Mr. Speaker, when discussing a Budget of nearly R800 million, we realize that we are dealing with a gigantic undertaking, and one which is going from strength to strength. When, in addition, we hear of a surplus of more than R35 million, we know that the Railways is a very well organized undertaking. But when we learn that R43 million is being distributed in salaries and wage benefits, we realize that the railwaymen have someone here who is very sympathetic, who must be a very level-headed and capable person. He knows that Railway efficiency can only be achieved and increased when that staff is happy and contented and prepared to work hard.

Permit me right at the outset to convey, on behalf of all these railwaymen, their sincere thanks to the Minister. I am doing so on behalf of thousands and tens of thousands of people who are grateful for the financial relief granted them through this concession. They are people who were prepared to keep the wheels of the Railways running smoothly, and to increase the efficiency of the Railways even further, in difficult circumstances and in spite of a shortage of manpower, a task which could only be achieved through devotion, zeal and hard work.

Mr. Speaker, in saying that the efficiency of the Railways has been increased even further during the past year, I do not simply want to make a loose statement, but I want to prove it by statistics. Let us take a look at the staff employed by the Railways. I am going to use three dates:31st March, 1948, 31st March, 1960, and 31st March, 1967. As at 31st March, 1948, the number of white staff employed was 98,065. As at 31st March, 1960, it was 109,000, and as at 31st March, 1967, it was 115,000. The respective figures for the non-white staff are 89,000, 108,000 and 105,000. From this it appears that the staff has increased by only 1.5 per cent over the past seven years. Let us now consider the results which virtually the same staff as that of 1960 achieved in 1967. Now we are looking at the total tonnage of goods transported by rail. In 1948 it was 52 million, in 1960 81 million and in 1967 110 million. From this we can see that it has more than doubled itself since 1948. The number of train passengers was 243 million in 1948, 294 million in 1960 and 464 million in 1967. What do we find now? We find that although the staff increased by only 1.5 per cent over the past seven years, goods transport increased by 34.2 per cent and passenger journeys by 57.6 per cent. To me this provides the most striking proof that the efficiency of the Railways has increased. I sometimes wonder whether we should not lend our hon. Minister to Britain so that he may straighten out their affairs too.

I should like to make an analysis of the factors which contributed to this enormous success on the part of the S.A. Railways. In the first place there is the National Party’s approach to labour. Because this party realizes the value of sound relationships between employer and employee, they are always prepared to negotiate with the staff and to make the necessary salary adjustments. Yesterday the hon. member for Yeoville pleaded for a regular adjustment of salaries and wages as the cost of living rises—as a matter of fact, he even suggested that this adjustment be made every three months because, he asked, what protection does the railwayman have against the creeping increase in the cost of living? Now, we know that the Railways is the pride of every railwayman. The railwayman regards the Railways as his undertaking. The railwayman realizes that if the undertaking can be run on a profit basis, the profits will be ploughed back into the undertaking and that he will benefit directly from that. As a matter of fact, this has been proved time and again over the past years. Let us now consider the increase in salaries and wages as compared with the increase in the cost of living for the years 1948, 1960 and 1967. The average salary or wage of white Railway servants was R910; R1,684 in 1960; and R2,517 in 1967—three times as much as in the time of the United Party Government. If we take the cost-of-living index for 1948 to be 100, we find that it increased to 152.3 in 1960 and 179.9 in 1967. The increase in the cost of living for the past seven years was 27 per cent, as against an increase of 91 per cent in salaries and wages.

The assertion has been made here that salary and wage adjustments are only made before elections. But according to the table I have here with me there was an increase of R14 million in 1948-’49, R3 million in 1950, R23 million in 1952, R11 million in 1953, R8 million in 1954, etc. I can go on in this way. There was an increase of R20 million in 1965 and R36 million in January, 1966.

But then it was before the election.

No, after the election. Then there is the present increase of R43 million. This gives us a total of R253 million over the past years. I therefore fail to see how the assertion can be made from the other side of the House that salary and wage adjustments are not being made. If we were to grant increases in salaries and wages according to the rise in the cost of living, as the hon. member for Yeoville apparently would have it, we would have granted an increase of only 27 per cent in the past seven years. In actual fact salaries and wages increased by 91 per cent. And this figure does not include the increase of R43 million which has now been announced by the hon. the Minister.

May I ask you a question?

No, I am sorry but my time has almost expired. And what about the other benefits enjoyed by the railwaymen? We know that the Government aims at providing each married man in its employment with his own house. To me this is one of the most important contributions towards the contentment of the railwaymen. Over the past years no fewer than 53,581 houses have been made available to railwaymen. And then I am not even mentioning hostels. In Bloemfontein, for example, there is a hostel providing accommodation for 500 young men. They are accommodated there under very favourable circumstances while at the same time being granted the opportunity to be trained. And the housing provided to the railwaymen to-day is not the type of housing provided by the United Party in its day. The United Party Government concentrated housing accommodation for the railwaymen in one area and in that way virtually turned it into a Railway compound. A stigma clung to it. Over against that, houses for Railwaymen are to-day spread out through the whole of a township.

Another factor which has contributed to the present degree of efficiency of the S.A. Railways is training. At Esselen Park the Railwaymen have a training centre which is the pride of the S.A. Railways. In addition, training opportunities are offered at all the large centres. The result is that every railwayman is a qualified expert in his own particular field. This is to me the big secret of the success of the S.A. Railways and the guarantee that the Service will go from strength to strength.

But there is one group for which I should like to make a play here to-day, i.e. the low-paid group, that group whose earnings are not sufficient yet to enable them to share in the prosperity of the country. I want to plead that concessions should be made to them in some way or other in order to enable them to make a decent living too.

My time is running out and I have to conclude. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to the hon. the Minister for the abolition of the means test. Pleas for relief for Railway pensioners have been made over the years and I know that concessions have been made from time to time. I would suggest that people are being misled in this respect. The assertion is made that if a person earns more than R1,800, his pension is withdrawn. That is not so. It is only the additional cost-of-living allowance that is withdrawn when he earns more than R1,800. The position is now that these persons are exempt from the means test and may earn more than R1,800 and still get their pensions as well as their cost-of-living allowances, and for that we want to thank the Minister sincerely. Permit me also to express our thanks to our General Manager and his staff, the Railway Board and every railwayman who contributed to our achieving this tremendous success.

In his speech yesterday the hon. member for Durban (Point) said, inter alia, the following with reference to the visit paid by the Select Committee on Railways to railway installations on the Wit-watersrand and in Pretoria—

In other words, the hon. member was trying to imply that senior staff members of the Railways were trying to paint a picture of morbid frustration for the Select Committee. I want to deny this allegation emphatically, and I also want to tell the hon. member for Durban (Point) that in my opinion it is in dubious taste to enjoy the hospitality of the Administration and then come here to this House with malicious gossip. [Interjections.] Although problems were put to us in a balanced way during our visit, no official ever revealed a sense of frustration. On the contrary, a balanced account of our tour would be that we were received and conducted around with charm and efficiency, and that everywhere we went we were impressed by the dedication, perseverance and friendliness of the staff. In his speech the hon. member for Yeoville unburdened himself of the following—

The hon. member for Yeoville was of course merely echoing his mentor, the Financial Mail, which on the 15th of this month stated the following—

But the hon. member for Yeoville and his mentor are of course being quite unscientific in their assertion that these salary concessions are inflationary.

Are you stating it as a fact now that I echoed those people?

Yes.

Then you are telling a gross untruth.

The Minister has indicated very clearly in his Budget Speech that Railway income is moving in accordance with other economic indications, and he then indicated clearly that since August a tremendous slow-down has been clearly discernible in the economy. Where the tonnage of high tariff traffic for the first quarter of the working year was 9 per cent more than that in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, it had to decrease to .43 per cent more than in the period September to October of last year. The Reserve Bank also states in its latest quarterly economic review that the seasonally adjusted index of consumer prices had slowed down from an annual rate of increase of 3.8 per cent during 1966 to an annual rate of 2.4 per cent during the first ten months of 1967. These are all clear indications that the Reserve Bank is justified in saying that there are definite indications at present that the official restrictive monetary and fiscal measures are serving their purpose, i.e. to reduce the monetary demand for goods and services. In passing, may I also say that the fact that capital works are at present accumulating to an amount of R471 million, is in itself a major anti-inflationary factor. Another major disinflationary factor, and I call it a very unfortunate factor, is the setback which is once again being experienced in the agricultural sector. In this regard I am referring in particular to the mealie industry. That the mealie production is a major factor was shown last year when the Reserve Bank stated in its report that bank credit would have decreased to a tremendously greater extent if it had not been for the financing of the large mealie crop. This year it is possible that the mealie crop will yield from R120 million to R160 million less, which is also a tremendous disinflationary factor. Fortunately the Railways apart from this setback, will still have 3.35 million tons of mealies to transport. Having taken all these factors into consideration it is difficult to see how salary and wage increases of R43 million to Railway employees, plus other possible increases to other officials of the State, can be inflationist. This Budget was, of course, drawn up before the week-end when weighty decisions were taken on the international montary level, but the hon. the Minister of Finance intimated yesterday that if what that implies is also going to have an inflationary effect, steps would again be taken to counteract them in this country.

But in this time of prosperity for the Railways the question arises whether consideration should be given to the sector which is really suffering hardships, i.e. the farming sector, which has once again experienced setbacks during the past year owing to the drought, and I want to reply to that question immediately. In 1966 the former Deputy Minister of Transport pointed out in the Other Place that after the tariff increases there had been an average tariff increase of 10 per cent, but that it had only amounted to 3 per cent for agriculture. In his report which he has just published the General Manager mentions that there have up to now been no tariff increases for fertilizer, livestock, milk and cream. To realize the extent of these concessions we must return to the Schumann Report. On page 141 of the report we see for example that the committee recommended an increase of R3,200,000 for the transport of stock, which would have meant almost 50 per cent of the revenue which was at that stage being earned by the transport of stock. As a mealie farmer I want to address a special word of thanks to the Management of the Railways for the almost inhuman task they have carried out in regard to the transport of mealies for export this year. The latest indications are that up to the end of April 30 million bags of mealies will be transported. Mr. Speaker, it is an achievement which has amazed both friend and cynic. What makes this achievement even greater is the fact that during the same period the Railways also had to transport the greatest quantity of fertilizer ever required by the farming sector.

The hon. Deputy Minister has already dealt with the additional benefits to the staff. I just want to point out once again—since I also want to express my thanks for the abolition of the means test—that the indirect benefits to the staff amount to much more than the R800,000 mentioned by the hon. the Minister. Many pensioners who have not up to now been able to work in the private sector will be able to go and work again, and many who were working in the private sector and receiving a mere pittance in order to adjust to the means test will now be able to bargain for increased remuneration.

I want to conclude by conveying my thanks to the Minister and the Management for this magnificent budget, and when I do so I am in interesting company. Mr. T. P. Murray, president of the Trade Union Council, said that this budget acknowledged the efficiency and the loyalty of the Railway staff, and last but not least, The Cape Times stated in a leading article the other day: “But the Railways are in good hands.”

The speeches of the hon. member who has just sat down and the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) who preceded him, can be summed up by saying that between them they did not make one speech. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) thanked the Minister for the pay increases to the railway workers, and in that respect but in that respect only I will join him, but like Oliver Twist I would like to say to the Minister that we on this side will come back for more and more as the years go on.

I have no illusions in that regard.

Sir, I wonder sometimes, sitting in this House, what hon. members on the other side would find to talk about if they sat on this side and we on that side, because whenever they get up to speak all they can do is to thank the Minister; they quote from his reports and that is the sum total of their contributions. Not a word do we hear from them about the difficulties that the Railways are going through. We had very little sympathy from those hon. members with their own Minister—I was going to say their “beloved” Minister—because of the difficulties that he is going through, the greatest difficulty of all being the question of shortage of key personnel in the Railway service. There was no suggestion from that side as to how that position could be resolved. [Interjections.] Sir, I happen to represent a constituency very largely made up of railway workers, and they showed what they thought of this particular Government at the last election, despite all the predictions from that side to the contrary.

I want to start off by saying to the hon. the Minister that I have had nothing else but the greatest courtesy and help from the officials of his Department, and anything that I may say here this afternoon is no reflection on any official in the Minister’s Department or on the Minister himself. I want to confine myself to two particular aspects. The first is the question of staff. At the present time the Railways employ approximately 221,000 staff, of which 115,000 are White, 12,000 Coloured, 1,000 Asiatics and 92,000 Bantu. With such a large staff, I agree with the hon. the Minister that difficulties are bound to occur. There is no organization of this size that can say that it experiences no difficulties; that we accept, but at the same time, I think the hon. the Minister will agree with me that as the head of that organization he is responsible for these difficulties and has to do something to put them right. The one with which he is mainly concerned is the question of staff shortages. The hon. the Minister made reference to this in the course of his speech. We have said already on this side of the House that the Minister does not hide anything from us. He has told us where he is short of staff, but I would like to suggest to the Government that the shortage of staff in South Africa, not only in the Minister’s Department, but in every Government Department, in every walk of life in South Africa, has been created solely and entirely by this Government. If hon. members opposite think that this is not so might I ask them who stopped immigration for ten years? This is an old hobby horse but in ten years we lost a million white immigrants to South Africa, with whom we could do well at the present time. Sir, those are the hon. members who initially created this staff shortage in South Africa. What is happening now? The hon. the Minister, who controls one of the biggest organizations of its kind, is short of staff. Where is he going to find staff now? We find that immigration is down this year. Where are the immigrants going to come from? I would suggest that the only way in which South Africa can solve this problem of a shortage of white workers is by flying a planet or something to the moon to bring some immigrants to the earth because we are not going to get them from anywhere else. Sir, this manpower shortage is common to every sector in South Africa, but it is common to every sector because this Government stopped immigration just when it should have been at full tide. Sir, I want to draw attention to a few figures. In 1962 this Government employed 10,000 Coloured workers and 710 Asiatics. No member on that side has suggested that these people are going to be sent to some fancy Bantustan or to some dreamland. They have all agreed that there are no homelands for the Coloureds and the Indians, so one assumes that these people are always going to be with us. But let us look at the position. In five years, despite the high unemployment among Coloureds and Asiatics, the Minister has employed an extra 2,000 Coloureds and only 200 Asiatics. These people cannot go to a homeland; they cannot find jobs elesewhere. The Railways are short of labour, but all they take on is an extra 2,000 Coloureds and 200 Indians. Are they serious when they say they are short of labour, or do they want to go on being short of labour? These are the very people who use the railways, they pay their taxes on the railways, but for some reason or other the door of employment amongst railway workers seems to be closed for them. The hon. the Minister has said, and the same thing was also said by the hon. the Minister of Post and Telegraphs especially, that when he employs a non-White he is employed in a temporary capacity. Two hundred years from now we will still be employing non-Whites in a “temporary capacity”. But this sort of thing does not occur among the non-Whites on the S.A.R. only. I know of a case where a white man was sent to relieve over an Easter week-end in an office in Durban. It might interest the Minister to know that that was 30 years ago and he is still “relieving” in that same office.

