When I started speaking just before the adjournment last night, I began by congratulating the S.A. Airways on the 30th commemoration of its establishment on 1 February 1934, and to thank them for the services they have rendered to South Africa. I also alleged that aviation really had its inception in South Africa 20 years before Lilienthal flew in Germany with his gliders and 30 years before the Wright brothers flew in 1903 at Kittyhawk in the U.S.A. in a power-driven aircraft. The brothers Archer and Goodman Household had already flown from the mountains at Karkloof in Natal, near the Howick waterfall, in a glider. In 1875 Goodman Household, the actual designer, succeeded in flying at a height of 300 feet for a distance of approximately three-quarters of a mile. His somewhat unplanned landing was in the branches of a tree, from which the pilot fortunately landed in a dam and escaped unhurt. His parents’ opposition immediately put a stop to his flying career because they were rightly concerned that he would break his neck.

The first aircraft in South Africa was built in 1907 by John Weston in Brandfort in the Free State, but it never flew in this country. It was shipped to France, where it was flown for the first time. In South Africa one Albert Kimmerling flew for the first time at East London on 28 December 1909. The first airmail in South Africa was transported in 1911 between Kenilworth and Muizenberg and back again. According to the newspapers of that time, it was a great occasion and thousands of people congregated to witness it. Thereafter aviation in South Africa went from strength to strength. We find that Lieutenant-Colonel Allister Miller, who can rightly be regarded as the pioneer of aviation in South Africa, established Union Airways and undertook the first regular aviation service in South Africa with five Gipsy Moth aircraft. Hon. members who can still remember the Gipsy Moth will know that it was an open single-motor aircraft of very doubtful construction according to present-day standards. Then we had Act No. 21 of 1931 which empowered the S.A. Railways Administration to exploit an air service. That was given effect to on 1 February 1934, when the S.A. Railways took over Union Airways, and they started their service with four single-motor Junkers aircraft. Later in the year three J.U. 52s were purchased from Germany, and these aircraft represented a milestone in the history of aviation in South Africa. In 1938 when the J.U. 68s were taken into use the flying Springbok spread its wings wider over South Africa and we began to have more regular air services. Thereafter the war intervened and served as a stimulus to aviation throughout the world, and we also find that all the aircraft of the S.A. Airways were used for the war effort. The South African flyers distinguished themselves in every sphere in which they participated. After the end of the war the inland services were expanded considerably, and on 10 November 1945 the first overseas service was undertaken in partnership with B.O.A.C., for which two Avro-York aircraft were used by the S.A. Airways. Early in the ’fifties the Constellation was taken into service, and for the first time the flying time to London was reduced to just over 28 hours.

During 1953 the S.A. Airways made aviation history when it became the first airline outside the United Kingdom to make use of purely jet-driven aircraft. It was indeed a great blow to aviation when these Comet aircraft had to be withdrawn from service due to structural defects. With the purchase of the DC-7Bs by S.A. Airways, another milestone was reached, because once again it was the first time that this type of aircraft was used outside the U.S.A. This aircraft is in fact to-day still the fastest piston-driven aircraft in the world, and the flying time from Johannesburg to London was reduced to less than 24 hours. On 1 October 1960 when S.A. Airways acquired the Boeing 707s on the Springbok route a peak was reached in regard to the activities of the Railways. Mr. Speaker, who would ever have dreamt a few years ago that a flight between Johannesburg and London could be completed between dinner and breakfast? To-day’s jets, with their 131 passengers and 11 members of the crew, do so regularly. And then on 22 August last year the S.A. Airways was faced with its greatest challenge. Senior Captain Frank Retief, in command of the Boeing Johannesburg, on the way from Athens to the North African coast, found himself over the Mediterranean Sea when the S.A. Airways contacted him over their strong broadcast station ZUR and informed him that Libya had in the meantime closed its air space over Africa to South African flights, and that he would have to deviate to Rome. From there he departed along the West Coast route around Africa and arrived in Johannesburg only a few hours late. It should be remembered that an organization of that scope does not work like a motor-car which can simply be diverted to another road, but that it involves a tremendous amount of organization. We need only think of the provision of additional crew, passport regulations, the taking in of fuel and numerous other technical problems which have to be overcome. I think the S.A. Airways deserves all the praise they received, not only in this country but also in the overseas Press, for that tremendous task they performed so smoothly without any resultant problems. The S.A. Airways’ flights, although they are now 900 miles longer and take 1½ hours more, are still amongst the fastest between South Africa and Britain and the continent of Europe. The operational aspects of S.A. Airways are basically sound. Passenger transport in the latest financial year increased by 12.4 per cent and 500,000 passengers were transported. The revenue was R28,000,000 as compared with R17,000,000 five years ago. The freight ton-miles increased by 15½ per cent to 13,750,000. Five years ago it was only 3,000,000. The remarkable safety record of S.A. Airways has to be lauded if one takes into consideration that they completed 250,500,000 passenger miles five years ago and last year increased it to 465,500,000 passenger miles. On one occasion I had the privilege of being the co-traveller of an American tourist who was visiting the country. He spoke with the highest praise of the excellent service he received on S.A. Airways. To use his words, he said that there may have been other airlines in the world on which he had received equally good treatment, but that he had nowhere received better treatment than from the S.A. Airways.

These operational results of S.A. Airways are remarkable, when compared with the experience of other airlines in the world. B.O.A.C., our partner on the Springbok route, last year showed a loss of £35,000,000 on their services. At the moment they have an accumulated loss of £64,000,000. The Minister of Aviation in Britain was compelled to appoint an independent investigation into their affairs as the result of these great losses B.O.A.C. suffered. We should remember that the British airlines, in spite of their being somewhat larger, do not carry as many more passengers as one would expect, compared with South Africa. On its overseas services B.O.A.C. carries only eight times as many passengers as the S.A. Airways.

I therefore feel justified in saying that S.A. Airways has a rosy future. If the present pattern of development in Africa continues, I feel inclined to state that certain airlines in Africa will in future go insolvent. We already see the experience of a few airports falling under the new Governments of African states which recently achieved freedom. I am thinking particularly of the airports in the Belgian Congo, the control and management of which have now been taken over by inexperienced people. These people controlling those airports simply do so along their own lines, without any previous experience. If this pattern is to continue we will find that certain routes over Africa will be closed to many of the airlines which at the moment exploit those routes. In that case it will mean that the southern half of the continent of Africa will concentrate increasingly on Johannesburg as the point of departure to overseas countries.

Or Windhoek.

Yes, the airport at Windhoek is of course being planned, but we already have the Jan Smuts Airport, which is a very excellent one according to international standards. I therefore visualize Jan Smuts Airport as being the point of departure in future of appreciably more passengers from the southern half of the continent of Africa, and particularly along the western route which is now being exploited by S.A. Airways.

Mr. Speaker, I feel that we should devote attention to a further task in South Africa, and that is the establishment of transport air services to link up with our main routes. I think the time has arrived for us to devote more attention to that matter on a basis similar to the one according to which our road motor transport services implement our railway services. When we have succeeded in making the travelling public of South Africa more air travel conscious, I believe that our air service will benefit, because air services can be inaugurated with cheaper aircraft without such a large passenger carrying capacity, air services which can be operated very cheaply between existing airports without appreciable construction work being done on those airports, and I feel that S.A. Airways will also benefit as the result of the additional traffic which will become available over its main routes.

Another aspect to which we should devote attention is fast transportation between the terminal in the cities and our airports. At the moment we can fly from Cape Town to Johannesburg in a Boeing in approximately an hour and a half—the record stands at one hour and ten minutes. We arrive at Jan Smuts Airport and it takes approximately an hour to reach the terminal in the city. I feel that attention should be devoted to the question of faster transportation between the terminal in the city and the airport. Attention can also be given to the reception of baggage and the disembarkment of passengers, but transportation between the airport and the city is the main problem. On a former occasion the hon. the Minister poured cold water on the suggestion, but I still want to submit to him once more for his consideration that we can make use of a helicopter service between, e.g., the roof of the Cape Town station and the D. F. Malan Airport. I realize that the establishment of such a service will require appreciable capital and that it will be an expensive undertaking in the beginning. But Airways has never been frightened by any challenge and I believe that it will also be able to solve this problem successfully.

Mr. Speaker, I have come to the conclusion that things are going well with S.A. Airways, and in conclusion I want to wish them all the best for the future. May the wings of the flying Springbok always be carried on favourable winds, and may their landings always be safe.

I do not propose to follow very extensively the hon. member who has just sat down; I have certain other matters that I want to deal with, but one does appreciate the sincerity in his approach to the question of air transport, and I would like to support one of his very last suggestions, and that is that a helicopter service should be instituted, not necessarily only between local airports and the railway station but between all our major airports and the centre of their cities. I believe that that is something which should be exploited. I do differ, however, from the hon. member with regard to the sitting of the city end of such a service. That is a matter which is open to discussion, and I would suggest that consideration might be given to the sitting of the helicopter landing base on the roof of one of the new big parking garages which are being built in the central portion of cities, thus promoting a continuous flow of transport to and from the airport. Those are suggestions which, I think, are well worthy of consideration. But I want to deal in the main with other features of the hon. the Minister’s Budget, and I want to start by saying that I think there are few people in the Republic who would not be prepared to accept that the hon. the Minister in his personal capacity has brought a measure of drive to his own portfolio. He has been a powerful driving force behind the big overall expansion, which we all accept has taken place in the carrying capacity of the railways during his term of office. He certainly has had the facility of extracting from the country and the Treasury a far greater volume of material and equipment than any of his predecessors, and I think his success is partly due to that fact. But when we come to the Minister’s Budget speech, I think this speech, unlike most of his previous Budget speeches, is conspicious for what he did not say on this occasion. It almost appeared as if the Minister had something that he did not want to publicize too much, and my suspicion is that the thing which he was not too anxious to publicize was this massive R20,000,000 surplus which he produced. The hon. the Minister tried very hard to explain away this surplus of R20,000,000 which the Budget figures show quite clearly has, “to use a railway term”, caught the Minister in a dead-end, created by his own system of “planned surplus” budgeting. Despite the huge amounts poured into railway development over the past 10 years, coupled with his spectacular 1962-3 and 1963-4 budgets, the Minister’s Budget speech on this occasion quite clearly revealed that although operating revenue, as expected, has been well in excess of his Budget forecast, the rate of expansion revealed by spending on Capital Account, particularly on existing lines and essential equipment, has fallen well below the results which the Minister anticipated in his Estimate. To use the Minister’s own words from his Budget speech, he acknowledges that although a sum of R924,000,000 has been spent on railway expansion over the past 10 years, the outlook for the year ahead in his opinion leaves no room for complacency and that a continued business upsurge at the existing rate, again to use the Minister’s own words, will tax our transport resources severely in the period which lies ahead of us. Sir, I think this admission by the hon. the Minister lends point to the demand contained in the amendment of this side which, summed up simply, states that full advantage should be taken of this period of national expansion to carry out a careful reassessment of the entire transport needs and resources of the Republic; and here I cannot too strongly support the plea made by the opening speaker on our side, the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) and other speakers about what we think is the niggardly treatment of the railway pensioner group in the appropriation of the surplus which has already been announced. In this regard I strongly support the views expressed so ably by the opening speaker that considerably more sympathy could have been shown for this group of people, on whose past efforts on behalf of the Railways so much of our present prosperity depends. Sir, the Minister’s own Budget speech clearly indicates that it is no longer possible for the present system of transport monopoly to cope adequately with all the increasing demands made by the industrial expansion of South Africa. Unless a commencement is made to share that increasing load with private enterprise, capable of carrying some of it, we are going to run into trouble. It goes without saying that such development, if embarked upon, should not be restricted only to those particular lines and commodities, the low-rated traffic, which the Administration itself finds it uneconomic to transport. There must be a fair division of traffic to make it economically possible for other organizations to come in and to assist the Railways in carrying this increasing load. Road transport is one service which obviously strikes one immediately as a service which, with advantage to the Railways themselves, could well be utilized to take a much bigger share of the load. Instead of being a device to protect the Railways from competition—although I know this is consistently denied— the road transport system itself should no longer be used as a buffer between the Railways and road transport but should be used in its proper capacity in order to assist in the distribution of loads between private enterprise and the Railways themselves.

I want to deal on two main points, the one dealing with our suburban railway traffic in general, and the other dealing with the ports and harbours of the Republic. I think these are two of the major features in respect of which a very strong case can be made out for a new line of thought. It is not common to South Africa that we have a great deal of difficulty in regard to the movement of suburban passengers. It is a world problem, Sir. With the huge development that has taken place in the vicinity of big urban areas the Railways in practically every country are facing the same problem which our Railways have to face in this country. In every big urban centre in the Republic to-day, I think it is fair to say that the suburban railway services at the peak hours—and I emphasize “at the peak hours”—are bursting at their seams; they are quite unable to cope with the traffic offering. Passengers, non-White as well as White, are compelled to suffer serious discomfort, over-crowding and delays with little evidence that train expansion on a sufficiently large and sufficiently urgent scale is being undertaken to cope with that problem, a problem which is growing daily. It is true that massive developments are taking place. But one cannot accept that even the acquisition of a great new station system, such as we are developing in this area and which we have developed in other areas, can of itself meet the demands of the increased transport on the suburban lines. The real root of the problem —and I think the Minister will agree with me here—lies in the fact that the track and train capacity has lagged so far behind suburban residential development that in most of the big suburban complexes our suburban railway systems are lagging well in arrear of that residential development and cannot meet the demands that are placed on them. In other words, there are insufficient railway tracks to carry the number of passenger trains in a sufficiently concentrated period of time to deal efficiently with that peak-load traffic.

