May I have the privilege of the half-hour? In the preceding debate we discussed certain matters of general interest to South Africa, to the South African Railways and to the users and employees of the Railways. We now have an opportunity for a more detailed exchange of ideas with the Minister and to ask for full expositions of his policy and of his administration as head of the South African Railways. There are still questions with regard to the Minister’s policy which remain unanswered, although he did reply to them. I do not want to deal with the merits; I do not want to resume the debate on this occasion, but if there are matters which have not yet been cleared up, I feel justified in asking the Minister to come back to those matters. One of the points I should like to raise is the question of charging railway tariffs on a basis which varies according to the commodity transported. The Minister told us that he felt fully justified in making certain commodities pay for losses incurred on the transportation of other commodities. The Minister stated most emphatically that he could not reimburse himself from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. He said it would be a most unsound principle because there would then be no need for control or discipline in the South African Railways or Harbours; it would be possible to make concessions and to do all kinds of frivolous and irresponsible things because in the final instance the Consolidated Revenue Fund would simply have to pay.

Order! I just want to point out to the hon. member that for the Consolidated Revenue Fund to assist in covering Railways expenditure requires legislation, and the hon. member is not allowed to advocate legislation here.

I am not advocating it. I am merely pointing out that the fact that it is not possible for us to discuss this matter in Committee compels us all the more to discuss the Minister’s alternative, and that is that because losses cannot be recovered from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, they have to be recovered from the railway users who consign high tariff goods—that one may recover it from the users of the Railways in the Transvaal and the Northern Free State. The Minister says that is quite in order; it can be recovered from those people; there is nothing wrong about expecting a minority of the population of South Africa to make good the losses of the Railways. That is the Minister’s argument. The petrol consumers, for example, on the Witwatersrand and in the Northern Free State, have to make good the losses of the Railways. I am not only talking about the tariffs in respect of the pipeline, but about the tariffs on petrol in general. It is quite in order that they should pay and make good the losses, but would it not have been much more equitable if it were possible for all taxpayers and all users of the Railways to make a contribution towards recovering those losses? But the Minister is quite happy and defends and advocates the fact that the losses of the Railways should be recovered at the expense of the inland users of the Railways, even in his own constituency. His own voters in Maraisburg have to pay, just as long as the voters—I do not know where those people get their influence—of the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services do not have to pay; then everything is in order. We find it very hard to induce the hon. the Minister of Railways to enter into an argument with us on the merits of a case. He is very fond of devoting a large part of his speech to a rebuttal of minor points raised by hon. members, to scoring debating points, but he always very carefully avoids entering into an argument on the merits of the case. For that reason I invite him most cordially to justify to us the fact that the losses of the Railways should be carried by a minority of the public of South Africa. Because I happen to live in Johannesburg I have to make a larger contribution to the losses of the Railways than the man who lives in Cape Town or in Durban. Why should a man who owns a factory in Johannesburg contribute more towards the losses of the Railways than a director of the Paternoster Fisheries? There is no logic in that, particularly when the revenue collected by the Railways is exorbitant and smacks of exploitation. I do not want to repeat the arguments we have already advanced, but there can be no justification for the fact that the Railways should take seven cents from the pocket of the petrol consumer for every cent they spend on conveying petrol. That cannot be justified, and I would therefore be grateful if the hon. the Minister could devote some time to the argument and tell us on what grounds the Railways justify these things.

He has already replied to that.

The hon. member for Piketberg did not listen; he will not listen; he is quite contented. He likes the inland areas to be taxed to his advantage; he likes imbalance, because it is to his advantage. [Interjection.] Oh yes, Paternoster is quite contented, but are the hon. the Minister’s voters on the Witwatersrand equally contented?

Then there is another matter I should like to pursue somewhat further with the hon. the Minister, without extending the past debate, and that is the fact that in all the discussions we have had up to now and in all his public statements since the last debate we had in Parliament, the Minister failed to tell us what his response is to the problems of the railway employees. What is the Minister’s response to the fact that these people are experiencing problems? I know it is argued that since the railways workers received their last increase in 1965, the percentage increase in the cost of living has not caught up with the percentage increase, but the hon. the Minister did not tell us how far the income of the railwayman lagged behind the increase in the cost of living in 1965. I should like to remind the hon. the Minister that in those days we had numerous arguments in Parliament when the railway employees and the Public Servants and employees in general waged a mighty struggle to obtain compensation for the increasing cost of living, and when they were told that they were selfish, that they should not ask for an increase; that they did not need it; that they merely wanted some more. The hon. the Minister did not take that part of the argument into consideration, and I think we have to take note at this stage, not of what the Opposition is saying, but that we should accept with great circumspection what the hon. the Minister says, because he can speak for the Railways Administration and not for the employees. I think it is time we drew the attention of this Committee to the feelings of the railway workers about their problems; perhaps they can speak more authoritatively on their own problems than the Minister or any of the hon. the Minister’s advisers. In an article which appeared in the Sunday Times on 29th January, 1967, there is a report on what leaders of railway employees had to say on this score, and hon. members should bear in mind that that was months ago; since then the position has deteriorated. We have to bear in mind that in September, 1965, when the railway employees were granted the last increases, the cost-of-living index stood at 113.7. In September, 1966, it rose to 118.9 per cent and the leaders of the railway employees pointed out that if the cost of living rose to 118 per cent the crisis point would be reached.

Points, not per cent.

Yes. points. We know that 100 points in 1958 is taken as a basis, and we know that in September, 1966, the cost-of-living index stood at 119.6. A spokesman for the trains staff. Mr. J. F. Benadie, put it as follows—

that is, the railway employees—

Mr. Chairman, I cannot quote everything said by this leader of the Railways trade union, but I want to quote something else which the hon. the Minister should appreciate. Mr. Benadie says—

That is how strongly they feel about the matter—

These are grave words, but we see no response to them on the part of the hon. the Minister; he quotes cost-of-living index figures which are out of date, which were out of date in September, 1965, when the wage increases were granted, and he wants to base comparisons for the future on those figures without regard to the backlog which existed prior to that date. Here we have the comment of the journalist concerned. He says—

Who says that?

That is the comment of the Sunday Times. But let us get back to the trade union leaders. Mr. Arthur Grobbelaar, secretary of the Trade Union Council of South Africa, says that the statement by the Minister of Economic Affairs that the increase in the cost of living is very small, has been remarked with astonishment by the trade union leaders, and he says—

That is my charge against the hon. the Minister. He got up here and replied as head of the South African Railways, with its 200,000 employees; he spoke as a Cabinet Minister and not as a human being. Sir, the time has come for the Minister to take cognizance of the problems and the difficulties of the workers involved, and to tell us what the Railways Administration and the Government are going to do to surmount those problems.

According to you he should increase the tariffs.

Not so long ago, just before the election, this very Minister paid high tribute to an outstanding South African, Mr. J. A. Liebenberg, of the Artisans Association of the South African Railways, and quite rightly; I think Mr. Liebenberg is an outstanding citizen of South Africa, but allow me to quote what Mr. Liebenberg wrote in the September issue of the Artisans Association’s own journal—

That is the point I want to make, because the hon. the Minister failed to take into consideration that it was necessary to catch up with the leeway in respect of those people in 1965, but Mr. Liebenberg does not forget that; he says—

The point is that Mr. Liebenberg states, with all the authority vested in him. that a large portion of the increases received by Railwaymen in September, 1965, was intended to compensate them for their handicap in their struggle against the rising cost of living and the inflation for which the Government is largely responsible. The Minister does, not take that into consideration when replying to our pleas in this regard. Mr. Liebenberg refers to the measures taken to counter this inflation, and concludes as follows:

These are important issues. So far the Minister has shown no sign of realizing that, but the debate has a long time to go. The Railways debate is going to continue until Friday. So far he has given us no indication that he has any sympathy with or any insight into the problems of his employees. In this discussion we should like to offer him an opportunity to prove that he does have such insight. Mr. Liebenberg also pointed out that 118 points on the cost-of-living index would be the crisis point. He also pointed out—and I cannot analyse the merits of his argument, but that is how the Railwayman feels—that if the cost-of-living index reaches 118 points, the benefit to the Railwaymen of the increases of September, 1965, will be wiped out. Then they would enter a new phase of inflation, which is already developing, due to the policy of this Government. We have asked him before in the course of debates, but we cannot get the answer, so I am asking once again what the Minister’s response is to the irrefutable fact that the pensioner has a contractual relationship to the Railways which he cannot alter by means of collective bargaining, in contrast with actual employees, namely that on a contractual basis, after having made contributions to the superannuation funds, he shall receive a certain pension which at the time when he contributed promised him a certain standard of living upon retirement, He now finds that he cannot maintain that standard of living because his money has depreciated as a result of insidious inflation. What recourse has he? I mentioned in gratitude that there is compensation for the people on the lowest level, and that certain groups of pensioners receive compensation for the depreciation of money, subject to a means test. But what about the thousands of pensioners who have received nothing since 1954? Will the Minister please tell us what has become of the cost-of-living index, to which he had recourse in other contexts, since 1950, and how much compensation was received by the pensioner who receives no compensation because the means test placed him outside the ambit of such compensation? Will the Minister please give us those figures and will he also, and I emphasize this, tell us why those pensioners have to pay a penalty for Government policy? I am not saying this as a reproach, because it is government policy in other countries, too. We are living in an era in which governments in general accept that insidious inflation is necessary and that gradual erosion of the purchasing power of money is necessary to maintain economic prosperity. But what compensation is there for these good and worthy citizens of South Africa?

Then I want to ask the Minister this: Pensioners are told that if they return to the employment of the Railways or the State, they can keep the additional income thus earned, and that the means test will not be applied. It will be applied only if they enter the employment of employers other than the State. I want to ask the Minister whether he thinks that the Railways and the State can employ pensioners who offer their services, in employment related to their experience, their skills and qualifications. I can give the Minister one example after another of pensioners who offered their services to the Railways, whose pensions they receive, but were offered work which they could not accept whilst retaining their self-respect. I could give the Minister examples of yard foremen, guards and special grade drivers who approached the Railways and said: “We want to work for you again; we are healthy and energetic.” Then they are told: “Yes, you may get work as casual labourers.” If the Minister’s retired staff say: “We are prepared to do even that work, but where are we going to work and what type of work will it be?” they are told: “No, you will work in a pool and every day some of you will be drawn and we cannot tell you where you will work and what type of work you will do.”

If those people say they cannot accept that, they are told that they must not go and work somewhere else where they can get decent work and where they can get work appropriate to their qualifications and experience, because then the means test will be applied to them. I want the Minister to tell me whether he considers that fair. Is that in the interests of South Africa? We are greatly interested in the Railways, but we are also a little bit interested in South Africa. Is it in the interests of South Africa that we as a nation should be denied the manpower and the potentialities of such people because they will be penalized if they go and work for concerns other than the Railways or the State? A man who works for a contractor building houses or for someone building roads or who has a Government contract to build a harbour, renders service which is just as much in the interests of South Africa as that rendered by a man working for the Railways. The Minister should tell us what can be done to set these matters right, because this is wrong. It is wrong, and so far we have had no reply on that score. In particular I ask the Minister cordially but urgently to tell me and this House what justification there is for the fact that pensioners have to watch the purchasing power of their incomes diminishing month by month, not through any fault on their part but as a result of the local State policy and state policy in the Western world. There is no justice, compensation or mercy for these people. The Minister should not think I am ungrateful: Thank you for what is done for these pensioners on the lowest level. But the middle class is also an important class. The Minister and all of us owe a great deal to the people of the middle class, who lend stability to our community and character to the nation. Why should we ignore and forget them? What is the Minister’s reply? We ask and we plead, what is the Government’s reply? We are waiting, and we shall ask that again and again until we get a reply.

This debate will last a further day or two. I am rather concerned about the fact that we do not have enough time to get the replies from the Minister which he owes us. I wish we could have a few more hours for the purposes of this debate. I think there is something amiss if we can hold a debate of eight hours on the motion to go into Committee, and the Deputy Minister of Transport does not even get a turn to take part in the debate. Perhaps somewhat more time should be allowed for this debate.

It is the Chair’s concern whom it sees and who takes part in the debate. The hon. member is now infringing the rules of the House.

I shall accept that, Sir. As long as you do not say I have made a reflection on the Chair. In all fairness, the Chair cannot see a member of this House unless he gets up.

The Chair is unable to see many people who get up.

The Deputy Minister of Transport did not try once to take part in the debate. That is my point. [Interjections.] Sir, with all due respect, I want to tell you that it is very difficult not to see the Deputy Minister when he does get up. I do not want to extend the debate unnecessarily. I have made my points. The points in which we on this side of the House are particularly interested, I have now raised with the Minister. I want to assure the Minister that we look forward to his reply with interest. We have only one expectation. We do not want to score points. We just want the Minister to get up and give us a reply which will inform us and the people as to the attitude of his Administration and, even more important—because the Administration is only a branch of the Government in South Africa—as to the attitude of the Government with regard to these matters, which are of the utmost and most urgent interest to the people who are affected by them.

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Yeoville ought to be grateful that so little time has been allocated for a discussion of the Railway Estimates. Not only he, but also the entire Opposition were given such a drubbing yesterday that I am really astonished to see that he still has the courage to come forward with the same story. I saw recently in the newspaper that they got steam up on a locomotive in Bethlehem with dagga. They had a few bags of dagga which the police had confiscated. Yesterday I saw how the Minister of Transport could get up steam. I think it reminded him of the days when he was a stoker, he made things so hot for the Opposition members. It put me in mind of a certain person, and how he was given a drubbing.

I do not want to venture to discuss the question of the increase in salaries, because the cost of living has supposedly increased to such an extent, as the hon. member maintains. In January it was 119.8. I just want to give him one figure. I have already said that it can be safely left in the competent hands of the hon. the Minister of Transport. I just want to give him one figure, a comparative figure which indicates as a percentage how salaries have increased over the cost of living. I just want to mention one case, i.e. that of a chief clerk. In October, 1958, when the cost-of-living index was 100, the salary of a chief clerk was R3,068. That salary is to-day R3,900. That is a percentage increase of 27.12 per cent, as against the increase in the cost of living of 19.8 per cent. I do not want to say anything further. I think that neither the hon. member for Yeoville nor I—I want to admit it candidly —will dare to talk about the cost of living figure in proportion to the increase in salaries. He may safely leave it in the hands of the Minister.

I should like to mention a few other minor matters. The first has to do with catering services. This is a matter which really troubles me. And I do not think I am the only one who feels concerned about it. I think it is something about which the entire House, including the Opposition members feels concerned. Jan Smuts airport is the port to South Africa for all foreign countries. All aircraft arriving here, land at Jan Smuts airport. It is the port to South Africa, of which we are all proud. I want to make an appeal to the Minister here this afternoon to restore the catering services at Jan Smuts aerodrome to the South African Railways. One is ashamed, and I am ashamed when I go there and see the kind of service one receives. I know the hon. the Minister has said that he has a shortage of staff, but I really think that in this case we owe it to South Africa to return the catering services at that aerodrome, which is an international airport, to the South African Railways.

I want to point out to the hon. member that I did not put Airways, etc. I only put Railways.

Then I will drop the subject.

On a point of order, Sir, may I ask whether catering does not fall under this Head?

As far as I know the airport catering services are leased to private persons. When it is undertaken by the Administration, catering falls under Railways, but when it is leased to private enterprise, it does not fall under Railways.

Mr. Chairman, with respect, no provision for catering is shown under the Airways Vote. Therefore, if we are to discuss catering of any sort, I submit that it must be shown under the Vote in which it is reflected. There is no catering shown under Airways. All catering is shown under Railways.

If catering is undertaken at the airport by the Railways, then it is in order to discuss it. In this case, however, I think it has been leased to private enterprise.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, the Railways give it out on tender Where else have we the right to discuss it if we cannot discuss it here?

The Railways do not give it out on tender. The Department of Transport gives it out on tender.

The Department of Transport gives it out on tender. The airport belongs to the Department of Transport. The hon. member may continue.

I was talking about Head No. 9—Subsidiary Services and Catering Services, but it makes no difference. I have said what I had to say.

I want to make a further appeal to the Minister. In this Budget a considerable amount of provision is being made for funds for 1he relaying of railway lines and for the excavation of gradients, particularly where railway lines are now being electrified. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to see to it that where curves in the railway lines are being eliminated and ground which is then of no use to the railways falls into disuse, the Railways should return that land to the farmers or sell it back to them. I want to point out that if a farmer buys a farm, and there is a railway line running over the farm, it is not said that the size of a farm is 1,000 morgen, minus ten morgen for the railway line. The farmer pays for the entire farm. I know that the Minister changed this some time ago. He thought that it was not fair that individuals should donate land for the entire population. That is why it was decided to compensate farmers for that land at a reasonable market price.

I listened attentively yesterday to the hon. the Minister when he spoke about what was being done for housing for Railway servants, as well as about what was being done for the unmarried Railway servants in regard to the establishment of hostels. It has been granted in principle that a hostel will be established in Bethlehem. That was granted in principle four or five years ago and money was voted for that purpose. The hostel was to have cost R235.000. Again this year there is money in the Estimates for that hostel. I think it amounts to R110,000. On behalf of the unmarried Railway servants at Bethlehem I want to say thank you very much to the Minister. I made a survey and found that there were approximately 125 to 130 such young men. They are finding it particularly difficult to find decent board and lodging. The Minister is himself aware of that —he was a stoker. If it is known that a lunch pail has to be packed the person in question does not want a Railwayman as a boarder. It has an extremely prejudicial influence on those young boys, boys who have perhaps come from the farm or a small neighbouring town. He either cannot get decent board and lodging, or he has to pay the earth for his board and lodging. The municipality of Bethlehem acquired 11 morgen of land for that hostel five years ago. I want to thank the hon. the Minister once again for the money being appropriated. All that I would like to have now is a promise from the hon. the Minister that the hostel will in fact be built, and that the money which has been voted will in fact be used in this coming financial year for the hostel in question. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I thought that the hon. member for Bethlehem was going to thank me—instead of the hon. the Minister—for rushing to his assistance. I would have liked to support him on one thing which he said, and I refer to the item under account No. 400 of Head No. 9—“Catering and Bedding Services—Private Leases and Privileges”, which includes, I submit, the leases which the Catering Department enters into with private enterprise.

Not at the airports.

The Catering Department has handed over large restaurants which were formerly staffed by staff referred to under Head No. 9. They were paid as employees in the catering section. They are no longer required at the major airports,. How is it, then, that the Catering Vote has in fact gone up? How can there be an increase: when in fact catering has been reduced and the field which it is required to cover is smaller? There is an increase of R140,000. Jan Smuts airport, which required a large staff, the Durban airport, the Port Elizabeth airport, the D.F. Malan airport and the airport at Bloemfontein, which also required staff, all—except the Jan Smuts airport—showed a loss when the Railways were doing the catering—all these centres have now been removed as a burden from the catering department. Yet we find that notwithstanding the fact that all that staff are no longer required at those airports, the cost of catering still goes up. I think that is a matter which the Minister should tell us something about.

The other matter raised by the hon. member for Bethlehem, and with which I cannot agree, is that he and various other members keep on quoting the cost-of-living rise vis-å-vis the last increase in wages and say, “There you are, look how well off the railwaymen are”.

I did not say that— that I did not say.

Well, then the hon. member does not think that they are well off. I agree with the hon. member that they are not well off. I wish the hon. member would stand up and say more clearly that they are not well off.

That is nonsense; he did not say that.

What did he say then? Either they are better off or else they are not better off. When I say that the hon. member said they are better off, he says he did not say that they are better off. When I say that they are not as well off, the hon. member for Klip River gets upset. Unfortunately he is not a good member for Danskraal. In fact he is a shocking member for Danskraal, because I have two letters from voters at Danskraal dealing with problems which that hon. member has been unable to deal with. He will not get up in this House, as I am getting up now, and plead for the railway workers. The hon. member for Bethlehem has said that the railway worker has had a rise of so much per cent whilst the cost of living is only so much per cent, and therefore he hopes, so he says, that he will hear no more of this argument. Well, he is going to hear a lot more about it, a lot more about it. What the hon. member does is to take an increase in salary designed to meet a cost-of-living index figure which had already risen, designed in fact to compensate the worker for past losses. He says that that increase was X per cent and since then the cost-of-living has only gone up Y per cent. Therefore, according to his logic, the railwayman must be better off to the extent of the difference between the two figures. [Interjection.] The point is that every increase in salary and wages for the railwayman comes when the position for him is so desperate that he cannot carry on, and the possibility of an election immediately ahead makes it necessary for the Government to give him an increase. He knows that he will go on for another five years, pleading, struggling, suffering, without any sympathy because there is no money with which to pay him. The view of this side of the House is that we are not interested in figures and statistics, wherever the hon. member for Bethlehem may get them from. What we are interested in are the cold, hard facts, namely that the railwayman, and particularly the railwayman’s wife, is unable to make ends meet to-day. The only way in which many of them can exist at all is by the worker putting in so many hours of overtime that it is becoming an impossible burden.

The Minister attacked me because I mentioned as one of the results of excessive overtime the fact that there had been a higher accident death rate on the S.A.R. But what he did not tell us is how many accidents there have been during the current year. That is a figure in which many of us are interested, and I hope the hon. the Minister will give us the figure. How many accidents have there been so far this year on the Railways? Is the figure higher or lower than it was last year? Something else the Minister has also not told us is whether he is satisfied with the amount of overtime being worked. Is he satisfied that 18 per cent of the railwayman’s income should consist of allowances and overtime? Is he satisfied that 13 per cent of his total income is earned because he is asked to work longer hours than the normal hours of work?

Are you against overtime?

No, I am not against overtime, but I believe that overtime should be kept within reason and that the basic pay should be sufficient for a man to live on. He should not have to work overtime, he should not have to do 14 hours’ work a day … [Interjections.] I am against excessive overtime. Everybody accepts reasonable overtime. What is more, I am in favour of the basic wage being sufficient for a person to live on without him having to supplement it in order to be able to exist.

Let us take the case of the engine-driver and the fireman. The driver and the fireman have to work 226 hours a month before they get overtime. A guard has to work 234 hours a month. That means, compared to a normal industrial worker who works eight hours a day, the guard is working 29¼ days a month before he gets overtime. But if he works 14 hours a day for 16 days he has worked 224 hours, which means that, although he has been working 14 hours a day, if he gets ill and does not work for the remaining 14 days of the month he does not get a single cent for the extra time he put in during those 16 days. That is another of the complaints which is attached to this excessive overtime. If a person should work for 16 days, five hours overtime a day, and then go on leave, he loses the benefit of that overtime and the payment for it because he has not worked his minimum of 226 or 234 hours in that month. But the Minister just brushes these things aside, and hon. members on the Government side go out of their way to try to show how happy and contented these people are. The hon. member for Colesberg said that all the railwaymen were happy and had no complaints. We would like the railway workers of South Africa to hear that these Members of Parliament are satisfied and that they are not prepared to get up in this House and to fight for them. The hon. member for Klip River, who is so fond of making interjections behind me, should get up, Sir, so that you can see him, and let him fight for the men he is supposed to represent, the men who put him into Parliament and who expect of him that he will stand up here and put their problems before the Minister and the House.

I want to put a few of these problems. One of them is this. It is the charge I made against the Minister, and which I now repeat, that he is anticipating approximately a 7 per cent increase in traffic and that he expects the railwaymen to handle that increased traffic with over 1,000 fewer workers. In other words, he is going to demand 7 per cent more effort from every worker on the Railways, more overtime and more sacrifice, in order to keep the Railways going. Either that is so or these Estimates are false. Either the Minister expects to handle 7 per cent more traffic with a smaller staff … [Time expired.]

When I look at the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, it does not seem to me as if the cost of living has gone up; when I do so I am more inclined to think that it has gone down. But what really astonishes me is that the honeyed words literally drip from these people’s mouths when they woo the railwaymen’s vote. They are going out of their way now, long before the next election, to try and win these people’s votes and the hon. the Minister is being reproached for not having sympathy with the railwaymen. During the past years the ballot box has indicated what measure of appreciation the railwaymen have for the sympathy which the Minister has always shown to them. The difference is just that the hon. the Minister is honest with the railwaymen and the hon. Opposition in this House merely stand up to fight for their interests in order to win votes.

I also represent a railway constituency, and there the hon. the Minister told those people in 1958 that he was prepared to consider their position sympathetically if the financial position of the Railways allowed, but that he was not prepared to buy their votes. That was two weeks before the election. He said openly that he had not come to buy votes, but that his approach to the matter was in the interests of the country. What followed—this happened in 1958—was the greatest victory ever won in Langlaagte. It was the railwayman who voted for the National Party after the Minister had been so honest with them. I say that these methods which the Opposition are employing here will not serve to promote the interests of the Railways, and will not serve to promote the interests of the country either. I want to add that we are proud of these railwaymen, particularly because they are greater patriots than the members of the United Party. These railwaymen realize what the position to-day is and are prepared to make sacrifices and suffer hardships in the interests of the country, and they do so because they know that as soon as the interests of the country allow him to do so the Minister will once again see to their interests.

I should like to ask the Minister whether it is not possible to erect a railway station in the Coloured areas in my constituency, such as Riverlea, Bosmont, Monteleo, which could be used by those Coloureds. There is a railway line running through the area and I think it would mean a great deal to these Coloureds if they were able to get a station there, so that they could make use of rail transport. At the moment they are finding it extremely difficult to get to their work because they do not all have alternative means of transport. They do not all have motor cars. On the contrary, I want to maintain that in view of the fact that Riverlea is a sub-economic housing scheme, there are very few of them who have motor transport. That is why we are asking the hon. the Minister to consider creating facilities there so that these people can make use of the railway line. It will mean a great deal to us as Whites too, because great numbers of them who are in fact able to acquire motor cars are now driving through White areas where there are no proper roads, and that is making it very difficult for us.

Another matter I want to plead for is housing. I believe that a happy worker does good work, he is the man who produces the best results for his employer, and whose productivity is the highest. I believe that for a man to be happy he must have his own house. He should not have domestic worries. He ought to have a house in which he can live happily and build up his family. Now it so often happens that these people come and see us and ask whether we cannot use our influence to enable them to obtain a house. When we approach the railway authorities we are merely told that there is a waiting list which is drawn up according to merit. We have no fault to find with the method which is being used to provide people with housing, but what we would like is the achievement of the ideal situation, which is that when a railwayman marries there should immediately be a house available for him. We know that that is perhaps a far-fetched idea, because we are acquainted with the problems which are being experienced in connection with supplying this need, but I think that it is such a pressing need that the entire population may be appealed to to supply that need, and that the means should be found for doing so. I am convinced that if this difficulty were eliminated, the railwayman would do even more effective work in the interests of the Railways.

We should also like to raise a plea in connection with the existing housing schemes, to the effect that these houses should be renovated more frequently, and that it should be seen to that these houses are always kept in a good condition. Then, what we so frequently find, particularly there in my constituency, is that the local authorities are not over-eager to make all the necessary recreational facilities available there to serve these railway housing schemes. I want to ask whether the railway authorities cannot use their influence on these local authorities so that they can provide all the necessary recreational facilities there. Those are all things which contribute to satisfying the railwayman and making him happier and in that way enabling him to do his best for the undertaking for which he works. We are asking that these things receive serious attention from the Railways Administration. We are convinced that the railwayman will react in such a way that the Railways will be better off and will be able to make bigger profits which will recompense them for the costs incurred in establishing these facilities. I cannot emphasize it enough that it is essential for every employer to see to it that his employees are satisfied and happy, and since the Railways are employing such a large number of people, and since it is probably also difficult for the Railways to supply the necessary requirements in every case to keep its employees happy and satisfy them, I nevertheless feel that it is essential that everything be done to give only the best to these people who are rendering such loyal and excellent services and who are so loyal in regard to the development of their country. I am convinced that if this were done they would react in a way which we would all be proud of.

The hon. member for Langlaagte started by saying how contented all the railway workers in his constituency were and then ended up by putting one of the serious problems which faces railwaymen and that is the housing position. I know the hon. the Minister quoted figures here to show how much had been done in respect of housing but the fact remains that there is a large section of railwaymen who are desperately in need of housing, and very often there is a feeling that those who need housing most, stay at the bottom of the list while others who do not need it so badly, are often given priority. There seems to be something wrong with the system of allocation, and I feel that special consideration should be given to married workers with a wife and small children when they are transferred from one centre to another, either on relief duty or permanently. Those people with families who are transferred from one centre to another often find it quite impossible to obtain housing, and you find them living in rooms in boarding houses and having to spread their family out amongst relatives, and then you find others who can perhaps afford to purchase their own home who are enjoying housing privileges which could more beneficially be given to the harder-pressed persons who are unable to acquire a home of their own.

I want to come back to the question of the welfare of the staff as such. I have dealt with the question of overtime; I have dealt with what will be expected of the railway worker in the coming year, but there are other facets which I believe require attention. I believe that despite all the good intentions set out in the General Manager’s report in regard to industrial psychology and vocational training, there is still something radically wrong having regard to the amount of disciplinary action that has to be taken. If you study the General Manager’s staff you find that he has 19 disciplinary officers whereas there is only one vocational and welfare officer. Well, it may be necessary but the point is not whether it is necessary; the point is whether it is a reflection of the right morale position in the railway service.

And the attitude of the Minister.

There are 18 vocational officers and psychometrists. I do not know exactly what a psychometrist is; I have heard of trick-cyclists and others … [Interjections.] I am sure the hon. Whip over there, the hon. member for Middelland could tell us all about it; he seems to know more about psychometrists than I do. This emphasis on discipline as opposed to welfare is an indication of a lack of the necessary guidance. It would surely be far better to have 19 welfare officers and vocational guidance officers to guide people; then perhaps you would not need so many disciplinary officers. The second aspect is the way in which discipline is handled. Reference has been made to the number of appeals having dropped from 600 to 334 but I have heard that that is because the railway staff feel that it is just a waste of time to appeal; that in 99 cases out of 100 the side of the Railway Administration is always taken and that the number of rejections of appeals is such that it is an absolute waste of time to go on appeal.

That is not true.

It may not be true. There were 100 appeals upheld out of something like 600. According to the latest available statistics the number of appeals has dropped to 334. Only a small proportion of these appeals was upheld. Whatever the facts may be, I am talking about what people feel and what they say in the Service, and that is what matters when you deal with morale. Morale is very often not a question of fact; it is not a question of what is the truth; it is a question of what people say and what they feel, and when people say that it is a waste of time to appeal, then either it should be shown clearly and beyond doubt that it is not true or preferably the cause that starts this grousing should be sought and eliminated. There is a general grouse which I have heard over and over again that the whole attitude to the disciplining of people is wrong. A case was brought to my notice where a person who had worked overtime was called out to provide first-aid after an accident. He came back and made up his time during the lunch-hour to get through the work. He was disciplined and reprimanded without being allowed to say a word in his own defence. He says: “What is the use of saying a word about it because they all gang up against me anyway?” Trials are not held in the normal way in which a court trial would be held where the principles of basic justice are observed, where an accused person is allowed to question his accuser; where he is allowed to ask what the evidence against him is. He sits outside while evidence is being led against him. In this particular case the man was simply called in and told: “You have disobeyed an order; I reprimand you.” When he said that he wanted to put forward the facts he was told that they were not interested in the facts. Sir, I know that this is not what is laid down but it is nevertheless what happens in many cases.

No, it does not.

The hon. the Minister says it does not happen. I have all the facts here.

You have only heard one side of the story.

I possibly have, but it is a substantiated story. The problem, as the Minister well knows, is that I cannot throw names across the floor of the House because if I do so the person concerned will more than likely be victimized. The Minister can shake his head but he knows that that is true. He knows that if I raised this particular case in this House and the person senior to this particular man were punished, it would eventually come down on this particular individual.

It would be improper for you to raise it here, but there would not be any victimization of the officer concerned.

Yes, exactly—it would be improper of me to raise it. The Minister admits that.

Because that would mean throwing the names of persons across the floor of the House. You could give me the information personally.

The hon. the Minister has said that he does not want us to interfere in these things. As a matter of fact, last year the hon. the Minister made a particular issue of the fact that railwaymen were writing to Members of Parliament. He said he did not want that to happen because there were the normal channels available to those railwaymen. But these normal channels are used, however without success. One gets all sorts of other evidence. In this particular case the person concerned disclosed to me that the official who was responsible for the reprimand used railway employees during official time to paint his house, his private house. He has even given me the number of the person concerned, the hours that were worked. I was also informed that on another occasion this official used the services of Bantu employees of the Administration to help push his wife’s car out of the mud. That too occurred during official hours. In many of these cases the workers concerned booked overtime. So, one gets this information but one cannot use it. I say this creates an atmosphere which is bad for morale.

If you receive information like that, give it to me and I shall have it inquired into.

Thank you. That is a much better attitude and I am grateful to the Minister for it. I am very grateful for it and I accept it. I assure the Minister that I will now come to him with matters which in the past one has been afraid to bring to him out of fear of victimization …

I am referring to disciplinary infringements. You say this official has been making use of railwaymen in official time to paint his private house? Matters of that nature should be brought to my attention.

But then one shall also have to bring to the Minister’s attention the source of one’s information. That will immediately put that person into trouble.

How else can you expect me to inquire into it then, to make an investigation?

I say it is a question of the general morale … [Time limit.]

I absolutely reject the allegation of the hon. member that the morale amongst railwaymen has dropped or that it has dropped because of disciplinary action taken against them or because of the method of enforcing that discipline. That is quite untrue. I reject it out 9f hand. Moreover, all staff associations will agree with me. The hon. member should first of all inquire into what the procedure actually is so that he can be aware of it. Any railway servant who is guilty of a serious infringement has the right to call for an inquiry. Such an inquiry is only a preliminary step. Inquiry officers are then appointed to inquire into the matter. No punishment is meted out at that particular stage. It merely means that a preliminary inquiry will be held. The report of these inquiry officers are then submitted to the disciplinary officer. The only reason for the appointment of these disciplinary officers is to obtain some measure of uniformity on the punishments being meted out for similar offences on the different systems. This lack of uniformity has been the subject of complaints from staff associations in the past. The same position applies in our courts of law. There seems to be no uniformity. A man employed on one system is found guilty of a particular infringement and receives a certain punishment while for a similar disciplinary infringement by a man employed on another system he receives an entirely different punishment. It was merely in an endeavour to obtain some measure of uniformity in this respect that these disciplinary officers have been appointed at the request of the staff themselves. The position then is that first of all an inquiry is held. The report of such an inquiry is thereafter submitted to a disciplinary officer …

Is an inquiry held only in the case of serious offences?

In respect of certain offences the employee concerned has a right to ask for such an inquiry. Even for small offences he can ask for such an inquiry. In any event, as I have said the report is then submitted to the disciplinary officer who decides upon the form of punishment. The employee concerned then has a right of appeal against that punishment. What is more, he can appeal to the Disciplinary Appeal Board on which his own staff organization is represented. Does the hon. member not know that?

I know that.

The hon. member should know it, but judging from the way in which he talked, apparently he did not.

And when you ask employees why they did not appeal they say that they are all in the pocket of the Administration.

In other words, the charge of the hon. member is that those representatives appointed by staff organizations on the Disciplinary Appeal Board are in the pocket of the Administration?

That is what is being said.

I wonder what the staff associations are going to say to a statement like that made by a responsible member of the Opposition. Remember those members are not appointed by the Minister. In the past they were elected by the employees of a particular grade. At the request of the staff organizations I allowed them to appoint their representatives on the Disciplinary Appeal Board. But the hon. member now says that those members are in the pocket of the Administration.

On a point of explanation. I think I may have given the hon. the Minister a wrong impression. I was not talking of members of the board. I was talking of the representatives they have to go to in the first place, their local association’s representative.

In other words, members of the local staff associations are in the pocket of the Administration?

That is an accusation which is often made.

Well, I think the staff associations will take note of that. These hon. members who have appealed for increased wages and better working conditions … They have nullified this completely by an allegation such as that—that the shop stewards for instance …

I did not say it was true— I said it was an accusation which was often made.

It shows the amount of faith and confidence they have in these staff organizations, the employees for whom they are supposed to be pleading here.

You are debating a point which was not made.

I am not debating a point, but am replying to the hon. member for Durban (Point). He made certain allegations.

He did not.

He did so, again just now. Surely, the hon. member for Durban (Point) can reply for himself; it is not necessary for the hon. member for Yeoville to reply on his behalf?

I clearly said that that was the accusation. I did not say it was true.

Then the hon. member should not repeat such an allegation, an allegation which is quite untrue. In any case, the representatives of staff associations at local depots have no say in these inquiries. They do not conduct these inquiries. For that purpose there are special investigating officers of the Administration who conduct these preliminary inquiries. It shows how much the hon. member knows about this matter when he says that representatives of staff associations at particular depots are in the pockets of the Administration while they have nothing to do …

I did not say that. On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, should the hon. the Minister not accept my word?

The hon. member will have an opportunity of replying when I am finished. Then he can say what he did say and try to wriggle out of what he did say.

Don’t put words into my mouth. Don’t say I said things which I did not say.

The hon. member is trying to wriggle out of what he said. What he said is recorded in Hansard. I am now trying to explain to the hon. member what the procedure is so that he won’t make these silly statements again in future. I am trying to explain to him and to tell him what really happens, how these inquiries are conducted, how discipline is being applied in the Railways. That is what I am trying to do. I am trying to explain to the hon. member that an employee has the right of appeal to the Disciplinary Appeal Board, a board on which the staff themselves are represented. Has the hon. member no confidence in these representatives? What is more if the servant concerned does not wish to appeal to the Disciplinary Appeal Board, he can appeal to the head of his department and if he does not get any satisfaction there he can appeal to the Minister and the Railway Board. That is what he can do. Of course, all appeals are not upheld. Has the hon. member ever gone through the records of the Appeal Court to establish how many appeals from the lower to the superior courts were in fact upheld? The majority of cases? Or only a small minority? That then is the position. There is no question of morale or anything like that. Everything is done to see that justice is meted out. What is more, the servant concerned when he appears before the Disciplinary Appeal Board has the right to cross-question witnesses. It is not necessary for him to appear there alone because he can have a member of his staff association appearing with him.

Only before the Disciplinary Appeal Board?

If it is a question of dismissal or reduction in rank he also has the right of appearing personally before the Railway Board and to have his assistant there as well. Didn’t the hon. member know that?

But only in certain cases.

Of course, only in serious cases. I said in cases of dismissal and of reduction in grade. The hon. member should not lend his ears out to such stories and then come here and make general statements and general allegations. There is nothing wrong with the disciplinary system of the Administration. The staff know that, support it and accept it. The hon. member also asked me whether the method of allocating houses should not be revised. Here, again, the staff themselves are responsible for allocation of houses, e.g. the different housing committees. Apparently staff organizations are quite satisfied with the present system of allocation. Until such time as they ask me to revise it I cannot take the initiative on my own to do so.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) wanted to know why it was that in spite of the fact that staff had been withdrawn from airport restaurants, the cost of catering has gone up. This staff was withdrawn from the restaurants not last year but two years ago. Since then there have been wage increases and the cost of materials has increased. There has been additional expenditure for liquor and for provisions. That is why the cost of catering has increased. If the hon. member looks at the White Book, he will see what the reasons are.

And the number of staff?

It all depends on whether we are running more dining cars or not. That will probably increase the number of staff.

It has gone up?

Yes, because we are running more trains and more dining cars. We have not leased out all the restaurants. We still have Johannesburg station. There are also certain other restaurants which we still run. That, of course, is a minor point.

The hon. member wanted to know whether I was satisfied with the amount of overtime being worked. I should like to reduce overtime to a minimum, but it is not possible to do so. While we have a shortage of staff overtime will have to be worked. I freely admit that in certain systems excessive overtime is being worked. There is no secret about that. I do not like footplate personnel to be on duty for a period of 16 or 17 hours, which does happen sometimes, but by increasing the capacity of the lines, and by introducing new methods of working, overtime is gradually being reduced. I shall give one example. Excessive overtime was worked on the line between Witbank and Komatipoort when there was steam traction. Since electrification, that overtime has been drastically reduced. The hon. member stated that next year 7 per cent more effort will be required from less workers than there are at the present time. There will be 7 per cent more traffic with less workers. But that does not necessarily mean that more overtime will be worked. If a particular train with one locomotive pulls 500 tons, and you put on two or three electric units you have the same complement of staff, but you are pulling much bigger loads. That is therefore not a corollary at all. We can increase the amount of traffic handled without necessarily increasing the amount of staff.

