Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes at my disposal I should first like to assure the hon. member for Durban (Point) that I did not mean to offend him personally last night. That was not my intention. I am sorry if the hon. member is under that wrong impression.

The hon. member for East London (North) referred to the assurance which I gave last year, namely that I would act if the programme “Current Affairs” became guilty of entering the party political arena. I waited for the hon. member to produce proof, but he never got round to it. This does not mean that I expected him ever to get round to it, because I have been waiting since 1968 for proof from his hon. Leader. I challenged him at that time to produce the proof, and I am still waiting for it. The hon. member for Orange Grove subsequently stepped into the breach for the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and produced ten proofs, proofs which were not proofs at all. They were proofs which dated back to the year 1967, when I had not yet become the Minister. I want to tell the hon. member for East London (North) that, should he bring me the proofs, I would investigate the matter thoroughly.

Do you deny the report in the Beeld?

To which report is the hon. member referring? There have been so many reports in the Beeld. The hon. member must show me the proof, the article concerned, so that I may look at it. I shall then be able to decide whether there was any party political action on the part of the S.A.B.C. The hon. member for East London (North) will find out that to make a wild statement in this House, and to produce the evidence in proof of that statement, are two entirely different matters.

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

Upon which the House divided:

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, G. P. van den Berg, P. S. van der Merwe and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Question affirmed and amendmend dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

Mr. Speaker, I move the following amendment—

1. (1) he will remove the strain and injustices suffered by large sections of the staff; and
2. (2) he will expedite consideration of the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Co-ordination of Transport in South Africa”.

Yesterday I made some remarks about the strange nature of the statement the Minister made to us in introducing the Second Reading of this Bill. It was, of course, totally inadequate if one compares it with the practice in this House of Ministers of Transport in the past and the Minister of Finance. The hon. the Minister asks the House to vote R650 million on account to conduct the business of the Administration of the South African Railways and Harbours until a full budget can be presented to the House in the session that will follow the General Election. But in his statement there was no report on the progress and the expectations of the Railways except for a few generalizations about the fact that there were changes in the transport of maize and that high-rated traffic had increased— things which we all knew. Anybody who is reasonably interested in what is happening in South Africa must be aware of those matters. But we had no indication of whether the Minister’s expectations were being realized, or how the Railways were faring in comparison with the Harbours, the Airways and the pipelines, which are all matters of concern. We had no indication about the actual position of the staff, although there was some reference to the staff shortage. We had no indication of measures, apart from mechanization, taken to overcome the staff shortage. In fact, I think we can truthfully say that the Minister gave us a minimum of information with regard to the year before us and the year that is past. He gave us the maximum information about his own virtues which meant that his speech was fairly short, but it certainly did not serve the purpose of introducing this measure to the House.

It has become clear from reports we have had that the hon. the Minister in his Budget last year was wrong as usual. He told us to expect a deficit on the year’s workings of just over R5 million. Every indication at the moment is that he is going to have a whopping surplus. If there had been changes in the economic situation of South Africa after the hon. the Minister had introduced his Budget we could have forgiven him. But he was proved wrong immediately. Although the hon. the Minister budgeted for a deficit of over R5 million the first three or four months of the Railways’ working already showed a surplus of R4 million.

Are you annoyed about that now!

I will tell hon. members exactly how I feel about it. It is also clear that at this rate we will have a surplus on the working of the South African Railways and Harbours at the end of the year running into eight figures again. I think we are entitled in the case of the hon. the Minister of Transport, as in the case of the hon. the Minister of Finance, to more accurate bookkeeping. If one has a monopoly, such as the South African Railways and Harbours have, which is protected by statute against competition, the hon. the Minister by planning and fixing his rates can achieve almost any result. If he achieves these large surpluses it is a form of taxation. It is not as a result of good administration or good business because it is a monopoly and there is no competition. He has the field all to himself. When he produces these huge surpluses it is equivalent to a form of taxation, because every person who lives in South Africa contributes to the revenue of the South African Railways directly or indirectly. I therefore want to register the protest of the Opposition against the continuing practice of the hon. the Minister to which we have referred in the past with actual examples which I am not going to repeat, to budget wrongly every year. He underestimates his income and overestimates his expenditure and produces these artificial surpluses which is another burden on the common man in South Africa. In the case of the purchase tax, the hon. the Minister of finance at least had the insight to come almost at once with an apology to the nation and to reduce some of those taxes, even though not enough of them, and to admit that the criticism of the Opposition that he was exploiting the public was well-founded.

