The Prime Minister on this occasion addressed a few striking remarks to the youth in particular. With gravity, yet with his characteristic correct approach to the youth, he pointed out the important responsibility resting on them as the future of the nation. Adv. Vorster also told the students to make the most of their student years. It is important that the student should make full use of the privilege of attending a university and thereby being prepared for his future task. The Prime Minister went on to discuss in depth the colour question confronting the Republic. He also pointed out the very important role South Africa can and should play in Africa and how every person can prepare himself for this task and responsibility.

Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Rector, Deans of the Faculties, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, students.

In the first instance, permit me to express my appreciation for the invitation extended to me early last year, when I held another position,' to appear at this function today and to address a few words to the students, more specifically the graduands of this university.

I am grateful to be here today and I am pleased that this function is being held specifically at this place since it holds precious memories not only for me personally but for every one of you, because I shall never forget that it was right here that it was irrevocably decided that South Africa should become a Republic. 2

That that was the right decision is proved by the present position of South Africa. I am also very grateful that I can act on this occasion under the auspices of your respected and highly-esteemed Chancellor. 3 It is indeed an honour to stand on this platform not only with the Chancellor of the University of the Orange Free State, but the first State President of the Republic of South Africa.

Not only is it an honour for me to stand here, presently to be honoured more highly by means of an honorary degree on myself and others, but what makes the occasion so much more remarkable to me is that I shall receive this degree from the State President.

I have - and that is why I accepted the invitation - very high regard for your institution; I have very high regard for the people of the Free State; I feel at one with them because many years ago I earned citizenship of this province by other means. 4

Not only do I respect what your university is achieving at present, but in the course of my public career I have frequently come into contact with ex-students of your university and be it in the educational sphere, the scientific sphere or the business sphere, or be it in the field of politics, they have made their mark everywhere. Everywhere they have acted in such a manner that their point of view - as well as the positive leader­ship they have evinced - have been noted with respect and appreciation.

And now I am appearing before the students of this university this morning, and how I wish I were a student again; not because, as in the old days, I wish to walk down the road with my girl, but because I was so exceptionally clever when I was a student.

I had all the answers. Yes, there was practically no problem I could not solve. And now that I need it so much, in my present capacity, I no longer have it.

And you are now enjoying those pleasant years in which you do in­deed have the solutions. Do not be concerned if this leaves you quite soon; life has a way of robbing one of the solutions. You will find them again later on.

And the question is - if I may turn to the students first - why one be­comes a student, what one does here? And then it is obvious that in the first place one comes here to acquire knowledge. One does not only come to university to fetch a blazer to flaunt in front of schoolgirls. One comes here in the first place to get a degree; that is your first and primary duty. And it is always a disappointment when one listens to reports of the universities and hears complaints about the number of failures. This simply should not happen. A person who has enough in­telligence to pass matric, surely also has enough intelligence to obtain a degree at a university.

The facilities are provided for students at great expense, both to the state and to parents. And now I want to appeal to the students, not only at this university but throughout the country, to make better use of the facilities available to them.

South Africa needs many people. In particular South Africa needs educated people. South Africa can make use of young people who derived maximum benefit from the educational facilities placed at their disposal. Therefore I want to take this opportunity to congratulate those of you who will presently appear before the esteemed Chancellor, to congratulate you, your relatives and particularly your parents most sincerely on your achievement, on the distinction you have earned by obtaining a degree at this esteemed university.

In my university days there was a young man of few words — they say his father was the same, he did not do much work either. When the examination results were due his father, who like himself was a man of few words, sent him a telegram asking simply: "Pass or fail?" and he replied: "Yes". His father sent another telegram asking: "Yes what?' His reply was: "Yes, Dad."

I am pleased you could give an affirmative reply to the telegram which might have come your way too. But you are not only here to learn, you are here to develop your personality through your association with fellow students; through the discussions you can hold with your colleagues. You are here as young people - privileged young people - to live and enjoy life to the full.

And if there is a message I should like to pass on to the youth of South Africa today, it is this: enjoy your youth, those years never return. And do you know, if life has taught me anything, it has taught me that life is full of frustrated, silly old people who did not know how to enjoy their youth when they were young.

And you can enjoy your youth without neglecting your work. You can be happy without losing sight of the more serious side of life. You can have fun without separating yourself from your people. You can make merry without despising what is your own. You can have enjoyment on this earth without forgetting that this is not your ultimate destination, but that there is a life hereafter in which you will be called upon to account for your actions.

