extent, the success or failure of our human, and therefore fallible, attempts, will depend on us in this House in particular, because this is the seat of political power in the country. It will depend on our attitude, towards one another in the first place. It will depend on the terminology we use. It will depend on the approach we adopt concerning our attitudes towards the political solutions for the country. It will also depend on whether we do it in a spirit of adhering to our own standpoints at any cost and of vindicating them in every respect.

I want to commend the other hon. Opposition parties for the magnanimity of their conduct, something which one rarely sees in this House.

There are powerful, restrictive factors and forces which make democratic solutions improbable for this country. I do not have time to refer to them, except for saying that these factors arise from internal circumstances and external events and influences, and often from a combination of both. When we examine the internal factors, then the divisive factors and the potential for conflict that these entail are more intense and comprehensive than in any comparable country in the world.

Therefore, before I cross swords with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, as I shall shortly do, and accuse the hon. official Opposition of political laxity, political irresponsibility and reckless and stubborn neglect, and before I warn them that their unwillingness or inability to co-operate with us and other people to see whether the President’s Council and the Black Advisory Council cannot give us some guidance on the road of South Africa, cannot give us some guidance about how other population groups may be enabled to participate in the political decision-making process of the country, I want to make a few general remarks in this connection.

There are extreme poles at either end of the political spectrum, poles which will in the final analysis bear the responsibility for failure, if we do fail, but which, on the other hand, will be denied the joy of any success we may achieve. On the one hand, there are people in the country who cling with obsessive narrow-mindedness to outdated concepts, who elevate separation into a principle, who see in everything that is done to improve the lot of our fellow-inhabitants of this country a threat to their own welfare, comfort and identity. These are people who write political credos, with which I did not necessarily disagree, and who write in them what is sacro sanctus for the Whites of the country, but who then, and with this I do not agree, seek to condemn the other population groups to a permanently subservient position in the country. These people make no contribution to the political process of the country, to the search for just and lasting solutions or to a better and more equitable future for all the people who live here. However, their conduct is just as counterproductive and deplorable as that of the Boraines, the Eglins, and the Bamfords sitting opposite us. I want to tell these people in all seriousness …

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. the Minister entitled to use words like that?

I should be glad if the hon. the Minister, if he wants to use general descriptive terms, would not mention hon. members of this House by name.

Very well, I shall do so. To these people, in whatever political group they may find themselves, I want to say: South Africa does not need them. On the contrary, it is in South Africa’s best interests that they should withdraw into their cocoon of self-interest, that they should spin themselves into their web of self-sufficiency and that they should withdraw into the cave of political isolation so that they cannot frustrate the attempts of other people who are seeking solutions.

As against these, there are, in all fairness, the leftist liberals, who are responsible, I submit, for a crisis of expectations in this country, for expectations which are assuming crisis proportions because they cannot be fulfilled and because they regard the abdication of White rights as a precondition for the recognition of the rights of other people. If this is not true in theory, it is at least true in practice. What applies to us in White politics also applies in the politics of people of other colours and of other population groups. We have the responsibility to realize, and the time for this is running out, that if radicalism on both sides of the political spectrum is not penalized and if balance and moderation in the formulation of political standpoints are not rewarded and recognized, we shall ultimately find that political leaders with whom we could have come to an agreement will decide that it is better, in their own personal interests, to support the extremist standpoint. I am not pleading for my own party; I am pleading that we, who have to accept responsibility for this institution and through whom any meaningful change has to take place, should understand this, for if we do not succeed in this, if the thinking at either extreme of this spectrum is not penalized and moderation is not rewarded, we in this country will not only fail to resolve the division, but will in fact aggravate it.

The objection of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is basically directed against the establishment of the two councils, but from the greater part of the evidence given before the Commission, one thing is very clear, and that is that for any future constitutional dispensation to have any viability, it will have to be structured on the nature and essence of society as it is. Two elements which I consider to be the most important ones, namely ethnicity and geographic ties, or classification into ethnic categories, will have to be built into any future constitutional dispensation. I now ask why suspicion should be sown in the minds of people of colour, and why an atmosphere of suspicion should be created among other population groups about the Government’s intentions with the establishment of the Black Advisory Council, by implying that it would be humiliating, inferior and insulting. Speeches are often made in the councils of this country, and in this House as well, which give rise to and are often the direct cause of extra-parliamentary and unconstitutional conduct. I want to warn against this very seriously. Surely the fact that the recommendations in this report provide for the establishment of two councils has a bearing on and should be explained by the pattern of the constitutional development of the various peoples and population groups that have been living here over the years. Surely the fact is that the political and constitutional development and position of the Black nations differ radically from those of the Brown people, the Indians and the Chinese. I want to say that whatever the final solution in respect of the Black nations may be, the concept of independence will figure very prominently in any such solutions. Surely this does not apply to the Brown people, the Asians and the Chinese. We are so often accused of alienating the Brown people and of not doing so in respect of the Asians and the Chinese. Whether this is justified or not, why is this attempt to bring together the Brown people, the Whites and the Asians now being opposed? I say that the Black nations of South Africa have already gained status and legislative power through their own States, through their own States, through their own geographic territories, which the Brown people, the Asians and the Chinese do not have and cannot obtain on the same basis in their own right. This justifies the fact that we have accommodated this in the councils we are creating.

The establishment of the President’s Council and of a Black council represents one of the most important events in our country’s history. I want to allege that it is a momentous occasion and that it testifies to significant progress in the country, because for the first time in our history, mechanisms are being created, vehicles are being created, through which it is becoming possible for all the population groups of the country to deliberate with one another, to consult one another, each one in its own right and with equal status, about constitutional development such as a council of States, if we want to call it that, or a constellation of States, about economic affairs, about planning facets of the country and about community relations in South Africa. Surely this is progress. Surely this is a simple truth. Surely the promotion of the States is an attempt to restructure the political environment in this country, which is so explosive, in such a way as to reduce the magnitude and intensity of the divisive factors which obstruct the finding of more democratic solutions and the participation of more groups in these, so that our chances may be improved.

Even if there were some merit in the complaint of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that it has deficiencies—I do not accept that this is so, but let us suppose it is—this is not sufficient reason for his party, with the exception of the hon. member of Bezuidenhout, to fail to support this sincere attempt. The Government is not perfect. The Government’s perception of what is attainable may differ from that of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. We are hampered, as he is, by what is possible and what is not possible. We are hampered, as he is, by the political and social realities, but surely we are not lacking in love of this country. Surely we are not lacking in willingness to move away from rigidity. We are not lacking in willingness to bring about a better dispensation for all people.

Finally, only this: Why does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition not break away, with his party, from the rigid liberalism which controls and dominates them, and why do they not come forward to help us?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs has given us a very emotional speech this afternoon, but it is interesting to note that he barely touched on the Bill which we are discussing today. He gave us his political philosophy and tried to justify what the Government is doing, but apart from the fact that right at the end he mentioned that this was allowing the Coloured, Asian and Chinese people to come together to consult with the White people on the constitutional future of South Africa, he barely mentioned the contents of the Bill before us. I might say when he did do that, he omitted the one very relevant fact that from this constitutional dispensation, had been excluded all the Blacks who live outside the homelands, as well as the Blacks in the urban areas and the Blacks in the so-called White rural areas. I leave that to one side, however, because I do not want to get involved in an argument with the hon. the Minister.

I want simply to tell him that, as the hon. leader of my party stated quite clearly in his speech yesterday, the party was willing to co-operate and even to assist. To some degree it was even willing to compromise with the other hon. members who served on the commission in order to try to reach some consensus on what constitutional changes had to come about in South Africa. But there was one matter on which no compromise could be made. That is, of course, the compromise which the Government has reached now with the other Opposition parties. I refer to the exclusion of the Black people from the President’s Council. On that score there could be no compromise as far as we in the PFP are concerned.

The hon. the Minister also failed to mention, of course, that although, as he said, Coloured and Asian people are now to be given the opportunity of …

And the Chinese people.

Yes, and the Chinese people. We also have to remember the 8 000 Chinese people who are going to be represented. These groups are to be given the opportunity to co-operate now with the White group in the constitutional development, but all of them are still excluded from the legislative processes of this country because, as the hon. the Minister has himself pointed out, Parliament retains the sole legislative right in South Africa.

I do not want to deal any further with the hon. the Minister. I was not a member of the commission, but two hon. members of the PFP were members of the commission and when they enter the debate they will deal fully with the arguments which the hon. the Minister raised. I want to touch on the speeches of two other hon. members. Unfortunately one of them has disappeared; the other one is still present. The one, of course—surprise! surprise!—is the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. Yesterday, right at the end of proceedings, the hon. the Minister stood up to give an explanation and also to make a retraction of the words he had used earlier in the day about the slow thought processes of the Blacks being the sound reason why they were being excluded from the President’s Council.

Really, that is stale news by now. [Interjections.]

I believe it is a pity that the hon. the Minister did not simply stand up last night, withdraw what he had said, apologize and leave it at that. Not, of course, that he is likely to be allowed to forget what he said. At least, if he had just withdrawn the words—those insulting words —and apologized, he might have been partially forgiven. As it is, the retraction was no good, because the words that he substituted for the retraction were just as bad, if not worse. I see no difference between saying: “Wie se verwerking van staatkundige prosesse nog stadiger is,” and the words he used originally: “Wie se denkprosesse nog stadiger is.” It is just as bad. In addition, the retraction the hon. the Minister made was that he did not mean what he had said to be disparaging, but that he was simply mentioning the reality. That obviously made things much worse, and I believe it is a great pity that he did not simply apologize. [Interjections.]

The real trouble is, of course, that the hon. the Minister does not really know what all the fuss is about. That is the real trouble. Basically, he actually believes what he said. He believes what he said about the thought processes of the Black people, and I have little doubt that a large number of his hon. colleagues sitting on that side of the House agree with him. Certainly, there has been no repudiation of the incredible remarks he made, and I would say that those remarks are hardly likely to guarantee a hearty cheer for the President’s Council from Black South Africans. [Interjections.] Indeed, we have had the effects already. We have had the effect in the statement made by Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, and also in a statement made by Dr. Motlana. Nor, I may add, is it going to entice Black States to come rushing to join the hon. the Prime Minister’s constellation of States. Indeed, I am very surprised, if what the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications said does reflect what hon. members opposite really believe, how it is that they were so eager to give independence to those slow-thinking people in Transkei, in Venda and in Bophuthatswana … [Interjections.]

When are you going to speak on the Bill?

I am coming back to the Bill right now. I am simply replying to some speeches made by hon. members opposite.

No wonder they are so upset; they do not like it. [Interjections.]

No, they do not like it. I want to say that we repudiate entirely what the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications said, and I wonder that a senior hon. Minister, or the hon. the Prime Minister himself, does not do the same thing.

Another speech I want to comment on for just a few moments is that made by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens who is not a stupid man but who sometimes makes stupid remarks. Yesterday was, of course, one such occasion. The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens said that White elected MPs have a moral responsibility to White South Africans—or words to that effect— and he implied, in his comments on the speech made by my colleague, the hon. member for Musgrave, that we on these benches have forgotten our responsibility to the White electorate of South Africa. [Interjections.] Do hon. members, and especially the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, not know that the fate of White South Africans is inextricably bound up with the fate of Black South Africans?

As a matter of fact, I said that.

Well, then, what does he mean by implying that because we talk only on behalf …

And, moreover, you are distorting what I said.

Well, the hon. member can correct me if I have “distorted” what he said.

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member allowed to say that someone has distorted what he said?

Order! The hon. member is not allowed to say that.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that, but I say that the hon. member …

Order!

The implication was clear. The hon. member should know, however, that every time we plead for a better life for Black people in this country, we are pleading for a peaceful future for White South Africans.

Read the speech.

It is enough that I had to listen to him once. I really could not bear to read it as well.

Have you ever pleaded for the Whites?

Coining back to the Bill, I want to say that of all the disappointments of this session, of all the unfulfilled promises, and they have been many, of all the unrealized expectations, and they have been many too, I believe that the appearance of the majority report of the Schlebusch Commission, and the Bill that emerged as a result of it, have been the greatest disappointment of all. We all eagerly awaited this commission’s report, as we awaited the legislation that would emerge from it. We did not expect a magic formula, but we did expect a formula that would give us some hope, anyway, of a peaceful future for South Africa.

Do you have hope for a peaceful future?

… a formula that would lead South Africa away from protracted unrest and confrontation to a path of negotiation and participation, by all the races, in the political processes in this country. That has not, of course, emerged from the majority report, and certainly not from the Bill. I just wonder how many hon. members opposite can put their hands on their hearts and honestly say that they believe that the new constitution is indeed going to ensure a reasonable chance of a peaceful future for South Africa? I think that perhaps the saddest commentary of all on the new constitution is that, in a way, it repeats the mistake of the past. It repeats the mistake, the glaring omission, in the 1910 constitution which, of course, omitted any guarantee …

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member to what constitution she is referring?