Order! That is not under consideration now.

No, but surely I can draw a parallel. I want to bring a point home to the hon. the Minister of Transport, namely that he should do the same. When he finds as the year progresses that he has been hopelessly wrong in his calculations, surely he should take an early opportunity of giving the people the benefit of his having discovered his mistake or to give it to his staff? If the hon. the Minister does not have the power, he should see that he gets it. He has expert advisers and it should be possible for him to budget more accurately. One can understand that after three or four months the hon. the Minister’s expectations can be proved wrong, but when from the very first month of the new year he is out at the rate of millions of rand per month, surely we can take notice of the fact that he is not presenting a true picture to the House when he presents his Budget.

I also want to express my regret that there has been no reaction on the part of the South African Railways to the recommendations made by the Marais Commission which was appointed during the first half of the last decade, with one exception. The hon. the Minister will appreciate that we have not had an opportunity of studying his interim report which was tabled yesterday, but one was able to get the gist of what was happening. The hon. the Minister says quite truthfully that this is a far-reaching report and is one which will affect the economy of the South African Railways and of the country to a considerable extent. We therefore concede that it does require careful study. It is interesting to note that on one of the most difficult recommendations of the commission the hon. the Minister can give an immediate reply. On many others, which will be to the advantage of the railway users, the staff and the public, he has great difficulty in coming to a decision.

What struck me on a cursory reading of this report is that it was a rationalization. It was not an argument which led to conclusions. It was a conclusion with arguments found afterwards to put in front of it. It was a rationalization. The Minister and the Administration had obviously made up their minds to reject the recommendation that the Railways, Harbours, Pipeline and Airways should remain under the control of one Minister but should be separated administratively. They sat down to find arguments. To give one example, hon. members only have to read para. 6 (3) and subsequent paragraphs of this report to see what I mean. There the point is made that the Airways and the Harbours get considerable benefits from their association with the Railways. The Railways render a great number of very valuable services to these bodies. According to this report the expenses would go up if they had to render these services to themselves. That is a point. Why should the Airways and the Harbours show these artificial profits? Why should the Railways present such a sorry picture when in fact it is rendering these valuable services to the more profitable aspects of the hon. the Minister’s Administration? Why should there not be debits between independent bodies brought into account against the Airways and the Harbours for the services that the Railways render? Why should we not get a true picture of the working results of these three bodies instead of the false one that we get at the moment? As I have said before, I think it is a pity that the hon. the Minister did not give us a fuller picture of how these various branches of the service are functioning. Last year we had the shocking situation that the Airways showed a profit of almost R3½ million and the Harbours a profit of R14,600,000. The Pipelines to the overtaxed Southern Transvaal showed a profit of R20 million. And the hon. the Minister tells us that this profit will be much higher this year. In contrast with these profits the Railways showed a loss of R30 million. The entire surplus shown by the hon. the Minister was derived after the loss of the Railways of R30 million had been covered by the other three services. We want to know what is happening and to what extent is that a true reflection of what is happening? To what extent do these three other bodies benefit from services by the South African Railways? What is it worth to them? By what amounts have their profits been reduced and the deficit of the