But you are also here to investigate and take up a standpoint. There are many who think that when one goes to university — when you move in the academic sphere — you must dissociate yourself from that which belongs to your people, from the truths in which your people have believed for generations, from the things they held dear, from the things your old folk regard as sacred.

You are here to investigate, and you must do so; you are here to criticise, and you must do so because you have to take up a standpoint; you have to answer to yourself for the standpoint that you will have to take up here later. But you can take it from me. It has never paid to throw away the baby with the soapsuds. Our old folk learnt this the hard way many years ago. And of course I was a student myself, and therefore know that students tend to put on airs. And that calls to mind another student I knew who had an M.Sc. degree in Agriculture. He went to farm, but he and his father could not see eye to eye and before long he left the farm because his father was too old-fashioned for his liking. His father simply did not know how to farm. And, after living in town for a few years and struggling to earn a living, he went back to the farm and this time things were far better. And then one day one of his friends asked him how he was getting along with his dad then. He said, "Exceptionally well. It is surprising how much my dad has learnt in the few years I have been away from the farm."

You should guard against acting in the same way. You are here to cultivate leadership so that you will be able to practise it later in life. You are here, apart from gaining an education, to try to find wisdom, because the curse of our times is that there are too many educated bar­barians in the world. You are here at best to learn to be of service to your people.

Is it not remarkable when you look around the world - especially if one lands at the glass palace in America 5 — how many people there are who want to serve the world, who want to save the world, but how few there are who want to be of service to their own people.

And I say to you as students, from the nature of the case there is the desire, and so it should be, and especially the young student has the calling, the feeling that he would like to be of service to mankind. There is nothing more praiseworthy than this for a human being, as far as earthly things are concerned, namely to be of service to mankind; but you can show mankind the greatest service by in the first instance serving your own people.

This does not only apply to you who are sitting here as representatives of the White student youth; it applies particularly in South Africa to the students, to the young people of each population group, and there is more work for every leader among his own people than he can perform in a lifetime.

South Africa and the world need leadership; and South Africa - as I see it - is the best laboratory where one can practise this, where one can work with it, and if need be experiment; the best laboratory where one can gain the necessary experience and background. Let us for a moment consider this South Africa of ours. It is in the first place the only White state in a Black and Coloured continent. It also happens to be the first African state to have revolted against imperialism. It is the first African state in whose midst there were cries for emancipation and indepen­dence. But I should also mention that in my humble opinion it showed how best to get rid of imperialistic ties. African states would do well to read the history of this White state in this regard.

And while on the subject, it is necessary as a result of what is being said in the world outside, to say this again. I was simply amazed, when a number of the African states around us became independent, that there were questions in the world outside about how we would react. Did it in any way endanger our position? Did it make us fear for the future? The people who asked these questions did not know our history. That states became independent - Black states - was nothing new or alien to us. After all, it was not the policy of my ancestors and your ancestors to annex these people and to make them citizens of our states. If it had not been British policy to bring these people within the British sphere of influence and make them British subjects they would, as far as we are concerned, still have been independent. So it is nothing new or alien to us,

And therefore, where this development took place, and we had to contact them in an inter-state manner and where we had to build up relations with each country in turn, this is no new territory to us. In this regard I act towards these people as my ancestors did.

My policy, in that regard, is essentially the same policy my Voortrekker ancestors had in respect of this matter. Therefore it is nothing new to me - let me say at once - I see no danger in it, because that which motivated my people and brought them to where they are today, that stimulus which made and enabled my people to build up South Africa as they have done, that which drove me was Nationalism, and if Nationalism was right for my people then it is right for anyone, irrespective of his colour or identity — then it is no threat to me.

And in addition to being the only White state, we are the most highly developed country on this continent, and because this is so and we are not settlers who are just here temporarily, we are not people who will move away quite soon. That is why it is we who have built and che­rished this fatherland throughout the years, since we are in every respect a part of Africa, and since we are the most highly developed country in Africa — which is why we have a duty towards Africa. Yes, we have a duty towards the whole world, but once we have done our duty by our­selves in the first instance, we have a duty towards Africa of putting at Africa's disposal the knowledge and experience we have built up over the years.

And I want to express my appreciation for a tendency slowly mani­festing itself among our conservative students to start out in their student years to impart that knowledge and experience - even if it is only in a limited way - to other states in Africa. 6

Someone told me he was driving through one of our neighbouring states recently when he picked up a White man from another country and asked him, "What brings you here?" The man replied, "I have come to teach the Blacks." "What have you come to teach them?" asked the first. The reply was, "I teach them tap dancing."