He must have a strong constitution.

No doubt he was a temporary employee. Staff shortages on the S.A.R. & H., as in every other walk of life in South Africa, will never be solved. Although I have great admiration for the Minister’s ability, and I know he is making great efforts to solve the problem, yet I predict that he will come to this House year after year and tell us about the staff shortages. I do not believe that he or anybody else on earth will ever solve the labour shortage in this country. He will not solve this problem whilst we have hon. members on that side of the House who believe what they do. In five years the Bantu staff on the S.A.R. decreased from 93,000 to 92,000. That was fine, because the numbers decreased, the Minister was making some effort to meet the situation. But in those five years the number of Bantu employees in the Civil Service which falls under a different Minister …

Order! That is not relevant to the motion now before the House.

I am drawing a comparison, Mr. Speaker, The number of Bantu workers in those departments increased from 104,000 to 145,000. Just look at the difference. On the Railways the number of Bantu employees was reduced by 1,000 whilst in the Civil Service it increased by 45,000. This is the reason why this Minister is short of labour: The workers are being pinched by the other departments away from him. But that is not all. The other departments also took 18,000 white workers away from the S.A.R., as well as 17,000 Coloured workers and 7,000 Asiatics. Every one of these workers went to a department which is exclusively devoted to promoting the Government’s policy of separate development. There is nothing concrete or constructive in the work which they were taken on to do. They could well have been used by the hon. the Minister of Transport to help solve his labour shortage. But he is having to battle because the Government persists in pushing on with hair-brained schemes.

Another aspect to which I want to refer is the fact that the number of non-Whites carried by the Railways is increasing at the rate of something like 9 per cent per year. One presumes that this increase has been progressive over the last five years. But despite the higher number of non-white passengers, the number of Bantu employed by the Railways is decreasing. Surely the increase in non-white passenger figures should result in an increasing number of Bantu workers in the service. But that does not seem to be the case.

Is the truth of the matter not that we are not so much short of labour in this country as we are short of common sense? I say we will never solve the labour shortage in this country unless the Government reappraises its own approach to this problem.

You are a disgrace to your constituency.

I can look after my constituency far better than anybody you can think of. We constantly hear of a population explosion, of the too high birth figure in South Africa and throughout the world, yet in the same breath we talk of a labour shortage! Surely something is wrong with our thinking if despite a population explosion we suffer a labour shortage. I say we have all the workers we want; we just do not have a government which knows how to make use of them. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister in all sincerity that he should take immediate steps to investigate this position. He should see whether non-white workers could not be absorbed into the lower grade jobs at present done by Whites. This matter has been given a lot of attention to by a lot of people. What prevents the Government from using non-white workers in the lowest echelons of the Railways, in jobs at present being done by Whites? Because then those Whites can be uplifted to the next grade.

It has been done for years; you only realize it now.

Well, it is being done very slowly if to-day the Minister still complains that he is short of 20 per cent of the required number of artisans. The hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education will not admit this process. The only way to solve this problem is by making better use of our non-white workers as I indicated, and at the same time our white workers will benefit. In fact, they will be the very first people to benefit. Unless the Government acts on the lines proposed by me, we will never even get off the ground as far as solving the labour problem is concerned. If certain white workers were found to be unsuitable for employment in a higher grade, nothing would prevent the Government from setting a minimum wage for those workers. The mining industry has done a very successful experiment on these lines, and to-day in that industry the white worker is better off than before. This is the only way in which the white worker in South Africa can get a better deal and a square deal, and the only way in which the hon. the Minister, or anybody else, will be able to solve the labour shortage.

If the Minister entertains any doubts about the capability of the non-White then I should like to quote to him something which was said by a certain organization which made a particular study of this subject, namely the National Institute for Personnel Research. This is what it said—

That assessment by people qualified to do such an assessment shows that we can in fact make better use of this labour and so help solve the problem of the shortage of white labour on the S.A.R. & H. as well as in the other spheres of Government employment. It is essential for our country that a solution to this problem be found. I would be so bold as to say that not one of the subjects discussed here during a Parliamentary session is as important as this one vital issue—the problem of our labour supply—because on this vital issue depends the future of the white race in South Africa. It is up to the Government to find the answer to this problem, because during the 20 years they have been in office they have not come up with a solution yet.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to another matter. During the recess I studied the unemployment position in my constituency. I found that great numbers of these unemployed were people who had reached the 40-45 years age group. When I asked them why they had not taken on jobs on the S.A.R. because there is such a shortage of labour there, they told me that when they applied for jobs there they were offered incomes on which they could not support their families. They said the Railways would take them on but at the lowest salary grade. I know there are problems attached to this aspect. I do not suggest that I have a ready answer to the problems. But I do believe we are not making use of a very large section of our labour force in the middle age category who are unemployed. When the Minister complains about the labour position I think of these untapped sources where I am sure he will find many workers to fill the vacancies.

Apparently they would rather be unemployed than work for a low wage.

I would suggest to the hon. the Minister that their problem is that they approach the Railways who will give them a job but at a wage, because they are family men with children, which they cannot accept. I am suggesting that there must be some corner of the Railways where they can be made use of in respect of which a better wage can be paid to them than a starting wage such as the wage of a junior clerk. I am not saying to the hon. the Minister that there is an easy solution, but I should like to ask him to turn his attention to this vast number of people who could be very useful to him by filling very useful ranks in his service, if they could in fact be given a reasonable wage. I do not expect the hon. the Minister to give me an answer to this matter immediately, but I do think that he should look into the matter.

Because of the shortage of labour, it obviously follows that you must ask the people who are already on the job to work longer hours. This matter has been raised time and again. Staff shortages became apparent approximately 10 years ago and they have multiplied since then. I suggest that they will continue to multiply because the Government will not face facts. These staff shortages have meant that these people have to work overtime. The only way to encourage a person to work overtime is to ensure—and I repeat the words of some of the Minister’s own employees—that you pay them so little that they have to work overtime to make ends meet. This is why these people work overtime and not because they like to, as an hon. member on that side of the House suggested. They work overtime because if they do not work overtime they cannot pay their rents, their grocery accounts and they cannot send their children to school. These are the only reasons why they work overtime. But what is actually happening? The Minister has now offered them an increase in salary. We do not know what these increases are to be but we do hope that they will be a little better than last time when many employees of the Railways told me that in fact they got less money at the end of the month than they had been getting before, even though they were supposed to have had an increase. One of the unusual things about this increase is that it is one of the few increases given in this country when there is no election in the near future. Perhaps there are still some surprises in store for us in this regard. The Minister would be surprised to hear how many of his servants are delighted about this because they took it for granted that they had to wait for election years before they could get increases in their salaries. The point at issue is that staff shortages exist now. They will continue to exist and there is nothing on earth that will stop them. If the Railways continue to pay its workers such meagre sums which force them to work overtime, I wonder if the Railways realizes what a disservice it is doing South Africa. This disservice can be illustrated quite simply. When a crane driver in the Durban harbour— and these figures were given to me by these people—works 84 hours a week, it means that he sees his children only when they are asleep. One of them told me that he has not been to church for the past three or four years because he is always working on a Sunday.

Tug crews in Durban Bay work from 6 o’clock in the morning until late at night and it is common for them to be on for 12 hours and off for 12 hours and to work over weekends, on Sundays and public holidays and then to get 12 days leave a year. These are the people who are suffering. I want to go further and quote from a letter I received from one of my constituents—

I might say to the hon. the Minister that a week after I got this letter this man who had served 27 years with the Railways in Durban harbour, had a heart attack and is now lying in hospital seriously ill. I am not suggesting that this is the sole reason, but part of the reason for this certainly is the long hours these people are working. These people, and I know that the hon. the Minister agrees with me, are working out of loyalty to the Railways. For that reason we on this side of the House have the highest regard for these people and we cannot speak too highly of them. I would implore the hon. the Minister who I know is sympathetic in this regard, to look into this question. Will he not cause an investigation to be made at least into the health of these people who are working so much overtime on behalf of South Africa and the South African Railways. Surely they deserve that from us. I should like to mention a further point in this regard. It might be a small matter, but I promised to raise it. So often transfers take place in the Department from the System Manager’s office to other offices, but these transfers do not take place in reverse. In other words, if there is a vacancy in that particular department it is too often filled by someone from the System Manager’s department. For some peculiar reason transfers of this kind do not take place in reverse. The people in these positions feel very dissatisfied that these promotions are filled by people from the System Manager’s office and not the other way round. I should like the hon. the Minister to pay particular attention to that point.

I should like to refer very briefly to the Durban harbour. I have dealt with this point before, but I should like to raise it again. I believe that the Durban harbour—and I am not running counter to what the hon. member for Green Point said yesterday—lacks security of any kind. I can assure the hon. the Minister that you could bring a division of troops into the part of the harbour which falls in my constituency without anyone knowing about it. I ask him in all sincerity not to interfere with the holiday makers, the fishermen, etc., but to provide for some check to be made, perhaps by manning gates, to stop the free coming and going of thousands of people from ships.

I have seen this myself and I am deeply concerned about the security of that side of the bay. I am quite sure that, by bringing this matter to the hon. the Minister’s attention, he will look into the matter.

I should like to make a final plea in regard to the shortage of labour and implore the Minister not to “fiddle while Rome burns”.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Port Natal must excuse me if I only refer to his speech at a later stage. The hon. member for Karoo is not here at the moment, but I shall subsequently deal with his speech as well. Right at the outset I should like to associate myself with hon. members on this side of the House who have conveyed their gratitude to the hon. the Minister, the General Manager and his staff, for this brilliant Budget. I think it was a ministerial achievement which is unparalleled in the history of this party. But I do not want to elaborate on that any further.

I should like to broach two matters with the hon. the Minister before I return to the arguments of hon. members on that side of the House. I think that I would be neglecting my duty if I did not, on behalf of my voters, express my gratitude and appreciation here to the Minister and the Management for what has been done at Uitenhage in respect of railway housing. At the end of this year R106,386 will have been spent in Uitenhage on railway housing, and we are grateful to the hon. the Minister for that. I should like to avail myself of this opportunity of bringing to the hon. the Minister’s attention a matter which in my opinion is causing some concern to many of my voters, as well as to numerous railway officials throughout the country. I am doing so because I believe that it will also be possible for us to improve the productivity of the South African Railways in this way as well. I should like to address a friendly request to the hon. the Minister to the effect that he should seriously consider appointing a commission of inquiry into the wage incentive plan on the South African Railways, which applies to the mechanical, the civil, the electrical and the signalling departments, as well as to the road transport service. This system is known amongst our railway officials as the bonus work system as contained in the Bonus Work Agreement No. 1, where the specific conditions for the hour-for-hour wage incentive plan are clearly set out. My plea is that the hon. the Minister should give very serious consideration to appointing this commission, and that it should consist of representatives of all grades in order to institute the necessary investigation. I am convinced that this system can be overhauled a little and that the existing deficiencies in the present system can be eliminated. I base my request on the following facts. Clause 15 of Bonus Work Agreement No. 1 provides that the means which are used for determining bonus work times, or the provision of a formula or formulas in terms of the specific conditions of a particular wage incentive plan, should be such that the manpower and facilities are utilized as beneficially as possible and that the prescribed quality of workmanship are at the same time maintained. This clause in question is undoubtedly the rub of the system. I am of the opinion that the supervisory staff cannot comply with the requirements of this clause in all respects since one must in practice face up to the irrefutable fact that the artisan tends, and this is only human, to supplement his monthly pay with bonus work where speed plays an important role in the completion of any prescribed task. In this way the quality of workmanship is very often sacrificed, with the result that the bonus work system in many respects is rapidly getting out of control.

It is my considered opinion that the system should be urgently revised, and that thought should possibly be given to an adjustment based on a monthly or yearly production level, without the application of the present schedule system, which has to be checked daily by a large number of clerical staff, including t!'e overseers. If a method can be found of doing away with the schedule system the administrative costs will in my opinion be tremendously decreased and it will be possible to reduce the clerical staff connected with this branch of the service drastically. If such a reduction in the clerical staff can be accomplished, the remaining units can be absorbed into other sections of the Administration where their services can be conducive to increased productivity. At the present moment foremen and assistant foremen in the mechanical section are being overburdened with clerical work, at the expense of production. These senior officials must be used to increase production and must be afforded the opportunity of conveying their experience, which is of inestimable value to the Administration, to artisans and truck workers under their control.

I must also mention that some workers are not enjoying the benefits of bonus work, whereas others, under the present system, can be benefited quite easily. If a system can be devised which will have as its foundation a monthly or yearly production level in accordance with the Administration’s requirements, and which will function in such a way that from the highest to the lowest-remunerated officials will derive financial benefit from that, it will create a large measure of satisfaction.