Railways adjusted accordingly? We are not shown a true picture. I think it is time that we should get a true picture. The consumers and the users of these various services are entitled to know. It is really unforgivable. I know that the hon. the Minister and his Administration have taken a stand in this matter. It will be very difficult to persuade them. We shall have to wait until the 23rd April before we can expect a change in this policy. We know that. I think it is becoming disgraceful that the community of the Witwatersrand, Vereeniging, Pretoria and the surrounding areas of the Southern Transvaal and the Northern Free State should be subsidizing the State transport services of South Africa to the tune of more than R20 million per year. I have tried to discover what justification there is for this discrimination against one community. The only answer I can find is a statement that comes in certain publications and statements by the Government that the revenue from petrol accrued to the South African Railways before the pipeline was established. Therefore the Railways are entitled to retain this revenue now that the pipeline has been established. I cannot see the logic of that. Because something was, it does not mean that it should be for ever. Because the benefits of modern development, modern technology, modern science and progress are acquired by people like the hon. the Minister who after years of fighting from this side of the House, accepted our policy and built a pipeline, there is still no justification for this position. Why should the people who benefit be deprived of their benefits? Why should they be asked to subsidise the rest of South Africa even more than they do to-day? I should like to remind the hon. the Minister who represents a Witwatersrand constituency that the Receiver of Revenue in Johannesburg collects by far the greatest amount of the taxation that the Government receives. He collects 40 per cent of the direct taxation paid in South Africa. Now the community of the Southern Transvaal and the Northern Free State are being called upon to subsidize, the South African Railways transport users in that area to the extent of probably R25 million per year.

It is an injustice that cannot be tolerated. This benefit should be given to the people of South Africa, preferably to the people concerned who are paying in any case a very large share of the expenses of running the South African state. It is something which one cannot justify or accept and a change will have to come about. It will come. The hon. the Minister knows that what the United Party says today he and his government do the day thereafter or the year thereafter. It is going to happen. The longest delay I could find was 40 years in the case of the outward policy. It will happen but it is a pity that in the meantime this injustice should be suffered by the people affected.

I thought you said the change was coming on the 23rd April.

Yes, Sir.

We are just warning you of what will happen if it does not come about.

The change is coming and the hon. the Minister need not be concerned about that. One of the reasons for this change that is about to come is that the public are beginning to realize that the government thinks behind the United Party, sometimes a year behind and sometimes 40 years. Perhaps the people of South Africa are now entitled to the original thinking of the United Party at a time when it can make the best impact upon their welfare.

The other thing I thought the hon. the Minister could have told us more about is a vexing problem which I am sure is making him very unhappy too, namely the staff shortage on the South African Railways and Harbours. It is difficult to know exactly what is happening because one gets so many contradictory statements. The most authoritative statement I could find came from the General Manager himself on the 24th or 23rd July, when he told a conference of staff associations in Johannesburg that the South African Railways were short of 26,0 white workers alone. That in itself is frightening. But it becomes more frightening when one notices that the General Manager went on to say that in spite of this shortage the work of the Railways was increasing quite spectacularly. He made the point that even with 26,0 white workers short—one does not know how many non-white workers are short—the Railways were hauling 46 million tons of traffic and handling 153 million passengers per year. That may be a sign of tremendous efficiency. There were encouraging signs in this speech by the General Manager and in other reports that we have had that the Railways are stimulated by this staff shortage to seek greater efficiency, and with success in some respects. The General Manager could tell the staff associations that as a result of action taken by the management, namely mechanization and greater rationalization in the use of labour, they have found it possible to dispense with the labour of 600 platelayers and 10,000 Bantu labourers. That is their recent achievement. But if one were to be satisfied that this is a sign of great efficiency and better achievement on the part of the South African Railways and Harbours one will also have to be satisfied that the staff were in a happier position than before these measures were taken. That no one can claim. No one can claim that the benefits of rationalization and mechanization are also redounding to the benefit of the staff of the South African Railways and Harbours; everyone knows that the staff is being subjected to intolerable strains. I do not think I am exaggerating if I were to say that the position con cerning overtime work by some sections of the staff, particularly the running staff, is becoming preposterous and intolerable. I see that Mr. P. C. du Plessis, the new chairman of the Consultative Staff Associations, has referred in his speeches to the critical situation that obtains now as far as overtime is concerned in the Railway services. He has told us that the situation is now affecting the health and the productivity of large sections of the staff. I think it is ridiculous that members of the staff are expected to undertake to work regularly an average of 12 hours for five days of the week and Saturday mornings in many cases. I think it is preposterous for clerical staff who are doing a hard day’s work and an honest day’s work to be called upon to work overtime as shunters and other jobs which are normally done by the other sections of the staff. I think it is unheard of that shuttle services have to be run from certain towns on the reef and further afield for employees so that they can work overtime in spheres where they are not normally employed. Where will it end? Where is it going to? What is the hon. Minister doing or “laat hy Gods water maar oor Gods akker loop?” Something must be done because this cannot continue. It is wrong, it is unforgivable that the Minister is creating a situation where overtime earnings psychologically are regarded by the employee as a normal part of his income, entitling him to a normal adjustment of his standard of living to a higher income group. That is happening to-day and the majority of workers know to-day if they were ever to go back to normal working hours, they will not be able to exist on the basic wages and salaries the Minister is paying.

