Verwoerd Reiterates Belief In Apartheid

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31027, 5 April 1966, Page 13

Verwoerd Reiterates Belief In Apartheid

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter) JOHANNESBURG. “The question can be posed whether it is morally right for a minority group in a nation to claim perpetual domination only because this group is white.” That was said recently, not by a radical African nationalist nor by a white liberal, but by Dr. Verwoerd, re-elected Prime Minister of South Africa.

An ardent advocate of apartheid, he believes that each national or racial group should have its own territory in South Africa and aim at eventual sovereignty. He was restating his beliefs in a debate with Sir De Villiers Graaff, leader of the United Patry, at the end of a brief Parliamentary session before the recent general election. Both men set out their policies dearly in statements which can be regarded as authoritative documents—Dr. Verwoerd championing his idea of apartheid and Sir De Villiers Graaff countering with a plea for a white-ruled federation of different races in South Africa. The debate had one theme —how best can the white man stay in South Africa when imost of the rest of the conti- : nent has been handed over to ■ >l’"k rule. Dr. Verwoerd challenged :the United Party to face the consequence of its policy. He said it wanted one nation in one fatherland with one loyalty under one government. Such a nation would never be prepared to confer perpetual power on a white minority. For his party the “temporary presence” of non-whites in various spheres of the economy did not constitute integration or a lasting solution to South Africa’s problems. History, he said had brought about the situation that a part of South Africa was undeniably the possession of the whites, who had settled and developed it. At the same time there were other areas where vari-

ous groups of Africans had settled and which belonged to them and not to the whites. Moreover there were in South Africa a variety of national groups which could not be gathered together because of deep differences between them in “the level of civilisation, languages, religions, colour, culture and other things.” Own Territory

Each national group should have its own territory in which it could develop to full nationhood until eventually there would be a white nation and “various Bantu (African) national groups who have the only say in their own states but no say in the white nation.”

Replying, Sir De Villiers Graaff accused the Government of deluding itself and trying to ignore the fact that economic integration existed and that the African would always be in the majority in industrial areas.

The economy could not move without the Africaneven with automation in industry. As labour and capital were everywhere integrated to produce the wealth of the century, the Government was trying to escape the view that economic integration must lead to social and political integration. His party stood for white leadership—in other words white control for the foreseeable future in an undivided South Africa. It stood for residential and social separation, but wanted to abolish many of the “petty restrictions” on Africans and give them “limited political rights in urban areas.”