I am talking about the amendments to the constitution which, in effect, bring in a new constitution or dispensation for South Africa. [Interjections.] I mean, the Senate is to disappear, the House of Assembly is to be enlarged and all sorts of other things are going to happen. So this is an amendment to the original constitution, and what emerges is going to be a new constitution for South Africa. That is what I am talking about. It repeats exactly the glaring omission of the original constitution for South Africa. It omits giving any guarantee of political participation in the legislative processes in this country. That was a glaring omission in 1910, and it is an even more glaring omission in 1980 when we have moved so far away from the old colonial times and when Africa is taking on an entirely new aspect in every possible way. I believe that the omission in 1910 is one of the reasons why this country is experiencing a period of protracted unrest, why she has been rejected by all the countries in the Western world and by the countries in the rest of Africa and why we are excluded from so many international events. To my mind there is no doubt whatever that, if Blacks and Coloured people had been on the voters’ roll in South Africa from the beginning or had at least been admitted in later years, none of the discriminatory laws which have come onto the Statute Book over the years would have been permitted to come onto the Statute Book and therefore this country would have faced a much happier future. Seventy years later here we are making exactly the same mistakes again.

We are replacing some of the basic provisions of the 1910 Constitution, but we are making no provision whatever for the inclusion of Coloured or Indian people in the electorate. What this Bill does do is to place an unspecified number of nominated Coloured, Asian and Chinese people on a President’s Council, which is an advisory and consultative body only, while, believe it or not, no mention is made whatever of more than 70% of the population of this country except, as the hon. member for Constantia pointed out last night, in clause 34 of the Bill where there is reference to a council consisting of Black South African citizens which is to be established under an Act of Parliament, which we have of course as yet not seen. We do not even know whether that is to be an elected council or a nominated council. We do not know how it is going to be constituted in numbers with regard to the homelands, the urban Blacks and the Blacks who live elsewhere in South Africa. It may be consulted at the discretion of the President’s Council and it shall be consulted when the State President so decrees. That is the sum total of what Blacks will enjoy under the new constitution in 1980, or rather under the amended constitution of 1980. I say this is an insult. I say it is a shocking indictment of the Government’s attitude towards Black people and their worth. It is of course very much in keeping with the views expressed yesterday by the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.

The hon. the Minister who introduced the Bill told us yesterday that the President’s Council will consist of at least four standing committees, viz. a constitutional committee, a committee for economic affairs, a planning committee and a committee for community relations. It will consist of 60 members who will be experts in their fields and who are recognized leaders of their own communities, namely the White, Coloured, Asian and Chinese communities. Does the Government really believe, as the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications obviously does, that out of the existing African population of South Africa with its thousands of university graduates—there are 8 616 university graduates among Africans in South Africa, and that is only up to the end of 1978 so that the number will be higher today—we could not produce the required number of trained experts to serve on the four standing committees? I have to concede at once that I personally do not believe there is any hope—or very little hope anyway, and probably none at all since the speech of the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications—that any leading representative members of those communities would in fact have agreed to serve on that council. I believe that any self-respecting Black with any influence in his own community would soon lose whatever influence he had, if he did agree to serve on it. And I do not believe that self-respecting Blacks will accept being “kraaled” off into a separate council.

You are prompting them again, not so?

All around South Africa there are visible, palpable signs of African States coming into their own, of the Black man coming into his own. Yet now, in 1980, the Government expects South African Blacks, who are probably by far the most advanced Black people on the continent of Africa …

Why?

Why? Because they have taken what advantage they could out of what they could get out of education …

Why in South Africa and not in other countries?

Nigeria also has large numbers of educated Black people. I am, however, talking about the economically less endowed Black countries which have not been able to afford to educate their people to the same extent. Yet in South Africa the Government is not prepared to grant that there are educated Black experts who can serve on this council. Spokesman after spokesman of the Black community has rejected the proposals which have emerged from the Schlebusch Commission, and so have the leaders of the Coloured and the Indian communities. I believe we are witnessing a dismal spectacle today. When we should be eagerly discussing a new and viable constitution for South Africa, we are mulling over a lifeless corpse that never really had a chance of surviving because I believe it was stillborn once it was decided that the President’s Council proposed in the amendments to the constitution should omit the inclusion of Black people together with the other races.

I want to quote the following words—

I can assure hon. members this is not a quotation from the sayings of chairman Mao, but the words of our present Prime Minister. He said this when he was talking about the constellation of States at the Carlton Hotel to all those starry-eyed businessmen. But surely “the political will to co-operate”, just like charity, must begin at home. If the Government of South Africa is not even prepared to show the political will to co-operate with its own Black South African citizens, what hope is there of co-operation thriving fully in the States of Southern Africa with Blacks who are not even South African citizens? There is no hope whatsoever.

Do you know you are now misleading the world?

Finally, I want to say that my colleagues, and in particular the leader of my party, have covered in great detail the objections which we have in principle to the enlargement of this House by means of nominated MPs. Those nominated MPs are presently limited in number, but I want to know what guarantee there is that the Government, if it feels itself slipping from power, will not at any time in the future either extend the term in parliament of those nominated MPs or greatly increase the number of those MPs in order to ensure that it will stay in power. I want to point out that this is not beyond the realms of possibility. We have had a similar example in the history of this country when the Government manipulated the Constitution by creating enough Senators to remove the Coloured people from the common voters’ roll. It has been done before and there is no guarantee that the Government will not once again manipulate and use the number of people it can nominate to this House, to suit its own ends. For all those reasons we reject this Bill and I have no hesitation in supporting the amendment moved by the hon. Leader of the Opposition that this Bill be read this day six months.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present to the House a totally free and unbiased opinion on the measure before the House today. I am fortunate in that I do not have to account to any political caucus and that I am not fettered by any previous political position that needs to be defended. What I merely have to assess for myself is whether the basic principles of this Bill are acceptable to me or not and whether the positive features outweigh the negative features or not. Is the Bill an improvement or is it, in fact, a retrogressive step?

Before giving hon. members my summary and opinion of those questions, let me first consider and discuss the main features of the Bill. It contains five major and radical changes in our system of government. I shall merely list them at first, and then I shall discuss them one by one. The first one is to establish a new office, viz. that of Vice-State President; the second one is to provide for an increase in the number of Ministers of State; the third one is to abolish the Senate; the fourth to change the composition of the House of Assembly; and the fifth to establish a new constitutional and consultative body, the President’s Council.

The first one I should like to deal with is the office of Vice-State President. After due consideration, I could find no objection to the creation of this new position, nor in fact to the method employed to elect a Vice State President. It is obvious that the major task of the Vice State President will be to preside over the President’s Council and that his high office will offer significant prestige to that council. I could also find ho objection to the second major feature of this Bill, viz. that the State President may now appoint 20 Ministers of State, instead of the present number of 18. The third major issue, that of the abolition of the Senate, has already received approval in principle by all hon. members of this House. There is therefore no disagreement in this House regarding this major constitutional change and I do not intend commenting on this any further.

The fourth issue, however, does present problems. The addition of 12 more MPs to the House of Assembly is, in my opinion, the first major issue in the Bill that can really be considered debatable or, in fact, contentious. When it was first talked about, I was told, and the view was then expressed, that 20 new members of Parliament would be appointed to Parliament, and that the express reason and motivation for this step was that non-partisan men of exceptional ability, expertise and experience should be recruited for Parliament. It was stated that they were needed to broaden the scope and ability of this House. That view can easily be defended and supported in principle. The value of top technocrats and specialists in various fields would certainly be a welcome asset and could immensely improve the stature, ability and depth of skill of this Parliament.

However, in this Bill there are no criteria or explicit conditions listed or even mentioned that would ensure that only specialists would be recruited for Parliament. There are no guarantees that this House will not merely be filled by more politicians. It now seems that the original good idea has fallen by the way and that the proposal has degenerated into another “jobs-for-pals” situation. Inherent in the present proposals with regard to the 12 additional members of Parliament, is the very real human weakness of political parties that feel that old party stalwarts need to be rewarded for past services rendered. There is no real motivation or specific directive to acquire men of special and specific skills who may be needed for Parliament. I therefore believe that the addition of 12 members of Parliament, as described in this Bill, is, in fact, a retrogressive step. They will not represent any community and will owe their allegiance and loyalty only to a political machine that nominated them in the first place.

Whom do you represent?

I estimate that the additional 12 members will cost the taxpayer almost an extra half million rand per annum, and that the taxpayer will receive very little in return. Can anyone really claim that the present governing political party will in fact offer South Africa more or better service when they have 146 politicians, instead of the present 135, as hon. members of this House? Unless some formula can be found, and worded accordingly and included in the Bill, a formula that would guarantee that only specialists and preferably non-political or non-partisan specialists would be nominated, I believe that the clauses referring to the addition of 12 members of Parliament should be deleted from the Bill.

The fifth and final major issue this Bill provides for is the establishment of a President’s Council whose functions it defines. This is clearly the most contentious item of the Bill, not so much the principle and the actual formation of such a council, but the racial composition of the council itself. All parties in this House openly agree in principle that an advisory constitutional council should be established and that the President’s Council could very well be or become that body. The main argument levelled against the Bill and, for that matter, against this President’s Council, is clearly based on the fact that the Black citizens of South Africa are excluded from the President’s Council. I certainly do not intend repeating the same arguments that we have heard over and over again over this issue by a number of previous speakers in this debate. Suffice it to say that I agree with and hold the same opinion held by many members of this House, including many members of the Government itself, viz. that Blacks should in fact be included and accommodated in this very important negotiating and consultative body.

Where do you get that from?

What I have said is in fact known to most members of this House. It is the case that many members of this House do believe that Blacks should be included.

Furthermore, I should like to express the view that, considering the wide publicity that this issue has received, rightly or wrongly—I do not want to comment on the fact whether that was right or wrong—the reality of the situation is that the Blacks in South Africa today believe that they have been snubbed and that they have taken their exclusion from the council as an insult. I believe that in order to salvage the position, the Government should concede to the deletion of the proposed section 103(b), the section which excludes the Blacks. The deletion of that short sentence of 13 words would immediately and dramatically ease racial tension throughout South Africa and offer to the leaders of all groups new hope and create in them an eagerness to participate fully in this new direction. It surely must be obvious to all of us how important it is to continue with dialogue with all leaders at the highest possible level. I am well aware of the danger of a right wing White backlash, of which we were clearly warned last night by the hon. member for Randburg, but a boycott of the President’s Council holds in my opinion a far greater and more serious threat to the future of South Africa.

I now wish to elaborate on the conclusions I have reached after considering this matter very, very carefully and to indicate how I shall vote at the end of the Second Reading debate. I asked myself: After weighing the facts, do I accept or reject the basic, fundamental and underlying principles of this Bill? I also posed myself the question: Should the Bill be opposed at Second Reading due to the flaws in it, or should these flaws be corrected later in the Committee Stage? I solved my dilemma rather simply. I asked myself: If the Bill were passed as it now stands, what would my advice be to someone else if he were offered a position on the President’s Council or on the Black council, and how would I myself react in the unlikely event of my being offered such a seat. I thought long and hard and I came to the conclusion that, as I abhor the principle of any form of boycott, I would accept the offer, not only as a duty to South Africa, but as an honour as well. And I would gladly advise others likewise to accept nomination. In fact, I have already done so to a number of people of colour. I believe that as the President’s Council now stands, even with its obvious defects, it is nevertheless a vehicle which can make a major contribution towards constitutional change for a better future for South Africa. I do not see this vehicle as a Rolls Royce, but it is a vehicle that could work and a vehicle that could grow in stature, and change itself as it grows. Let us face the truth. At present we sit in an imperfect House. It is not fully representative at all in South Africa. It is nevertheless a sound vehicle which is presently changing itself rather dramatically. If I felt strongly that the President’s Council was so imperfect that I would not be able to sit on it, then surely I would logically also have to feel the same about this House and resign my seat accordingly. I sincerely believe that even the major flaw in this Bill, that of the exclusion of Blacks in the President’s Council, will actually in time iron itself out. Out of sheer necessity and due to the practical considerations the President’s Council and the Black Council will have to meet, consult and negotiate with each other on a daily basis. They will have to debate a future peaceful settlement which will be acceptable to everyone. They will certainly have to sit around the same table more often than we think. My advice and urgent plea to leaders such as Chief Phatudi and Chief Buthelezi is: Do not slam the door now.

They already have.

Do not slam it now on this offer; it could still turn out well and provide for a better future for us all. I should also respectfully like to suggest to Chief Buthelezi to adopt the sound advice he himself gave the Zulu children, namely not to participate in boycotts, but to stay at school even though the system is at present not perfect. My attitude is that separate President’s and Black councils are far from perfect and that from them a far better proposition will surely follow. The evolutionary process is still far superior to a revolutionary process.

I would likewise like to suggest to the NP that they also should not take part in a boycott, but should accept the invitation from Chief Buthelezi to sit on his Constitutional Commission, even if the NP does not believe that it is perfect. My plea to all parties is to keep doors for dialogue open.

I also appeal to the hon. PFP members that, if offered seats on the President’s Council, they too should consider serving South Africa by accepting nominations. It is very important that all shades of political thought should be represented in this exceptionally important future body. If one wishes to move from point A to point Z, one surely has to go past point B. I see the President’s Council as point B.

I would like to compliment the hon. member for Klip River for suggesting last night that the President’s Council should sit in Pietermaritzburg. At present we have the legislative body sitting in Cape Town in the Cape; the administrative body in Pretoria in Transvaal; and the judicial body in Bloemfontein in the Free State. I can therefore see no reason why this consultative body should not sit in Pietermaritzburg in Natal.