The same arguments as last year.

The truth does not change with time. Truth is eternal and the mess the hon. Minister has created in regard to the staff of the South African Railways, is unchanged. One has to keep on hammering at it. One has a duty towards these people which one has to discharge. What I am afraid of now is the result of the fact that overtime is becoming part of the normal life of the railway employee, all the reductions in hours of work, in the concept of what is a just period of work per week for the worker, is disappearing. All the work that was done by enlightened authors, writers, propagandists and trade union leaders is negatived on the Railways; everything that has been done from the days of Charles Dickens to the days of J. L. V. Liebenberg, disappears under the administration of this hon. Minister of Transport. I think it is wrong, I think it is cruel. I think it is unjust and I think it is abusing the willingness of the railwayman in South Africa to help the hon. Minister ouf of a mess. I think something should be done. There is certainly no happiness among the South African railway workers. We received an answer to a question from the Deputy Minister to-day dealing with the fact that a series of commissions of inquiry under the new Act of a few years ago has had to be appointed by the State President to resolve difficulties between the Minister and his staff. Even now, three of the commissions of inquiry are still in session. Three were appointed in November and I have not seen what the outcome of their inquiries have been. The technical supervising staff for example, have been involved in a dispute with the Minister since 1968. Special drivers have been battling for years to get justice for their cause. The most striking example however, is the dispute between the Minister and the Salstaff Association. This dispute has been dragging on since 1965 when the hon. the Minister just before the 1966 election gave considerable increases to the staff which resulted in a maladjustment between the salaried staff and other sections of the staff. They have been complaining and they have been asking for a redress of their grievances since 1965. However, the matter has still not been finally resolved. In the private sector trade unions have been complaining about the fact that certain employers deliberately drag out proceedings, using all the machinery which the labour conciliation machinery provides in order not to give justice to their employees. When a dispute in the Railways lasts from 1965 to 1970 and is still going on. one is entitled to ask if the hon. the Minister is not using a similar technique. Is he not doing this because he does not want to resolve the dispute, because while the dispute drags on, he does not want to pay these people the salaries which they ought to receive? That is a feeling that becomes unavoidable and I can only trust that this matter will be resolved very soon and that it will not happen again. We hope that this will not become a part of the pattern of conciliation between the Minister and his staff on the South African Railways. There is bitterness about this issue. I have here for example a report of a meeting which was held in Johannesburg on the 11th July, 1969 by the Western Transvaal branch of the Salstaff Association. It was attended by 800 railway workers after many could not get into the hall and had to be turned away. When you have a crowd of a thousand trying to attend a railway meeting to air their grievances, you cannot think that that section of the staff can be satisfied. There must be bitterness amongst them. The hon. Minister knows that to-day it is one of the most difficult things to get people to attend a meeting. I want to read the following comment on that meeting:

And so it goes on, Sir. And yet we are being asked to believe that there is nothing but happiness and contentment on the S.A. Railways. Every one of us who has contact with these people know that there is seething dissatisfaction and, what is more, that it is growing; the disillusionment with the Government and with the Administration is growing by the day.

What kind of contact do you have with the railwaymen?