The hon. the Minister must also not assume that the vast complexes of Bantu railway lines which have been constructed for the Bantu residential area systems and which, over the last five or six years, have been integrated with the various suburban services, are part of the answer to his problem. In one sense in the outlying portions, they do cater for the movements of those large numbers of Bantu. The Bantu who are necessary for the industrial development of that area of the country. But as these lines approach the big suburban centres and their lines start merging with the suburban lines, they are adding to the problem rather than solving it. They impose an additional train loan on an already overloaded system. The over-all effect of this Bantu expansion in regard to suburban traffic is to-day one of the Department’s main headaches. In other countries other forms of transport are being used to assist the Railways in dealing with this passenger problem. Those countries have problems very similar to ours. But they call upon private enterprise itself to assume a much greater responsibility in that respect. Private enterprise is encouraged to share in the load. Here we are not doing that on a sufficiently large scale or on a sufficiently generous scale to make it possible. With the big network of road expressways now approaching completion the time to-day is surely opportune for a very careful exploration of a plan to see how road services within the nearer confines outside the cities can take a share of the load off the railway system itself, thereby assisting the Railways to deal with the more distant areas for which they have to cater and where the population shift is probably the greatest to-day. The Minister’s own figures in his Budget speech reveal that in a period of five years, non-White suburban revenue—I say “non-White” specifically, because I am not quite sure whether the hon. the Minister intended that figures as including the revenue received from the guaranteed lines or not; although I think it does—has not only overtaken White revenue, but in respect of the year covered in this Budget, it has outstripped the White revenue by no less than R2,600,000. Sir, South Africa is to-day going through its heaviest road accident period. In his capacity as Minister of Transport, this Minister has had to do quite a lot in that direction to help to combat that particular evil. But the increase of accidents still goes on. One has to accept today that the discomfort, the delay, the lack of reliability suffered on the local suburban services in the various big urban areas, cannot be ignored as factors in that accident rate. They are amongst the factors that have driven people to take to motor-car transport in little groups or on their own, thereby swelling the car traffic on the roads at the worst possible time, the peak time. One cannot therefore escape the conclusion that the railways themselves have a certain measure of responsibility to bear in that respect. Some idea of the train delays can be gauged from figures supplied by the Minister in reply to a question quite recently in the House. In the six-month period which ended on 28 February 1964, 2,093 passenger trains on the three suburban lines, Cape Town/Simonstown, Cape Town/Bellville and Cape Town/Cape Flats, ran 10 or more minutes late. In January 512 and in February 629 trains ran up to 30 or more minutes late. Taken against the total number of trains run in that six monthly period these figures do not seem to be a very high one. But you cannot take it against that number. You have to take it against the number of trains run during the three peak-load periods of the day, i.e. early morning, midday and evening, because it is then that the delays mostly occur. Taken against that number, when the demand for rail traffic is at its height, when everybody has a time limit to get to work or a time limit within which to get home from their work, it becomes a very serious matter. I am not saying that the Railways themselves are not doing what is humanly possible at this stage to cope with the situation, but what I do say is that it is a problem which has been foreseen year after year for many years and the action taken to cope with it in advance has not been sufficiently dynamic, not sufficiently widespread and has not been carried out sufficiently quickly. If one calculates the time in lost man-hours in employment, and the serious delays and irritation caused to the public one begins to appreciate the seriousness of this problem. As one passenger has put it: It is a policy of doing too little too late to meet a problem which should have been envisaged long ago. I want the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to a very quick—when I say “quick” I mean without the usual months of delay we experience in these matters—thorough and expert survey of the position to see whether he cannot off-load some of the Railways’ responsibility and encourage private enterprise to share the load with the Railways in the inner perimeter around the cities. In addition to that the Administration should provide the additional lines to carry the necessary additional trains for coping with the problem in the outlying areas. The growth is going on, Sir. The natural expansion of the country is forcing that growth of urban residential development and the Railways, as the country’s official carrier, have to face up to their responsibility.

During the remainder of my time I want to deal with the third leg of our amendment. Here too, Sir, there is an appeal for a farsighted, dynamic policy of development of our ports and harbours. Our ports and harbours are in a peculiar position when you examine them. They contain some of the most modern, high-class and efficient features to be found in any country. But mixed up with that is a hodge-podge of antiquated, outmoded, antediluvian, facilities which should have been discarded and replaced long long ago. For years, from a financial point of view, our ports and harbours have been the Cinderellas of the Railway Administration. Their main task appears to be to produce substantial surpluses, which surpluses are then diverted to boost up the other sections of the Railways. The ports are then left with just sufficient to keep them going. They are playing a similar role this year. In the Budget before us they were originally estimated to produce a surplus of plus/ minus R3,500,000 and they ended the year with almost double the estimated profit, namely a surplus of R6,750,000. The hon. the Minister may well, in his reply, point to the work in progress such as the new tanker harbour for the oil refinery in Cape Town, the rebuilding of the antiquated Maydon Wharf area in Durban which got into such a state of collapse that its replacement could no longer be delayed; he can point to the development of the Durban oil port behind Salisbury Island. That work too has been necessitated by the two oil refineries that are being constructed there. Or the Minister may refer to the harbour development which is taking place at Port Elizabeth which is nearing completion; or to the development at East London and at Walvis Bay. But the stark fact, of course, simply remains this, that in practically all these major harbour developmental works they have been delayed until they were dangerously overdue during the past 12 years. They were only undertaken when the need for them had already existed for a long time. The result is that they have to be speeded up and we often find, to our regret, at a later stage that some obvious point has been overlooked. To remedy that defect often entails considerable additional expenditure. Even in the case of certain development works that are provided for in this year’s Estimates, the development is too limited and too restricted seen in the light of future world development which is so clear to-day that its implications just cannot be missed. I am referring to the tanker dock that is now being built in Cape Town. Tankers too large to use that oil dock are already on the seas and pass our ports even before that work is completed. These oil ports that are being constructed will probably meet the initial needs of the refineries but they will not meet the needs of this country within five or ten years’ time after they have been put into commission. These are the things which should be envisaged to-day. In fact, there are many features of the development of the harbour at Cape Town which make one wonder how far planning has been done in advance.

We hear of these wonderful schemes of developing new fishing harbours and utilizing the dumped spoil from the tanker dock for them. But surely that is something that should have been foreseen if this work was to be used for that purpose. You do not suck these things out of your thumb as the work proceeds. These things have to be planned in advance, Sir. The Eastern Mole at Cape Town has grown in importance in relation to the port. I would like the hon. the Minister to say in his reply what he has in mind in respect of direct road access between ship and shore when the new oil port entrance is cut through the shore-end of the Eastern Mole. Because as far as one can see from the layout that will cut clean across the already inadequate entrance. And the only entrance to and exit from the rest of the Eastern Mole then appears to be by some devious route round the back of the oil port which itself will be a dangerous area, an inflammable area. I wonder if the hon. member would touch upon that when he replies.

If the Administration wants an example of pre-vision, Sir, if they want an example of far-sighted vision, I refer them to the planning and the construction of the Duncan Dock at Cape Town during the time of the Smuts Government. To-day, 20 years after it was constructed, and constructed midst all the disabilities of a war-time situation, the Duncan Dock still to a very large extent meets the requirements of the port. It is only now beginning to shout aloud for development, development which the change in the trend of shipping and world affairs has necessitated. That is what I call planning in advance. That is the sort of system we are asking the Minister to see is carried out in his administration of the ports.

Whether we like it or not, Sir, our geographical position, because of world events in the Mediterranean, in the Suez Canal, in East Africa, and even in the Panama Zone, has once again been moved into its traditional role as the central pivot in the world sea routes between East and West. In any struggle between the East and the West, and we are part of the West, our South African ports will be the central pivot in that particular important sea route. When one tries to analyse the position, it is a sobering thought to realize that our South African naval base in Simonstown, and I quote this as an example, is the only remaining properly equipped and reasonably secure naval base in existence and available to the Western countries, of which we form a portion, between the naval base at Sidney in Australia and the British naval base at Gibraltar. There is nothing really in between. That also applies in the case of our sea ports. We are in the position of being the pivotal base and what are we doing to prepare our ports for that load when it comes? On the ground of our own security the same principle can be applied to our commercial ports. But even without that strategic impulse, our harbour development is failing to keep pace with the tremendous trends of development in world shipping, trends of increasing speed, increasing draught and improving port facilities to cut down the time of ships in port. The cost of a ship to-day does not permit of any time being wasted. One normal cargo ship anchored outside the docks in Cape Town can cost the shipowner anything between R1,000 to R2,000 per day, depending on the age and the size of the ship. That charge is not borne by the shipowner only in the long run; it is borne by the consuming public. Already the Government, I understand, have had to approve of the Conference Lines increasing their charges to South and East African ports because of the shipping delays that take place.

These features are features which affect the development of the country as a whole. Take the deep-draught ships, bulk-handling ships of to-day, Sir. We have never seen these ships in our ports until during the last two years or so. They are being increasingly used for the conveyance of coal, maize, fertilizer, etc., which are all important cargoes to this country. There is a growing demand for those materials; they are important for our economic development. In answer to world competition shipping has had to increase its speed. The speed of the turnabout in port, and the lessening of the time in port, constitute one of the most important factors related to that speed-up. What are our ports doing to help in that direction? Every day you hear of the number of ships lying off in various ports. In itself at the moment that may not be so serious but it is a danger signal, a danger signal of the growing inadequacy of the ports to carry their load. We cannot afford to ignore that danger signal; of ships waiting for berths where equipment is not suitable to deal with the cargo of a particular ship. Take the berthing space here in the Cape Town docks. The space is cluttered up with small craft, with coasters, trawlers, ships under repair because no adequate provision has been made for them. For the last ten years there has been a demand for the removal of the trawler base and the small fishing harbour, but what do we get? Words, words, and more words. If words could build a decent fishing harbour. South Africa would be the envy of the world for the type of harbours we would be able to produce from those words. But the position is not improving. In the meantime the economic space in our ports is cluttered up with these smaller ships and their development in turn is hampered. These are the things I have in mind when I say we require a dynamic outlook. To some extent the situation was caused by the Railways’ outlook on the coastal marine service. This outlook has improved, but it is not yet what it should be. The Railways regard the coastal marine service as a competitor instead of as a part of the Republic’s transport service. That is one of the reasons. Yet there is no real sign that these features are being appreciated sufficiently urgently and sufficiently actively in order to provide the remedy.

South Africa has already moved into the world front as a fishing area for deep-sea fishing. Already we have trawlers from all over the world along our coast. There are trawlers from Japan, Spain, Russia, etc. They are on our doorstep. They all need port facilities. They all assist in further over-crowding the already over-crowded space in our ports. I wonder if the hon. the Minister could give us some indication, when he replies, of what progress has been made with his taking over these spaces for his own purposes. One last feature in regard to harbour development relates to the shipbuilding industry in this country. It is time that a positive lead is given by somebody in high authority in that regard. We have firms in this country who ten years ago entered into negotiations with overseas shipbuilding interests who were prepared to start shipbuilding work in our harbours where they would fall under the jurisdiction of the Railways. The Norval Commission sat in and reported particularly on Durban. That report was tabled in this House over a year ago. But the interests concerned are still waiting for some positive decision by the Administration, some positive decision that will give them the green light to go ahead with an industry which is of immense value to this country. I would ask the hon. the Minister again to apply his drive and energy to have that decision taken now and not to have any further delays. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) has emphasized the importance of the traffic in our harbours and the strategic position of our ports. It is a fact, Mr. Speaker, that as in the case of the Railways, the fast economic development in South Africa has also made tremendous demands on our harbours during recent years. According to the Minister’s Budget speech, the harbour traffic has increased by 7.8 per cent over the past eight months. Over the past five years it increased by no less than 10,000,000 tons.

It is a fact that in regard to our exports and imports harbour traffic plays a very important role, but the Administration is thoroughly aware of that. That is why the General Manager also says in his Annual Report—

I leave it there. I just want to say that the hon. member for Edenvale (Mr. G. H. van Wyk) yesterday gave a very clear exposition of all that the Administration is doing to develop our harbours so as to be able to cope with the traffic.

Hitherto the debate has very pertinently brought the fore a few points in regard to the Opposition’s approach in respect of the Railways and its auxiliary services. The first is that it is very clear that the Opposition is obstinately continuing its agitation for the existing restrictions on the activities of private transport undertakings to be drastically relaxed, and that the measure of protection which the Railways enjoys as against private transport undertakings should gradually disappear. That is to say, private road hauliers should enjoy increasingly free competition with the Railways. In order to promote this agitation of theirs, the Opposition makes use of the economic prosperity prevailing in the country to-day, and they even use the very favourable financial position in which the Railways finds itself to-day as an argument to promote these objectives of theirs. They argue that now that there is such a tremendous increase in traffic as the result of our economic and industrial growth, now that the Railways and its auxiliary services have their hands full in transporting that traffic, now that certain industrialists even mention the possibility of the S.A. Railways perhaps in the near future not being able to cope with all the traffic, this is a golden opportunity for handing over some of that traffic to private initiative.

Who said that?

The hon. member for Yeoville emphasized that the other day. He said it was a God-given opportunity to do so now. The hon. member for Yeoville further said that now that the Railways is in such a favourable financial position, in view of this large surplus which is being budgeted for, and in view of the surplus expected next year, this is the suitable time to make concessions in respect of private transportation.

Mr. Speaker, it is therefore quite clear that the Opposition is again beating the old drum of the so-called transport monopoly. Secondly, the hon. member for Yeoville, and other hon. members as well, got hold of the issue of the Financial Mail of 17 January. In that article they say that “transport is dangerously close to becoming a spanner in the economic works”. They further talk about the “national crisis”, in respect of transportation in the near future. Then the hon. member for Yeoville said, “Here we now have an opportunity to launch an attack on the Minister of Transport; we can now accuse him of having been asleep, and of not having developed the Railways sufficiently in recent years to keep pace with the traffic and with the increased traffic there will be in the near future”. That, coming from the Opposition, is an improper and blatant accusation against the Minister. In recent years the Opposition strongly criticized the Minister in regard to the large amounts he invested every year in developing the railway system. Just remember the years 1960 and 1961, when there was a relaxation in our economy. The hon. member should remember that the Railways was then ahead of the economic development, in the sense that it could transport more than the traffic offered. What was the Opposition’s attitude then? Then they pleaded: Stop developing the Railways further now; it is a waste of money on which a high rate of interest has to be paid; rather give the additional traffic to the private undertakings. They set out from the standpoint that further large-scale capital investment in the Railways was unjustified, and that the time had arrived for other forms of transport to be encouraged. In respect of the investment of capital in the railway system, the former member for Wynberg (Mr. Russell) said this on 13 March 1961—

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) says that we have reached the stage of diminishing returns on the capital invested in the Railways. But the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) went much further than that. He told the Minister: “You have absorbed too much of the capital of the country. Economic experts have already warned that this high level of expenditure of public capital will hamper the system of private initiative in our country. This large-scale spending hampers the private sector of the economy in so far as development is concerned. If one invests too much in the Railways, it necessarily follows that the production side of the economic system must suffer. The fact that such gigantic amounts are being spent on the Railways hampers all development of alternative means of transport.” That is what the hon. member for Jeppes said.

We, on this side of the House had to oppose that. We had to tell the Minister that we dared not give away to the agitation of the Opposition because it would not be in the interest either of the country or of the Railways, and least of all of the railway personnel. Fortunately the hon. the Minister did not listen to the Opposition, and therefore he could very confidently tell us this year in his Budget speech—

Now I ask: If during recent years the Minister were to have listened to the Opposition, where would the S.A. Railways have been to-day in respect of its capacity to cope with the traffic offered? Then the Railways would to-day already have been involved in a transportation crisis. Then the Railways to-day would not have been able to cope with the traffic, and industrial development in the country would have been hampered. If the hon. the Minister had listened to the Opposition, there would not only have been rumours to-day that in the near future we would have a transportation crisis in South Africa, but we would already have had that crisis, and the Railways would have been in the soup already this year, not even to mention the coming year in which even higher demands will be made of the Railways.