You already have the July Handicap.

I am glad that the suggestion of Pietermaritzburg was first mooted by a Government member, because it might then have a better chance of success. I certainly hope that the Opposition parties will support that sound idea.

In conclusion, even though there are two aspects of the Bill which I find unacceptable and which I shall vote against in the Committee Stage, I nevertheless agree with the underlying principles embodied in the Bill and will therefore vote in favour of the Second Reading of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Fifth Amendment Bill. I pray that when the President’s Council deliberates, it will find the constitutional solution which our country so desperately desires.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South has made a well considered, well delivered, balanced and responsible speech and I associate myself with a great deal of what he said, particularly that the President’s Council should sit in Pietermaritzburg. If hon. members on the other side want to see where this principle is really working in South Africa they should go to Pietermaritzburg, where all the elements in the complex society of South Africa have been drawn together into a working political inter-relationship. The hon. the Minister could very well do a lot worse than to consider Pietermaritzburg as the seat for the council, because, as I say, the principle is already working there.

Yesterday the hon. member for Durban Point set out the attitude of this party to this Bill. We do have some specific objections and we shall take action in the Committee Stage in an attempt to put the cause of those objections right. We and the members of the old United Party have been waiting for many, many years for a change to come in the pattern of development in South Africa, a change away from the Westminster model. The original proposals for a race federation by the old party were to get away from the Westminster model. It is almost as though history is breaking about us, because we are taking the first steps here today actually to put into operation a process that will lead to a change in our constitution. The change envisaged in this Bill is not the ultimate goal, but it is a step in that direction.

As the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South said, to get to Z from A one must pass through point B. I say with conviction that, if one puts together groups of people in South Africa and tells them to discuss constitutional change in order to evolve a formula which will come back to this House for its implementation, there will be very real change. It is impossible to conceive of a situation where one can put together different groups of people and tell them to discuss change, to discuss what they want and how they see things, and to make recommendations which will have to come back to this House to be implemented, without there coming about very, very significant change in the inter-group relationship. The status of Blacks, Indians, Coloureds, and everyone else will be changed radically once they come together. For that reason, although we have said that this is not an ideal solution and we would prefer to see Black people on the President’s Council, we are prepared to accept that the vehicle which is being created is adequate for its purpose, the purpose in terms of our addendum to the commission’s report. We live in a world which is far from ideal and far from perfect. Let us be absolutely realistic about it and accept that there are practical limits on how far the Government party can travel in this direction. We must accept it. I do not think that in the times in which we live we can afford to say that we are not going to support anything which is introduced in this House unless it offers the perfect solution, because how long will we have to wait for that to happen?

For ever.

It might well be for ever. Let us accept that this Bill is the product of considerable compromise within the governing party. If we are going to wait until an ideal solution is found, we shall wait for ever. What we should rather do is to build on what we have here, namely a practical proposal which envisages a totally new situation and which opens doors into the future of South Africa which nothing else can open.

You are an optimist.

That is what we are trying to do. The hon. member for Houghton says I am an optimist.

[Inaudible.]

Let me simply say to those hon. members that time will show. It will be seen that there is an opportunity open to us, an opportunity that people will disregard, ignore and flout at the period not only of themselves, but of the whole of South Africa. That is what concerns me. Although from our point of view it is an imperfect machine, it is nevertheless a machine which can be made to work provided all of us are prepared to get together and try to make it work.

I want to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and to the hon. members of his party who have served on the commission that this Bill has not simply dropped from the sky, but that it is the result of a long process of information-gathering, of the taking of evidence and of discussions. Throughout these discussions one thing crystallized very clearly, and that was the idea of a President’s Council and, linked to it, another council for Black South Africans. That is the background to the Bill. This Bill provides for the creation of a President’s Council and there is still to be created a Black council. Provision is made in this Bill for joint committees of the President’s Council and the Black council, to meet and consult together about constitutional change. That is the background of the Bill. Surely that is an absolutely clear commitment on the part of the Government to the fact that it is serious and earnest and that it is seeking political change, otherwise why do we go to all this bother to pass all this legislation and set up things which, even in the Government’s terms, are going to change the situation? Without that background, one might well say that one opposes this Bill because there is nothing real in it. It might be said that I am bluffing myself or that I am a dreamer and a visionary, but I want to say that if one opposes the creation of a council for Blacks, a President’s Council and a mechanism for interlocking these two in consultation and deliberation about constitutional change, one is opposing the one chance that is being offered to all the groups in South Africa to get together.

But nobody wants to participate.

That hon. member says that nobody wants to participate, but he and his party are doing nothing to help. They are simply not taking any part in it. If I had to characterize the whole of this debate, I would say that what is happening is that that party is engaged in a long day’s journey into irrelevance, because they are cutting themselves off from the main political development in South Africa. This is one of the most significant political changes that has ever taken place in South Africa, and the official Opposition are leaving themselves out of the debate. They are not going to take part in it. They will not even allow their own members to take part in it. They are going to be excluded. They are in fact excluding themselves from any future political debate.

That is because their activities are outside. [Interjections.]

There is one thing we have to understand. That is what this Bill is actually doing. The Bill says that we will be going into a negotiating situation. It will come back into this Parliament, but we will never get away from one central fact in our political life. That is that this Parliament is a parliament for Whites. There will be a parliament for the other groups—the Indians, the Coloured people, etc. There are bodies which will represent the Black people. There is a question mark at this moment about urban Blacks, and about them I should like to say something later. Be it as it may, this Parliament is a parliament for Whites, and the debate that has gone on in this House, for 30 years or more, about Black people, is now about to end, because there will be no more discussion of them. The Black people will speak for themselves. [Interjections.] They will indeed speak for themselves. Therefore there will be no need for political parties, as we have been arguing here for 30 years or more about the rights for Blacks …

Where are they going to speak for themselves?

In the Black council of course.

You mean, speak to each other?

Mr. Speaker, of all the short-sighted, dimwitted remarks I have ever heard in my life, that must be one of the prized ones. [Interjections.]

Helen, I always knew you were dimwitted, but I never knew you were short-sighted.

Funny!

If one is able to make an appeal to people in South Africa who are leaders of their communities, then an appeal should be made to all those people to participate in an experience like this, which can lead us to a new situation in South Africa. This is one chance we have, and the pressures on us are so intense that, if we miss this chance, we may not soon or easily get another one. I believe it is possible, through the mechanism which is being created, to put together the collected minds of all South Africans, Black, Brown and White, to seek a solution together. That is what we are looking for—a solution to the problems. What we have to do is bring people together and give them the opportunity of working together. Then, I believe, we can find something which can be worthwhile.

Before raising this point in the commission I had my doubts. At one time I thought it would be a mistake to take the debate out of Parliament. That is what is actually happening in terms of the Bill before us. The debate will be removed from this forum.

There will be no debate at all. [Interjections.]

Just listen a minute.

[Inaudible.]

Just hang on and listen. I can see the hon. member for Houghton looks quite flabbergasted but… [Interjections.] Let us suppose, in terms of this legislation, that the President’s Council is set up, that the Black council is set up, that the joint committees are all set up. The joint committee debating the constitution will then mean that the political debate about the future inter-relationship between the groups will go on there, in that joint committee. It will not take place here in this Parliament.

That is correct.

The recommendations that will come from that committee, if consensus is reached and if a situation is reached in which people agree that this is a forum where we can work together, will come back to this Parliament. I do, however, challenge any hon. member to say that at this stage, here, having achieved that kind of consensus, this Parliament will be able to turn it down. There may be amendments. Matters may be referred back to joint committees, and all sorts of things of this kind may take place, but matters cannot be blocked here in this Parliament. Certainly, if we want a revolution, that is the surest way of getting it. Every hon. member must be conscious of that fact now. This Bill, if it works in the way in which it is envisaged, takes the political debate out of this House into another body where all groups of people …

On that issue.

On that issue, yes, on the question of a new constitution for South Africa, which contains within itself all the aspects of the inter-relationship between all groups. All these things are contained in the discussions that go on in that particular body.

It depoliticizes the debate here.

We are going to talk to the White council, to the joint committees, etc., which are set up and provided in terms of this legislation. As an extension of that I should like to add one thing. While we have said that we would have preferred Blacks to be members of the President’s Council, we nevertheless accept that, in terms of the realities of our country, we have here an alternative, which, we accept, is adequate for the purpose. The background to all this is the plan which has been put forward, which is called the constellation or the confederation of States, or whichever other term we should decide to use. We like the word “confederation”. We think that is the word that is going to emerge more and more. In the evidence before the commission it was interesting that Dr. Tusenius identified all the political parties and all the shades of opinion, and then identified, in the middle, a band of common thought. The word “federal-confederal” stood out in the middle of that band as a common thought which all political people agreed on as being the most likely solution to be brought about in South Africa.

I believe there will emerge, if any kind of discussion takes place, or there is any kind of joint committee, the need for the recognition of urban Blacks, for the sheer administrative practice of including them in the day-to-day decision-making with the people round about them who are White, Indian, Coloured or whatever. The administrative practice, the day-to-day decisions being taken in Soweto, for instance, are not really decisions to be taken by chiefs, headmen, the leaders of homelands or anybody else. Decisions have to be taken by those people for themselves, and I believe that one of the significant things that will come from this will be the fact that there is a group of urban Blacks who will be identified in any discussions that take place and that they will come to the fore. If hon. members on this side of the House dissociate themselves from this process, they are cutting themselves off from the mainstream of political life in South Africa, because our political life is group life. So if one does not accept the group as the basic building block of the future, one is cutting oneself off from the mainstream of political life. I call as my witness no less a person than the hon. member for Bezuidenhout who has said that he would be prepared to serve on such a council because he recognizes that this is a reality, the new direction in which politics are going. He recognizes groups as being the basic building blocks of the future.

Why have all the real leaders rejected it?

“All the real leaders” are people like Chief Buthelezi, Chief Phatudi and others who are leaders of their own people, who have a power base which they will not surrender. They will not surrender their own power bases. They will take part in a system which will bring them together into some organization. [Interjections.]

You are admitting our case.

I do not know how the hon. member can say I am admitting his case. I have told him that he has cut himself off from the entire mainstream of political life, and that is, in fact, what he is doing.

We are not going to miss him, Bill, so do not let it worry you.

A lot has been said here, in the last day or so, about the last 30 years. Many things have happened in the last 30 years. I think one wants to be quite clear about this. In the last 100 years a great many things have happened in this country that we have to start putting right. It is a long time in which the history of our country has been written, but the history is there, and we have, in our hands, an opportunity to change it. As I see it this Bill, in setting up the President’s Council and providing for a link with another council, is the mechanism by which we can do it. The hon. the Minister of the Interior has been criticized and accused of not having come with a Bill. The hon. member for Musgrave asked where the Bill is and asked what we are talking about. If I were that hon. the Minister and I had to introduce a Bill as important as that Bill is going to be for the future of South Africa, I would hold the most painstaking discussions and negotiations.

Quite right. I agree with you.

I would do that so that when I introduced the Bill I would have the maximum chance of knowing that it was going to succeed and could name, in this House, the people who would help us to achieve what we are trying to achieve. I do not take it as a valid criticism of the Bill, or a reason for rejecting this Bill, that there is not a parallel Bill introduced at this stage. I believe that Bill is going to take a while to work out and draft. It might not even be introduced this session, but that does not worry me, because I want to know that it is going to succeed. I further believe that it must be seen that the integrity of this House and of the White man is at stake, and if we put it on the line by way of this Bill and tell the Black people that we are genuine and sincere, are going to meet them and will make this thing work, I believe we have more than a sporting chance of seeing that things come right. I think that is going to demand of us a sense of dedication and earnestness of purpose that I simply cannot see in the PFP. I simply cannot understand why they will not take part in this whole process that I regard as being vital to the future of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I do not have much fault to find with what the hon. member for Mooi River said. In fact, I want to tell the hon. member for Mooi River at once that I praise him for the particularly responsible manner in which he made his contribution today, it was carefully thought out. I just want to comment on one aspect, and this is the hon. member’s remark that the NP, or rather the Government, can only go as far as the party allows it in this process of development. Let me tell the hon. member for Mooi River at once that the NP has been placed on a specific path by virtue of its acceptance of specific principles and realities. Since this is the case, there is no question of the Government being bound to what some members of the NP want to allow it to do. All the members accept exactly the same basic principles and the Government and the Cabinet are therefore not restricted by them. As a result of the principles and realities accepted by every member of the NP, the Government must work out a certain path and a certain tempo. As for the rest, I do not have much fault to find with the speech of the hon. member for Mooi River. I also want to agree with the hon. member for Mooi River that, since the President’s Council is essentially a body that must be depoliticized so that there can be deliberation in the most calm and peaceful atmosphere possible on a future constitution which will be to the benefit of all population groups, it is in fact correct that this debate will be conducted there in the main. However, it is also true that, as the hon. member for Mooi River indicated, it will ultimately find its way back to this Parliament which will then have to make a decision on the legislation in question.