Can you have two locomotives without staff?

I said you have the same number of footplate personnel for one, two or three electric units. They are controlled by two members of the footplate personnel.

So the General Manager’s report is nonsense?

What is nonsense?

It is nonsense when he relates productivity to turnover.

No, productivity has also increased. But productivity is not only increased by increased efforts on the part of the staff. It is also increased as a result of mechanization, improved methods of train control and a number of other things.

*The hon. member for Bethlehem asked that the Railways should take over the catering services at Jan Smuts Airport. I do not know whether the catering service there is as bad as all that, because I had dinner there one night and it was an excellent meal. It was as good as any could get at restaurants. They did not know beforehand that it was I who was going to eat there. I am now speaking of the å la carte meal. An å la carte meal is ordered. It is not a meal which is prepared in advance. In any event there is a stipulation in the lease contract to the effect that the Department of Transport may carry out inspections from time to time to see to it that a high standard is maintained. If any complaints are received I shall ask the Department of Transport to carry out inspections immediately to see to it that there is an improvement. The hon. member asked that when curves are eliminated and land is released, such land should be returned to the farmers. I may just say that that is in fact done. That land is usually returned free of charge to the farmer from whom it was originally expropriated. The hostel at Bethlehem will be built this year. More than R100,000 has been appropriated for that.

The hon. member for Langlaagte is not in the House at the moment, and I shall reply to him on a later occasion.

The hon. member for Yeoville made a completely incorrect statement when he said that the minority of the population of South Africa has to carry the loss on the Railways. He asked whether it would not be equitable to let all the taxpayers pay. That statement is quite incorrect. The losses on the Railways are not borne by the minority of the population. The hon. member referred to the pipeline to the Witwatersrand, but surely that is not the only means of transport in respect of which large profits are made and which has to help to carry the losses on the Railways. As for high tariff goods, it is not only a small minority of the population that uses high tariff goods. They are used by a large, broad sector of the population. Virtually all of us use them. Clothing, for example, is high tariff goods. It is not the minority of the population that wears clothes. This statement, that a minority of the population of South Africa has to bear the losses of the Railways, is therefore quite incorrect. I know what the hon. member really meant. It is the old story of the pipeline: Why should the motorist of the Witwatersrand pay so much. Yesterday I replied to that in full. My general statement was that the profits which are made on all high tariff goods, not only on the pipeline, have to be used to offset the losses incurred on the transportation of other goods.

The hon. member made a rather emotional plea for the railwaymen. He asked that their plight be ameliorated and that their wages be increased and that I should take cognizance of their problems. This is not the first time such a plea has been made here. In the 13 years I have been Minister, I do not think one year passed without the Opposition making such a plea. That is the prerogative of the Opposition. They may well plead for increased expenditure, because they are in no way responsible for the revenue or for the balancing of the Budget. For that reason it is the easiest thing on earth to plead here for an increase of expenditure to the amount of many millions, because the Minister has to take the responsibility for finding the necessary revenue and for balancing the Budget.

Did you not do that when you were the Opposition?

Yes, I did the same. That is why I say that it is the prerogative of the Opposition to do that. I do not blame them. It is very pleasant to plead. In the past it was of no avail to them politically, of course, because they plead for that every year, and the more they plead for the railwaymen the fewer votes they get from the railwaymen. But they have the right to do so. They did that in past years and they will probably do that again in future. He said I should take the problems of the workers into consideration. If there is one person who should really know the problems of the railwaymen, I think it is I.

You forgot.

No, I meet the staff associations from time to time. In the months ahead seven staff associations will be coming to see me. Such meetings of the Minister and the staff associations are a regular institution. Do hon. members really think that when those staff associations, with their executive committees consisting of up to 20 members, meet the Minister and talk to him for hours on end, they will not tell him about the problems of the workers? If the hon. member thinks that, it is a grave reflection on the leaders of those trade unions. Does he think they will meet the Minister and not tell him about the problems of their members?

The Minister does not listen.

The Minister does listen. That is why he has done so much for them in the years that have passed. That is why they repeatedly move motions of full confidence in the Minister. The hon. member quoted Mr. Liebenberg. Here I have the minutes of the Federal Council meeting of 4th November, 1966, which have just been handed to me. I did not attend. Mr. Liebenberg said the following (translation)—

That is the same Mr. Liebenberg whom the hon. member quoted with so much relish. I read further—

That is what Mr. Liebenberg said. There is even more that I may quote in praise of the Management and the Administration as regards the co-operation that exists, the accommodating spirit that obtains. In fact, during our last meeting, at the beginning of this year, that very Mr. Liebenberg got up and expressed his gratitude because I had preferred not to accept the Finance portfolio and preferred to remain Minister of Transport. That will be confirmed by the minutes. It was received with acclamation by all the staff associations represented on the Federal Council. As I said, the hon. member is fully entitled to plead for higher wages.

They did not like the look of Basie; that is why they were so enthusiastic.

I think that they will be only too pleased to have the Deputy Minister as Minister when I relinquish this portfolio. They have already said so.

They seem to say all the things you want to quote—what a coincidence.

But the hon. members do not know what is going on. They go by hearsay. That applies in particular when the hon. member uses the Sunday Times as an authority. He should never do that, because the Sunday Times is even worse than the shipping correspondent of The Cape Times.

In any event, I want to come back to the wage position. The staff associations are coming to see me within the next few months in order to negotiate. They will naturally negotiate with regard to Railways wages. The first staff association, namely Spoorbond, will meet me next Wednesday afternoon. I think it would be quite improper of me to tell the House in advance what my attitude will be in that regard, and I do not think hon. members will expect me to do that. I think if I were to state my attitude here, whether negative or positive, the Railway associations would resent it very much that I adopted an attitude before they had seen me.

You have already said that the cost of living has not even caught up with the increases.

That is correct. I gave the facts. Facts are something different from adopting attitudes. I believe in facts, in contrast with the hon. member to whose facts one does not always attach a great deal of value.

Your attitude does not keep abreast of the facts.

As regards the pensioners, it is not quite correct to say that the pensioners have received no increase since 1954. There was a basic increase in their pensions on the recommendation of the Superannuation Fund Board. That was some years ago.

That was after 1st April, 1954.

Yes, that was after April, 1954. In addition a great deal was done for the pensioners as a result of the consolidation of cost-of-living allowances and the introduction of widows’ pensions. These were introduced in the course of the past few years. There was a great improvement in respect of the pensions of those who retired afterwards, through the consolidation of cost-of-living allowances and basic wages. It cannot be said, therefore, that nothing is done for the pensioners. I have already said that I have a great deal of sympathy with our pensioners. The fact remains that any improvements effected in respect of the allowances—not of the basic pensions, because no improvements can be effected in that regard—cost money. If the Railways has the money, if I can afford it, I shall help them again. But the present state of our finances is such that we cannot make any concessions.

Inflation is costing those people money, too.

Yes, it is also costing us money, as Members of Parliament. The Railway worker is in the same boat. Does the hon. member realize that there are some 8,000-9,000 Railway workers, unskilled White workers, people with families, who earn a maximum of only R110-R115 a month? Surely they are affected quite as badly.

As regards the means test of R150 a month, I want to say the following. In actual fact the hon. member is pleading that it should be abolished. In other words, whatever the man’s pension may be, even if he is entitled to seek employment and regardless of his income, he should nevertheless also receive the allowance. I fail to see why that can be done for the civil and railway pensioners and not also for the old-age pensioners. The old-age pensioner is also subject to a means test. In the past it has always been accepted that there should be a means test and that it is a very sound principle. We do not want to help the rich man, but the man who is needy. I quite agree that the middle income groups may perhaps need it just as badly as the man in the lower income group. To raise the means test rather than to abolish it, on the other hand, will cost a good deal of money. When the time for that is ripe, I shall be quite prepared to reconsider the matter. It has always been my attitude that the poorest man should be assisted first, and that is why we introduced this system, that a married pensioner should have a minimum income of R92 a month. That is costing a good deal. That means that he frequently receives his temporary allowance plus an additional allowance, to raise his income to R92 a month. I also want to say that the vast majority of the pensioners are at present receiving the allowances.

Now as far as re-employment is concerned, the concession which has been made, namely that if a pensioner returns to the employment of the Railways the means test will not be applied to him, had one object only. It was to effect some relief in the serious shortage of workers experienced by us. In other words, the object was to draw the railway pensioner who can work, who wants to work and who can be used on the Railways, back to the Railways or to the Public Service. That was the reason. It was never intended that it should be applicable to everybody, because ultimately that would mean that abolition of the means test. I cannot consider doing that, and for two reasons. In the first place, I consider the principle wrong, and in the second place I think it will cost a good deal.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister said that he would meet seven of these staff associations shortly, and that it would be unfair of him to tell us now what his attitude towards them would be. To a certain extent I can understand his attitude. However, he went further and asked whether he had to state now whether he was going to be positive or negative. We on this side have the right to appeal to the hon. the Minister, as I am doing now, not to adopt a negative attitude. He thinks that there is a possibility that he may in fact give a negative reply. We are making an appeal to the Minister, as we are entitled to do, not to be positive when he meets these railway associations.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) spoke about disciplinary measures on the Railways and the Minister give him a reply. There was something in the Minister’s reply which was not very clear to me. Last year he asked Railway servants not to write to Members of Parliament in connection with matters which concerned them as Railway servants, and in connection with their grievances. He said that there were other channels they had to use. However, if they do write to the hon. member for Durban (Point), the Minister says that the hon. member should bring to his notice cases where Railway servants have involuntarily done something wrong.

I do not want you to make a wrong deduction. I said that if the hon. member was told about gross irregularities, such as the case mentioned here of Railway servants who were used in somebody’s private residence, such irregularities had to be brought to my notice so that I might investigate them. This does not concern grievances of Railway people at all.

If a Railway servant were to write to an hon. member about an irregularity and that member were to bring that case to the notice of the Minister, the Minister would therefore have no objections.

It is his duty to tell me.

Therefore the Minister has no objection to a Railway servant writing to a member about an irregularity.

Yes, but not about grievances.

Then I have no objection against that. It seems to me as though one of the problems is in fact this, as became apparent from the dispute between the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Durban (Point), namely that these staff associations do not, in the first instance, have any say when there is an investigation. These were the hon. the Minister’s words: “The staff representatives at a lower level have absolutely no say at all and the departmental officials are solely responsible at that stage.” Perhaps that is where the fault lies, in the very fact that these staff representatives, who are doing good work and are good representatives of these associations, have no say when an investigation is being made. That is something the Minister may possibly consider rectifying, and that was probably what the hon. member of Durban (Point) meant. He had no objections to the good work which was being done by the staff representatives in the higher disciplinary committee, but it is true that they have no say at a lower level and that Railway servants feel that they are being frustrated when the first few steps are taken in connection with an investigation.

The hon. the Minister also spoke of overtime and he said that he would like to restrict overtime to a minimum. We agree with that, but I was glad to hear him make a public admission here when he said: “I freely admit that in certain cases excessive overtime is beingworked.” That is an admission that we on this side were right when we said that in certain cases far too much overtime was being worked. The Minister mentioned certain staff members and showed that he regarded it as being unsatisfactory.

The hon. member for Langlaagte did not receive a reply from the Minister, but I think I can give him one. I think his voters will be amazed at his attitude. He failed to make a plea for the ordinary Railway servant who has a hard time nowadays under the pressures of life—there was not a single word about them in his speech, and there are hundreds of Railway servants in his constituency. Not only did he fail to make any plea for his voters, but of all things he raised objections in this House to anybody else making a plea for Railway servants. He objects to our doing that. Why does he object if others want to show their kindness to these people?

It was an interesting admission the hon. member made in his speech when he said that Railway servants were in fact experiencing hard times. He said in his speech that Railway servants were willing to experience hard times and to make sacrifices. There we have the admission that, in spite of all the fine things that are being said on the other side, the hon. member for Langlaagte said that Railway servants are having a hard time. [Interjections.] But he does not want us to plead for those people.

The hon. member for Langlaagte did in fact mention one matter, and that was housing, and he wanted the Minister to take certain steps in that regard. I do, of course, agree whole-heartedly that much can be done in regard to housing. But I want the hon. member for Langlaagte to go back to his constituency for a while and to tell his voters how many empty houses there are in the whole of the Republic at present. Does he know that the hon. the Minister admitted to me, in reply to a question I asked him last year, that no fewer than 460 Railway houses were empty at that stage—not necessarily in Langlaagte—and possibly because of the reasons the hon. the Minister mentioned. Let him also tell those people how many houses have been demolished in the past five years. Does he know how many Railway houses have been demolished? The number was 1,033—so many houses were razed to the ground by the Railways Administration. Is that perhaps because non-Whites are being employed instead of Whites?

Now your are talking nonsense.

The hon. member says I am talking nonsense. Fine. I should very much like to tell the Minister that one of his own members is saying that he is talking nonsense, because here I have the reply to the question I asked the Minister last year. At that stage I asked him what the main reasons were for railway houses being unoccupied at that time, and one of the reasons he gave was the temporary replacement of Railway workers by non-Whites owing to the shortage of White labour. What does it look like now? Is he saying that his own Minister talked nonsense? I hope the Minister will discipline that hon. member. The Minister clearly said that one of the reasons was the temporary replacement of Railway workers by non-Whites owing to the shortage of White labour. [Interjection.] Whether or not it was temporary does not matter, but these houses are empty by the hundred.

Do you know where those houses are? They are situated next to the railway line … [Interjections.]

That is very interesting, but can the hon. the Minister tell us why there are 111 empty houses in the Eastern Cape? Was it in the Transkei? The largest number of empty houses are in fact to be found in the Eastern Cape.

But not in the towns.

I grant that they are not in the towns, nor are they in Langlaagte, but I am pointing out that when the hon. member said that I was talking nonsense, he actually levelled that accusation at the Minister.

Are these houses being demolished temporarily?

No, they were demolished permanently. I think that the workers in general will be disappointed at the attitude which is being adopted by the Government in respect of their problems, and I might as well predict that the attitude of the hon. the Minister, when he meets these seven staff associations over the next few months, will be much more negative than positive. Is there any hon. member on the other side who will deny this? Will the Deputy Minister deny this? He knows beforehand what the replies are going to be. It will be a negative reply, a reply which will throw cold water on the aspirations and the genuine needs of these people.

There is quite a number of matters I want to touch upon. One of them is the large number of accidents in which Railway staff itself is involved. I am not referring to accidents in which passengers are involved, but to accidents in workshops, etc. I know in advance that the Minister will tell us that he has safety officers, that he has strip-films which are shown to them, that he has posters to show them what safety measures to take and that he also has incentive schemes. But in spite of all those things, I am not satisfied that enough is being done to promote safety, seeing that over the past five years there have been no fewer than 24,000 cases of accidents in respect of which R2 million had to be paid out as compensation. [Time expired.]

It is strange that the Opposition is so concerned about the position of the Railway worker, the same Opposition which was so vehemently opposed to tariff increases last year, if those tariff increases had not been introduced last year, it would have meant, as the Minister said yesterday, that we would have been saddled with a deficit of more than R30 million at the end of this financial year, and that by the end of the next financial year the deficit would have been more than R40 million. The Minister pointed out that if these deficits had to be met from the Rates Equalization Fund, as was suggested by the Opposition last year, it would have meant that the Rates Equalization Fund would have been totally exhausted, but even more than that, that a deficit of R34 million would have remained which could not be met from that Fund. Where did that money have to come from? These are the same people who are concerned about the fate of Railway employees. If we did not even have money to cover the deficits of the Railways Administration, where would the money have come from to grant salary and wage increases to Railway servants?

Sir, these are the people who are so concerned about the fate of Railway servants, but last year when they objected to tariff increases, they did not give any thought to the future of Railway servants. At that time they adopted a totally indifferent attitude, not only to the Railways Administration as such, but also to Railway employees. I say that it astonishes me that the Opposition once again expresses their distrust of the staff associations of the Railway workers. They are expressing their distrust because, by implication, they are telling the staff associations, “You are too rotten to obtain wage and salaries increases for your members; we shall do that job for you in this House.”

Nonsense!

It is not nonsense; that is the way in which the United Party expresses its distrust of the Railway staff associations which are supposed to serve the interests of Railway servants and which have in the past served the interests of Railway servants well.

As usual the hon. member for Orange Grove only told half of the story when he spoke here a moment ago about houses which were empty and when he mentioned reasons for their being empty. The hon. member knows just as well as I do that the reason he gave for the houses being empty, was not the only reason the Minister gave him last year.

It is one of five reasons.

It is one of five reasons, but why did the hon. member not mention the other reasons? He did not do so because it suited him to mention that particular reason only, which happened to be the fourth reason the hon. the Minister mentioned.

He skipped the first three reasons.

Now I want to read out the other reasons to the Committee: These houses became redundant owing to (1) the maintenance of the permanent way being mechanised—something on which the hon. member for Yeoville insisted last year; he wanted to know what advantages mechanization had brought for the Railways—(2) the installation of centralized traffic control on certain sections of the line; (3) the deviation of certain lines; and then followed the reason the hon. member for Orange Grove had given; and, fifthly the dieselizing and widening of the narrow-gauge lines in South West Africa. Sir, what impression does the hon. member for Orange Grove want to create here by dragging in this argument in connection with the temporary replacement of Railway workers by non-Whites owing to the shortage of white labour? If the hon. member looks at the White Paper—apparently he has not even read it—he will see that the graded White staff of the Railways showed an increase of 727 in the period December, 1965, to December. 1966, while the number of railworkers showed a decrease of 337, but the fact remains that there was an overall increase in the white staff. As far as the non-white staff is concerned, there was a decrease of no less than 4,704.

Not in the Western Cape.

The hon. member is using that old argument again: “Not in the Western Cape.” The Bantu staff of the Railways in the Western Cape has already been reduced. It is the policy of the Railways, just as it is the policy of the Government and of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, to reduce Bantu labour in the Western Cape, but it has never been the policy of the National Party that all Bantu should simply be removed from the Western Cape all at once. In that respect the hon. member is trying to create a totally false impression again; apparently that is the purpose for which that hon. member is in this House: apparently that is why the United Party still allows him to represent Orange Grove here, namely to try to confuse everybody by raising here minor matters of this nature: that is the task with which that hon. member has been entrusted. That hon. member was a member of the National Party before, but we are grateful and glad that he is sitting on the other side now, because he did us more harm than anything else, and I want to tell the United Party that in future he will continue to do them as much harm as he has done up to now.

It seems to me as though there is a great deal of discord about things which are being said by hon. members on the other side. I pointed out that the hon. member for Koedoespoort was suggesting that the hon. the Minister of Transport must have talked nonsense, because he did not know what the Minister had said, and now we once again have the case of the hon. the Deputy Minister who says that last year, when tariffs were raised, we said nothing in defence of Railway servants, and that we complained about the tariffs being increased.

Do not misrepresent my words.

What did the hon. the Minister say? We shall see it in Hansard.

I said that last year, when the Opposition opposed tariff increases, they did not think of the future interests of Railway servants.

On the other hand, the hon. the Deputy Minister said that he had been a member of this House for 13 years and that not a single year had gone by in which we on this side had not pleaded for the interests of Railway servants. But then we did plead for the interests of Railway servants, not so? Now the hon. the Deputy Minister says that we did not plead for the interests of Railway servants, because we opposed the increase in tariffs. We therefore have another contradiction here.

Sir, there is one statement made by the hon. the Deputy Minister which I want to contradict with might and main, and that is that the Opposition supposedly expressed its distrust of staff associations. It is a nonsensical, foolish remark and I reject it with all the force at my disposal. On the contrary, I say that we on this side of the House have the fullest confidence in the good and excellent work which is being done by the Railway staff associations. They work hard and they do their best in order to obtain the best for their members, and it is not their fault if they are frustrated by the replies they are getting from the Deputy Minister and from the hon. the Minister. It is not their fault if they do not always get what they want. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows how many times he has already had to say “No” to staff associations and how many times he has had to return afterwards with a meek “Yes”, an admission that he was wrong before.

I was talking about the large number of injuries sustained by members of the Railway staff, presumably as a result of accidents. I pointed out that over a period of five years there had been no fewer than 24,000 such cases and that compensation to the value of R2 million or even more had to be paid out over that period. I think that this is an alarming figure. I mentioned certain things the hon. the Minister was doing in that regard, but I am not satisfied that enough will be done. If he were to compare the Railways with the biggest comparable industries, such as the steel industry and the engineering industry, I am sure that he would find that the percentage of accidents and the number of accidents on the Railways are still too high and that more can in fact be done in this regard.

Another matter I should like to touch upon is the continuous and provoking losses sustained in connection with the catering service. We know the unfortunate history of that service, and I do not want to go into that matter again. We know that the catering department was in such a mess that at one stage it had to be placed under the personal control of the General Manager. In those days, when there was a loss of R700,000, it was admitted by the Railways and by the Minister that matters were going wrong in the catering department, and major re-organization was effected. But what is happening now? According to the latest report we find that the loss in the catering department is once again almost R1 million a year, and that that loss went up by a further R200,000 in a single years time. The Minister may say that the cost of supplies increased, that salaries, etc., were increased, but those are not sufficient reasons, especially in view of the fact that there was curtailment and that certain premises of the catering department were leased to private enterprise. That is not sufficient reason for explaining this continuous and provoking loss in respect of the catering service.

In the short while I have left, I just want to bring one or two matters to the attention of the hon. the Minister. One of them deals with the sick funds, funeral societies, the mutual aid societies and other organizations which are found in the Railways. The Van Der Walt Commission was appointed to go into these matters, and a report was submitted to the hon. the Minister on 7th December, 1965. He made certain recommendations in connection with these matters, and a number of them have been carried out, and I think that some of these mutual aid societies replied that they were not prepared to accept those recommendations. I assume that in the report itself—we did not see it—it was found that some of these mutual aid societies were not being administered satisfactorily, and I want to accept that. I want to accept that action possibly had to be taken in connection with some of these mutual aid societies and sick fund societies. However, among those societies there are some which are doing excellent work, which are sound financially and which are strong, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will not force them to fall in with this new arrangement of merging with the other weaker societies in order to form one group.

All the recommendations of that committee will be carried out.

Is it the hon. the Minister’s intention to penalize societies which do not want to co-operate by no longer allowing them those stop order facilities they had in the past? If that is indeed the case, I would say that it is wrong to penalize good and sound societies and not those people who may in fact in the past have had organizations which were not very sound. When it comes to the administration of sick funds, I do not think that the record of the Railways is a very outstanding one. According to the report of the Auditor-General, the deficit in the Railways Sick Fund was R80,000 two years ago. Last year that figure increased from R80,000 to R279,000, which most certainly indicates that the Railways as such is not the best judge of whether or not sick funds in South Africa are sound.

Another matter I want to raise is the question of recruiting workers abroad. In reply to a question I asked the hon. the Minister on 10th March this year, he said that a mission had been sent to the United Kingdom for the purpose of recruiting workers for the Railways. I asked him whether attempts had been made since 1963 to recruit foreign workers for the South African Railways. He replied that in those three years recruitment had only taken place in the United Kingdom and in Holland. Now I hear that a complaint has been lodged in Germiston in connection with Portuguese workers who are being appointed on the Railways. The hon. the Minister knows about it. I am not objecting to the fact that immigrants are indeed being recruited and that they have been given work, because there is a tremendous shortage. What I do want to know from the hon. the Minister is how those people are being recruited. Were they recruited in Moçambique, in Portuguese East Africa, or where? If they were in fact recruited abroad, why did he not say so in his reply to my question? He said that recruitment had only taken place in the United Kingdom and in Holland, and I want to know why there is such a big “credibility gap”, as they put it in America, in regard to the statements made by the hon. the Minister in reply to my questions. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Orange Grove will forgive me if I do not go into every argument he raised here. I just want to say that I shall merely leave him to the mercy of the Minister. There was at least a theme in the speeches on the other side of the House in that they accused this side of the House of not being the champion of Railway workers. I think that it has been proved through the years and that it has been replied to decisively here, that this side of the House has really been the champion of the Railway worker, but that was done in a responsible manner and not dramatically and cheaply for the purpose of canvassing votes. I doubt whether hon. members on the other side of the House have enough constituencies in which they represent Railway workers. As regards my constituency, which has a large Railway centre, I want to tell you that the representations I receive, are to a large extent representations from Railway workers who want to return to the Railway service and who have found out that the grass on the other side is not so green. If that is a barometer, I want to say that the benefits and the services provided by the Railways compare very well with those of the private sector. I do not want to concern myself further with that matter.

I want to talk about the construction of railway lines in my constituency. The construction of railway lines and the development of Railways to and from Pietersburg took place relatively early in our history. The railway line from Pretoria to Pietersburg was completed in 1899. At the moment there are no historically verified documents in the files of the Railways to prove that this is indeed the case, but it is being presumed that the Hon. President Kruger inaugurated that railway line. Prior to this the ox wagon was the means of conveyance and there was also the very famous Zeederberg Coach Service which conveyed passengers. There is an anecdote attached to it that the Coach Service charged R18 as their tariff from Pietersburg to Pretoria. The Railways charges R5.97 to-day. Competition developed when another coach service was introduced and the result of the ensuing price war was that the fare was reduced to R2. I may tell you that the Zeederburg Coach Service won and that the other service went bankrupt. In 1908, after the Transvaal had been granted self-government, the Pietersburg constituency, which was known as the Zoutpansberg East constituency in those days, was represented by ex-Senator G. G. Munnik. Formerly he had been a magistrate in Pietersburg in the days of the old South African Republic. He wrote a book entitled “Eighty Years of South African History, Politics and War”, in which he said the following about Pietersburg and its surroundings: “I at once saw that what the district required was a crucifix of railways running north and south and east and west for the development of its immense resources, for example, gold, base metals, etc.” This man actively devoted and applied himself to the task of realizing this dream of his, namely the crucifix of railways. Owing to the representations he had made in the parliament of the Transvaal, the then Prime Minister of the Transvaal, General Botha, and the Minister of Finance, Mr. Hull, paid a visit to this terra incognita, as they called it, and they themselves said in their report that they had found an area with “fertile land and an abundance of water”. All this area needed was railways and they regarded that as a very good investment. The result was that on 3rd March. 1913, the railway line further north, from Pietersburg to Louis Trichardt via Soekmekaar, was completed. That was the northern part of the “crucifix”. The Selati line, which came from the east, was completed on 4th August, 1915. It joined the other line at Soekmekaar. That was the eastern arm of the “crucifix”. But the “crucifix” Senator Munnik dreamt of, has still not been completed. It is 54 years now since these railway lines were constructed and the last section was completed. It is in fact the case that at that time the construction of these lines was an act of faith and was not based on the hard, cold, arithmetic, statistical and scientific data we use to-day, but that they have ever been white elephants, is definitely not the case. They contributed much to the general comfort, mining and development of this wild and untamed area which is performing such wonderful feats to-day and which is contributing so much to the economy of South Africa.

Over the years Railway activities in this area have increased tremendously and there has been tremendous development. I want to make very earnest representations to the Minister, particularly in view of the latest developments in respect of the large Bantu township which is being built west of Pietersburg, that the construction of a railway line west of Pietersburg through this Bantu township to the town of Dendron should be investigated. The town of Dendron forms the centre of an area with a very high potato production and its hinterland is an area with a very high meat production. This line will form the western arm which will complete the “crucifix” of which Senator Munnik dreamt. Such a line will be the artery which will inject economic activity into the heart of the distant North-Western Transvaal and it will mean an infinitely great deal to the people there. The Northern Transvaal has always been an area in which economic stability has been maintained. I want to plead with the Minister that if his investigation were to show that the cold figures of his survey do perhaps not comply with all the modern requirements for the construction of a new railway line, he will nevertheless add so much faith to it, as people did in the past, that he will be able to make the scales swing in the favour of my people in Dendron and in the distant North-Western Transvaal.

I want to thank the Minister because I see in the schedule that the halt Eerstegoud is now becoming an attended station. This station handles pupils from two schools. They use it regularly. I want to ask whether there is a possibility of raising the platform at this station because, according to representations I have received, the principal of one of these schools said that at the moment the facilities at this station were unsafe for children.

Mr. Chairman, it was quite a treat to hear the hon. member who has just sat down make a speech without having to thank the Minister for too much, and in fact pleading for something.

Why, are you going to thank me?

No, the Minister knows that I never thank him unless I have reason to thank him. I hope that after I have spoken he will give me reason to thank him and not only give me reason, but give all the Railwaymen in the Transkei reason to thank him. I think he knows what I am going to talk about. I make no excuse and no apology for raising this matter again, as I have raised it yearly since the Transkei was granted self-government on its way to independence. I think there is general criticism of the actions of Britain and Belgium in granting independence to their African colonies before they were properly equipped and prepared to take over the essential services. Government members never tire of telling the country and the world that they are not making the same mistake and that they are keeping white officials in the Transkei until the Africans there are suitably trained to take over the services themselves. That is very understandable and commendable. We know that the Government officials are no longer so keen on going to the Transkei as they used to be before the change in Government. The railway officials are no different from Government civil servants, but they are being discriminated against. The Minister, speaking on the motion to go into Committee, said:

He admitted that the railway officials deserve our appreciation and that they have earned the recognition of the whole country. How does the Minister show his appreciation? How does he show his recognition? By allowing the officials in the Transkei to be discriminated against. Civil servants are necessary in the Transkei and the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, recognizing that fact and facing up to the fact that he must have a contented civil service there if they are to carry out their duties effectively, because they have a great responsibility cast upon them in this experiment which is now taking place in the Transkei, has paid his officials there special allowances in order to give them satisfaction and to encourage them to stay and take an interest in the special tasks which they have to carry out. How does he do it? He pays them a territorial allowance—not a niggardly allowance—and a housing allowance. I want to remind the House again, because there are new members here now. of what the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development does for his servants there.

He pays them an allowance ranging from R15 to R40 per month, according to their grade, and a rent allowance ranging from R33.50 to R45 per month, depending on the number of children they have, and those who occupy official houses get a reduction of 80 per cent in the rental. When I raised this question before with the Minister of Transport and pointed that a civil servant has an advantage over his other colleagues outside the Transkei in that he receives at least R48.50 per month more than his colleagues outside the Transkei—but that there are others on the top scale who get as much as R85 a month more—he replied that the railwaymen could not get the allowances because they were not seconded to another Government. Earlier in this debate the Minister said that he was kept informed of the grievances of railwaymen and that he knew what their grievances were. He therefore knows what the grievances of the railwaymen in the Transkei are and not only from his senior officials. Special representations have been made to the Management by the servants in the Transkei. When I pointed out to him during the last session that it was not the policy of the Government to pay these allowances to seconded civil servants only, the Minister said he would check up. When he found that that was in fact correct he said he would take the matter up at Cabinet level. I complained then and said that he was going to right an injustice by making that injustice of general application. Now I am informed that the Minister succeeded in his discussions with the Cabinet, because the members of the Auditor-General’s staff, who were not seconded to the Transkeian Government, have now had their allowances taken away. I see the Minister nods. This has been done because of the efforts of this Minister. I say it is a shocking thing that these people should have been penalized in that manner.

The Minister also referred to the lack of amenities in some places where railwaymen have to work. He was not referring to the Transkei only but to railwaymen in general. I have pointed out on many occasions that our railwaymen in the Transkei are worse off than railwaymen elsewhere. To begin with, other officials have more congenial work than he has. I think that the Minister will admit at once that the work of the majority of civil servants is more congenial than the work of railwaymen. The railwayman sees that civil servants are drawing special allowances and so he has a grievance about that. He has to work at isolated spots. There are stations out in the Native territory where there are no other White people around or near the railwayman. He knows that the traders are leaving as fast as they can—they are all offering their trading stations for sale. He sees the white people living in the villages also offering their homes for sale. They are trying to get the Government to buy them out so that they can leave. As these white people leave the Transkei so the amenities for the railwaymen living there will become less and less. There will be fewer opportunities for them as far as social activities are concerned. We will find that the tennis clubs, the golf clubs, the bowling clubs will disappear as the white people leave, because there will be nobody to keep these clubs functioning.

The Member of Parliament will also disappear.

No, the railwaymen will keep this member here because he is the only one who fights for them.

I want to make this appeal to the Minister again. I want to ask him to reconsider his attitude. When I referred to the fact that Railway officials in South West Africa draw an allowance, the Minister replied to me that they have a vested right. I am surprised that this Minister, who has shown in many ways that he is a practical Minister, should give that as an excuse. He says the railwaymen in the Transkei cannot get that allowance because the railwaymen in South West Africa have a vested right. Why do they have a vested right? Because they work in a territory that does not fall under the South African Government. But that territory is in the same category as the Transkei. If the Minister wants his officials to play their part in helping other Bantu areas which may be given self-government, he should tell them now that if they work under such circumstances they will be treated in the same way as civil servants. He should not allow them to live with this grudge, which is a natural grudge.

I want to go on to something else now. I will not have an opportunity to do so later as my time is limited. I want to ask the Minister about the employment of Bantu drivers in the road motor services. We know that a number of them were trained and put onto these services. I should like the Minister to tell the House how this scheme is working out. Are they proving satisfactory and is it intended to extend the service? I know that there have been reports about certain accidents to the buses. In one case a Bantu driver was taken off and a white man was put on in his stead. That is from Umtata to Coffee Bay. I do not know whether this has happened on any other routes. Nevertheless, I would be glad if the Minister took the opportunity and made a statement about the attitude of his department to the Bantu drivers in the bus service. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Transkei, who has just resumed his seat, put two direct questions to the hon. the Minister, and therefore he probably does not expect me to follow up on what he has said. As far as the hon. member for Durban (Point) is concerned, I think that that hon. member has once again intimated here by implication to-day that because a certain degree of strict discipline is being enforced on the Railways, the morale of our railwaymen is consequently at a low ebb. I want to tell the hon. member that I think that what he actually achieved—and that is probably what he was subtly trying to do by way of implication— was to impute in that way the basic integrity of the railwayman. I do not think it will benefit the hon. member, or anybody else, to debate Railway affairs in that way.

The hon. member for Orange Grove, and this is apparently becoming a habit of the Opposition, once again pleaded for further amenities for our railwaymen, something which is of course also their rightful due. On the other hand I want to say that this representation amounts to nothing when we consider the history of the United Party and bear in mind that they opposed—as the hon. the Deputy Minister said here—the tariff increases last year. However, that is not all. We all know the record of the United Party. We all remember the pittance the railwayman had to work for when that Party was in power. We all remember under what circumstances the railwaymen had to live and work. What railwayman will therefore take their plea in this House seriously?

I would like to make a positive argument here, in connection with Head No. 1, which deals with general costs, and particularly as far as Account No. 212 is concerned. I regard this Head as being of particular importance because mention is made here, amongst other things, of money which is being utilized to defray training and educational costs for Railway staff. Because I believe that training and education is directly linked with the efficiency and productivity of our Railway staff, for that reason—and for that reason in particular—I find this Head particularly interesting. What I also want to do here this afternoon is break a lance for that large group of people which has been serving the largest single undertaking in South Africa, i.e. the S.A.R. & H., so efficiently and productively over the years. I think that, apart from many other factors, we can ascribe this efficiency and productivity to one important factor in particular, namely the attempt of the Administration over the years to provide functional training for the Railway staff. This training would in fact have been a failure if the railwayman had not possessed the inherent will and desire to do an honest day’s work and also to continue equipping himself so as to increase his own ability and efficiency That is why I want to refer on behalf of my Railway voters very gratefully to the attempts made over the years by our Administration to create those fine opportunities for our Railway staff. In this regard one thinks particulary of the fine Railway College at Esselen Park.

I think that when the complete history of the S.A. Railways comes to be written one day a very important chapter in those annals will be devoted to this college. That is why I want, in the same spirit, to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the hon. the Minister and his staff for the establishment of a modern new Railway college at Port Elizabeth. The-establishment of this college results from the policy of the Railways to establish new training centres in the large areas such as Port Elizabeth, East London and other places. This college is of particular value to us when we consider what a major formative influence college training has on the lives of young staff members. It is also of value to us if we consider the attitude disclosed by our junior staff members when they sometimes have to leave their family homes for long periods of time to undergo training. That is why we are particularly grateful that in this area, where there is such a major concentration of young people, this fine training college has been established. We are also grateful that it has been decided that this college will for a long time, for the foreseeable future at any rate, come under the auspices of the college at Esselen Park. By doing so the hon. the Minister has ensured that the high standard for which the college at Esselen Park is known will also be maintained by this college. For the rest, six courses will be offered at this college—amongst others, a course in station accounts with regard to goods, and in station accounts m regard to passengers and packages.

In future checkers, conductors, shunters and stokers will be trained there. For the present 250 students will be accommodated in the college at one time. Those students will be drawn chiefly from Port Elizabeth and East London. Once East London has its own Railway training school, Port Elizabeth will be the centre from which the students will mostly be drawn. But we are particularly grateful for the fact that the standards at this college will be based on the standards at the well-known and world-renowned college at Esselen Park. That is why it is a great privilege for me to pay tribute on behalf of the junior staff members of my constituency to the hon. the Minister for the fact that he is now making it possible for these young people to be able to enjoy their training after leaving their parental homes. Seen against this background, I feel myself at liberty to ask the hon. the Minister to extend in the near future, the courses which are being offered there, in order to make further provision for the requirements of these students. There is no doubt in my mind that junior staff members of the S.A. Railways still have in their hearts a great desire to equip themselves so as to become more productive and efficient.

No doubt the speech of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) has been noted and will count no doubt towards the eventual grant to him of a “Dankie-sê-medalje”. I should like to revert to two matters I raised with the hon. the Minister yesterday. He rather lectured me then and suggested to me that I should read the Schumann Commission’s report and that I would then find the answers to my questions. I do appreciate the attention the hon. the Minister did give to the questions I raised yesterday. However, the hon. the Minister is hardly consistent when one compares his replies to me on this occasion with his replies given in this House less than a year ago. The hon. the Minister quotes the recommendations of the Schumann Commission as almost sacrosanct when he wishes to carry them out but if he does not want to apply them he remains silent.

The point which I raised with him in regard to suburban train fares was that the Schumann Commission did not recommend that the fares should be raised to the extent that they have been raised, but that they should be raised over a period of ten years. The Minister has ignored that and has elected to impose the entire burden on users of the suburban rail services in the Western Cape in one year. The Minister asked yesterday how he could possibly surrender revenue. Revised mileages, he said, were costing R6 million. But I should like to refer the hon. the Minister to the information he gave this House less than six months ago. If he looks at Col. 489 of Hansard, 1966, he would find that he then said this loss of revenue was attributable to eight heads and that the implementation of eight short-term recommendations of the Schumann Commission were to mean a loss of revenue on the one hand but would also bring in additional revenue, leaving a net loss of R2,900,000, and not R6 million as the Minister said yesterday. The Minister immediately proceeded to introduce increased passenger fares bringing in an additional revenue of R7,900,000. This step was not justified by the Schumann Commission.

Similarly, when I discussed yesterday the unfavourable position in which industry in the Western Cape found itself the Minister wanted to know whether I was seriously suggesting that the rate applicable to the conveyance of raw materials be substantially increased because if that were to be done, he asked whether I realized what the effect thereof would be on those industries which were situated close to their markets and were dependent on raw materials to be transported from a point a considerable distance away. At no time has it been suggested by the Chamber of Industries in the Cape that that should be done. The Chamber of Industries has asked the Minister only to implement the relevant recommendation of the Schumann Commission. The Schumann Commission recommended that the present port rates between Port Elizabeth, East London and the Transvaal competitive area be abolished. It has also asked him for an adjustment of the rates applicable to high-rated traffic and the rates applicable to low-rated traffic. What, in the Minister’s own words, did the Schumann Commission recommend—

But when this is suggested, the hon. the Minister tells me to go and read the Schumann Commission’s report.