Nor can I understand how the Opposition can reconcile its new anxiety in regard to the Railways with its attitude in respect of road hauliers. If in this respect the Minister had also listened to the Opposition and had allowed the road hauliers to take the cream of the high-rated traffic, the Railways to-day would not have been in the favourable financial position in which it in fact is. It has been proved in countries like Britain and other countries that as the competition of private transport with the Railways increases, and as the protection disappears, to that extent the losses on the railway system increase, because the Railways cannot take only the selected high-rated traffic. The Railways is called upon to render certain transport services to the nation, mass transportation at low tariffs, and also the transportation of passengers, which is uneconomic. That is exactly what the Minister pointed out, that the mass transportation has increased to such a large extent in recent times. During the past year 27,000,000 bags of maize had to be transported and 16,000,000 tons of coal, apart from other minerals, etc. Is that the class of traffic the private hauliers want? Is that what they are interested in? No, they are not interested in it. They are interested in the small amount of high-rated traffic. Who must then render the other uneconomic services? Who must transport the passengers if the Railways are forced to curtail its services, as the result of competition?

That brings me to the hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman). He delivered a heart-stirring plea that the Railways should please help in not hampering the economic development of the Western Cape. The Railways must see what can be done to assist the Western Cape. I must admit that he acquitted himself well of his task. He is a real “Boeresap” who can squeeze the last little bit of political capital out of a bad case. The hon. member said that it cost the Cape Town City Council twice as much to transport coal to Cape Town as the coal cost them at Witbank. That is very naive of the hon. member. Does the hon. member for Maitland not know that coal is transported at special tariff concessions? Does he not know that coal is transported to Cape Town on a sub-economic basis? If he looks at page 172 of the report, he will see that the Railways every year transport approximately 1,047,000 tons of coal from the Witbank area to the Cape Town harbour, and if he goes into the matter he will find that this coal is transported at 410.3 cents a ton. It is a tariff which is calculated to be economic over the first 550 miles. That means that the coal brought to Cape Town is transported at economic rates from Witbank to just this side of De Aar to Mynfontein, to be correct. The hon. member does not know where Mynfontein is because there are no United Party supporters there and therefore he never goes there. But from Mynfontein to Cape Town the Railways transports this coal at a total loss. I want to tell the hon. member that the Railways suffers a loss of R1.40 on every ton of coal they deliver in Cape Town.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

The hon. member knows that my time is limited. Unfortunately the hon. member did not check his facts and now he tries to correct them. Does the hon. member not know that his party is opposed to these low tariffs at which coal is transported?

Where do you get that from?

Does the hon. member not know that the United Party stands by the so-called principle of the cost of the service, in terms of which every tariff must separately cover the full transportation costs per unit?

That is the Minister’s policy.

Does the hon. member not know that the hon. member for Jeppes from time to time complained bitterly in this House that the Railways transports coal at a specially low tariff while it transports petrol at a higher tariff? The hon. member said here yesterday that this Budget was not a great achievement, in his opinion; it is very easy to submit such a Budget if one has a monopoly in so far as transportation in the country is concerned. I now want to make this offer to the hon. member for Maitland. Let him now find the private hauliers, who so badly want to undertake transportation, to transport this coal from Witbank to Cape Town at the same tariff as that charged by the Railways. Then I shall use my influence with the Minister to give them every ton of coal they want to transport at that price. That is my challenge to the hon. member.

What gives me most concern, Mr. Speaker, in regard to this agitation by the United Party that the railway services should be reduced, is what will happen to the personnel of the Railways. What will happen to the personnel if further development of the Railways is curtailed and the services are diverted into other channels? The railwayman has made his contribution, a splendid contribution, to the development of a model railway system in South Africa. In times of crisis and of emergency they stood by the Railways and made personal sacrifices, and to-day when things are going well with the Railways they do not expect us to leave them in the lurch. Sir, who are the drivers of these lorries of the private hauliers? Who are the drivers of those hauliers even here in the Western Cape? Are they not Bantu? Is it not in many cases cheap labour? Who are the operators and mechanics of the private hauliers? No, if we give way to this agitation by the Opposition, it will serve the interests of a small group of private hauliers, it will be in the interests of a small section, it will be a sectional approach to an important matter, but it will be in conflict with the best interest of South Africa and of the Railways, and they will not care a hoot for the interests of the railwayman. And then the hon. members have the temerity to come and talk here about the pensions of railway workers. But here their policy is deliberately calculated to have a number of railwayman dismissed and thrown out into the streets.

That brings me to the report of the Van Zyl Commission. I do not hesitate to express my views in regard to that report. It will not be the first time that a report has been discussed in this House before the Government has adopted an official standpoint in regard to it. The same faulty reasoning which one finds in regard to the Opposition’s agitation to hand over to private initiative transport services, which the Railways has hitherto rendered, also forms the basis of the principle expressed in the majority report of the Van Zyl Commission. It amounts to this, that work which in the past was done by the railway workshops should be taken away from them and should gradually be handed over to private initiative. This is a dangerous principle. I want to warn against it and plead that the Railways should retain its full capacity in respect of the manufacturing of equipment, and that it should make full use of it, in the first place because large sums of public money have been invested in it, as was done comparatively recently still in regard to the workshops at Koedoespoort, where there is still a surplus capacity. But it is also in the interest of the Railways itself, because the commission itself said that the Railways could manufacture more cheaply than private industrialists. It will therefore also result in an increase in the maintenance costs of the Railways. I am convinced that the private sector to-day enjoys a sufficient share of railway orders and railway purchases. Every year goods worth millions of rand are manufactured for the Railways by private industrialists, and nobody can accuse the Railways of not making its contribution to the industrial development of the country. Many industries have been established in South Africa which are to-day still being carried by railway orders. But what is of cardinal importance to me, Mr. Speaker, is that we should keep our railway workshops in full production with a view to times of crisis when we will perhaps require them for other purposes, such as, e.g. the manufacture of weapons. What is more, in such times of crisis it is not a good thing that the railway system should be completely dependent on private industry. In certain respects it should to a large extent be self-supporting.

I want to conclude by saying that in this regard I am also concerned about what is to happen to the railway artisans if the majority report is implemented, and I want to ask the Opposition and the hon. member for Umhlatuzana not to be afraid to express their opinions in this regard. The careers and the lives of thousands of railway artisans are at stake here. They cannot easily be transferred to the private sector. There they would not enjoy the same protection they have on the Railways. In the railway service the artisans, the graded workers, are Whites, but private industries employ chiefly non-Whites in those capacities. I therefore want to ask the Minister to devote his serious attention to this matter, because if this majority report were to be accepted it would mean that the interests of a small group of industrialists would be promoted, at the cost of the White railway artisan.

This has been a remarkable debate as conducted by hon. members on the Government benches, remarkable for the fact that there has been absolutely no constructive thinking, no objective thoughts or even suggestions to the hon. the Minister in order to place the Railways of South Africa in a position to keep pace with the economic development of our country as such. In fact j the pattern of these speeches of hon. members has followed precisely the pattern of the hon. Minister’s Budget speech. They in fact made sort of bookkeeping speeches. We have had lengthy recitations of figures extracted from the General Manager’s Report, but they have been completely bankrupt of any objective thought in order to make any analysis of the figures that had been presented in the General Manager’s Report. We have even seen the Cape Whip of the Nationalist Party using this occasion to make a plea, in discussing a Budget speech involving hundreds of millions of rand, a plea for a level crossing in his constituency. Three members in this debate made the main theme of their speeches, the meals served in railway dining-cars, two made a great point about the comforts enjoyed in the new type of passenger transport wagons that have been built, but not one of them made any practical suggestion in regard to how the losses on the main line passenger services can be reduced. Then we had the effort of the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) and that of the hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. P. J. Coetzee) who attempted to bring some political bogeys into this debate, the hon. member for Langlaagte by alleging that it is the policy on this side of the House to replace White labour on the Railways by Bantu and Coloureds. I think he ought to have a discussion with the hon. Minister in that regard, because the Minister himself has admitted that in certain categories he has had to replace White labour with non-White labour in the Railways to keep the wheels turning. Then the hon. member for Parow replied to statements that were never even made in the course of this debate. Where did he hear this side pleading for the unlimited free transportation of goods by private hauliers? That contention was never made in the debate. What was in fact said was that private hauliers could be used on ancillary services to assist the Railways in the carriage of goods.

Then we had the amazing speech of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) chairman of the Select Committee on Railways. He also contented himself with a bookkeeping speech. He quoted numerous figures here, that had no point, and then he made the very profound statement: How could the Minister have obtained this favourable balance without tariff increases? What a profound statement! Let me remind the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) of what he said in this House last year, and what he practically also said two years before—

Surely one does not raise tariffs at a time when one causes the tariff system to be investigated by a committee. At this stage therefore we can eliminate the idea of a tariff increase.

And then he proceeded to attack this side of the House and my honourable colleague, the member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) because he suggested that out of the surplus presented in this Budget some relief should be given to the users of the Railways. If the Minister, while a committee was sitting to examine the tariff structure, could place an extra 10 per cent onto the whole tariff structure, then by the same token he can make a 10 per cent reduction in the tariff structure while the committee is sitting.

While on the subject of the Schumann Committee I would like to know from the hon. the Minister whether he differs from the General Manager of Railways, because the Minister states in his Budget speech that he expects the Schumann Report towards the end of April, but the General Manager in his report for the financial year 1962-3 anticipated that the Schumann Commission Report would be available before the end of 1963. I do not know whether there is any significance in these two conflicting statements, but perhaps the hon. Minister can clarify that in his reply.

I wish to say this about the hon. Minister’s Budget speech, that I consider that the report of the General Manager as presented this year would have made a far better Budget speech if the Minister had quoted it as it had been printed. It would have made a far better Budget speech, because let me say that the report of the General Manager in certain respects is quite refreshing in its frankness and I think with the new presentation and the manner in which the facts are represented in this report, the frankness in which the General Manager discusses the future transportation needs, is a matter deserving of some congratulation. Because it is made perfectly clear in the report that as far as the management of the South African Railways is concerned, they are concerned about the future of the S.A. Railways as a business enterprise in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the Railways by statute have been created as a monopolistic concern, but with a qualification, and the qualification is that it should be administered on business principles, with due regard to the promotion of economic development in all fields of economic enterprise. Sir, I took the trouble to look up the hon. Minister’s Budget speeches over the past few years, and I can find no single example, and I say this in all fairness, where the hon. Minister in presenting his Budget has given any consideration to the operation of the Railways as a business enterprise in the sense that he offers any vision for the future of what will happen in regard to railway transportation. We have had nothing but the narrow political concept of the Minister through the years, to the extent that we sit to-day with the railway system in South Africa as a Frankenstein sitting astride the financial structure of our country. We run more trains, we double more lines, we purchase more engines, we buy more attractive power. To what end? How do we visualize the future of South Africa, the economic development of our country, vis-à-vis the development of the railway system. It is my contention and the contention of this side of the House that what is needed to-day is an entirely new approach in regard to the Railways, in the running of the Railways on business lines, in the sense that if the Railways are to be run on business lines, then the Railways must be prepared to undertake business risks. One may ask oneself this question: Where have the Railways undertaken a business risk? For example in the construction of new lines, in the period of the life of this Minister or even of the Nationalist Party Government, what new lines have been constructed in actual fact? Where did the Railways take a business risk in constructing a railway line to a particular area of the country with a view to the potential business that may be expected in the future? That after all was the principle on which the railway system was originally developed in South Africa. In the last 30 years only 525 miles of new lines have been constructed in our country. Is it any wonder therefore that the Agricultural Union in stating their transport policy, and accepting the principle of monopolistic control based on the qualification that the Railways must be run as a business enterprise, had this profound statement to make—

The union considers that in such cases the Railways should be prepared to assume the usual business risk by so constructing the line that it will serve the largest possible number of people and not necessarily follow the shortest or the cheapest route.

The whole tenor of the report of the Agricultural Union, and I use it only as an example, is on the lines that the Railways do not take a business risk and do not play their full part in developing the economic potential of our country. I can give you another example, Mr. Speaker, and I am not using this occasion to quote numerous figures at length from the General Manager’s report, as has been done by members on Government benches in the course of this debate. Take the position of steam locomotives. There has been a decline since the peak figure of 1959. Out of the 2,608 steam locomotives at present in use, all but 300 were acquired in the years between 1910 and 1950. Most of them were acquired in the 1910s, the 1920s and the 1930s. We hear for example in this Budget speech of the introduction of more diesel traction, but when you ask the hon. the Minister the simple question what the comparative costs are of operating diesel traction as opposed to steam traction, the Minister’s reply to me was that he had no figures available. In other words, diesel traction appears to be a good thing to use, but whether it is cheaper to use than steam traction he does not know, but on one occasion the Minister said that to use diesel traction was the modern trend, as opposed to the use of coal fired engines. But the Minister cannot say it is cheaper to operate diesel engines than steam engines, because he has not the figures. I can go on giving endless examples of this nature. Is it therefore any wonder that the General Manager in his report states that the Railway Administration is steadily divesting itself of old-fashioned trappings which denies it partnership on equal terms with the concept of modern business. I think there is a need for a new approach in the control and management of railway affairs, and that is recognized by all organized bodies in this country, like industry, commerce, agriculture. What is needed to-day is a completely new approach in the management structure of the Railways as such, a management structure which will take the view of going after and promoting new business, and one which will take a harsh and simple view of railway economy. I have no doubt that our Railways have first-class men, first-class railway operators, who can move trains around our country efficiently, and who can move efficiently larger and increased tonnages. The Minister comes with an operating Budget every year, because for the last five years we have been told of the increased tonnages moved year after year. I have no doubt that the railway system is operated efficiently as pure operators, but the question one may ask is: How many businessmen are there in the Railway Administration who can assess the economic potential of any industry or of any area of our country? How many men are there who can assess this potential in terms of future business and possible revenue for the Railways? Who is there, one may ask, in the Administration who can look at locomotives and trucks as pure production units? It seems to me that the financial thinking in the Administration, especially under ministerial control, is operating in a vacuum. Let me illustrate it this way. A locomotive can be depreciated over a number of years, but no one seems to consider that it may be obsolete and expensive to operate it before its time of depreciation is up. Who is there in railway management to comment on the vast undersized fleet of goods wagons that we have at present, some 23,000 four-wheeled bogies which are useless for the handling of bulk traffic. Who is there in railway management to make the necessary traffic surveys? What contact is there, in conducting this traffic survey, with big industrial and commercial firms which have a heavy transport bill? What contact is there with those companies with heavy transport bills to get details of the transport pattern, what they send, where they send it, and how they send it? What about the anomalies that exist in railway rating and the transportation of goods under the existing system? Let me take the anomaly of the Railways collecting grandma’s bed. That goes as high rated traffic, but relate the cost of transporting grandma’s bed to the degree of documentation that has to be conducted by the Railways to transport that bed. Who has worked out the comparative cost to see whether it is really worthwhile or not? In other words, what is there for the management to decide other than the rigid lines laid down by ministerial policy, as to what traffic is worthwhile and what traffic is accepted by the Railways, based on sound commercial judgment? The present capital works programme which, according to the General Manager is still a heavy one and will remain so for some years—and let me remind the House that the Minister in 1962 in his Budget speech said it would now decline and that we could now look for less capital development on the Railways in the years that lie ahead. The Minister said this—