I should also like to react to what the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South said. He said that the exclusion of the Blacks from the President’s Council would be considered as an absolute insult by the Black people. He said that he had thought very carefully about whether he should become a member of the President’s Council or not, should he be given the opportunity. He kept us in the dark in this regard. I thought that, on the basis of his argument at the start, he would have said that he would not be available for the President’s Council. However, the hon. member stated that he would in fact be available. If one adopts the standpoint that it is a blatant insult to the Blacks to exclude them, how can one justify serving on the President’s Council and how can one look Black people in the face after that? I really cannot understand this. However, if one can allege on the basis of principles that Black people should not serve on the President’s Council one can in fact justify the fact that one serves upon it oneself.

I also want to react to a few things said by the hon. member for Houghton, who is not in the House at the moment. I want to say at once that the mere fact that the hon. member thought fit to launch an attack on the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications immediately once again, made me realize that that party is not really interested in creating a constitution that will be to the benefit of all population groups in the country. Even on this very important occasion, the hon. member thinks fit to score petty political points. I find this contemptible in any event. The hon. member also mentioned that the Government is extremely anxious that the various national States should accept independence. It has been said repeatedly in the House that the Government is co-operating with the various national States and helping them to achieve independence. However, in every case, the final decision lies with that State itself to accept independence when they think fit. It is therefore not true that the Government is so extremely anxious and is issuing threats to these people that they had better accept independence.

The hon. member also had certain reservations about the President’s Council, including the fact that Blacks cannot serve on the council, as is indicated in the minority report of the commission too. Then the hon. member referred to Black graduates and laid it at the door of the Government that there are now enough Black graduates to serve on the President’s Council. Once again, it lies at the root of the philosophy of the NP that those Blacks cannot have a seat on the President’s Council, but since the Government is also aware of the fact that such Blacks can make their special contribution, a council has been created on which these Blacks can in fact meet to consult with the President’s Council as the Bill provides. The council of Black South African citizens therefore offers those Black graduates and experts the opportunity to make their contribution so that it can ultimately be to the benefit of what all population groups in the country are seeking.

It has already been said by various hon. members on both sides of the House that this is a special occasion on which we are discussing such legislation, not because it is the constitution, but because it is creating the machinery ultimately to compile a constitution that will be acceptable to most people. That is why it is an important debate.

On this occasion I also want to express my humble gratitude and appreciation for the contribution that the Senate has been making for so many years. I do not think there is any doubt about it. On the one hand it is also sad to realize that the Senate will not be there any longer in future.

If I have to decide for myself why we have come to the point of discussing this legislation today, I want to say that the Government has reached this point because it accepts certain realities, has maintained certain political principles since coming into power in 1948 and is progressing along that path. When one progresses along that path, the time comes for one to adapt. It has been said on several occasions in this House, by the hon. the Prime Minister as well as other hon. Ministers, inter alia, that the NP is not a party of stagnation, but a party of progress, but that progress takes place according to principles.

Coming back to the realities, I should like to discuss a few of those which also form the basis of the legislation that we are dealing with today. I come to the first one. As I have already said, there is development in the life of every nation. This has been the case with all the various population groups in the Republic of South Africa and not with the White population group alone. It has also been the case with the Coloureds, the Asians and the various Black ethnic groups. I think we would be making a mistake if we simply spoke about the Black population groups without also taking into account the ethnic relation and ethnic variety within these Black groups. Over the past decades there has been development not only amongst the Whites, but amongst all the different population groups too.

It is a reality that every nation has its political aspirations and cherishes the expectation of governing itself. There is no better example than that of the Afrikaner nation itself. The Afrikaner nation even challenged powerful Britain at one stage in order to maintain its sovereignty and to retain its own identity.

There is a third reality. Every nation also has an in-born nationalism. One cannot take this away from any nation, not from the Afrikaner nation or the German nation, nor from the various Black ethnic groups, the Coloureds, etc. There is no fault to be found in that nationalism that is born of a national awareness, of a cultural awareness. In fact, I think one must concede every nation that nationalism.

There is a fourth reality. Historically, the various Black nations have their own specific territory, whilst historically, the Whites also have their specific White area obtained through negotiation.

Where?

If the hon. member is not yet aware of it now, it would not be any use replying to his question in any event. On the other hand, there is the reality that we are faced with specific groups, including the Coloureds and Asians, who historically speaking, do not have their own geographic territory in this portion of the continent in which we are living. It is a fact that we must take into account. Furthermore, it is true that all the various ethnic groups, the Whites, the Blacks in White areas and the Coloureds, make an indispensable and unmistakable contribution to the economic development of the White territory of the Republic of South Africa. Anyone who overlooks this, is not being realistic. We on this side of the House accept that fact with gratitude and recognition. There is another reality, and this is the numerical ration within the Republic of South Africa. Anyone who overlooks this, is also making a mistake, because we must bear this in mind when we are working out a political dispensation, because as a result of that we are immediately faced with protecting minorities against majorities. The last reality is that in a country where so many different nations live together with such a vast difference in numbers and in the possession of power and knowledge, it is an irrefutable fact that the survival of all groups can only be ensured by mutual understanding, the recognition of one another’s right to self determination, the protection of minorities and peaceful coexistence. It therefore follows that the creation of such a state of peaceful co-existence can only be achieved by consultation. The alternative is confrontation, and I think we all agree that we must avoid this.

If these are the realities, there are also certain principles that have brought this side of the House to the step that we are taking here. I just want to mention two of these principles. The first, and most important, is the recognition of a variety of nations in South Africa and the right of every nation to govern itself and to ensure its own continued existence as a nation in its own right with its own culture and identity. We may not take this away from any nation. The second principle is to grant to everyone what one grants to oneself.

If I look at these realities and principles, it takes me back to 1977, when the Government submitted a constitutional plan. On the basis of the acceptance of these realities and principles, the Government gave effect to a possible plan for a new constitutional dispensation in 1977. Since the Government accepts that the Westminster system of government cannot offer a solution to the political problems of the Republic of South Africa without adapting it, the 1977 plan was used as a basis for designing a new constitution. At the very outset, when this idea was expressed for the first time, the hon. the Prime Minister pointed out that the development of a new constitution is a process that cannot occur overnight, and that consultation will have to take place on as wide a front as possible. The hon. member for Mooi River quite correctly pointed out that this is also the basis of the success of whatever constitution will eventually appear. That is why an open invitation was addressed to any person or body to give evidence before the Schlebusch Commission. This too is evidence of the acceptance of this principle by this side of the House. That is why I also want to convey my appreciation for the fact that this was complied with and that so many people availed themselves of it. In the report we find that 61 witnesses produced 1 509 pages and that 214 memoranda were submitted. This is important and we say thank you very much for it. On the basis of the fact that it cannot happen overnight, the commission also came to realize that to create a new political dispensation, there must in fact be a process of development and that is why they produced an interim report.

This brings me to this Bill. And what does this Bill encompass? I allege that underlying this Bill is the recognition that a new constitution cannot be created overnight and in the second place, that all population groups should be consulted and deliberated with in order to try to increase the degree of acceptability of any proposal in this regard. As a result of this, and because this is the basis of it, we find the creation of a President’s Council in the Bill, which will be representative of all non-Black groups and in addition a council for Black South African citizens with which the President’s Council is to consult at the request of the State President. It is important that it is contained in legislation that the President’s Council is to negotiate with that council for Black South African citizens, at the request of the President. However, it is also important that it will only serve as an instrument for working out a new political dispensation. Therefore the President’s Council is not replacing the Senate, and the idea has never been that it should replace the Senate. There is no such provision anywhere in the legislation, nor does the legislation provide that the President’s Council should remain a permanent institution, since the idea is that it should merely be the instrument to be used in ultimately obtaining a constitution for the Republic of South Africa.

Since we have adopted this standpoint to negotiate the best for all inhabitants of this country, I cannot understand why the official Opposition does not support this Bill. After all, the Black South African citizen does have the opportunity to co-operate via the above-mentioned council in the search for a solution. If no other council had been created to convey their standpoint to this instrument that is to draw up a constitution, I would have understood the standpoint of the official Opposition, but I do not understand it now, because the Black people are in fact being given the opportunity to consult with this instrument, which will ultimately lead to drawing up a constitution for the Republic of South Africa. I want to make a request of the Coloured population, the Indian population and the Chinese, as well as the Black leaders, to come forward and make their services available in order to help to design political structures that will ensure a happy future for all peoples.

Various points have already been raised and there has been much debating on the question of why the Blacks have not been represented on the President’s Council, and I want to try to answer this. As I see it, it lies at the root of the philosophy of the Government’s policy as I spelled it out at the beginning. From as early as 1948, we have been working on a system which will lead to all Black ethnic groups developing their own national States, of course with White assistance, so that these Black ethnic groups can ultimately obtain their sovereign independence. This has been successful too, because some of these ethnic groups have already obtained their sovereign independence. However, it is also true that there are other ethnic groups that have not yet accepted independence. Black South African citizens in White areas make an important contribution towards the development of the country. They work here, they live here, they buy here, they play sport here, etc. That is why it is why it is justifiable and essential to consult with them, but to consult within that council that has been created for them. The franchise of those people and the expression of their political aspirations take place in their own national States, in contrast to other groups who will in fact have representation on the President’s Council because they cannot obtain their own sovereign, independent national State, on the basis of the history to which I referred.

I do not want to discuss the matter further in detail, except simply to refer to the office of the Vice-State President, which is not accepted by the official Opposition either. I want to accept that if the official Opposition says that no evidence was led with regard to the creation of such a council, it is just as true that all the clauses and provisions in this Bill have not been drawn up on the basis of evidence either. I could also put it differently and say that I believe that there are some provisions in this Bill with regard to which evidence has not been led either. Why then should this one provision be singled out?

Evidence was led concerning it.

The hon. member for Brakpan says that evidence was in fact led on the office of the Vice-State President. The second question is whether the entire Bill should have been drawn up only on grounds of evidence that was submitted. Is the commission not in a position to use their own intelligence and to present their own ideas? Surely it is simply not acceptable for a proposal to be made merely on grounds of evidence.

I want to put it again briefly, that, as far as I am concerned, this President’s Council is an extremely important institution. It is a council with a very high status, and since this is the case, the chairman thereof must occupy an important position, and that is why I think that the introduction of the office of a Vice-President as chairman thereof, is justified. Furthermore, this President’s Council is appointed by the State President, receives its terms of reference from the State President and must report to the State President, after which such report must also be tabled here. In the nature of things, this means that such an important council must also have an important chairman, viz. a Vice-State President. That is why I believe it is justified.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Virginia has made a worthy contribution to the debate on this historic occasion, and I want to congratulate him on it. I agree with much of what he said.

†This debate is taking place 70 years after Union, and I wonder whether we in Parliament are deeply aware of the fact that we are leading South Africa into a new political and constitutional direction. South Africa will never be the same again after this Bill has been passed. It is taking place at a time when our country is at war and all its people are threatened by violence and revolution to a greater extent than ever before in our history. Therefore, on behalf of my hon. colleagues, I am going to make a brief contribution to this debate today. I say it will be a brief contribution, because much of what was discussed in the commission is being discussed again here today, and I do not think that one is in a position at this stage of the debate to make much of an original contribution. The commission itself brought out a majority report, and I was a signatory to that report. Most of the speeches that have been made so far have canvassed the same field that was canvassed by the majority commissioners in support of their findings.

The commission also tabled a minority report, but not all the minority commissioners in this House have spoken in this debate so far. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout, for example, has yet to make a contribution. I am looking forward to hearing him speak to hear how he agrees with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in respect of service or non-service on the President’s Council. I am sorry the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is not here. I should like to say to him that I see the restive signs. I referred to it on a previous occasion in this House, a couple of months ago. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is restive, and when he is restive, the caucus of his party is not a happy place in which to be. The newspapers are starting to take sides. I see one of the major newspapers with the largest circulation in South Africa has already started to take sides. It has already said that it believes that the official Opposition should serve on the President’s Council. It holds the same view as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I wonder if history is not going to repeat itself and that it will not be long before the hon. member for Bezuidenhout starts contributing articles to that newspaper and then ultimately offering himself in all modesty as the Leader of the Opposition!

I also note that another speaker who has not spoken so far in this debate is the hon. member for Sea Point. I think the hon. member for Sea Point is going to be used as a wicket-keeper, a back stop in this debate to make sure that what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has said is properly dealt with. What is notable is the determination of those speakers of the PFP who have so far spoken to emphasize how bad the measure before the House is. They do not say how much agreement they found with the other members of the commission, but, because this debate is taking place in public and not in private, they emphasize how bad the measure is that we are discussing. The reason why they are speaking like this in Parliament, is not only to speak to Parliament and to fellow parliamentarians, but also to speak in Parliament for the pens of those editors and those political writers to whom they are beholden for their seats, and to the unenfranchised Black masses whose goodwill they seek to win in the belief that those Black unenfranchised masses will ultimately win political power here in South Africa. Therefore this Bill, if it is passed and successfully put into operation, will threaten the security of the PFP.

Security has become the essential issue in politics in South Africa. It is the real issue. All our people have a right to security and all our people want security. We want security for ourselves, our families, our group identities and our nation. Security is a right which must be respected as between individual and individual, between group and group and between nation and nation. The back-drop to this debate here involves the security of each one of us in this House. The boycotters, the strikers, arson and stone throwing threaten our security, harden attitudes and arouse bitter antagonism.