But that was done.

It has not been done, Sir. That is what the Cape industrialists are asking him to do. So, when I repeat that request he tells me to go and find the answer in the report of the Schumann Commission. Now, however, he says he has done it already. I should like the hon. the Minister to indicate to me where in this Budget now before us, where in these figures before us, is he closing the gap?

This Budget has nothing to do with tariff increases or reductions.

Tariffs were discussed by the hon. the Minister in terms of what he required and how he could obtain the revenue he required. But let me leave the Schumann Commission’s report and ask the hon. the Minister whether he seriously considers, and asks us to accept, that it is more economical for the Railways, and that it is good business, to make available 2,500 trucks to carry raw materials from the Eastern Transvaal to the Reef at a revenue R150,000 less than if they were to send only 900 trucks. I fail to see how 2,500 trucks can be more economical.

It is good business. It stimulates …

Perhaps the hon. the Minister will be good enough to tell us how this will stimulate decentralization of industry; how this fits in with the policy of the Government for the establishment of border industries and the decentralization of industry. I fail to see any stimulation in this unless there is going to be some other preferential treatment for those who carry out the Government’s policy by establishing border industries.

I want to deal with one or two specific matters which appear in the Budget. In this Railway Budget no account is taken of the figure of rebates to the Central Government and to the provinces The Schumann Commission recommended that in determining the finances of the Railways, the rebates to the Central Government and the Provincial Administrations should be abolished. In other words, I take it the Commission had in mind that there should be a realistic picture presented to the country as to what the Railway revenue is and what the expenditure is. What is the figure involved? To what extent is the revenue deflated by these rebates? What is the deflation in that revenue which then has to be made up by other tariffs and charges? I think it would assist to appreciate to what extent a burden is passed on to the railway user for the benefit of the general public of the country by reason of these rebates not being taken into account.

Then I want to come, finally, to Head 17, Item “D”, the contribution to the provincial authorities of R304.000. This contribution is apparently, I gather, some compensation for the fact that the motor vehicles of the Railway Administration use provincial and national roads. The General Manager’s report indicates that the number of vehicles is just short of 10,000, and that the major portion of those utilized by the road transportation section vary from 3-tonners to 10-tonners. These vehicles are used in the main on provincial roads, which are generally gravel roads, and the wear and tear is extremely heavy. I wonder whether the Minister could indicate on what basis this payment is calculated, or is it just an arbitrary figure? Because the present cost to the Provincial Administration, subsidized to a certain extent by the National Transport Commission in so far as national roads are concerned, of a national road is approximately R100,000 per mile, and the cost of a provincial road is approximately R50,000 per mile. This subsidy represents the cost of construction of six miles of provincial roads. It seems that here again this figure is brought into this Budget, whereas in fact it should be provided by way of subsidy from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. To that fund the motorist is contributing at present by way of taxation an amount of R113 million, of which only R38 million is utilized through the National Transport Commission, and the balance remains in the general fund. [Time expired.]

We have learnt much in this debate. What I find interesting is that what I learnt does not so much have a bearing on Railway matters, the important thing I learnt for example was not to act in the way the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Orange Grove acted. I want to thank them for the important lesson they have taught me, namely that whatever one does in this House, as well as outside, one must emphasize, but never overemphasize. Put a case, and if the case is a good one, put it correctly, and it will bear fruit. But I think the main reason why these hon. members were unsuccessful, was because they thought that if they had hold of something they would be able to take it a little further, and then as a result of that overemphasis they caused the whole matter to come to grief.

I want to put a minor matter to the hon. the Minister, and that is why I hope I will not make that same error, and that I will perhaps succeed in that way in getting the Minister to lend an ear to what I have to say. I want to refer to the railway traffic from Bloemfontein to the south. I am referring to the traffic to Burgersdorp via Springfontein. As the position is at present we find that the traffic at Springfontein—I do not want to say that there is a bottleneck—is such that Springfontein has to deal with a tremendously increased amount of traffic. I am convinced that the Minister is aware of the position, but I just want to bring it to his attention that there is a railway line from Bloemfontein to Burgersdorp via Sannaspos, Wepener, Zastron and Aliwal North. Here we have a railway line which we are convinced really is not carrying the amount of traffic which it can carry. That is why we want to bring it to the attention of the Minister, raise a serious plea, and ask him whether the possibility does not exist of this matter being considered, i.e. whether that traffic which now has to go via Springfontein cannot be diverted so that use could be made of that existing line. The reasons for that are obvious. On the one hand, as I have already said, it will alleviate the heavy traffic on the Bloemfontein-Burgersdorp section. On the other hand, this increased traffic along the proposed section may perhaps succeed in infusing a little more life into that region. It is one of those unfortunate regions which are suffering tremendously to-day from the consequences of the depopulation of the rural areas. We do not want to object too much to that, if it is as a result of normal economic circumstances. We are fortunate enough to have had a socio-economic survey made of that region. We have diagnosed the disease symptoms of that region, and are now doing everything in our power in a variety of ways to try and improve that position, if possible. We hope the Minister will give this matter his attention, and who knows, perhaps the day is closer than we might expect when it will be possible to give attention to this request of ours, which is a very fair one; if that is not being done at the present moment then surely it will be done in the near future.

I want to refer to one or two items which affect Durban. I refer, firstly, to Item 119, the new staging yard for the main line and suburban coaches, amounting to R5 million odd. Very little has been expended this year so far. A new staging yard for main line and suburban coaches will, I presume, affect the establishment of the Durban station—the commencement of it. I know that there has been difficulty in the past in finding and agreeing upon a site for the Durban station. I understand that that has been settled at last and I shall be pleased to know what the present position is. Then I want to refer to page 35, Item 326, “Durban-Booth: Deviation of approximately half a mile to permit of construction of southern end of freeway and of service road”. We find that R30,500 will be made available for this purpose but that only R10,000 is to be expended this year. This is a very important item. It refers to the southern freeway out of Durban, for which there is the most urgent need. The traffic there is grinding to a halt. The overload on the existing roads and the accidents which have occurred on these roads are serious indeed, and those of us who use these roads realize that any delay in the completion of this southern freeway is to be regretted. The construction of the southern freeway is nearing completion and I should like to be reassured that it is going to be completed as soon as possible.

If the hon. member looks at the second column on page 35 he will see how much money has already been spent on it.

Yes, but I notice that a sum of R20,500 is to be spent next year. It is not a great deal but I am afraid that it may delay the completion of this freeway. Lastly, Sir, I would like to refer to the position of the pensioners and the comparatively new charge of 25 cents which is now being made for medical attendance. The ordinary railwayman can probably afford this charge but the pensioners are faced with a difficult problem in this regard. I have had numerous letters and complaints from pensioners asking whether something cannot be done to alleviate their position in so far as this payment for medical attention is concerned.

I just want to refer briefly to a remark made by the hon. member for Orange Grove, whom we know as a member who can create confusion. If that hon. member wants to talk about conditions on the Railways, then I want to refer him to the Kruithoring of 1947 and 1948, of which he was the editor. In the Kruithoring the hon. member expressed a damning judgment of the policy of the United Party Government and of the chaotic conditions which prevailed on the Railways at that time. Then I also want to refer briefly to the stormy member for the calm southernmost point of Durban, who referred in a derogatory way to the Railway worker, and who also had something to say about disciplinary measures. I want to tell the hon. member that I have also had dealings with Railway workers in his constituency. I have also had dealings with the disciplinary measures being applied to them, and I want to tell the hon. member that when those disciplinary measures were tested by myself and the Railwaymen in question, we always found that they were being fairly applied, and when we made an appeal and put forward our case in a tactful way, we always succeeded in getting a second chance for those people.

Do you then interfere in disciplinary inquiries?

I just want to tell that foolish hon. member that his conduct, and the conduct of the hon. member for Orange Grove in this House puts me in mind of the Israelites who wandered about in the desert for 40 years. While those Israelites were wandering in the desert, their numbers increased and ultimately, after 40 years, they entered the promised land of Canaan. Hon. members of the Opposition have been wandering about for 18 years now, and during those 18 years their numbers have decreased. They will die out before they reach the land of Canaan.

The hon. member also said that we only give the Railway workers an increase in wages every five years after they have found themselves in a position of poverty and distress. The hon. member knows that that is not the case. After all, there is such a thing as a labour market to-day. Any man who is worth his salt, can walk into any factory to-day and earn an attractive salary or wage. Does the hon. member want to tell me that the Railwayman is of such a low calibre that he cannot compete with the ordinary workman or the ordinary labourer in South Africa?

Who said anything like that?

Sir, the Railwayman who works overtime does so for the same reason as any factory worker, not because he always has to but because he is a hardy man and would like to earn extra money to buy a house or to be able to put something in the bank for the future. What is it for a big strong man like the hon. member for Durban (Point), or for me, to work eight hours per day? It cannot do one any harm, and what harm could it possibly do a Railwayman who is made of steel?

That hon. member spoke about the housing conditions of the Railwaymen. I invite him to come and have a look at the houses of the Railwaymen in my constituency. If the hon. member had pleaded for the interests of the Railwaymen, then he would also have received what I received, and he would also feel proud and the Railwaymen would owe him a debt of gratitude. Instead of pleading for the interests of the Railwayman, hon. members of the Opposition have come here and spoken derogatively about the Railwaymen.

Mr. Chairman, when I examine the Estimates of Expenditure, I notice that we are rapidly electrifying the Railways. Great progress has already been made in this connection. I notice that 4.492 miles have already been electrified, in other words, approximately 23 per cent of the Railways of South West Africa and the Republic. The electrification of the Railways will of course contribute to the smoother and more economic functioning of the Railways. We welcome this electrification of the Railways, but I want to ask the hon. the Minister not to forget Port Elizabeth, because Port Elizabeth is one of the largest and most important harbour cities in the Republic of South Africa. There is a tremendous traffic from Port Elizabeth to the north. The Midlands railway line as hon. members know, was regarded not so long ago. I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that Port Elizabeth is known as a large industrial city. New factories are continually being erected, and a tremendous expansion of the suburbs is taking place. That area will develop even further as a result of the construction of major irrigation schemes such as the Hendrik Verwoerd Scheme, which will supply those areas with water. Since Port Elizabeth will have a practically unlimited water supply at its disposal, and with a view to future development possibilities, I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give his attention to the electrification of the railway lines in the Eastern Cape, particularly the Midlands railway line. At this stage this might perhaps not be possible, but I want to express the hope that serious attention will be given to this request.

We also note from the Estimates that approximately 90 diesel locomotives are being made available for the Eastern Cape. We are very glad about that, because that will speed up the traffic to and from the north considerably. At the moment we are having to make exclusive use of steam locomotives for the transportation of products to and from Port Elizabeth, and I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not possible to have these steam locomotives replaced with diesel locomotives on the New Brighton-Port Elizabeth section? The railway line, as the hon. the Minister himself knows, runs parallel with the main street to the harbour in Port Elizabeth. Those old steam locomotives produce a tremendous amount of smoke and gas fumes which spread over the business centres. If it is possible. Port Elizabeth would appreciate it if that shunting work and the taking of passenger trains as well as goods trains into and out of the harbour could be done by means of diesel locomotives. For us it would mean a great contribution for the future. I just want to ask the Minister to give his attention, if possible, to the conditions prevailing at the New Brighton shunting building. There are a number of Whites working there, and that building is dilapidated. The ventilation is such that, if the windows on the one side are closed when the wind is blowing in a certain direction, there are no other windows to open. These people were promised quite some time ago that attention would be given to conditions there. I think that in view of the fact that new locomotives are going to be used there, and a new shed is going to be built for the diesel locomotives, the Minister will give attention to this matter.

I do not want to direct many requests to the hon. the Minister but I nevertheless think I would be neglecting my duty if I did not ask him for a new station building for Port Elizabeth. I think that that station is one of the oldest stations in the Republic of South Africa. The Minister knows that Port Elizabeth is an important place. The Minister himself is Chancellor of the University of Port Elizabeth. There is also a tremendous tourist traffic going through Port Elizabeth. How can we do otherwise, if there is that tourist traffic going through there, and the Minister of Railways ways is the Chancellor of the University; we must at least have a proper station building.

I know that my time has almost expired, but I want to present a plea on behalf of the Railwayman to the hon. the Minister, because I like doing it. I am now pleading for those 5,000 Railway policemen. I think that we can be justly proud, not only of the Police Force of South Africa, but particularly of the Railway Police. Now it is a strange thing that in the Railway Police there are to all intents and purposes only 12 high ranks. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the Minister reminded us that the Opposition has asked for new services and that the Government side are more responsible. I hope he will remember that in referring to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, who made a strong case for additional services. I want to support what has been said by the hon. member for Green Point in regard to the difference between low-rated and high-rated traffic. The Minister said that it is a good business principle to have the factories established in these industrial centres and the hon. member for Green Point gave an example during the Second Reading Debate of a case where an industry could be sited at Johannesburg and where a considerable amount of trucks were used unnecessarily due to the effect of low-rated traffic tariffs. At the moment there is under consideration the establishment of a paper factory in Nafal. It is interesting to have brought to our notice that it is going to pay for this factory to be established at Durban and the pulp factory to be established in the Natal Midlands because of the Railways rating policy. In most places in the world the Minister will find that the pulping process. namely the reduction of the logs to pulp and the subsequent processing of the pulp to paper, is all done at one spot. But because of the Railways policy we will have the unusual situation that pulp can be processed from the logs in the Natal Midlands and then the process is stopped and not only the pulp but a considerable weight of water is loaded into tank cars and transported from the Natal Midlands down to the coast. The trucks are unloaded, the whole of the Durban area is congested and then the pulp is put through the paper plant to be converted into paper.

[Inaudible.]

Yes. I am glad the hon. member asked that question because it shows just how little he knows about Railway tariff policy. If the company concerned establishes its paper mills in the same place as the pulp mill it would be to its economic disadvantage, because of the effect of high-rated and low-rated traffic. I suggest that the time has come when the Minister should examine the question of partly processed materials— not raw materials, but partly processed materials. In other parts of the world you will find that pulp and paper are processed in one spot. But here in South Africa, as a result of the Government’s Railway rating policy from a manufacturer’s point of view, the Minister is encouraging the separation of these two processes over long distances, as in this case, where the distance is some 100 or 150 miles. Hence I support what was said by the hon. member for Green Point to the effect that the position requires examination, that the gap between high-rated and low-rated traffic requires reviewing if the Minister is concerned about the decentralization of industry. This is an important matter, and one which requires further consideration. I suggest to the Minister that he should not just dismiss the hon. member for Green Point by referring him to the Schumann Commission’s report. Rather he should see to what extent additional trucks are being used and marshalling yards are being congested, as a result of the Minister’s policy, which encourages the breaking up of industrial processes only because that happens to fit in with the Minister’s policy. I suggest that the hon. the Minister finds a way of encouraging the pulp and paper factories to be near the forests, thereby cutting down on the use of transport. Thereby the Minister will contribute also to conserving his rolling stock. In the long run this will be a sound policy, will place industries on a sounder basis—as a matter of fact, it will not. only assist industries but the Railway organization itself.

Another matter I want to mention is the question of suburban transport. This is a hardy annual. However. I should like to learn from the hon. the Minister when he is going to give us figures which will show the difference in costs between suburban transport, long distance transport and goods transport—all using the same lines. From time to time the hon. the Minister tells us that suburban transport is not profitable, that it is losing the Administration revenue. On the other hand, the hon. the Minister knows that to a great extent Railway employees themselves are dependent upon suburban transport to go to and from their work. I should like to learn from the hon. the Minister whether item 583 in the Brown Book, providing for a new layout in the Pine-town yards, is going to assist in any way to accelerate suburban transport over what is known as the old main line. That line carries a large number of people but yet there has hardly been any increase of speed over that line. A large percentage of the passengers using transport over this line are Railway employees. The Minister has, in fact, established Railway housing schemes along the line and Railway employees are continually asking for a speeding UP of the service and for a more frequent service over that line. Last year the hon. the Minister indicated that he would investigate the question of introducing motorized coaches. For years I have been pleading for an electrification of this line and after I had pleaded for many years the Minister eventually agreed to electrify that line. However. we are still waiting for motorized coaches and we are still waiting for a substantial improvement in the speed of traffic over that line. May I ask the Minister whether it is his intention to continue with suburban traffic over that line or whether, when he receives a report from the Minister of Transport on the whole question of local transport, it is likely that that old main line will fall into disuse and suburban railway traffic consequently discouraged? I submit that Railway employees in the main use the suburban railway line, because they can travel at a cheaper fare. When we have regard to the fact that the hon. the Minister has established Railway houses along the routes of these suburban lines, we emphatically expect that the hon. the Minister should give consideration to the acceleration and improvement of these services, the introduction of motorized coaches and to the introduction of better station facilities. It is significant, Mr. Chairman, that so far in the Durban suburban areas the motorized coaches have gone to the non-European traffic. They have a faster service over these routes. The service up to Kwa Mashu is considerably faster over a mileage distance than the old main line. I expect that we will have a similar experience when the line to the Chatsworth area is completed. For those reasons I ask on behalf of the railway users along that old main line whether the hon. the Minister contemplates any improvement in the old main line and suburban service and also whether he will give some indication as to what is going to be done in the Pinetown area. Last year the hon. the Minister indicated that a substantial portion of land was going to be bought from a private organization. Subsequently, for good reasons t*e hanged his mind and that land was handed back to the private organization. The hon. the Minister decided to establish the goods yards in another area. So far it has only been a newspaper report and I think that the time has now arrived, as this matter appears in the Brown Book, for the Minister to give us full details. It is item 583 on page 53. I suggest that the hon. the Minister give us full details in regard to that matter in the interests of the suburban users in that area.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a specific plea here for the improvement of the train service in my constituency, and in doing so I cannot but associate myself with the plea which has just been made by the hon. member for Pinetown, that is to say, the final plea made by him. Before giving reasons I just want to explain briefly what expansion is taking place in that area at present. The whole of the Umhlatuzana area is now being opened up for development. Until quite recently, or even at this stage, there are still some 4,000 Indians living in the Queensburgh township alone. When group areas were proclaimed that town-ship was declared a White area, and those Indians will move to an Indian area within the next three or four years. Consequently the whole of the area at present occupied by Indians will be made available to Whites for development and housing purposes. Hillary already has a planned housing scheme of 1,400 housing units, which will also be developed within the next few years. With 1.400 housing units one can expect that at least 5.000 Whites will come to live in that area as new residents. They will have to make use mainly of the Railway passenger services, because they will be residing in the area along the railway line. It is also a fact that a new speed-way, which is now in the planning stage, will be built in that area. Land is already being expropriated between Pinetown and Durban. The speed-way will run via Queens-burgh and through Umhlatuzana, and it will contribute to the rapid development of that entire area, which until recently was virtually a Cinderella area. In view of the fact that there are 900 acres of industrial land in Queensburgh and vicinity, where no industries have been established as yet but where industrial planning is being done at present in respect of areas which are also situated along the railway line, I think it is essential that provision be made for the development which will take place in that area in the near future. As far as industries are concerned Durban is virtually fully developed. All the new industrial development is taking place in the direction of Umhlatuzana, Pinetown and New Germany. These areas obviously make use of the railway line running in that direction. Mr. Chairman. I am aware of the fact that the existing train services there are adequate for the present traffic, as regards both goods and passenger services. But that is the very reason why I have explained what expansion is going to take place in the immediate future. As long as there is only one railway line between Bell-air and Pinetown. and even further, there is virtually no possibility of getting a faster and a better service, in spite of the fact that this line has been electrified. Because it has already become impossible for the ordinary motorist to get a parking spot in a large city such as Durban. I want to argue that attention will necessarily have to be given to greater use of passenger services in the future. To my mind it is essential that the various authorities co-operate and that more use be made of railway passenger services. In order to make those facilities available I am pleading at this stage for an early start to be made with planning for the doubling of the railway line in those areas where the line has not yet been doubled, that is, from Bellair to at least Pinetown. This will meet all the needs of my constituency as well as those of Pinetown. where extremely rapid development is taking place.

Mr. Chairman, I am afraid that this is one occasion on which I find that I can agree with what the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, who has just resumed his seat, has said. He has supported the hon. member for Pinetown in his plea for better suburban facilities. I agree entirely with what he says, but I do not agree with the causes of what he has had to say. But, accepting that. we must agree with the point he made and I shall leave it at that. I particularly want to refer, to-day to Hammarsdale. I raised this question once before in the House with this hon. Minister, but I am afraid nothing has been done and I am afraid I must go back to it again. I find that according to item 10 on page 100, an amount of R6J75 has been spent on additions to the goods shed and the dead end at Hammarsdale station. This is a fight we have had with the Administration for a very long time. We have been trying to get something done at Hammarsdale. The goods shed covered 1,250 square feet and has been extended by approximately 1,000 square feet. Nearly a year ago, and before this expenditure was made, the Administration was told that the minimum requirement then, a year ago, at Hammarsdale was 4.000 square feet of goods sheds. In addition, the Administration was told that the minimum requirement for a loading platform was a length of 400 feet. That was the position a year ago without any further industrial development. What do we find is the position to-day? This loading platform is 100 feet 9 inches long, of which nearly 80 feet is taken up by the goods sheds, which leaves very little in the way of operative loading platform length for use by the industrialists in Hammarsdale. We find that until this expenditure of R6,000 was undertaken last year, nothing had been done to improve facilities at Hammarsdale station. We find that the facilities at this station are to-day exactly the same as they were before any industrial development took place. This is supposed to be the Government’s showcase, this is the Government’s show window. This is where border industries are going to work. But how can our industrialists work without the facilities? There are to-day 12 large industries in operation in that area. We have been told over and over again in this House of how many millions of rand have been invested in industry. But what about the services that go with that? A miserable R6.000 was spent since these millions of rand were spent on industries. What is the result to-day? The result is that these industrialists are dependent upon road transport for their raw material and also for their finished goods. This places an extra burden on the roads and the result is the breaking-up thereof. It is nearly a year ago that the Administration was advised that it was estimated that the incoming traffic at Hammarsdale station would be 7.200 tons per month, and that the outgoing traffic in 1966 would be nearly 4,000 tons per month. They were told then too that the estimated incoming traffic for 1967 would be 11,900 tons per month whilst the estimated outgoing traffic would be 5,300 tons per month. This is a fantastic increase. In addition a new factory is now in the process of construction, and it is estimated that at the end of this year when it comes into production it will have an incoming flow of 2,500 tons per month. How are we going to handle this traffic? What is being done? Ts the Administration planning for this development? Many things have been asked for. I want to ask the Minister whether he has not been advised of this development at Hammarsdale? Has there been no liaison between him and the Department of Commerce and Industries, the Department of Bantu Administration and the other departments that are concerned with developments at Hammarsdale? I do not think the Minister can say that he was not advised. In fact, I know that in 1963 the Administration sent an inspector to Hammarsdale to investigate this matter and he put in a certain report. I saw that report, and it suggested that additions should be made. But what answer did we receive? On the 15th January, 1964, we received a letter from the System Manager at Durban which reads as follows—

What is the real position? In November, 1964, Hammarsdale station handled 186 tons of goods. There were then only four factories in existence. In November, 1965, it handled 943 tons, with nine factories in existence. There was thus an increase of over 400 per cent. But the System Manager, on instructions from his head office or from the Minister, I presume, said there was going to be a decrease in traffic. Surely the Minister knew what the Minister of Economic Affairs was going to do at Hammarsdale, that he was going to extend this industrial development? What is the position now? As I have said, we have 12 factories there and it is estimated that during 1967 they will top 12,000 tons per month. I want to know what the Minister is going to do about this.

We heard earlier from the hon. member for Orange Grove about the accommodation for staff. Let me say now, before I go any further, that I want to pay tribute to the work that has been done by the staff, small as it might be, at Hammarsdale station. I want to go further and draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that there are, and have been for the last four years, two railway houses standing empty at Hammarsdale. Why they are standing empty I do not know. The Minister gave five reasons why railway houses stand empty, but not one of them can be applied to Hammarsdale. Twelve years ago the staff at Hammarsdale consisted of five Whites, and then there was no traffic, to-day, with all the traffic I have spoken about, the staff consists of three Whites, with one temporary clerk who comes in occasionally if he can get there, if there is a train running. As I say, two houses are standing empty there. These employees are being asked to work 12 and 14 hours a day, not five days a week but seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Year in and year out they are being asked to work these long hours. The Minister cannot tell us that there is a shortage of accommodation at Hammarsdale because two houses were standing empty for all this time. Now they are being occupied by persons who are not employed by the Railway Administration.

With regard to this station we require many things. There is no need for me to detail them because they have already been detailed. The Administration knows them. I sincerely hope that we will find a lot more than a mere R6.000 being spent, as has been the case over a period since this was first brought to the notice of the Administration in 1963, a period of four years. Only R6,000 has been spent. This shows an atrocious lack either of coordination amongst the various departments of the Government, or else a lack of planning and foresight on the part of this Minister. I will be very interested in his reply.

I want to deal further with Hammarsdale station. I want to refer again to the report of the commercial inspector in 1963 when he referred to facilities for passengers. I am sure that the Minister knows there has been a terrific increase in the passenger traffic handled at this station. Yet nothing has been done. The passengers are boarding and alighting under extreme difficulty. The platform is barely long enough to cover two carriages and I appeal for further extensions there. I also want to deal with the question of a level crossing within that station emplacement, where district road 245 crosses the railway line. I am sure that the hon. the Minister or the Administration know that there were three accidents there over the past 12 months. Fortunately none of them was fatal. I am sure that the Minister also knows that there were many near misses. I want to appeal to the Minister, particularly in view of the situation of this level crossing and the juxtaposition of the Bantu area and the industrial area, that he will do all in his power to eliminate this crossing as soon as possible, especially as the Bantu employees of these factories have to use this crossing. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Langlaagte asked that additional houses be built for the staff. I want to remind him that yesterday in my reply to the debate I gave figures to show what the Administration had done over the years to meet the housing needs of the staff. If he looks at the Brown Book he will see that an amount of more than R3 million is being provided for the coming year for departmental housing, as well as R3i million for the house ownership scheme. I agree with the hon. member that it is essential to provide houses to the workers, particularly with a view to maintaining a stable labour complement. That has been my policy all these years and it will continue to be my policy in future, in spite of the fact that the Administration suffers a considerable loss on departmental housing. Nevertheless, I still think that this policy will pay dividends, and I shall continue with that policy as the capital funds become available. I cannot do a very great deal, but I shall certainly do as much as I can with the limited capital funds at my disposal. We have a system for renovating those houses. They are renovated from time to time and we have a special organization for that purpose. Some houses become dirty and untidy sooner than others. But the hon. members knows that that cannot always be attributed to the way in which the houses have been built. I think it is sometimes due to the way in which the occupants of the houses act.

The hon. member for Orange Grove spoke about injuries allegedly having increased. I have his question here. The question he asked was about the injuries which occurred from 1948 to 1966. That is a very long period. I replied to him on Friday, 5th August, 1966, as follows: Killed, 1,751, that is to say, killed in accidents which occurred during railway operations, and injured, 3,048.

The hon. the Minister has the wrong question.

I have the other question here as well. These accidents, of course, include not only serious injuries, but also minor ones. The accident rate in the workshops is particularly low. There is a special committee under the Chief Medical Officer for the purpose of preventing industrial accidents, and excellent work is being done. As a matter of fact, I think the railway workshops is preeminently one of the organizations which has a very low accident rate. Where more accidents do occur, however, is in connection with ordinary railway working. Every attempt is being made to reduce and prevent these accidents. A special accident prevention organization has been established at Head Office, with specially trained officials who go around making propaganda and teaching and training people. But as is the case with road accidents, these accidents occur mainly as a result of human failing. In the same way as the Road Safety Organization is doing everything in its power to combat and prevent road accidents by educating people and by means of publicity, every effort is being made in the Railways to combat accidents, but unfortunately and to my sorrow the accidents often increase even more. Investigations have proved, however, that in 90 per cent of cases the accidents are due to human failing.

As far as the Portuguese workers are concerned, I can only say that the reply I gave the hon. member on 10th March was quite correct. On that occasion he asked me whether attempts had been made to recruit foreign labour for the Railways and he asked on what dates, from which countries, with what result and at what cost. I replied, quite correctly, that labour had been recruited in the United Kingdom and in Holland. But the Portuguese referred to by him were not recruited abroad. They were local Portuguese who had already entered the country. No mission had been sent overseas to recruit those Portuguese. They had entered the country through the Immigration Department, and they applied for employment on the Railways and were accepted. I do not know whether the hon. member objects to that?

No.

Then we are agreed as far as that is concerned.

The hon. member for Pietersburg asked for a railway line to be built from Pietersburg to Dendron. I just want to point out that building a railway line is a very expensive proposition. To construct a railway line on level and easy terrain costs at least R100,000 per mile and to justify the construction of a railway line there has to be sufficient traffic. I have stated repeatedly in this House that I am perfectly prepared to build new railway lines, lines for departmental reasons apart, if there is sufficient traffic just to cover the expenditure, but I am not prepared to build a railway line on which I know enormous operating losses will be incurred, except if it is guaranteed by the people who want that line. It will be very expensive to build that line from Pietersburg, and it is mainly agricultural products that will be conveyed over that line, which are transported at a very low rate. I am afraid, therefore, that however desirable it may be, it will be so uneconomic that I shall not be able to give attention to the matter. The hon. member also asked that the platforms be raised at Eerstegoud station. I am not making any promises, but I shall ask the Management to go into the matter to find out how many passengers use that station.

†The hon. member for Transkei again raised the matter of the Transkei allowance, and again emphasized the so-called discrimination against Railway employees in the Transkei, taking into consideration that State employees seconded to the Transkeian Government receive these allowances. I have replied to this time and again, and the hon. member will agree that repetition is odious and tedious.

The position is changing.

No, the position is that if I were to give an allowance to railwaymen in the Transkei, it would amount to discrimination against other railwaymen, because there are other railwaymen who suffer the same disabilities. Zululand is also a Native area, and also in other areas railwaymen in isolated stations far away from any amenities are to be found. Why should I give that allowance to employees in the Transkei and not to those in other places?

But the White people are all leaving there and they have no contacts there.

But I had railwaymen working in Botswana all these years and there were no White people there at some of these small stations. The gangers working on the line had no other White people to associate with. The hon. member referred to civil servants, but I am not concerned with civil servants. They are seconded to that Government and I have told the hon. member before that that is why they get the allowance. But the railwaymen are not seconded to the Transkei Government. In fact, in certain branches of the Railway Service the White employees are gradually being replaced by Natives. I am referring to the road motor services. The hon. member put a question to me in that regard. My reply is that 25 Bantu have been trained so far, and 18 of them have already been approved of as drivers, and 15 of them are working as motor drivers at present. It is quite correct that during the training period certain problems arose in regard to adaptability, etc., but my information is that on the whole these Bantu who have been trained are quite fit for the work. Now, I do not want to be misunderstood. I do not want to say for one moment that the engine-drivers on trains in the Transkei will be replaced by Bantu. I said where it is feasible and practicable, and where it will be acceptable especially to my staff organizations, it will be done, and then I still have to take into consideration that many of these services still cater for the Whites in the Transkei, and I have to take into consideration what their reaction will be if certain services are also handed over to the Bantu. But on the whole I am quite prepared to hand over all the road motor services to the Transkei Government if they have the trained people to run such an organization and if they are prepared to pay me for my buses and lorries.

Why were the Bantu drivers taken off the service?

I am informed that there are three cases where the drivers were responsible for ticket irregularities and they were taken off, but that happens with White people too. I had the same trouble with certain Native booking clerks in certain Native areas.

To the hon. member for Green Point I want to say again that I dealt fully with the Schumann Commission in my Budget speech last year. I stated what recommendations would be implemented immediately, which would be implemented over a long period, and which recommendations I rejected outright. Two of the recommendations I rejected outright were the recommendations in regard to the abolition of the port rate from East London to Port Elizabeth, because I knew that it would be considerable hardship to those two areas if those port rates were abolished. but there was no recommendation that port rates should be introduced from Cape Town to the North. Even if that were done. I do not think it would benefit Cape Town in regard to the establishment of new industries. There are so many other factors that will persuade an industrialist to establish his factory at another place. I have already told the hon. member that the Schumann Commission found that less than 5 per cent of the industries are influenced by the rates when they decide where to establish the particular industry. One of the recommendations is that there should be a narrowing of the gap between high-and low-rated traffic and I am accepting that recommendation but again that can only be done over a very long period so as not to cause unnecessary hardship. As I told the hon. member yesterday, what the traffic can bear is a basic principle that has been accepted not only by me but also by all my predecessors. The actual value of the raw material is very low, whereas the value of the manufactured article is very much higher, and if you take into consideration the one fundamental principle of rating, namely what the traffic can bear, then of necessity the rate on raw material must be lower than on the manufactured article. I realize that very often that results in the industrialists’ establishing their factories close to the market, as has been done in the past, instead of establishing it where the raw materials are. I cannot manipulate rates merely for the purpose of getting industrialists to establish industries at a certain place. As far as the border areas are concerned, if they receive any preference or any privilege the Central Government will have to pay for that; I am not going to manipulate rates to encourage them to go to a certain area.

The hon. member wants to know to what extent Railway revenue is deflated as a result of Government rebates. That matter was inquired into by a committee some years ago. I was also concerned about the fact that the Railways were called upon to give certain rebates to the Central Government rebates on passenger fares, rebates on the transport of military equipment and on quite a number of other things. After inquiry it was found that the benefits which the Railway Administration obtains from the Central Government just about balanced the rebates that the Railway ministration gives to the Central Government.

What is the figure?

I do not know what the figure is at the moment but what we receive and what we give just about balance. For instance, we do not pay any customs duties; we do not pay any excise duties. These duties involve a large amount. We are not really losing. The contribution to the Provincial Administrations is not for the use of the roads but it is in lieu of licence fees that we do not have to pay. It is calculated on the licence fees that we would have to pay in the ordinary course of events if we were a private undertaking. I want to say in this regard too that these road motor services render a great service to the provinces in opening up new areas and in providing transport for the farmers, usually at a loss. We do not make a very big contribution to the Provincial Administrations but they get the benefit of cheap and essential services, which are very often run at a loss.

*The hon. member for Smithfield suggested that, because of the bottleneck at Springfontein, goods from Bloemfontein should rather go by the longer route via Wepener and Rouxville. Not only will that result in increased rates having to be paid by the consigner because of the greater distance, but it is also a very poor railway line which will simply not be able to carry this increased traffic. In other words, the whole of the line will have to be rebuilt, which is a completely uneconomic proposition owing to the fact that the goods will have to be conveyed over a much greater distance. I just want to say to the hon. member that major improvements are being made to the line from Springfontein to Burgersdorp and from Burgersdorp onwards.

†The hon. member for Durban (Central) wanted some information in regard to item 326 in the Brown Book. He wanted to know whether there would be any delay in the work that is being done to deviate approximately half a mile. As I said by way of interjection, the hon. member will see that the greatest portion of the amount made available has already been spent and that only a small amount will have to be spent in the following year. I take it therefore that the work will be completed in the course of next year. There is usually an amount standing over for belated debits and very often the amount which appears in the last column is actually a saving, but it has to remain there until such time as a certificate of completion has been submitted to the accounting department.

In regard to the low payable by pensioners on prescriptions, I dealt with that fully yesterday in my reply to the hon. member for Yeoville.

In regard to item 119, i.e. the new staging yards at Durban, the commencement of the work has been dependent on certain negotiations for the acquisition of the necessary land. I am informed that these negotiations have been completed, and money is provided for the work to proceed.

*The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) asked for the Midlands line from Port Elizabeth to be electrified. It was originally my intention to electrify the line from Port Elizabeth to Noupoort De Aar. but that will take several years. That line is overloaded to such an extent that relief has to be provided immediately, and the best way of providing relief is by dieselization. The hon. member will see that provision has been made for the purchase of 90 diesel locomotives. I just want to point out that diesel locomotives are as efficient as electric units, but they are more economical and cheaper, because there is no need to provide the overhead equipment for them which has to be provided for electric units. As far as the use of diesel locomotives between New Brighton and the harbour is concerned, I do not know whether diesel locomotives will be used on that line. That is a matter that will be investigated by the Management once the diesels are in operation.

To those hon. members who asked for new buildings at Port Elizabeth station. New Brighton station and other places, I just want to say that I would have complied immediately with all these requests if I had an unlimited amount of capital. If I could get the money for carrying out those works to fall into my lap by merely waving a wand, and if I had the necessary staff. I would have complied with all these requests, but unfortunately my funds are very limited. The amount I get from the Treasury is considerably less than what I should get, because there are many other departments which also demand capital funds. I therefore have to carry out the most important works first, and although I have very close connections with Port Elizabeth, I must say that the Port Elizabeth station is not so important that I have to earmark some of this badly needed capital for a new station there, just as little as I can do that for Durban at this juncture. I am afraid Port Elizabeth will therefore have to wait some time for a new station building.

†The hon. member for Pinetown also spoke about the gap between high and low rates. I have already dealt with that in general, but the hon. member mentioned the specific case of the establishment of a paper mill. My information in that regard is as follows: The rate on paper, of course, is tariff No. 6. It is twice as much as that on pulp. Pulp is transported at tariff No. 10. It would therefore be cheaper to convey pulp. However, various other factors enter into the picture, for example, the loss of weight in processing, the disposal of effluent and the Railways’ existing traffic flow. In the case of chip board, which was mentioned by another hon. member, it was established that empty trucks were running in the direction in which timber was having to be conveyed. That is the position in regard to that particular instance which the hon. member mentioned in his speech. As I have said, you, cannot manipulate rates. Hon. members must remember that certain industries are established close to the markets and they depend on raw materials from a long distance away. If we manipulate rates so that an industry established at the source of the raw material is placed in the same position an in industry established close to the market, it means that we will have to increase the tariff on raw materials considerably.

Do you make no discrimination between raw materials and semi-processed materials?

We do make a discrimination. Semi-processed materials usually have a higher rate than raw materials. Those are the facts of the matter.

The hon. member wanted to know whether we keep separate figures for suburban transport. We make an estimate of the losses on suburban transport, but separate accounts are not kept. Passenger traffic as a whole is kept in one account. In regard to the old mainline, the hon. member wanted to know about the speeding up of suburban trains. Electric units are quite unsuitable for suburban trains. Directly the funds become available motor coaches will be ordered and placed into service on that line. As soon as that is done, there will be a big improvement in the service on the line between Pinetown and Durban.

The hon. member wanted to know about item 583, the new goods lay-out and the alterations to the yard at Pinetown. I cannot give him any more information than is to be found in the Brown Book. R153,000 is being provided for next year for preliminary work. The hon. member knows what causes delays. As a matter of fact, his municipality is responsible for that. Eventually I acceded to the request to shift the new goods lay-out to another site. That decision was made only recently.

*The hon. member for Umhlatuzana also spoke about the improvement of train services on the same line that was mentioned by that hon. member. My reply is that as soon as we have introduced the motor coaches—and that can be done only when the capital is available—the train service will improve considerably. He asked for the line to be doubled. I just want to inform him that the doubling of a railway line is the final step that is taken to increase the carrying capacity of such a line. It is not the first step. In other words, much can be done to increase the carrying capacity of a railway line before steps are taken for doubling a line, which is an expensive proposition. For example, central traffic control may be introduced first: that increases the carrying capacity. The trains are then able to move faster over that line, and it is considerably cheaper than the doubling of a line. When that line becomes overloaded—and it is not overloaded yet, it is still very far from being overloaded, and it will take a very long time before it becomes overloaded—other steps may be taken before the line actually has to be doubled. As I have said, the first step is the introduction of motor coaches, which will provide a much faster service to the commuters. That will be the first step before steps are ultimately taken for doubling that railway line. In addition, it depends on the number of passengers and the amount of goods for which those services will be used.

†In regard to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District). I realize that for him Hammarsdale is a very important place, but it is no more important than thousands of other places in South Africa. The hon. member says that I should know about everything that is happening in Hammarsdale. I am afraid I do not. I know quite a lot about what is happening on the Railways, but I do not know what is happening at every single place, such as at a small place like Hammarsdale. All that I can tell him is that what he has said has been noted. He said that there are inadequate facilities. That will be investigated by the Management. If there is justification and the necessary funds are available, provision will be made for improved facilities in the Brown Book.