Now we are faced with the situation of again finding millions for capital development, all based on an operating budget, how to move more trains about, how to double more lines, how to buy more trucks and engines; and for what purpose? What will be the potential in future? That the Minister has not told us. In other words, the Minister’s outlook is based on that of a railway operator. It is only concerned with moving trains around the country as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible. It is not an outlook and a programme based on a business and an economic approach related to the transport requirements of an industrial economy. What I am in fact attempting to suggest is the creation of a new upper structure in railway management, a management commission or let us say a management board, which will operate as a board of directors operates in any large industrial or commercial concern; a board which will be representative of all the economic interests of South Africa, which will be representative of commerce and industry and agriculture and mining, and which can advise the Minister; a board which can sit down and consider railway revenue in terms of economic potential, the amount of traffic that will be offered in three or four years’ time; a board that can make these assessments and report to the Minister, which report will be available to this House, which will allow of objective discussion of railway affairs, rather than the vacuum in which we sit at present with the presentation of millions of figures; a board which will also have this advantage that it will then have the effect of not allowing the Railways to operate as a separate entity, and making commerce and industry and agriculture and other fields of industry look twice at the Railways before they make their own plans, but where the railway system would dovetail itself into the economic expansion of our country in all its different fields; that they would not be a separate body on their own, dictating the transportation requirements, but where they will operate as a business on their own relative to the potential market which will be offered by industry, commerce, agriculture and mining. In other words, what I am suggesting to the Minister is that the time has arrived when the Railways should have a commercial mandate, so that in the words of the Minister’s own general manager it can stand on equal terms with the concept of modern business.

Now, I know what the Minister will say. He will say: I have a commercial manager; after all, I also have a Planning Council, and then on top of that I also have a Railway Board, which is largely emasculated at the present time and concerns itself at the present moment primarily with appeals of railway workers. The Minister will ask: Why do you want something different? But look at the report. What does the commercial manager concern himself with? He concerns himself with the promotion of tourism, and with a little liaison work possibly with the Chamber of Commerce, and the development of one or two other minor fields referred to in the General Manager’s Report.

And what about parliamentary control? Last year the Minister said in this House that these debates are a waste of time. Well, admittedly, from the Government benches, I agree. How does the Minister expect to get any objective discussion and the consideration of facts or of future trends in regard to the transportation needs of the country if he himself refuses to give that picture to the House and the country? It is the complaint not only of organized agriculture and commerce and industry, but it is the general complaint of all organized economic activity in South Africa that they do not know what the Railways are doing for the future to meet the development of our country. It operates on its own. It is its own little boss. So I suggest to the Minister that rather than discard the suggestions I am putting before him to-day in terms of the amendment moved by my colleague, he should rather look at what we are saying from these benches as an attempt to get a more developed transport system operated by the Railways which will dove-tail in more with the general development and expansion of the country. It is easy to take an analysis of figures and come with criticism, but the plain fact is starkly revealed that nowhere in this Budget speech is there any new idea or any picture painted of the future, or any reference to the commissions that have sat to investigate certain aspects of railway development, like the Van Zyl Commission, in regard to which I saw the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) and the hon. member for Parow trying to give a lead to the Minister, which he has not himself given in this respect. I ask the Minister to accept the sincerity of the ideas I have tried to express to-day, because it can have only one advantage, but the great advantage will be that in efficient management there will at least be an attempt to assess the potential of the future to the capital development of the Railways, where the Railways will be a vast economic asset to the country. We accept the principle as it is. I hope the Minister will accept the proposals I have put before him to-day, the appointment of a Management Committee or Commission representative of the business interests in the country together with the Railways, to advise the Minister, because then we can advise the Minister in an objective manner in these debates. I hope the Minister will not turn a blind eye to it.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) is a disappointed man and he is aggrieved, not because of the Estimate submitted by the hon. the Minister, but because he is not the leader of his group on the select committee. That is the reason why he is carrying on in that way. He is so aggrieved that while the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) was speaking yesterday he refused to come into the Chamber and remained outside.

That is untrue. My train was half an hour late.

I say the hon. member did not take the trouble to listen to his colleague. He was just not here.

He was probably pleased that the train was late.

The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) asked the hon. member for Yeoville yesterday what his views were on the report of the Van Zyl Commission. He reacted by saying he would reply later.

I wanted to reply immediately.

The hon. member has had more than a day to think about it. I wonder whether he will now tell us whether he accepts the majority report or the minority report.

Mr. Speaker, may I get up and reply?

No, you can remain seated. It is not necessary to make a speech on the subject. You need only reply. Or perhaps the hon. member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton) will reply and tell us which one he prefers.

What does your Minister say?

Or perhaps the hon. member for Turffontein will tell us.

Mr. Speaker, may I reply to the “quiz”?

There we have it. Sir. What I find strange is that they expect the Minister to think for them. That is typical of the United Party.

I want to say at the outset that I think this commission acquitted itself well of its task. Unfortunately I cannot reconcile myself with the recommendation made by the majority of the commission. I want to state my reasons briefly why I cannot reconcile myself with them. I may at this stage perhaps just read what the Financial Mail of 16 October 1959 wrote—

I do not know where this newspaper got that nonsense from because although the sum mentioned was indeed spent, it was taken completely out of its context. [Interjections.] Let me first read on and then I shall deal with the question in its entirety—

This is the first time I have heard that the engineers of the Railways decide where the work must be done—

To say the least of it, Sir, I think this remark by this newspaper is contemptible. It is stated in the majority report of this Committee that private industries are disturbed about and dissatisfied with the extent to which the Railways manufactured but when we think of it that during the six years from 1953 to 1959 the Railways manufactured goods to the value of only R73,000,000 I cannot see what reason the people have to complain. But what is important, if the majority report were to be accepted, is that 30.85 per cent of the people employed in railway workshops will be affected. They number approximately 9,000 of which 6,900 are Whites and 2,800 non-Whites. Those people will come into the picture. If the Railways do not manufacture those goods they cannot keep those people employed. It would mean that these people would have to be taken up by industry. But what are the other implications? The value of the buildings and the implements and tools is approximately R44,000,000. But then the Commission goes further. Not only do they want new work to be handed to private firms, but they find that—

I think they went beyond their terms of reference here, yet that is nevertheless one of their findings.

It is well known that previous commissions have in the past insisted on the Railways manufacturing their own requirements and concentrating on becoming more independent. I think of the Van der Horst Commission of 1925, for example. They found that the Railways should manufacture locomotives, rolling stock and spares departmentally. In 1933 the Commission of Sir Guy Granet advocated that these facilities should be expanded, as did the Greathead Commission of 1944 which asked that additional workshops should be erected at Kimberley for this purpose. The Fourie Commission of 1948 recommended that there should be expansions so that the Railways could meet their own needs. Then we come to the Botha Commission of 1952 which found that if the Railways’ manufacturing activities were expanded, there would be a saving and that goods manufactured outside were in any case sometimes of an inferior quality. I do not think private undertakings have reason to complain. Let us look at the tremendous development that has taken place since 1915. The total output of that industry was R33,800,000 in 1915 or 10 per cent of the national income. In 1955 it had risen to R1,142,000,000 or 34.2 per cent of the national income. Of this private industries handled no less than R1,042,000,000. That gives you an idea, Sir, what a small percentage of essential equipment is manufactured by public industries. In 1958-9 the Railways required manufactured goods to the value of R221,000,000, of which goods to the value of R112,000,000 were imported and goods to the value of R83,000,000 manufactured by private industries. And of this the Railways themselves manufactured only R26,000,000 worth, and repairs are included in this. I maintain that if private industries are unhappy about the fact that the Railways themselves manufacture on this small scale I advise them to compete on the overseas market. When you find that R112,000,000 worth of goods were imported as compared with the R83,000,000 worth of goods they manufactured, you realize what a vast field there is for them to cover. If they see their way clear to compete, let them compete with overseas companies, and I think the Railways will be only too anxious to give the work to local firms provided, of course, their prices are right. In 1958-9 the Railways manufactured less than one-eighth of its requirements itself and the tendency is for the Railways to have more and more work done outside. We have seen in the past years how many coaches and locomotives have been manufactured outside. The position to-day is that the Railways only manufacture a number of trucks themselves.

Then we come to the labour aspect of this matter. Private initiative use non-White labour in the main, whereas the Railways employ Whites for that purpose. That is an advantage which private firms enjoy over the Railways and yet the Railways manufacture articles cheaper than they can be manufactured outside. That is proved in the minority report of this Commission. When we look at the ratio of White and non-White we find that 28.18 per cent of the employees in private industries are White while 71.82 per cent are non-White. On the Railways 62.18 per cent are White and 37.82 per cent are non-White. If the recommendations of the minority report are adopted it still does not follow that the work will be given to private firms locally, because they have to compete with overseas manufacturers. The hon. member for Parow has said that when times are hard the Railways have to be prepared. We have had examples of that in the past. We also know what happened in times when it did not go too well economically with the country. We know the Railways looks after its employees whereas private businesses do not show the same amount of sympathy. We had the experience only a few years ago when industries were passing through a fairly difficult time and they dismissed their employees. The Railways also train numbers of artisans who are eventually employed by the private sector.

As I have already said 7,000 employees will be affected and I am concerned about them and their families if this report were to be accepted. I can give a number of reasons why that should not be done, why it is not in the interests of these 7,000 employees that they should be taken out of the employ of the Railways. As far as remuneration is concerned, for example, the average worker on the Railways receives R1,169 per annum while the average worker in private industry receives only R822. But there are also other advantages. Think of the privileges the railway workers enjoy in respect of housing. The railwayman has the privilege of living in one of the cheapest houses in the country. He enjoys medical benefits, not only he but his family as well. His leave compares very favourably with that of employees outside the railway service, as does his sick leave. There are few undertakings that will grant their employees as much sick leave as the Railways grant their employees. A further factor is the security the railway worker has. He knows he will retain his job on the Railways unless he commits a serious contravention. The whole family of the railway worker share in the benefits he enjoys. All these factors go towards promoting family life. Then you still have the pension benefits which the railway worker enjoys. Although hon. members opposite had fault to find with this yesterday I nevertheless think the pensions benefits of the railway worker are of the best in the country and that is of great benefit to the State because it relieves the State of the burden of having to look after that railwayman when he gets too old to work. I want to plead with the hon. the Minister, when he does decide on this report, to think very carefully about not accepting the report of the majority of the Commission members. I should not like to have a share in the acceptance of that report of the Commission, because the happiness and prosperity of numbers of railway workers, with their families are concerned in this.

The hon. member who has just sat down will forgive me if I do not follow the line that he has taken, but I do want to refer just broadly to his reference to apparently the White employees in the railway service. He was very happy, of course, to explain to the hon. the Minister and to the House how well-off these White workers are and what benefits they receive. We are very pleased, of course, to hear this; we are also very pleased to hear that the Minister has had a very successful year and that he has been able to produce a large surplus. Time does not permit me to deal with this matter as well as many other matters which I wanted to deal with in this debate. I will confine myself therefore to the position of the Coloured labourer in the employ of the Railways. It has been said in this House by the hon. the Minister of Finance and by others that we are a very prosperous country; that we have a very prosperous economy and that a considerable amount of money flows into this country and that we have big surpluses. The Minister of Finance will probably have a large surplus and we know that the Minister of Railways has had a large surplus. Sir, I am going to suggest that we are not prosperous at all; we are not a prosperous country because I believe that a country is only as prosperous as the people in the country, and unless the people are prosperous the country cannot possibly regard itself as a prosperous country. We may have a lot of money but unless the prosperity reaches the people we cannot claim to be a prosperous country. My plea this afternoon is that the Coloured labourer in the railway service should also derive some benefit from this prosperity we have and of which we are so proud. I appreciate the fact that the Minister has accepted the principle of engaging Coloured people in various branches of the railway service. He has Coloured clerks employed at railway stations, for example, and we appreciate the fact that the Minister has accepted that principle and we hope that he will extend it. What I say here to-day therefore is not intended as criticism, but I want to appeal to the Minister that the Coloured labourer in the railway service should also benefit from this surplus and from the present prosperity in the country. Sir, the hon. the Minister answered certain questions put to him by the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) on 7 February 1964. The hon. member asked the Minister—

I take it that the figures given by the Minister in his reply remain unchanged. The Minister replied that there were 9,439 Coloured people earning less than R2 per day in the railway service—9,439 earning less than R2 per working day which I believe is something like 5£ days per week. I believe that some of these people do get rations and some of them no doubt work overtime, but the basic pay for a 5½ day working week in the case of 9,439 Coloured employees is less than R2 per day. Sir, you cannot expect any Coloured man to work for that wage and to be respectable, to be healthy and to be able to bring up his children in healthy surroundings.

Sir, when I think that as a Member of Parliament I get a subsistence allowance of R11 per day and that these people get about the same amount per week for their work, I think I am over-paid and these people are under-paid.

Why do you not pass some of it on to them?

I am not trying to delve into the pay of Members of Parliament but I am drawing a distinction between the pay of these labourers and the allowances received by Members of Parliament because it is recognized that you cannot live decently unless you get a certain rate of pay. I do believe that the hon. the Minister, sympathetic as he is to his staff, will be the first to recognize that to give a Coloured labourer less than R2 per working day is inadequate. That is not a proper wage to live on and to rear a family. Sir, I saw an article in the paper the other day asking for applicants to work at the docks in Cape Town. I have not been able to confirm with the Minister whether this is right or wrong, but it is stated that the wage would be R6.30 per week. Surely you cannot expect people to work for that wage. It is because we pay these people this meagre wage that the Government has to pay out thousands and millions of Rand on health services, on sub-economic housing, etc. etc. I am going to ask the Minister to try to give these people some portion of his present surplus. I may be very unpopular for saying this but to my mind it would be very much better to give the R7,000,000, which the Minister wants to give the petrol users of this country, to the poor Coloured labourers in the railway service than to give it to the man who runs a motor-car. That is my personal view. I do not think the Minister will mind to whom he gives that R7,000,000 but I think it will be much more beneficial to the country if that money goes into the pockets of the poor-man to give him a chance to improve economically, to live decently and to rear his family in good, healthy surroundings, rather than reduce the price of petrol by 1 cent per gallon.