The immediate challenge to the Republic is to take the right steps to diminish those threats to our security. I believe this Bill is one of the most important steps and one of the best contributions that can be made. There is no country in the world which is structured in the same way as South Africa is and in which the security of so many groups of people with different identities has to be considered. There is no other country in the world that can help us to solve our problems, that can be a model for us here in the Republic. Other countries are trying to impose their will upon us. So do not for a moment think that the present educational, industrial and political unrest in the Republic has arisen spontaneously. It is being inspired and directed from abroad. Both major world powers have good reasons, reasons of self-interest, for wishing to bring about radical change in the Republic. The Russians are in pursuit of their ultimate objective, namely world domination, which they hope to achieve through revolution. The Americans, with a view to trade, are in pursuit of the fickle favours of the Third World and, of course, they have regard to the domestic Negro vote. These threats to our security and progress call for urgent changes in our national attitude.

The immediate challenge to us in the Republic is for us to take the right steps to diminish these threats, and this Bill is undoubtedly one of those steps.

There is only one body that can initiate and regulate change, the change Parliament brings about, and that can if necessary change the direction we have taken in the Republic, and that is the present Parliament of which we are all members. It has the responsibility and the duty to protect the security of all of us in the Republic, a responsibility from which it cannot under any circumstances abdicate. Parliament is the only guarantor for the safety and the security of the peoples, the groups and nations in the Republic. Some of its powers can be devolved on or transferred to other bodies but its ultimate control over the South African situation can never be withdrawn, because such a withdrawal would lead to degeneration into the chaos we see elsewhere in Africa. This is not to say that we must not divest ourselves of powers that have been entrusted to us in the last 70 years. Of course, matters of intimate concern must be entrusted to the various racial groups and nations and matters of common concern must be dealt with by the people who have most in common with each other.

The State President’s Council is an exercise in co-operation between those people who have the most in common with each other. What kind of future society do we envisage? The PFP envisages a society of power-sharing. It wants a shared society, an integrated society, a common society in which Coloureds, Whites and Indians will ultimately be submerged by the Black masses of the Republic. That is what full citizenship means, that is what the Americans mean by full citizenship, and that is the word that speaker after speaker of the PFP used yesterday in this House. That is what the hon. member for Houghton means. When I asked her the other day what she means by full citizenship for Coloureds, she replied that it means a vote on a common roll. And when I asked her whether it also meant full citizenship for Blacks on a common roll, she replied that it was indeed so. She is the authentic voice of the official Opposition, no matter how much they camouflage their intentions in books they write and pamphlets they issue. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Houghton says that, in terms of the policy of her party, there will be a Bill of Rights to protect minorities. There is not a hope of that being worth the paper it will be written on in a society such as we have here in South Africa.

What society do we stand for?

White domination and baasskap.

We stand for a society not with a sharing of power, but with a division of powers and a devolution of powers between the various groups and nations.

So you do not want to share power?

We stand for a society in which Whites, Coloureds, Indians and the small Chinese group will share the same geographical State. None of them can ever be given separate homelands. They are here forever, inextricably intertwined in the political processes of the Republic. For them there will be co-operation and consensus in matters of common concern. The State President’s Council is a start in that process, a start which, I believe, every right-thinking South African will welcome. In a society in which there is already in existence a form of partition, this form of partition is in the process of being given greater content and greater meaning. I think these are the two directions of the future.

In the case of those of us who share a common geographical unit—the Republic of South Africa—the Whites, the Coloureds, the Indians and the Chinese have, I believe, a future of consensus and co-operation that can be worked out, and the State President’s Council is a good starting point.

In the case of the Black people we have the framework for partition, which, I believe, is going to play an ever-increasing part in the future of the Black people in our country. The Bill establishes the pattern for future co-operation and consensus among those groups who have the most in common, who have common interests, who have a common past and who will certainly have a common future. The Bill also establishes the Black consultative body. Black and White relations in South Africa are not the same relationships as the close identity and the close relationship and identity of purpose which exist between Whites, Coloureds, Indians and Chinese.

A political dispensation which is based on a partitioned society is, I think, to a greater or lesser extent, the only direction into which we can move in the future. The alternative to a partitioned society is going to be a common society, a society of power-sharing, a shared society, an integrated society. The end of that road is nothing more nor less than ultimate Black majority rule in South Africa, and a similar situation to that which we have in Zimbabwe.

We support this Bill because we believe it is a new direction. It is a departure from the past and it holds great promise for the future. We are opposed to the clause in the Bill which provides for the number of members of this Parliament to be increased, as we have indicated previously. For the rest, however, having sat as a member on that commission, and having listened to the debate which has taken place yesterday and today in this House, I am one of those who are optimistic about our future. I believe we are in for a very rough ride in the very near future, but ultimately, on the pattern that has been established in this Bill, on the pattern on which I have tried to indicate that the future of our country will be based, I am confident that all of us—those who share a common country, as well as those who share this portion of Southern Africa together, although on a partition basis—have a great future if people have confidence. This Bill is a way of creating a new structure and a new confidence for all of us in our futures.

Mr. Speaker, I gladly support this Bill. I should like to commence by asking the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether his party would accept the Bill if we were to delete the term “President’s Council” wherever it appears in the Bill, and substitute “National Convention”, as he understands it.

As we understand it?

Yes.

Of course.

Then this brings me to the real subject of my speech, viz. to weigh up the President’s Council against the National Convention. The PFP believes that it can effect change without domination. It calls this Government by consensus; in other words, everyone is now going to agree about everything. It describes this consensus as follows, as part of its fundamental principles—

What does this really mean? It means that everyone—i.e. all groups—agree with one another. The problem the PFP has right from the outset with this alternative of theirs is that the PFP itself does not believe in its own consensus. Of course, all of us agree with them there. To achieve consensus in South Africa with “all the significant political groups” is an idle dream.

We even find in a camouflaged form in the report of its Constitutional Committee the reasons for my maintaining that the PFP itself does not believe in the achievement of its so-called divine consensus. I quote from page 9 of that document—

This maxim is a naïve one based on the supposition that all groups in South Africa honestly and sincerely believe in a democratic dispensation and advocate the continued existence and protection of minority groups. Surely this is not true in all respects. Does the PFP want to imply by this that the people behind Silverton, Booyens and Sasol are concerned about democracy and minority groups? Surely the diabolical mind behind this violence is going to have its own plans for the national convention. My standpoint is that no constitution, neither the NP’s nor the PFP’s, can bring about cooperation among all groups in South Africa. The obvious example is Russian imperialism. Surely their agents in South Africa are also a group, but a group that seeks to govern this country and its minorities undemocratically. Those agents are very skilfully camouflaged within many so-called innocent groups. Surely those groups will be represented in the PFP’s national convention as well.

We find the second reason for my argument that the PFP itself does not believe in its consensus plan, its miracle plan, in the same booklet published by them, on page 9, and I quote—

They then say—

On analysing this, one notes that the PFP is once again building an extremely important cornerstone, viz. the position of the White man, on sand. Beginning their sentence with “assuming”, they say “Assuming that the majority of Whites wish to move away from White domination …”. One cannot seek to build a constitution on vague suppositions. One must build a constitution on facts and probabilities. I think that in the extract I have just quoted may be detected the despair inherent in the PFP’s plan, the knowledge that they cannot take the White man along with them. The PFP is dangling certain carrots in front of the White man, the so-called protective measures which ostensibly protect minorities. The White man has already passed judgement on the value of those so-called guarantees. There are fewer than 20 Progs in a House of Assembly of 165 members. That is the White man’s evaluation of Prog policy.

A third reason why the PFP does not believe in consensus is to be found on page 17. It states that all significant groups will seek consensus at a national convention, but in the same breath, in the same sentence, it wants to establish an impartial judicial commission which is to decide on certain conflicts that may arise. If one preaches consensus, but appoints a judicial commission in advance to settle one’s differences, surely one is not sincere in one’s belief that one will in fact achieve consensus. In fact one is then accepting in advance that one will not achieve consensus. For what other reason does one appoint a judicial commission?

A fourth reason why the PFP does not believe in consensus, is the exclusion from its national convention of groups which at that stage accept violence as a method of effecting change. This is the clearest recognition that one cannot achieve consensus with everyone.

My own standpoint, therefore, is that the PFP is proposing as its policy government by consensus and is trying to create the impression that it is possible for everyone to agree on a new constitution, but the PFP itself does not believe that.

Apart from arguments contained in the PFP’s own report, arguments indicating why consensus cannot succeed, there are other objective standpoints against the feasibility of the national convention.

Firstly, academics agree that consensus politics cannot succeed in a heterogeneous country with a measure of internal unrest. South Africa consists of at least 13 different peoples. We are therefore a very heterogeneous country. Consensus among the 13 peoples is already extremely difficult. If one adds a further ingredient, viz. agitation, fomented in particular by Russian expansionism, PFP consensus is downright impossible.

A second reason is that every new constitution is at its weakest at the very beginning. The reason for this is that the new values norms and structures have not yet been assimilated. The general public are not yet familiar with them, nor have they accepted them. It takes a long time for a new political system to become assimulated. An example in our own history is that we made a start with a new political dispensation in 1910, but were faced by a rebellion as early as 1914. Not only is a new dispensation such as the PFP’s national convention tested to the limit in its initial stages as a result of the new constitution itself, but our particular heterogeneous set-up in South Africa aggravates the situation even further. This reason makes the idea of a national convention totally unrealistic.

I concede that the idea of a national convention is a fine one. Consensus sounds extremely idealistic. I also concede that a national convention does stand a chance in a more homogeneous country without internal unrest, but this is the furthest I can accommodate a national convention. In our exceptional circumstances in South Africa it simply could not get off the ground.

Should we not spend some time examining our country’s history? Should we not also take from it what is fine and beautiful and build our constitutional future on that? What does our history indicate to us as far as our constitutional future is concerned? It indicates an evolutionary process. Is a national convention evolutionary or revolutionary? It is nothing but a revolutionary short-cut to chaos and the destruction of minority groups.

What about the President’s Council? It is a perfect example of evolutionary progress. It coincides with the pattern which South Africa’s history has chiselled out for us in the constitutional sphere.

A fuss is now being kicked up because the Black council is not part of the President’s Council. What I want to know about that, is the following: Who is really governing this country? Who has the nation’s mandate? Surely it is the NP. Consequently it is the NP which has to put its particular stamp, and in that way the stamp of the vast majority of voters, on the constitutional processes. The NP’s policy has always been that there should be separate structures for the Blacks. That, then, is why there is also a Black council. All of this forms part of the NP’s evolutionary constitutional process.

In this dispute I should like to call as witness the academic who is accepted as the greatest authority on democracy. His name is Robert Dahl. He has outlined certain routes to the acceptance of democracy. According to Dahl the weakest route to democracy is that one by which one throws open everything and shares out the franchise. What else is the national convention going to establish than in fact a throwing open and general franchise? It is outlined by the PFP as follows—

No better example could be found of Dahl’s poorest route to democracy. Thus, to judge from the point of view of the greatest authority on democracy, Robert Dahl, the PFP also stands accused of advocating the weakest route to democracy in its proposed national convention.

Dahl also says that security is an important factor on the route to democracy. I believe that the PFP’s national convention will degenerate into chaos, and that is why I believe that its national convention is also a violation of Dahl’s security test.

There are a considerable number of other arguments against the idea of a national convention. I can assure hon. members that the PFP’s national convention is a principle which, if examined objectively, one can really tear apart. That is why I have no hesitation in rejecting it as an alternative to the President’s Council.

The President’s Council, an evolutionary outcome of our historical constitutional past, has all the possibilities necessary to set the scene for South Africa’s constitutional future. It may well have deficiencies, but it is now becoming a reality and though it may not be the first choice for some, it is at least a good second choice.

The differences in approach must now be thrown overboard. The reality of the President’s Council must now be accepted in the national interest. This is an opportunity for the PFP to attempt to achieve consensus not only in its own ranks, but also in South African politics. I appeal to the PFP to support the institution of the President’s Council and in so doing to demonstrate its sincerity on the path of consensus politics.

The last aspect I want to give attention to is embodied in the PFP’s words that the convention will continue until consensus has been achieved on an alternative constitution for South Africa and that it is possible that the convention may need a considerable time to finalize its work successfully. If consensus is then not achieved, it says: “The Government of the day will have to go on governing the country.” This means that an unsuccessful national convention will bring us back to square one, where we are today. It predicts a long period of negotiations, some say for many years.

I have pondered on this aspect for a long time and today I believe I have the answer to it. If the PFP itself does not believe in its national convention’s consensus, why does it want to proceed with it? The reply is clear; it is in order to win time. I therefore draw the inevitable conclusion that the PFP has thrown in the towel; that it accepts that the White man in South Africa has come to the end of the road. That he is going to disappear from the scene; that the national convention is an absolute swindle by which to gain time, by which the Blacks, people of colour and Whites are being misled; that it is a farce; that it is the misbegotten brainchild of a number of White people who have decided to give up the struggle and who are nothing but hands-uppers.