Since this plea is of real importance to the railway officials throughout the country, taking into consideration the fact that bonus work conditions differ from one centre to another, I want to put forward the argument that the present system is in all probability obsolete, because I am aware of the fact that in my constituency complications sometimes arise in the application of Bonus Work Agreement No. 1 under the existing position.

Large amounts are being spent on the maintenance of offices and staff who are engaged in drawing up and revising bonus work schedules, checking and calculating new times and auditing bonus work vouchers. The Administration is continually obliged to create new posts for this purpose, which results in additional expenditure. I also want to maintain that engineers of the Administration are, as a result of this system, sometimes, if not always, being uselessly confined to offices, not through any fault of their own, but owing to a combination of circumstances, instead of being able to make their services available to workshops and by so doing to promote increased productivity.

It is my honest conviction that the Railways staff would welcome a commission of inquiry in that regard. I am not mentioning this in a spirit of criticism, but because I feel that, if this system could only be overhauled a little, it ought to increase the productivity on the Railways.

I come now to a matter which was raised by hon. members on the other side. They referred quite often to weekday overtime and Sunday payment. Do you know what the difficulty in my constituency is, Mr. Speaker? If a voter comes to see me in regard to reemployment in the Railways the first question he asks me is whether I can guarantee that he will be able to work weekday overtime and Sunday time.

Otherwise he cannot exist.

That is not the case on the Railways. It is just the opposite of what hon. members on the opposite side are saying. What are the facts? During the period January to December, 1966, as much as R49 million has been paid out in the form of weekday overtime and Sunday time. During 1967 the amount was slightly more than R51 million. That is, an increase of more than R2 million. It is a further indication that the present staff—I do not want to deny that there is a shortage—are absolutely loyal to the South African Railways.

We have heard of a shortage of staff. What is the position in regard to resignations from the Railway Service? I think it was the hon. member for Durban (Point) who said that the people are resigning and were then irrevocably lost. They never return to us again. I think the hon. member for Durban (Point) cannot have any railway voters, because he would not then have said a thing like that in this House. The opposite is true. During the period 17th December, 1965, to 16th December, 1966, there was a total number of 16,238 resignations from the Railway Service. The number who applied for re-employment was 16,437. During the period 17th December, 1966, to 16th December, 1967, the number of resignations was 17,688, while the number who applied for re-employment was 16,199. No, Mr. Speaker, as rapidly as those people are resigning from the Railway Service as rapidly are they returning to apply for re-employment.

I now want to conclude.

[Inaudible.]

I am paying no heed to the interjections of the hon. member for Durban (Point); he is wasting my time.

Because you cannot reply.

I find it very strange that the hon. members for Yeoville, Durban (Point), Salt River and others carefully avoided this question of relaxation of the application of the colour bar on the Railways yesterday. In 1965 we had a similar debate here when the staff shortage on the Railways was also broached. The hon. member for Yeoville then said—I have the extract from Hansard: The colour bar on the South African Railways must be relaxed. He did not say it yesterday. None of the hon. members on the opposite side of the House mentioned it, except two members who are birds of a feather, i.e. the hon. member for Karoo and the hon. member for Port Natal, who is now conspicuous by his absence.

Here he sits!

I am sorry. They made one and the same speech. In fact, the hon. member for Port Natal repeated the former hon. member for Simonstown’s speech in 1965 word for word in this House. During that debate the former member for Maitland —and that is why he is not here to-day—furnished the following question after the present hon. the Minister of Post and Telegraphs, and the hon. member for Parow, had repeatedly asked him: You now want to force the Coloureds into the Railways, but where must they be employed? What posts must they be given? Mr. Hickman replied: “Certainly not unsuitable posts, but in suitable posts which are suitable to those people.” The policy of this side of the House has since 1935 been to employ non-Whites in graded posts on the Railways when Whites are unavailable. The United Party Government employed non-Whites as unclassified trade workers.

Now I want to conclude. The hon. member who is going to follow me must tell us here who set out the policy of the United Party correctly: The hon. member for Yeoville in 1965, or the hon. member for Karoo here yesterday? He pleaded for Coloureds to be employed as waiters in the South African Railway and the Airways. I have his speech here. I do not have time to go into it now, but he said that the vacuum which had arisen should be filled by Coloureds. I should like the hon. member of the Opposition who is going to follow me, to tell me what their policy is in respect of the shortage of conductors, shunters, ticket examiners, engineers and others on the Railways. Let him stand up and say that they are in favour of the Minister now relaxing the colour bar and having these posts in which the shortage exists at present—because surely this is what is under discussion now—filled by Coloured or Bantu in the South African Railways. But they will not say this, Mr. Speaker, because all the hon. members on the opposite side who represent Whites in this House, will not mention this; they will leave it to the hon. member for Karoo who represents Coloureds. It is left to him to come and say that in this House. It ought to be clear for the Whites on the South African Railways that, if this country should ever suffer the disaster of having those hon. members return to power, there will be an integrationary process in the South African Railways the like of which will never have been seen before in the history of this country.

I do not want to refer to my own colleague now, but I want to refer to the hon. member for Port Natal, who spoke about a shortage of manpower. I wonder whether that hon. member has forgotten his own political past. When we came into power they disseminated the story that the banks would close and that there would be unemployment, and to-day they are disappointed. The grapes are sour and now their great complaint is that there is a shortage of manpower in the Republic. Where are those things they announced? Why do they not candidly admit that as a result of this Government’s policy, economy is bursting at the seams, and instead of unemployment and banks closing, we now have the opposite? When I consider the Opposition and listen to the speeches made by the hon. members for Durban (Point) and Yeoville, it puts me in mind of the proverb which states: “You are born and you die.” The United Party was born and is dying. The only difficulty is that we will have to bury the Opposition and what are we going to inscribe on their gravestones? We cannot inscribe “For love of Fatherland”. We will only be able to inscribe that they were born and that they had died. The hon. members referred derogatively to the railway workers. The hon. member for Durban (Point) said yesterday that this Government only puts wage increases into operation shortly before an election. The first insinuation which the hon. member was making was that this side of the House was buying votes, and the second insinuation was that the railway worker was of such a calibre that it was possible to buy his vote. But that entire party is disappointed to-day because we have succeeded in getting the railwaymen to cooperate with the Government in making a success of the anti-inflationary measures. What is more, we have succeeded in bringing back that courteousness and willingness on the Railways which never existed under their rule. What did they do when they were still governing? They granted promotions according to political considerations. It was so bad that when the National Party came into power in 1948 it had to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate those grievances. Now we find once again that happy atmosphere on the Railways where the workers are courteous.

One finds it in all the Government Departments, something which was never experienced when the hon. members on the opposite side were governing the country.

Let us be honest now. Who made the Railways what it is to-day? Not the Opposition, but a happy railway worker. Those people are not frustrated, but are offering their services spontaneously for the welfare of the country and the nation. Then people like the hon. member for Yeoville come forward. Did he ever have a good word for the Railway worker when he was sitting on the Press Gallery? No, he never acknowledged them. My time is limited, but I shall return to him again later. In the first place I want to express my gratitude to the Railway workers for never having sold their votes to the National Party but for having consistently been supporters of the National Party. Do not forget, the Railway worker is entitled to participate in politics, and if the hon. member for Durban (Point) should come to my constituency, the same will happen to you as happened to you when you appeared on the same platform with a lamb. [Interjections.] That evening you were the big bug when you appeared on that platform, but this afternoon we are together in the House of Assembly, and you are in the company of not a merino lamb, but a true Republican. I should like to talk with praise and appreciation of the Railway worker because he is so spontaneously courteous to-day and one finds that spontaneous hospitality that is so characteristic of the Afrikaner.

It is here that I want to think of that sector of the Railway workers that we so easily forget, i.e. the Railway Police. When I think of the Railway Police, I think of those people who bring millions of rands safely to its destination, those people who maintain law and order on our stations and our harbours. On their shoulders rests a tremendously difficult task. They are the people who are contributing their humble share towards keeping the claims against the Railways at such a minimum level as it is to-day. They have the same powers and privileges as the ordinary S.A. Police, and they also enjoy the exemptions enjoyed by the S.A. Police, but in the execution of their duties they are not only limited to Railway premises, but cover the entire Republic. Now, with the Road Transport Act, we have even conferred special duties upon them. Their duties are increasing by the day but we find this strange position that the extent of command in the Railway Police is very great, with the result that promotion to commissioned rank is at a minimum. We find that in the S.A. Police the ratio is 1 to 25, but in the Railway Police it is 1 to 69. Surely it is obvious that this will have a detrimental effect on the Railway Police and that it must have a demoralizing effect on them. I should like to point out to the hon. the Minister that basically the work of the Railway Police and that of the S.A. Police is the same, but that there is not only a difference in promotion in rank; if we were to draw up a graph of the Railway Police, one can do almost nothing else but to sketch a church steeple. It is practically impossible to get to the top. What I want to ask the Minister is that he should see to it that the possibility for promotion of Railway policemen and the relationship between ranks should be the same as they are in the S.A. Police. As regards salaries, there is a difference between the Railway Police and the S.A. Police, whereas the work being done is equally important. Since tremendous concessions are now being given to the Railwaymen, let us also see that justice is done here to the Railway Police. I think they deserve it. I want to ask the hon. the Minister for a general reorganization of the means in regard to the implementation of the duties of the Railway Police. If they were to be supplied with more modern transport and walkie-talkie radios, there would be greater productivity and efficiency, even with fewer members.

Thank you very much, Sir, for this opportunity. Unfortunately my time is almost up. I only want to say that I am very glad to see what is being done in the field of housing, and the other services which are being provided for the Railwaymen. I am very fortunate in being able to stand up here as a person who represents a Railway constituency, and not having to speak derogatively of them, as the hon. member for Sea Point did.

The hon. member got off to a good start, but soon slackened off. The hon. member tells us that it was not the intention of the Government to buy votes when they granted these increases; that was not the object of these increases at all. What they are giving to-day, is in recognition of the Railway workers’ wonderful sacrifices during the past few years, their friendliness and hospitality and the fact that they have always been good supporters of the Nationalist Party. Well, to hon. members on this side it is strange that in the past increases were always granted to Railway workers at a stage when they always coincided with election times, but it seems to me as though the reason why these increases were granted, lies much deeper than that. I have before me a clipping of an article that appeared in Die Burger dated 21st October last year, when the Artisans’ Staff Association of the Railways convened in Port Elizabeth. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) boasted a great deal of the fact that the Railway workers supported them, and he said that in his constituency the Railway workers stood behind him 100 per cent. But here they held a meeting, and the heading was: “Workers put demands to Schoeman”. Then the report states (translation)—

vice-chairman of the local branch of the Association, Mr. Nel, stated that if disregard for the interests of the workers continued, it was high time the workers started thinking of establishing their own political party so that they might assert themselves.

The report concludes with the following—

It appears to me that although it is not election time at present, they are afraid of a new political party, because as recently as November last year interviews were arranged and requests were made, and what was said then? Once again according to Die Burger dated 23rd November last year, Mr. Russell, the chairman of the Staff Association of the Railways in the Western Cape, said the following (translation)—

That was a mere three to four months ago, and three weeks ago we still had to hear from the Minister of Finance that South Africa was still struggling against inflation. Even the hon. the Minister of Transport had to hold out in his Estimates the prospect that the combating of inflation would still have to continue in South Africa. What has all of a sudden happened in the past three to four months so that there is no longer a struggle against inflation, and so that salary and wage increases amounting to R43 million can be granted? [Interjections.] The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) knows how gingerly he has to sit in Port Elizabeth (North) nowadays, and the hon. member for Uitenhage knows just as well how gingerly he has to sit in his constituency, and it was this threat on the part of certain workers, particularly Railway workers—i.e. that they would establish a separate political party— which forced the hon. the Minister and the Government to grant these salary and wage increases.

You are really talking nonsense now.

The hon. the Minister says that I am talking nonsense, but what I quoted here, comes from one of his own workers, not from me.

The hon. member For Uitenhage put a question to us. I should like to explain that this is really my maiden speech on Railways matters, and I hope that I shall obtain the customary good hearing from hon. members opposite.

That was obvious right from the start.

It is a rotten maiden speech.

The hon. member for Uitenhage asked us whether it was our policy to appoint Coloureds in the place of Whites everywhere, but the hon. member added that since 1935 it had also been his Party’s policy to employ Coloureds when Whites were not available. Is that all the Government has done so far? The hon. member for Karoo pointed out that the Railways appointed Coloureds as bedding attendants, but when it came to catering services, it was not permitted to use Coloureds. However, in every hotel and also in that hon. member’s house Coloureds are permitted to act as servants, to be the catering staff. The trouble with hon. members opposite is that they want to keep the white workers of South Africa on a low level, but the policy of this side of the House is that the standard of development and of the work done by the white worker in South Africa must always rise, and if it so happens that his place has to be taken by somebody else, then he may be replaced by a Coloured person. Does the hon. member want the white worker to be driven back to the level of the Coloureds or the Bantu? I want to refer the hon. member to an interview granted by Mr. Liebenberg, the chairman of the Federal Consultative Council of the Railways Staff Associations. I am quoting what he said according to the Rand Daily Mail dated 12th July, 1967—

I am asking the hon. member for Uitenhage to tell me what is wrong with this view. Does he not agree with it? Is it not also his wish that the white workers’ standard of living should be raised steadily and that their working conditions should continue to improve? Has the hon. member ever conversed from time to time with the men in the catering service of the Railways, men who have ten to twelve to fifteen years’ service, married men who even to-day are only receiving a monthly salary of R110 to R120? Is it not possible to give to that type of man more responsible work at a higher wage? It is not the intention of the United Party that these white workers should be replaced by Coloureds or Bantu with the result that they would then have no means of gaining a living. No, the policy of this side of the House is that these white workers should be promoted to higher posts and that the prospect of a better future should be held out to them.

That is not what the hon. member for Karoo said.