Am I to assume from the hon. the Minister that he has no report of an investigation having been made by his Department at Hammarsdale?

No, I do not get the report of the investigations made at every small station throughout he country. There are so many thousands of them, and if I were to get a report on the position at every station, I would do nothing else but read reports all day.

The hon. member asked me whether anything could be done to eliminate the level crossing of which he spoke. There is a statutory committee that deals with these matters. I forgot that the hon. member was a new member. A certain sum of money is allocated every year. R500,000 is allocated by the Railway Administration, R500,000 by the Consolidated Revenue Fund and R500,000 by the National Road Fund. This statutory committee has a priority list, which is compiled after the necessary inquiries in regard to which level crossings must be eliminated. I do not know whether this level crossing is on their list, but I think the reports are tabled. If they are not, the information can be given to the hon. member if he approaches my private secretary.

Mr. Chairman, last year in reply to my question whether the narrow gauge line at Humansdorp could be widened, the Minister of Transport said that the narrow gauge line was something quite absurd and that he would like to widen it if he could, but that the capital expenditure would be too high. Apparently that means that my constituency will still have to make use of that absurdity for a long time to come. Ours is also a progressive constituency. We have a great deal of export fruit there and we also need good transportation. For that reason it is necessary that we give careful consideration to the future use of that narrow gauge. Road transportation has always been regarded as being supplementary to rail transportation. We also have to regard it as being such. The Railways and road transportation perform an important public service, as we have already heard in the course of this debate. It is also in the interests of the country that any government should have proper arrangements in regard to the various types of traffic in a country; road transportation, rail transportation, air transportation and sea transportation, should supplement one another and should not compete with one another. Particularly in regard to internal transportation, any government has to see to it that there is a proper arrangement and that there is no unnecessary competition. As we have heard in the course of this debate, there are certain important principles which any government should pursue and which are important as far as transportation is concerned. The position ought to be such that it is possible for a person to choose the kind of transportation of which he wants to make use. Furthermore, it is not always the cheapest transportation which will be the best for any person. The position also ought to be such that tariffs cover expenditure, but that too is not always possible.

The public service which has to be rendered is so important that it really is the most important aspect of transportation. In addition there are the various factors relating to the question of demand and the protection of established interests. There is also the important planning for the future which has to be borne in mind. For these reasons the Minister is giving proper attention to these matters. Bearing these basic principles in mind, we have to look to the future. We have to look at the developments which are taking place in other countries. We see that road transportation is eliminating and replacing rail transportation. We see, for example, that in the United States of America revenue from road transportation exceeds revenue from rail transportation. Virtually all cream and milk, virtually all meat, virtually all vegetables and fruit are being conveyed by road at present. This gives rise to the fact that we have various developments in the field of road transportation. I just want to mention a few of them. What I have in mind is cooling for road transportation purposes. Ice cooling is making way for mechanical cooling. It is important for us to bear that in mind. That in turn entails that a larger quantity of frozen food is being consumed because less trouble is experienced in getting that to the market. I referred to planning for the future.

If we look at location factors in the world we find that railways are no longer the most important location factor. A short while ago the Minister quoted certain things in that regard. We find that the most important location factor in the U.S.A. is no longer the railways, but road links. The second most important factor is labour. The third most important factor is the factory site. The fourth most important factor is the proximity to markets. Rail links are only the fifth most important factor. The sixth is raw materials. On that account it is important that we look at our road transportation. Thirty years ago a service mileage of 60,000 miles on a lorry was a good mileage. At present we find that good lorries may give up to 300,000 miles of service before it has to be replaced or overhauled. Tankers which are loaded and unloaded by means of air-pressure are being used for the conveyance of cement, forage, etc. Radio control is being introduced for the proper utilization of road transportation. Shifts are being worked in order to operate large lorries which are kept in service for 24 hours a day. These are all things to which we will have to look in the future. There are many other points which we have to keep in mind. In our country trains use a basic raw material, namely coal. Perhaps we may make much more use of electricity in the future, but our road transportation must have diesel and petrol. Therefore it is important that we take cognizance of these factors. We also have to keep in mind our roads and the fact that they are becoming more and more over-crowded as well as whether it will be possible for our roads to carry all the traffic.

I started off by saying that my constituency will have to be satisfied with road transportation. It is not impossible that road transportation may perhaps render much better service than rail transportation. For that reason I mentioned these factors here; factors which are important in other parts of the world. Therefore I want to ask that since my constituency will have to be satisfied with road transportation, it should be borne in mind that with that form of transportation we will not be enjoying all the advantages which we would have enjoyed had we had a wide gauge line. With the narrow gauge line one cannot have bulk transportation of products. One cannot have refrigerated trucks. Therefore I just want to address this request to the Minister; since we in that region will still have to be satisfied with road transportation for a long time to come, he will have to take the fact into consideration in the determination of tariffs and in the provision of these road services that we at Humansdorp still have a narrow gauge line, something which he himself called an absurdity in his reply to me.

Mr. Chairman, on this occasion last year it was my privilege to follow the hon. member for Humansdorp. He and I have got something very much in common, namely the narrow gauge railway. I must say that I associate myself fully with everything he says about all the disadvantages associated with a narrow gauge line. We suffer from it to a very great extent throughout the whole of my constituency. The hon. member has our sympathy and I am sure that I will back him up and I am sure that he will back me up in any representations that we make to the hon. the Minister.

I want to raise a matter with the hon. the Minister under item 131, namely the line from Pietermaritzburg to Kranskop. This line was the subject of negotiations for quite a while between the South African Timber Growers’ Association and the Administration because of the inability of the line to absorb the timber which was being offered for sale between Greytown and Pietermaritzburg, in fact the whole of the Umvoti district. I think I am correct in saying that at one stage there was a year’s supply of timber lying either at sidings or unworked in the plantations because this line was unable to absorb the timber offered. I see that in terms of this item there is a question of R41 million to be spent on extensions to the line and an amount of R500,000 on strengthening the line for which I want to say we are very grateful. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether a matter has been brought to his attention which I think can be of very great significance to this particular line. I should like to ask whether it has been brought to his attention that the Natal Tanning Extract Company have announced their intention to close their factory in Pietermaritzburg for processing wattle bark at the end of this coming season which will be at the end of May, 1968, and to re-locate part of their factory at Hermannsburg which is on that line from Pietermaritzburg. The effect is going to be that a considerable amount of wattle bark which to-day is delivered to Pietermaritzburg by road by lorry from farmers within 25 to 30 miles of Pietermaritzburg is now of necessity going to be sent by rail transport to get to the site of the new factory. I would hesitate to say that my estimate is accurate in regard to the amount of traffic that may be offered but it may be in the vicinity of 30,000 tons of wattle bark in a short season which will have to be carried by that line.

30,000 tons per day?

No, over the wattle bark season which spreads over a period of some four months.

That is chicken feed.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister says that that is chicken feed. I am very pleased to have that reassurance that when that R4½ million programme is complete they will be able to handle this without any trouble at all because I must point out, as the hon. the Minister knows, that this will coincide for some two or three months with the sugar cutting season in that area which has undergone a tremendous expansion with the new R15 million mill being built for the processing of sugar.

In spite of the price of sugar they are still going to expand.

The then Minister of Economic Affairs encouraged the farmers in those areas to enter the sugar industry and issued extra quotas. The whole question to-day is that it has almost doubled in Natal and a large part of that expansion is centred on Jagbaan. The point I want to make is that these areas of sugar are now just coming into production. The mill had its first run in the last season and they are now entering a full production season. At the end of this coming wattle stripping season it is going to clash with that whole amount of wattle bark which has now got to be re-directed from Pietermaritzburg on the Administration’s goods wagons through Pietermaritzburg to Hermannsburg. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister was notified of this or consulted about it when the decision was taken. I would welcome an assurance from him that the Administration can cope with this matter without any difficulty at all. I say that the amount may be quite considerably more than my rough estimate of bark which is going to be offered for sale and transported by the Administration. It is not only the people who deliver by lorry from Pietermaritzburg but from the whole of the southern Midlands area, namely from Ixopo, Donnybrook and Eston, who to-day come into Pietermaritzburg and all of that bark will have to be carried on this line. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister whether in fact this has been brought to his attention and whether he is prepared for it. He has said that it is chicken feed and we would be very pleased to know that that is in fact the position and that we can look forward with confidence to railing all our bark to this new factory at Hermannsburg.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Evening Sitting

On this Vote I wish to discuss with the Minister his policy regarding harbours, and although my remarks might well apply to all the harbours in South Africa, I wish to direct them basically to the harbour in Table Bay. I want to take up the various aspects of his policy in so far as they are related to the better working of the harbours, the improvement of the system and the speeding up of the turn-around of ships within the harbour.

The first aspect I wish to take up is the question of labour. I take it up first because on a previous occasion the hon. the Minister tended to disclaim responsibility for providing the bulk of the labour for the efficient working of ships and the speedy turn-around of those ships. So I think it is best at first that we should get quite clearly in our minds the picture of who is responsible for which portion of the labour needed for the working of the harbours.

First of all, the hon. the Minister is responsible—and I think he will agree—for the labour for the working of the sheds in the docks and for the quay gangs who work the cargo on the quays, but he is not responsible for the labour which works on the ships. That is the responsibility of the stevedores. I think if we can start from that point of general acceptance, we may possibly get somewhere in relation to the policy in regard to labour in the harbours. The Minister, generally speaking, employs two distinct types of labour in the harbours. He employs his permanent labour and this, as a matter of general policy, he employs for the handling of the cargo within the sheds. Then he also employs casual labour which, to the best of my knowledge and belief, is employed largely as the quay labour, which embraces the actual loading and unloading of the goods transported by the ships. At the moment in Cape Town Harbour I believe that the shortfall in his labour gangs totals something in the region of 200 per day. Where does this shortage occur? I think it occurs in two places. First of all, I believe that the Minister’s basic permanent labour establishment necessary for the working of this port falls short. I cannot divide these 200 a day between these two types of labour, but my estimate is, from the information I have that there is a shortage of 200 a day. What portion is short between the permanent labour force and the casual labour force I do not know, but together I think they add up to something in the region of 200 a day. As far as the stevedores are concerned, I think that the stevedores, although they have to get labour from outside places—and I take it that they get most of it from the Transkei, as the Minister does—seem to manage reasonably well. In fact, I believe there are cases where they have actually helped, unofficially, where the shortfall has been too great, to get a ship away from its berth and on its way again. I want to record these figures particularly because they are having an effect not only upon the efficiency of the working of the harbour, but upon our industries in South Africa, because if a ship is held up at Cape Town Docks there is plenty of cargo offering at other ports. So what is the tendency of the shipping company? It is obviously to allocate less space to Cape Town Harbour. This is the natural thing: it must happen. Why should the ships be held up in Cape Town when they can be worked quicker in Durban and possibly in Port Elizabeth and East London? So, whereas before they used to set aside X cubic feet in the holds of those ships to load cargoes at Cape Town Docks, they are now setting aside perhaps X2, and I cannot blame them, because if their ships are going to be held up they have no option but to do that or else to increase their tariffs, because ships cost money whilst being held up in a harbour; and the hon. the Minister must accept responsibility for that and he must do something about it. I want him to review his policy, and to tell us what he is going to do about it, because this is responsible for the most serious of all the hold-ups in our ports generally. He has solved the problem elsewhere, but in Cape Town for some reason he seems unable to do so. Sir. may I at this stage please ask for the privilege of the second half-hour?

I will put it to the Committee. Is there any objection? No, I am afraid there is objection.

I thought it was arranged, but I abide by your ruling. I want to get this position quite clear. I am not raising this purely and simply to argue about the Minister’s labour policy and to try to ridicule it: I am raising it because of the disastrous effect it is having upon our industries. I know of one industry, for example, which is being hard hit. The canned fruit industry exports large quantities of canned fruit from this harbour, and at the moment they find themselves in this peculiar position where, because of the delays in this port …

On a point of order, Sir, the Whips did come to an arrangement, but I was unaware of that arrangement.

Order! The rules make no provision for arrangements amongst the Whips. [Interjections.]

The point is that already the space allocated to our canning industry— and that is just one; many others have been affected—in ships has definitely been cut because the shipping companies cannot afford at the present tariffs which apply to this particular type of goods to have their ships held up and their turn-around delayed in the harbours because of lack of labour. I want to know from the Minister what he is going to do about it, because it is not sufficient for the Minister to make up just this shortfall. I have already explained to the Minister that his problem is not just to make these gangs up from the average six which appears to be the rule at the moment, to the eight or twelve necessary: he also has to provide extra labour. The Minister has to make up not only that shortfall, but also the extra number which will enable him to work this port properly at night. [Time expired.]

The previous speaker suffered quite a number of setbacks. Even the Government Chief Whip could not save him. I feel that he has already been given a knockout punch in the previous round and consequently he will forgive me if I do not react any further to what he said, because I feel that to kick him while he is down will not be a nice thing to do.

I want to confine myself to a local matter which I suppose will not cost a great deal of money but if some money were to be appropriated for that matter, we would be very grateful. It is the lighthouse at Agulhas. I call it a local matter, because it happens to be situated within my constituency, but it is. in point of fact, not merely a local matter because it belongs to the S A. Railways, and in the third place I feel that it is a matter of general interest because what we are concerned with here is a building, a lighthouse, which is 120 years old and consequently is an antique structure. This lighthouse is still in service and every night it serves as a warning to shins sailing round our coast. This place is also of particular interest for another reason, because geographically it is not only situated at the southernmost point of South Africa but at the southernmost point of the entire continent. In addition it is also interesting to know that the two large oceans which meet at the southernmost point of Africa actually meet, as is internationally recognized, at the twentieth degree east, exactly opposite this lighthouse. In addition I feel that this matter is of international importance because throughout the ages there has been a heavy traffic of vessels round that point and also because it is such an exceptionally difficult coastline. For that reason this lighthouse is a special navigational aid for that shipping. We know that this point is particularly dangerous. The name Agulhas means needles and the place is so called because of the rocky outcrops protruding into the sea. According to a survey which was made in 1956, no less than 63 ships, the wrecks of which can still be traced, were wrecked on this dangerous coastline in the past. This figure represents no less than 34 per cent of the total number of wrecks which can still be traced along the entire, long coastline of South Africa. Cape Agulhas is also important to us for another reason. If it were in the hands of the Americans, who really know how to commercialize things, I am convinced that they would have availed themselves of the opportunity to turn it into a real tourists’ paradise. Even to-day the potential is there; the possibilities are there and I should like to invite hon. members to pay a small visit to Cape Agulhas to come and view for themselves the beautiful old structure standing at the southernmost point of Africa.

Mr. Chairman, were this the only thing I wanted to discuss, I most certainly would not have risen to make a speech. It came to our attention in 1963 that this beautiful old lighthouse would possibly be demolished. You can imagine that that was not particularly good news to us. We ascertained that the lighthouse had become so damp as a result of the properties of the material used for its construction, namely the typical limestone which is found in that area, that it could not be used much longer, the Railways consequently decided to demolish it and to replace it by a more modern structure. However, it was a shock for us to learn about that because this beacon had in the meantime acquired a very special significance for us because it was used as an emblem not only on the coat of arms of the Divisional Council but also on that of the Municipality and on the badges of schools and virtually all local sports clubs.

Since this lighthouse at the southernmost point of Africa has a symbolic meaning to us and has much more significance to us than being a beacon which serves to guide ships round the southernmost point of Africa, you will understand that we have developed a special feeling for this place. Consequently fairly passionate representations for saving this structure were received, and to-night I am very grateful that I am able to say that the hon. the Minister promised us after negotiations had been conducted, that this structure would be preserved. I should like to say here that we are grateful for that and not only the people in that vicinity who share in this feeling for that old structure. I am convinced that people in this country who appreciate the preservation of antiquities and old buildings in particular, will share in our gratitude, and I am convinced that hon. members in this House will also be grateful that the Minister deemed it fit to preserve this structure.

Mr. Chairman, may I claim the privilege of the second half hour? Before I start I would like to inform the hon. the Minister that the facts which I will present to him and have already presented to him were not obtained from the shipping reporter of the Cape Times, Mr. George Young. Sir, I was dealing with the question of dock labour. I want to make one final point in this connection and that is that I believe the Minister’s policy must be such that the labour which he employs within the dock area in Cape Town is housed within that area, or at least that portion of the labour which I suggest he should employ for the night working of the harbour should be readily available within the area of the port. It is no good having that labour removed by perhaps 15 to 20 miles from the actual port itself because such labour has proved to be most unsatisfactory. It cannot be controlled and it cannot be reasonably transported to and from the port. This, to my way of thinking, is one of the most important policy decisions that the hon. the Minister has to make in regard to the working of Table Bay Harbour. I believe that perhaps above all else it is going to make for the better working of the harbour and for a quicker turn-around of the ships using it. I believe it is going to allow a greater through-put through this particular harbour and it is going to solve a lot of the Minister’s other problems. Sir, I believe that the hon. the Minister has another policy decision to make and that is how he is going to stretch the facilities of this harbour to enable them to cope with the expansion which is taking place. I have already said to him that I believe he has something like five years in which to make a decision.

Not five years to make a decision.

No, I think the hon. the Minister has five years within which to do the job; that is what I meant. I will make that quite clear as I go along. You see, Sir, the policy of the hon. the Minister appears to be to break down all suggestions which are submitted but to put forward nothing in their place. Sir, we have had the suggestion of Saldanha Bay. The Minister has shot that down, but he has put nothing in its place. I have suggested to him that he should investigate the question of the Strandfontein side of False Bay. He has the depth of water and I believe that he has quite a remarkable set-up there which could be put to good effect, but what has the hon. Minister said? He said that he had investigated that for a fishing boat harbour and that it was quite unsuitable. But,

Sir, we were not talking about a fishing boat harbour, and I am not talking now about the policy regarding fishing boat harbours; I am talking about a harbour to make up for the shortfall of Table Bay Harbour. [Interjection.] You see, Sir, the hon. the Minister is trying to shrug this whole thing off again; he will not discuss it. I want us to crystallize our thinking and to get somewhere. The Minister cannot just shlug it off a second time. I want to get down to some facts with this hon. Minister. Why does he just shrug off Saldanha? He shrugs off Strandfontein.

Because we are creating the harbour here and I told you that last year.

The hon. the Minister did not tell me this yesterday. I know that the investigations in connection with Woodstock beach or Paarden Eiland, call it what you will, are proceeding. I believe that the investigation there is at least two years off the drawing board stage. Will the hon. the Minister tell me whether he has the same rock-bottom problems that he has here in Table Bay harbour, or has he not?

Put your questions; I will tell you everything when I reply.

Yes, I am going to put specific questions and I want an answer to each question. I am not going to let it slide and allow the Minister to answer only those questions that he wants to answer. Has he got the same rock-bottom problem that he has had here in Table Bay? Has he got the same rocky bottom that made him veto the Rietvlei scheme? Are we going to have to put up with blasting which, in deepening a narrow channel for the tanker basin here in Cape Town harbour, just about wrecked every building in Cape Town? Sir, this building itself in which I am talking now shows signs of the strain of that blasting. How can he blast on a rocky bottom here to make a harbour which is capable of handling the traffic which is offering now, let alone the traffic which will be offering in the next five or ten years? These are questions which I believe the hon. the Minister has to answer. Then, Sir, we know that he has one very great problem with the development of the harbour at Woodstock, and that is the problem of range. The hon. the Minister is doing investigations now because the question of range worries him. The question of range in Table Bay harbour has made him spend many hundreds of thousands and probably millions of rand in an effort to solve the problem, and has he solved it yet? The hon. the Minister does not know; I do not think he is quite sure and neither is anybody else. If he has that range problem here in Table Bay harbour does he think that he will not have it at Woodstock? I believe that he has to look further than this because I think that the type of harbour that the hon. the Minister is looking for is something bigger than a small extension of the facilities at the Woodstock end of the present harbour. I think the hon. the Minister has to go further in his thinking, and I think he has to think very much bigger than he is doing in considering comparatively minor extensions at the Woodstock end of the present harbour. I want to know from him if he has been able to solve these problems. I have presented problems to him tonight; I am not a technical man but these are problems which stick out and which I can foresee. Surely the hon. the Minister’s experts have seen other problems in addition to those which I have seen in the development of the harbour at that particular end. Sir, one of the things that I cannot understand in the discussion of harbours is the veil of secrecy which is always thrown around it. Why cannot we discuss the development of our harbours openly? After all, it is not a secret that has to be withheld from the rest of the world; surely we can get down and discuss this and try together to arrive at a solution which is in the best interests of South Africa. It strikes me that the position in this harbour at the moment is chaotic. I believe in five years’ time it is going to be utterly impossible. The hon. the Minister was quite correct when he corrected me in my wording when I first started; I believe that he has a maximum of five years in which to get something completed so that the Table Bay harbour problem or the shipping problems of the Western Cape in particular can be solved. What has the hon. the Minister done in his Budget to deal with this problem? He is adding nine cranes to the harbour; he is building a shed and a berth at the Elbow, which I believe will be absorbed by the increased coastal trade, and he is putting a repair jetty off M-berth. Can the hon. the Minister sincerely and honestly tell me that this is a step which will help to solve the problems with which he is faced in the Table Bay harbour? I believe that he has to do something this year; he cannot even afford to wait for his next Budget to make the necessary provision in order to enable him to start solving the problem.

Now I want to deal with a couple of other items in relation to the solving of the problem which the Minister has on his hands. He suffers, as I have already pointed out, from a lack of shed accommodation and whilst he might not be prepared to accept my suggestions, one of which was that a shed should be erected immediately at berth J, I would sincerely say to him that I believe that whether he wants to or not he must immediately investigate sites for the erection of more sheds so that ships’ cargoes can be worked much more efficiently, so that when a ship comes alongside it does not occupy a berth for a longer time than is absolutely necessary. This is one of the “musts” that the hon. the Minister has to attend to and he has to attend to it as quickly as he possibly can.

Then I want to ask him what his policy is going to be in the future—he has given me part of this answer on a previous occasion— in regard to the use of dry-docks. The question of dry-docks in the harbours has cropped up from year to year. It is a hardy annual because generally speaking dry-docks do not pay. The hon. the Minister has always turned his heart against improving them because he wants them to be economic, but here we have a case in Table Bay harbour where we know of three ships which have been refused. There was one ship carrying fruit that had to employ skin-divers to clean it off so that it could get at least a reasonable speed and save fuel on its return journey. We know of a ship called the Universe Defiance and we know of a Dutch ship which have requested permission for the use of the dry-dock here but which have been refused permission for the simple reason that the dry-dock is being used as a wet dock for a ship which is undergoing some conversion. This is a big point. I have mentioned this and I have discussed it with the hon. the Minister before but as yet he has not dealt properly with this issue. He knows as well as I do that dry docks are provided for a specific purpose—to dry dock ships. Now, however, he is going to destroy the entire principle of the construction of dry docks and convert them into wet docks for repair berths. Thereby the Minister’s policy in regard to harbours has gone completely haywire, more so than I originally thought. Not by any stretch of imagination can I imagine how this can possibly be done. Surely to goodness. Sir, if repairs are so urgent couldn’t this ship which is undergoing this three months’ repair and alterations be diverted to another port where harbour facilities are not so pressed? Surely, Sir, this work could have been done by a sister engineering company in Durban, and Durban is not a long steaming distance away. The ship could have more than made that during the time it had to lie in the roadstead waiting for accommodation. Surely the hon. the Minister and his officials know about the congestion in this harbour. Surely they know that they cannot accommodate a job like this and at a time like this? Could they therefore not have made alternative arrangements and have sent this ship to another South African port where the work could have been done without upsetting the normal working of the port and upset the normal use of facilities in that port? That it was not done is, I believe, due to lack of foresight. This and the many other examples I have given the hon. the Minister constitute the basis for my asking the Minister to separate the administration of our harbours from that of our railways. Never at any stage did I suggest that his policy should be such as to deprive himself of the blood transfusion which the harbours give his railways during the course of each year, to the tune of R10 million. I have never ever suggested that; nor will I ever suggest it, because I realize that his railways cannot survive on their own. The Minister has made that quite clear to us. But at least I. can repeat my request that he should review his policy regarding the administration of our harbours. As a matter of fact, I cannot see how the Minister can refuse, when he duly considers all the facts, the requests that have been made to him time and time again, a request which is still gathering momentum. But he just turns this down without any consideration of the facts, he just turns this request down on financial grounds, purely on financial grounds. If you take way the financial argument the Minister has put up from time to time, what argument is left? I do not believe he will then have any argument whatsoever. My claim is that administratively the harbours of South Africa are the Cinderella of the S.A. Railway. I believe this is a fair claim to make, one which has been justified time and time again—as a matter of fact, more than justified by the examples quoted to the hon. the Minister in this House during the course of the last week. So I want to repeat here that the hon. the Minister should seriously consider reviewing his present policy in regard to the control of harbours.

The Minister was good enough to furnish me with an extract from a White Paper issued by the Port of London authority and certain other ports. I appreciate this very much. But to my mind this White Paper shows that even there, there is no tendency to do away with the control of port authorities, people who understand ports, who design their use and their future planning. There is, however, a tendency to co-ordinate the working of a port:

there is a tendency to do away with the private owner and user of a port where he is unable to keep up with the development necessary in such port. However, to offset that there is the tendency to subsidize other private users having their own wharfs and who work their own cargoes—a subsidization which enables them to keep up with the development which is necessary for keeping such port up to date and modern, thereby ensuring that ships can operate economically and that the rates charged for cargoes are within reach of the people using the goods these ships carry.

Before going on to another subject, I should like to discuss, briefly, the question of harbour-craft. I want to do this because in the Minister’s Budget this year provision has been made for two new tugs for our harbours—one is to cost R1 million, the other R997.700. Sir, I raised the question of tugs in this House a few years ago. The design of our tugs has not altered basically since the year dot. We are still using the same type of tug we inherited at the time of Union. They might have got bigger, but basically their design has not changed. One wonders whether the time has not arrived when the Minister should get some expert advice on the types of tugs we are using to-day. The hon. the Minister smiles because he seems to think that we have the greatest tugs in the world. But let me tell him what one of his own people, a person who administers and knows tugs says of them. He said: “They are more like waterlogged submarines than they are like tugs.” I agree with him. When I spoke to the hon. the Minister about the design of his tugs on a previous occasion, he said he had to keep these powerful tugs around our coasts in order to help vessels in distress. Well, that thinking is good and I hope the hon. the Minister continues acting in that way. However, the question is whether these are the right type of vessels to help ships in distress around our coasts. They are not suitable for deep sea work; they are not suitable for rough sea work. So, although the hon. the Minister seems to think that he is sitting with some of the most powerful tugs in the world, let him just think this one over. The net displacement of these tugs is something in the region of from 900 tons to 1,000 tons. But when it is ready to go to sea it is nearer 1,750 tons. When you consider that difference in its displacement then you realize that they are not so highly powered as the hon. the Minister seems to think. In addition, their draught is roughly about 17 feet. Does that make them the best possible tugs in the world to use for harbour work? I do not think so. The modern tendency is to go for a different type of tug altogether, a tug which, if anything, is tending to get smaller. However, if you want a seagoing vessel that can help vessels in distress I suggest that we build a totally different type of tug, something with a flare, something that is seaworthy, something that does not go through the waves but rides them. This is a thought I should like to leave with the hon. the Minister because I believe that the time has come when the entire design of our tugs and our harbour craft has got to be reviewed.

I can go on and deal with the smaller craft because I believe not all of them are suitable for the purpose for which they are being used. However, I do not want to take up the time of this House any further in so far as the Minister’s policy in regard to harbour craft is concerned. These are, however, two items to which I think he should devote his attention and which, in fact, needs and warrants his serious consideration.

I now want to touch on another subject if only to make sure that the Minister keeps it in mind and that we do not fall behind as far as this is concerned. I refer to the question of containerization. Although I have nothing to base it on, I have heard rumoured that provision might well be made in the new second jetty or pier in Durban for some facilities for the handling of containerized goods. I should like to remind the hon. the Minister that containerization—I also mentioned this in a previous speech—is most certainly with us. The shipping world is looking to containerization in order to offset to a large extent the disadvantages they strike in a port such as Table Bay, and which will help them to achieve a quicker turn-round of their ships. Many authorities can be quoted to the effect that herein lies perhaps the answer to shipping in the future. It has, of course, been said that there are difficulties attached to this and there are, in fact some problems. There is, for instance, the question of returning empty containers. Nevertheless, I should like to remind the hon. the Minister that the Australian Government which probably works under conditions very similar to our own, has provided and developed a new port area, of 74 acres, to handle containerized goods. They believe that mixed cargoes of containerized and general goods can be handled by ships and will lead to a faster turn-round. Containers today have reached a stage of development where they are no longer in the experimental stage.

As a matter of fact, to-day they are specialized things, special companies make special containers for special purposes. I should just like to refer the hon. the Minister to one piece of comment to show him how specialized these containers have become. I have here a newspaper clipping in which it is reported that a one-piece moulded plastic cargo container was unveiled when a Canadian pacific cargo liner docked in New Brunswick some tome ago. It is said to be the first of its kind in the world. It is equipped with temperature controls, capable of refrigerating and heating traffic, whether on road, rail or in the hold of a ship. It is 20 feet long by 8 feet by 8 feet and can be controlled at zero degrees or at temperatures up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It can carry 10 tons of goods. Of course, special equipment is needed to handle this particular type of container and I believe the hon. the Minister should devote his thoughts in future to this question of containerized traffic. I believe a solution can and will be found regarding the return of empty containers—by the container manufacturers themselves. I believe some type of container can be devised which can be used not only on a forward journey but also on a return ship, either full or empty. I should also like to point out to the Minister that containers have already been developed to a stage where the container itself is a ship and as such is discharged from the mother ship and is able to make its own way ashore. This development is already with us and ships of this type are now not only planned but, in fact, are already being built. I have given the hon. the Minister these examples so that he can devote himself to this problem which might assist him to solve the problem presented by our congested harbours and to ensure the speedier turn-round of ships using these harbours.

The hon. member for Umlazi surprised me in that he once more dealt with a subject and ventured into a field in respect of which the Minister took him to pieces yesterday. Should he therefore be taken to task more severely to-day, if that is possible, than yesterday, then we could rightly say that that was what he was looking for.

However, there is another subject which I should like to discuss on this occasion. Two years ago I made a plea in this House for the development of the fishing industry along the south coast. I said that the first step to be taken in that direction was the development of proper fishing harbours along that coast, because no such harbour existed along the entire south coast. For that reason it was a happy day for me when I saw in the Estimates that the Minister was appropriating an amount of R3½ million for the development of a fishing harbour at Mossel Bay. Of this amount more than R½ million will be spent during the ensuing financial year. For that reason I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to convey my personal thanks to the hon. the Minister, his Department, other bodies and persons in Mossel Bay and vicinity, as well as to the Department of Commerce and Industries, because it was under that Vote that I made a plea in regard to this matter at that time. We appreciate it. An amount of R3½ million is a great deal of money. This development is going to be of major importance and various bodies and persons are going to benefit. I should now like to mention a few of them. In the first place, it would be to the advantage of our fishing boats at Mossel Bay which are at present lying out at sea. When the northwesterly wind is blowing very strongly or at gale force over that bay, there is no protection whatsoever for them and many of them are damaged and eventually sink on the open sea. Those boats cost a great deal of money. If one of them sinks, it is a heavy loss to the owner. It has also happened that human lives were lost in such disasters. We shall now also be able to exploit the possibilities of the fishing industry along the south coast properly. I am convinced that there are enormous resources of fish to be exploited to the benefit of the country as a whole and in particular to the benefit of those who are prepared to invest capital for the exploitation of those resources. We know very little about the fish found along our south coast. We accept that the resources cannot be as fantastically rich as those along the west coast. Nevertheless, I am sure that if they were to be properly exploited they might surpass our highest expectations. Virtually no research has been conducted in this regard. We know very little about the migration of the fish; we know very little about their breeding grounds; how they move with or against the stream.

Mr. Chairman, what training do our fishermen actually receive? They simply catch as their fathers and grandfathers did before them —merely on the basis of their experience. For that reason I think that the time has arrived for us to give some thought to the training of our fishermen.

This development will not only be to the advantage of Mossel Bay but to the advantage of the entire Southern Cape. Not only my constituency but also three or four neighbouring constituencies will benefit from that development. The factories which will be erected as a result of the fishing industry will create employment for many people. In this regard I have in mind particularly the Coloureds, who are very good fishermen, and whose labour in this regard may greatly benefit themselves and the community as a whole.

I have in mind many homes which are poor at present and in which there will be a great deal of money if these operations were to materialize. As I said before. I believe that this development will stimulate the Southern Cape as a whole. If we look at the Southern Cape and we compare its development to that of the rest of the country, it is very clear that the development of the Southern Cape came to a standstill some decades ago. This region finds itself in a state of stagnation from which it simply cannot free itself. I believe that the development which we now have there will be the first step towards waking it from its economic hibernation. I also think that one is justified to predict in this regard that industrialists will in future view Mossel Bay in a much better light and will look at it with more eager eyes than in the past. They will notice the place and will not overlook its possibilities.

In conclusion, just this: On account of various circumstances we find ourselves in a position where our industries are virtually concentrated in one place only. If we are in earnest about decentralization, if this is the policy we are going to consider for and implement in the future, then I may make bold to say that Mossel Bay is ideally situated to get a share—even if it is a modest share—of those decentralized industries.

First you will have to import Bantu.

It is quite unnecessary to do so, because we do our own work. Situated at the halfway-mark between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, which are the two major industrial complexes in the Cape Province, the Mossel Bay area offers us virtually everything we require in this regard. Morsel Bay is situated on the coast, and I believe that this development of the fishing industry will act as a stimulus and will be followed by other industries before long.

Mr. Chairman. I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the hon. member for Mossel Bay as regards the problems of Mossel Bay. and I think everybody has sympathy for him. Mossel Bay is one of those areas which has a vast potential but it is one of the Cinderella bays of our country. A bay very near by, namely Knysna. has also been neglected. If the hon. member looks at the Estimates he will see that the hon. the Minister is spending money on facilities for developing the fishing industry, but he does not say anything about the harbour. He may tell us that he is not interested in harbours for the fishing industry as it is a job for the Minister of Economic Affairs. Nevertheless there is a problem there, and I personally think that the Minister can. in developing Mossel Bay harbour, possibly combine two things. He can provide a safe fishing harbour at Mossel Bay as well as a commercial harbour. At the present moment Mossel Bay has a large oil port plus a small commercial harbour. There is no two ways about it, however, that the vast hinterland which this small port serves, right up to Beaufort West and the surrounding area of the Cape there, is an important area. There is an opening for coastal trade there. But our coasters are becoming so big these days that the facilities at Mossel Bay are inadequate. I want to support the hon. member for Mossel Bay and ask the Minister to give consideration to giving this town something better than what they have at the moment. I think that Mossel Bay has considerable potential. But it does lack the one essential, and that is sea transport facilities. As I said, I think that the fishing industry could be combined with the harbour.

I now want to come to the Minister himself. Listening to the debate and to the hon. the Minister replying, it seems that the main complaint that we have against the Minister and the Department is the terrific time lag that occurs before things are done. We talk about planning a harbour, whether it be Cape Town or any other harbour, the matter is shifted backwards and forwards whilst costs are rising all the time, difficulties arise, and by the time the plans are formulated they are completely out of date. The net result is that by the time the harbour is built it just does not serve its purpose. Therefore I want to ask the Minister whether he could not speed up the planning of our harbours. Cape Town is an example. As I said in my speech, we have here a large commercial fishing industry and a large commercial harbour, and the Minister has told us over the years he would like to get rid of the fishing industry. But he was hampered by the Minister of Economic Affairs and, later, by the Minister of Planning. They have not been able to make up their minds whether the fishing harbour will be sited at Rietvlei, at Table Bay, or elsewhere. As I said. I think that the hon. the Minister of Transport must dissociate himself from the Minister of Planning and get on with his harbour in Cape Town.

Still talking about planning. Sir. we have in Cape Town a drydock and also our floating dock. The present floating dock which is considerably out of date is being replaced by a new one. One wonders where this new dock is going to be moored. I know that they are going to build a new repair berth adjacent to M berth but once this floating dock has been completed, one wonders where it is going to be moored. At present we have the old floating dock in the fishing harbour and it takes up a lot of space and it is in the most inconvenient Spot. I hope that when the Minister’s Department does moor the new floating dock, it will not hamper shipping.

To return to the use of the present Sturrock dock for the reconditioning of the Suiderkruis. the Minister did say across the floor of the House that the ship requiring the use of the drydock was registered in Monrovia. Actually it is American owned. It may be registered in Monrovia. That is nothing strange. South Africa owns tankers which are also under a flag of convenience. They are not all registered in South Africa. It is therefore nothing new to find a boat registered elsewhere. They are flags of convenience and we have that everywhere. I hope that the hon. the Minister was not holding it against the shipping company concerned that that ship is registered in Monrovia. The particular company that owns these ships has been a very good customer in the past. I think it is wrong to use this large drydock as a wet dock. In emergency it could be used as a wet dock, I have no objection to that but to use it for three months as a wet dock is wrong. I feel certain with my experience of the Cape Town docks, and I certainly do not get this from the Cape Times reporter, that there are other places where this ship could be moored with the same facilities it has at the present moment. There was a factory ship laid up for months for conversion purposes which used a commercial berth. I feel ample space could be found for this particular ship in the dock without using this drydock.

I should like to follow the remarks of the hon. member for Umlazi about the question of harbour craft. We have as he said some tugs which we call first class tugs although the vast majority are still coal burning and we also have oil burning tugs. There is no doubt that these tugs have become out of date, including even the most modern ones. I understand that the new tugs to be acquired will be motor driven. I hope that the hon. the Minister, when they are designing these tugs, will take the advice of overseas countries and get a combination tug, namely both a deep sea and a harbour tug. because it is a well-known fact that our harbour tugs are certainly not deep sea tugs. When you have long deep sea tows they are not completely safe. Recently the Portuguese sent a tug through Cape Town which was not nearly as big as any of our tugs but had very much more power and was a combination of both a deep sea and harbour tug. That is the type of tug we require. We are inclined in this country to buy the most expensive type of dredgers. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister could not learn from his experience in Durban, Cape Town, and the rest of the world and give consideration to contracting out dredging. You find that overseas firms which contract for dredging work 24 hours a day and get on with the job. because of the regulations that our dredgers work under you find them going out in the morning and at about half past three or half past four in the afternoon you find them returning and they are laid up. With the overseas firms you find that the dredger is moored in position and stays there and dredges night and day. The only time it stops is either Sundays or Christmas day. [Time expired.]

In regard to the shortage of labour which the hon. member mentioned, my information from the Management is that there is no serious shortage of labour in the harbour. Occasionally, at very busy times, there might be 100 short. but then labour is transferred from Culemborg to make up the shortage. I am informed that 2,100 to 2,200 labourers are employed. On Mondays there is usually a surplus of labour. More is available than required. I am also informed that at the moment 1,500 Bantu are accommodated in the compound, but 1,600 can be accommodated. I am told that directly the fruit season comes to an end, there is a surplus of 500 labourers. So apparently the Management considers the position to be not as serious as the hon. member says it is. The hon. member said that I must now make a decision to expand Table Bay harbour. That decision was made a long time ago. It does not take years or even months to make a decision. The fact remains that different sites have to be investigated first to see which is the most suitable. Tests then have to be made in regard to wave action, range and prevailing winds and those tests, made with the assistance of the C.S.I.R., take some time. They do not do it in a week’s time. The tests have to be conducted over a long time. Much preliminary work has to be done. Lots of planning has to be done. It is no use spending R50 million on the harbour, and then finding once it has been built that it is quite unsuitable for one’s purpose. That is quite obvious, even to the hon. member.

To me?