I gladly support the principles of the President’s Council and reject the idea of a national convention.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry if the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs saw fit to attempt to reveal the inner workings of the Commission on the Constitution. Minutes were kept, but there was no tape recording of the discussions in the commission. When the draft proposals came before us, we adopted the attitude that we would be quite prepared to work right through the proposals and, where we encountered difficulties, to allow points to go through without sacrificing principles on the points, until, at the end, we could see the total picture and form a judgment on the issues as a whole. For example, we were prepared to grant our support to the abolition of the Senate, provided—and we insisted on this condition—that the system of nominated members, as in the Senate, should not be introduced into the House of Assembly. This condition was not complied with and naturally—I am merely mentioning one example—this influenced our attitude with regard to the overall picture. That, quite simply, is my reply to the hon. the Minister. [Interjections.]

Since my time is limited, I wish to turn at once to the proposal in the Bill that a President’s Council be created. My name was mentioned a number of times in the debate with reference to a report which appeared in the Sunday Times on 11 May and a number of incorrect conclusions as to my position were drawn by certain newspapers. For the sake of the record I want to state clearly what I said and I wish to add at once that I am not trying to conceal, erase or change anything. A Sunday Times reporter contacted me and asked me bluntly whether I would serve on the President’s Council. My reply was that it was not in my power to say that I would serve on the President’s Council. The prerogative to make appointments to the President’s Council would rest with the State President, and if he was going to decide to consult the leaders of the parties in Parliament on appointments, the party leaders would of course decide which of their members they sought to recommend.

I shall vote for you.

Quite apart from that, I said to the newspaper that even if I were to be taken into account, it would be difficult for me to decide whether I wanted to exchange my place in the House of Assembly for a place in another political body, because any member of the House of Assembly appointed to that body would have to cease to be a representative in this House. Therefore I could not give the paper the reply it was apparently seeking. Nor have I ever offered myself to be appointed to the President’s Council.

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

Unfortunately my time is too short. I was then asked the question: “Very well, but would you have any objection in principle to serving on it?” My reply to that was: No. I do not believe in a policy of withdrawal. I believe that an active political party must make use of all available instruments created by Parliament to play its part and promote its cause, as we as a party are in fact doing, by serving in this Parliament and on the Constitutional Commission, even though it does not represent all population groups.

Quite right.

That was my reply to the questions put to me by the newspaper and I gave it in the firm conviction that my party would also feel that way. It goes without saying that I am neither able nor willing to erase these words. I also stressed the fact that I have signed the minority report of the Commission of Inquiry on the Constitution and that I stood by, and felt strongly about, the standpoint that the exclusion of Black representatives from direct participation in the President’s Council could seriously undermine the acceptability of the council.

Yesterday the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made it known that the caucus of the PFP had decided that it could not associate itself as a party with the proposed President’s Council. It goes without saying that I have never disputed in any way the right of the caucus, of any party’s caucus, to take such a decision. And at the moment that is where the matter stands as far as the caucus of the PFP is concerned. I am not suggesting that I can change the decision at this point nor, of course, do I intend splitting the party on this issue.

Yesterday this side of the House was bluntly asked: What advice are you giving Brown and Black leaders on this matter? The reply is simple. It is not the policy of the PFP to try to tell other population groups what they should do and how they should promote their interests. [Interjections.] Nor does the party prescribe to its members what advice they should give the leaders of other population groups in regard to matters of this nature. It is well known that I personally have been asked for an opinion by more than one prominent member of other population groups. In any such case I said that I believed that we were heading for renewal and change, that nothing could prevent it, that it was going to be difficult, that it would take time and that it would often be necessary to follow a roundabout route in order to reach the destination. Even an ideally composed national convention, as our party wants it, would not without major and painful problems which would require much time and grace to bridge. I therefore say to the people that the best we can do—and this is the opinion I give to Brown, Black and Asian, if asked—is to make use of every possible opportunity that comes to hand to influence development in a positive direction and to assist us to achieve the new dispensation.

The interim report of the Commission of Inquiry on the Constitution which gave birth to the Bill at present before us is a far more important document than most people realize. It does not really comprise a majority report and a minority report; in fact, if one analyses it one finds that it comprises three parts: A unanimous report, a majority report and a minority report. The unanimous report, which was signed by all 24 commissioners, is therefore supported by all the political parties in this House and it covers nine of the ten paragraphs of the main report, including that part of paragraph 10 which deals with the abolition of the Senate. Paragraphs 1 to 6 are not of political importance. They only deal with the record of the workings of the commission. Paragraph 7 is only important in one respect and it is recognized by all parties that certain steps must be taken now.

In the PFP’s minority report we are equally insistent that the “initial process of consultation and deliberation on the future constitutional dispensation should commence without delay”. In this regard I wish to address myself to the hon. the Prime Minister. The Constitutional Commission is now 11 months old, and Parliament has been in session for half of that period. I do not believe it has been possible for the commission to progress much more rapidly than it has in the prevailing circumstances. I am therefore not complaining. However, I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Prime Minister. There is tremendous political tension in the country, and there are elements in the country that seek to maintain and foment that tension. [Interjections.] Therefore it is vital that we should not give any population group the excuse, for a longer period than is absolutely necessary, that it does not have constitutional machinery at its disposal, that it does not have a share in the legal processes of the Government and must therefore rely on extra-constitutional action. Whatever constitutional machinery the Government wants to establish to bring about a new constitution for South Africa, I believe it is of urgent importance that other population groups should have certainty about the quality of their citizenship and their future share in our political structure. If, therefore, due to any circumstances there is going to be delay with regard to the President’s Council or the establishment of the Black Council which the Government envisages, I want to request the hon. the Prime Minister to afford the members of the Cabinet serving on the Constitutional Commission—and everyone realizes that they have a tremendous amount of work and are busy people— the opportunity to give primary and top priority to work of the Constitutional Commission so that we can reach that point. In the nature of the matter the drafting of the constitution is an undertaking which is going to require a tremendous amount of work and time. However, there are a few steps which are of the utmost urgency, and I wish to stress them again. The one is a significant joint political say on matters of common interest for the two minority groups, the Coloureds and the Asians. I shall deal with the Black man within a few moments.

I have said that the unanimously accepted part of the report of the Constitutional Commission is of greater fundamental importance than many people realize. I refer in particular to paragraph 8, and because it is being quoted so many times, I shall refer only to the crucial part, which reads—

(That is the Westminister system of pure majority Government)—

and that we must therefore reject it and find other alternatives. Not only was this statement endorsed by all the parties in the House, but all the parties also assisted in drafting it. Indeed, it was formulated by a sub-committee of the Constitutional Commission on which all the parties were represented. Looking at it from a strictly party political standpoint, I hope there will now be an end to the propagandist charge against the PFP that it advocates a one-man-one-vote system in the present constitutional dispensation. [Interjections.] I do not care what anyone says; that is the policy of Parliament and that is the policy of this party. Anyone who does not stand by that must leave the party. [Interjections.] The significance of this whole matter is that, for the first time in the history of this Parliament, we now have a declaration of intent. Paragraph 8 of the report is a political manifesto which can justly be said to represent the joint opinion of the Parliament of South Africa, to represent the opinion of the organized White community in the politics of South Africa. In other words, Parliament as such has never yet been in a stronger position than it is now to consult with other population groups, because it can do so from a joint basis. This Parliament has never yet had such a strong joint basis for negotiations with other population groups than now. This is the basic reason why we so strongly advocate that Parliament as a whole should be involved in the consultations with others, but at the same time it is also the reason why this party is so insistent that the machinery for consultation and negotiation should be of such a nature that no population group will feel that it is deemed to be less than the others. I think we understand the policy of the Government with regard to the relationship between White and Black in South Africa. This was effectively spelled out yesterday by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. To that I should like to say that if it is inevitable for us that the danger of domination of minorities by majorities can only be eliminated by the establishment of separate sovereignties, within or outside a confederation, we shall surely have to realize that we as Whites will not be able to achieve this alone or by unilateral action, but that if that is the case it will be of greater importance than ever that we should first and foremost enter into direct consultations with these Black people of the country as soon as possible. After all, we know that even the nature of the dispensation that has to come into being for Whites, Coloureds and Asians will depend to a large extent on the political pattern which develops with regard to the Black people.

Are you sure?

Yes, I certainly think that the one affects the other. This is the first important reason why we insist on the direct inclusion of the leaders of the Black peoples in our country in the machinery for consultation that is envisaged, even if it be done by way of a committee of autonomous territories, of national States, in a broader President’s Council, because it is unlikely that all the leaders that head regional governments will be able to serve on the President’s Council in a permanent capacity.

However, there is a second important reason why Black leaders are essential on the basis of Parliament’s joint political manifesto. Due to events north of our borders and the psychological effect they have had and still have on Black people in particular, there is no lack of leading Black figures today who insist on a one-man-one-vote system within the present Westminister system of government, a system which is diametrically opposed to that which all parties in this House have decided must come into being and which is spelled out in the report of the commission.

Not all your members.

It is not only Black radicals who think in terms of colour who speak about “Black rule”, and takeover; there are also less radical Black leaders of importance who advocate a Black majority government in a unitary structure. In a recent interview with The Star the well-known Mr. Sam Motsuenyane, president of the National African Chamber of commerce, a man for whom I have great personal respect, said, inter alia, that he advocated “Black rule”. He said—

That means “Black rule in a unitary state”. I do not dispute any Black man’s right to think along those lines, but the tension is going to increase and the demands are going to become increasingly urgent that this Parliament should enter into consultations with the leading figures on the Black side so that we can talk matters out with them honestly and sincerely. I believe that we must impress upon everyone that our society is a plural society, that the cultural diversity of our country must be recognized and that the tension in the country will be not relieved but indeed aggravated if we try to seek our solutions in the wrong direction. Black majority government throughout the country on a basis of one-man-one-vote in the present system of government will not eliminate conflict but aggravate it. For this reason we must move with all speed towards a system which will ensure the continued existence of all peoples, minorities as well as majorities. This of course includes the Black people who are established within the four walls of the constitutional unit of the Republic of South Africa, who do not recognize a separate sovereignty and who are recognized citizens of the country. It is important that in the report of the Constitutional Commission the concept “Black South African Citizens” be clearly recognized, because there are leaders who have disappeared, who were almost top leaders, who simply would not recognize this fact. All groups will have to be accommodated in the new dispensation. Co-operation, co-existence, equal privileges and citizenship—everything will have to be there, but without domination and only in a political system capable of preventing domination. We understand that the Government has accepted the principle that in establishing a new constitution, consultation and deliberation must occur across as wide a spectrum as possible among all population groups, including the Black people. This has been spelled out over and over again in this House, and we accept that this is the bona fide intention of the Government.

However, where the difference lies is in the method. Our attitude is still inspired by the need to see the proposed President’s Council acceptable to such an extent among all population groups that it has a chance of success as a deliberative body. Our desire was that it should succeed. Our concern was that it could fail due to the method used. I regard it as unfortunate in the extreme that it was not possible to present a fuller and clearer picture of the position of the Black man here by way of legislation. The Government will now have the difficult task of finding the necessary men of calibre who are representative enough of the population groups to serve on the proposed conference machinery. If the Government proceeds with the idea of a twin council, it will have to be seen to that there is definite and effective liaison machinery involving all population groups. If, in addition, it can show that the committee for community relations, which is an important committee which is proposed for the President’s Council, is going to concern itself immediately and effectively with the review of discriminatory legislation, I believe that the Government will be able to surmount many of its problems.

In the few minutes left to me, I must add that we are totally unable to reconcile ourselves with one matter in the Bill, and that is the most important reason why this side opposed the motion for the introduction of the Bill before First Reading. What we are most strongly opposed to in the Bill is the inclusion in the House of Assembly of nominated members or members chosen in accordance with the proportional strength of the parties. [Interjections.] The difficulty is that once the principle of nominated members has been accepted, any future Government can increase the number. This could lead to all kinds of dangerous practices if we were again to have a position where the gap between the Government and the joint opposition was small. Even a system of supplementing members by way of election on a proportional basis increases the advantage the Government has over the joint Opposition, and the will of the voters is expressed disproportionately. If special experts are necessary, then that is equally true for the Government and the Opposition. We strongly opposed this in the Constitutional Commission from the outset.

Only if the nomination and election of supplementary members takes place on a basis of parity between the Government and Opposition sides so that the numerical relationship between the Government and the Opposition as determined by the voters in an election is not artificially disturbed will it be acceptable to the Opposition in principle. We believe that this provision of the Bill alone will justify the Opposition’s motion in regard to the Second Reading.

Mr. Speaker, before I deal with the crux of the speech made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, I just wish to tell him that we should have liked to have placed the legislation on the Black council before this House at the same time as the present Bill. However, because there are Black persons and bodies—self-governing Black national States, elected councils, elected leaders—it is after all logical that we shall first consult with those leaders and bodies before coming forward with legislation of that nature. I wish to give hon. members the assurance that great progress has already been made with that consultation and that it is continuing. I can also assure hon. members that we should still like, if it is in any way possible, to come forward with that legislation. That consultation is taking place, and I can say with certainty that all the dire predictions which are being made by hon. members of the PFP, with the exception now of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, cannot be substantiated at all from that consultation.

I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Bezuidenhout on a courageous speech. Today he stood by his previous statements, and for that, I think, he deserves our admiration.

Yes.