My hon. friend will be surprised; he will indeed be surprised. The Minister knows of some of the contacts I have, or ought to know, and he knows that when I bring problems of particular people to his attention I do so without trying to make political capital out of it. I usually do it with the object of getting justice done and I must say that the Minister reciprocates in a similar spirit and I appreciate that these cases are dealt with on merit. The fact is that I do not always make these cases public, although there are in fact some startling cases. The fact that I do not do this does not entitle the hon. member to infer that I do not know what is going on amongst the staff on the S.A. Railways. In any event, this explains why people are to-day resigning from the S.A. Railways at a rate of 2,000 per month, as was borne out once more by a reply to a question which, as far as I can remember, was put to the Minister last week. What is most alarming is that at present more people are resigning from the S.A. Railways than the number who are recruited inclusive of those who return after having resigned. Where is this going to end? Where is it going to end if fewer and fewer people continue working on the S.A. Railways? It is clear that the measures already taken to combat the staff shortage are not enough, good as they may be. There is a story going the rounds in Johannesburg of 10 clerical staff members who resigned to go to work in a bank. The Railway authorities thereupon sent an inspector along to interview them and to find out why all of them resigned together in order to go to work in a bank. Well, Sir, do you know what happened? The inspector went along, listened to the disadvantages of working for the S.A. Railways and to the advantages of working for the bank; and he himself did not return to the S.A. Railways— he joined the bank! It may be a true story or it may not be true, but it could be true and the Minister should therefore pay heed to it. In the olden days we all accepted that it did not matter that a man working in the Civil Service or on the S.A. Railways was being paid less; it did not matter because he had security and all sorts of fringe benefits which he could not get elsewhere. But the world has changed, and to-day many private employers in South Africa, corporations and smaller employers, are offering similar fringe benefits and the same security as that offered by the S.A. Railways. People can therefore no longer hide behind the story that if you work for the State you enjoy advantages which you cannot get when working for private enterprise. In fact, the position to-day is the opposite, and the attitude of the Government is wrong. This was never typified more clearly than a few years ago when the Government passed a Bill prohibiting the City Council of Johannesburg from paying their people according to their worth, because the Civil Service and the S.A. Railways could not compete. Nothing could exemplify more clearly the shortsighted, bigoted and narrow attitude of the Government and the S.A. Railways than that simple and undeniable fact, which is part of the miserable history of this Government’s administration.

There are certain remedies the Government can take; they are not doing it at the moment. One of these remedies is to pay proper attention to the pay demands of the staff. The time is past for the Minister to dish out a largesse from time to time, unscientifically and at random, as he does when he from time to time announces a, say, 10 per cent increase all round. Surely the time has come to follow the example being set by United Party administrations elsewhere in South Africa by appointing experts to evaluate the work that is being done by the various sections of the staff and to reconsider the pay structure in accordance with the findings of those expert job evaluators. If that is done, we would not have the anomalies which we have to-day; we would not have the grievances which we have to-day. Take for example, the grievance of our Airways’ technicians with the high skills demanded from them and the extreme care they are expected to exercise to maintain our aircraft on which the lives of many people depend. Yet they cannot be justly rewarded because their jobs are considered to be of the same value as those of people who do similar work but with less responsibility and less danger for the public likely to arise from negligence on their part. I believe that some sort of scientific job evaluation on the S.A. Railways is long overdue.

Furthermore, we on this side of the House believe that the Minister of Transport should do what the hon. Minister of finance and the hon. the Minister of the Interior did and accept the advice of the Opposition and change the nature of the pension schemes on the S.A. Railways. All over the world wherever you have a government organization like the Railways or a corporation which is humanly speaking established for all time, the old idea of a pension fund, a superannuation fund which has to be actuarially correct and in which R500 million is invested, like in the case of the S.A. Railways, at an uneconomic rate of interest in order to enable the Government to get at the expense of the worker money at a lower rate of interest, this old idea is disappearing. The tendency to-day is towards non-contributory pension schemes where the worker of to-day pays the pension of the workers of the immediate past, and that goes on for all time. The Government has accepted that for the Civil Service by reducing the contribution of the civil servant to their pension fund and undertaking to reduce it even further. But not so this hon. Minister. Has he no confidence in the future of the S.A. Railways? This could mean something. There is this huge sum of money, I believe more than R500 million, in the Superannuation Fund and the interest thereon can be used to subsidize pensions. There is good reason for retaining the superannuation committee on which the worker will be represented for the planning and conduct of the pension scheme. An enlightened administration will take urgent steps to change the nature of the superannuation scheme for the S.A. Railways and reduce the contributory nature of it with the object of eventually making it a non-contributory scheme.