Sir, I promised that I would not be more than 10 minutes and I see my time is up. There are other matters which I may raise in the Committee Stage, but I do hope that the Minister will give favourable consideration to my appeal that the railway Coloured labourer should get some portion of the surplus which is at present in the kitty, and I am sure that my appeal will not fall on deaf ears.

I shall not reply to the previous speaker because I have unfortunately been deprived of some of my time, but as far as the Estimates are concerned, I should like to deal with the following aspects. These Estimates prove that the financial position of the Railways is inherently sound; secondly, that the Railways have been able to keep pace with the unprecedented tempo of growth in the industrial sector of the country; thirdly, that the Railways have once again been able to handle the fast increasing traffic together with the unexpected extraordinary traffic without disrupting any traffic or without any good piling up; fourthly, that the Railways and Airways passenger services have so increased in efficiency that this form of travel is not only popular to-day but is certainly the safest form of travel in our country; and fifthly, that the policy of the National Party is mainly responsible for the peaceful relationship between the Administration and the staff and for the general improvement in the standard of efficiency of the staff, a fact which has enabled the Railways to meet the record traffic requirements of the country.

If you will permit, Sir, I wish to give a brief summary of these five points. The increase in the figures which appear in the Estimate is sufficient proof of the pace at which the Railways have developed and the surplus, after all the various railway funds which serve as security for the railway staff and our transport service have effectively been strengthened, and after various new purchases of rolling stock have been made, proves one thing and that is that there has been planning in advance, and that there is optimism and confidence in the future of the Republic. In a young country like South Africa where the growth and development is so fast and so colossal, the transport system is probably one of the most important factors in the economic structure of that country. In the Republic of South Africa where extraordinary high demands are made on the White population, a responsibility rests on the individual worker on the Railways to do his duty just like every little wheel in a watch plays an important role. It was because the railway staff realized their responsibility that the Railways have been able to glow from strength to strength. Planning in advance is one of the main pre-requisites, and the timeous placing of orders for railway requirements has served as an impetus to local industries. It was because there had been planning in advance that the Railways were in a position to transport all the traffic offered. Orders for rolling stock were placed timeously with the result that goods did not pile up at our stations, goods that could not be conveyed. We again notice that orders have been placed for 343 electric locomotives for the next year, and apart from the 6,000 trucks that have just been delivered, a further order for 5,885 has been placed. As I have said this planning in advance is one of the reasons why the Railways have been able to grow from strength to strength and it is not surprising therefore that the railway Estimates have grown in the last year from R507,000,000 to R550,000,000. Because they are planning in advance and placed orders timeously there was no disruption. It was also possible, in spite of the fast tempo of development in the industrial field and in spite of the development of our natural resources, to provide the necessary transport facilities. Because of the record crops extraordinary transport demands were made on the Railways by agriculture and the Railways were able to meet the needs of agriculture. We are grateful to the Minister for this. But the hon. the Minister has also gone out of his way to provide his staff with the necessary facilities. Here I refer to the provision of housing, the improvement in salaries and the increase in the pensions of retired railway workers, railway workers who had to retire on a meagre pension because they received poor salaries under the United Party Government. All these facilities which have been provided for the railway worker have made him conscious of his personal responsibility towards the Railways. As I have said, all these things have been done for the railwayman and his working conditions have been improved. I have one specific group in mind, for example, and that is the shunters. Various facilities have been created for them, such as improved coupling equipment, humped shunting yards which have been scientifically planned to make the work of the shunters easier and with a view to greater safety. The yards have been modernized and better lighting installed, the men have been provided with specially designed shoes with a view to greater safety and with a view to making things more comfortable for them. They have also been granted a huge salary increase. In March 1961 for example, the starting salary of a shunter was R76.60 per month and within a short space of time it was increased by 42 per cent with the result that the starting salary of a shunter is R100 to-day. We are very grateful for this salary increase but I nevertheless want to ask the Minister whether it is not possible to introduce an accident bonus system for this group of people. Then I also want to ask whether a compulsory insurance scheme, accompanied by the provision of comfortable housing, can be introduced for these people who work under very difficult and dangerous conditions. I plead for the introduction of a bonus scheme because I believe it will encourage them to be more careful and to see to it that the trucks and their contents are not damaged. Not only will that mean a saving to the Railways but psychologically it may also have a very beneficial affect on those people.

Then I also want to refer to the safety aspect of rail and air transport. In this respect our Railways and our Airways have achieved a particular record. Other speakers on this side will discuss this matter, but I do feel I should briefly refer to it. To-day an average of 12 people are killed every day on our roads. Compare that with the record of the Railways. Last year only 12 White persons were killed in railway accidents, and over the past eight years only 111 persons, White as well as non-White, were killed. I think everybody will admit that to travel by rail is to-day undoubtedly the safest form of travel in South Africa. So many improvements have recently been effected to ensure the comfort of the travelling public that I really think we cannot do otherwise than pay the highest tribute to the Minister and the Railway Administration.

But there is another matter to which I just want to refer briefly. We are so often told by the Opposition that this country is flourishing economically in spite of the National Government and its racial policy. What they lose sight of is the fact that although we have many problems to cope with, we have greater labour peace in South Africa than they have in adjoining territories where they do not follow the racial policy of this Government. I maintain that Government policy is indeed responsible for the peaceful relations between the staff and the Administration and for the general improvement in the standard of efficiency of the staff. The workers realize that the policy of the National Party Government of job reservation is a guarantee to the White railway worker should hard times or a depression again hit the country as, for example, in the years prior to 1924 when the United Party Government dismissed White workers and replaced them with cheap non-White labour. Today the workers know their position is safe under the National Party Government and that there is no danger of their being dismissed. Another matter which the National Party Government tackled when we came into power in 1948 was to build up the various railway funds which had practically become depleted, which had reached the low-water mark. The Betterment Fund, the Insurance Fund, the Renewals Fund, the Benevolent Fund and the Rates Equalization Fund together were R152,104,219 strong in those days and to-day those funds are R510,754,830 strong after the amount for railway crossings has been deducted. These funds were practically depleted and we know that up to 1948 the United Party Government had irregularly withdrawn R69,000,000 from these non-trust funds. The Auditor-General criticized that very severely and the General Manager warned the Minister on 1 April 1948 and said—

Referring to the non-trust funds—

They state in the same minute to the Minister—

The United Party depleted these non-trust funds in an irregular manner. I think that was practically an unforgivable sin towards the railwayman.

You did the same.

By doing that the United Party Government endangered the security of the railwayman and the National Party Government had to pour millions into those funds in order to strengthen them and to place them on a sound footing. To-day those funds again show a credit balance; today they amount to R510,000,000 compared with R152,000,000 during the régime of the United Party. By strengthening these funds the National Party have ensured the future of the railway staff and that is the reason why the railwayman offers his full co-operation to the hon. the Minister to-day so as to make a success of the Railways.

This debate has been going on for two days and it would appear to me, that it is typical of the South African scene, that representatives of the Coloured community are going to have exactly 15 minutes in which to plead the case of so many people. However, what I would like to say to the hon. the Minister is that he must have been aware for some time during the year, that this tremendous surplus was accruing, and I am disappointed that he did not consider increasing the wages and salaries of what he describes in his Budget as his non-White employees. According to the staff establishment there are 108,000 non-Whites out of a total personnel of 222,000, and my plea this afternoon is that the hon. the Minister, who, it is acknowledged, has made a successful attempt to introduce Coloured persons into the railway service, should apply his mind to the question of making more jobs available in the railway service for Coloured persons; to the question of giving better pension benefits to Coloured railway employees and to seeing that the conditions under which Coloured travellers have to travel on the Railways are improved. I suggest to the hon. the Minister that he might direct his attention to the possibility of training Coloured apprentices in some of the artisan trades. I know there are difficulties and snags, but I would suggest that instead of paying, as we do under three Votes, to which I shall refer in a moment, what I would call mere pittances by way of salaries and wages, we could establish a very strong group of trained, skilled Coloured personnel who would do a first-class job and be an asset to the Railways as well as to ourselves. I have just taken three Votes, Mr. Speaker, and I find that in the case of the Stores Department out of a total of 5,702, there are 2,384 Whites and that the salary and wage bill for the non-Whites is R954,000 out of a total of R6,956,035, which gives them an average income of R400 a year. The same position applies in regard to the Catering Department and in regard to “Maintenance (Operating) and New Works”. On the New Works side the average pay to non-Whites is R435 a year. I put it to the Minister that R400 a year is not a wage on which a person can keep body and soul together in this country. I would ask him with the greatest respect therefore, very seriously to consider examining the wage scales applicable to the non-Europeans, particularly the Coloured man, whom it is my job to plead for here to-day. I would like also to mention that there is quite a considerable amount of dissatisfaction amongst Coloured employees of the Railways with regard to the question of pensions. The maximum period of service for pension purposes is 40 years and if a man serves beyond 40 years he derives no additional pension benefits. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether persons employed as clerks are on the permanent establishment or whether they are temporary hands. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister as well, whether the system which obtains of paying a small, shall I say, additional wage for what is known as “better class” work would not be one avenue where the Coloured employee might be paid a little more so that his position might have some status.

I asked the hon. the Minister some questions during the past few weeks in regard to waiting rooms. I want him to know that Coloured travellers do express dissatisfaction that first and second class Coloured passengers are expected to use the same waiting rooms as third-class passengers. The Minister said— and I accept his explanation—that where possible other accommodation is made available. May I suggest to him that he could, with advantage to the travelling public, i.e. the Coloured community, consider very seriously the provision of waiting rooms at the various stations. A similar situation arises in regard to reserved coaches. In the old days when a reserved coach was full, and the ticket examiner was able to add a coach, with the approval of the controlling station, he did so, and added a second class coach which was for Whites. My information is that that is no longer the case. I will say this in mitigation, that when representations are made of the inadequacy of the accommodation in reserved coaches or the fewness of the coaches provided, railway officials are extremely co-operative and very kind. I contend, however, that a great deal of time and trouble would be saved if these things were considered beforehand. I refer to the Christmas rush. It often happens that Coloured persons wish to travel and find themselves in a situation of being told that they cannot travel by a particular train. If they have persons to whom to refer, and that person can speak to the system manager or his clerk or some other responsible official the difficulty is remedied. But I put it to you, Sir, that this particular type of complaint could be avoided. That is why I say to the Minister this afternoon, in the very limited time at my disposal, that there is a very fruitful source of revenue to the Railways if the position in regard to Coloured passengers was investigated.

Lastly, I say that the position in this country of Coloured employee on the Railways, could be materially improved, and I hope the hon. the Minister will do so.

I move—

We are dealing with Clause 22. This clause makes provision for the Minister, where he deems it fit, to provide by notice in the Gazette that no further labour tenants’ contracts shall be entered into, no further labour tenants shall be registered in respect of that land or no labour tenants shall be employed on land in the area referred to in such notice. Then it goes on to say that such contracts and such employment will be regarded as an offence. The history of labour tenants is a long one. It goes back a long way. In the main labour tenants have been spread generally and mostly all over Natal, part of the Free State adjacent thereto and part of the Transvaal adjacent thereto and over large sections of the Cape.

It is a little difficult at the moment to deal with this particular clause without taking into account the clauses that come hereafter. Because in dealing with the labour tenant contract we have to realize that we have to have a labour tenant control board. Various control boards are established in terms of the next clause and so forth. I think by and large the concept of a labour tenant is gradually disappearing. I think the general practice to-day is for a labour tenant to give part of his time free as a labourer to the master and probably for the rest of his time he is a fulltime paid servant. He is by and large a Native to-day who is employed for the 12 months of the year—part-time in lieu of rent and part-time he is paid full wages.

It is significant that in Clause 31 of this Bill the labour tenant system is protected. I cannot go too far into that, Sir, if I did you would be right in pulling me up. But I merely mention it in passing because it gives us difficulty in discussing this particular clause. Provision is made in later clauses of this Bill for the whole question of the number of labour tenants, and not only labour tenants, but Natives who are employed full-time who may reside on a farmer’s land, to be the subject of an investigation by the appropriate authority, to whom we shall still come. What we do not like about this clause is this: Firstly, the system is disappearing. There is an objection to it. We know there is an objection to it in many quarters particularly in those areas where the system has been abused. The farmers in such areas do not like it. That system is tending to disappear owing to modern economic conditions as well. For what it is worth it is still protected in Clause 31 of this Bill and provision is made for further investigation and for the number of labour tenants on any land to be limited. Sir, we cannot for the life of us see why the Minister should in this clause take the powers as set out here to specify by proclamation that “no further labour tenants’ contracts shall be entered into and no further labour tenants shall be registered in respect of land …” And if that is done it is a crime, a crime perpetrated by the land-owner, the farmer. In view of all the inquiries that can take place in terms of Clause 29 and to have the number limited and circumscribed, why should the Minister at the same time at beginning of this section of the Bill—because a number of clauses deal with this matter—take the power simply to veto the whole labour tenant system on particular farms and say: “There are to be none; I won’t allow the farmers there to use labour tenant labour; ‘dit is’ finish and ‘klaar’” and then provide for inquiries and that sort of thing by the appropriate authority? It is not a case of putting the cart before the horse. The matter is adequately dealt with in the succeeding clauses. Why have this clause at all? There is no need for it, Sir, in view of the powers that follow. Sub-section (2) says—

That is by the notice of the Minister in the Gazette—

Surely it is enough to make that contract void; that is the end of the matter. I do not see, in view of sub-section (2), how a farmer can enter into labour tenant contract in respect of land. I do not see how he can enter into it. The fact that the Minister has issued his notice makes anything void which the farmer may purport to enter into thereafter. It is never effective; he cannot enter into it. That is the end of the matter. So as I have said, Sir, for the life of us we cannot see why this clause is inserted. Let it suffice for the Minister to take the powers in all the clauses that follow, powers in respect of inquiries and so forth. What is the object of Clause 31 where the whole system is again preserved in so far as certain areas are concerned. In other words, Sir, if the Minister has to apply his mind to a certain area and say: “In that area I will have no more labour tenants”, let him say so and get done with it. But do not let him go on under Clause 29 to provide for the holding of inquiries to decide how many labour tenants will be permitted on a certain farm. He has made up his mind in advance; and that is the end of the matter. Nobody can restrict him. Sir, Parliament will do as he determines in regard to this matter, Those of us who have to deal with this matter in practice will know that we are entirely in the hands of the Minister because whether or not the Minister holds an inquiry, whether he is convinced that there is no need for labour tenants or not, is not set out here. There is nothing at all to indicate that the Minister has to have an inquiry. There is nothing to show that the Minister will approach this matter from a quasi-judicial angle and make up his mind as to the necessity or otherwise for labour tenants. It merely says that whenever the Minister considers it in the public interest. Now, Sir, we have a previous discussion as to what constitutes “in the public interest”. That does not mean anything more than that the Minister has decided that he is going to do it. And he may say that his decision is made in the public interest. Unless you go to court and show that he has acted mala fides and has not applied his mind to the problem at all, which is a hopeless proposition, there is nothing that can be done to curb the Minister. Whenever he feels it is in the public interest he publishes a notice in the Gazette and so far as that land is concerned that is the end of labour tenants. There is apparently no opportunity of making representations to the hon. the Minister because you do not know of his intentions beforehand. There is no provision here for the Minister to tell you what he proposes to do. So far as I can see farmers who have been relying on this type of labour will find themselves without labour. I repeat, Sir, that over the past 100 years this has been the system in large sections of the eastern portion of the Republic. Those farmers will simply be told: “No more tenant labourers; and that is the end of the matter as far as you are concerned”. That will be done without warning. The axe will suddenly fall without any warning. We are entirely in the hands of the Minister. We are opposed to this far-reaching power being taken by the Minister in this manner, without reference to the people concerned, without giving them an opportunity to be heard or indeed without anybody even knowing what the Minister is proposing until they see a notice in the Gazette. We shall oppose this clause.