Yes, even to the hon. member. In regard to False Bay, I told the hon. member that I had investigated the matter. It was investigated and found to be unsuitable. What the hon. member with all his knowledge of harbours, does not realize is that rail facilities must also be provided. To provide rail facilities so far from the main line as Strandfontein will be quite impracticable. We have to have marshalling yards. We have to be close to the main line for the forwarding and the arrival of trucks. The Simonstown line is a suburban line. We shall have to build a completely new line.

I suggested Strandfontein.

Yes, that is in False Bay. There are no rail facilities there. There is another object. To have efficiency at a harbour, you cannot have two harbours within seven or eight miles of each other. That is one of the reasons why Rietvlei was abandoned. You have to have a concentration because you cannot arrange shipping in such a way that certain ships come to Table Bay harbour with some of their cargo for Table Bay and Cape Town and some of the cargo for other places. It is quite impracticable. That is why it is so essential that one harbour must be expanded as much as possible. Saldanha Bay is out of the question. There are no rail facilities there. Why should Saldanha Bay be utilized as a harbour when it is going to cost probably three or four times as much to provide the necessary rail facilities? At the same time higher rates will be applicable to all imported goods to the Witwatersrand from Saldanha Bay. In other words, Durban will get much more of the traffic than they are getting to-day and Cape Town will suffer as a result. The hon. member must inquire into these matters before he makes these suggestions. In regard to Table Bay, it has been decided—and I said this in 1965—that a new harbour will be built on the other side of the eastern mole. It is so that there is a rocky bottom. There is a rocky bottom at Rietvlei. That was investigated and drilling was done there. Apart from the fact that there is insufficient room for a commercial harbour and a fishing harbour, it was found that outside the immediate area of the harbour there is the same rocky bottom as there is in Table Bay.

Here we have the old canal of the Salt River running past the eastern mole, where its depth is about 50 feet. If dredging has to be done, it will have to be done. It will have to be done to the same depth, even if eventually blasting has to be done. This story about the damage done in Table Bay because of the blasting is much exaggerated. Certain people complained, but very few. Blasting was done to deepen this canal, the entrances and the tanker dock. There was not much damage done at all. I think that some of the people who complained that their houses were damaged, thought that this was a jolly good excuse to get some money out of the Railways.

No, that is not true.

Yes, of course it is. The venue has already been decided and the plans are being drawn. The whole harbour is not planned to be built immediately. Provision is first going to be made for one pier, that is on the other side of the eastern mole and the other side of the tanker dock, where there is that deep canal of about 50 feet. The entrances are sufficiently deep. We only want to accommodate cargo vessels up to 60,000 and 70,000 tons. It is quite sufficient. Very big tankers might be built in the future, but certainly they are not going to build cargo boats of up to 100,000 and 200,000 tons. And the hon. member knows that.

What about dry goods carriers?

It is possible, but you cannot embark on expenditure of millions merely for the purpose of accommodating one or two big ships. We have taken that into consideration. These plans have been drawn up. We hope to start building a new breakwater for this particular harbour during the next financial year. It is not going to take ten years to complete the first pier and the breakwater. So at least you have place for another six or seven ships. But apart from that, the facilities in Table Bay harbour can still be expanded by working double shifts. If we get the cooperation of the commercial community and if they are prepared to accept delivery of goods during the night, we can even work night shifts it if should become necessary. But I have to have their co-operation. The trouble with these people is the same as with those in Johannesburg. We have the greatest difficulty in delivering goods from Kazerne. Our vehicles have been restricted to certain hours of the day by the Johannesburg Traffic Department. You cannot get co-operation from these people. If it is tea-time, they refuse to take delivery of goods from the carriers. They close up for lunch time and early in the afternoon. These people are the first to complain, whereas if they co-operate with us, there would be no necessity for complaints at all.

So you are prepared to work harder at night if you can get the cooperation?

If necessary, of course we will, and if they are prepared to accept delivery. That is the main question. I told the hon. member yesterday that there is no purpose in cluttering up the sheds. We are not going to get anywhere with that. But if the people are prepared to take delivery, we can do it if necessary and if it is absolutely essential. But at the present time it is not yet essential.

If we built more sheds it would help.

You cannot build more sheds, because those particular berths are required for bulk cargoes. That is so. I prefer to take the advice of my experts, because they know much more about the matter than the hon. member. These berths are actually required for bulk cargoes. You cannot handle bulk cargoes in a shed. The hon. member should know that. If it is essential to build another shed and it is not necessary to handle bulk cargo, we will build a shed. But that is not going to speed up matters to any extent.

The hon. member spoke about the rocky bottom and the range. That is the purpose of making these tests, namely to see what the range is. According for the latest tests, we find that the range will even be reduced in the Duncan Dock if the proposed new harbour is built on the other side of the eastern mole. The hon. member raised the matter again of the Universe Defiance that could not be accommodated in the drydock. This is an exceptional case. That drydock is not going to be permanently used as a wet dock, but something had to be done to accommodate these people after the ship had been lying outside in the roadstead for three weeks. It was costing a couple of thousand rands a day to lie there.

Why did you not divert it to Durban?

I wanted to divert it to Durban, but Globe Engineering got the contract several months before for converting the ship. It is the same company that has to do the repair work for the Universe Defiance.

It is the same company in Durban.

Yes, and they would not accept it. The contract was that it must be refitted and converted here. That is why the ship is still here. But surely the hon. member realizes that I will have no compunction in diverting that ship to Durban? They have the necessary facilities there. If they are not prepared to do so I cannot compel them to leave, except by refusing them entrance to the Harbour. I think that would be most unwise under the circumstances after that ship had been lying for three weeks in the roadstead. It is certainly not the policy to convert the Sturrock Drydock into a wet dock. This is an exceptional case.

It is a wrong exception.

It is not a wrong exception. It is a right exception, because I am prepared always to give our own people and industries preference in regard to anything before people from overseas. That is why I say it is a right exception.

That is a political consideration.

It has nothing to do with politics. Would the hon. member not suggest that South African industrialists must get preference over overseas industrialists? Does he not support that policy? I thought that they had adopted the policy of “South Africa first”.

The best interests of the harbours should be served.

No, the best interests of South Africa and her people must be served. That is the difference.

Is the port not in South Africa?

Yes, and that is why it is our policy to give our own people preference over overseas people.

I have never known you to be so unconvincing.

No, I have never known the hon. member to jump about like this. First of all, they pride themselves on also standing for South Africa first. But that is only when it suits them.

The hon. member spoke about the design of the tugs. I cannot argue with him about that. Surely the hon. member would agree with me that these technical experts know much more about the matter than we do and I should accept their advice. These people are not fools. They go overseas and make inquiries. They come into contact with shipbuilders. They know what is being done in other harbours and when they make specifications for the design of a tug, surely they must think that that is the best for our conditions. I am not going to quarrel with them.

I think you should inquire into it.

They do inquire. We keep abreast of all the most modern developments on railways and in harbours overseas by sending study groups overseas to make personal inquiries and investigations there.

In regard to containerization, a committee was appointed some time ago. Surely the hon. member realizes that I cannot compel importers and exporters to containerize. It is entirely voluntary. The committee was appointed some time ago and there is still no unanimity among the commercial and industrial community. The main argument is this: It will be a one-way traffic and it would be quite uneconomical to have one-way traffic with containers, which are expensive. There are some lying about Cape Town Harbour and the ships are refusing to take them back. Other highly industrialized countries can do it, and they are doing it, because there is a two-way traffic. But there is another difficulty. These containers have a very large capacity and one cannot use containers when there is some of the cargo in that particular container destined for one port and the rest of the cargo is for another port. One cannot open a container and off-load some of it. Those are all the problems we have to contend with. But in spite of those problems and of the fact that there is no decision yet from the commercial and industrial community in regard to the use of containers, we are making provision for their handling on one of the piers in Durban. Provision will also have to be made in Cape Town Harbour. There is very little space available in Cape Town Harbour. We might have to wait until the new harbour is built, because there is practically no space here to make provision for the handling of containers.

In spite of all the snags they will come?

It depends on the exporters and importers. If they do not use them, we cannot compel them to use them. I know that the use of containers results in a saving in handling. It means conservation of labour. There are a lot of advantages in the use of them but the importers and exporters must first of all decide whether they are going to use containers.

*The hon. member for Mossel Bay spoke about Mossel Bay. I just want to say that, as he can see, a considerable amount for expansion has been provided on the Estimates. But the expansions concerned are mainly for the benefit of the fishing industry. As I have said repeatedly, Mossel Bay will never become a commercial harbour. There is no hinterland. There is no reason why people in the interior would now import their goods through Mossel Bay instead of Cape Town or Durban. As a fishing harbour, however, it does have possibilities. Provision is now being made for that by the considerable amount on the Estimates for the purpose of providing those facilities there.

As regards the hon. member for Humansdorp, J just want to thank him for the thanks he expressed in connection with the old lighthouse at Agulhas.

Heads put and agreed to.

Harbours, Heads 18 to 25 (Revenue Funds) and Head 5 (Capital and Betterment Works) put and agreed to.

Airways, Heads 28 to 30, R48,489.000 (Revenue Funds) and Head 6, R5.804,966 (Capital and Betterment Works):

The hon. the Minister a few moments ago was being extremely patriotic and was talking of “South Africa first”, and a little earlier he was somewhat cynical about the future of sugar in South Africa. So I think it would perhaps be appropriate to start by asking this patriotic Minister, who was concerned about the future of the sugar industry, why it is that on internal S.A. Airways flights, Tate & Lyle Sugar, manufactured in England, is supplied to South African passengers. If the Minister wants to query it, I have one of the packets here, issued on an internal flight on 25th November, 1966. This is the Minister who is so patriotic and who wants to put South Africa first and who is concerned about the sugar industry, but who then issues sugar manufactured in England, labelled “London and Liverpool”. Do not let that Minister lecture us. Sir. Let him practise what he preaches on his own airline. [Interjections.] I give the Chief Whip top marks for that, but I suggest that he might sweeten up the sugar industry if he persuaded this Minister to use South African sugar all the time and not some of the time, instead of making interjections.

I want to deal with the question of Airways from the view of forward planning, which the Minister earlier said was completely in hand. I almost said “under-hand”, but perhaps that was a subconscious expression of my attempt to reconcile the Minister’s Budget speech, at page 14, where he stated that one additional new Boeing 727 and one 707 had been added to the flight during the year under review, and a further Boeing 727, two Boeing 707-320C’s, and two 737’s are due for delivery during the latter half of this year and the beginning of 1968. But if one studies the Brown Book, one finds that for this year there is provision only for one 707 at an amount of R4.8 million, which is voted for the current financial year, 1967-’68. Yet the Minister says that various planes are being delivered during the latter half of this year. The normal provision is that when a plane is delivered payment must be made, and provision must be made within the current year. I would like the Minister to reconcile to this House his statement on deliveries as set out in his Budget speech, and the amounts that have been voted. We find that in regard to the 737’s the amount of R3,665,000 is to be carried over after the end of this year. We find that of the two Boeing 707’s, one is voted for this year and one for the following year, and we find that of the 737’s again the purchase is split. For the 737’s. R4.9 million is the total cost, of which the vast bulk is not to be spent this year. In other words, the Minister is not budgeting for the expenditure which he told the House would be necessary in the current year. I suggest that that substantiates the point of view which was taken earlier that in point of fact the Airways has not planned, or the Minister in his planning has not looked far enough ahead. When I suggested that, the hon. the Minister said it was nonsense, but he himself, in reply to a question by an hon. member, admitted that at the present time there are over-bookings on the internal services of S.A. Airways; and anyone who has flown recently will know that unless you book well in advance you are not able to get short-term bookings on the internal flights. Whatever the Minister may say about it—he enjoys priority and may not know—the fact remains that on many flights every week the normal passenger, unless he has booked well in advance, cannot get on to those planes. [Interjection.] That hon. member says it is not true. I challenge him to try to get a booking this week-end to Johannesburg. I am sure he will not get the plane he wants. The fact is that the growth in traffic on the Airways has far outstripped what the Minister anticipated, and vet despite the lesson of the last year, despite the fact that increases were up to 44 per cent in some fields, and 31 per cent, 37.3 per cent and 41 per cent in others and the internal Sky-coach service was 30 per cent and standard class 19 per cent the Minister is still, despite the facts before him, budgeting only and planning only for a 12 per cent increase in the coming year. To my mind that is not an example of farsightedness. The Airways have a magnificent record in South Africa, a record tragically marred by the accident this week, in regard to which both sides of the House have joined in expressing their sympathy for the victims and their feeling of sadness at what happened. But that is part of the danger of modern life, and one accident in the magnificent record of accident-free travelling of S.A. Airways still leaves us way ahead of all world airlines: it still leaves S.A. Airways as one of the proudest air carriers in the world, one of those with the best records, and it still leaves air travel as one of the safest ways of travelling, safer even than the trains and certainly far safer than travelling by motor-car. So. whilst one regrets the tragedy, it is one of those things which cannot for ever be excluded from the record, and it is one of those things which we will survive as a country and as an airline. Because of the vital part the Airways plays, it is therefore of the utmost importance that we should not be left behind in planning for the demands and the needs of our country in regard to flying. For that reason I want to repeat the plea I have made over and over again, but which falls on deaf ears as far as the Minister is concerned, and that is to treat Airways as a separate transport department functioning on its own. I believe there are tremendous advantages in divorcing it and running it as a separate section apart from the Railways. If one looks at the Estimates for the Airways, one realizes the tremendous importance of the role that the non-flying personnel play in the Airways Administration. If one looks at administration and supervision, compared to flying, one finds that the Wage Bill for supervision is R2.25 million against R1.5 million for flying. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Durban (Point) is inclined to bring the words “far-sightedness” and “planning” into all his speeches. If any branch of the Railways Administration is to be complimented, it is preeminently the South African Airways, which merits that compliment of far-sightedness and forward planning. If any section of the Administration enjoys the advantage of the most thorough planning, it is pre-eminently the South African Airways. Do you know, Sir. that forward planning is undertaken not only in respect of the next five years, but that the South African Airways is already planning for when aircraft capable of twice or three times the speed of sound will be on the market, in order that the South African Airways may adapt itself to those circumstances? Do you know that the General Manager of the South African Airways and his deputies are studying all the implications of aircraft which are as yet on the drawing boards, and the effect they will have on the South African Airways? How the hon. member can presume to say that this branch of the transport services is hampered by poor planning surpasses the understanding of any normal human being. But if one wants to be malicious and look for trouble, one will always find it, and we are blessed with an hon. member who is well-versed in the art of not only looking for trouble, but indeed bringing it upon his own head every now and then. He is a past-master in the art of putting his foot into the greatest trouble. I do not know what size shoe he wears, but I fail to understand how the hon. member can put his foot into the trap so accurately time and again. The hon. member for Durban (Point) is also well-versed in the art of imitating a balloon, and I say that in the figurative sense. He knows the art of inflating a balloon and then puncturing it here, by means of such trivialities as saying that there is no planning.

The acquisitions of the South African Airways in recent times should be adequate proof of the fact that there has been the most thorough planning conceivable. We have the best co-ordinated air service at our disposal to-day, comparable to any of its size in the world. We have the best and most efficient aircraft, and if we think back in history we will recall that when the Boeing 707 was still in the planning stage as an inter-continental aircraft, the South African Airways was assessing the possibilities of those aircraft. Even when we were using the Comets in conjunction with the BOAC, in the pool service, the South African Airways was assessing the possibilities of the DC8 and the Boeing aircraft, and as soon as those aircraft had proved themselves, orders were placed by the South African Airways, and at the moment our overseas air services are of the highest quality in the world, and international travellers will testify to that. But at first our internal Airways used the Viscount, which is accepted as one of the most convenient and at the same time one of the most economic aircraft. Hardly had the Boeing 727 left the drawing board, however, when the South African Airways was assessing their use on our inland services over shorter distances, and as soon as orders could be placed it was done. At the moment there is a string of orders. The other day the hon. the Minister gave us an indication of orders which have been placed for advanced models of the Boeing 707 with a view to further intercontinental services. A further Boeing 727 is on order: orders have been placed for two Boeing 737’s, the twin-jet type which is today accepted as the most modern and the very best aircraft of its kind over short distances. Whence all the complaints about lack of planning? But let us consider the other complaints by the hon. member: he says that one cannot book seats on our aircraft; that he experiences difficulties in booking seats. If that is true, it will mean that we have full occupation of our aircraft on our internal services. I am sure the South African Airways would have been very happy if it had full occupation of its aircraft. for from a commercial point of view there can be no more favourable position than full occupation. and I am convinced that the profits of the South African Airways would have been considerably higher than it is at present. The hon. member should bear in mind that our Airways is producing profits, whereas other air services are suffering losses. If we consider the scores of millions of pounds the British Government has had to spend merely to keep the BOAC solvent. I think our South African Airways has a proud record, because for the past few years we have consistently produced a profit, and despite the great demands made of the Airways we are still showing a profit this year, and in view of the fact that this planning is continuing. I envisage that the present position will continu“. The object of the planning is to remain in a position to cope with the future volume of traffic, and by means of the new aircraft and the improved internal schedules that can be drawn up, the Airways is a jump ahead of the demand for accommodation. If one considers the steadily increasing volume of traffic, not only as far as mail and passengers are concerned but also with a view to the steadily increasing volume of freight carried by our Airways, I think our South African Airways deserves a compliment. They do not deserve the criticism which was expressed by the hon. member for Durban (Point) and which was obviously unfair.

[Inaudible.]

Sir, I should rather not become personal, but if the hon. member for Durban (Point) would undertake more personal planning for himself in many respects, it would be much better for him. There is another aspect to which I want to refer, and that is that advance booking of passenger accommodation has been converted to electronic control. All possible aids are enlisted to place planning on the best possible basis in respect of bookings, etc. But if we consider another aspect of planning, then it is enlightening to pay a visit to the workshop of the South African Airways at the Ian Smuts Airport. The workshops where the South African Airways carry out their repairs at Jan Smuts Airport are amongst the best planned organizations I have ever had the privilege of seeing. It is one of the best planned establishments I have ever seen, a place where everything runs like clockwork and where everything fits in exactly with the total pattern. It is one of the best planned units—and it is a massive unit —which is engaged in keeping several types of aircraft airworthy, and in seeing to it that there are aircraft in reserve every moment of the day. If we are to discuss planning, I should like to invite the hon. member for Durban (Point) to pay a visit to the workshops at Jan Smuts Airport; he would then take a different view of planning. There he will see planning, not the kind of planning that goes on in his mind, but essential planning as applied by the South African Airways, a fine monument constructed through the industry and devotion of people who have a task to perform and who do so with love and devotion. There the hon. member will see the results of thorough planning.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to refer to the tragic event in the South African Airways on this occasion, but if I have a message to convey to-night, it is a message of confidence in the South African Airways. Despite these unfortunate events, I want to assure you that we have a group of devoted people who fulfil their task to the best of their abilities.

The hon. member for Middelburg used rather an unfortunate expression when he spoke of “putting one’s foot into it” because that is precisely what he has done at least twice in the course of his speech in connection with two instances where he praised the Government for forward and good planning. I propose to deal with both of them. The first concerns the buying of planes and the second concerns the question of overbooking on the Airways. I wonder whether the hon. member for Middelburg knows that there have been no fewer than 49 instances since the 1st April of last year in which planes have been over-booked? In some instances there was over-booking to the extent of 19 or 20 seats. There was the case of the flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg on the 10th of June of last year where 19 seats were overbooked; there was the flight from Johannesburg to Durban on the 1st July where 10 seats were over-booked; there was the flight from Johannesburg to Durban on the 9th July where eight seats were over-booked, and so I could go on. In all these flights Boeing 727s were used. There have been no fewer than 49 such instances. But what does the hon. member for Middelburg tell us? He says that they now have a computer …

What percentage of bookings does that represent?

Sir, do you know on what basis the S.A. Airways actually do these bookings? The hon. the Minister told me in reply to a question that they do it on this basis that on each flight they expect 15 late cancellations. Surely that is a fantastic way of trying to run an air line—expecting that 15 passengers will not turn up or that there will be 15 late cancellations. I am not talking now about ordinary cancellations but late cancellations. The hon. member for Middelburg says that they now have an electronic computer. These are the results of making use of their electronic computer and, Sir, when that electronic computer went haywire last year and had to go to the electrician or to the hospital or wherever computers do go when they become ill, there was a case where there were 20 over-bookings on a single flight. But even the computer itself is not working well, and the hon. the Minister himself admitted that he was not contemplating any fundamental change in the whole procedure. I believe that the procedure is wrong. I cannot understand how there could be over-bookings to the extent of 15 seats on a single flight. The instructions given to passengers are also very unclear; listen to this—

Sir, does that make sense? How can you begin your onward and return trip from the same airport? Then it goes on to say—

On the airport, not in the city—

According to this you have to go to the airport and there you have to confirm, 72 hours before the time, your flight reservation. Sir, this is a lot of nonsense; it is not even grammar. I maintain that the system is wrong and the hon. the Minister should see that these instructions are framed more clearly.

In regard to the buying of planes, the hon. member for Middelburg is very proud of the fact that this Government sent in its first order the moment it became possible to buy the latest Boeings. Let me assure him that this Government is very much behind the times when it comes to the supersonic planes. Does the hon. the Minister know—he should know —that according to Press reports Alitalia is going to be the first international operator planning supersonic services to South Africa, with American supersonic transport? Does he know that it has been reported that the Qantas Airways of Australia are planning to start supersonic services from Sydney to Johannesburg in about 1972 when the Anglo-French Concord supersonic planes are to be delivered? The hon. the Minister could tell us nothing about plans for buying supersonic planes for South Africa. He said that he had no plans at the present stage to buy such planes. Here we have further proof that this Government is behind the times when it comes to planning. Sir, it is getting late so I shall confine myself to these examples which I am sure will prove to the hon. member for Middelburg that there is a decided lack of planning on the part of the Government.

I find the hon. member for Durban (Point) an extraordinary member. What gives him most pleasure is always to disparage everything which is his own. The whole world, friend and enemy, pays tribute to the South African Airways, but the hon. member must always speak disparagingly of our South African Airways, a service of which we are all very proud. The hon. member has a strange mentality which I cannot always understand. He is under the impression that he makes a very great impression on the House by acting in this unruly fashion and talking the greatest nonsense imaginable.

Why not deal with the points he raised instead of being personal?

I shall deal with the points I want to deal with. Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Middelburg replied most effectively to the hon. member for Durban (Point), and there is very little left for me to add. The hon. member for Durban (Point) referred to the acquisition of aircraft, and in this regard he made certain nonsensical allegations. Because the entire amount for the purchase of those five aircraft has not been provided in the Estimates for next year, the hon. member alleged that what I had said in my Budget speech was not correct, namely that the aircraft were to be delivered towards the end of this year and early next year. What nonsensical allegations to make! There is no connection between the amounts provided here and the delivery date of the aircraft. What I said in my Budget speech is quite correct. The one aircraft, the Boeing 727 for which provision has been made, is to be delivered in August this year; the one 707 in March next year, the other 707 in April next year and the two 737s in September or October. What I said in my Budget speech was therefore quite correct.

That is not in your Budget speech.

It is. I did not give the dates; I said that these aircraft were to fie delivered towards the end of this year or next year.

Early next year?

The first aircraft will be delivered early next year. The hon. member spoke about planning and said that it was because the Airways and the Railways were not separate that the planning was not good, but the people who carry out this planning and who are responsible for it, are the people in control of the Airways. That is the man who is primarily responsible for the future planning of the Airways, a man who has the necessary technical knowledge and who makes his recommendations on the basis of that knowledge. In the past there have never been any complaints about his planning. In fact, the South African Airways has always kept abreast of the latest development in the field of aviation anywhere in the world. As the hon. member for Middelburg said, we were first to order the 727s; we ordered Viscounts, the most modern aircraft. In the old days we started with the Skymasters. We have never lagged behind any air service. We were among the first to use the Comets, and it was a very good thing that we hired those Comets instead of buying them, because we lost two of them over the sea. After that they were grounded for a number of years. There is not one 737 in commercial service at this stage, and yet we have ordered them, and then the hon. member talks about planning! He makes nonsensical allegations; he does not know what he is talking about, and then he makes such blunders.

So people are refused bookings just for fun?

I shall come to that in a moment. The hon. member has not tried to book a seat on every flight. As the hon. member for Middelburg said, the occupation factor would have to be 100 per cent if that hon. member’s allegation is correct; it is not.

Is there no overbooking?

Of course there is, and there are very good reasons for that. Sir, that just shows the absolute lack of knowledge of air service practice on the part of those hon. members. I shall tell the hon. members what happens. This is not something which is peculiar to the S.A.A. It is general practice in all air lines in the world that there has to be over-booking. I now want to furnish some particulars in this regard to save hon. members on the opposite side the trouble of talking such nonsense in future. It is the practice throughout the world that it is essential to allow some over-booking in the initial stages, in order to be able to maintain an economic freight factor later. This is due to the fact that a certain percentage of people fail to turn up, or cancel bookings. Now I want to tell you something else which happens in all airlines. At a recent conference of international airlines Trans-World Airlines—the largest airline in the world—reported that during June last year—that is in one month only—96,000 passengers failed to turn up for flights on the internal services of airlines in respect of which they had confirmed bookings, and that 54,000 passengers turned up who did have confirmed bookings and valid tickets, but of whom the airlines had no record because booking agents had not informed the airlines of reservations. This is a common phenomenon, and is done on purpose. It is a very expensive business to operate an aircraft. The working costs are exceptionally high. For that reason it is endeavoured to book the aircraft as fully as possible. As a result of the fact that there are so many cancellations and cases of people who fail to turn up, there are usually overbookings. That happens in the best of families.

What about the person who cannot travel although be booked?

That is what happens. I have just said that this happens in other airlines. In fact, it happens in all airlines. If we were, for example, to follow a different policy with regard to our overseas services, it would mean that we would lose all our passengers to our competitors who also operate overseas services. That is why it is done. It is unfortunate that it should happen, but at least it does not happen on every flight. There are numerous flights on certain days of the week on which there is ample room, but in respect of certain flights which are very popular and in respect of certain times there are overbookings, and then some people are unable to obtain a seat. We try, of course, to restrict this phenomenon as far as possible. That is all that the hon. member said, and I have now replied to all his points. Of course the hon. member for Orange Grove talked even bigger nonsense than his colleague in front of him. He complained that I did not want to decide right now to take supersonic aircraft into service. Of course I cannot decide that so early. There are so many factors to be considered. We cannot simply buy an aircraft which is quite uneconomic. We shall first have to determine whether we have the passengers to justify purchasing such an aircraft.

Alitalia is doing that.

I do not care what Alitalia does—they are a much larger airline than the S.A.A.

And what about Qantas?

Qantas is also much larger than the S.A.A. If only the hon. member would make inquiries and get some information before speaking, he would know these things. They are large airlines, whereas the S.A.A. is one of the lesser airlines. We are one of the small ones. Supersonic aircraft are going to cost from R10 million to R12 million each. There will therefore have to be an adequate number of passengers in order to keep the aircraft in the air all the time. Flights to London and back cannot be made on the same day. We do not yet have enough passengers. But there is also a further important consideration. As hon. members know, two of the Comets crashed into the sea as a result of the fact that their structure was not quite satisfactory and right. These supersonic aircraft are completely new. As yet there is no supersonic commercial aircraft operating anywhere in the world. I should rather first see the large airlines try them, and see whether they are suitable before the S.A.A. acquire them. That is my reply to that question.

As I said, it is a great pity that hon. members on the opposite side are only prepared to find fault all the time, instead of giving us some praise now and then. That is what everybody is doing. Our air service has kept abreast of the development in South Africa and in aviation. Everybody acknowledges that our air services is among the best in the world.

I said that.

We have never had to stand back for anybody as regards the type of aircraft operated and used by us. That has never happened. We use the most modern aircraft. As far as passengers are concerned, we now have enough aircraft to introduce additional flights if necessary, without having to purchase any new ones. If extra flights are justified, they are introduced. Flight planning is taking place all the time. When it is found that an additional flight is justified, it is introduced. There is no need for us to wait for more aircraft. Hon. members on the opposite side should just give some credit where it is due. That does not mean to me. I merely administer the business. The credit is due to the people who are really responsible for the service.

Heads put and agreed to.

Pipeline, Heads 31 to 33—Pipeline, R3.426,221 (Revenue Funds), and Head No.7, R1,151,250 (Capital and Betterment Works):

Mr. Chairman, I should very much like to comply with the wish the hon. the Minister has just expressed, and give credit where credit is due. To-night I want to give the Minister credit for the fact that after years of hesitation, of refusing and of shortsightedness, he finally realized that the advice he had received from the Opposition and from other concerns in South Africa was the right advice, and he finally got around to building the pipeline. I also want to congratulate him on the success of this pipeline. At the same time it is my wish to-night, in the dying hours of this discussion, to protest most strongly on behalf of the public of the Witwatersrand, the public of Pretoria, the public of the Southern Transvaal and the public of the Northern Free State …

What about Bushman-land?

… against this inequitable burden which they as motorists and consumers of fuel have to bear in those areas. I think it is unforgivable that this particular group of entrepreneurs and citizens of South Africa should have to contribute R20 million to the losses of the Railways as against expenditure of only R3 million on the part of the Railways. That is really unforgivable. Although one may say on the merits of the case that certain profitable branches of the Administration have to subsidize the uneconomic branches, it still cannot be justified that this pipeline should impose an unalleviated burden on the motorists of the Transvaal and the Northern Free State.

That will not bring your party a single vote.

I am not looking for votes—I am merely looking for justice. Moreover. I want to express my regret that there should be so many hon. members in this House, members representing the Southern Transvaal and the Northern Free State, and not one of them said a word in protest against the exploitation of the motorists in that region. There is the hon. member for Turffontein. for example. He did not say a word in defence of his voters.

I am not silly.

I also see the eloquent member for Benoni. There he is, half asleep, while his voters are being exploited. We do not hear a word of protest from him either. Over there is the hon. member for Randburg. I see about thirty of them sitting there, but not one of them has a word to say in protest. Not one of them has the courage to say that they want to stand up for their voters who are exploited in this fashion by the S.A.R.

I want to make one fact quite clear. I have already done so, but I want to do so again.

Order! The hon. member may not repeat arguments.

You will permit me. You are well versed in the art of debating, and you know that one sometimes has to repeat for the sake of emphasis. That is all that I want to do now. It costs the Railways less than a cent to transport a gallon of petrol from the coast to the Witwatersrand by pipeline And yet the Railways charges 7 cents for that service. That would not be tolerated anywhere else. It is tolerated only by the hon. members of the Nationalist Party in this House who do not have the courage, who do not have the power, or who are scared to stand up for the interests of their voters.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 92.

Heads Nos. 31 to 33 (Revenue Funds), and Head No. 7 (Capital and Betterment Works), as printed, put and agreed to.

Heads Nos. 34 to 38.—Net Revenue Appropriation Account. R17,661,279 (Revenue Funds), and Heads Nos. 8, R3,528.000 and 9, R500 000 (Capital and Betterment Works), put and agreed to.

Estimates of Expenditure from Revenue Funds TR.P. 5—’67] and Estimates of Expenditure on Capital and Betterment Works [R.P. 6—’67], reported without amendment.

The Minister of Transport brought up a Bill to give effect to the Estimates adopted by the House.

I move—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

There is one matter I should like to deal with first of all, and that is to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to change his tactics in one respect. The hon. the Minister has built up a reputation for answering debates. [Interjection.] There is one very regrettable aspect of the tactics the Minister employs in creating this superficial impression of giving full and adequate replies to debates, and that is the way in which the Minister picks out certain items, deals with them, and completely ignores other matters which have been raised, and which are not so easy to reply to. Then when he gets into difficulties he adopts an abusive approach to hon. members who have raised matters in this House, to which we take the strongest exception. When that fails, he has one last resort, and that is to wave the patriotic flag and to accuse this side of the House of being unpatriotic. I want to deal with two examples in regard to this Budget where the Minister has adopted those tactics.

The first was that he accused this side of the House of attacking the Railways staff organizations and of imputing to them things which no speaker on this side of the House ever imputed. I refer in particular to the hon. the Minister’s attack on me yesterday when he accused me of implying that the staff representatives were in the pocket of the Administration. In order to put the record straight. I want to quote what I in fact said. I said—

Yet the Minister accused us—although I specifically stated that it was not necessary that the accusations be true but that it was necessary to remove the causes of weak morale—of attacking the staff organizations. That is an example among many others I could quote of where the Minister puts up his own ninepins and then tries to knock them down.

The second example was the unpleasant attack the Minister made on me for being unpatriotic in regard to the S.A. Airways. [Interjections.] You hear, Mr. Speaker, the yapping support for that attack. It is on record, but I want to repeat exactly what I said, and I hope the Minister will be fair enough to withdraw the attack he made. I said—

That stands as what I said, and yet the hon. the Minister got up, attacked me and accused me of being unpatriotic and of attacking S.A. Airways. We are getting a little tired of these tactics which the Minister follows, whereby he puts words into our mouths and then attacks us on it.

I will give another example. It was the attack made by the hon. the Minister on the hon. member for Umlazi. When the hon. member for Umlazi raised points in this debate. the hon. the Minister turned on him and attacked his bona fides and his sources of information, and he launched a personal and abusive assault on his sources of information and what the hon. member had dealt with, instead of dealing with the facts that had been put to him. Sir. because we are completely dissatisfied with the background to the money which this Pill asks us to vote. I move as an amendment—

1. (1) because the Government has failed, inter alia, to show appreciation of the problems confronting the workers and pensioners of the Railways; and
2. (2) because of the anomalies in the policy of the Minister of Transport”.

At no stage in this debate have we been given any indication that the hon. the Minister is aware of or sympathetic towards the very real problems which face the ordinary worker in the Railway Administration. We have had speech after speech from the other side of the House telling us how well the railway worker has been treated and how much has been done for him. We on this side have put specific and real problems to the Minister, problems which these people have to face every day, and instead of sympathy, instead of an indication of appreciation of these problems, what we get is an accusation that we are interfering in work which should be done by the staff associations and that we are therefore expressing a lack of confidence in the staff associations in making their representations to the Minister.

The hon. the Deputy Minister was the one who made that accusation. I say that it is not only our right but our duty as an Opposition to take an interest in, to fight for and to plead for the welfare of the people whose livelihood is dependent on an Administration for whom this Parliament has to vote the funds. We are being asked to vote money to run the S.A. Railways; we are the board of directors, and we not only have the right but it is our solemn duty where there are problems, where there are irregularities and where there are matters which could be put right, to raise them in this House. We will not be threatened and we will not be silenced by the attempts on the part of the Deputy Minister to suggest, when we plead for the railway worker, that it is an expression of lack of confidence in the staff associations of the railwaymen. That statement is not only incorrect but it is not in keeping with the traditions of representation in Parliament of the people who work for the Railway Administration.

Sir, what we should have had is not attacks for pleading for the railway worker. We should have had support from hon. members opposite who were elected to this House to serve the interests of the people who serve the Railway Administration. Sir, not one of them stood up and supported us in our pleas for a more sympathetic attitude to the problems which inflation is creating for the workers. Yes. Sir. they talk but the fact of the matter is that they did not get up, when they had the chance, to fight for the interests of the railwaymen. I challenge them in this debate to get up and to say that they hope that the Administration will be more sympathetic towards the problems of the workers. Sir. not one member on that side has said a word about the problems of the railway pensioner. We have simply been told by the hon. the Minister that we cannot afford to do any more for them at this stage. Just to mention one example, I thought that one of them would have got up to plead for a change in the position of those pensioners who were drawing War Veterans’ pensions. who were then employed by the Railway Administration and who had their War Veterans’ pensions withdrawn and were paid instead a special allowance. What happens is that they get the same amount of money but the special allowance is taxable with the result that they lose on the deal. These are small matters but they nevertheless affect the future and welfare of human beings for whom it is our responsibility to care. These are matters which should be raised and which we will continue to raise in this House until we eventually bring home to the Minister and Government supporters the fact that they have another responsibility, a responsibility greater than thanking the Minister and saying: “Yes. Sir. we are grateful for what you have done.”

Sir. I have mentioned the little things which hon. members on this side have raised in the interest of the railway workers. One of the members on this side raised the question of the payment of consultation fees to doctors. The Minister said that the matter was not in his hands but that every sympathy would be shown in individual cases. If it is not in his hands, how can the Minister give that assurance? It either is in his hand and then he can deal with it or it is not in his hands in which case he cannot give any assurances. Nevertheless this is one of the many problems of the railway workers. The question has been raised with me on numerous occasions of the attitude of a small minority of railway doctors—I emphasize the words “small minority” so that the Minister and the Deputy Minister will not misunderstand what I say— who do not give railway patients the treatment and the consideration which one would expect a medical practitioner to give his patients. There have been complaints that in certain centres the doctors under contract to the Railways treat their patients in a way which is not conducive to confidence and which often drives many railway employees to the point where they turn to private practitioners. These and dozens of other problems arise day after day. problems which we on this side and hon. members opposite who have been so silent in these matters, should raise in this House.

Then. Sir. I said that there were anomalies in the Minister’s Budget. I want to deal with a few of them. The hon. the Minister attacked the hon. member for Yeoville very strongly for what he called an attempt to introduce a new principle into Railway budgeting, and that was the suggestion that in certain cases the Consolidated Revenue Fund should contribute towards the losses rather than the general railway user. Sir, you would have thought that it was the end of the world; you would have thought that we had suggested something so terrible, so unacceptable. that we should never have dared to mention it in this House. Judging by the way the hon. the Minister attacked the hon. member for Yeoville you would have thought that the hon. member for Yeoville had committed a deadly sin by making that suggestion and yet the Minister accepts that where he is carrying out Government policy by providing a service in the interests of Government policy in connection with the re-settlement schemes, then it is quite in order for the Consolidated Revenue Fund to subsidize that scheme on the grounds that he is carrying out Government policy and that the Government wants him to do it.

Why then does the Railway Administration not adopt the same attitude in regard to the Government’s policy of border industry areas? It is Government policy to drive industry into border areas for ideological purposes, and in order to draw industries there, a special rebate of 10 per cent is offered on railway rates from a number of these border industry areas. The Ciskei is one example; there are other examples. Sir, the Railways are carrying that rebate but is it not the policy of the Railways to site those factories there; the duty of the Railways is to provide transport and it is the Government’s policy to site those factories, for political reasons, in places where the industrialists would not normally establish their industries. I want to know whether the Minister now has two sets of principles; one set when it comes to Government policy in respect of the re-settlement areas; where the Bantu are integrated in the economy of the white man in the white areas—in that case the Central Government subsidizes the costs of integrating the Bantu in the economy of the white man in the white areas—and a second set of principles when Government policy is applied to move the Bantu away from the white areas to his own homeland? There you have a different policy and that is that the Railways, not the Consolidated Revenue Fund, must provide the subsidy.

In other words, the Government says that it is its policy to remove the Bantu from the white areas, but it pays the Railways to keep them there; then it is Government policy for industry to be moved out of the white areas to border areas so the Railways have to pay in order to make it possible for them to stay in the border areas. If that is not an anomaly then I do not know what is. And yet when we point out that there are other aspects of Government policy where the Railways are required as a matter of policy to carry traffic at a loss and that the Government should also carry a share of the responsibility, then we are accused of making a proposal so revolutionary as to threaten the whole structure of the Railways. The Government subsidizes many foodstuffs. It accepts that in order to keep the price of essential foodstuffs down to a level within the reach of the people, it is necessary to subsidize those foodstuffs. Then it calls on the Railways as well and the Railways have to add their subsidy. So we have this strange situation of one set of principles applying in one case and a quite different set of principles applying in another.

We have the Government and particularly the Minister falling back on the Schumann Commission report whenever it suits his book. Every time the Schumann Commission supports something he is doing or he is carrying out a recommendation, it becomes the unbreakable law. Then it is an ideal and something you must listen to and carry out because it is right. But when something is suggested which the Schumann Commission suggested and which we support but which is not the policy of the Railways, then suddenly the Schumann Commission report does not become such an unbreakable law. Then it becomes merely a recommendation of the commission. Where it suits the Minister’s book, he uses it and where it does not suit his book, he rejects it. Yet it is the same commission and the same people who drew up the report. The Minister referred over and over again to the recommendations of the commission in justification of some of his attitudes and policies. But when are we going to get answers to those aspects of the recommendations which have been put forward and which have not been decided on and are still under consideration or which are due to be implemented gradually? Are those not important? Are the only recommendations which are important those which have already been carried out?