The hon. member for Karoo said that here yesterday afternoon. I want to advise the hon. member for Uitenhage, as the representative of a Railways constituency, to talk to his own people about this matter. They are not as opposed to it as he wishes to give out here, and he will vainly try to raise a political dust and to exploit the prejudice of the Railwaymen for his own benefit; he will not have any success with that, because the Railway worker himself realizes to-day that if he is promoted, his place would have to be taken by somebody else, and he realizes that the hon. the Minister of Railways himself is moving in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, I want to suggest that the concessions made to the railwaymen in these Estimates, were to a large extent exacted by the Railwaymen themselves. When we, and particularly the Government, appealed to the nation that every person had to do everything in his power to combat inflation, nobody took any notice of it. I can give you many examples, Sir, of cases where during the past year or so the private sector continued to grant salary and wage increases, the result being that the Railways and the Public Service lost more and more people and that the competition between the private sector and the Government sector steadily became stronger, and that is why the hon. the Minister had to proceed to this step. I do not blame him; I think that he acted quite correctly. It was imperative to proceed to this step, otherwise the situation in the South African Railways would have become much worse still in the future. We welcome the fact that the Railwayman will receive something from these Estimates. But what is there in these Estimates for the consumer and for the user of the South African transport services? It is time we realized that if profits are made on the Railways, the Railway worker is entitled to his share, but we must also bear in mind that the user of the Railways is equally entitled to the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. These two things will have to go hand in hand. One should also realize that if the S.A. Railways do not have goods to convey, the Railways would not have any revenue and consequently there would not be any benefits for the Railway worker.

I should like to say a few things in regard to the way railway tariffs have affected and still affect the agricultural sector of the country. Sir, a year or two ago increased railway tariffs were announced and the assumption was that they would not affect the agricultural sector, but they did nevertheless affect the agricultural sector to a considerable extent. In this regard I should like to refer the hon. the Minister to the latest report of the Secretary for Agricultural conomics and Marketing, who quotes the increases in the prices of farming requirements on page 5. He says the following—

I emphasize the last few words: “… which can in most cases be correlated with increased transport rates.” Most farmers make use of the national transport services for conveying their products. They are responsible for the transport costs up to the marketing terminal point, but when the farmer orders some item or other which he requires for production purposes, it is “free on rail” at the place where it is loaded, and the farmer is responsible for paying the transport costs. I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that in the past few years many of our stock-farmers have suffered considerable losses owing to droughts. Their production has not been tremendously high and in many cases they have had to cope with a reduction in the price of their product as well. Consequently transport tariffs constitute a substantial item in their production costs and it is becoming a bigger item every day, and I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give his serious attention to this matter. May I refer him to page 11 of his own memorandum? The hon. the Minister derives a tremendous amount of revenue from maize, sugar, sugar-cane, other agricultural products, manure and fertilizers, animal products, petrol and oil. He derives a fantastic amount of revenue from the agricultural sector. Unfortunately I do not have the particulars in regard to the individual items so that I may point out to the hon. the Minister how great a contribution the agricultural sector is rendering to the revenue of the Railways, but I think the hon. the Minister is aware of that. If it had not been for the agricultural sector, the Minister would not have been able to have been so very proud of the tremendous increase which has been taking place in goods traffic over the past year or so. What I want to submit to the hon. the Minister’s consideration, is that the farmers are at present struggling under the burden of high production costs, and in this regard the Railways can play an enormous role. We sincerely hope that the farmers will be able to look forward to a reduction in railway tariffs in the future. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of the discussions between his Management and the S.A. Agricultural Union. These discussions are held every year and every year they press the hon. the Minister for certain concessions, and one of their most important requests is that the road transport service tariffs should be reduced, since those tariffs are tremendously high. Their request is that road transport service tariffs should more or less be brought into line with railway tariffs. This is a particularly big item, especially in the extensive farming areas in the interior where they do not have sufficient railway connections. Those transport services must be provided by the Road Transport Service and the tariffs are fantastically high. We should like to urge the hon. the Minister to give his attention to this matter and to help the farmers so that the Railways may also play an important role in bringing down the production costs in South Africa. If that happens, the hon. the Minister will realize that a budget is important not only for the Railway worker, but also for the Railway user. Here we have a double-edged sword. We should see to it that we are looking in both directions if we want the position ahead to improve even further.

There are a few questions I should like to put to the hon. member for Newton Park in pursuance of a statement he has just made. I trust he was speaking on behalf of his party and that he has sufficient authority to reply to these questions. He said it was his party’s policy to replace Whites by non-Whites from the bottom up. Now I should like to know this from the hon. member: When non-whites occupy posts falling under a staff association, will they be able to belong to that staff association along with the Whites, or will the non-Whites get a separate staff association? We should like to know more about this.

You know what our policy is.

That is precisely the difficulty—nobody knows, and nor does the hon. member apparently. But I leave this matter there.

Every year during a discussion of Railway matters we hear about new high-water marks which have been reached and new records which have been set up. I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to-day to review the results which the hon. the Minister of Transport has achieved since his take-over of this portfolio in 1954. I am offering my apologies for the fact that I am going to do this— as a matter of fact, I think the Minister is entitled to this House expressing its gratitude to him occasionally for what he has already achieved and for the way in which he has achieved it.

Do you think perhaps that he is looking for another Deputy Minister?

I want to suggest to the hon. member for Durban (Point) that he must not despair. I understand they are doing their utmost to see whether brain transplants are not possible. Perhaps there is still some hope for the hon. member. In any event, as I have already said, the hon. the Minister took over his portfolio in 1954. In the same way as he kept a firm hand on the controls in his earlier years on the footplate, he has since been keeping a steady finger on the pulse of the economy of the country and of the S.A. Railways. And his finger has been sensitive. In this way he has set up records and has reached high-water marks which, I think, deserve to be mentioned. Not only has he been in charge of this particular portfolio for the longest period in our history, but he has also made major contributions in various other spheres. As far as improvements in wages and salaries and in working conditions are concerned, he has made a bigger contribution than any of his predecessors—as a matter of fact, he has made a bigger contribution than the combined efforts of all his predecessors. Since 1954 one high-water mark after the other has been reached and one achievement after the other, one record after the other has followed. He has given more than R160 million to the Railwaymen in improved salaries and wages. As far as capital works are concerned, he has achieved great things which will be difficult to equal, let alone surpass. He has provided quite a number of milestones in the history of the S.A. Railways. Some of these deserve to be mentioned because we see them every day without realizing that this Minister is the one who has been responsible for them. Let me refer to a few of the large capital works which have been tackled during the past 14 years. New railway lines to the value of R23.8 million have been constructed. Here in Cape Town we have a beautiful new station, built at a cost of R18.6 million. In Durban there is one of the finest harbour constructions at Pier No. 1. R33 million was spent on its various stages. This is one of South Africa’s gateways which surely is an object of pride to everyone of us. In Johannesburg we have the new railway station, that massive structure, which operates so very smoothly and which is such an architectural joy to the eye. That required R21.1 million. Large works have been undertaken at Walvis Bay. The lengthening of the wharf there cost R7.2 million. Here in Table Bay harbour we have had the most recent extensions to the tanker berth which amounted to more than R12 million. We can continue in this vein and mention one milestone after the other. Consider the pipeline which is in use at present and which required a sum of money exceeding R23½ million. A new pipeline of R42 million is coming. These are tremendous developments which have taken place.

We can refer to several capital works which are still being carried out or which still have to be put into operation. This is an enormous programme. This hon. Minister has already introduced 14 budgets. It is interesting to note, by way of comparison, that his first Budget for 1955-’56 amounted to R336 million while the Budget now under discussion amounts to R774.8 million.

And not one of them balanced.

This is an interesting remark. A deficit was budgeted for on five occasions. There is something else which is also interesting and now I immediately want to come back to the argument. The hon. member for Newton Park once again raised the argument, which was repeated parrot fashion by various members on the Opposition side, that this Budget did not balance, that there were over-estimations on the one hand and under-estimations on the other hand, and that the increases in salaries would merely have an inflationary effect. Let us reduce this argument to a simple matter of fact. Britain’s problem at the moment is that too many people are doing too little work and want too much money for that work. In complete contrast to that is the position on the S.A.R. where a large number of people who are loyal to the country have worked harder and have consequently improved productivity and are now receiving compensation for that loyalty and increased productivity. This is an elementary anti-inflationary principle. This would have been different if additional benefits to the staff were to have been paid for from increased tariffs. Such a step would have been inflationary. But when the increases flow from higher productivity, harder work and dedication, surely they cannot have an inflationary effect.

We have also seen tremendous expansion in the S.A.A. When the hon. the Minister took over this portfolio, there were only a few D.C. 3 and D.C. 4 aircraft, and a few other out-dated types. At that time a journey through Africa to Europe was something fatiguing, a flight which lasted several days under difficult circumstances. At present we have an air service which is constantly being expanded and which opens wide vistas to us. On the completion of the purchase programme the S.A.A. will have an air fleet of 35 aircraft and the majority of them will be modern jet propelled aircraft. At present the aircraft of the S.A.A. are already flying to the remotest part of the South-Eastern Indian Ocean, namely Australia. Aircraft of the S.A.A. fly up the west coast of Africa to every capital of Europe and to all the principal European centres. The service is also spreading its wings over the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, and the prospect is already being held out of a new service which will span the ocean and by means of which we will have contact with America. There too our air service will make a name for itself as it has done in Europe, because everywhere one goes one hears from people nothing but the highest praise and the highest appreciation for the service provided by the S.A.A.

But the visions we have do not merely relate to events in the air and around the globe, but we also have prospects of local events to come. The hon. the Minister announced major developments, which are going to flow from the programme of the S.A.R. There is already the prospect of a gigantic harbour at Richard’s Bay, one which will really be a super-harbour.

It will be the only harbour of its kind between the Persian Gulf and the harbours of Europe, and this implies tremendous possibilities as regards the repairing, servicing and provisioning of ships there. As regards the west coast, we have been given a similar picture of development. Other hon. members emphasized this more than I shall do now. Therefore it is clear that we on the southernmost tip of Africa are going to establish a number of the best equipped harbours on our coast line which will attract shipping to our country to an even greater extent. This will improve even more and the harbour activities of the past year, which enabled the Minister to announce such a favourable surplus, will receive a further boost. This process is in progress.

Our railway lines are being electrified to an ever increasing extent. We already have an excellent network of such railway lines and the prospect of many more are being held out.

In this way one can proceed to mention one example after the other of milestones having been achieved by the S.A.R. and the S.A.A. under this hon. Minister and of one achievement having surpassed the other. Consequently I think the Minister deserves to be thanked by this hon. House—and I repeat that I offer no apologies for doing so.

On behalf of this House I also want to pay tribute to the Minister’s right-hand man, namely the General Manager of the S.A.R. & H. Often compliments which should be paid in respect of these gentlemen are not forthcoming, and very often they are not praised as they should be praised. Those who have the privilege of knowing Mr. Hugo personally and of contacting him in his official capacity, will know what I am speaking of when I say that he is a worthy right-hand for our Minister of Transport. Seeing that we are living in the time of medical teams who achieve great things, I believe the image will not be inappropriate if we compare the Minister and the General Manager to a medical team, in which the Minister is the specialist who has to have regard to the clinical condition all the time while the General Manager with the stethoscope in his ears and perhaps the electrocardiograph on the heart, has to observe every minute movement and every minute reaction of the S.A.R. He has to advise the hon. the Minister of his observations as the hon. the Minister has to be given the overall picture from time to time and has to act accordingly. In this regard I have in mind particularly the higher productivity of the S.A.R. & H. which once again came about this year, as was evident from the Minister’s Budget Speech. Now I do not want to belittle or underestimate the share of other members of the staff.

I do feel convinced, however, that I may say without fear of contradiction that the achievements of the Administration flow from the inspiring guidance and the dynamic driving force of particularly the General Manager and his immediate helpers who assist him so faithfully. We can mention certain specific things introduced and put into operation during the term of office of the General Manager, improvements which testify to his dynamic leadership. The challenge of the times has been accepted and automation and mechanization have been introduced to an increasing extent. I have in mind the mechanization of tracks maintenance and of train control systems. I have in mind some of the accounting systems. In respect of planning too, mechanization has been applied. Those of us who had the privilege last year to be guests of the General Manager as members of the Select Committee on Railways, gained personal knowledge of the methods being employed and of the energetic way in which these methods are being applied. We were all impressed by the very favourable results being achieved by means of these new methods and techniques. Consequently I say that in view of these achievements, the General Manager may rightly be referred to as someone who is a very reliable pillar of support for the hon. the Minister. He is indeed a person of whom our country may be proud. These two men have taken the S.A.R. to great heights. We wish them all the best for the future and want to assure them that this side of the House in any event has full confidence in them as regards their future task.

Mr. Speaker, before dealing with some of the points made by the hon. member for Middelburg, there are one or two points that I want to deal with made by other hon. members on that side. The first point is one made by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District). That hon. member thanked the Minister for having relaxed the conditions for the granting of the cost-of-living allowance to Railway pensioners. I want to make this point very clear. That cost-of-living allowance was given to those people because the pension which they earned was in relation to the value of money in the days when they earned it, and was no longer good enough, and whatever cost-of-living allowance was given, belongs to them and there should never ever have been a means test on the granting of that cost-of-living allowance. I want to make that quite clear.

The second point I want to deal with was made by the hon. member for Kroonstad. He tried to tack part of one paragraph of an article in the Financial Mail of 15th March, onto the hon. member for Yeoville. But the part he tried to tack on was the only part which criticized the increase in salaries which has been given in this Railway Budget to the Railway workers. This hon. member above all others should know that this side of the House has fought for proper pay for the work done by the Railway workers. We have done it consistently over the years, and not just as a catch argument from time to time. But if he wants to argue on this particular article, why does he not go a little bit further? Why does he not quote that portion which referred to the Schumann Commission? Why does he not refer to that? Let me read to him a little bit of this. It was convenient not to quote that—

It is this. Professor Schumann has urged that to make the Railways consistently profitable the tariff gap between high and low rated traffic must be narrowed. In effect, this means more on raw materials. But this in turn would make it all the more difficult for South Africa’s mineral ores to compete in world markets. In fact, as things are, Mr. Schoeman admits that producers of manganese ore are facing severe competition from West Africa, while iron ore exporters are losing out to the Australians in Japan.