Poor man, he does not realise that the piccanins can jive better than he and his countrymen will ever be able to.

But that is not what Africa needs; that is not what the emerging states of Africa need. The emerging states of Africa need leadership, need help so as to help themselves. That is what they need. And we as a small state do not have the money to hand out, and even if we did have it, I still believe that it is wrong in principle to do so. But what we do have is goodwill; what we do have is knowledge and experience. But more important, we understand the soul of Africa and its peoples.

And because we understand the soul of Africa we have a noble task and calling towards Africa. But I also make bold to say that Africa understands us. And is it not remarkable that the closer the African states are situated to us, the friendlier they are towards us. And that is not only for their own benefit, but it is indeed because they understand us and we understand them. But South Africa offers the student oppor­tunities which very few parts of the world offer as a laboratory, not only on account of these two reasons we have mentioned, but due to the fact that even the small handful of Whites here in this Republic of South Africa consists of two language groups. And one could hardly imagine another country in Africa, in the world, where there were sharper clashes in the past between language groups than right here in South Africa.

How often the fists fell at political and other meetings about these very matters. About the national anthem, the flag, the language rights that were held in contempt. Oh, it seems like yesterday that I was a little boy and I attended my first political meeting. My father did not want me to go, but after much pleading he said to me, "Very well, you may go, but when the first blows fall you must run home to your mother." And I was ordered to stand at the back near the door. So I did. And the blows fell, but I did not run home because I was too interested to see that my father could join in - he, a mild-mannered man.

And we surmounted that problem. We taught the world a lesson in that regard: how it is possible to reconcile such conflicting groups. And one could only reconcile them as a result of the policy standpoint your people took, namely one of equality of rights. In that connection I take this opportunity to pay tribute to that great Free Stater, Gen. Hertzog, who brought this to the fore as a policy standpoint.

That struggle is past. Now I want to sound a word of warning. On both sides of the question now there are people who are foolish enough to incite English-speaking people against the Afrikaans-speaking on the one hand, and Afrikaans-speaking people against the English-speaking on the other. This is not only stupid, it is downright foolish to try to do this at this time. With that I do not for a moment want to say - on the contrary - that people should not stand up for their language rights. Every person in this country is or ought to be entitled to be addressed in his own language. But we are the only bilingual nation in the world. Belgium indeed has two official languages, but the people are not bi­lingual. Canada has two languages, but the Canadians are not bilingual. I want to make an appeal to every one of our people on this occasion: If you want to serve South Africa in the best way, you should try to be as bilingual as possible. If you want to do South Africa a disservice, then one group should insult the language of the other, or fail to appreciate it. Let us learn a lesson in this regard.

But we do not only have two language groups as far as the Whites are concerned. We also have a number of small colour groups and four large colour groups. And not only does one colour group differ from another, but there are sharp differences within the various colour groups themselves.

It so happens that we are today living in a world where everybody has suddenly become colour-conscious. And what strikes me is that those who have the least experience of colour have the most to say about it. That the people who have the least experience of colour relations have the best solutions to offer. And where the world makes a mistake -and I was given ample opportunity to realise this during the past week -is that people regard the Blacks in South Africa as a homogeneous group.

It has never got through to the world, and this is your task, this is inter alia the message you must carry out. It has never got through to these people that there is just as much difference between the Xhosa and the Zulu as there is between the Dutchman and the Belgian. That there is just as much difference between the Venda and any other group as there is between the German and the Frenchman. And now the world is trying to find a solution to its colour problem. And does it not strike you, if you consider the political field of South Africa, that all the points of conflict of the past have to a large extent disappeared? They have been solved and the solutions have been accepted by the vast majority of our people.

There is one question that will not only increasingly engage people in South Africa, but which at present holds the attention of the world, and which will hold the world's attention in the days ahead, and that is the solution to the colour problem. It is remarkable how many advisers I have in that regard.

Oh, you know, if one could die of a surfeit of help, I would not be standing here today. In so many spheres there are people offering help. There is even a committee of fourteen over in America of whom a number are offering to appoint an Administrator in South West. They do not know that Mr. Wennie du Plessis has been there for years. 7

So I get help in many spheres. Sometimes I am grateful for it, often it amuses me, and at times - because one is only human - it annoys me.

But I say the whole world is in search of a solution to the colour pro­blem. And let me say at once, if a man comes to me with the solution, and he can give me the assurance that he has found the solution, I shall not only accept it, but I shall raise a monument in his honour, and I shall not commission Mr. Harpley to make it. 8

But what is very clear to me, if I look at the critics of SWA in that regard, then I ask prominent Americans whether they have solved their colour question in America. And then they tell me, "No". Then I ask the British whether they have solved their problem. They too say "No". Have I not the right then to ask: If the solution you offer is by your own admission no solution, what moral right do you have to impose it on me and my people?