Today he placed his integrity and his premises first, despite a diametrically opposed premise stated by his hon. leader and by all the other hon. members of the PFP who have participated in the debate so far. I should like to know from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he disputes the statement that the speech made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout runs directly and diametrically counter to the philosophy which he and other hon. members stated.

No.

He says he does not dispute it. [Interjections.]

Order!

However, the big test for the hon. member for Bezuidenhout will be how he is going to vote on this Bill. We are not concerned with minor principles now. We are not concerned with details. We are not concerned with the 12 additional members. We are concerned with a deeply-rooted philosophical difference in principle. We also wish to know from the hon. member for Bezuidenhout how many other members there are in his party who feel the way he does. I know of one who felt like that at one stage. It was the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself. [Interjections.]

I wish to refer here to Rapport of 11 May 1980, in which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was reported as follows—

Mr. Speaker …

What edition of Rapport is that?

It is Rapport of 11 May 1980. [Interjections.] It would be a justified conclusion to say that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition at that stage adopted precisely the same attitude as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. But something has happened in the meantime. We want to know what happened in that party after 11 May 1980. [Interjections.]

Helen is what happened there.

What happened there which caused the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition to change his standpoint? Apart from this statement, we also have another reason to believe that he previously held the same standpoint as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. What happened to cause him to change his standpoint?

You ought to know what the reasons for that are.

There has been no change at all. [Interjections.]

He did not merely change his standpoint to a certain extent. He did not display a slight shift of emphasis in standpoint. No. He moved the strongest possible motion here which any person can move against any legislation. He aligned himself completely with those who say that this Bill is totally objectionable. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is now shaking his head. He will have an opportunity to tell us what happened in many debates still to come. We want to know from him—we still have many debates ahead of us—what persuaded him to do so. He says he took cognizance with surprise of the report in Rapport. However, I ask him to read the minutes of 25 April and then ask himself whether what he told this House about his earlier attitude and that of his party was entirely correct.

Would you read the minutes out yourself?

I wish to ask the hon. member for Bezuidenhout whether the formulation to which he referred, I am thinking of paragraph 8 …

Read the minutes.

You have not got the guts to read it out.

I wish to remind the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that the very first concept contains the wording which is also contained in the report.

Do not make innuendoes; read it.

I challenge you to read it.

I come now to the dissension in that party. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout took it upon himself to refer to us when he stated the political philosophy of the PFP. I wish to ask the hon. member for Houghton: Does she agree with the interpretation of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout of the basic political philosophy of the PFP which he stated here this afternoon? [Interjections.] I want to ask the hon. member for Pinelands whether he associates himself fully—forget about the question of the President’s Council for the moment—with the interpretation of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout of PFP philosophy? [Interjections.]

Why do you not read our policy?

So he agrees with what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, i.e. that the only difference in approach between the PFP and this side on the matter before us is a difference in method and not a difference in principle. Does he agree with that? [Interjections.] If that is so, surely they ought to vote for the Second Reading, for surely we vote for the principle during the Second Reading stage. [Interjections.]

You are dreaming.

In the course of this debate one deeply-rooted point of difference between the NP and the PFP, with the exception of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, manifested itself to me clearly and distinctly, and that is that when the PFP wish to elevate the level of acceptability of constitution development—I accept that they wish to do so; we also wish to do so—the aim of the PFP is to alter the constitution in such a way that it will satisfy the most reactionary Blacks.

Oh, nonsense.

I shall prove it. Then it is their aim that it should satisfy even the terrorists, saboteurs, the advocates of Black Power and the forces behind them. [Interjections.] I want to refer the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to what he said on TV news on Monday night. He said—

Do you agree with that?

And then he went on to say—

What is wrong with that?

If I understand Afrikaans correctly …

You obviously do not.

… he is advocating that the terrorists who attacked Sasol should also be satisfied by means of amendments to the constitution. [Interjections.] It is this kind of naivete which makes his party so unacceptable. [Interjections.] Perhaps I should quote what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said in an article in the Sunday Times.

Just tell us why you people are negotiating with Swapo.

I am quoting what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said in the Sunday Times of 27 April—

To that I should like to add something. It is not only rights to which we are entitled, but also rights which we already have. That is why I say that we on this side do not believe the terrorists and saboteurs and their Russian masters will be satisfied with anything less than Black domination and complete White capitulation.

Correct.

That is why we in the NP are prepared to try to come to an arrangement, not at all costs with the Black people and not at all costs with the Coloureds and Indians, but we are prepared to come to an arrangement with all who are prepared to strive for orderly development.

Why do you exclude the Blacks then?

However, we shall fight terrorists, saboteurs and their fellow-travellers relentlessly. [Interjections.] Constitutional changes which would be acceptable to the Sasol saboteurs could never be acceptable to the Whites, the other minority groups and the moderate Black people. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. member asked why then have a separate Black council and why not also have Black people on the President’s Council.

Yes, tell us.

I shall accept that challenge. [Interjections.] Before I come to that, I want to ask … [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must stop making so many interjections now. The hon. the Minister is hardly being given a chance to complete his speech. I have already asked that the minimum of interjections be made.

Thank you, Sir. I want to ask why the PFP, with the exception of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, feels so strongly about this matter. The answer is quite simple. Before the hon. members opposite burst out in a chorus of interjections, they must first listen to the whole sentence. The answer is: Because the PFP believes in the principle of “one man, one vote” in a federal system. Do they argue about that?

Quite correct.

No, they are not. They believe in the principle of “one man, one vote” in a federal system. Therefore “one man, one vote”—I am now using their own terminology from a policy document—“for a central, federal government and ‘one man, one vote’ for the government of the self-governing States which together will form the federation.”

Quite correct.

And because they know that this formula will culminate everywhere in a White minority, they are advocating minority vetoes, a human rights charter, and so on. If that is not the case, I challenge them to tell us which of the self-governing States which would then form part of the federation, would not have a White minority, but a White majority. [Interjections.] Will Soweto and Johannesburg fall into one and the same self-governing White State? Would all the Coloureds of the Cape Peninsula and White Cape Town fall into one and the same self-governing State? In this way we can consider the whole of South Africa and it will not be possible to excise any decently consolidated self-governing State which does not have a White minority. With “one man, one vote” in a federal system, there will be Black majority rule in each of those self-governing States. That is why there will also be Black majority rule in the central, federal Parliament.

Now tell us about your better plan.

The so-called exclusion of Blacks from the constitutional dialogue is therefore unacceptable to the PFP members because it is in conflict with their basic political philosophy.

Yes, quite correct.

They have every right to stand and fall by their basic philosophy, no matter how unwise and how ill-considered it may be. Although I concede that they have that right, we maintain that they are making a mistake. In addition we, too, have every right to be loyal to a basic philosophy which is realistic and which, for the purposes of this debate, I wish to define as follows: We believe the various peoples in South Africa are entitled to demand self-determination and for that reason their own fully-fledged political power bases. At the same time we believe it is essential that structures should develop which are aimed at effective co-operation in respect of matters of common interest. I do not shrink from admitting that this basic philosophy plays an important part in our approach to this legislation. I wish to add that the entire NP, the entire NP caucus and the vast majority of the White voters in the Republic of South Africa all believe in this, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is wasting his time with a political scavenging campaign around the so-called problems in the NP caucus. No wonder he drinks so much cough medicine, what with all his own problems.

A very nice remark, I must say! [Interjections.]

Against this background of fundamental differences I now wish to proceed to motivate the so-called exclusion of the Blacks. I say “so-called” exclusion because it is not true that Blacks are being excluded from the constitutional dialogue. Many hon. members have already pointed this out, and I wish to ask why the official Opposition is being so disparaging about the sui generis inclusion of Blacks in the constitutional dialogue? It is unfair. Consequently I do not wish to motivate the so-called negative exclusion of Blacks, but the positive, viz. the establishment of a Black council as a better alternative than representation for Blacks on the President’s Council. I wish to advance four arguments in favour of this. Firstly it is logical and correct to structure the constitutional dialogue with the Coloureds and the Asiatics differently to the constitutional dialogue with the Black people, because the constitutional position of the Black peoples differs radically from that of the Coloureds and Asiatics.

That is not what Hennie said.

In the case of Coloureds they do not at present have their own representative political institution. They never used the CRC positively, or allowed it to evolve. On the contrary, it was abolished at their request. The Indians shrink, despite enabling legislation, from the constitution of a representative political institution by means of a full-fledged democratic election. The Chinese have no political institution, and in any event their numbers place a query mark next to justification for the existence of such an institution. Together, therefore, these three groups find themselves in the position that constitutionally they are un accommodated. This is an extremely dissatisfactory state of affairs which simply must be solved, something towards which this Government is committed to working. In the case of the Black peoples the position is completely different for reasons which have already been mentioned by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens and the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs. As a result of resolutions adopted from time to time by the Black peoples themselves in the past, they have progressed far on the way to self-government. Today, they have their own political power bases, which are held in high esteem, and which have extensive powers. These are power bases to which they attach great value and which are being utilized by them. The elected leaders of the Black people are already deliberating all the time on constitutional and other matters on the basis of Government to Government. Forums already exist, or are in the process of being created, in which Black leaders of all the Black peoples are consulting with the Government. Now I wish to say something with the full knowledge of the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development. A great deal of progress has already been made with the constitution of a planning committee on a high level on which all the Black peoples who have not yet become independent will, it is hoped, have representation, together with top Government advisers. This is a committee which will reflect in depth on future developments in economic, planning and related areas as far as these affect the Black peoples and the Republic of South Africa. So I could go on and single out consolidation on a constellation of States and other matters for hon. members. The point I wish to make is the agenda and channels of deliberation with the Coloureds, Indians and Chinese must by virtue of the real differences in constitutional development, differ from the agenda and channels in respect of the Black people. Simultaneously, however, everyone has a reciprocal interest in all constitutional development because there are common interests. That is why provision is also being made in the Bill before us for joint deliberation—to which hon. members have already referred—via the Black council and through the forming of a committee. That is the first reason.

The second reason is that the creation of a forum, such as the Black council which the Government has in mind and in regard to which consultation with Black leaders is taking place, is in line with a need which the leaders of Black people seem to feel themselves. I am referring in this connection to regular meetings between the elected leaders of the Black national States, where they deliberate with one another. And how do they do this? They deliberate to the exclusion of other population groups. They alone, only the Black leaders. We did not say that they should do this. They are not doing it in terms of legislation or in terms of a proposal of ours; they are doing so voluntarily, apparently because they need to do so. I have no problem with this. I think it is a natural development. But what is important is that the reciprocal liaison between elected Black leaders demonstrates a need for a Black forum. I maintain that the proposed Black council can give further expression to this need, which is spontaneously demonstrated by what is already taking place among Black leaders.

Thirdly, the non-representation of Blacks must also be seen as an elimination of duplication in respect of channels through which Black people state their standpoints to this Government. It must be borne in mind that the President’s Council does not have the function of advising on constitutional development. The Bill also makes provision for a planning committee. I have just referred to it. A planning committee consisting of members of the Government and the Black States is already in the process of being formed. It also makes provision for an economic committee, and a committee for community relations, and I hope that a scientific committee will be added to this list.

Against the background of the Black Governments with their own capabilities and the existing forums for dialogue with this Government, and having regard the fact that they have their own Public Services, advisers and institutions, surely it is logical that the representation of recognized Black leaders on the President’s Council would bring about duplication which could only sow confusion. Concisely stated, the Black peoples already have effective channels. Let us consider the permanent presence of Commissioners-General in order to state standpoints to the State President on the Cabinet. And they are utilizing them. The other population groups do not have these channels, for the reasons which I have indicated, and in addition to the constitutional function the President’s Council offers them a say which the Blacks already have.

Fourthly, the entire course of development and history of the Black peoples differs to such an extent from that of the Coloureds and Asiatics that a different approach, a differentiated approach to dialogue structures is justified. Hon. members know the differences as well as I do, and for that reason I shall content myself with a single fragment. The history of the Black peoples in South Africa embraces countries, sovereignties and citizenship of their own. The Coloureds and Asiatics in South Africa have from the beginning walked the road together with and interwoven with the Whites. The question can immediately be asked: But what about the urban Blacks? Are they not comparable with the Coloureds and the Asiatics? The hon. member for Mooi River also referred to them to a certain extent. To that my reply is that the NP does not flinch from reality. Naturally there are Blacks who are born outside their national States and bred in Black townships near White cities, and on farms, naturally, those Blacks are to a certain extent different from the compatriots living in the traditional area. We are prepared to recognize that difference and accommodate it. We are also doing so. We are doing so by means of the Community Councils and by means of our willingness to make room for urban Blacks around a conference table on the Council of State which we are envisaging. But what we are not prepared to do is to absolutize this difference, as the hon. members of the official Opposition frequently do, because alongside the difference there is also a similarity, and there is also the strong bond of ethnic ties which cannot be argued away. There are of course Blacks who do not accept these ethnic ties so strongly, just as there are Afrikaners who no longer feel as strongly about their Afrikanerdom, etc. But surely this fact does not detract from the reality that millions of Zulus outside kwaZulu identify themselves with the Zulu nation. Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition dispute this statement? Millions of Zulus outside kwaZulu identify themselves with the Zulu nation. [Interjections.] If this is not the case, why do Black leaders draw crowds numbering thousands of their people in places such as Soweto and elsewhere? The question we have to ask is not what the PFP thinks the urban Blacks are thinking. We must ask these people personally what they believe, and I think that an adequate answer has perhaps not been given to this question. I am inclined to agree with the statement made by the hon. member for Durban Point that in the process of getting through to the political aspirations of the Black man himself, the Black council can make a contribution. I am also inclined to take serious cognizance of the standpoint of elected Black national leaders who consider themselves to be the spokesmen of all the members of their peoples, wherever they reside and work. One thing is certain, and that is that this Government does not wish to work with a fiction. The view of the official Opposition of urban Black people as being a total entity, is fiction. This Government is not prepared to cut relations in half, to fragment nations, and it wishes, with the establishment of a Black council, rather than the inclusion of urban Blacks in the President’s Council, to afford the Black people of South Africa an opportunity to reflect themselves on this complicated problem, without intervention by others.