Clearly, profitability for the Railways and increased ore exports do not go together. An order of priorities has to be worked out. Of this little conundrum Mr. Schoeman mentions not a word. The immediate conclusion is that, having been Transport Minister for 13 years, Mr. Schoeman has become faintly bored with his portfolio.

He did not read that portion, Sir. This is one of the greatest problems that faces this hon. Minister to-day. But none of those members have dealt with this and neither has the hon. the Minister.

But this brings me to the hon. member for Middelburg. He made quite a good speech of praise for the Minister, the Department and everybody concerned with the Railways. He said amongst other things, that this Minister has broken one record after the other. But he might have done that in the days when he had a little more steam. But I think he does not have so much steam these days. [Interjections.] Then this hon. member went on to deal with the question of harbours. He dealt amongst other things with the harbours at the southern tip of Africa. But when he thanks this hon. Minister for doing that, I think he is referring to a Minister who, in my opinion, does not know his Rietvlei from his Saldanha. I am going to show him why. Last year I asked this hon. Minister a few questions; some about Rietvlei, some about Saldanha, and some about Table Bay Harbour developments. I think it would do as well for us to go a little into this matter and to deal with the replies this hon. Minister gave me. It would appear to me, and I will prove this in a moment, that this hon. Minister, because he has been holding this portfolio for so long, is beginning to substitute good planning by his own hunches, his own guesses and ideas. This is dangerous. They are not always right. I am going to show in just a few cases in the time available to me, where this Minister has not been correct. Now, Sir, just let me remind you that last year I criticized a scheme this hon. Minister was going to put into effect for providing more berths for Cape Town Harbour. This hon. Minister was adamant that that was the only scheme. Sir, it is not the only scheme to-day. He has appointed a commission to inquire into the one that I suggested. So he was not so sure of himself. May I remind him that, had I not intervened, he would have gone ahead with the expenditure of a minimum of R25 million of public money.

You over-rate your importance.

Well, it made you appoint a commission. By the time that I finish saying what I am going to say, let the House judge whether I am as important or not, as the hon. the Minister likes to make me. He had a scheme which was cut and dried and was going to be put into effect. I criticized it. In all sincerity, I am not trying to score points; I am just trying to get a good harbour. That is all. As a result, although the Minister was so cock-sure, he has appointed a commission en inquire into whether I was right or whether I was not. In other words, Sir, he has doubts. He had to do something about it. It is rather interesting to hear some of the things that were said during the Minister’s reply. This is why I refer particularly to Rietvlei and Saldanha. I had raised both these points with the Minister. This is what he said in reply. (Hansard, column 2941, 14th March, 1967). That is the ides of March, is it not? [Interjections.] Yes, we are back in the same period now. I mentioned amongst other things False Bay, which he dealt with, and then he said this:

It was impracticable at that moment, the hon. the Minister said so. It is recorded here. Yet he has now appointed a committee to see if in fact it would not be a better scheme than the scheme he was going to commence here in Table Bay.

The other point I want to make with this hon. Minister, is this: During the course of that debate, the question arose that investigations had been made. Hon. members will remember that the Minister of Economic Affairs had recommended a certain scheme at Woodstock beach and it was rejected. I went to the C.S.I.R. to see how the investigations were progressing, in January of this year. They had only just started on an investigation into the seashore on Woodstock beach side. None of the necessary harbour investigatory work had been done. At this stage the C.S.I.R. could not tell me—and I take it they cannot tell the Minister either—what the effect of any structure is going to be. What, for example, is going to be the nature of the entrances at Rietvlei, if they are going to build Rietvlei Harbour, or anything relating to the development of this area. This is not good enough. There they were on the eve of a harbour development scheme in Table Bay, and they did not know what we were going to do and what the effect was going to be. The proof of that is that a committee is now trying to decide this. And so much evidence has been placed before this Committee that the latest newspaper reports indicate that it is going to be another two months before a decision can be put before this House and before the country. I do not pose as a harbour engineer. I am not. But at least it shows that if one takes a bit of interest in these matters and has proper ideas and a proper approach, we can get some of the questions answered and perhaps start a move towards proper planning of our harbours and not to proceed by a method of guesswork and to undertake a scheme which is obviously not the best scheme. This hon. Minister must have doubts. That is why he is re-investigating the whole matter.

I also mentioned Saldanha. I mentioned it last year when I raised this question. This hon. Minister replied that he had dealt with it twice. I think that we should deal with the reply contained in Hansard of 14th March, 1967, col 2943, because it is a little more comprehensive—

He then goes on to deal with the question of a pipeline from Durban to Johannesburg. In various newspapers, and I have here the Cape Times of 5th March, 1968, the Cape Times of 24th February, 1968, the Daily News of 19th February, 1968, and Die Burger of 15th February, 1968, a similar statement appeared, namely that a Government committee including representatives of the Departments of Finance, Commerce, Transport and Defence, met in Cape Town to discuss the possible siting of a harbour and shipyard at Saldanha Bay. This is the very Minister who talked about suckers and pipedreams last year.

I still say that it is a pipedream.

But you are represented on a committee investigating it.

No, it is not for that purpose at all.

You are then just investigating the matter for the pleasure of it.

It is quite a different matter that we are investigating. I shall deal with it in my reply.

Mr. Speaker, at least I am getting somewhere slowly. Why can this information not be given to us? This is not what it says here. Mention is made here of Mr. Cornelius Verolme and various other matters. But this very Minister is prepared to be represented on such a committee. We read in the newspapers that huge land deals are in the offing. If these people are the suckers about whom this Minister is talking, does he not think that they should be protected?

They will be protected.

Mr. Speaker, I want the hon. the Minister’s assurance in his reply that this pipedream and scheme to catch suckers …

This committee has nothing whatever to do with this scheme.

Has this committee nothing to do with the construction of a tanker basin or a shipyard?

No, it is not for a tanker basin. Shipbuilding is a different matter altogether.

When I asked my question I dealt with this very matter. I asked how and where we were going to deal with super tankers. I mentioned Saldanha Bay and the hon. the Minister said no.

Not Saldanha Bay.

What I want from this hon. the Minister in his reply is complete information because if, as this hon. Minister said last year, there are lots of suckers who are going to be caught and who need protection, this is the opportunity for that hon. Minister to furnish such protection. I am looking to this hon. Minister to do just that. Let us take the position of Cape Town at the moment. I must say that it is a little chaotic. If that is so, then it is the fault of this hon. Minister because first of all he was going to develop Table Bay and construct another harbour outside the tanker basin. These were amongst the points I raised last year. He then decided not to and now he is not sure because he has appointed a committee to investigate it. Saldanha Bay was a place for suckers only and now it is not. We do want to know what the position is because the shipping industry in this country and the construction of ports and harbours is very important to South Africa. It is not something that we can just reduce to a state of chaos, such as this, and leave it hanging in the air. It is the duty of this hon. Minister and his colleagues in commerce and industry to keep the people informed. At least I have got this hon. Minister to the stage where he has to some extent consulted with the local shipbuilding firms and those people who use our harbours and ports. This is one of the greatest steps forward we have ever achieved. The people who use our harbours have never been so delighted in their lives, but it has taken very many years to hammer into this hon. Minister the need for co-operation and consultation with the people who use these facilities.

I come now to the other harbours of South Africa. I want to deal briefly with Durban harbour. Much has been done there and everybody has praised what has been done, including Mr. Douglas Tilley who is the chairman of the Harbour Advisory Board. In praising it he points out that the growth of Durban’s harbour has been nothing short of spectacular. Harbour tons handled have doubled from 9.25 million in 1960 to 18.8 million in 1966-’67 which is approximately 50 per cent more than the other ports combined. He went on to give us a picture of circumstances there—

I shall deal with containerization at a later stage. I want to raise another matter with the hon. the Minister. Pier No. 1, as mentioned by the hon. member for Middelburg, was completed in Durban harbour. The cross berth is now being built. But the first pier was completed, I think, in October of last year. It is still only partly in use. There is one shed and two berths out of seven are being used. It is used as a lay-bye berth. The engineering firms in Durban cannot even get a lorry with their equipment alongside because if they do they have to get a Railways tractor to pull it out because the paving is incomplete. One reads in the newspapers—and I do not have the time now to quote specific articles but I will give them to the hon. the Minister if he wants them—that tenders were called for in November or December for the construction of the second shed. It might be completed in August, 1968. This pier was completed by the contractor six months ahead of schedule. It was in fact completed approximately two years before the Railways estimated that it would be completed. The Railways are always the one to lag behind when it is time for them to play their part. All the time that has been gained by the contractor is merely dissipated. They should have anticipated that this work would be finished early. I knew that it was going to be finished ahead of schedule and I am not exactly this hon. Minister’s confidant. He does not tell me about these things. Everybody knew that they were ahead of schedule and the work was going very well. Why could the calling for tenders for cranes and sheds not have been speeded up? This Parliament would never have withheld the money for these things. In the meantime you get reports in the newspaper such as this—

It costs money to leave ships lying around. Here we have the port that handles ships. The facilities are provided and then they just lie there unused. The fruit ships awaiting a cargo of fruit were tied up there for weeks on end. That was the only use to which this whole quay had been put. I think that it is a shocking state of affairs that facilities are provided and then the Administration falls so far behind in its planning that the facilities lie there unused because they have not provided the other necessities.

I want to refer briefly to Richard’s Bay. This hon. Minister dealt with the question of Richard’s Bay. He said that construction would possibly start in 1968. I sincerely hope that that is so. But he made a proviso which was that if he went on with Pier No. 2 in Durban the start on the work at Richard’s Bay might well be delayed. I would like to hear from him whether in fact that is so, because he has said that he is going straight on with Pier No. 2 and I sincerely hope that this does not mean that there is going to be a delay in the work that has to be done at Richard’s Bay. We have heard, for example, that the designing of the entrance to Richard’s Bay Harbour is going to be quite a lengthy process which will take some two years or more. He is already catering for the railway line to take the material there and I hope that the work will be speeded up and that there will in fact not be a delay, because this country is losing out. We see a statement by the Chairman of the Mealie Board, Mr. Keyter. He says that unless we can get the mealies to the Far East where we can sell them, and unless the Railways can take the maize to the coast and we can put them in the large ships that transport bulk cargoes, we are going to lose out on the question of freight. I think he is looking to Richard’s Bay as the solution to the problem of the maize farmers. I would like to know from the Minister whether in fact these facilities are going to be provided there and how soon they will be there, because the farmers want them now and we want them now. This question of the size of ships and the freight rate according to size has become so important that it has to be answered now and we have to get some figures from the Minister on which industry and agriculture can plan for the future and decide whether or not we will be able to dispose of our crops and our ores on the world markets in competition with other people who provide the facilities. Because if we are not going to provide them, we are building up false hopes for the future. I have already quoted here from the Financial Mail, where Australia and West Africa are already under-cutting us on the question of the sale of ore to Japan, and we are looking forward to fantastic sales of iron ore to Japan. But unless we can get the ships which can convey this at the right rate, and unless the railways can take it to the coast at the right rate, we are out and will never be able to compete. I think this is another matter that the Minister must deal with.

The hon. member for Parow and others raised the question of a harbour on the West Coast at Boegoeberg, and that hon. member for example wanted a railway line and not a pipeline. I think the Minister must go into this question of a pipeline very seriously indeed. He was opposed to a pipeline to carry petrol, but I think he is sorry now that he did not build that pipeline many years ago. What a terrific profit he would have made on the Railways, and perhaps by now we might have had some reduction in the rate which he charges to convey petrol inland from the coast. I sincerely hope that reduction is not very far off now. But the Minister must go into this matter very seriously. If he is going to put a port somewhere there, and if he in fact still thinks that Saldanha is a pipedream, he should remember that he himself said last year that he was going to provide facilities at Richard’s Bay which would enable the largest tankers in the world to enter and to discharge their cargoes. In other words, they would be able to come in there fully loaded. I take it that this will apply also to the largest bulk carriers, because that is obviously what that port is being designed for. I want to leave the hon. the Minister with this thought. If these huge tankers of 200,000 to 500,000 tons are going to be able to come into Richard’s Bay, and if these huge dry cargo vessels will be able to come into Richard’s Bay, is that not the logical place to provide docking facilities and repair facilities also? I put this thought forward to the Minister. It is very important. That is apparently going to be the one harbour that can cope with these ships, yet he is investigating all sorts of other places, but even if they are repaired elsewhere they will still have to go there to load and unload their cargoes. This is a matter which has to be considered, and that is one of my criticisms of this Minister and his Administration. In regard to the harbours of South Africa, I believe not enough planning is put into them. We only deal with the things which worry us now, and we are not that jump ahead which we must be to enable us to compete on the world market. This country of ours has huge undeveloped resources of mineral wealth, but these minerals are no use to us at all unless they can be transported to the market. It is this Minister’s job to plan in order to ensure that the facilities will be provided for the wealth of this country to be properly exploited. At the moment I do not think he is doing that properly. I am going to ask him to pay far more attention to planning for the future, so that we do not have to repeat this criticism every year.

The hon. member for Umlazi referred to the Schumann Report and intimated that the gap between high and low traffic must now be rectified. I should like to refer to what the Schumann Report states in this regard—

Then he says—

I maintain that this is precisely what the Railways is carrying into effect in a very cautious manner. The Railways is, however, not only a business organization, but also a service organization that must render service to all sectors in our country and must help to encourage the development of our country. And we should like to keep it that way.