Let us take another anomaly. The hon. the Minister earlier this Session asked us for an extra R2.4 million in regard to a subsidy for the Railways for carrying Bantu to the resettlement areas. At the time we queried it and we were told that there were no statistics, that this was merely an estimate and that at the end of the year we would be given certified figures and it would then be made quite clear to us how that was made up. Yet when we find the hon. the Minister giving his Budget speech, he stated:

I want to ask where that figure comes from. Are there in fact now figures available or is this also just a guestimate which we are being asked to vote here in this House without a basis of figures and evidence? Because when you look at the General Manager’s report you find that the increase in traffic on those lines was only 15.3 per cent. We are then entitled to ask what is the increase in subsidy which is being asked from the Government and if it is more than 15.3 per cent, which it was on the additional estimates where it was 25 per cent, what accounts for the difference between the increased demands on the railway and the increased amount for which they are asking from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Let us turn to another aspect. This Bill asks for a globular sum of money which we are being asked to vote and it is backed up by detailed estimates of revenue expenditure and capital expenditure. At one of the earlier stages of this debate I raised the discrepancy between the hon. Minister’s memorandum and the preface to the estimates, in which head after head, and I am not going to repeat them, he quoted as a reason for asking this Parliament to approve of increased amounts, the fact that these amounts were required for increased wages, salaries, bonus payments and scale increments. I quoted heads 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23 and 30. These are all heads in which the reason given for wanting more money was the fact that increased wages and salaries required it. One of these heads alone asks for an amount of R3,478,822, i.e. approximately R3½ million. Yet when you come to study the detailed estimates, you find that the total increase before subtracting decreases is R3½ million. Even if all these were totalled up and then the amounts of the decreases were deducted from them, it would still be one head only showing almost the same amount as the total wage increase for the whole year—only one out of all those heads. When you total them up they come to many, many times the total increase. When you have deducted the corresponding decreases, you find that there is a .1 per cent increase on the railway section of R389,000 which is but a few cents compared to this Budget. We have asked why that discrepancy is there? Why are we told that these are the reasons and yet when you analyse them, you find that they are not the reasons. Or if it is the reason, then the figures given for wages and salaries are not the correct figures. We are entitled to know what is wrong. Is it the detailed figures for staff which are wrong or is it the explanatory memorandum giving the reasons for the increase? One of them must be wrong because they cannot both be right and be in conflict. We are asked to vote money on the Brown Book. In the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech he referred to various projects. He referred for instance to the Orange River scheme bridge. I should like to ask where in the Brown Book is the money which we are voting for this new bridge which according to the hon. the Minister’s speech is well under way. It certainly does not appear under ’’Bridges and culverts”. Yet the Minister in his Budget speech said that it is well under way.

Perhaps it is just under water.

The hon. member says that it may just be under water but the point is that either we are voting money for this in which case it should appear in the Brown Book or we are not voting money in which case it should not be referred to in the Budget speech as being one of the matters on which money is being spent. I refer to the hon. the Minister’s statement that the line from Reunion to Umlazi will be open to traffic towards the end of this year. Yet in the Brown Book, shown as standing over for next year, is an amount of nearly RH million. In his Budget speech the hon. the Minister stated that the line from Kensington to Montague Gardens had been completed and yet we are being asked this year to vote R24,000 for something which according to the Minister has been completed. These are anomalies amongst many others which we believe we are entitled to raise in the House where we are being asked to vote money. These estimates are Parliament’s control of railway finances.

We are here under the Constitution and under the legislation of South Africa to control the Railway Administration finances as a Parliament. Our only source of control is these estimates which are put before us once a year. Therefore I want to emphasize that we regard it as absolutely essential that those estimates should be as accurate as humanly possible and that they should be a meaningful reflection of everything that is happening in the Railways. One could go on raising other anomalies. I do not have time to deal with them now. I shall just mention some of them. We have heard that public relations is an important matter. The hon. the Minister and others have referred to the good spirit and the public relations of the Railways, and yet we find that the public relations section has been abolished according to these estimates. It has been completely abolished. No explanation for this has been given. There are detailed matters in regard to apparent anomalies, which could probably be explained if there was time, in regard to the staff at various headquarters. These are matters which if is our duty and our right to raise in this House. Therefore, because we are not satisfied that the anomalies have been ironed out and above all that there is a sympathetic and understanding attitude towards the staff. I move this amendment.

I should like to say a few words to show the House what type of hon. member I have to deal with. The hon. member for Durban (Point) is not truthful. That is one of his failings. I should like to quote from Hansard (uncorrected). This is what I said yesterday:

I know that.

The hon. member should know it, but judging from the way in which he talked, apparently he did not.

And when you ask employees why they did not appeal they say that they are all in the pocket of the Administration.

That is what the employees say, yes.

Will the hon. member be quiet now.

Why should he?

If he is well behaved, he should.

You never stop interjecting.

I have not interjected once while that hon. member was speaking. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition does not know what he is talking about.

[Inaudible.]

Do not talk so much.

I shall take over your job before long.

You have nobody to take yours over.

Mr. Speaker, as I have said, I am quoting from Hansard:

In other words, the charge of the hon. member is that those representatives appointed by staff organizations on the Disciplinary Appeal Board are in the pocket of the Administration?

That is what is being said.

I wonder what the staff associations are going to say to a statement like that made by a responsible member of the Opposition.

On a point of explanation. I think I may have given the hon. the Minister a wrong impression. I was not talking of members of the board. I was talking of the representatives they have to go to in the first place, their local association’s representative.

In other words, members of the local staff associations are in the pocket of the Administration?

That is an accusation which is often made.

Well, I think the staff associations will take note of that. These hon. members who have appealed for increased wages and better working conditions … They have nullified this completely by an allegation such as that—that the shop stewards for instance …

I did not say it was true —I said it was an accusation which was often made.

Mr. Speaker, after this disclosure the Minister has just made, one can understand why there is such great confusion in the ranks of the Opposition.

What disclosure?

The hon. member heard what it was. One measures another man’s corn by one’s own bushel. The hon. member for Durban (Point) levelled quite a number of accusations at the Minister. The particular point he made was that the Minister simply seized upon something and then based an entire case on that. That lesson was most probably learnt from the hon. members for Durban (Point) and Yeoville. We will recall that the hon. member for Durban (Point) made a great fuss last night about a small bag of sugar he had brought here to show how unpatriotic the Minister of Transport was. It was a storm in a teacup. Last night, before the House adjourned, the hon. member for Yeoville made a very great fuss about the price of petrol on the Rand, and he accused those of us who represent the Northern Free State and the Southern Transvaal of not pleading for the price of petrol to be reduced. He seized upon a minor issue and made a great fuss about it. We know why these petty things are being seized upon and why the hon. members for Durban (Point) and Yeoville are carrying on so and why they have so little to say about these Estimates. One of the reasons for that is the fact that the Minister of Transport administers the Railways and the transport of this country with a firm hand. That is the first reason. The second is that the Minister of Transport is fully conversant with what is happening in the various Departments under his portfolio. He puts his case with confidence and with self-assurance, and it is really a joy to listen to him. We have just heard how decisively he replied to the accusation made by the hon. member for Durban (Point). Time and again reference was made here to the fact that the oil pipe-line was yielding large profits. As I have said, dramatic pleas were also made here for the consumers of petrol on the Rand and in the Northern Free State to be given the benefit of a reduction in the price of petrol.

In addition the hon. member for Umlazi pleaded for harbours to be separated from Railways. It seems as though they want to divide transport as a whole into various departments. Hon. members should not lose sight of the fact that the transport of our country forms a whole and that it may not be subdivided. Rail, air and marine transport are inter-dependent. They supplement one another. Taken as a whole they are in the service of the economy of the Republic of South Africa. They may not be divided into competitive compartments. Moreover, the transport services of the country should always be viewed against this background; this has been said here repeatedly. For the sake of the record I just want to repeat that in 1910 the S.A.R. was given statutory recognition to be operated as a Government undertaking, to be operated on a commercial basis and in the interests of the country.

I repeat—on a commercial basis and in the interests of the country. It is for that reason that, when transport services are being discussed, the consideration should always be whether these services are being operated on a commercial basis and in the interests of the country. We know that in 1910 rail transport was the only effective mode of conveyance which existed. Since then there has been development in all spheres, and one of the characteristics of this development is the extent to which rail transport has been supplemented by road transport. In this respect the part played by private road transport as well as the part played by air transport at present, should also be taken into account. This development necessitated proper co-ordination between the various transport services. Since the twenties, and particularly after 1930, the S.A.R introduced an extensive network of road motor services. This service also serves remote areas and makes it possible for development to take place in areas where such development would not have been possible without road motor services. We should remember that our road transport services are unremunerative.

However, this service has to be maintained because it is in the interests of the country. Over the past number of years this service has always shown an appreciable deficit. These services showed substantial losses. In this debate reference was made to the fantastic profits yielded by the oil pipe-line. Only last night it was with a great show that the hon. member for Yeoville accused us of not having pleaded for the interests of the petrol consumer on the Rand, in the Northern Free State and elsewhere. He upbraided us because we did not ask for concessions to be made in respect of the conveyance of petrol. He said that those consumers had a rightful claim to the profits. If that argument is accepted, namely that the petrol consumer on the Rand and in the other areas mentioned have a rightful claim to those profits and should consequently pay a lower price for petrol, then I want to ask hon. members on the other side to consider the consequences of that argument. I think I am entitled to deduce—according to the arguments used here—that because the pipe-line yielded profits to which petrol consumers are partly entitled …

They are entitled to the excess profits.

It does not matter whether they are entitled to the excess profits only. I say that I am entitled to deduce that those people who are making use of road motor services on which there is a loss, will pay for that less. In other words, tariffs for road motor services will then have to be raised. As I am saying, the hon. member for Yeoville upbraided us last night because we did not plead for a reduction in the price of petrol in those areas. Now I want to ask him how much sympathy he has with the wheat farmers of South Africa. We shall tell the wheat farmers in the North-West and the Northern Free State how much sympathy he has. It is a fact that in the past year the road motor services of the S.A.R. conveyed more than 4 million bags of wheat. The wheat that was conveyed was not that of large-scale wheat farmers, but that of small-scale farmers. The road motor service conveyed the wheat of farmers who do not have their own transport, those people who cannot afford their own lorries. The wheat of those small-scale farmers is being conveyed by the road motor services at an economic tariff.

Now I am asking the hon. member for Yeoville and also the Opposition whether they would be content with these tariffs being raised. The argument in respect of the profits of the pipe-line should also be applied here. We are also thinking of the service the road motor service is rendering to dairy farmers as well as farmers in drought-stricken areas. We are thinking of the service which is being rendered in respect of all commodities and for which the users of the Railways are paying.

That proves once again that the Opposition is not concerned about the small man in this country. They never pause to consider that, if the principle they are advocating here were to be applied throughout, there would be certain consequences. They are not thinking of the small man in this country, but instead they are concerned about the capitalists on the Rand to whom they would like to supply cheaper petrol. The taxpayers have always been willing to pay for the losses sustained by the road motor services, because they consider this service to be in the interests of the country as a whole. Similarly the taxpayers on the Rand should be willing—and, what is more, they are in fact willing—to pay for their fuel because otherwise it would lead to the tariffs for other goods being raised. The road motor service and the pipe-line are supplementary services to the Railways. These are services which may not be separated. They should merely be co-ordinated properly. Every mode of conveyance has certain advantages in certain spheres. We know that road transport is better for the conveyance of fragile goods and freight over short distances.

Rail transport, on the other hand, is better for the conveyance of heavy loads and for conveyance over long distances. The method of conveying oil by means of the pipe-line is the cheapest one by which it can be done. Air transport again has the advantage that it is not bound by surface conditions. For all that the transport of our country still remains a unit. The various forms of transport are inter-dependent: one cannot replace the other: one cannot and may not compete with the other. They must necessarily bear the burdens of one another, and for that reason, too, adjustments should be made all the time. When the finances of the Railways permit it, it is quite possible that the profits made on the pipe-line may be utilized in favour of the consumers of petrol in the areas mentioned. However, it should always be taken into account that the Railways is charged with the conveyance of low-tariff goods. There are special low tariffs for coal, power fuel, agricultural produce and other raw materials, and they are of great value to the economic development of the country.

It is essential that the policy of low tariffs should be maintained. This is possible because high-tariff goods have been providing the necessary revenue for making the transport undertaking in our country an economic possibility. When high-tariff traffic is being diverted into other channels or separated into different departments, where each section has to pay for itself, we shall in due course reach the stage where the Railways will not be able to convey low-tariff goods. The revenue obtained from high-tariff goods should always be utilized for the purpose of ensuring the conveyance of low-tariff goods. Unfortunately it is the trend in our time that the Railways is being allocated a steadily increasing share of the conveyance of low-tariff goods. This should also be attributed to the fact that South Africa is steadily becoming more industrialized and is manufacturing more and more articles, and consequently fewer and fewer goods are being imported, goods which the Railways used to convey to inland markets at high tariffs. For the most part factories are at present situated near to the markets, and therefore the domestic conveyance of manufactured goods cannot compensate for the loss of imported goods. Therefore it amounts to the fact that the Railways will to an increasing extent have to content itself with the conveyance of low-tariff goods.

In his speech the Minister emphasized this fact, and I am merely referring to it in passing. That is why it is to be expected that the conveyance of certain high-tariff goods should remain the responsibility of the Railways. It is therefore unwise to want to detach the oil pipeline from the policy which has applied up to now. It is in the interests of the country that that pipeline will remain an integral part of the transport system. In this regard we should also guard against the improper intrusion of private hauliers. We must admit that they are rendering a very important service to the country at present; they are rendering a service where it cannot be done by others. The question one will have to take into account in this regard in future is how to make equitable provision for the development of an efficient private road motor service side by side with the existing rail and road services of the Railways. Solutions to this can easily be found, and full justice can be done to each of them provided that transport is properly co-ordinated and provided that a competent Minister of Transport, such as the one we have to-day, is in charge.

I should like to conclude by just bringing to the notice of the hon. the Minister a matter which is a bit of a thorny problem in my constituency, namely that as a result of the planning on the gold-fields, which was not the planning of the Government, and the hopes which were cherished as a result of the discovery of gold and which were not realized, certain complications arose and certain planning took place which in the long run appeared not to have been the right planning. At the moment we are saddled with a station on one side of the railway lines and the goods-shed on the other, and the goods-shed has no proper road link with the town. Everything is going through the buffer Strip of the location, or through the hinterland of the location. For that reason I should like to plead that consideration should be given to a plan for constructing a bridge over those double lines in order that there may be a link between the goods-shed and the station, and especially between the goods-shed and the White residential areas of Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether I may appeal to the Whips on the other side to ask the hon. the Minister of Transport to come into the House. We have sent a note to the hon. gentlemen opposite pointing out that after the personal and vicious attack the Minister made on my friend, the hon. member for Durban (Point), we would like an opportunity to reply to him, but the Minister has indicated that for some reason or other he cannot come in. I now want to ask the Whips to request the Minister to come in, because in view of his intervention in this debate and his personal attack on the hon. member for Durban (Point), and his immediately leaving the House thereafter, we feel that despite his absence we cannot be quiet; we cannot let that pass. The Minister sent a message that he could not come in.

No, he did not say that.

I want to protest in the most definite terms against the intervention by the Minister in this debate and the manner in which he intervened. I want to say that in all my experience of this Parliament, an institution which we revere, we have never known an hon. Minister of the Government to act as that Minister has just acted. In order to denigrate the hon. member for Durban (Point), he read from his Hansard, and he said that he wanted to read from that Hansard to show the type of member he had to deal with. Then he went on to accuse the hon. member for Durban (Point) of having made an accusation against the staff associations of the S.A. Railways and Harbours. He read from the Hansard of the hon. member for Durban (Point). Every quotation he read showed that the Minister was not speaking the truth. Every quotation from that Hansard showed that the hon. member for Durban (Point) was referring to the feelings and the opinions of the employees of the S.A. Railways, and it showed that the hon. member made a specific point of saying that it was not a question of the truth at all that was involved. I want to read the actual words used by the hon. member for Durban (Point)—

In other words, he must lend his ears to gossip.

That may be, Sir. I am not arguing about that. What I say is that the Minister gets up in this House and accuses the hon. member when he reports the sensations and the feelings and the observations of members of the staff, and he describes that as being the opinion of the hon. member for Durban (Point), and then having made that statement he runs out of the House. I think it is a shameful thing that the Minister did.

I want to go further. If the Minister got up to attack the hon. member for Durban (Point) in that manner and to show that the accusations he made against him in a previous speech were correct, why did he limit himself to this particular instance, where he has put himself completely out of court and has disproved his own case? He has put himself in a shameful position. Why did he not go on and try to justify the other accusation he made against the hon. member for Durban (Point), when yesterday he accused the hon. member of being unpatriotic and of running down South African institutions? I want to recall what happened for the benefit of those members who were not present. The Minister made quite a song and dance about the fact that the hon. member for Durban (Point) had run down the S.A. Airways and that he had no good word for this great institution. The Minister said the Airways was a small thing compared to Qantas and others, but the hon. member for Durban (Point), because it was South African, belittled it. Now, what are the facts? Why did the Minister not, when he was trying to justify the one accusation he made, try to justify this accusation that he made, namely that the hon. member for Durban (Point) had belittled the S.A. Airways? What did the hon. member for Durban (Point) do? We have had a most tragic and unfortunate accident in the S.A. Airways during the last few days. The hon. member for Durban (Point) said that as far as we on this side of the House are concerned nothing can detract, not even that unfortunate accident, from the splendid and superb record of S.A. Airways.

I want to remind you, Sir, because you were not in the Chair, of what the hon. member for Durban (Point) said, and these are the words which led to the Minister saying that my hon. friend was running down the South African Airways. Here are his words—

Those words have been quoted here already; we heard them.

Yes, the hon. member heard them but the Minister apparently did not hear them, and that is our charge; that is what is so significant. A back-bencher of the Nationalist Party can hear these words, but the hon. the Minister prefers not to hear them. My hon. friend said—

He then went on to say—

Sir, can one pay a bigger tribute to a small airline than to say that it is still way ahead of all world airlines? But the hon. the Minister gets up and accuses my hon. friend of running down the S.A. Airways. Where is the Minister? He should answer for this; he should be here; he should not have intervened in this debate if he knew that he could not be here to take an answer. He should not have made a personal attack on an hon. member if he knew that he had to leave immediately afterwards. I say it is discourteous; I say it is unworthy of the office of the Minister as Leader of the House. It is a pity that the hon. the Minister is not here to hear this but I seem to recall that less than a year ago I reported to the hon. the Minister that his own supporters were saying that if ever they had to choose a leader from the Nationalist Party they could not choose him because of his lack of good manners.

Nonsense.

I did not know then that the truth of those words would be proved here within a month or two, as they have just been proved to be true.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member entitled to say that the hon. the Minister is lacking in manners?

I did not say that.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Sir, I think this should go on record, in the interests of the proceedings of this Parliament, that the hon. the Minister of Transport stands revealed and has been revealing himself now for a number of years to Parliament and to the nation as a man who adopts a certain technique. When he finds that he faces an argument where he is defenceless, where he has no answer, he indulges in virulent personal attacks, and on many occasions, Sir, you and other people in the Chair, have had to call the Minister to order.

What are your tactics?

They are to expose this once and for all. What is worse, when the Minister feels guilty about something or other, then instead of just indulging in personal attacks he accuses his opponents of lack of patriotism and of lack of South Africanism, as he did yesterday in the case of the hon. member for Umlazi, who had put up a plea that the South African harbours should be put to the best use in the interests of South Africa. He was accused of lack of patriotism because the Minister thought it was more important to study the interests of a particular individual or a particular firm than the interests of the harbours and of the transport system of South Africa, a difference of opinion, but a difference of opinion which did not justify the Minister to suggest that we were unpatriotic and un-South African as he did.

All I want to say, Sir, is this, and let this be on record: In future when the Minister of Transport makes a virulent personal attack denigrating members on this side of the House, we and the people will know that the Minister has no other answer and, secondly, when the hon. the Minister comes and attacks and casts suspicion and aspersions on the South Africanism and the patriotism of members of the Opposition, we will know that it is because he is a guilty man. I think that should be known and that is why I have intervened in this debate to place that on record. Once again I want to express my deep regret that I have been compelled by circumstances beyond my control to say these things in the absence of the Minister who stood up here unexpectedly. The hon. the Deputy Minister moved this particular section of the proceedings and the Minister chose to intervene unexpectedly, to make a personal attack and then to escape from the House. I regret that I have to say these things in his absence but the Minister left me no option.

Order! I think the hon. member should withdraw the word “escape”.

I withdraw it.

It is always a tragic experience to see how a party which is in its last death throes clutches at straws. Sir, what audacity on the part of the hon. member for Yeoville to want to don the mantle of a high priest and to read a moral sermon to the hon. the Minister of Transport. What audacity to launch an attack on the hon. the Minister in these terms. What audacity to use these terms and to intimate that the hon. the Minister left the Chamber for other considerations; that the hon. the Minister allegedly left the Chamber because he anticipated an attack being launched on him here. It is the height of audacity on the part of the hon. member for Yeoville to have adopted that attitude here. He did so for one purpose only. The hon. member for Durban (Point) and the hon. member for Yeoville are, par excellence, the hon. members who when they are faced with any problem, succeed in making fuming speeches here on facts which they change to suit the case they want to put forward.

I am going to make a modest attempt to raise the standard of this debate. I am going to leave this somewhat banal field for a few moments. On this occasion I should like to give a short review of some of the activities and circumstances of the S.A. Airways. We are deeply conscious of the tragic disaster which occurred a few days ago, but I should like to give this House one assurance, in complete contrast to the image of the Minister we were given here by the Opposition, and that is that nothing moved the hon. the Minister more deeply than this tragic event; that I personally had the privilege of being present when this report reached him and that he was deeply concerned about this event. Since we are in that frame of mind as far as the Airways are concerned, to-day is a good opportunity for bringing a message of confidence, a message of the confidence we have in the S.A. Airways. And where we want to convey our deepest sympathy to the Airways and the Management, we want to give them the assurance at the same time that we do have confidence in them and that along with them we are facing the future with confidence. In bringing this message of confidence, we want to extend that to the entire nation of South Africa who makes use of the services of the S.A. Airways to such a large extent and who makes more and more use of the privilege of being guests of the S.A. Airways. My remarks are based on an observation of the thoroughness with which these people plan, the thoroughness with which they set about things and the skill with which they undertake their task. In this I want to include the head of the Management, his deputy, the engineering head and those who work in very close co-operation with them. My personal experience has been that those people are dedicated people; that they are people who love the work they are doing and that they do that work because it is their intense desire to establish an outstanding service.

On one occasion it was my privilege to pay a visit to the workshops at the Jan Smuts Airport. There I saw how all parts of an aircraft were thoroughly tested and checked. All parts, from the smallest screw to the large jet engines, were tested and checked in a way which really did those men credit. The impression which sticks in one’s memory on leaving those workshops is that of an organization which bears testimony to thoroughness. There are maintenance programmes which have been drawn up with the utmost care and with due regard having been had to the requirements of the various engines and aircraft. Everything possible is being done there, particularly with a view to placing the safety aspect on the highest level possible. A huge area has been covered by a roof and one section is integrated with another for the purpose of thoroughly checking and overhauling every part of the aircraft as well as, interestingly enough, for doing certain pioneer work, hitherto only done overseas but at present being done to an increasing extent in the workshops at Jan Smuts, work which involves the handling of certain materials and subjecting them to certain processes and which is being done in a way which definitely does credit to the persons who are concerned in the matter. There is another aspect which inspires confidence and which is very interesting from a safety point of view, and that is the training which the pilots undergo in the Jan Smuts workshops. You would have noticed from reports that a simulator has been purchased which is an exact replica of the pilot’s cabin in various types of aircraft. There are simulators for all types of aircraft used by the South African Airways.

If you consider that 235 members of the flying personnel of the South African Airways underwent training in these simulators and spent 1.430 hours in undergoing such training, you will realize what a tremendous saving that, i.e. the training of those people in the simulators, effected for the South African Airways. Here I have to explain to you that it is an exact replica of the pilot’s cabin of the Boeing 707, for example, with a complete set of instruments which corresponds in the minutest detail to that found in that aircraft. It is possible to simulate, once more in the minutest detail, any particular flight anywhere in the world. It enables the pilot to make a landing at any airport anywhere in the world. He is under the control of an instructor from the moment of take-off and it is possible to simulate various emergencies. It is possible to require from him to make various reactions by creating various emergencies, and in that way it is possible for the pilot to gain actual experience of coping with various emergencies which may occur when he is in the air. All this happens without him leaving the ground. The pilot is conditioned to make automatic reactions in emergencies. Safety measures to be followed on later occasions are drilled into his mind. Impossible situations are created which, if they were to occur under other circumstances, would be very difficult, expensive and often dangerous. For that reason I am saying that once one has had the privilege of having witnessed this aspect of training at close quarters, one is inspired with nothing but confidence in the way in which this part of the training is being given.

There is another interesting aspect of the Airways which may not be common knowledge, namely the South African radio station, Z.E.R., which is being used for maintaining direct contact between the aircraft of the South African Airways and Jan Smuts Airport. During a visit to that radio station, I had the interesting experience of witnessing how the operator maintained contact with a South African aircraft which was landing at London Airport. In this way the South African Airways maintain contact with their aircraft in any corner of the world and at times they have the interesting experience that other European airports request the South African radio station to relay messages to some of their aircraft which are many thousands of miles from Johannesburg. This radio station has enabled the South African Airways to institute a virtually unique service by virtue of the distances over which they miraculously maintain contact.

The operating results of the South African Airways during the past year were very satisfactory. It is necessary that we examine single aspects of those results in order to illustrate what progress was made. Nearly a million passengers were carried during the financial year 1965-’66, which represents an increase of more than 15 per cent on the previous financial year. The aircraft of the South African Airways covered more than 14 million miles during that year. If one considers that progress is being made and if that rate is going to be maintained, the time is close at hand when the million mark for passengers will be exceeded—possibly during the current financial year or in the very near future. Thus the South African Airways are developing at an almost incredible rate. In spite of greater pressure and in spite of greater demands on them, they succeeded in producing favourable operating results.

From the financial point of view the South African Airways deserve to be paid the compliment that in spite of having had to cope with a rapidly expanding service and in view of the new and demanding tasks imposed on them from time to time, they nevertheless succeeded financially by producing a favourable credit balance at the end of the year. If we compare that to the B.O.A.C., which has an accumulated loss of £80 million (or R160 million) and which must be kept going by the British Government by means of heavy subsidies, it is remarkable that our South African Airways nevertheless succeed in returning money to the coffers from time to time and still being left with a credit balance. At present the South African Airways have representatives at 26 places all over the world. I have been told by overseas visitors that the representatives of the South African Airways in countries abroad are of our best ambassadors there. We are very grateful for the service which they, as South Africans, are rendering to South Africa; also for the way in which they are acting, making publicity and for the way in which they are succeeding in enhancing the good name of South Africa in overseas countries. The emblem of the South African Airways is being seen to an increasing extent in more and more centres in the world.

In Europe the aircraft of the South African Airways are making regular flights to Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, Zurich, Paris, London and Athens. In Africa they fly to Salisbury, Luanda and also on the Springbok service to Las Palmas. On the Wallaby service to Australia our aircraft are regularly being seen in Mauritius, the Cocos Islands and also in Perth in Australia. Thus the network of the South African Airways at present covers virtually one half of the globe in providing flights from Africa. In that process the South African Airways have succeeded in achieving unique feats at times. I want to read to you a quotation from a London periodical on one of those feats which will always remain a milestone in the history of the South African Airways. They refer here to the introduction of a new service and state—

That is characteristic and typical of the spirit in which the South African Airways plan to cope with any situation. That is typical of the way in which they see and set about their task. The South African Airways also do something else, and that is to set us an example of international co-operation. The South African Airways have agreements with various other airlines. The best known of these is, of course, the pool agreement with B.O.A.C. There are also pool agreements with T.A.P., the Portuguese airline, U.T.A. of France and in recent times agreements were entered into with Lufthansa of Germany and Alitalia. In Southern Africa there are agreements with C.A.A. and D.E.T.A., the Portuguese East African airline. The popularity of these air services is increasing to a tremendous extent. The so-called Starlight service to Rhodesia is becoming very popular—as a matter of fact, during the latest year under review the number of passengers on this service increased by 12 per cent. As far as the service to Lourenço Marques is concerned, there was an increase of 12 per cent in the number of passengers carried during the latest year under review as compared to the number of passengers carried during the previous year. This is the record of and the present state of affairs in the South African Airways. However, what is also important is the future. As far as that is concerned, one may say that the planning is ambitious.

At present the South African Airways have 25 aircraft for the overseas and internal services. In addition to that number, as the hon. Minister announced, various aircraft are op order. There are ambitious plans for expansion—from time to time new routes are investigated and planned. In this regard it is interesting to note what the South African Airways are aiming at and to what places they want to spread their wings. Thus, for example, they are engaged on planning a route to South America across the South Atlantic Ocean, a route which will be the first of its kind in the world. Apparently this route will go from South Africa to Buenos Aires, via Luanda and thence to Rio de Janeiro. Another route which is being investigated is one to New York, via the island Sark, Las Palmas and Lisbon. Another possibility is an extension of the service from Rio de Janeiro to Miami in Florida and thence to New York. If they were to succeed in introducing these routes, that will be pioneer work. This includes, as I said before, a route over the South Atlantic Ocean and that in spite of the fact that the South African Airways do not often fly over such a vast expanse of water.

However, the South African Airways are also trying to keep abreast of the most modern developments in aviation. In this regard they are engaged in making an assessment of future developments. For example, an assessment is being made of S.S.T. aircraft, i.e. supersonic transportation aircraft, aircraft which are at present being manufactured in various countries in the world. I can give you the assurance that the South African Airways are extremely well informed in regard to developments in this field. Let me tell you of some developments, the prospects of which are already being held out, and in which the South African Airways are interested. By 1971 the Concorde, which is being built by Britain and France jointly, will apparently undertake flights for the first time. This is an aircraft which will be able to carry 136 passengers at a speed of 1,400 miles per hour—i.e. at approximately twice the speed of sound. At approximately the same time it is anticipated that Russia will put its aircraft which falls in the same category, the so-called T.U. 144, into service. However plans are being made even further ahead than that. It is anticipated that by 1974, two American manufacturers, Boeing and Lockheed, will be able to put an aircraft into service which will fly at a speed of three times that of sound. These aircraft will be able to fly at 1,800 miles per hour and will be able to carry 300 passengers. The South African Airways are at present making an assessment in order to determine to what extent it will be possible to make use of these supersonic transportation aircraft on a service between South Africa and Europe and between South Africa and the Americas. In this regard many interesting facts are emerging.

These aircraft, those which will be able to carry 300 passengers, will fly at a height of 13 miles above the earth and will need 3½ hours for a flight between New York and Rome and apparently not many more for a flight between South Africa and Europe. These aircraft will fly so high that they will be flying in the dark blue sky of which space travellers tell us, and passengers will have the pleasure of looking at the stars in broad daylight. However, the aircraft themselves will be responsible for interesting experiences. The outer shell of these aircraft, which will be made of titanium-uranium, will reach a temperature of 630° where it comes into contact with the air.

Therefore one will be able to fry sausages on them.

What may perhaps be of more importance to the hon. member for Durban (Point) is the fact that one will cover 495 miles during the time one needs to finish a drink. The aircraft will stretch or expand between 12 and 16 inches as a result of being exposed to this heat.

It is definitely true that we are experiencing interesting times and that we are privileged to share in that experience. Where the South African Airways are in mourning at the present time, we on this side of the House would like to give them a handshake of encouragement and would like to assure them that we still have confidence in them and that we shall continue to have confidence in them. We are convinced that the South African nation has confidence in them and will retain that confidence. Our wishes are that the South African Airways will always spread their wings further a field and will proudly do so in the service of South Africa.

When the hon. member for Middelburg commenced his speech with such a show of indignation I expected from him a spirited defence of his Minister. But what we got from him were a few words of, I can almost say, forced indignation. Thereafter he proceeded to speak of the South African Airways in terms not even as glowing as those used by the hon. member for Durban (Point) last night. And the hon. member for Durban (Point) was accused, despite the terms he used, of being unpatriotic. I am absolutely amazed and aghast that this word should have been applied to what the hon. member said about our Airways, because we on this side of the House associate ourselves 100 per cent with the Government in saying that the Airways of South Africa have a very fine record indeed. For the hon. member for Durban (Point) under the circumstances to be accused of being unpatriotic, is entirely beyond me. The hon. member for Middelburg is a person who, I know, is very interested in flying. He is a private pilot and has been showing a great deal of interest in the Airways for a long time.

I, however, should like to raise a matter here this afternoon which is of interest to timber growers. I hope the hon. member for Parow and the hon. member for Stellenbosch, who are members of the forestry group on their side, will give some attention to this matter, because it vitally affects all timber growers in South Africa. It is, moreover, a matter which has come very pertinently to our notice in Natal as a result of an occurrence during the last session of Parliament. I hope we can arrive at some sort of solution. Therefore I hope all hon. members who are interested in forestry and timber growing will help us to find a solution to this problem, a problem which is very real indeed. I am authorized by the S.A. Timber Growers Association to raise the matter here. The President of this association wrote to me as follows—

In this connection I should like to refer to a question I asked earlier this Session. This will give an indication of the background of this problem. According to Hansard of this year (column 1623) I asked the following question—

1. (1) Whether the Railways Administration undertook to test weigh trucks of timber delivered to a timber concern in Natal during 1966; if so, how many trucks were test weighed;
2. (2) whether the test weight differed from the weight returned by the company in any instances; if so, (a) in how many instances, (b) what was the weight of each truck test weighed in these instances, (c) what was the weight returned by the company and (d) what reason was advanced by the company for the difference in weight;
3. (3) whether any action was taken by the Administration against the company; if so, what action;
4. (4) whether any precaution has been taken against a recurrence; if so, what precaution?

The answer that I received was the following—

I want to say here and now that I was personally involved in this matter during the past year. I wish to state that this matter was brought to my attention by one of my constituents. A certain company operating a private weighbridge was consistently returning short weight on trucks of timber delivered to their siding. The person concerned is a timber grower operating a small private siding at which he can get a fairly accurate estimate of the weight of timber in a truck. I have here a list of some of the weights which he estimated as compared to the weights given by the test weighbridge of the Administration. A truck of timber which he estimated to weigh 34,634 lbs. was recorded by a test weighbridge of the Administration as 35,000 lbs. It was slightly more, but very close to his figure nevertheless. In another instance he estimated the weight at 35,671 lbs. whilst the test weight was 35,460 lbs. He also estimated a certain truck to weigh 35,218 lbs. and the test weight by the Administration was 35,620 lbs. In the first case referred to, where the Administration’s check weight was 35,000 lbs. the company returned a weight of 26,900 lbs. In the second case, where the weight was 35,000 lbs. as tested by the Administration, the company also returned a weight of 35,000 lbs. In the third case where the weight was 35,000 lbs. as tested by the Administration the company returned a weight of 30,000 lbs. In another case a weight estimated to be 32,000 lbs., a weight of only 26,000 lbs. was recorded by the company. In another case the estimate was 35,000 lbs. whilst a weight of only 25,000 lbs. was recorded by the company. In yet another case a weight was estimated at 35,000 lbs. on the private weighbridge of my constituent, whilst a weight of 26,000 lbs. was recorded.

These are considerable differences. Because of the figures shown me, I asked the Administration in Natal to undertake a series of test weighings. These three trucks I quoted were also test weighed. According to a letter which I had from the Administration 31 trucks were test weighed and 31 trucks were found to be under-declared by the company. This was the information I sought to obtain from the Minister. I had the information but I wanted to get it officially from the Minister so that I could base a case which I wish to put to him on something which I obtained from him and his Department. I am sure that hon. members on both sides, including the hon. member for Stellenbosch, will agree that this is a very serious matter indeed.

You should take up the matter with the Assize Office.

I did. I wish to state here that I am not attacking the Administration’s handling of the case. I want to make that quite clear. We took the case up and, as far as I am concerned, it has been dealt with. I do not want to name the company concerned. It has nothing to do with that at all. What I wanted to do was to put the case to the Administration as to whether there was no responsibility resting on them to ensure that the grower who delivers his produce, whatever it may be—in my particular instance it was timber—to them in good faith has; some right to protection as regards the delivered goods being weighed correctly at the other end of the transaction, that is to say, when the Administration delivers it and, in effect, gives it over to an agent of the Administration. As I say, the answer given to me was that these details are confidential and the Administration is not prepared to disclose them. The Administration is entitled to say that if they operate on that basis. However, one must not lose sight of the fact that people can be done down by this sort of thing.

Two points arise from what I have been saying. Firstly, there is the interest of the grower. The grower is concerned that a correct weight shall be recorded because he is paid on that basis. According to clause 231 of the official Railway Tariffs Book—

In other words, what happens is this. The grower who has entrusted his produce to the Administration in good faith is entirely without recourse against the maloperation of a private weighbridge which is operated on behalf of the Administration by a company. I believe that an investigation is needed into this matter. I believe this is something which is of the utmost seriousness.

The second point which affects the Administration is that its charges to the grower are based upon the weight recorded at destination. The Administration can quite easily lose revenue if the weight is under-declared, and at the same time if it should ever happen that the weight was over-declared—I do not suppose this does ever happen, but it might— the farmer will then pay more railage than he should be paying. I want to know whether there is no way of making a constant check on private users of weighbridges. It is fundamentally a case of the trust which the Administration reposes in people who use private weighbridges. I should like to know, firstly, whether the Administration does undertake any kind of check constantly. I do not want to make an accusation here against all and sundry who use private weighbridges. I do not want it thought that I am saying that in this particular case there was any mala fides in the use of the weighbridge. What I want to say is that a consistent pattern of faulty weight recording was revealed. We had 31 trucks test weighed and in every single case a wrong weight was recorded. In every case there was an under-weight, which was to the detriment of the producer. That happened in the case of 31 trucks that were taken at random and test weighed by the Administration. It is not fair to assume that every single truck that went over that weighbridge was incorrectly recorded? That involves hundreds of thousands of tons of timber that were under-declared. I cannot stress the point strongly enough to the Deputy Minister that I believe something should be done about this. There should be some means of checking up, whether it be by means of constant test weighing of trucks delivered to a concern such as this or by some other means. I am interested in timber growers. I am not pleading the case of other people, because obviously there must be a vast number of people who use private weighbridges. But I want to know from the Minister, and I should like an assurance, that this matter is constantly receiving the attention of the Administration. If it is not, then I want to ask the Minister whether he would consider it and have the mind of his Department applied to this matter in an attempt to find some kind of solution. As I say, I do not want to make wholesale accusations against people. I do not want to question the action of the Administration in this particular case. I think they had a very clear option. On the one hand they could have gone right into this case, and if they felt that there were grounds for doing so, it would have been a national scandal, and nothing less. It would have been a major case of fraud against the company, but I think they acted wisely. They took very firm action to see that it was immediately put right. But I do not think it should be necessary for this to have come to my attention by chance. It happened that my constituent is a person who operates a weighbridge of his own, and he could give a rough estimate, and the figures here show that it was a very close estimate, of what the weight in that truck ought to be. I believe we have here a very clear case for asking the Minister to provide better protection in the interests of the grower. Where the private weighbridges are operated by companies who are in effect agents of the Administration, the Administration is in effect responsible—although they disclaim responsibility in terms of the Tariff Book—for the weights declared, because they entrust to those people the use of that private weighbridge and they allow them to record the weights, and payment takes place on the basis of the weights recorded and also the amount of tariff to be paid. This is a matter which affects the grower in regard to his payment and the rate he has to pay. I think something should be done. I do not know whether it should be a regular system of test weighing or what else can be done. I know that a regular test weighing is something which is very difficult to carry out without the person at the other end knowing that it is going on, and if you have a case in which there is mala fides it is most difficult to conceal the fact from the person at the other end that a test weighing has taken place. But there must be some means by which it can be done, and having brought the matter to the notice of the Minister I want to ask him, on behalf of the S.A. Timber Growers’ Association, to see what can be done, and if possible, to give us the assurance that this will not happen again.