I would give you a hearing if you came to me and said: This is the solution. I am prepared to study it. But if it lies on the road of violence, if it leads to greater dissatisfaction every day, then I look at this laboratory of South Africa and I thank Providence that many, many years ago my ancestors, Afrikaans and English-speaking, found the seeds of the solution; and I know that this small group of my people not only have a theoretical solution, but are also applying it in practice, and that solu­tion is separate development.

And if someone asked me: Why do you say that that is the solution, I would reply: Look at South Africa. It can be numbered among the most prosperous and stable nations of the world - and show me a nation where there is less friction in spite of the fact that there are so many colour groups in South Africa today.

That is so since not only the Whites but also the leaders and the masses of the other population groups are increasingly being persuaded that separate development is not a disregard of human dignity but that, on the contrary, it has created opportunities that never existed under any other policy. Because they realise that that policy can be tested against the requirements of Christianity and morality. Because they realise that it can be implemented not only to the benefit of the Whites, but that it can in fact be implemented to the benefit of every population group.

It will be your task as students — in particular it will be the task of this new generation — to carry on implementing that policy; to let it succeed, to hold it up as a model to the world of the way in which people of various colours can solve their problems to everyone's satis­faction and in the best interests of all.

But you are here at this university so that you will be able to lead your people later on. I have told you that South Africa and the world have a great shortage of leaders. Leaders in various fields. And if I can pass on one word in that regard then I just want to tell you as students; be as clever as you will, be as educated as you will, command as much knowledge as possible but, if you cannot work with people, you will not be very successful in life. It is here that you must learn this. And if you wish to be a leader then remember a leader must always be within hearing distance of his people. He must walk on ahead, that is his task, that is his function, but he may not walk so far ahead that he cannot hear his people. A leader must walk ahead, but he may not walk so far ahead that he no longer sees his people and they no longer see him. And, if need be, a leader must be within striking distance of his people, so that they can get rid of him if they wish.

Now you are going into the future. You will be called upon to move in various spheres. You will be called upon to take part in various as­pects of national life. By virtue of your education you will very often have to act in leading roles. And you ask me, what does the road ahead look like? Then I say, there is no road, there is only a direction. And that direction was not found only yesterday or the day before. That direction was pointed out generations ago by our leaders and prominent people. And we who are now leading must beat a path; we very often have to make a new road. But that new road must always lie in the direction set by our predecessors. And as long as that is so, South Africa's youth who had the privilege of graduating at university will be of service to their people.

May you all fare well. In conclusion, I repeat my congratulations on your achievements. Congratulations on the fact that you have the pri­vilege of presently kneeling as a student here in front of the first State President of the Republic. May all be well with you, your university and our people; and all will be well with our people as long as we realise that our salvation and strength do not lie in the experience we have gained. Nor do they lie locked in the pages of erudite books we have read, but they are contained in the childlike faith which burned in the hearts of our people in God, the Creator of our nation.

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1 Adv. Vorster was Minister of Justice, Police and Prisons until he succeeded Dr. H. F. Verwoerd as Prime Minister on 13 September 1966.

2 On 31 May 1960, in a dramatic highlight of the Union Festival in Bloemfontein, Dr. H. F. Verwoerd appealed to the English-speaking South Africans to grasp the extended hand of the Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and in a spirit of give and take to share in bringing about the Republic of South Africa. Cf. Die Burger, 1.6.1960.

3 Adv. C. R. Swart has been Chancellor of UOFS since this university became autonomous in 1950.

4 Here the Prime Minister is referring to his detention during the Second World War in the internment camp at Koffiefontein as a member of the Ossewa-Brandwag.

5 A reference to the headquarters of the UNO in New York.

6 In March 1967 Adv. Vorster appealed to the youth to from time to time place their knowledge and expertise at the disposal of the Black states. Cf. E.P. Herald, 20.3. 1967. In this regard special mention may be made of medical students who provided medical services to Lesotho during university vacations.

7 Mr. W. C. du Plessis was Administrator of South-West Africa for the period 1963-1968.

8 Sydney Harpley was the sculptor of the much-discussed and contentious Smuts statue erected at that time in the Gardens in Cape Town. In a report in the Cape Times of 11.3.1909 this statue was referred to as "a monstrosity".

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