The hon. member for Umlazi also discussed Rietvlei and Saldanha, and he said that the Minister of Transport merely acted “on his own hunches”. I on my part, do not take it amiss of the Minister if he appoints a commission of inquiry. It is very necessary. Such major decisions, involving so many millions of rand, cannot be lightly taken, and if he appoints a commission it is for a very good reason. So many different aspects have to be gone into that I think the steps the Minister has taken there are in the best interests of the country.

In particular the Opposition concentrated its criticism on the method of increasing salaries and they said that salary increases were inflationary. I maintain that these increases were not only well deserved, but they were also necessary. The hon. member for Yeoville said in his speech last year (translation)—

Here we have seen that the workers were in fact more productive. I do not want to discuss the figures again, but we have now done what the hon. member suggested last year and compensated them for that higher productivity. He also said that we were employing the wrong methods. We should rather have based the increases in salary on the increased cost of living. To have linked all increases in salary to increases in the cost of living would really have been a very short-sighted policy. What business would be able to do this? Costs increase in sectors that perhaps do not influence transport at all, but we now have to link rises in salary to that. And would it be such a good thing for our Railway officials? When we abandoned that principle at the time, we consolidated the cost of living allowances with salaries, and that was of great benefit to Railway officials. If we had to return to that system now and link rises in salary to the cost of living, the result would be that the smallest decrease in the cost of living would affect the salary of the Railway official, and I doubt whether they would like to have a decrease in their salaries when there is a decrease in the cost of living.

But I should like to deal to-day with the great progress that has been made in the Railways because of modern developments and research work that had been done by the Railways. We read in the report of the General Manager—

I would like to say that I am very glad that the Railways is prepared to invest money and energy in this very important aspect of research. Furthermore, we read in respect of the officials of the Railways—and I find this very encouraging—that the initiative of the Railways staff, in particular in the Department’s research laboratories, plays no mean part in the changes and improvements effected. This refers in particular to those men who are employed in the Service and who are making extraordinary attempts to render better services to us.

I should like to refer to one new trend which has perhaps not come to the Department’s attention yet, and which may perhaps bring about great changes in future, and which—should, I think, be taken into account. It is the question of refrigerated units, for the packing of perishable products. It is already being used in other parts of the world. Such a refrigerated unit is brought into the packing shed; there it is packed full; it is connected to an electric current, and it is refrigerated on the spot. It is then loaded onto a flat wagon and perhaps connected to a unit or a small machine on that wagon. In this way it is then transported to the coast and loaded onto the ship and switched on again in the ship, and in this way it is taken abroad to the market. This is a trend which we will have to take into account. This may perhaps save us the refrigerated wagons which we were thinking of providing. This may save us the pre cooling space which perhaps we now consider necessary to construct. Therefore I think this matter of refrigerated units is an important one and that we should keep it in mind.

But I should like to deal with our road transport and the progress that has been made there. I should like to congratulate the Minister and his Department on the fact that the Department of Road Transport yielded a profit for the first time since the war—I know nothing about the position before the war. I think this is a wonderful achievement. The tonnage has remained practically constant, but the revenue increased to more than R16 million. But this could not have been achieved had it not been for the dedication and the improved services which have been rendered. Here, too, there were developments. We read in the Report about the refrigerated wagons and about other special high-tariff traffic that were provided. It is a fact that much of this road transport is being utilized by the third class passenger and this definitely supplies an existing need, and is therefore a very essential service. Looking back into the history of our road transport, we see that it began on a small scale shortly after the establishment of the Union and its purpose was to further development in the countryside as well as to provide a feeder service to our Railways. Its purpose changed in the 1920’s and motor truck services were provided instead of train services as they were less expensive and just as efficient. Another change took place after World War II and the Railways transferred many of its road motor services, particularly as far as passengers are concerned, to private carrier contractors. The number of first-class passengers, in particular, decreased. Of the 10 million passengers transported, almost 8 million were third-class passengers. I said a moment ago that a major service is being rendered, but I wonder whether we could not consider other possibilities. In other countries such as in America, one finds fast bus services. Here in our country we also have buses transporting people from one city to another, but this happens on a tourist basis. People take their time to see the country; they sleep in luxury hotels and they are not in a hurry. I think there is a need for a fast bus service between our larger towns. Our Airways are taking care of the traffic between one city and another, but the fact that our aircraft are increasing in size, makes it more difficult for them to call at the smaller towns. It is quite unpracticable, and therefore I feel we may perhaps consider a fast passenger bus service. One feels almost sorry to see one or two persons travelling in one car because they are in a hurry to reach a certain place. However, if there had been a fast bus service, they would have been able to make use of it. Furthermore, as regards our goods traffic, I think there are possible ways of improving our road transport. A moment ago I mentioned refrigerated units. There is also the possibility of loading blocks and the handling of goods in bulk, that should be looked into. I do not want our road transport to compete with the Railways. We know what the problem is in that respect, but at the same time we cannot ignore completely the modern trends in the world to-day.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to say something about the pension concessions that were made when the means test was abolished. I think it is a very good concession and will be highly appreciated by Railway employees. This concession is quite justified as these people have contributed towards pension funds, and I think they deserve this concession which now enables them to supplement their pension a little. I would just like to draw attention to one aspect which the pensioners find very onerous and that is the question of the transport of their children, particularly children of school going age and children attending universities. In this respect I want to ask the hon. Minister to consider making a few concessions. The position is that a parent can have a child travel to the university once a year at half price. A man who has reached pensionable age and whose children are still attending university, has difficulty in finding that extra fare. Such a concession will not cost much and I would ask the hon. Minister to consider making a few concessions in that respect.

Then there is one other matter which I should like to mention and that is the question of road safety at our railway crossings. I am very pleased about the extra money which has been put aside to eliminate crossings, but unfortunately it does not seem to me as though we are going to make very rapid progress in this respect. Last year we heard of hon. members here who thought of the possibility of fixing reflectors to our trains. I think it is a good idea. But there is another thought I should like to mention to the hon. Minister and that is that we should fix some of these flashing lights that are being put onto traffic cars, onto our trains. As you know, a train bearing down from the side is very difficult to see at night or in foggy weather. The car windows are usually up and one does not hear the whistle. I think that perhaps we will avoid many accidents if we fit some of those flashing lights which are so easy to see on to our locomotives.

The hon. member who has just sat down will forgive me if I do not follow him, as I understand that we only have a few moments left. I want to deal with the hon. the Minister’s budgeting very briefly. When the hon. the Minister presented his financial review for 1967-’68 he told Parliament that he was going to have a small surplus of R473,000, and we now find that he has not a small surplus but a surplus of R35,168,000. What interests me is this, Sir. If you look at the hon. the Minister’s speech this year, you will find that we are told that it was during the first quarter of the financial year 1966-’67 that the tonnage of high-rated traffic exceeded the corresponding figure of the previous year by nearly 9 per cent; that in the next quarter the increase was only 2.4 per cent and during the period October to December only .43 per cent. What happened was that the big increase in high-rated traffic, the 9 per cent increase, took place during the first quarter of the financial year, and the first quarter of the financial year is from 1st March until 30th June. Immediately after the hon. the Minister made his Budget speech in 1967, or while he was making his speech, the big increase in high-rated traffic was taking place, so the hon. the Minister did not have any long-term budgeting to perform. He did not have any unknown factor to deal with. The increase from April to June did not need any projection; it was happening there and then; it was an ascertainable fact, and we can only come to the conclusion that the hon. the Minister was not budgeting conservatively. His budget was in fact a gross under-statement of fact.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 92.

In order to give hon. members a chance to take a breath, I move—

Agreed to.

When this debate was interrupted last Friday, I was emphasizing the difference between the policy of the National Party and that of the United Party, as it has again come to light in the discussion of this legislation before the House now. There is one further point of difference on which I should like to dwell in the few minutes remaining at my disposal. It relates to the costs incurred in developing the homelands and the purpose for which they should be developed. The object of this side of the House is to develop the Bantu homelands so that the Bantu may make a decent living there and may exercise their political rights there. But it has become quite clear that, if the homelands are to be developed, the Opposition wants it to be done in such a way that the profits will go to the Whites. This was quite evident from their arguments in regard to this matter. But what is more, according to the Opposition it is not necessary that the Bantu should make their living in the Bantu homelands. Those Bantu who cannot be supported by the homelands should be alllwed to make a decent living here in the white area. Then accusations are made against us about the costs we want to incur in order to develop the Bantu homelands. In this connection the hon. member for Transkei made the remark that, “We will have to supply the money”. He added that they were suspicious about the expenditure of this money in the homelands, because the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development had allegedly said that it did not matter what it would cost to develop the homelands in such a way that we could proceed with our policy of separate development. No, our object is to develop the homelands— and then it does not matter what it costs—so that white South Africa will be ruled by the Whites alone and that only Whites will have political rights here, while the Bantu will have to go and exercise their political rights in their homelands and make a decent living there. That is why we are coming forward with this legislation, and that is why the Bantu Investment Corporation and the various development corporations and the corporations to be established will be expected to develop what can be developed in the Bantu homelands, with the necessary leadership provided by the Whites, with the necessary guidance and also with the expenditure of capital so that the Bantu and the Bantu alone will eventually receive the benefit of what can be achieved in the Bantu homelands by means of that development. Sir, we are making no excuses for these amounts to be spent on the development of the Bantu homelands. Are hon. members on that side being sincere when they criticize the amounts to be spent in the Bantu homelands? Do we not quite often hear from the side of the Opposition that the development there should take place more rapidly? Do they not continually quote here from the report of the Tomlinson Commission what amounts have to be spent in order to develop the homelands? And when we come here to ask for money to pour into the homelands on the basis of the recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission, then we get the criticism from the side of the Opposition that we are not to be trusted with the expenditure of these amounts in the homelands. I have already mentioned here previously—and it again emerged quite clearly in the Other Place the other day—that the Opposition blame us for spending money in the homelands and that they exploit this for political reasons when dealing with certain sections of the electorate. They can carry on with that criticism if they wish. [Time expired.]

M. D. E. MITCHELL: Sir, I would like at this stage of the debate to look at the Bill and the debate that has taken place from a different angle to that of the hon. the Deputy Minister who has just sat down. I would like not to look at the points of difference but to see how far we have found that there is common ground between the two parties. The Bill, as was stated by the hon. the Minister in his second-reading speech, is of more than usual importance not only to the Bantu but to the whole of the community, to the whole of South Africa. Here we have a Bill before us which is providing for the development of the Bantu along certain lines, where big money will be spent, as foreseen by the hon. the Minister, and big measures will be undertaken, measures calling for a high degree of competence in regard to management, and where the amoung of money will continue to grow. At this stage I should like to deal with the question of where have we got common ground, because it is on that aspect that I should like to build. I do not believe that this side and that side can continue to differ continually because history will be too strong for us. We do have common ground in so far as we are all agreed that the Bantu areas must be developed. This Bill now under discussion bears the title of “Promotion of the Economic Development of Bantu Homelands Bill”. That is the principle of the Bill, and in that respect the two sides in this House have common ground. We are ad idem as regards the development of the Bantu homelands. But that is all, because from that point on we diverge again. We on this side of the House do not accept the provisions embodied in the Bill because of the manifold imperfections inherent in the measure, and because basically we on this side do not believe that what the hon. the Minister envisages can last. If I may use a term which is in great use to-day in connection with another subject altogether, I would say this Bill provides for “two-tier” development in the Bantu homelands. It is not spelt “t-e-a-r”, although that may still come, and it will be more than two! As I say, this is “two-tier” development. The one leg of this development scheme is the one embodied in this Bill, namely the development of the corporations, the development corporations and the I.D.C. … Mr. Speaker, I wish the hon. member in front of the hon. the Minister would afford me the opportunity of seeing the pleasant face of the Minister from time to time because, Sir, through you I am addressing him. As I was saying, these corporations referred to in the Bill are going to be established in the interests of the Bantu. We on this side do not quarrel with that. But we should like to see a workman-like approach to these projects, and we should like to see how this workmanlike approach is to be arrived at.

The Minister in his second-reading speech forecast the handing over, at some later stage, of the corporations—including the development corporations—to the Bantu, and he foresaw them being handed over to the Bantu governments, both the one in existence and those still to be established. That is what the Minister said in his speech. He referred to the “Bantu governments”. A parallel has been drawn with some of the public utility corporations, such as Escom, and so forth, and with the work done by those corporations. However, there is a big and vital difference between those undertakings and the corporations mooted in this Bill, as is evident from the Bill. The big difference is that nobody has ever said that the management of the public utility corporations is going to be handed over to the shareholders. It is realized that the management stays with the Government. These public utility corporations are controlled by the Government, and there the control stays. There has never been the suggestion that they will be taken over by the shareholders for their benefit, or by people who are otherwise engaged in supporting the activities of the corporations. That is the big difference. In this Bill the Minister foresees the corporations being handed over to the Bantu, Bantu money is to be invested in the concerns, and finally the Bantu will take over the control of the corporations. There is a gap, Sir, and I am afraid that it is a fatal gap as far as this side of the House is concerned. In this connection I want to refer to what the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development said on the 7th instant during his second-reading speech, as recorded in Hansard, column 1765—

yes.

The hon. member is very sensitive on this point!

When will that day come?

I shall tell you some other day.

That was the Minister’s reply: “I shall tell you some other day.” This is the “pie in the sky, by and by” which we read about. In fact, this is the “second tier” which we hear and read about. The hon. the Minister is going to tell us “some other day”. Here we have the intention to establish an elaborate set-up with Millions of rand behind it, and when we ask where it is all going to, we are told that “I shall tell you some other day.” This is where the big difference exists between this side and that side of the House. The big difference is not that referred to by the Minister. When we are voting millions of rand for the express purpose of the economic development of the Bantu homelands, we on this side want to see orderly progression so that the plan is taken to its logical conclusion. I go a long way with the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education when he says this development is going to be very slow. “This is a human problem,” the Deputy Minister said; those are his exact words, and I wrote them down. He said development will be very slow and it is a human problem. The problem is to get the Bantu themselves developed to such an extent that they will go, however slowly, in the right direction. But, Sir, we on this side contend that this Bill is not the right direction; this measure is not taking the Bantu in the right direction. This Bill is taking them in the direction taken by a hot-house plant, because they, too, are nurtured under entirely artificial conditions. They are quite unable to overcome the practical problems of everyday life which they will have to face in the fullness of time.