Throughout the various stages of this debate so far one has had some sympathy with the Opposition, because an influential English-language newspaper introduced this Budget by an article in which the Minister was paid the highest tribute, and which called this Budget a most satisfactory one. Against this background and the fact that it is not really possible to get a hold on this Budget in the form of criticism, one should see last night’s bit of melodrama on the pipeline and also to-day’s bit of melodrama. I want to object most strongly to the idea that this is a neutral Budget. I would contend that this is a most positive Budget, and that our greatest problem, inflation, has been tackled most energetically. This is done in various ways. The first is greater productivity, which has been mentioned repeatedly. It has been pointed out that our productivity has increased by 10 per cent compared with 1961-’62. What is important here with regard to the question of productivity, however, is that until recently we had no formula by which we could judge our productivity from year to year, and that the Railways has now provided an effective formula by which we can measure this productivity by means of a basis year in future.

Also important in this regard is the fact that our social sciences are enlisted more and more to ensure optimum labour productivity and the minimum turnover in staff. We are also introducing modern staff selection methods year after year, and we are tightening up our training programme.

The next way in which we are fighting inflation indirectly is by countering the chronic shortages in key grades, for example station foremen, firemen, etc., by greater automation, more electrification and pipeline construction. In his Budget speech the Minister also made the important announcement that the expenditure provided for in the new financial year is the lowest for the past six years. Another important fact is that as far as our capital works are concerned, R439 million will stand over for the years succeeding the new financial year, to provide for capital works. That is indeed a powerful means of fighting inflation. For (that reason I think a certain influential financial publication of 10th March this year was wide off the mark when it produced the following kind of criticism—

Personally, I think this criticism sounds a trifle hollow, if one has regard to the tremendous amount of R439 million which we are carrying forward for capital works in future years. In another important field the hon. the Minister also resisted the temptation which may easily have confronted him this year, and that was the temptation to implement the report of the Schumann Committee even further with regard to agriculture.

We know that the report of the Schumann Committee proposed certain far-reaching changes as regard agricultural produce and agricultural requisites, and that these recommendations were implemented to a minor extent only. By not fully implementing the recommendations of the report in this important respect, the Minister favours agriculture on the one hand and on the other hand the consumer, who would naturally have to pay higher prices for agricultural produce if railway rates on such products are increased. In this regard the hon. the Minister has therefore also token a positive and active step to combat inflation. Moreover, I feel that as a farmer it is only fair to pay tribute to the Administration for the tremendous task they have performed in the past year and are still performing with regard to agriculture. In the past year half a million head of large and small stock were transported by the Railways, an increase of 51,000 on the previous year. But the important point in this regard is that a tremendously large percentage of these stock were stock from drought stricken areas, a type of stock which requires specialized handling and expeditious handling, and to my knowledge there were very few complaints in this regard and the Railways did us a magnificent service. The Administration also deserves credit for the fact that it frequently acts of its own accord as a watchdog to secure benefits for agriculture. In this regard I want to refer to a minor point to illustrate what I mean. Until recently lupin was transported as seed, at a higher tariff. In view of the fact that lupin is used mainly as stock-feed, the Railways then decided to effect a considerable decrease in the tariff. The old tariff on lupin was 727 cents a ton per wagon load; the Administration revised the tariff to 582 cents a ton, which is a considerable concession to agriculture. Nor can I omit referring to the imminent maize harvest, in which regard the efficient handling of a peak crop descending on them all at once will be expected of the Railways. I am convinced that they will cope with it. But because the export portion of this crop will in my estimate total 30 million plus bags, I want to appeal to the hon. the Deputy Minister and his Administration to have the existing stocks in storage exported as quickly as possible in order that we may be prepared for the new crop. I also want to point out to the Administration that because most farmers will by this year be harvesting their maize by means of automatic reapers, and because the crop will ripen early, we shall be bringing in the new crop at the beginning of May. I think it is most important that before the winter peak-time arrives, we should also clear a large portion of the crop delivered in May and even earlier.

Then I should like to pursue a matter raised by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) just before he sat down, which unfortunately he was not able to pursue any further. I should like to deal with it somewhat further in the light of facts which he made available to me, and in the light of facts which I myself gathered because I wanted to raise this matter in any event. I am referring to our Railways Police. I am sure the Administration does not depreciate the work of the Railways Police in any respect, and that they are at all times jealous of these people's progress in the service of the Administration. This is borne out by the number of very tasteful medals that have been instituted, according to the latest report of the General Manager, to reward and honour members of this force for various services. But the question that occurs to me—and I ask this in all modesty and humility, because I am not fully informed on this matter, and I should be grateful to be corrected if I am wrong—is whether these people really have the same prospects as in the comparable services, for example the S.A. Police, the Prisons Service or the South African Defence Force. What first brought this to my notice and caused me some misgivings, is the fact that in my own principal town, Kroonstad, the person who is in charge of the Railways Police has 106 men under his command; these are men stationed at Kroonstad and controlled by Kroonstad. He has 106 men under his command and his rank is only that of lieutenant. I would suggest that in the South African Police this person would most certainly have held a higher rank, and for that reason I maintain that the prospects for promotion in the Railways Police Service are certainly not as ample and equitable as in the other forces. According to the information at my disposal, and I speak under correction, the salaries compare favourably in 99 per cent of cases, but in the higher posts the salaries do not compare favourably. It is my information that a lieutenant-colonel in the South African Police earns R750 more a year than a lieutenant-colonel in the Railways Police. I shall be grateful if the hon. the Deputy Minister will comment on this, and if there is room for improvement, if my information is correct, I shall be grateful if something can be done about this.

Then I want to come back to a matter which has already been dealt with exhaustively in this House, namely the incentive to industries in the rural areas by way of tariff adjustments. I make no apology for the fact that if I raise this matter once again, I do so at the risk of boring this House, because this is a matter of material importance to the rural areas, and apart from this, our Constitution Act imposes on the Railways a duty to develop the rural areas as far as industrial location is concerned. This principle of tariff adjustments to favour certain undertakings is a principle which we find in the General Manager’s report year after year. On page 34 of the latest report of the General Manager, for example, there is once again a report of considerable rate benefits conferred mainly for the benefit of mineral and metal exports. Now the hon. the Minister said in reply to representations at an earlier stage of this series of debates that it was the general finding of the Schumann Committee that Railway tariffs played a role in industrial location in less than 5 per cent of all cases. Now paragraph 319 of the Schumann Report raises a further point. It says, inter alia:

Then, with respect, I also want to refer to Verburgh’s book South African Transportation Policy, page 84 of the 1961 edition. Under the heading “Industries which obtain all their requirements in rural areas”, he states explicitly—

On page 88 of the same book, the author says under the heading “Oil seed industry”—

In the light of the facts I want to mention now, I want to request respectfully that a further investigation should be made in respect of restricted goods in a restricted geographical area. The geographical area I want to mention is the highly productive section of the maize triangle in the rural areas, in this case specifically the North-Western Free State. The goods for which I want to plead are farming products such as maize, groundnuts and similar products, which are there produced in bulk. In view of the particulars I have given here, I consider it equitable to inquire in respect of this specific geographical area and in respect of these specific commodities whether tariff adjustments cannot be made. I am convinced that both sides of this House agree on the basic principle, namely that if we can locate more industries in the rural areas without disrupting the national economy and being inequitable, it will be in the interests of our country as a whole.

Mr. Speaker, in view of the repeated statements of the hon. the Minister of Transport that the Railways was a public service and as such was spending public money and that he would welcome criticism, it seems strange that he should have reacted so violently to the criticisms from this side of the House as he has done not only today but yesterday and the day before. It is because the Railways has to provide a public service and it is using public funds that I rise to-day in a spirit of criticism of an aspect of the Railway Administration which I believe merits the serious attention of this Government. I refer to the suburban train service in the Peninsula. I asked the Minister of Transport on the 12th August, 1966, how many trains there were arriving at Cape Town station and departing from Cape Town station each day. His answer was that there were 116 trains to Cape Town in the mornings, one of which was an entirely non-white train. He said that they had 414 white carriages and 498 nonwhite carriages and that in the evenings 117 trains departed from Cape Town of which 16 were non-white and that they had 425 white carriages and 507 non-white carriages. He informed me that those trains transported 8,610,000 Whites and 13,670,000 non-Whites. He said further in his reply to my question that alterations to the railway service were effected in accordance with the requirements of the travelling public. In view of this, I wish to draw his attention this afternoon to the annual report of the General Manager of Railways in which he says on page 105 that suburban passenger journeys in the Cape area increased during the last year by over five million journeys. My question to him is this. What steps has he taken to accommodate this increased passenger traffic? How many new trains are there? How many additional carriages are there and whether he will divide his answer into two sections, firstly in respect of the suburban line to the northern suburbs and secondly the suburban line to the southern suburbs. Will he tell us too when the new trains and the new carriages were put into service. My second question to him is whether he has received recommendations from any committee that the existing line to the southern suburbs should be doubled or that a third line should be built as far as Retreat. If so, when did he receive those recommendations and when is he going to do something about them? I should like to deal with the existing service to the southern Peninsula, in particular with the peak-hour traffic during week-days and omitting for the purposes of discussion this afternoon, the traffic over the week-ends. From the southern Peninsula, namely the area south of Retreat, between 4.42 a.m. and 5.57 a.m. there are four trains from Simonstown. There is then a gap of one hour and between 6.50 a.m. and 8.4.5 a.m. there are a further four trains. The quickest of those trains from Simonstown to Cape Town takes 57 minutes. Up to 8.45 in the morning that service is supplemented by nine trains starting from Fish Hoek and four trains starting from Muizenberg. In all there are 21 trains from the southern Peninsula south of Retreat travelling to Cape Town in the mornings. What is the position of the working public returning from Cape Town to the southern Peninsula in the evenings? Between 4.15 p.m. and 7 p.m. five trains leave Cape Town for Simonstown, six trains leave Cape Town for Fish Hoek and four for Muizenberg, in all 15 trains from Cape Town to the southern Peninsula. I should like to ask why it is that in the mornings there are 21 trains taking people from the southern Peninsula to Cape Town and there are only 15 returning in the evenings. In addition to that I want to know about those from the opposite direction. In the mornings between 4.05 a.m. and 8.30 a.m. there are six trains from Cape Town to Simonstown. They are supplemented, without going into great detail, by seven trains travelling to Fish Hoek and three trains travelling to Muizenberg, in all a total of 16 trains. The same pattern repeats itself in the evenings as in the case of the opposite direction. From the southern Peninsula to Cape Town between 4 o’clock and 7 o’clock there are only four trains supplemented by three trains in the same period from Fish Hoek to Cape Town. The quickest of those trains takes one hour three minutes, except for the 6.56 train from Simonstown, which in fact takes 52 minutes to Cape Town. Sixteen trains therefore travel to the South Peninsula in the morning and seven leave the South Peninsula for the Cape Town area in the evening. There is a most extraordinary discrepancy and I should like an answer to it, particularly in view of the fact that there is congestion of the worst possible kind on the existing southern suburban line at peak hours. My contention is that there are not enough trains for the passengers at the rush hours, particularly from Cape Town in the evenings and in the Retreat area in the mornings. My contention also is that the existing service, in the light of modern transportation conditions, is exceedingly slow. To me it is inconceivable that a distance of 26 miles in 1967 can be travelled only in the minimum time of 57 minutes.

I go further and I criticize the Railways in that the existing service is hopelessly uncomfortable. Let me contrast the present service with the conditions of comfort of the previous service. There are two doors per carriage in the existing trains. In the previous train service there was one door per compartment. In the existing trains there is one window per compartment and in the previous trains there were three windows per compartment. Admittedly, there is more standing room in the existing trains than there was in the previous trains, but I should like to ask the Minister whether it is the policy of the Administration to have our passengers on the southern suburb line standing instead of sitting. It is a third-class service for first-class fare passengers. The seats themselves are completely unsuitable, and I say this, having had experience of years and years of travel on this line. They are completely unsuitable for comfort for a long period of travel. They are too cramped and too small. The atmosphere in the carriages, with the present heating system, to say the least, is suffocating. The toilets which have been introduced into the new train service, which did not exist in the previous trains, are always locked. You have to find a conductor, should you wish to use the toilets. The jolting and the jarring of carriages and the squeaking of brakes are constant subjects of complaint to me as representative of that area. It is a most uncomfortable service, in the light of modern transportation circumstances.

It has had an accumulative effect on the Southern Peninsula, because it has increased the road traffic in an already congested area. More people are using cars in that area to-day than ever before. I estimate that at peak hours there must be the best part of 500 cars entering and leaving Simonstown alone—that is mainly dockyard and naval personnel. I should like to deal with the circumstances which have resulted from the aggravation caused by existing railway services, in particular along the main road between Clovelly and Lakeside. Over the years the Railways have been negotiating with the Cape Town City Council for the municipality to acquire surplus railway land in that area. I asked the Minister the other day what stage the negotiations had now reached. This is what his answer was:

That is not the answer that a Member of Parliament expects from a Minister. Why can he not say what stage the negotiations have reached? Why can he not say when they will be concluded? I know that my predecessor in this House raised the matter, to my certain knowledge as far back as 1957. The answer from the then Minister of Railways was that negotiations were being conducted with the Cape Town Municipality. Let us hear whether the fault lies with the Railways Administration or whether it lies with the Cape Town Municipality. The public is entitled to that explanation. The traffic chaos and congestion in those areas over the week-ends is something quite indescribable. If it is the fault of the Municipality, the Minister must tell us. We want to know what stage the negotiations have reached.

In the same area there are no fewer than seven level crossings. In the limited time at my disposal I should like to refer to only one, that has been a festering sore in the area for years and years. I am speaking of the level crossing giving access to the harbour at Kalk Bay, in one of the most narrow and congested areas on the whole of that coastal road. There have been complaints to the Railways for years and years. There have been complaints for years and years to the Department of Commerce and Industries which runs the harbour, and yet nothing has been done. Hon. members who use that road will testify to what I am saying. Week-end after week-end traffic proceeds at five miles per hour, bumper to bumper, between Kalk Bay and Lakeside.

I should also like to refer to the railway premises in the same area. With regard to the stations, their standard may well have been first-class 50 years ago, but that standard is out-dated in 1967. It is certainly not the standard that we expect. The waiting rooms in the stations are small, drab and dirty. The toilets are antiquated and smelly. The subways are unwashed and unpainted. The clocks which served the public on the stations have either been removed, or those which are still there are defective and are seldom put right. If the Minister will refer to his files he will see the constant complaints that have been made about the clock on Muizenberg station. The names of the stations on the sign boards cannot be read at night because they are not illuminated. The advertising boards are many years out of date. They are an eyesore and in addition many are a traffic hazard. I always understood that it was the policy of the Government not to create traffic hazards on its own property. They have offended local sensitivity in many cases. There is loitering on the stations. There is a complete absence of railway police in the area. Parking areas are non-existent, or if they do exist, they are fenced in and the fare-paying public is unable to park there.

To me it is a wonder that the staff on the southern suburban line are as courteous and helpful and cheerful as they are. I understand that the clerical staff at headquarters work a five-day week. Their five-day week is 41 hours long, and then they get overtime. The clerical staff on the suburban line receive the same pay, according to my information, for a six-day week and they only qualify for overtime after 48 hours. It is really a wonder that they are so courteous and that they are so cheerful at all times to those of us who use the service.

The Southern Peninsula is surely one of the areas of which South Africa can be most proud. It is one of our most beautiful coastal areas. It is being spoilt by the unkempt state of railway premises, the encroachment by the Railways on the beaches, the dumping of rubbish by the railway staff on the sands at St. James and Kalk Bay, to quote just two examples, the litter along the main road on surplus railway land, the rusty, broken and unsightly fencing and the railway houses. The railway houses from Retreat down to Simonstown are, with few exceptions, unpainted and not properly maintained. Washing hangs at the back and the front of these houses and there are no fences to hide it from the public eye. The roads serving the Retreat station housing scheme are unmade and are still gravelled in 1967 in an urban area!

My plea is that the staff in the Southern Peninsula, who are working under difficult conditions, should be given better conditions under which to work. What benefits have the increased suburban rail fares provided either for the public using the service or to the staff employed there, or to the area itself? I believe that ours is one of the few areas of the Peninsula where a population explosion is about to take place. That is the southern Peninsula. The suburban line is a public service. The public will be there. What the public wants in that area is the service. My appeal to the Minister is that his Department should replan now the whole of the future of the southern Peninsula. He should go further and appoint a departmental committee for immediate investigation and report on the conditions in the southern Peninsula and on my allegations made here to-day.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Simonstown, who has just sat down, will forgive me if I do not pursue his argument. He made quite a few allegations, and I do not know how many of them were true—nor do I think the House knows. Consequently, I shall acknowledge the Opposition as a whole through what I want to say with regard to them in a moment.

You will agree with me, Mr. Speaker, that this field has been dealt with so exhaustively that there is virtually nothing left for anyone in this House to say with regard to Railway matters. [Interjections.] That applies in particular to the Opposition. What we hear from them at this stage is not worth listening to. They think they have made contributions and expressed criticism, but I want to tell them that they were wide off the mark.

Once again, as in past years, we have had the opportunity to hear the Opposition’s choir-singing for a few days. Now every choir has a leader, and in this case the leader was the hon. member for Yeoville. The bass was the hon. member for Durban (Point). Now we know that as far as singing is concerned, particularly choir-singing, the entire performance is false if a false note is sounded at the outset. That is actually all I have to speak about. As I said, the debate has been talked to death. The entire choir-work has been false from beginning to end.

To the hon. member for Yeoville in particular I want to say that when he put up such a dramatic performance half an hour ago and attacked the Minister, I could not resist recalling one of Langenhoven’s maxims: “Hoe vlakker die waters, hoe harder die geraas.” (The shallower the water, the louder the noise.) If the hon. member considers that he made a contribution in respect of necessary improvements, which any opposition is entitled to do, then he loses the attention of this side of the House completely by acting in such a fashion, even if he did give sound advice and suggestions. Because, Sir, one does not listen to people acting in such a fashion, and particularly not in a place like this. Every member of this House, both on this side and on that side, should always have regard to the propriety of the House, and should contribute his share by discussing national matters in a dignified fashion.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) is actually the man who saves hon. members on the opposite side from difficulties. Time and again he tried to do so, but he failed every time. Every time the Minister got up and responded to points raised by that side of the House, hon. members on that side went through the mill. Nothing was left. That is the truth—that is what happened during the past few days that this Railways debate has been in progress.

Do you want nothing for your constituency?

The hon. member may well leave my constituency to my care.

What about the officials?

Things are going very well there. Everybody there votes for me. so much so that there are no more United Party members left. That is the position with regard to my constituency. By making such childish observations in a debate such as this, which deals with important national matters, namely our transport industry, they simply prove once again that I am dead right in my allegations. That shows that no contribution is made by that side. We always hear accusations from that side, and they are biased. That is the theme of the Opposition’s contribution. Consequently the Minister can be complimented once again on his triumph in this debate.

What Minister? Where is the Minister?

We also compliment the General Manager and all the other high-ranking officials on the staff, yes, the entire staff, down to the man on the bottom-most rung of the ladder. We fully appreciate the service we received from the Railways Administration in the past year. That is the feeling throughout the country. Despite all the sound and the fury we have from that side of the House every year, the railwaymen vote against the Opposition in vast numbers at every election. What reason has that side of the House to level accusations against this side of the House, and in particular against the Minister? After all, the barometer on which one can rely is the judgment of the ballot.

This party comes out on top every time. Therefore it remains a riddle to me where hon. members on the opposite side find the temerity to produce this kind of criticism and yet think that they are doing their party a favour. In this regard I am thinking in particular of the hon. member for Yeoville. He is the best propagandist the National Party could have. We shall therefore be very grateful if he can be kept there in years to come, in order that he may continue helping us. [Interjections.] It seems to be stinging a bit, that is why hon. members on that side are becoming so restless. But surely I always tell the truth. We are not juggling with figures now. That has already been done, more than was necessary. All the proof have been presented. I think the Opposition can be grateful that this debate will soon close. I actually feel rather sorry for the Opposition. I am not angry with them. Personally, I rather pity them, because their position at the end of this debate— which will presumably close shortly—is really very desperate.

I want to associate myself with other hon. members on this side and thank the hon. the Minister, the General Manager and the entire staff. As the representative of an important farmers’ constituency I want to thank them all very sincerely for the good services rendered in the past year. [Interjections.] Yes, the Opposition wants a bankrupt Railways. That is the Opposition’s ambition. The country should be dragged along—the country should go bankrupt with the Railways, then the Opposition will be pleased. When they really have to render support, those hon. members act in a most childish fashion.

Those of us in this House who are farmers recall the conditions which our country’s farming community faced as a result of the drought. We would be failing in our duty, hon. members on that side of the House as well, if we did not express our joy about the wonderful rains that have fallen. But, Sir. I do not think there is any farmers’ representative on that side. I do not think there is one. If there is in fact one, I invite him to put up his hand. But there is none. That just shows what a bad time that party is having. The Opposition itself is to blame for that, because they tell these childish stories here, and have also done so on previous occasions. I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to say how grateful we are that it has rained. Hon. members on this side have already done so, for example the hon. member for Kroonstad a moment ago. We are grateful for the wonderful rains. One recalls one of Leipoldt’s fine poems: “Net soos die sonskyn kom na die reen om alles te verbly, net so kom vrese en smarte, al moet jy nog soveel ly.” The sunshine came after the rain; our rivers are in flood: our water supplies have been augmented beautifully. [Interjections.] Yes, that is the reason why the farmers have such a low opinion of the Opposition.

Throughout the country there is joy in the hearts of the farmers. We experienced conditions which we shall remember for many years, and we shall also tell our children about them. We are grateful for the wonderful assistance rendered to the farmers by the Railways. I assure you that in my own constituency people who are still supporters of the United Party told me that they were very grateful and contented. From my constituency farmers had to move as far as Natal to save their stock, and it is the Railways which took their stock there and brought them back. We are very grateful for that.

Then there are some matters which affect my own constituency. At Coligny the housing shortage with regard to railway workers is acute, and some more railway houses are needed urgently. Last year I brought it to the attention of the Minister, and I should like to do so again. I also want to refer to two railway stations, one at Ventersdorp. It is a very old building. I have received a letter from the Minister to say that improvements will be made there, but unfortunately I see nothing in the Brown Book. I rather regret that, because we need it, but I know that we cannot get everything needed in the country in one day. There is another railway station which is in the same condition. The farmers’ associations asked me to bring the condition of these two stations to the Minister’s attention again, and we hope that something will be done next year.

The hon. member for Lichtenburg, I am sure, has done his duty to himself and his constituents. He has followed the pattern that he has followed in the past; he has thanked the Minister, but I feel that during his sojourn in this House his sense of criticism has become somewhat blunted and unfortunately he seems to resent the fact that our wits have remained sharp and that we are prepared to offer criticism, in many cases justified criticism and what I believe is well-informed criticism. It is with that aspect that I wish to deal this afternoon.

I wish to deal with the question of passenger services, and primarily the long-distance passenger services. I want to refer the Minister to what he said in the Budget debate in 1963. He said at the time that there had been a discernible improvement in passenger services, but he also said somewhat gloomily that these services continued to show losses. Then he said this—

The Minister then went on to say that losses on passenger services were common to most countries and to most railway systems, but that the trains provided an essential service and that these passenger services could not be eliminated because it would result in a definite hardship for certain sections of the population. Then the Minister said—

I should like to ask the Minister what has happened to the air-conditioned dining-cars? These were promised to be placed in service shortly after the Budget speech in 1963. Over the period of years that have intervened I have established by means of questions that no air-conditioned dining-saloons have been placed in service since then. If one reads the Memorandum which was presented to this House last week, one finds that ten of these air-conditioned dining-saloons are due for completion in October this year, 4½years after the Minister promised that they would be available. What has happened in the interim? The position has been that there has not been sufficient of these air-conditioned dining-saloons to keep pace with the normal services. In 1965 I put a question to the Minister asking him whether air-conditioned dining-saloons had been withdrawn from the Transvaal-Natal service, and if so, on how many occasions and for what reason. The answer I received was that during 1964 on 250 occasions air-conditioned dining-saloons had been withdrawn, having apparently been replaced by the older type. The reason given was that they were withdrawn because it was necessary to use them on other trains, for service purposes and for repairs, and in 35 instances they were withdrawn to be used on special tour trains. The naive part of the answer which followed is that the Minister said the withdrawal would be eliminated when the new saloons to be ordered were in service. But the saloons had been ordered three, or possibly four, years before this and were still on the assembly line. When I addressed a similar question to the Minister this Session asking whether withdrawals of air-conditioned dining-saloons had been effected on the Trans-Natal, Trans-Karoo and Orange Express trains, the reply was that details were not kept. Well, the details were kept in 1964, and I can only assume that the statistics were so unpalatable that they are not to be published.

I want to know whether this is forward planning or delayed hindsight. What effect is this failure to carry out the avowed intention of the Railways having on the minds and the attitudes of the public in regard to long distance passenger services? I think the results are beginning to show, despite the fact that the hon. member for Colesberg expressed the opinion, and quoted figures to show, that in certain sections long-distance passenger services had shown an improvement. The records are not quite in line with that in so far as first-class passengers are concerned. In the White Paper issued for 1965-’66 it was shown that there had been a falling off of 34,000 first-class passengers, and the report of the General Manager confirmed that by saying that the drop had been 3.85 per cent. The General Manager indicated that there had been a slight increase of 1.48 per cent in the number of second-class passengers over long distances. But it is the first-class passengers which help to support the ancillary services the revenue from which helps them not to show so great a loss. I am referring to the dining-saloon service and the bedding service. The particulars that have been placed before us indicate that the number of meals served has dropped by 43,000, and the number of beds and mattresses hired has dropped by 4,000.

I say the Railways are not providing the facilities which they advertise to the public, and I believe that this is reflected in other directions, too. We have a large number of holiday trains, and I believe that there, too, the patronage is falling off to a certain extent. I say this with reason, because in the General Manager’s Report there is published annually the number of people from the Transvaal who travel to coastal resorts during December. I do not want to go into great detail, but it was apparent that in 1959 and 1960 the average number of passengers who travelled from the Transvaal to Durban during December was round about 20,000, and then there was an increase in 1962 to 27,000, and since then, for the last four years, the figure has remained static at roughly 26,000. I believe that there are people who are travelling and that there are population movements in seasonal periods from whom and from which the Railways are not deriving the full advantage. I think it is because these special trains are not able to offer the facilities which the ordinary main line trains offer. There are no air-conditioned dining-saloons to spare. There may be an odd lounge car, but I think basically the rolling stock used on these trains is older and does not offer the travelling public the convenience which is claimed in advertisements. I believe this can have an effect on people who travel for the first time. If this is their introduction to rail travel on the S.A. Railways, they are not going to be encouraged to repeat that experiment.

I have always in past years expressed appreciation for the courteous and efficient manner in which the dining-saloon stewards perform their duties under difficult circumstances. I was rather surprised to hear a comment from a young man, when he said: “You know, Dad, it is different travelling with one’s parents from travelling by train with a school team”. This young man went up to Johannesburg for a sporting fixture, and he said it was quite obvious that it was a question of take it or leave it when he went into the dining-saloon. But these young men are the future travellers. They pay the same price for their meals as their parents and other people do, and I believe that the serving personnel on the Railways could well take a leaf out of the book of the S.A. Airways. I have never seen any discrimination on the Airways because the passenger may be a young person. He receives exactly the same form of treatment that he would if he were an adult. I believe this is something which is having an influence on the attitude of people towards train travel.

I wonder whether the Department is as alive to the needs of the public as it should be. Is it supplying the same facilities as the Airways? The hon. member for Durban (Point) was critical of the fact that the Airways were proving so popular that it is not always possible to get a seat. He felt that forward planning was not sufficient to deal with this position, but the passenger lists on the Airways are going up and people are travelling by air because they are getting the advantage of speedier service and more comfort and better planes. In so far as the Railways are concerned, I believe there are many aspects in which the Railways do not derive the maximum advantage from the facilities available. We are not meeting the challenge, particularly in regard to providing up to date facilities. Apart from the Blue Train, which is outstanding and could hold its own anywhere in the world, I believe we are lagging behind other countries.

I want to say a word about the Blue Train. The Minister announced two years ago that a new Blue Train would be built, and a small token amount was voted in the 1965 Budget, but after 2½ years we are told now by the Minister that he hopes to have the specifications in May. That seems a very long time to produce just the specifications for a train, and if that is the rate at which progress is going to be made how long will it be before the Blue Train becomes a fait accompli?

Only R200 is voted.

Only R200 each year is voted. Sir, when it comes to air conditioning we are behind other countries; we are behind India, behind Australia, behind America and behind Western Europe. In New South Wales, for example, way back in 1963 they had 27 air conditioned trains offering 37 regular weekly services over a distance of 75,000 miles. In India as far back as 1956 air conditioned trains were being inaugurated, and there are weekly or bi-weekly services operating between Delhi and Calcutta, Delhi and Madras and Delhi and Bombay. What have we, Sir, besides the Blue Train? We have the Orange Express which has an air-conditioned dining saloon and air-conditioned lounge car, but it is not air-conditioned throughout. I have heard the Orange Express referred to—and perhaps the hon. member for Bethlehem might confirm this in so far as Free State travel is concerned —as the Orange snail train, and I believe that is the position. There has been no attempt over the years to speed up the train in relation to the improvements which have been effected in the track in general in various areas.

It never runs late.

That is because it spends over four hours at the stations, so that all that has to be done is to cut down on the time spent at stations if it is running late. The position is that constant improvements have been effected in the track. In 1965 the new section between Pentridge and Umlaas Road was opened. Sir, I tabled a question asking the hon. the Minister if he could tell me to what extent the running times of the trains had been improved as a result of the opening of this section and he replied that it was 20 minutes in the one direction and nine minutes in the other direction. For the life of me I cannot understand why it should not be 20 minutes in each direction. The interesting part is that that answer is not correct. It may apply to one main line passenger train but it has not been put into effect with many other passenger trains, because I followed that up with another question to the hon. the Minister. Sir, I must correct what I have just said. The running times have been improved but the over-all travelling times of the trains have not been affected, with one exception and that is the trans-Natal. In order to seek further information I asked another question; I asked whether the trains from Durban to East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town had enjoyed any improvement in the over-all running times. I was told that the running time of the train to Port Elizabeth had improved as the result of developments in the Noupoort area and that the running time of the train to East London had also improved as the result of developments at Burgersdorp. But, Sir, these trains have not enjoyed the advantage of the additional facility in the speeded-up running time between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. What is happening? The trains are spending longer time in stations and some of them are travelling more slowly from station to station. I can produce statistics to support this statement.

What is the effect of this deliberate waste of time; what effect is it haying on Railway expense? Sir, I have said this before and I repeat it because I believe that this is something which requires attention. I believe that it is affecting the taxpayer indirectly, because the operating costs per hour of these express trains have increased over the last two years by R20 an hour. Just to give one example, in 1965 the trans-Natal cost R101 per hour to operate and in 1967 the amount has risen to R123, an increase of more than 20 per cent. I believe that there is no consistent and general attempt to eliminate this waste of time and this unproductive time which is costing the Administration money and which is costing passengers time and money in unnecessary delay. Sir, when one realizes that the average cost per hour of running these long distance trains is roughly R130 per hour, I believe that the over-all figure as a result of this time-wasting is a colossal sum. I notice in the Estimates of Expenditure for the current year—the running section, transportation department—that the estimate is that R90 million will be expended. Sir, 24 per cent of this is allocated to over-time and Sunday time. If some of this time is spent needlessly standing at stations, then not only normal time is being wasted but also Sunday time and over-time. I notice too, in so far as the catering department is concerned, that R½ million is allocated in the Estimates, i.e. 14 per cent, to over-time or Sunday time.

Then I want to deal briefly with the question of the coaching stock on main line trains. Each year we see in the Brown Book that provision is made for more and more coaching stock. Some of it is taking an inordinately long time on the assembly line. Take the position in connection with first-class saloons. In 1962 there were 491 in stock. Since that time 106 have been added to this stock, but 88 have been converted and others have been scrapped and the over-all gain in four years has been exactly three. In so far as instand second-class composite saloons are concerned, there has been a net gain of 101, but taking first-class saloons, first-and second-class composite saloons and second-class saloons, there has been a net gain in four years of only 96 coaches.

When we come to third-class travel I believe that the position is even more serious, because in the four years from 1962 to 1966 the stock of third-class saloons increased by 29; 73 new ones were added in one year but 44 were scrapped, and the total increase over the four years amounts to 3.6 per cent. But what is the position regarding the number of third-class long-distance passengers who patronise the Railways and who, I believe, form a very profitable section of the long-distance passenger traffic? During 1964-’65 the number increased by an extra 1.6 million, or 9 per cent, and in the following year there was a further increase of 2.6 million passengers, an additional increase of 13 per cent. Sir, the passengers are there but the coaches are not there to carry them. I want to quote a specific example which I think illustrates most graphically what is happening as a result of the failure of the Administration to provide coaching stock. I am referring to train No. 18 which I believe travels from De Aar to Bellville to convey Bantu from the Transkei. Apparently they link up with this train at De Aar and then they travel to Cape Town. I am told that the conditions are a disgrace. Normally the train is made up of ten to 14 coaches, five of which, nearly half the number, are ordinary suburban coaches with no toilets, no water, and in many cases no light. As far as I know those Bantu who have to travel from the Transkei and join the train at De Aar spend at least two nights in the train; they cannot sleep because they have to remain sitting. I believe that the trains average 50 passengers per coach, so that on a full train there could be 500 passengers, and 500 passengers would have toilet facilities in only five coaches. I think it is a disgraceful state of affairs, and I hope we will hear from the Minister that he will do something about this in the near future.

Then I want to deal with the question which was also touched upon by the hon. member for Durban (Point) in connection with the Umlazi line. He drew attention to the fact that the indications were that the system would be inaugurated in 1967, and he also referred to the fact that a sum of Rl½ million is due to be expended on this line after it has been completed after this financial year which closes on the 31st March, 1968. Well, it is interesting to know how a line can be fully operative when 30 per cent of the money allocated to it will not be spent until after it has been put into operation. The question I would like to ask the hon. the Minister is where he is going to get the rolling stock; where the new third-class driving trailers and plain trailers are coming from? According to the White Paper the next batch to come off the assembly line are only due in April and May of 1968. As far back as 1963-’64 the General Manager drew attention in his report to the fact that 247 electric suburban coaches would be required to operate the Umlazi and the Chatsworth sections. The Umlazi section, we are told, is due to be ready at the end of this year, and the Chatsworth side-line in 1969. In that time it is expected to manufacture 247 electric suburban coaches. The past record does not indicate that this will come about because since 1962, in the last four years, the total number of third-class plain trailers placed in service has been 256. Although large amounts of money have been voted—and some of these items date back to 1965 and the total amount voted is in the region of nearly R13 million—up to the present barely R½ million has been spent; only about R31 million is due to be spent in this financial year and the remaining R9 million or RIO million is to be spent in the future. I think this makes nonsense of the comments of the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration with his theme song “Bantu back to the Bantustans”.

The hon. the Minister of Transport is much more realistic. He realizes that this is not going to happen, and his Brown Brook shows that he is making provision for years to come for these electric coaches which will provide the service between the non-white townships situated near the white towns in the Republic of South Africa and the white towns themselves But, Sir, the position is not a happy one and I do not believe for a moment that the Administration is producing the coaching stock at a rate which is fast enough to meet the requirements. I say this advisedly because the increase in third-class non-white passenger traffic to the re-settlement areas has averaged 15 per cent per year over the last four years. I say advisedly therefore that the Administration is not keeping pace with the requirements. Sir, I would like the hon. the Minister to adopt the theme “Let boldness be my friend” and do something really to stimulate support in so far as long-distance passenger traffic is concerned. I have here an article which appeared in Travel and Trade of August, 1966, and which is headed “Rhodesia’s Express Rail-Cars a Tourist Attraction”. The article goes on to say—

I interrupt here to say that in Rhodesia they have the same narrow track that we have in South Africa—

Then it goes on to say that there is a change at Umtali and that another rail car system takes the passengers through to Beira and that it is possible to make the full trip between Beira and Salisbury within 12 hours, during daylight hours.

Sir, I will admit that the distance of 380 miles between Beira and Salisbury is a little less than the distance between Johannesburg and Durban, but if we go back to the good days of the United Party Government when we had a dynamic approach to these things, we remember the time when the then Minister of Railways, Mr. Sturrock, was conducting experiments to see whether he could introduce a day-time service between Johannesburg and Durban. That was somewhere back in 1946 or 1947. If one stops to consider the improvements which have been effected since then— the electrification that has taken place, the regrading, the improvements in the tractive power of locomotives, diesel and electric, and the shortening of the line by, I believe, about 22 miles, then I believe that some sort of approach like this is long overdue. The hon. the Minister sent a delegation to Japan some years ago. From what I can gather he must have obtained some valuable information there and he must have seen over there that it is possible to run these rail car services economically, efficiently and speedily. But if the Minister is not prepared to go the whole way, would he then not consider trying to reduce the travelling time of the Trans-Natal to, say, 12 hours? It is not impossible. If he did that, it would be possible for the train to leave its departing point at nine o’clock and arrive at its destination at nine the next day. I say this advisedly because I know a good two hours are at present being spent through the train standing idle in stations. I believe that with just a little speeding up, with a little streamlining at stations, it would be quite easy to do that. Then, if the Minister did that, he could introduce, as an experiment which will not be as expensive as the rail car experiment, two suburban coaches converted to aircraft-type seats. Thereby he would be able to offer the holidaymakers a cheap and quick run down to Durban for their holiday. These coaches would offer more seating accommodation and I am sure the Minister should be able to offer them a type of air cafeteria service. If that can be done in the air for a hundred odd people in a Boeing 727, I see no reason, in view of modern ingenuity, why it couldn’t be done also on the railway lines. I put it to the Minister that he could experiment along these lines, thereby offering holidaymakers an all round the year excursion at possibly two-thirds, or even half, the rate they are paying at present. I say this because I believe the average young person is more concerned in getting down with reasonable comfort quickly and cheaply and safely to the place he has chosen for his holiday, rather than risk his neck on the road because roads are becoming a far more dangerous way of travelling than rail travel.

I believe that the time has come for this bold approach to long distance passenger traffic. Furthermore, such an approach, backed by effective and accurate advertising, would bring the people back to the Railways.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 92.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) was looking for the place in the Brown Book where the amount for the Orange River scheme is indicated. He will find it on page 5, item 44. There he will find that provision has been made for the various amounts under capital and betterment services, as well as from loan funds. The hon. member can therefore forget about finding in this a discrepancy, as he puts it, in the Estimates. It is all as a result of the hon. member’s own inability to trace the specific provision. He said that the hon. the Minister had made mention in his Budget speech of the Kensington-Montaque line, which had been completed, and asked why provision was being made for further additional expenditure. The position here is that provision has still to be made for compensation in respect of land, for canals and for ballast work which still remains to be done although the line has already been completed. The hon. member also had a query in regard to the new double line between Reunion and Umlazi, a double line which, as the hon. the Minister said in his Budget speech, will be completed by the end of the year. The position here is that 92 per cent of the ground works have already been completed, 98 per cent of the bridges and culverts, 25 per cent of the buildings and platforms and 55 per cent of the tunnels. To complete and finish off these works a further appropriation is of course necessary.