Whilst on pensions, the time is already overdue for pensioners who went on pension before 1951 to be placed in some respects on the same basis as those people who went on pension since. This goes particularly for widows’ pensions. I think we have advanced far enough in South Africa to extend what was considered just and necessary in 1951 also to the fast declining number of pensioners and their widows who went on pension 19 years ago, before 1951.

Another matter to which the hon. the Minister should give attention, although it is not directly his responsibility, is the wastage of manpower on the S.A. Railways and Harbours as a result of the system of military training which is also imposed upon the Railway staff. The hon. the Minister, being an influential man, should take it up at Cabinet level. It is generally accepted to-day that the compulsory period of one year’s military training is not really necessary. Almost all the young men who return from this year’s training, particularly those in the infantry, will tell you stories of wasted time, of weeks of idleness, especially in South West Africa. Surely, Sir, since we have such a tremendous manpower shortage in South Africa which is hitting the Railways so hard, the time has come when the Minister should privately and, if necessary, publicly protest against this misuse of our youthful manpower in this country. More intensive and better training on the part of the Defence Force can mean a great relief to the S.A. Railways and to private enterprise.

I also want to say to the Minister that he can do much to relieve the staff shortage if he were to pay more attention to the housing problems of his employees. Sir, since the old days when Mr. Pirow introduced the housing schemes for railway employees, much has been done that we are all proud of to house our employees on the S.A. Railways and Harbours, but much remains to be done.

Everyone knows that.

If we accept the proposition which was accepted in the days when the United Party was in power that an employee should not be expected to pay more than 20 per cent of his salary or his income on rental or instalments on his house, then I think the Minister will agree that as prices are to-day there are hundreds and probably thousands of railwaymen in our cities who are paying considerably in excess of 20 per cent of their income on rent. Sir, in the days of a United Party Government we had a rent rebate scheme, as the hon. the Minister may remember. That scheme, like so many other good things that we had in the days of the United Party Government, is gone. Now I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that with land prices as they are to-day and with the cost of housing what it is to-day, with rentals what they are to-day, the time has come when he should seriously consider reintroducing a rent rebate system in order to ensure that no more than a just proportion of a man’s income is spent on keeping a roof over his head.

Sir, I think there is a whole series of legitimate grievances, causes for unhappiness, among the employees of the S.A. Railways and Harbours, to which the Minister should give due attention. Other speakers on this side of the House will devote more time to them. Although I am not going to enlarge upon it, I want to mention the system of discipline on the S.A. Railways and Harbours—the system of disciplinary superintendents. The hon. the Minister will hear more of that from other speakers on this side but I want him to consider carefully whether this is the best way and the most reasonable way to do justice to the workers of the S.A. Railways and Harbours and even to deal with cases of discipline. I want particularly to mention something which, considering the manner in which it is done, one cannot in the times in which we are living to-day reconcile with one’s conscience and that is what the railwaymen call the system of “bush” courts. I see the hon. member for South Coast looks at me in bewilderment; it is something which really bewilders one.

You read about that in the Sunday Times.