The Minister saw fit, to upbraid me, to put it mildly, because of my suggestion made during the second reading of this Bill that the time had come for a completely fresh approach to the question of the development of the Bantu homelands and that the time had come for the Bantu to be given individual ownership of the land. The Minister said nobody was as able as I to understand the traditions of the Bantu in so far as they had lived under a communal system of ownership of land from time immemorial. I accept that. What I said was that the time was ripe for a change. I said that, with all the centuries behind us, that system had proved to be unworkable, and what this Bill will do will be to perpetuate that system and to do it under circumstances holding out no possible hope of it being maintained in the face of the economic-system which we in South Africa have adopted, whether we like or want the system or not, namely a capitalist system. For we are a capitalist country. All our economic institutions are based on this basic principle, the capitalist one. As I said before, I know the difficulties which the hon. the Minister will be facing. Nobody knows them better than I. I know what long and patient negotiations will be necessary. Nobody knows it better. However, I feel that on this one important issue white South Africa, through this Parliament, should be at one. We could adopt my suggestion as a principle, and with one voice we could say to our Bantu population, through this Parliament, that we feel the time has arrived for a change in this field. Inevitably time and patience will be necessary, for it will be a long and very hard path. Many far-reaching innovations in a nation’s system of living must of necessity be preceded by long drawn-out negotiations and discussions, and will require much patience. These considerations must particularly apply to a people as conservative as the Bantu inhabitants of South Africa. But the necessity for this change must be faced, because, as I say, if we fail the implementation of this Bill will take us further along the road to disaster, because that is what this Bill’s end result will be.

The hon. the Deputy Minister who preceded me said at the beginning of his speech that this policy of establishing corporations had enjoyed a reasonable measure of success. He went on to say the Bantu must do the development themselves. The main Act which set up the B.I.C., which measure the Minister says we are now amending, was passed nine years ago, and the Deputy Minister said the corporation had had reasonable success. Apparently he is very easily satisfied. I say the B.I.C. was at no time a success. Indeed, it is an abject failure. The extension in this Bill of the principles adopted in that legislation nine years ago is merely to perpetuate a manifest failure. What the Government is saying in effect is that “We are not going to admit that our policy in this regard has failed, and we will go on and spend millions of rand more.” How much money will the Government spend? We asked them, and according to the Minister the amount will be limitless. Instead of saying that they will have another look at this fundamental problem of how 3½ million white people, Coloured people, Indian people and at the bottom strata 12 or 13 million Bantu people can live together, they carry on with this type of legislation. As I said before, we do not know whether we have 12, or 13 or even 18 million Bantu in the Republic. The figures have been collected by a census, but these census figures are demonstrably wrong. We do not know how many Bantu we have; there may easily be as many as 18 million. The official figure is something like 13 million. Let us take that figure as a basis. We have 13 million Bantu people in this country, whether we like it or not. Now I ask: How are they to develop pari passu with the rest of South Africa’s population? There are already Bantu businesses in existence, where Bantu are conforming to the normal, ordinary, traditional economic laws of a capitalist society in which they are carrying on business. Some of these Bantu are succeeding. Not all White or Indian or Coloured businesses succeed. There are failures. Failures must be anticipated, and we must not gloat when the odd Bantu businessman fails in his business venture. We must realize they are only beginners. We must not forget the successes, and there are successes. Some of the Bantu businessmen are doing very well indeed. And they are doing very well in a society where the accepted principles and accepted conditions of business in a capitalist society, as we have in South Africa, operate. Why not let them get ahead, why not support them, why not help them along? They are at any rate realists and they are dealing with realities here in South Africa.

I appreciate hearing that statement from you, and I wish you would say that to the rest of your party.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says he appreciates hearing this statement from me, the statement that there are Bantu businessmen who are conducting business in the traditional way and according to the rules of business in this country.

I referred to your statement that there are Bantu businessmen who are making a success of their ventures.

Yes, as I said, there are Bantu businessmen who are successful. Moreover, I say they must be encouraged to do even better. They need encouragement. I accept that. There are many ways in which the Government can give that encouragement, just as our I.D.C. gave encouragement to white business people.

We now have to face the position where the Government is apparently taking irrevocable steps in a direction which we believe is quite wrong.

The point I want to come to now in regard to this Bill is that when he replied—and also in his second-reading speech—the hon. the Minister did not deal with the competition which will be coming from the corporations to be established in terms of this Bill for the border industries or for other segments of our commercial and industrial life. I think this is a very important matter indeed. To the extent that these suggested corporations are more successful rather than less successful, to that extent will they be more in competition with border industries and the private sector under totally different conditions. I also want to point out that we are viewing in regard to the corporations we have here, which are entirely associated with the Transkei, a situation where the Minister has said “the sky is the limit”, as far as public expenditure is concerned, the putting up of money. But, Sir, this is only the beginning. This measure makes provision for these corporations to be established with regard to every Bantu area in the Republic. They were originally, so far as the Investment Corporation and the Development Corporation were concerned, limited to the Transkei and that area. But now it is no longer the case. What is this going to run us into in terms of money when it is now related to the other seven heartlands which have been envisaged? I do not know, but if the sky is the limit to this, then do we go to the seventh heaven before we start pulling in our horns financially with regard to further development which the Minister may envisage being paid out of the white taxpayer’s pocket? Now, indeed, there is no limit to it.

But, Sir, can you envisage the establishment of these corporations throughout the whole of the eight Bantu heartlands and the effect that they are going to have on the private sector, including the border industries which the Government is establishing at the present time? There cannot be goods, services, industries and undertakings working in an economic watertight compartment. It is absolutely impossible. It is incredible that it can be thought to be so. The Minister himself in his speech already indicated that one provision in this Bill is for the express purpose of permitting these corporations to deal with white wholesalers who are operating outside of the homelands. That was their precise reason for the clause in the Bill, he said. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister should like me to quote his speech; he looks a bit doubtful about it.

I am doubtful as to your interpretation.

Well, I can only refer the Minister to his own Hansard. The position is that the Minister realizes that the Bantu to-day will require the help of wholesalers, White, Indian or Coloured, outside of the homeland boundaries. They must be free to trade with them and to get their goods there. And if they are free to get their goods there, their products must also go back into that market. Sooner or later in South Africa, Sir, we will have one market. We cannot have a protected market for Bantu corporations.

Mr. Speaker, all this, the basic principle which the Minister underlined in his plea to this side of the House, looks too much like economic aid, of which we have heard and read over and over again. In the old colonies of the metropolitan powers, not only in Africa but also elsewhere, where money was brought in for development purposes along these lines, it has become aid, which meant only heartbreak and soreness afterwards when the time came for the aid, for whatever reason it was, to be curtailed and stopped.

It is only a crutch.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend from Pinetown says it is a crutch on which to lean for the time being. And by and by, when that crutch is removed, the cripple is going to say: “I blame you. If you let me use both my legs, I could have developed properly and I would not have been in this parlous condition. I am a cripple now because of the crutches you provided.” Mr. Speaker, this savours too much of aid. As the ages pass, we will experience more and more criticism which will be levelled at us by those people whom we are hoping to benefit. We feel then that the development should be along the lines of establishing towns for the Bantu to live in, and homes in which the industrial workers and the commercial workers can live under urban conditions. They have to get used to it, because this is also foreign to their old traditional style of life. They were a pastoral people. They were not even an agricultural people. They were a pastoral people. They are getting accustomed to it. There are to-day scores of thousands who live under those conditions. In the rural areas and the Bantu areas they must get used to it in their villages and in their future towns. That will be the place in which the workers will live exactly the same as the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians at the present time.

One cannot call in one’s workers for an industry or commerce from a scattered rural community living all over the countryside. They have their homes under urban conditions and the Bantu have to live there. That goes inevitably with the question of home ownership and the building up of capital. It goes with the pride of having a home, pride that the Bantu have shown where they have got their homes in so many of these townships where they have been enabled to buy pieces of land and where nobody is more proud of their homes than the Bantu are. Nobody has shown a greater pride in maintaining his home and his piece of ground, as anybody who knows them and who has been to have a look at them, will be prepared to substantiate. Here they are, just the same as other people, proud to keep their homes nice and clean and to keep them in good repair and to look after their little pieces of land. This question, I say again, of grafting this concept of socialism, communal ownership of land onto a capitalistic society, is something which can never be maintained.

I again want to come back to this issue before us, because with every year that passes if we go the wrong way, we will find it harder to retrace our steps. We in Parliament can stand up year by year and we can question the Minister in regard to his policy when his Vote is under discussion. But, Sir, to the millions of Bantu outside who are being steered now in a certain direction, who are getting the whole of the pressure, the immense pressure of parliamentary legislation, pushing them in a certain direction, and the investment of millions of rand, forcing them into that direction, the turning back cannot be easy. I plead with the Minister at this stage to be courageous enough to grasp the nettle and to say that the normal, ordinary, orthodox method of economic development for the rest of South Africa should be the method for the Bantu. Encourage them, help them, bring about their development, teach them soil and water conservation, living in towns, development of their rural areas, give them home ownership, and let normal and orthodox progression, the economic progression of every country except Soviet countries, be the pattern that we follow in South Africa for the Bantu as well.

Mr. Speaker, in the speech made by the hon. member for South Coast, who has just sat down, one revelation was made on which we may congratulate him and on which we agree with him wholeheartedly, and that was when he stated that he was tired of only the points of dispute in the policy relating to the development of Bantu homelands being emphasized, and of points of agreement not being stressed and looked for to a larger extent. If more members adopted this attitude, we would be able to make progress and develop our Bantu homelands more rapidly, and tackle and solve the entire problem in that connection. I want to say that I agree with him wholeheartedly in this respect. I also agree with another point which he made, but I shall come to that later. I do, however, want to draw the attention of the hon. member for South Coast to the following. Throughout this debate the Opposition have made accusations against the Government which differ completely from the attitude he has now adopted here, i.e. to seek points of agreement. I am thinking of last Friday, when the hon. member for Newton Park tried to convince us with dramatic gestures in this House that …

Order! I am sorry, but the time allotted for this debate has now expired.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 68.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to reply to points raised in this third-reading debate. I want to begin by dealing with the amendment moved by the hon. member for Transkei. I think I should read it out since it has not been read out here for quite some time. The amendment reads as follows—

1. (a) its provisions do not disclose adequate plans for the economic development of the Bantu areas;
2. (b) the board of directors as provided for in the Bill will be unable to fulfil its duties and functions impartially and adequately; and
3. (c) the provision for Parliamentary control is ineffective.”.

Now, Sir, I just want to make a few brief remarks about these three paragraphs, (a), (b) and (c), before dealing with specific arguments raised in this debate. I first want to deal with part (a) of the amendment, which states that this Bill does not disclose adequate plans for the economic development of the Bantu areas. I find it rather strange that the hon. member for Transkei, who moved this amendment, wants adequate plans to be included in a Bill such as this, which is going to appear on the Statute Book. I should like the hon. member to name me one other Act in which all the adequate plans for development are included. I should like to know whether the Acts which serve as prototypes for us in respect of corporations, such as those relating to Iscor, Escom, the Industrial Development Corporation and other corporations, include plans for the development of those corporations. No, an Act does not contain plans. That hon.

member spoke fatuously and now he must accept my answer. [Interjections.] The hon. member must now give me a chance to speak. After all, we all want to finish quickly. Unfortunately the hon. member will not have another chance to speak. If he will allow me to finish my speech, I shall give him a chance to say something on a point of personal explanation if I am putting the wrong words into his mouth. I shall create an opportunity for him in this way. In no Act does one include the plans adequately as he wants to be done. One only includes in the Bill the principles to be applied in practice, and the adequate plans are worked out in detail and revised from day to day and from year to year and adapted in order to implement those principles. Then one returns to Parliament to include more principles in the Act. One amends the Act if one desires more latitude. That is the reason for our being here. We are here to improve, by means of this Bill, the basis upon which the corporations are to function in order to achieve this economic development. The plans and the details cannot be worked out in this Bill. Now the hon. member can say something by way of personal explanation if he so desires.

Order! The hon. the Minister should rather continue with his speech.

This hon. member wants to imitate the hon. member for Houghton. He wants to speak while I am speaking, not before or after.

Secondly, this amendment states that “the board of directors will be unable to fulfil its duties impartially and adequately”. I find it a little far-fetched that this hon. member should come and tell me in advance that a board of directors who are still to be appointed will be unable, whoever they may be, to fulfil their duties impartially and adequately. It is a very unfair thing to say. If the hon. member recollects that there are already two existing boards of directors for the existing corporations, I want to ask him whether he can in any way indicate to me, from the manner in which these two existing boards have fulfilled their duties, that they have not done so impartially and adequately.

They cannot function properly in terms of these powers.

The hon. member’s amendment states very clearly that the board of directors provided for will be unable to fulfil its duties and functions impartially.

They will be unable to do so.

Why? No restrictions are being imposed.

You have controlling powers.

No, I do not have the power to restrict those boards so that they may not speak freely. They may speak freely and submit their case to me freely. I am not even going to know of all the matters with which they are going to deal. Everything they do will not first have to be approved by me. I shall question them about certain things, but control will not be exercised over everything they do. They are not a sub-committee of my Department which can only make recommendations to me. It seems to me as though the hon. member worded his amendment in a more ignorant way than he had intended and that as a result he is now running around in circles within the framework of his amendment. [Interjections.] The hon. member should have spoken when he had the opportunity. He cannot speak now while I am speaking. He did not even want to give an explanation a few moments ago.