I conclude by emphasizing that the intention of the Government is not to eliminate the Blacks from constitutional deliberation. On the contrary. He must participate in this, but, for the reasons I have raised, I believe that their participation should be structured as we are providing in the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am not a member of the Constitutional Commission and therefore I am in no position to participate in the in-fighting which is taking place here about what happened in the Constitutional Commission and who perhaps made about-turns about some aspects of the Bill we are debating today. The hon. the Minister who has just spoken spent most of his time on in-fighting with the official Opposition, and I want to leave it at that. The rest of his time he used to justify the exclusion of Blacks from the President’s Council. I just want to say that in this respect I am obviously led by hon. members of the NRP who served on the commission and who made it quite clear that we would have preferred to have had Black representation on the President’s Council. If that had been done, we believe it would have made it a more effective body. The fact that we do not have it, however, does not necessarily mean that we should not have a look at this and at least give it a chance. Before I proceed further, I should like to make just one remark with regard to the speech of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I think that, in years to come, he will look back on his speech and he will then be in a position to say that he did not compromise with his own principles. I think he said many things in his speech that can be interpreted in different ways, and it was perhaps very significant that he rejected majority rule in a unitary State. That has been part of the policy for years and that is not at issue as far as any political party in this House is concerned; but what I find extremely difficult to understand is that, when hon. members of the official Opposition speak about this, they never also highlight the fact that they stand for majority rule based on a common roll and general franchise in a geographical federation. They say that they stand for a majority …

We do not stand for majority rule.

Does that party reject majority rule within each federal unit?

You do not understand what you are talking about.

The hon. member says that I do not understand it. That is exactly what their members have conceded to us during negotiations.

Where?

We can prove to the hon. member that they have said that. They stand for a common voters’ roll and a general franchise, not a qualified franchise, in a geographic federation. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, they have to fight amongst themselves about this. The majority party will obviously be the ruling party in each geographical unit.

No, that is not so.

Well, it is up to them to prove that it is not so. I do not even want to waste time on that. Their next speaker can get up and explain to us exactly how they will prevent majority rule in the government and councils in a geographical federation based on a common voters’ roll and a general franchise.

I am, of course, only too willing to admit that as a constitutional measure this Bill obviously falls far short of the expectations of my party and of what we believe would have had to happen if we were in power.

You are prepared to compromise …

It is not a matter of compromise. If the hon. member will listen to me, he will hear what I sincerely believe to be the direction in which this Bill, in its logical development, will be able to take us. If this was to be the final word in our constitutional development, then obviously we would be the first to reject it. If it should ever be proved that this measure is meant to be the final constitutional arrangement in South Africa, then we will regret having supported it. However, the assessment of everyone, including, I believe, the assessment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, is quite clearly that this is not meant to be the final word on constitutional development. This is not the end of the road, but heralds the beginning of a new evolutionary process in South Africa. It is for those reasons, not reasons of compromise, that we are prepared to support a Bill which quite clearly is still imperfect. For years we in the Opposition have advocated that the only way in which we as Whites can safeguard our future is to start a process of negotiation, initiate a system of joint decision-making and introduce a system of power-sharing in South Africa. Seen against that background, this Bill is the first glimmer of real hope for us. This is the first time in South Africa that there has been any recognition by the NP Government that people other than Whites must be brought into a joint decision-making process in South Africa.

It is a giant step for the NP, but unfortunately not for mankind.

We have heard that before. Grow up.

I am going to try to put matters in an historical perspective.

Are you prepared to answer a question?

No, not now. I am going to say things which obviously I do not want hon. members there to interpret as if I am going to try and make petty politics out of them, but one has to see matters in their true historical perspective to realize what step the Government is in fact prepared to take.

Let us just look at the position of the Coloureds. The Coloureds and the Indians hereby become an element, with the Whites, in the future constitutional development in South Africa. Consider that 20 years ago only White South Africans were allowed to participate in constitutional development in South Africa. We all well remember how 40 000 Coloureds, who might have enjoyed an equal vote with the Whites in the referendum on the Republic, were excluded from that referendum by this Government as not being competent to participate in the constitution-making process in South Africa. Yet today, a bare 20 years later, they are no longer going to be mere onlookers, disqualified from the constitution-making process, but are going to be participants in that process. That is quite ironical. It is also ironic that we are abolishing the Senate and allowing the Coloureds to participate in the constitution-making process in South Africa. Yet, only about 25 years ago, the Senate was enlarged in order to remove the Coloureds from the common voters’ roll. Against that background we must look at this package deal offered to us.

One of the elements of the package deal is the proposed President’s Council in which it is hoped that Coloureds, for example, will play an important part. This Bill is also a lesson to those people who used to belong to the “never” brigade in South Africa. I remember, only a bare six years ago, that in reply to a question from the then member for Zululand, Mr. Radclyffe Cadman, as to whether the Coloureds and Indians would ever share sovereign power in South Africa, the then hon. Prime Minister answered with an emphatic “No”. Yet, if we really look at this objectively, what are we busy with at the moment? Six years later this Government is prepared to take a step which will obviously lead to joint decision-making, and the only logical conclusion is that it must ultimately lead to a sharing of sovereignty. The “never” brigade amongst NP supporters, who have retarded progress, cannot rejoice in what we are doing here at the moment.

My personal belief, and that of my party, is that there is no room for those who think that only Whites, Coloureds and Indians must enjoy the privilege of reaping the wonderful harvest of our prosperous country. One might then ask why are we supporting a measure in which these three groups are singled out to play a more direct role in South Africa than the other population groups. Another legitimate question is: Why allow this process to start at such an elementary level, namely that of a nominated body with advisory functions? I believe there is an easy answer to both questions. Whatever the limitations of the Bill and the proposed President’s Council, the Government has only one option open to it, and that is spelt out in capital letters for the Government: It must make the President’s Council work. This Bill is important because I believe that once that council is created—and this is why I would like to see the hon. Opposition supporting this Bill—the real scene for change in South Africa will be set.

Firstly, in order to make this council work, the Government must find people of stature, who enjoy the confidence of their community, to serve on it.

And if they cannot?

I shall deal with that.

It will be impossible to find such people. [Interjections.]

Why will it be impossible?

The council will be a very fruitful exercise. People will no longer be able to bluff themselves. I know it will not be an easy task to find suitable people, but I believe that it can be done. I encourage the Government to tackle that problem. If I say we must not support this Bill, I am standing for the status quo. That is what I do not want to see. Allow me to call this the first positive result of the whole exercise, which will be the finding of those people. If the Government, in the course of this process, discovers that there are certain obstacles which prevent this …

What if they cannot find them?

The hon. member for Groote Schuur wants to know what will happen if these people are not found. If that should happen and certain difficulties should arise as a result of that, what will happen then is that the Government will be compelled by circumstances—as all of us, the Whites, who have all the political power in the country in our hands, will be compelled to apply its mind to those specific problems and to try to find the proper ways and means to eliminate whatever obstacle may be in the way. [Interjections.] We should not try to cross our bridges until we have reached them. The problems should be tackled and efforts should be made to solve them as they arise.

The biggest problem is the PFP.

They are our major problem.

Hon. members of the official Opposition so often accuse the Government of being unrealistic, of living in Cloud-cuckoo-land as it were. They are the ones who always want to bring the Government back to reality. I put it to them that this is their opportunity of doing so, if they are still of the same opinion. This proposed President’s Council offers them just that opportunity. They should assist us now in our attempts to find the right people to serve on that council. Let us stop talking about people or to people, and let us begin to speak with people. Here is the chance now to find the right people with whom we can talk.

That is the real challenge.

I believe that the President’s Council can set the whole process into motion, and that is something which can only be for the good of South Africa.

Then there is, of course, also another important aspect to which I want to refer. When the members of the proposed President’s Council are ultimately appointed, I am sure, they will be people of stature. That is where I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout in his advice to Coloured, Indian and Chinese leaders to come forward and make themselves available to serve on that council. I believe this is the correct approach.

A responsible approach.

Furthermore, the real test will come once the President’s Council becomes occupied with activities which are commensurate with the status to which, we all hope, this council will have. We can, of course, not simply have a council biding its time with insignificant and trivial matters. That council will be expected to produce positive results in order to enjoy credibility and confidence. At that stage it will not only be the credibility of the Government that will be at stake; it will also be the credibility of the members serving on the President’s Council.

That is right.

This is why I believe this to be the beginning of a real process of change, because this is a way of beginning to share responsibility. It is also the beginning of a system of sharing power.

Sharing power? Which power? [Interjections.]

What is the ultimate responsibility of the President’s Council going to be? The ultimate responsibility of the President’s Council—and we all agree that that will indeed be so—will be to make a major and positive contribution to evolving a new constitution.

But who is going to serve on the council? [Interjections.]

Just listen to the hon. member for Groote Schuur. How many times will we still have to tell him? I have already told him. I have also told him that it will be the responsibility of the Government to see to it that whichever problems arise will be eliminated in a proper manner. What is of the essence, however, is that we should start with this process right now. There is a job with which we have to go on. That cannot wait. Ultimately the moment of destiny will come for all of us. From that we will not be able to escape.

You have said it.

It is important that a climate be created now in which we will be able to sit round a table and negotiate a complete settlement of the future of South Africa and all its peoples. I have no doubt about my party’s attitude towards this specific matter. We in the NRP also accept the fact that in no negotiations that have ever taken place in this country a political dispensation based on a system of one man, one vote, has ever been accepted. What has been accepted though is a political dispensation of group accommodation.

That is quite correct.

In Natal we have already had limited experience of this in negotiations on a local authority level. The end result of that was an agreement to a system of group accommodation.

That is where we in Natal have set the example.

I should just like to remind hon. members of what happened in Zimbabwe. We all know what happened to the internal agreement reached among Bishop Muzorewa, Mr. Sithole and Mr. Ian Smith, on 3 March 1978. Even there deliberations and negotiations brought about a settlement based on a group accommodation. What happened subsequently at Lancaster House? What was the system for which Mr. Mugabe ultimately settled? What settlement through negotiations brought about peace? What brought peace was a system of group accommodation. Whether it is going to work finally or not is beside the point, but that did bring peace.

Because they all got together. [Interjections.]

Can that hon. member not see that I, as a member of the Opposition, want to use that instrument to bring about that situation? [Interjections.]

Order! I ask hon. members please not to conduct a debate by way of interjections. They will have ample opportunity to reply to the hon. member tomorrow.

[Inaudible.]

Order! Is the hon. member commenting on my ruling?

Sir, I was commenting on the fact that you were not in the Chair when the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who was heckled to a great degree …

Order! The hon. member for Durban Central may proceed.

It is our duty, as members of the Opposition, always to appeal to the Government to accept the realities of the day, but as Opposition members we also have to accept the realities. The NP has been in power for 32 years.

Hear, hear!

It is not a question of “hoor, hoor!” In many respects it is a tragedy. As the set-up here is constituted at present, there is no doubt in my mind that the Opposition is not at all effective. Opposition just coming from Whites is not effective Opposition in South Africa. That is quite clear. I also know why it is not effective. The reason is that the present Government knows that every time there is a dispute the Government can settle that dispute on an all-White arena, in other words in an election just amongst the Whites, as we have at present, and they know they can beat us every time. History has proved that. That is happening, and we have to accept that reality.

What is going to happen, however, with the advent of the President’s Council? Then we start moving onto a new arena where election victories just amongst Whites do not really count, because then there will be other groups in South Africa that the Government will have to face, and the Government’s credibility will be at stake. I think we are busy here with a change that will bring about a greater effectiveness of opposition, which cannot be provided today by an Opposition as weak as the present White Opposition in South Africa. So that is also why I see this President’s Council as a new avenue of change in South Africa. There is no doubt in what direction it will eventually move. The process has started, and once it has started it will accelerate and move in a direction we shall all be grateful for. It is for those reasons that I am prepared to be identified with support for this particular measure, imperfect as it may be at this stage and even though it is not in perfect agreement with our policy and philosophy.

Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that the hon. member for Durban Point indicated that the NRP supported the Second Reading of this Bill, and also said why, the hon. member for Durban Central could not resist the temptation of playing politics and trying to rake up old stories in order to create a semblance of opposition. The hon. member also entered into an argument with the official Opposition, but I shall leave the hon. member at that.

I believe this is an appropriate time to adjourn the debate. Therefore I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.