As the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) has said, the labour tenant system is a system which is gradually disappearing in South Africa. This matter was investigated by an inter-departmental committee of the Department of Bantu Administration under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel). Amongst other things, that committee made the following finding—

On that principle the committee made a recommendation which I also want to quote—

This particular clause now seeks to give effect to that recommendation. As hon. members will see it is provided here that a notice will be placed in the Government Gazette that “no further labour tenants’ contracts shall be entered into and no further labour tenants shall be registered in respect of land in the area referred to in such notice,” that is to say, in respect of a particular farm or a particular district or area. The idea is that more and more areas will be proclaimed and that the system will be done away with there until in time to come we reach the ideal situation where the whole country will be covered and the system will have been abolished entirely. There is a great deal to be said for this particular method because it will not result in a complete dislocation. We know that this system is still in full swing in certain parts of the country. I could give the committee the numbers of registered labour tenants in Natal and in the Transvaal, but I do not want to weary hon. members with those figures. Suffice it to say that there are still some thousands who are registered. If we were to abolish the system entirely it would result in a complete disruption of the farming industry in the Transvaal and in Natal. This committee asks therefore that this matter should be tackled systematically and not on radical lines; it suggests that its abolition should be spread over a period of years. I cannot see how it can be done in a better way than is provided for in this clause. The trivial legal point raised by the hon. member for South Coast that the succeeding clauses make adequate provision for the labour tenant boards to limit it is of no value. We have already tried to limit it through the labour tenant boards but one simply cannot limit it because at the present time it is a lawful system. One cannot make a lawful system unlawful simply by limiting to the minimum the numbers who wish to be registered as labour tenants. One cannot abolish the system in its entirety along those lines. The object of this clause is to abolish the system in its entirety but to do so systematically and to spread out the abolition of the system over a period of years.

In this clause the hon. the Minister takes unto himself the right, as the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) has said, to say how many labour tenants a farmer may have on his farm. As the hon. member has stated, and I agree with him, it is quite unnecessary for the Minister to come in when he already has a Labour Tenant Control Board which deals with the matter. Every individual already has to be registered; the number is already limited. In terms of succeeding clauses all the labour will be under control and I cannot see why the Minister should take this over-riding power to do this without the farmer having any right to make representations direct and to be heard. This is interference with a farmer’s labour on his farm. I do not see why any man who is farming should have his labour interfered with.

When I spoke on Clause 18 the hon. the Deputy Minister gave the House an undertaking that he had no intention of declaring large rural areas prescribed areas. He said he needed that power in respect of certain areas which may be difficult to administer for certain reasons such as the difficulty in tracing the owners of land and so forth. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what he intends to do under this clause. Does he intend to use these powers on any particular occasion? Does he intend to take recommendations only from the Labour Bureaux set up in those areas, or from the Native Commissioners or from whom? What rights will the owner of such land have to make representations to the powers that be before such rights are taken away from him?

I am afraid the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) is quite confused in regard to this clause dealing with the labour tenant system and the labour bureau system. What is proposed in the legislation before us in regard to bureaux does not replace the labour tenant system. The district labour bureaux which can be instituted under this legislation can already to-day be instituted, and they have already been instituted in many places. The labour tenant system is in addition to that. What we propose in Clause 22 is the gradual abolition of the labour tenant system as the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) has tried to explain. Members need not fear that it will be done drastically.

The hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) referred to 27bis (I) which reads—

In other words, a date to be fixed. It does not mean the date of the proclamation. We will not say from to-day there should be no more labour tenants on those 20 farms or in that district or in that whole province. It can be done piecemeal by way of small areas or larger areas depending on the conditions prevailing in those particular areas. Naturally— and the hon. member must just accept our word for this—we shall not proclaim the abolition of the labour tenant system at short notice. That is why it states here: “Whenever the Minister considers it in the public interest …” Naturally the Minister has at his disposal various organizations from which he can obtain information in regard to the areas concerned. As the hon. member for Heilbron has pointed out organized agriculture has already insisted that this system should be abolished. The other day during my reply to the second-reading debate I read letters to that effect.

The hon. member for South Coast also referred to the other clauses which we shall deal with at a later stage. The hon. member must understand that the labour tenant system can be abolished for a certain limited area. But that means that the system may still be in force in other areas and while it is in force in other areas the necessary control must be exercised. If it is necessary to have inquiries in such areas the procedure is laid down for those inquiries, in this Bill. Nor is the period of three years provided for in Clause 31 in conflict with Clause 22. That only indicates that we do not intend the labour tenant system to continue for an indefinite period. A maximum period is laid down per contract. It does not clash with the provisions of Clause 22. Naturally the Minister will have to take such matters into account when he proclaims a date. I think I have replied to all the points raised.

The hon. member for Heilbron referred to an inter-departmental committee that had investigated this matter and I understood him to say that that committee made certain recommendations which in the main were to the effect that this system was detrimental to agriculture. That is perhaps an over-simplification and in general terms it could perhaps be said to be true in certain areas. I do not want to take it any further than that. Then the Minister gets up and says: “No, we are not going to do this in a hurry; it is going to be done over a lengthy period; we do not propose doing it at once.” I have said that the system is gradually coming into desuetude because of the economic factors that have come into the picture as far as farming is concerned to-day. We are concerned about the power which is conferred upon the Minister in Clause 22 to deal with this matter in this summary way. It has become almost traditional in this House to say that “we are not referring to the present Minister; maybe his successor will do it”. Mr. Chairman, I am referring to the present Deputy Minister. I am not referring to his successor. It is Government policy. It is exemplified in all the clauses we have dealt with in this Bill. It is Government policy and the Minister will give effect to that policy. I repeat again that if it were the Minister’s intention to spread the abolition gradually over a period and to hear the point of view of people that are going to be affected, then I suggest that provision should be made in the Bill for the Minister to be advised, or for somebody to have the right to advise the Minister before a decision is taken. He said there were Members of Parliament who represented these areas and that they could advise him.

I want to move on for a moment to two other aspects. We do object, where our Natives have been on our farms literally for generations and who are giving us 12 months’ service, and where the system is gradually changing over to one of payment for 12 months’ service instead of part of the service in lieu of rent, i.e. the labour tenant system, and where there is no danger to the fertility of your soil and so forth, and where our farms are open for inspection—some of the Ministers have already looked at some farms in that regard—to the Minister taking power under this clause to interfere in our labour. Our labour has the right to sell its labour where it chooses. If a tenant does not like the conditions under which he has to register he does not register and he takes his labour elsewhere. The farmer looks elsewhere for his labour and the matter is ended. To use a European term, we virtually have a Yeomen group of people on our farms, because that is what they are. They are the people who, under European conditions, were termed “Yeomen”. They were the people who lived precisely as our labour tenants do at the present time. Where it is agreeable to them and to us, and where they are doing nothing to destroy our farms, they are doing nothing inimical to agriculture in South Africa, we do say that we object to the Minister taking these Draconian powers.

I move on to the next step and that is where these people are to go to, because this clause covers such vast powers to the Minister that the implications are terrific. I will have more to say about the disposal of these people hereafter, but there is nothing in this clause to deal with them. Whereas in the clauses that we have passed we have dealt with the provision of aid centres and so forth, to deal with the unwanted Bantu in the urban areas, what is the position in the rural areas? We now come to it here for the first time. You see. Sir, in the last clause passed without debate the other day, Clause 21, it says that a Bantu shall not be registered as a labour tenant in respect of any land on which no labour tenants were resident, and here we are now dealing with the process of getting rid of labour tenants. We have now reached the stage that a farm has no longer labour tenants on it. The wheel has been moving on, economic laws have been playing their part, and now on that farm the labour tenant system has disappeared, there are no labour tenants left. Under Clause 21 no fresh labour tenants can be brought back. There is a period put so far as that farm is concerned to the use of tenant labour. In other words, the axe falls and that farm is for all time now free of tenant labour. And that is the process that is working under Clause 21 and under the clauses that still lie ahead of us. Under those clauses the same process is accentuated. Why then at this stage does the Minister come, giving no protection whatsoever to the farmers. In the Bill before us there is nothing to indicate that their labour supply is in jeopardy. Obviously, the hon. the Minister does not know anything about the basic principle of the tenant labour system over thousands and thousands of farms where that is the form of labour that is being used, and has been so used for generations. It is a system that has created the greatest confidence …

And sometimes has been misused.

I am grateful to the hon. Minister of Bantu Education to come into this debate with this interjection. He says that sometimes that is where the labour is misused. I said so when I spoke just now. There have been cases where there has been exploitation. But when the hon. Minister says that and he says that that labour has sometimes been misused, then the answer is that he has not read this Bill, because otherwise he would realize that the misuse is provided for specifically in the following clauses. The hon. Minister has not read the Bill. He is doing what hon. members opposite are so often doing, rushing in with an interjection without having read the Bill, and the precise point that he makes is the point that his colleague, the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is taking care of and when we come to it I will enlighten the Minister of Bantu Education. That position is protected. And that is why we on this side of the House cannot for the life of us understand why the Minister comes with this particular clause. It is so utterly unnecessary to create a situation such as the Minister envisages here. Care is taken to protect the position where there is a farmer who is going in for what we used to call “kaffir farming”, where the farmer did allow squatters, and where a farmer was adopting the attitude that he can have more than the normal number of labour tenants, more than required for his farming operations. All these things are taken care of here in the Bill. The ordinary labour tenant properly registered who is in excess of the master’s requirements on that farm is dealt with in the succeeding clauses. Then why this clause here? Clause 21 uses the axe in regard to any farm that ceases to have labour tenants. I appeal to the hon. Minister at this stage to indicate his goodwill to the farming community by withdrawing this clause. It does not in any form or shape affect the rest of his Bill. He can cut it out without any deleterious effect so far as the rest of his Bill is concerned, and he will bring untold happiness to his colleague, the Minister of Bantu Education.

I am afraid the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) is again confusing the abolition of the labour tenant system and what he believes to be a refusal of Bantu labour in respect of a farm. The hon. member for South Coast is confusing two things, the abolition of the labour tenant system which is provided for in this clause and what the hon. member believes to be our intention, namely, a refusal of Bantu workers for a farmer on his farm.

Nothing of the kind.

Yes, the abolition of the labour tenant system does not mean that when it is abolished by proclamation that farmer then cannot get any labourers. He can still get his labour in the ordinary way. I described the four ways in which he can get labour, the other day. He can get the ordinary type of full-time labourers to live with him on his farm. That system is provided for in other clauses of the Bill. I do not see why the hon. member wants to argue that the abolition of the labour tenant system means that the farmer will be without any labour. That is a wrong impression.

I did not say that.

But that was implied in what the hon. member said. And then he appeals to us to withdraw this clause in the interest of the farmers. But that is a completely wrong deduction. I want to read to the hon. member what the South African Agricultural Union wrote to us in connection with the labour tenant system.

I know about that. Read what the Natal Agricultural Union had to say.

But surely the S.A. Agricultural Union is the main body. On 11 March 1963 when similar legislation was under discussion here, they wrote to us in Afrikaans—

In other words, the union asked for a shorter period than seven years to abolish the system, but a gradual basis for the abolition and that is exactly what we are providing for.

May I ask the hon. Deputy Minister a question before he sits down? He says that there will be no difficulty for a farmer in getting all the labour he requires, that he really needs when once the farm labour tenant system is done away with. What does he call the labour he will get: Migratory labour or will the Native have his family with him on the farm?

This is now the fifth time that I have to explain this. The farmer can get labour in four ways. He can get labour tenants while the system is still in vogue, and he can get his full-time ordinary Bantu labour on his farm, either on a single basis or on a family basis just as to-day, and to assist him to do that we put at his disposal the district labour bureaux. But he can also take in labourers who come to him directly and who offer their services, but then they must be registered with the district labour bureau.

I share even at this stage of the debate the curiosity of the hon. member for South Coast in regard to this clause, and it arises because of what is stated later in this Bill. I cannot go into detail as to what appears later except to say by way of contrast that the powers that the Labour Tenant Control Board has, as printed later on in this Bill, are powers to reduce the number of labour tenants on any particular farm, having regard to alternate sources of labour. Their findings once having been made as to the number of labour tenants on any particular farm, or the doing away with of labour tenants on a farm, are binding henceforth. That being the case, and that machinery being there in this very Bill, one is entitled to say to the hon. Minister: What on earth do you want Clause 22 for? Either you have the one and it has a guillotine effect (Clause 22), or you use the powers given to the Labour Tenant Control Board which exist at the present time, but which are modified later in this Bill. The point which has been raised by the two hon. members is still unanswered. Clause 22 does not say that it will only be used after the machinery of the Labour Tenant Control Board has been used to reduce or to eliminate the number of labour tenants in any specific area. It does not say that the Minister can use these powers only when there is an adequate supply of labour other than labour tenants. That being the case, we are entitled to say to the hon. Deputy Minister that this thing is a mystery, that they are Draconian powers, and we do not know how this hon. Minister or his successors will use them.

You always use the term “Draconian powers” and you are always exaggerating.

If I say “drastic powers”, will he be satisfied?

No.

The simple point at issue is that here you have in one measure the power gradually to eliminate the system of tenant labour, having reference to alternative sources, and on the other hand to eliminate the system without reference to other labour sources, and we are entitled to ask why the hon. Minister needs that power and how it is going to be used, and more particularly how it fits in the scheme of things with the other powers which we will deal with when we come to the Labour Tenant Control Boards.