The hon. member also raised the question of the decentralization of industries. He accused the Minister of using the Schumann report only when it suited him. According to the hon. member he pushed it to one side whenever it did not suit him. That is actually an accusation which could, with a greater degree of justification, be levelled at the opposite side of the House. If the hon. member for Durban (Point) had studied that report carefully he would have found that the Railway tariff structure was to a very slight extent the deciding factor in the establishment of industries and that it was restricted only to the so-called manufacturers of basic and intermediary raw materials. Apparently the hon. member wants the Railways to introduce special tariffs which openly amount to territorial or personal discrimination. In this regard it was also found in the Schumann report that special tariffs for industrial establishment were in conflict with the accepted principles of tariff determination.

But you give it.

I wish the hon. member would listen. He is always too quick to put his foot in it. If he would listen more, he would learn more. The Schumann Commission recommended that such preferential concessions could be administered by the Railways, but that the monetary obligations in that regard should be the responsibility of the Central Government. That is the position in regard to the transportation of manufactured products to and from a border area. That is what is being done. The hon. member for Durban (Point) and his colleagues on the opposite side are the last people who should complain that the Government and the Railways are not doing their duty in promoting the decentralization of industries in South Africa. When the Government made a start with its policy of border industries, it was that side of the House which offered the fiercest opposition. While the Deputy Minister for Bantu Administration is to-day doing his utmost to draw industries to labour sources instead of drawing labour to the urban areas, he is still experiencing strong opposition from that side of the House. For that reason it is unfitting that hon. members should pose as the so-called champions of a policy of decentralization during a discussion of the Railway Estimates.

Who pays the rebates, the Railways or the Central Government?

I have said that the rebates are paid by the Central Government. The Railways are compensated for that. The hon. member also wants to know when replies will be furnished to the other recommendations of the Schumann Commission. But surely the hon. the Minister stated very clearly last year in the House which recommendations had been accepted, which had been rejected and which were still being considered. That is why the hon. member may just as well go and read it up in Hansard.

Thus the position remains the same to-day, a year later?

The slight amendments which have been effected, have already been announced and the hon. member would have been aware of them if he had listened more attentively to this Railway debate which has been in progress since Monday. The hon. member also said that wages and salaries did not, according to the explanatory memorandum, correspond with the aggregate figures in regard to staff. But these figures are not directly comparable. In the case of the explanatory memorandum the figures comprise estimates in regard to wages and material, even in cases where work has to be done at a later stage on contract. This is clearly illustrated by Head No. 2, where as a result of the shortage of staff, maintenance work has had, to an increasing extent, to be given out on contract. The section in the White Book which deals with the summary of staff is only supplied for the information of Parliament. Since the details are based on the number of posts in the various grades, it will not correspond with the provision which is being made under the various heads since it makes provision for work which is also being carried out under contract. The figures under the various heads only relate to expenditure paid out of revenue. I hope it is now clear to the hon. member what the position in that respect is.

He also said that the public relations section has been abolished. But that is not so. Where does the hon. member get that from? The statement is entirely incorrect. After the retirement of the previous incumbent of the post in question, nominations were called for in the service and in the Press. A suitable candidate could not be found outside and it was decided to undertake temporary liaison work in the Parliamentary section at head office. The assistant liaison officer is still there.

Look at page 42.

What is indicated there?

The whole section has been abolished.

But I have just given you the facts.

No, but here it stands in the White Book.

I have given you the facts and that is the position.

The White Book is wrong therefore?

But what is indicated in the book? Where do you read that it has been abolished?

Under “General Manager’s Office: Public Relations Section”. It gives all the amounts for last year and nothing for this year. Look under the second head.

In any case those are the facts I have given you here. I will go into the matter and will return to it again later.

The hon. member for Virginia pleaded for certain matters in regard to a fly-over bridge over the double line at Virginia. As the hon. member knows, he has already discussed this matter with me. It is receiving attention and has been referred to the management for their comment and, if something can possibly be done to remedy the problem, I can assure him that it will be done.

As far as the hon. member for Mooi River is concerned, I want to say that we do not have weigh-bridges at all loading places, and accept weights where these are arrived at by means of a private weighing bridge or are furnished by the consigner. Random tests are regularly made, particularly where weights are assessed and where freight is transported over a section where there are departmental weighbridges. The suggestion made by the hon. member is a sound one and it will be arranged for tests to be carried out regularly in respect of the consignments crossing private weighbridges.

The hon. member for Kroonstad made representations in regard to the supplies of mealies which are still on hand. I can give him the assurance that we, in consultation with the Mealie Board, are already bringing inland supplies to the harbours. The first shipment of export mealies left East London harbour last week. Ships have touched on ports of call and these days they will load mealies at all the harbours. The hon. member also made representations in regard to the Railway Police. The South African Railway Police is a small organization whose duties are confined to the field of Railways. The duties of the South African Police are far greater and cover a larger area. For this reason, as well as because of the relative size of the two forces, the organization of the South African Railway Police Force is smaller and the opportunities for promotion fewer, and I readily concede that the hon. member is right in that respect. However, it is thought that the grading of posts compares reasonably with responsibilities undertaken. However, the police share, as all other trade unions do, in the privilege of having a police staff association and this association itself has the right to bring the matter of the grading of ranks to the attention of the Management or the Minister from time to time.

As regards the representations made by the hon. member for Kroonstad in regard to industrial decentralization, and his more specific request in this regard, additional to what he had already said in regard to industrial decentralization, I would like to inform him that research will be undertaken into the reclassification of traffic in order to promote decentralization. Particular ramifications of industry will be investigated, but it will not be possible to restrict it to certain areas. Amended tariffs will have to apply to all areas. The ramifications of industry indicated by the Schumann Commission are the following: Basic and intermediary raw materials and certain manufacturers of foodstuffs. The timber industry will be one of the first ramifications of industry which will have to be investigated.

To the hon. member for Simonstown I want to say the following: He asked me for a series of details. I think he accepts that we do not at the moment have all the particulars available, but they will be found and sent to him by letter. I can tell him that two additional trains have been put into service and two have been taken out of service, each train consisting of eight coaches which can transport 2,500 passengers. Over the past 12 months they have been put into operation in the resettlement areas, i.e. Langa and Nyanga. One obvious reason why there are more trains in the mornings than in the evenings is because the scholars travel during the peak period in the mornings, whereas they return home early in the afternoons. In regard to the road for which he made representations, I want to tell him that the Cape Town City Council (the negotiations are still under way) must take the initiative, since it is Railway property, and I do not think that there will be much difficulty, provided it does not upset our arrangements, to come to an agreement in this regard.

The hon. member for Lichtenburg asked for more houses at Coligny. The hon. member has probably taken cognizance of what the Minister announced on a previous occasion, it was yesterday and the day before, in regard to what is already being done in respect of housing. Here it is a question of where the housing is needed most, as the hon. member can understand. We have complied with all the requests made for housing. It is a question of capital. The most urgent requests for housing will be complied with first, but we hope that sooner or later it will be the turn of Coligny. As regards his request for new stations, for example at Ventersdorp and Gerdau, the hon. member will realize that every member in this House could probably stand up to ask for a new station. The difficulty, of course, is to provide capital to build those stations. We would very much like to build those new stations for you, but it is just a question of capital.

As far as the hon. member for Berea is concerned, I want to tell him that he is quite correct as to the representations which he made here in regard to the dining saloons. During the past years this item has appeared in the Brown Book, but it was held back because more essential rolling stock has had to be purchased. However, I want to give him the assurance that 10 dining saloons and 10 kitchen saloons are expected during June to October, 1967.

Mr. Speaker, this discussion of the Railway Estimates was introduced last Monday by the hon. member for Yeoville. Now I want to state straight away, and you will probably agree with me. that we did not recognize the hon. member for Yeoville at all on Monday.

He was not his true self. He approached his subject very cautiously, and I said to myself: Here is a man who has received a telling blow and is being very cautious. In places the old fire glimmered through, but in general there was little sign of his fighting spirit. He was apologetic and full of pleas. I asked myself what the reason for that could be. I think the reason must be sought in the fact that he had in the past had to be taught so many lessons by the hon. the Minister and because some of the lessons which he learnt were sometimes taught him in a rather hard-handed way because the patience of the hon. the Minister could not endure forever. But I nevertheless feel that the most important reason why the hon. member began his discussion of the Railway Estimates so calmly here was the fact that he realized that he had been on the wrong track. He realized that he had been on the wrong track altogether during the previous Session. His speech was just another way of trying to find an excuse for the poor judgment he had displayed, for the fact that his judgment had been hopelessly at fault. In the speech he made on Monday, the hon. member made very important admissions. The first admission he made, was that the tariff increases had made possible a good Budget. Those are the tariff increases which he had condemned the previous year. He also admitted that there was nothing wrong with the future planning for the Railways. But can you remember, Sir, how this hon. member carried on two years ago in regard to the alleged poor planning on the Railways? He went on to admit that the hon. the Minister could do nothing more than he had already done to solve the shortage of staff on the Railways. He will probably also remember. Sir, what a great fuss the hon. member made precisely a year ago and how he had accused the hon. the Minister of doing nothing at all to alleviate the staff shortage. Lastly he has admitted to-day that there is no managerial incompetence on the Railways. You will recall how the Opposition for years made such a fuss over the so-called ministerial and managerial incompetence on the Railways.

Since then the hon. member for Yeoville has recovered his fighting spirit. I want to tell him that we prefer him like that. He cut such a pathetic figure last Monday. The hon. member for Durban (Point) also made a poor attacking speech last Monday. We want to tell him that we are pleased that he too has regained his bulldog spirit.

Do you know why the Opposition underwent such a change in this debate, Sir? It is because they realized once more in this debate what blunders they had made. As the hon. the Minister pointed out to them they realized more and more what blunders they had made.

Mr. Speaker, I am very sorry about what happened in this House this afternoon. The hon. member for Yeoville really went too far this afternoon. Why did the hon. member for Yeoville get so upset this afternoon that he became uncontrollably angry? It was just because the Minister was not in the Chamber.

No, no.

Yes, I believe that is why the hon. member became so uncontrollably angry. The hon. member did not ask whether other responsibilities had caused the Minister to leave the House. As a senior Minister the hon. the Minister also has other obligations.

Then he must not launch a personal attack before he leaves.

How many people are not called out of the House for other urgent work? Why did the hon. member become so uncontrollably angry?

But why attack and then run?

Order! Did the hon. member for Rosettenville ask why the Minister attacks and then runs?

Yes, I did.

The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw.

That is another of the things the hon. member for Yeoville said this afternoon. The hon. member has known Minister Schoeman for many years. Sir, the most reprehensible thing the hon. member for Yeoville did this afternoon was to make the allegation that there are members on this side of the House who have said that they will not vote for the Minister of Transport as leader of the National Party because he does not have any manners. [Interjections.] I want to ask the hon. member for Yeoville whether he is not deeply ashamed of himself for making a statement like that. I want to challenge the hon. member to mention the name of the hon. member on this side who, as he alleges, made that statement.

I said it last year, and nobody denied it.

We will never get that hon. member’s name, because there is no hon. member who will make such a reprehensible allegation. I want to tell the hon. member for Yeoville that one should at least try to be a gentleman and remain a gentleman. The hon. member for Yeoville must realize that he is a senior member of that party. He must realize that he is regarded as the Deputy Leader of the Official Opposition. I am convinced that the hon. member has not, as a result of the uncontrolled way in which he lost his temper here this afternoon and made allegations which he could not support, even won the respect of hon. members on that side of the House. It was a reprehensible statement which the hon. member made. I want to give him the assurance that the Minister of Transport is one of the most respected leaders of the National Party. He is a person who was recently elected unanimously as leader of the Transvaal National Party. I want to give him the assurance that the National Party as a whole is particularly proud of the Minister of Transport for his contribution and service which he has for many years been making to the National Party.

What has that to do with the Railways?

The party is particularly grateful for the good work which the hon. the Minister has done over the past 13 years as Minister of Transport. I want to tell the hon. member that I subscribe to the point of view adopted to-day by many officials of the Railways, to the effect that this Minister is the best Minister of Railways they have ever had. On my part I want to add that in my opinion he is the best Minister they will ever have.

To-day the Opposition once more pleaded for salary and wage increases. [Interjection.] Yes, I can also say, “Oh”, to the hon. member. Last night the hon. member for Yeoville very dramatically tried to make out a case here for a reduction in the price of petrol. He wants the Railways to surrender portion of its revenue from the pipeline. It is essential that we see this picture as a whole as far as the attitude of the United Party in respect of Railway policy is concerned. Last year they opposed the tariff increases. They wanted the Railway deficit to be covered from the Rates Equalization Fund. Well, let us now test the Opposition. Let us go further and let us see how serious and how honest they are in regard to the salary and wage increases which they are advocating for Railway officials. I now want to put this question to the hon. member for Yeoville: What did the Opposition think will be a fair average percentage increase for the staff? There is no reply, but I never expected one, even though it is an easy reply to make. The hon. member could merely have said 5 per cent or 10 per cent. I want to repeat my question to the hon. member, and I am doing so in order to test the honesty of his entire party’s plea for an increase in salaries and wages for Railway staff. What does he think would be a fair percentage increase to give the staff? Would it be 5 per cent or 10 per cent?

You tell me first.

That just goes to show that they must first go and consider the matter. They are not the people who have to bear the responsibility of paying for those wage increases; they are the Opposition and they can be irresponsible if they like. The hon. member does not even want to reply to this simple question. But say for example it is a 10 per cent increase they want, then it will mean an increase of R38 million. For the sake of argument let us assume that the Minister is prepared to accept such a proposition from the Opposition, and that we would also have been prepared to accept their proposals last year in respect of tariff increases and the Rates Equalization Fund. What would the position have been on the S.A. Railways on 31st March, next year? In the first place the Rates Equalization Fund would have been quite depleted. The Fund, which is regarded as being a Fund which must have a stabilizing effect on Railway tariffs, and which serves as a guarantee that the Railwayman’s salary is not reduced. would have been depleted entirely. But what is more, there would still have been a deficiency of R34 million on the present year’s work, if tariff increases had not been introduced. That would have had to be paid by somebody. The Rates Equalization Fund could not have paid for it, because it would have been depleted, and that R34 million would have had to be found by the Railways. Add to that R38 million in salary and wage concessions. The Opposition is also pleading for pension increases; they are pleading for the means test to be relaxed or abolished, and that the Railwayman who is not re-employed by the Railways or by the Public Service, after he has found other work, should retain that full temporary allowance. That would have cost the Railways a further R5 million. But that is not nearly what the total deficit would have been, if the Minister had followed the advice of the Opposition. One must still add that the tariff on petrol was supposed to have been reduced. I am asking the hon. member for Yeoville to tell me with how much the petrol tariff should be reduced?

You are not dealing with what I said and that is why I am not prepared to reply to you. [Interjections.]

It does not matter so much how much it is. It is in any case an extra few million rand of the Railway revenue which would have to be surrendered. The hon. member pleaded further that people in this country should have a free choice of transport. What does that mean? It means that the Railways would have to lose most of its high tariff transport, and do you know, Sir, that if the Railways loses that over a distance of only 300 miles, it would mean a loss in revenue of approximately a further R50 million? The hon. member for Green Point pleaded for special harbour facilities to be introduced in Cape Town, which would mean a further loss of R2.5 million for the Railways. [Interjection.] The hon. the Minister has quite rightly stated that they were “jolly”. If we were to have done what the Opposition suggested, it would have been the “jolliest” Railways the country has ever known, but also the most bankrupt. A rough estimate which I have made of the Railways deficit as it would have been on 31st December, 1968, if we had accepted the advice of the Opposition during the previous Session and this Session, would have amounted to approximately R130 million. Where would the money have come from to meet this deficit? The money could have come from tariff increases, but that they opposed; that they regard as anathema. But let us consider the other thoughts which the hon. member for Yeoville expressed, i.e. that the deficit in the Railways should have been paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. In other words, the taxpayer must subsidize the Railways.

If the Railways renders a service in the national interest, yes. But why do you not reply to what I said?

But why does the hon. member not reply when I ask him from what source these deficits should have been paid? The hon. member objects to the few million rand which the Railways is now receiving as revenue from the pipeline. If there is a deficit, the Minister of Finance will have to interfere and he will have to pay this R130 million. What is the choice now? What is better? Must the taxpayer be asked to contribute R130 million to subsidize the Railways, or is it not to be preferred that the motorist on the Rand and Northern Free State be asked to contribute a few million rand to the income of the Railways, so that the Railways can function on a sound financial basis? I said that if every thing which the Opposition wanted were to have been done it would have amounted to a deficit of R130 million. I now want to ask them the following: Do they expect, where they are now placing the Railways in such a ridiculous position, that the officials of the S.A. Railways must take them seriously when they plead here for salary and wage increases? Do they expect the Railway pensioner to take them seriously when they plead for pension relief? Do they expect the motorists of the Southern Transvaal and Northern Free State to take them seriously when they advocate a reduction in the price of petrol?

You are setting up your own puppets now.

No, the hon. member cannot get out of it. These questions are based on ideas expressed by hon. members on the opposite side. Mr. Speaker, all these pleas coming from the Opposition for salaries and wages increases, for pension relief and for relief for the motorists of the Southern Transvaal and Northern Free State are merely a hollow cry from the Opposition and will be accepted as such by the public.

Hon. members on the opposite side try each year, on every occasion when it is rumoured that the staff associations may come forward with salary and wage demands, to impair the good spirit of co-operation which exists between the hon. the Minister and the staff associations. I want to tell them to-day that they will not succeed in their attempt. I have been Deputy Minister of Transport for a year now, and I have had the opportunity of visiting, together with the Minister, all the sections of the Railways, where we met the senior officials. I have also had the opportunity of attending all the discussions the staff associations have held with the Minister, and I want to tell hon. members of the Opposition that the staff associations and the staff of the S.A. Railways have the greatest respect and the greatest measure of affection for the hon. the Minister.

We do not believe you.

Then there is something wrong with your faith.

It will not worry me at all if the hon. member for North Rand does not believe what I say here.

He only believes in a shock from outside.

Did you affix your signature to that?

I just want to dwell for a moment on another matter. Last year the Opposition, when we proposed the tariff increases, came forward with an amendment to the motion to go into Committee of Supply, and they moved—

Almost six months have elapsed since the Railway Budget was introduced and the Opposition have had the very pleasant opportunity in this debate of indicating to us what tremendous effect the tariff increases have had in respect of the cost of living, commerce and industry. I must say that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition displayed a great deal of courage when he tried to do so at the commencement of the Session in his motion of no confidence, but there, too, the facts were incorrect. Hon. members on the opposite side have probably realized that their Leader made a mistake, and for four days now I have been sitting here waiting to hear from the Opposition what a tremendous detrimental effect the tariff increases have had on the cost of living, on commerce, on industry and agriculture.

Has the cost of living decreased?

No, it has not decreased, but the cost of living has not increased as hon. members of the Opposition intimated last year it would. What is the position in regard to the increase in the cost of living? The average monthly increase in the consumer price index for the period March to August of last year, the months immediately preceding the tariff increases, was 0.31, while for the period August, 1966, to January, 1967, it amounted to an average of 0.39, in other words, .08 more. If it had not been for the sharp increase in September, the average monthly increase in the consumer price index, directly after the tariff increases, would have been lower than immediately before the tariff increases.

And if you leave out all the increases it was nothing.

The consumer price index is based on the prices from first to seventh of the relevant month, and it is very unlikely that the effect of the tariff increases would have been felt within the first week after the tariff increases had been introduced, but if the increase in the consumer price index in September is analyzed, it indicates that the increase was mainly restricted to items which could not have been influenced at all by the tariff increases, items such as house ownership costs, where tariffs play no role, and items such as meat, items on which the tariffs were not increased. If we compare the absolute retail price of merchandise before the tariff increases in August with the relevant prices after the tariff increases in October, 1966, we find that the prices increased very little The only exceptions were vegetables, where seasonal factors, such as the drought, played a large role, apart from that not one of the produce prices increased by more than 1.82 per cent. In most cases the increase in prices was very slight and in some cases there were even decreases. Organized commerce agrees that the actual influence of the tariff increases on prices was very slight. In a circular dated 16th November, 1966, Assocom stated to the Railways that the influence of the tariff increases on the prices of produce had been so slight that it had in most cases not been possible for retailers to adjust prices in any way. That was the effect which the tariff increases had on the cost of living and on commerce. There was no sign of the terrible, tremendous increase which the Opposition members imagined would occur last year. The same influence was valid in respect of production in industry, something about which the Opposition was also very concerned last year. Statistics which have been made available by the Bureau for Economic Research at Stellenbosch indicate that the business conditions in the manufacturing industry during the last quarter of 1966 were considerably better than they had been in the previous quarter. I do not think the tariff increases have any effect on the production costs in industry. There was considerably more export of manufactured products after the tariff increases had been introduced than before. From April to August, 1966, a total of R187.9 million worth of industrial products were exported, but in the five months after the tariff increases from September, 1966, to January, 1967, R210.8 million worth of industrial products were exported. Mr. Speaker, last year when the tariff increases were made hon. members of the Opposition predicted the most terrible things in regard to the effect the tariff increases would have on commerce and industry, as well as the cost of living. Can you understand why they have on this occasion omitted completely to indicate what tremendous effect the tariff increases have had? The hon. member for Yeoville has realized that he was on the wrong track altogether last year and that he must not make the same mistake this year.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—94: Bekker, M. J. H.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Brandt, J. W.; Carr, D. M.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; Delport, W. H.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederich's, N.; Du Plessis, H. R. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Haak, J. F. W.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Henning, J. M.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Le Roux, P. M. K.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Pienaar, B.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rail, J. W.; Rail, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B.J.; Schoeman, H.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J.D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Torlage, P. H.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Berg, G. P.; Van den Berg, M. J.; Van den Heever, D. J.G.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Wath, J.G. H.; Van Niekerk, M. C.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D.M.; Visse, J. H.; Visser, A. L; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J.J. G.

Tellers: B. J. van der Walt and H. J. van Wyk.

Noes—32: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L; Graaff, De V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G.F.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Sutton, W.M.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J.S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

1. (c) (i) by the staff board established by section 4bis; or
2. (ii) by a member or members of that staff board.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to. Clause 4:

Mr. Chairman, this clause provides—

I should like the hon. the Minister to give us some information in regard to these new powers. Is “any officer” to be any officer of the Treasury or of the Public Service? The relevant section of the principal Act provides that recommendations of the Public Service Commission regarding the withdrawal and collection of revenue must be approved by the Treasury. It makes provision that recommendations of the Commission as to the increase, regarding, etc., of staff, involving expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund “shall not be carried out unless the Treasury approves such expenditure”. Now the Minister wants to add a further proviso to this stating that the Treasury may delegate its power to approve of such expenditure “to any officer”. The way we read this proposal is that “any officer” may mean an officer outside the Treasury. Surely it is not contemplated that the Treasury should relax its control over expenditure? Therefore I should like the hon. the Minister to give us his reasons for this amendment.

I should like to give the hon. member the assurance that there is not the slightest intention on the part of the Treasury to relax or diminish its control or to delegate its responsibility for expenditure. It cannot do that. Responsibility in this respect still rests on the Treasury. This proposed proviso is being inserted at the request of the Treasury. The object of the proposed amendment is to delegate the approval of expenditure arising out of specific actions defined in the Public Service Act to Departments. In its wording clause 4 is therefore merely a natural continuation of section 7 (2) of the principal Act, as clause 4 relates only to actions referred to in section 7 (2). To make provision for this power of delegation in other legislation while it relates only to the Public Service can only cause confusion. That is why we are making the change in this Bill. This relates primarily to expenditure arising out of the duty imposed upon the Public Service Commission by the Public Service Act to prescribe how the money is to be spent and to see to it that there is no waste. In other words, this is expenditure which may just as well be delegated to heads of Departments and high-ranking officials. Moreover, time and manpower will be saved through that. I want to give the assurance, however, that the financial control over expenditure will remain as strict as before. There will be no relaxation in that respect. I therefore do not think hon. members need feel concerned about this.

I should like to be absolutely sure on this. I am afraid the hon. the Minister has not given us that assurance. We have to accept the wording as we see it here. When we refer to section 7 of the principal Act we find that the intention there is expressed very clearly indeed. Subsection (2) states very clearly that every recommendation of the Commission in regard to aspects stated in the subsection “involving expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund … shall be communicated to the Treasury and shall not be carried out unless the Treasury approves such expenditure”. Could it be set out more clearly than this? It says that it “shall” be communicated to the Treasury and that the Treasury “shall” approve. Now all of a sudden this is to be delegated to “any officer”. In my opinion the hon. member for Pinetown is quite right in raising this issue. This is going from one extreme to the other. There is a most definite instruction in the principal Act, a provision which makes the intention of the legislators absolutely clear, i.e. that they are determined in cases such as these that the Consolidated Revenue Fund should be protected by the Treasury. As a matter of fact, I have never seen any intention so clearly set out as it is set out here. But now all of a sudden the Minister comes along—in a Bill dealing with the Public Service and not with the Treasury—and provides that this power can be delegated to “any officer”. Of course, I accept that it is only in certain circumstances that the Treasury can do that, but these circumstances are not specified in this Bill. If the hon. the Minister had come to us and said that in cases A, B, C and D the Treasury can delegate this power to any officer then I would not have been querying it as I am doing now. But the provision as it stands is very wide. I believe that this is contrary to the spirit of the protection contemplated by and written into the principal Act. So I should like the Minister to give us at least the assurance that he will go into this matter in order to see whether he cannot be more specific with the amendment proposed in clause 4. Perhaps he could then do something about it in the Other Place.

I do not intend moving an amendment now but I do feel that we have the right to demand that the protection envisaged under section 7 of the principal Act should not be taken away unless it is to cover certain specific instances, instances which must then be written into this clause. If he does not do that, then I do not believe there is any protection whatsoever because the delegation can take place without the knowledge of and control by Parliament.

The Minister has given us the assurance that there will be no weakening of Treasury control, but despite that assurance I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he give consideration to adding the words “of the Treasury” at the end of this proviso. This will mean that the Treasury may delegate its powers in these circumstances only to any officer of the Treasury. That will ensure that the Treasury does in fact maintain control. As this proviso reads now it may mean that the Treasury can delegate its authority to an officer, for instance of the Public Service Commission—at any rate, outside the Treasury. If we want to protect the Consolidated Revenue Fund I do not think it is advisable that we should provide, as we are doing here, for the delegation of the power of approving certain expenditure to an officer outside the Treasury. Therefore I wish to move as an amendment—

Alternatively, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister to reconsider the matter when he deals with this Bill in the Other Place.

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the hon. the Minister a question. Could this delegation of power to any officer possibly include the Administrator of a province? Is it possible that these provisions and the amounts of money to be voted could go outside the control of the Government Department and outside the leave of Parliament? Could an Administrator be given such a power? If we support the amendment of the hon. member for Pinetown it will be quite clear that this House has absolute control. Variations from that control will be stopped. Perhaps the Minister could tell us now whether the officer who will have the delegated powers can be a member of a provincial council?

Mr. Chairman, since the Second Reading Debate, when the hon. member for Umlazi also raised objections in regard to this provision, I have gone into the matter very specifically. I have been given the assurance that there is no departure from any principle here. This is merely a change in the practical application. It is said that every action of the Public Service Commission means or implies the incurring of expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The Treasury requested that, in view of the fact that the same conditions exist as those for which clause 3 now makes provision regarding the Commission’s authority to delegate certain powers, and in view of the fact that they prescribe certain compulsory actions which always have to come back to the Treasury via the Commission, they should also be granted this power. The Commission says that the same reasons apply in their case as in the case of the granting of powers of delegation to the Commission as defined in the Act. The Treasury has asked that they be granted powers of delegation on those same grounds, that is to say, also to heads of departments, and only in respect of the incurring of expenditure on approved matters and other matters in regard to which the Treasury has already laid down a fixed procedure. In other words, it does not mean that they can now do as they please and delegate powers in respect of actions which are not specifically laid down. They will have to function within and adhere to those rules, and will have to account for their actions. I feel that although this amendment is perhaps not wrong in principle, it is quite unnecessary, and I cannot accept it.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 5:

Mr. Chairman, this is a most extraordinary clause. We are asked to legislate and to provide penalties for the contravention of certain rules and in respect of certain members of the Public Service, yet we do not know what the rules are that they will be breaking. It seems incredible to provide that if a public servant breaks the rules of any medical aid society that may be recognized, he is then guilty of misconduct. Misconduct is something serious. If a servant contravenes any provision of the Act, etc., he can be cautioned or reprimanded; he can be fined an amount not exceeding R400; transferred to another post or be employed additional to the fixed establishment. In other words, he loses all his privileges. His salary or grade, or both his salary and grade, can be reduced to an extent recommended, or he may be discharged or called upon to resign from the Public Service. These are terrible penalties for breaking the rules of some medical aid society or medical scheme.

These schemes exist to help people—they do not exist to get men penalized. It can so happen that a rule may be broken by a man’s wife or child, because they are included in these schemes. I think that if the Minister sees the matter in the serious light in which I see it, he will understand that this is something which should be put away and only brought out when it is needed. We do not even know what medical aid schemes are going to be brought in by the hon. the Minister of Health. Nobody knows. We do not know anything about them. During all my professional life I have never known of any medical aid scheme which contains penalty clauses of this nature. They do contain penalty clauses of a nature to be used, for instance, when a man does not pay his dues. But that is the ordinary provision. One cannot belong to a club if one does not pay the subscription. That is all that amounts to. It is not a penalty as such. If we look at the next clause, we see that membership may be made compulsory, not only for the civil servant but also for his family. To bring penalties of this nature into a scheme which is meant to be of mutual help to everybody is altogether wrong. These schemes are intended to help men in their difficulties, in their illnesses, or when they are past the best part of their lives. What is the penalty and what is it for? We know what the penalty is, but why is it brought in? What rule is there that can be broken? I just cannot understand how such a thought could come to anybody. How can one want to penalize a man without knowing why? And that in a scheme like a medical aid scheme which is a mutual scheme for looking after each other’s health. The one shares the burden with the other. We do not have the slightest idea of what these schemes are going to be. Nobody knows. Last Tuesday in a question to the Minister of Health I asked him whether he will publish his Bill, and he said, no, he would not. We are dealing here with something we know nothing about. This sort of legislation is, I submit, uncivilized.

Mr. Chairman, I want to support the hon. member for Durban (Central). I think that it is quite ridiculous to have a clause such as this in the Bill, with penalties as set out in the clause. It is quite ridiculous. Let us see what it says. It talks about medical aid funds and medical aid societies. There is no definition of either of these. Nobody knows at this stage whether medical aid societies and medical aid funds are going to be recognized. Nobody says here that “these shall be recognized medical aid societies”. Nobody knows who is going to control these medical aid societies and funds. Yet. with all these doubts present, the Minister brings in a Bill like this which contains a clause providing for a penalty for a person who breaks the rules of the constitution. Nobody knows what the constitution of the benefit or medical aid society is.

Now, what usually happens when an individual belonging to a medical aid society or benefit society breaks the rules of the constitution? What does it really mean? Let us take the existing medical aid societies. A member could consult the doctor every afternoon for trivialities. He may obtain prescriptions from the doctor and not have them made up. He may exchange a prescription for some other article. These are things that happen. He breaks the rules of the constitution. There is also another aspect. The member’s little boy may go to the doctor, obtain a prescription and then exchange it for, say, a bar of chocolate at the chemist shop. These are things which are brought to the notice of the medical aid societies’ directors.

Mr. Chairman, because that sort of thing happens, the man, in terms of this clause, can be fined a ridiculous sum of money or penalized in some other way, or he can even be sacked. If one wants to make membership of the society a condition of employment then surely the medical aid or medical benefit society should be made as attractive as possible. One does not put the fear of God into the members and say to them, “You will behave in such and such a manner, or else you will get yourself into trouble”. Let us now hear what the Minister thinks of this clause. I am sure that the Minister did not realize what this is all about. Let us hear from him and then perhaps we can argue again.

Mr. Chairman, I think that during the Second Reading Debate I explained to the satisfaction of everybody, even the hon. members on the other side who were here at the time and who have now spoken again, what was intended with this. I shall leave it at that explanation. I just want to remind hon. members again that clause 5—and clauses 5 and 6 have to be read together—is only there to supplement and extend section 26 of the Act. For example, where the State President may issue regulations for various purposes, he will also be able to do it in this case for the putting into operation of a compulsory medical aid scheme. If the State President has to issue regulations before these existing medical aid schemes can get recognition as compulsory medical aid schemes, then it follows logically that those regulations, as is the case with all similar regulations, have to be tabled in both Houses of Parliament. Then one will be able to see precisely what the regulations are. As far as the rules of the existing aid funds are concerned, it is not necessary for me to go into details and to say how the aid funds come into being and are administrated. I now have in mind, for example, the Civil Service Medical Benefit Association. The Public Service Commission is represented on that, as are the Treasury and the Public Servants’ Association. Some members are nominated, while others are elected. This scheme works very well, but membership is not compulsory. All the public servants, whether they are members or not, are properly informed. They know what the constitution and the rules of the medical aid schemes are. As a matter of fact, they urged very strongly that this provision be included. They actually wanted it last year already, but I was unable to introduce the amendment last year. They wanted it so that the long-awaited and long-cherished compulsory state medical scheme could be introduced and the existing medical aid societies could also receive recognition as compulsory medical aid schemes which may share in the compulsory benefits. I think the Minister of Health has already given notice of such a Bill. I do not know whether the Bill has been tabled yet. He is going to put forward legislation to make membership of aid schemes compulsory. It will be applicable to public servants and employees in semi-State organizations as well as to employees of the provincial administrations. The principle of compulsory membership will be contained in the measure. This legislation is just a little before that of the Minister of Health, so that when his legislation comes through, the schemes already in existence will be able to carry on.

Mr. Chairman, even though we have not yet seen the regulations, the hon. the Minister should treat this matter more seriously than he does. Section 17 of the principal Act lays down the definition of “misconduct”. It states, inter alia, that the person concerned is guilty of misconduct if he “contravenes any provision of this Act or fails to comply with any provision thereof with which it is his duty to comply”. It also refers to insolvency, insubordination, and various other matters defined as constituting misconduct. Incidentally, it includes becoming a member of a political organization. Now the Minister seriously wants us to include as misconduct the breaking of any rule of a medical aid scheme. The proposed amendment reads— “contravenes any provision of the rules of the constitution of a medical aid fund… If this is included in section 17 of the Act, then the person who is found guilty of such misconduct must suffer any of the penalties provided for in section 18 of the Act. Surely the Minister is unreasonable if he wants us to lay down as being “misconduct” the contravention of any provision of a medical aid scheme, while the Medical Benefit Scheme Bill has not yet been seen by this House. As far as we know it has not been framed. Yet such a contravention must now be included under the heading of “misconduct” on the part of all members of the Public Service. I feel it is unreasonable to expect this side to support this clause.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister has made an attempt to give us a reply, but his reply is most unsatisfactory. The point I want to make is this. If a man contravenes one of the rules of the constitution of a medical aid society it may affect only one of two aspects. It is either the doctor or the financial standing of the medical aid fund. I am certain that there is not a single doctor who will serve a medical aid fund or medical aid society and who will want to see a member of that society lose his job. Whether it be the Public Service or any other sphere of employment, nobody wants an employee to be given the sack just because he has broken a rule of a medical aid fund. The punishment should relate to the society concerned only. Let them decide on the punishment. Let us say, then, if a man is to be punished, let him pay double his subscription for the following month, or let him forfeit some of the benefits. But to think that because a man has broken a rule of a medical aid society he is liable to lose his job! Mr. Chairman, I think that is absolutely ridiculous. There are 101 reasons why that should not take place. What will the Minister say if a man broke a medical aid society rule, even if it be the most important rule, and he had been working in the Public Service for 30 years—does it mean that because he broke the rule he will get the sack or be fined R400? I think it is absolutely ridiculous to allow a clause like this to be included in this Bill, and for that reason alone I wish to propose that clause 5 be deleted.

Mr. Chairman, I want to support the points of view put forward by the hon. members for Durban (Central) and Rosettenville. It struck me that this is just a new approach. I believe this clause to be totally unnecessary, because, Sir, although we cannot discuss the next clause yet, one sees there that provision is made …

Order! The hon. member has said he may not discuss it. He must not discuss it.

I do not want to discuss the clause as a whole, but I think this is pertinent, Sir. The Commission can make membership compulsory. They can also review the rules and regulations. Surely that is sufficient safeguard? Let us assume that the Minister decides to recognize a benefit society which operates by way, say, of insurance. If he does that the company providing the medical cover will obviously lay down a set of rules and regulations under which they are prepared to accept members of the Public Service and give them the necessary medical benefits which the Minister wants to provide. But the conditions are laid down not by the Public Service Commission but by the company providing the health insurance. Yet the members of the Public Service are going to be liable to penalties if they contravene rules and regulations which are not the rules and regulations of the Public Service Commission.

Order! That argument has been raised already.

Well, Sir, I want to make it very clear, because the Minister has not dealt with it. I think that he should deal with it. I am sure that there is not a single civil servant who would like to feel that this extra set of rules and regulations will now apply and that the likelihood of being charged with misconduct will now virtually be doubled. He can lose the benefits for which he had been working a lifetime. Surely, if the Minister cannot control a medical benefit society without this big stick, without this sledgehammer with which to kill a fly as it were, then he cannot control a benefit society at all. He makes rules and regulations. He has ways and means of penalizing a person. He can withhold benefits. Every person who belongs to this scheme will obviously have to pay a subscription which is deducted at source. For what other reason can the Minister want to penalize a member? For over-using the benefits of the society? If a member does that, he can withhold certain benefits from the member. He can frame a regulation to do that. He can say that the member cannot have more than one bottle of, say, tonic wine per week. Surely the Minister does not want this provision to be applied so that the man can be deprived of his means of livelihood? Is that the intention of the hon. the Minister? I do not believe that it is, and if it is not then he does not need this clause. I suggest that the Minister withdraw it immediately.

I must point out that I want hon. members to raise new arguments for or against the clause: otherwise I will ask the hon. member concerned to resume his seat.

The hon. the Minister referred to the fact that his colleague the Minister of Health is likely to introduce legislation in this regard, and it seems to me that to suggest at this stage an amendment to the existing provision will cause much unnecessary trouble for the Minister and his Department. It might well be that the conditions of medical services throughout the country are changed in such a way that this clause has to be amended again. I believe that it is putting the cart before the horse to introduce legislation which suggests an amendment of this nature. My hon. colleagues have put the arguments affecting the wording of the clause. I do not propose repeating those arguments. It seems to me to be a wrong time at which to introduce this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, there is no precedent for a clause of this nature, and I can see no reason for the clause. There are in existence already medical aid societies which are run by civil servants and which have been run by them for many years. The Post Office scheme is one of them. There is also the Cape Civil Service Society. There are two or three of them which have had years of experience. But not one of them has this clause. They work satisfactorily. If the Minister in his wisdom later on chooses to turn this society into a mutual society, he will have no trouble. He will not have to have penalties of this nature. There is no precedent. In all my professional life I have never come across a penalty clause, other than that relating to failure to pay subscriptions, in a medical aid society. It is so contrary to the spirit and •the whole outlook of medical aid societies. Indeed, it is repugnant. I just cannot imagine how the Minister could think up such a thing!

If you want to make it compulsory for civil servants, then you must have this.

Mr. Chairman, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to section 25 of the principal Act. This section provides for the establishment of a Public Service Joint Advisory Council. Subsection (2) reads as follows—

I want the Minister to tell us whether the Council has been consulted on this matter and whether they have given their consent to the Minister to introduce this clause which provides for these penalties, when the regulations for the medical aid fund have not yet been published.

Mr. Chairman, is the Minister not going to say anything?

No. I have already explained.

I think the Minister owes it to the public service to explain why he is putting forward a measure such as this at this stage. He has said nothing whatsoever to reassure this side of the House or any member of the Public Service that this clause is justified and serves any purpose other than to wave the big stick and hammer into submission the people concerned.

The civil servants are satisfied.

This is a shocking provision. The Minister says the civil servants are satisfied. The hon. member for Pinetown has just asked him whether this particular Council was consulted. He has not even replied, yet he says that they are satisfied and they accept it. How does he know that they are satisfied and accept it?

Progress reported.