In the third part of his amendment he states that the provision for Parliamentary control is ineffective. We discussed this point a great deal in the Committee Stage and at the second reading. I cannot see how Parliamentary control will be made more ineffective than it is in other respects. From the outset it has been a fundamental principle that the Trustee fulfils the function of control in respect of matters of Bantu administration and Bantu development, as the Minister of Finance and the Treasury do in respect of other matters. By means of this Bill we are bringing the corporations closer to the trusteeship principle. We are binding them more closely to the trustee. In other words, you may come and discuss the activities of the corporations with me, as the delegate of the Trustee, under my Vote every year. You will be able to do this better in future than you did last year.

[Inaudible.]

Hon. members opposite will get angry again if I repeat what I said the other day, i.e. that the way in which they object to the control makes one think that there is only one form of control with which they will be satisfied, and that is the control which they approve of. Now they will be angry again. It seems to me as though they are in a better mood this time. I do not think the hon. member need wonder what is going to happen to his amendment. We shall most certainly not accept it.

You will not even know what you are voting about.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is a very bad reflection on this of the House to suggest that these members who are going to vote on a matter do not even know what they are going to vote about. Does that also apply to that hon. member’s colleagues when they have to vote, i.e. that they do not even know what they are going to vote about? I want to tell the House an anecdote about an old man who served on a church council, but who was extremely deaf. He seldom knew what was being discussed, but he regularly voted about matters discussed in that church council. Then someone asked him one day, “Uncle John, tell us how it is that you always vote in this church council, although you are so deaf that you do not know what is being voted on. How do you manage to vote?” He replied, “I know what to do. I watch that bald-headed fellow and I see to it that I always vote against him.”

I want to say to the hon. members that even assuming that the implied reflection cast upon this side of the House by the hon. member is true, if they only see to it that they vote against that bald-headed hon. member on that side, then this side will vote correctly. There are two bald-headed members sitting next to each other.

The hon. member for Transkei spoke about the land tenure system of the Bantu, as did the hon. member for South Coast in previous debates. I want to repeat that the land tenure system is an extremely fundamental matter to the Bantu. This system is an age-old tradition, and to change this system holus-bolus now to accord with the capitalistic system, as that hon. member calls it—if I understood him correctly, he means maximum individual land tenure— is a very important point. The hon. member must know that the Bantu’s system of land tenure is deeply interwoven with his traditions and with his traditional tribal system of government. The hon. member must understand clearly what the position in the Bantu homelands is. Until about ten years ago there was only rural development in the Bantu areas. With the exception of the Transkei, where 26 towns had been established through White initiative, the position was that in the other Bantu areas of South Africa very few …

In the Ciskei there were quite a number.

Yes, in the Xhosa part—-let me rather put it this way: Quite a number of towns had been established in the Xhosa part. But in the other areas, even the reserves of Zululand, no comparable development had taken place, at any rate not comparable to the development in the Eastern Cape. These areas were predominantly rural in character, and the system of land tenure was mainly a communal one. There were also cases of individual land tenure in the Bantu areas. We know this. These cases, however, occurred less frequently in the Northern areas than in the Natal and Southern areas. Generally speaking the system of land tenure was a communal one, under tribal control. This was the position until about ten years ago. I want to ask the hon. member whether he admits that Bantu townships have suice been established on a large scale in the Bantu homelands, Bantu townships such as Umlazi, and higher up at Ngwelezana, such as Ga Rankuwa up in the Transvaal, and Mdantsane near East London. There are more than a hundred Bantu townships on the drawing boards in my Department, and Bantu have already taken up residence in approximately 60 of these townships. The hon. member will concede to me that the Bantu townships are divided up into. plots and that each Bantu owner can get title to his land, although perhaps not in the same way as we Whites do. There is, however, a system of registering the plot and the house in his name in the Bantu townships. I want to ask the hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for Transkei explicitly and without mincing matters whether they want us to do this in the case of the large tribal areas of the Bantu. Do they want us to divide up the large and extensive tribal areas of thousands of morgen into farms of so many hundred morgen or so many hundred acres and then hand them out one by one to individual Bantu owners?

What did the Tomlinson Commission recommend?

Yes, we know that the Tomlinson Commission dealt with this aspect, but we also know what the Government decided about it. Do the hon. members want to do that? I now want to ask the hon. members what it will mean to the tribal authority of the Bantu. The tribal authority is the basis of their system of government. Forget about the basis of the system of government as we drafted it in the Bantu Authorities Act and which leads up to a territorial authority, and which may even be converted into a parliamentary system such as in the Transkei. The tribal system as it existed before the Bantu Authorities Act was based on the land tenure of the tribe. Do the hon. members want the tribes’ land tenure to be divided up in this manner for individuals? Individuals who have it freely at their disposal, according to the capitalistic pattern, as the hon. member calls it? The Zulu individual can then, for example, get on his own name two hundred morgen of that large tribal area, with which he can do what he likes. And when we look again he has sold it to a Bantu man, or a Frenchman, or whoever.

A Frenchman?

Yes, or to any of us.

You must not elaborate on what I have said.

Why must I not elaborate on it? What other implicit meaning is there then in that request of the hon. member? In the first instance I explicitly tell the hon. member to note that in a large number of Bantu townships those people obtain individual ownership rights in respect of premises.

And they are proud of it.

It is for houses and they are proud of it. And it is our work which they are proud of. It is this Government which is building those Bantu townships on such a large scale.

[Inaudible.]

Really, we cannot sing together in chorus, especially not if that chorus is false.

Order! The hon. member for Transkei must give the hon. the Minister a chance.

In those Bantu townships the premises which we give out are not only for the dwellings of these people. There are also trading premises, industrial premises, etc. And this is the work which we are doing in our Bantu townships. In other words, these things are there in our Bantu townships. The hon. member mentioned this matter, and quite rightly. But does the hon. member not realize that as far as the Bantu townships are concerned the idea of individual land ownership exists? Now I want to put this question to the hon. member: Does the hon. member want us to do the same in the case of the rural tribal land of the Bantu? Must it also be cut up into premises, farms and plots so that it may be acquired on an individual basis, with the tribe then owning nothing any more? The hon. member must reply to this at a later stage. He must first consider the matter carefully. I do not want him to reply to it right away. I am giving him wise counsel—which he needs very much—not to reply too quickly.

It also helps the Opposition now and then …

Order! The hon the Whip must not spark off interjections again.

I shall return to the hon. member for South Coast in a moment. I have dealt with the one point made by the hon. member together with that made by the hon. member for Transkei. I want to refer briefly to what the hon. member for Newton Park, who is not here now, said in connection with a speech which I made in 1959 when the Bantu Investment Corporation Act was being discussed. I stand by every syllable of what I said on that occasion. I am now in the fortunate position of being able to put into effect more of what I said then. He quoted me, for example, as having said: We, on this side of the House, also believe in private initiative in the Bantu homelands, but then it must be Bantu private initiative and not White private initiative which must have a free hand there. I still stand by every syllable of what I said on that occasion. The hon. member for Newton Park then told us that nothing had come of those pious words of mine of 1959. He asked what had been accomplished in South Africa in connection with private ownership by the Bantu of which we could be proud. That was the hon. member’s question. I have replied to it in part by my references to the Bantu townships, in which I mentioned the tens of thousands of premises which are already available for private ownership by the Bantu, and where they can start putting up their houses and businesses. But in addition to that we have achieved a great deal as regards Bantu private initiative in the Bantu homelands. May I just remind you of certain facts which I mentioned in my speech. I shall not even go beyond my introductory speech for these facts. I take it that we shall get a further chance to discuss this matter later in this session when my Vote comes up for discussion.

We promise to do that.

I shall appreciate it if the facts of my work are discussed to some extent when my Vote comes up for discussion, and not always the illusions and scare-mongering ideas of the Opposition. I said in my speech that nearly 800 applications from Bantu individuals, businessmen, had been approved. These are in respect of loans for financial assistance granted to them by the Investment Corporation. There were a large number of applications. There were many more applications. Naturally. This is a general phenomenon. There will always be more applications. In the case of the Whites, too, many more applications are received than justify assistance being granted. Nearly 800 have received loans. In addition nearly 700 individual Bantu businessmen have been given trade credit by the Bantu Investment Corporation and the Xhosa Development Corporation. I also mentioned in my speech that 70 or more Bantu persons are employed as managers of trading stations which have been taken over in the Transkei. How dare an hon. member suggest here that justice is not being done to the practice of stimulating Bantu private initiative and assisting it in learning about business? Where do hon. members get that? There are many more particulars than these. I did not want to go beyond my speech. The hon. member did not even make proper use of the opportunity of listening to facts which were mentioned here, let alone other facts which he could have looked up. I repeat that it is the object and basis of this Bill that Bantu businessmen should do the work in the first instance, either individually, or organized into partnerships or companies, or whatever way. For those who want to do or undertake the work, the Bantu Investment Corporation and other corporations are available to assist by means of loans, advice and training. It is only in cases where those Bantu individuals are not there to do the work with such assistance, that the corporations intervene on behalf of the Bantu to set things in motion there which we want as much as possible of. In addition to the number of Bantu individuals who have been assisted in this way, there are large numbers who are employed by these Bantu individuals and by the corporations. They are all persons who enter the environs of business or industry to learn if they are capable of doing so. But the hon. member for Newton Park closes his eyes to all these things and says that we have done nothing of which we may be proud in stimulating, assisting and shaping Bantu private initiative. This is a terrible exaggeration. If there is anything to be feared and carefully handled by a politician it is making exaggerations.

You must be careful yourself.

Order! The hon. the Whip must address the Chair.

The hon. member for South Coast tried to make a point here which is not quite clear to me. I do not know what the hon. member actually wanted to achieve. He said that I had stated in my speech that the corporations could eventually pass over— I used the word “oorgaan” in Afrikaans—into the hands of the homeland authority, and that this would be a new situation to handle. When I was asked when that day would be I replied: I shall tell you some other day when that day will be. Of course, and I say it again. I am not a prophet. No one on the opposite side is a prophet. I cannot tell anybody, neither am I going to hazard a guess, as to on what day or in what year it will be possible for this Government to hand over corporations to the Bantu government or Bantu authority. I said Bantu authority. By that I do not mean any specific department of the Bantu government. It means the Bantu authority, the authority structure in general. I cannot foresee the day when the corporations will be handed over to the Bantu nation as such, neither am I going to waste a moment of my time by trying to determine that day. There is a reply that I often give, especially to overseas visitors who come and question us on our policy. They always ask me: Tell me, what is your timetable? In other words, on what day and in what year will the ethnic groups get this or that, will they be totally independent, and so forth. I tell them each time to go and ask those things of the Almighty and not of me. We are not working according to a “time-table” at all which states that certain things can be done with in three years, three months or three days, or in this or that year. We work on a basis of principle and do those things which we believe to be right.

And we are doing our very best.

And we are doing our very best, as the hon. Whip assists me here by saying. Thank you very much. We are honestly doing each day, to-day, to-morrow and next year, as much as they can absorb, as much as our means, manpower, time and intellects enable us to do. The development must continue. I cannot predict whether a specific pattern will last three years or ten years, and whether this or that will happen. There is a very large human factor involved, namely that of the Bantu peoples themselves, who must take over these things. What their capacity is their Creator alone knows. We cannot determine it. What I said to that hon. member I shall therefore repeat here: I shall tell you some other day when that day will be. And do you know, Sir, I shall perhaps no longer be alive when it will be possible to say when that day will be. That is possible. There is nothing strange about that. The other important point discussed by the hon. member for South Coast, is that of land tenure. I have already replied to that. The hon. member for South Coast also said that I had not dealt with competition. Perhaps the hon. member was not present. I did deal with that in my reply. I spoke specifically about competition. I shall now repeat the essentials of what I said. I stated quite explicitly that competition was something which the Whites should not fear. They have achieved their present position because they have asserted themselves in competition. I said that this not only applied to competition in South Africa, but also to competition with other countries of the world and with other interests from other parts of the world. We have reached our present position through competition. We shall also have to maintain ourselves as against the Bantu by way of competition—if they are in fact going to prove to be such rivals. I also said that the Whites must not rely on remaining ahead, and must not expect to remain ahead, by means of various entrenchments and privileges, such as, amongst others, the colour of their skin. They maintain themselves by means of the development of their intellect and by honest, hard and diligent work. That is the way in which the Whites should maintain themselves in South Africa. Intellect and work from the basis of competition. In reply to a question by the hon. member for Pinetown I added that there are certain Acts—mostly Acts relating to labour, such as the Industrial Conciliation Act, the Wage Act, etc.—which regulate all these measures. I said that those Acts contained provisions in connection with exemptions. I went on to say that an organization already exists, such as the Permanent Committee for the Location of Industries and Development of Border Areas. Others can be created if this proves insufficient. There are also departments which deal with this and must decide what balance should be maintained, on these labour, loan, industrial and commercial bases, between the border industry areas, the Bantu areas and the metropolitan urban areas. I mentioned all these things when I spoke about competition. I am not going to repeat it in full here now. We are very conscious of the competition factor. I want to conclude by saying that we as Whites must not relinquish the idea of competition. I have always known such a dour old White man as the hon. member for South Coast as one who would want to maintain White civilization on the basis of its inherent strength and not by protection from outside. I hope that he will inspire his people to remain so, and not to adopt such lackadaisical attitudes as one may possibly infer from the following words uttered by him.

Why are you retaining job reservation?

I also answered that question for that dreaming member at the back there. I said that it was necessary. I repeat my words, precisely as I used them, namely: Because it is necessary in the interests of White and non-White workers of all the various groups to ensure a balance of the labour which is available to them. I repeat that. If that member does not know it yet, he now ought to discover what work reservation really means. Work reservation is not there only to protect White workers. It is there to protect all workers against intrusion into their ranks. It is there for everyone.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the motion. Upon which the House divided:

Tellers: G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

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

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.