It is perfectly clear from Clause 21 that if a farmer keeps just one single labour tenant on his farm, then the guillotine of Clause 21 cannot be applied. As far as Clause 22 is concerned, it does not say that the Minister is going to fix a certain time in the Government Gazette in which all labour tenants must disappear. All he can do is to select a certain area, for example, where the labour tenant system is being abused, where labour tenants are kept on labour farms which are being destroyed completely. In northern Natal there are many cases where farmers keep so many labour tenants on their farms that those farms are being destroyed completely. The Minister can even go so far as to select one farm, but the clause does not say that with a single stroke of the pen he is going to remove all labour tenants from farms throughout the country. The Minister is not going to be so foolish as to say: “From to-morrow all labour tenants must clear off the farms.” Surely he will take into account the fact that the farmer who falls in the area which is proclaimed has to plan ahead; and the Minister will then say that he must get rid of his labour tenants within a year or two. The farmer will then have sufficient time to engage other labour in their place. I just want to make the point that under Clause 21, if a farmer keeps just one labour tenant on his farm, then the guillotine cannot be applied there, and the second point is that the hon. member for South Coast must not imagine that the Minister is simply going to remove all labour tenants by a stroke of the pen. He will only do so in those areas where it is absolutely essential and in the national interest and he will give the farmers concerned sufficient time to make arrangements to obtain other labour.

The hon. member for Vryheid paints a picture with which, I think, we could not seriously disagree, but he tries to limit the application of the proclamation of the Minister in Clause 22 to an area which he puts so small as even one farm. But it can also be the whole province, and the hon. member for Heilbron pointed that out It may be as small as one farm, but it can be as large as a whole province, and that was what I was talking about. The hon. member for Vryheid must not run away with the idea that it will be just one farm or a group of farms, or a magisterial area, or something like that. It can be a whole province. I repeat that where there is misuse being made under that system by a farmer, where a farmer is carrying on farming operations which are detrimental to the soil fertility and the water supplies on the farm, provision is made to deal with such cases in the subsequent clauses. I have admitted already that there have been such cases. Now the hon. Deputy Minister read a letter from the South African Agricultural Union, but I ask him to read the one from the Natal Agricultural Union.

The hon. Minister in putting through this Bill is quite entitled to pick and choose the documents which will support his case and he is entitled to say that the senior body is the South African Agricultural Union. But I still wish he would read the letter from the Natal Agricultural Union, because there it is perfectly clear that what the Agricultural Union is seeking to do is precisely what the S.A. Agricultural Union has asked for and that is to do it without hardship. There is no provision whatsoever in the Bill for the Minister to be advised, or to ask the people concerned, or to consult with anybody. He simply says to us: Leave it to me, I will make whatever inquiries I think are necessary. We say that that is not good enough. The rights of the people whose labour is being threatened under this clause should be protected, and they should know precisely in law where they stand and how they can make representations to the Minister timeously so that he can sit, as it were almost in judgment on himself, because it is his policy, and he will have to decide in the last resort whether he is going to agree to their representations or not, but there is no provision for representations to be made. That is what we say. There is nothing to show that this clause conforms even with the request of the S.A. Agricultural Union that it should be done in such a gradual manner that there will be no hardship, not only so far as the White man is concerned, but also so far as the Bantu is concerned. I repeat that you have cases where a second and third and fourth generation of Bantu are living on a farm, on farms that are well run and well farmed and there is no detriment to the soil or to the water supply, and where those Bantu are giving magnificent service and where that link with their master will be broken, the link which has kept them together for generations. As I have said in such circumstances you create virtually a yeoman class on a farm. That can be broken by the hon. Minister if he so determines. Under the rules this must be my last word, but I still appeal to the Minister to carry out the wishes of the S.A. Agricultural Union that it shall be done without hardship, so that the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb. The Minister knows what is required here, and that is to give those who want to be heard an opportunity to make representations beforehand so that the matter can be dealt with with a view to alleviate the position and making it as little upsetting so far as the labour supply is concerned as is humanly possible.

Certain accusations have been made here and I should like to know whether they are true or not. The Natal Agricultural Union is affiliated with the S.A. Agricultural Union, and the S.A. Agricultural Union is the mouthpiece of the farming community as a whole. The S.A. Agricultural Union got in touch with the Department with regard to this matter that we are discussing here, and I am sorry to see that Natal is so much behind the other provinces. In the Cape Province we have no such thing as a separate system, we are too civilized for that. We pay the individual for the work he does. But in Natal and elsewhere we find that there are some people who are practising what one might almost call “kaffir farming”. They want to enrich themselves at the expense of the Native. We are not heartless people; we want that Native to be given a proper education and we want to do justice to him. But what is taking place to-day on certain farms? We only hear of the good things which are being done, but what about the Native who has been grossly exploited in the Transvaal and in Natal by certain Whites? The S.A. Agricultural Union would like to resolve that difficulty; it would like to see the labour tenant system abolished completely within a certain period of time. I agree with the S.A. Agricultural Union, which is the mouthpiece of the farmers, and we are not going to allow ourselves to be stampeded by a few “kaffir farmers” in Natal.

The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) says that we have not got any labour tenant farmers in the Cape. I just want to correct him. The hon. member attacked the hon. member for South Coast and implied directly or indirectly that we in the Cape have no labour tenant farmers. It only shows that the hon. member for Cradock is extremely ignorant, because the divisional councils have now for a very long time acted as labour tenant boards, as the hon. Minister will confirm.

Clause put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

Tellers: N. G. Eaton and A. Hopewell.

Clause accordingly agreed to.

On Clause 23,

In passing may I say that in view of what we have just heard from the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker), I see that in this clause provision is made for the Minister to establish labour tenant control boards, and it says that in the Province of the Cape of Good Hope every divisional council shall be a labour tenant control board.

It has always been so. You are being unfair to the hon. member for Cradock.

The hon. member for Cradock said they did not adopt it and the Deputy Minister says they have always had it. The hon. member for Cradock got up and made a speech in which he said there were no such boards in the Cape, and here the principle is being established that the divisional councils in the Cape can be the labour tenants’ control boards.

[Inaudible.]

Sir, I will take up that point. If there are no labour tenants in the Cape, why put this provision in the Bill that the divisional councils will act as the labour tenant control boards? You see, Sir, that is the difficulty we are in, that hon. memers, even the Chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission, the hon. member for Heilbron, do not understand the implications of their own Bill. We have to try to get the views of the Minister and the views of the Chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission straightened out between them. That is not our job. We cannot argue a provision like this unless we know what the Govenment’s attitude is towards its own Bill. It is extremely difficult to have to argue one point on which the Minister gives his views and then the Chairman of the Commission gives a completely different point of view.

But I really rise because there are one or two questions I would like to ask the hon. the Minister. I should like him to explain one or two points in this clause. This is an enabling clause, and by and large it is one which has been in our legislation for some time, but it is being re-enacted with minor amendments. The first point I want to raise is this. With regard to the Labour Tenant Control Board, provision is made that the Secretary of the Department or an officer designated by the Minister shall be the Chairman. So the Chairman is the secretary, or someone to whom he has delegated his authority. The point I want to get at is this. Where the Minister may designate an official, is it the intention to make the Bantu Affairs Commissioner of the district the Chairman?

So far that has always been the position.

Then in regard to the Cape Province, every divisional council in respect of the area under its jurisdiction shall perform the functions of such board. Now the chairman of the divisional council becomes the Chairman of the Labour Tenant Control Board. It used to be the case, I believe, that the chairman of the divisional council was the magistrate of the district.

That is not essential; it is not so any more.

I said it used to be the case, but it is not the case any longer, although the magistrate or the Bantu Affairs commissioner is usually a member of the divisional council, but they are not necessarily the chairmen any more. In so far as that aspect of the matter is concerned, has the Minister considered the position in the Cape where the chairman will be someone other than the magistrate or the Bantu Affairs commissioner?

It is that body which will do the work, not the chairman.

It is the chairman I am concerned with. I think there could arise an embarrassing situation. But I will not take it any further. If the Deputy Minister is satisfied, fair enough. It is simply that we sought that information.

Lastly, may I ask the Minister this. In those areas which are referred to, where there is no divisional council or where a labour tenants’ control board has not already been established, and where provision is made for the time being for the Native Affairs commissioner to be the authority, will the Minister say whether it is his intention in those areas to establish such control boards?

We will prefer that to having the Bantu Affairs commissioner doing the work all by himself, but during the transitional period it may be necessary to have the Bantu Affairs commissioner doing it alone.

That answers my question. In fact, it is his intention to supersede the Bantu Affairs commissioner by a control board, so that eventually the labour tenants control boards, or the Bantu labour control boards, which are dealt with in the following clause, will cover the whole area of the Republic.

I rise merely to get some information. So far as the Cape is concerned, is it the intention eventually to take away from the divisional councils the power to act as a labour tenant control board or a Bantu labour control board, and have all labour control measures dealt with by a Bantu labour control board, i.e. a body separate and distinct from the divisional council? Secondly, the Minister has said that by and large the officer designated to be chairman of the board is the magistrate or the Bantu Affairs commissioner. Does the Minister envisage that the designated officer in future might be a labour liaison officer? Might he take on that function also?

Theoretically, he might do it, but we would prefer the Bantu Affairs commissioner to do it.

In the second reading the hon. the Minister gave us no reasons why he should in due course turn a labour tenant control board into a Bantu labour control board and take over complete control of all labour on the farms other than the tenant labour living on the farms. He did tell us that why they wanted to control the tenant labour was because there was an unnecessary number of tenant labour living on the farms and they wanted to get rid of them because they were idle and unemployed. Very well, that is his opinion; I am not arguing that because it does not come under this clause. But this Bantu labour control board is being established instead of a labour tenant control board, and he has not given us a full explanation of why he needs to control the other labour, because in the second reading I raised the question of the interference which would take place with labour. In terms of this clause, the tenant labour control board will in due course become the Bantu labour control board.

I will reply to the hon. member when we discuss that clause.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 24,

Now we come to the clause which has been rather limiting our discussion on the previous clause, because here we come to the establishment of the Bantu Labour Control Board. It is clear from this clause that when once a Bantu labour control board has been established in an area in which a labour tenant control board has jurisdiction, the latter fades out of the picture. The Bantu labour control board is constituted in the same manner as the labour tenant control board; its members are appointed in the same way, and in fact the members of the labour tenant control board become the members of the Bantu labour control board when one is established, and they continue in office for the remainder of their period, so that the one completely supersedes the other. At this point in time it must be borne in mind, though, that the position in the Cape still remains unchanged in so far as in an area which is not controlled by a Bantu labour control board and is not under a divisional council, the Bantu Affairs commissioner will continue to act. The position here is set out very clearly in the new sub-sec. (1) of 28bis, which says that a Bantu labour control board shall be established for the area referred to therein (i.e. in the notice) and such board shall have jurisdiction in respect of all Bantu employed in bona fide farming operations or in bona fide domestic service in such area. I am not sure why the word “or” is used and whether it should not be “and”. However, it refers to Bantu employed in bona fide farming operations or in bona fide domestic service. We take the strongest exception to this particular clause, because here the Minister now takes precisely the powers that have been taken by the Government in the preceding clauses in urban areas. They take that power now in respect of all the rural areas in respect of which a Bantu labour control board is to be established. The Minister has made it quite clear in his reply to the question I asked him on the previous clause that the intention is to cover the whole of the area of the Republic outside the prescribed area, and put them under the control of what will now be a Bantu labour control board. That is the practical effect and the Minister nods his head in agreement.

Wherever the Minister considers that to be in the public interest.

Yes, that is the form of words, because we must have specific words for the purpose of this Bill, but the intention is to cover the whole of the Republic outside the prescribed areas by the establishment of Bantu labour control boards, and no area will be left out.

What is wrong with that?

What is wrong with it is that the Government now takes the power in regard to the rural areas to control all labour as it has already done in the preceding clauses in the urban areas. Here the whole labour supply of the farmers comes under the control of the Bantu labour control board, even bona fide domestic servants. Once again we cannot pursue the matter in regard to the next clause, but in view of the powers that are conferred, which will explain what “jurisdiction” means—jurisdiction means the power to permit employment or to refuse employment, and that power is in respect of all Bantu, and not just labour tenants. The labour tenant concept has now been disposed of, and this refers to all the Bantu employees, including domestic servants. One cannot deal with the powers of that board now; we will deal with that when we come to it, but we are opposed to this power being placed in the hands of this control board in this way. The Minister has indicated that for practical purposes usually but not necessarily the magistrate or the Bantu Affairs commissioner will be the chairman of that board. There will be three farmers of the district who constitute the board. That board is charged with the responsibility of exercising jurisdiction in the manner set out here. While it may be said that that kind of board should be a fair reflection of public opinion, and that you will have men on it who understand the farmers’ problems in the district, in practice that is not so, and it has proved not to be so. Where these labour tenant control boards have been operating there have been some very sharp differences of opinion, and it is a well-known fact that you get employers in any district who will have no difficulty in getting labour, and the labour works for them at least as hard, if not harder, than it does for some other farmers in the district, but other farmers, do what they will and pay what they will, cannot keep labour even if they get it; labour will not stay with them. There is a difference of approach in regard to our labour problem, and it is one of the fundamental difficulties as far as we on this side are concerned, because when it comes to the meaning of that word “jurisdiction” which I referred to, it means that the control board will have complete control, and we say that is taking it too far. It is absolutely wrong to have such far-reaching powers vested in such a board. We shall therefore oppose this clause.

I referred earlier today to the Departmental report which was brought out by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel). I might say that this was a very extensive inquiry. It was advertised in all the newspapers in the country and evidence was given before it by every single agricultural association and agricultural union, and many centres were visited. I come now to this particular clause. Why is it necessary to institute labour control boards? On this matter the Committee reported as follows and I quote this for the information of the Committee—

In other words, in determining the number of labour tenants they cannot take into account the ordinary servant, the ordinary labourer on the farm, and they experience difficulty in that connection—

I also want to quote another paragraph which reads as follows—

It then made the following recommendation—

The clause with which we are now dealing is the outcome of this report. But this Committee in its report also gave very interesting figures with regard to the position of labour on the farms. I want to try to give hon. members a picture of the position if I can lay my hands on the statistics quoted by the Committee. It appears that there are 1,281,000 male Bantu, that is to say, labourers who are in continuous employment, labour tenants and seasonal labourers, and that there are 466,420 females, making a total of approximately 1,500,000 Bantu in employment. It is also stated that there are 100,000 farmers in our agricultural industry. In other words, there are 15 labourers to every farmer. The Committee also finds in its report that much of the labour on the farms is not being utilized properly. There are numbers of labourers, or potential labourers, and many idlers and vagrants on the farms whose services are not being used properly. In order to cope with that position it is essential to have labour control boards in the rural areas. I think it is a very undesirable state of affairs that there are so many idle Bantu on the farms and that proper use is not made of all this Bantu labour. That is the reason for the institution of these boards.

I am also one who is utterly opposed to the provisions of this Bill. I do not need to have any board tell me who I can employ and why I should employ them, and that I must have certain Natives in my employ and not others. Taking the farming community as a whole, a farmer would much rather employ the Natives he chooses himself, and certainly the Bantu workers themselves like to choose their own master. If you interfere with the contract between the employer and the employee, you upset the whole system of labour on the farms, and that is quite unnecessary. It has already been pointed out how the other provisions will affect industry and commerce and I cannot deal with that now. But in relation to this board being able to tell the farmer which labour he must take, that is wrong. He will just have to take what labour they have on their books. He cannot choose his labour. I do not think this will be anything like the success of the present system where the Bantu is allowed to get a permit to look for work and he comes around and the farmer chooses his own labour.

But he can still do so.

I know the Minister says so, but where the Bantu himself is going to be canalized to the labour bureau, and he is told that unless he goes to the bureau, he will not get work, they will all go there and you will only get the labour which is left over on their books after the others have been given work in the cities. I think this is a retrograde step as far as the farmers are concerned. I think in the end it will upset the whole system of farm labour, and I think it is unnecessary. We have not heard any reason why our domestic labour should be brought into it.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the clause.

It all comes under the labour bureau, which can control domestic labour. I cannot take on domestic labour without getting a permit from the board, and I have to go to the board to get that permit, and that is where all these clauses interlock and it makes it so difficult to discuss the matter because each clause stands by itself, but the whole lot together give the board and the Minister ultimate power to do what they like with the labour not only in the urban areas but in the rural areas. It applies that system to the rural areas and it will upset the whole labour market, to the detriment of both the employer and the employee. It will certainly upset the position of the satisfied, law-abiding Bantu labour force in the rural areas. To-day we enjoy a large force of Bantu labour which is necessary in the rural areas and we do not want to upset it by forcing them through a labour control board.

One is absolutely amazed to find that a person like the hon. member who has just sat down, who is supposed to speak with authority, makes the sort of statement which the hon. member has just made. It is a statement which goes against the findings of the whole of organized agriculture. Natal is one of our provinces which is in the forefront of organized agriculture. Its farmers are organized just as well as, if not better than, the farmers in any other province of this country. And what does the Natal Agricultural Union say? Sir, where this old system is in operation we find that there is a maldistribution of labour, and find it very strange that the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) now comes along and says that this provision may cause a maldistribution of labour in the rural areas. What is the position at present? Does the hon. member want to suggest that we have a reasonable, let alone a good, distribution of labour under the present system? That is simply not the case. What is the position? Let us analyse it. The position in the Transvaal and in Natal is that one finds that one farmer keeps too many Native squatters on his farm. The Government has simply not been able to succeed in bringing about an equal distribution of labour. We find that there is too much labour on one farm and too little on the next farm. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) is fully aware of the fact that many farmers have had to leave their farms untouched because of lack of labour. In his own area and in the Eastern Cape and in the Transvaal and everywhere else we have found in the past that a number of Natives decide for some trivial reason to boycott a farmer or a shop, and they succeed in doing so. If a farmer does anything which is not to the liking of his Bantu labourers he is boycotted. His Natives leave him and his farming activities come to a standstill. Is there any farmer in this House who would deny that? I challenge the hon. member who has just sat down and the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) to deny that. These are the facts. Let us take an industry like the ground-nut industry. When the time comes to take out those ground-nuts, you have no choice but to take them out. Farmer A needs, shall we say, 60 casual labourers, but he gets 120. They sit around doing nothing because the farmer does not have sufficient implements to put them to work taking out ground-nuts. He dare not chase them away although he has 60 too many. Farmer B, however, is unable to get a single Native labourer. Mr. Chairman, I am talking about something which I have seen myself in my own district. I know of cases where farmers have had to leave their tobacco crop standing on the land, rotting in the rain; I have seen that with my own eyes. That is what happened under the old set-up, but the hon. member comes here and pleads for the continuation of the old set-up. It is simply beyond my comprehension that a member can come along and plead in this House for the continuation of the old set-up. I can only come to the conclusion that hon. members are opposing this clause although they know perfectly well that there must be control; that is absolutely essential. Let me mention another example—and nobody is better aware of the fact that that is the state of affairs than hon. members of the Opposition who are opposing this clause so strenuously. Farmer A has a host of Natives living on his land; farmer B is without a single Native. Is that a desirable state of affairs? Here we now come along with a measure under which farmer A will be able to get his due share of the available labour. Sir, the hon. member for South Coast talks about evils; I challenge him to show me where these bureaux which have already been established have ever made themselves guilty of malpractices; where they have ever been unreasonable in the allocation of labour. If a farmer cultivates 600 morgen he is given so much labour; if he cultivates 100 morgen he is given so much labour, and you get an even distribution of labour. The position at the moment—and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough—is that you find many agriculturists who are obliged to give up farming because of labour difficulties.

Explain that to us.

Just one moment. I know of cases where farmers have had to leave their cows unmilked in the stable because they have not been able to obtain labour. Is that what the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) wants? He says that we have a good system at the present time. Does he call that old system a good system? No. What are we trying to do here? This clause makes provision for impartial people to decide how the available labour will be distributed. The magistrate or the Native Commissioner will probably be the chairman of the labour bureau, assisted by a few prominent farmers in the district. Sir, I ask anybody who is in full possession of his faculties whether those people would go so far as to give farmer A more labour than he requires and farmer B less than he requires? What would they achieve by doing so? Can one imagine such a thing? Then the hon. member objects to the word “jurisdiction”. What else does he want? After all, the bureau must have certain powers otherwise its existence cannot be justified. It simply passes my comprehension how hon. members can come and say here that they are satisfied with the present system, because under this old system one finds chaotic conditions, particularly in districts near to the large cities. I want to invite these two hon. members, when they come to Pretoria again, to make a trip on the national road to Witbank on a Friday evening; there they will see how impossible it is to control the farm labour which flocks to the city. Why? It is because this matter is in the hands of the individual farmer. After all, if you have 600 farmers in a particular district you cannot have 600 different systems, and that is the position at the present moment. I want to tell that hon. member something which he knows much better than I do. He has his own way of dealing with his Natives on his farm and he makes his own agreement with his Natives. That applies to me and it applies to the hon. member for South Coast and it applies to all farmers. Every farmer has his own system. Let me tell the Committee something about my system. Under my system, over a period of 20 years, there has never been a police official on my farm. Hon. members can go into it and they will find that that is the case. In other words, my system has given satisfaction to the Natives. The hon. member over there has his own system and every farmer has his own system, and what is the result? You get a chaotic situation which simply cannot be controlled by the State. The one farmer has more labour than he requires and the other has too little. When one travels on the national road in the Transvaal one sees one location after another … [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just spoken must live in a very unusual community because he speaks of a maldistribution of labour under the existing system which this Bill will overcome, as I understood him. He gives as an example one farmer who has 60 labourers more than he requires and another farmer who has none because he has been boycotted. Sir, I have yet to meet a farmer who is prepared to feed and pay wages to 60 more labourers than he requires. If the hon. member says that the farmer does not feed and pay those labourers then they are squatters. They can be dealt with under the existing provisions of the Native Trust and Land Act.

You are now splitting hairs. Do you know anything about it?

I can quote chapter and verse to the hon. member in a moment to prove what I have said now, namely that there are provisions in the existing Act to deal with squatters in the context the hon. member has just mentioned. I should be very interested to hear what the hon. the Deputy Minister has to say about the position of the farmer who has been boycotted and cannot get any labour at all. How are the labourers going to be kept working for the farmer for whom they do not wish to work? There is only one inference to be drawn, Sir. Is the hon. member suggesting that there is forced labour in this Bill? I do not say that. I do not believe that such powers are given to the control boards here. [Interjections.] That is very interesting, Mr. Chairman. The hon. member implies, if he does not actually say it, that the unpopular farmer who has been boycotted will be able to get his labour because in terms of this Bill they can be forced to stay with him whether they like it or not. What does the hon. the Deputy Minister say about that? Is this a provision, as the hon. member for Pretoria (District) says, which gives the Minister the power to force Bantu labour to work for the farmer for whom they do not wish to work? I see he shakes his head. That means that the argument of the hon. member for Pretoria (District) falls down.

It is important, I think, to appreciate that Clause 24 deals, not with squatters, not with labour tenants, not with the Bantu who are undesirable in any particular place because there is no work for them there, but with Bantu employed in bona fide farming operations or who are in bona fide farming service. Now, Sir what does bona fide mean? It means people working where there is work for them to do; work where they are properly employed in a proper capacity.

Is that the definition of bona fide?

What else does bona fide mean? I emphasize that we are not dealing with the no-works, the squatters, the idle, those who are simply sitting on the farm because there is nothing else for them to do; we are dealing with those in bona fide employment in farming operations or in domestic service. The power to control labour tenants and squatters is in the existing law. Labour tenants are controlled by Section 28 of the Native Trust and Land Act as it stands at the present moment and squatters are controlled by Sections 32 and 33 of the same Act. So we can forget about those categories. We are now dealing with people in bona fide employment.

We are entitled to ask why it is necessary to have a control board to deal with people who are in employment, i.e. why is it necessary to have a control board to deal with those people who are properly working for a bona fide employer? No criticism can be levelled against them at all because there is work for them to do on the farm or in the home as domestic servants. Surely, Sir we can expect an explanation as to why it is necessary to have a board to control the activities of people properly employed in every respect, people who are in bona fide employment? Unless these control boards are merely an instrument of policy unrelated to illegal occupation, to illegal work or anything of that kind. I believe that that is just what this clause is. For that reason I agree with what the hon. member for South Coast has said that this is the rural counterpart of the control which is to be exercised in the prescribed areas. For that reason, Sir, we cannot support it.

I would be very interested to hear from either the hon. the Deputy Minister or the hon. member for Heilbron or the hon. member who has just spoken why it is necessary to control people genuinely and properly in full-time bona fide employment and why it is necessary to control the employers of such people. That, Sir, we have not yet had. Unless it is to be used as an instrument of policy. I doubt whether even the hon. member for Heilbron will deny that. If I am correct that these Bantu labour control boards—and I emphasize again that they have nothing to do with squatters or the labour tenants …

Of course they have.

They have nothing to do with either of those two.

Read the next section.

I know the Labour Control Boards can also function as Labour Tenant Control Boards but we are not dealing with them acting in that capacity at the moment. We are dealing purely with their function as Bantu Labour Control Boards. Now this is quite a new concept; it has never previously appeared in any of our legislation. More particularly, Sir, we have never previously had control of Native labour in rural areas properly so employed. That is what I emphasize. Sir, the only conclusion to be drawn from this is that if this is to be used as an instrument of policy, and we have had no other explanation, it cannot be used in the interest of the labourers because they are bona fide in employment; they are voluntarily there, and they would not work there unless it were to their advantage. It cannot be to the advantage of the farming community because they have bona fide engaged the people who work for them, and they would not have done that unless there was a job which the farmer wants to be done by those labourers. It cannot be in the interest of the economy generally, otherwise these people would not be there in the first place. It can only be used, as I have said earlier, as an instrument of policy which will go against the interests of the economy and will go against the interests of the farmers bona fide employing these people and of the Native labourers bona fide in the farmers’ employment. For those reasons apart from anything else, it is a clause we cannot accept.

I should like to make a few points in connection with this matter. In the first place I want to say, in reply to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood), who has referred again, in dealing with this clause, to a new system of employment which is contemplated, that the farmer, as at present, will still be able to engage his own Native labour and to have the book work connected with it done through the labour bureau, but that makes no material difference to the present personal pattern of employment.

Then in connection with sub-section (2) I just want to make the point, because I think the hon. members for Zululand and South Coast perhaps misunderstood the position, that as I read sub-section (2) a Bantu labour control board can never consist of a single commissioner or a divisional council. The Bantu labour control board will simply be the delegated authority of the Secretary for Bantu Affairs, together with three farmers. The farming community will always have representation on the board therefore. There may have been a misunderstanding in this connection. I just want to make it clear that a labour tenant control board, which consists of a divisional council in the Cape or of the single official appointed under Section 1bis, can never be converted into a Bantu labour control board.

May I put a question to the hon. member? Is the position not that where there is no Bantu labour control board, or, in the Cape, a divisional council, just one single person, namely the Bantu Affairs Commissioner, will constitute the Bantu labour control board?

No, Mr. Chairman, that is precisely the misunderstanding that I want to remove. This single person may constitute a labour tenant control board, and a divisional council in the Cape may constitute a labour tenant control board, but when we come to sub-section (2) of Clause 24 we find that it says this—

It is constituted in the same way as a labour tenants control board, and its constitution is mentioned in sub-section (1), which says that it shall be a board consisting of the secretary, or an official designated by the Minister, who shall be the chairman, and at least three registered owners of land. Let me first make that perfectly clear so that there can be no misunderstanding. No labour control board can ever function on which there are not three farmers who are land-owners in the area.

Then we come to the question of the justification for the institution of the Bantu labour control board. I do not want to repeat what the hon. member for Heilbron said a moment ago but the reason for this provision is simply that control can never be exercised over the squatter or over the labour tenant without controlling the entire labour force on the farm concerned. You cannot control one category of labourers without taking into account how many other labourers are present on the farm, and the primary aim of the Bantu labour control board therefore is only to give effect to the control which is visualized through the labour tenants control board and not to defeat that control.

In addition to the arguments which have already been advanced by the hon. member for Heilbron I want to put one further practical consideration to hon. members on the other side. We talk about the interests of farmers and about labour for the farmers. We are all aware of the fact that the S.A. Agricultural Union has struggled hard to arrive at a definition of “farmer” and that there has even been talk that the farming industry should be limited to licensed farmers. Hon. members must bear in mind the fact that where we deal with control over the farmer who works fulltime on his farm the position is much simpler than it is, for example, in the case of the livestock speculator who uses the farm as a reserve to which he can send livestock at a certain stage and from which he can remove it again at a later stage. Is he a farmer or is he not a farmer? We must take into account the large numbers of land-owners who are not permanent and active farmers. In other words, there are many problem farmers who can cause a labour problem in the farming industry, and it is largely in respect of these exceptional cases, where the labour situation is made much more difficult in the farming industry, that the Bantu labour control board will have to exercise its functions. However, to conclude on this point, I think the hon. member for South Coast stated his case very fairly. This is a matter in regard to which we can differ, and we need not try to convince each other that there is this difference, but my submission is that there are sound reasons for this clause and that is to make a success of the labour tenant pattern, which all parties have sought to achieve, by controlling the totality of labour. There is a sound reason for that, and that is that labour problems are created by these exceptional cases, and in the third place I have full confidence in this arrangement because such a local body consists of local land-owners who will never try to force an unfair labour arrangement upon the farming community.