Yes, amongst other things. Let me explain to the hon. the member who is looking at me quizically what it means. It means that a man is arrested and charged with some offence connected with his employment on the S.A. Railways and Harbours. He is taken before an independent court of jus tice, say a magistrate. The prosecution produces all the evidence it can against this man and he produces his defence and then the magistrate weighs the evidence and comes to the conclusion that the case against this man has not been proved and he is acquitted. Then, Sir, the Administration come along and appoint a court consisting, I take it, of Railway officials who are not necessarily trained in law or in the assessment of evidence. The man is retried and is found guilty by this bush court of the S.A. Railways and Harbours and is punished and even sometimes dismissed. But the hon. the Minister reminded me of something which I have forgotten, and in the process grave injustices are done. I remember one case published in the Sunday Times, and I think that is what the Minister had in mind because he acted, where a railwayman was found not guilty by the courts but was found guilty by a bush court. He took further steps; he appealed and other litigation followed, and eventually he was exonerated by the S.A. Railways; he was found to be not guilty, but then they refused to repay to him the salary he had lost while he was suspended as the result of the action of the bush court. Can you believe it, Sir? And I say thank God for a newspaper like the Sunday Times which brought that injustice to the attention of the public and to the notice of the hon. the Minister, with the result that quite speedily he had his back pay refunded to him, as was his due. But how many cases may there not be which never come to the attention of the hon. the Minister, where this publicity does not take place and the Railways get away with it? On what possible grounds can one justify it to-day that a man who has been tried by the trusted courts of South Africa and has been found to be innocent, or where at least it has been found that there is so much doubt that he cannot be convicted, should be convicted by a lay court consisting of his employers and punished as if he were guilty? On what possible grounds can it be justified, and how long is it going to go on? When is the Minister going to realize that this cannot be allowed?

You have got it entirely wrong. There is no such court appointed by the Railways.

I said that there were no proper courts, run by legally trained people. The Railways do not employ magistrates and judges, so how can they appoint a court? The whole point is that it is not a court; it is done administratively. [Interjection.] Whatever the Minister’s reply is, this injustice exists. People who are found not guilty by the courts of South Africa are found guilty by the Railways and they are punished, and the Minister knows that. The Minister may argue about technical terminology, but he cannot escape the fact.

Sir, there are other things, too, that one could deal with in the light of the very inadequate statement we had from the hon. the Minister when he introduced the Part Appropriation Bill. I was surprised that the hon. the Minister did not refer to accidents. I was surprised that he did not take this opportunity, offered by this Part Appropriation, to express some sympathy or regret in connection with the children who died in the level-crossing accident at Meyerton not so long ago. I am not going to expand upon this, but I want to express the hope, which will be supported by other speakers on this side, that we shall expedite the good work which is being done in eliminating level-crossings and other safety measures on the S.A. Railways and on our roads, which affect the Minister in another capacity. One can only hope that more money and more energy and more determination will be shown by the Railways Administration and the other bodies concerned once and for all to eliminate this murderous antiquity which survives in South Africa, namely level-crossings which are unprotected or inadequately protected.

Finally I want to spend a little time with the hon. the Minister on the responsibility of the S.A. Railways for the care of animals entrusted to it. The Minister will remember that not so long ago the Meat Control Board abolished permits for the consignment of slaughter animals to the Johannesburg market. The result was that in the heat of summer these animals could not be slaughtered in time and many of them died in the most distressing circumstances of exposure to heat and thirst. I accept that the responsibility is that of the control board concerned, which without proper consideration or proper checking of the situation simply abolished the need for permits to consign animals to the market. But I want to know how it came about that there was no way of giving these animals water and sustaining them during the period of delay. Is it not the responsibility of the S.A. Railways to see that the animals it is conveying are watered and fed. if necessary, though it be at the expense of the consignor?

Blame the Johannesburg Municipality.

This is the most interesting and the most foolish interjection of which that hon. member has ever been guilty in this House, and I am glad that I have a few minutes left to deal with it. How in heaven’s name can the Johannesburg Municipality be blamed for an ill-considered action by the control board responsible for the issuing of permits? How can the Johannesburg Municipality be blamed for the fact that it has been trying to build a larger abattoir in Johannesburg for years now, but has been prevented from doing so because of the Government’s limitation on its capital expenditure? How can the Johannesburg Municipality be blamed when, as a matter of fact, its average slaughterings known to the Meat Control Board total about 5,000 animals per week? How can it be blamed, when as a result of making its employees work overtime, and by calling in employees from other services to help, it increased the rate of slaughtering by about 700 a week, in spite of the fact that, owing to the strain placed upon the abattoirs, it had two mechanical breakdowns which would have limited the number of slaughterings in any case? [Interjections.] No, Sir, one cannot blame the Johannesburg Municipality which is equipped to slaughter a certain number of animals per week when the Livestock and Meat Industries Control Board suddenly sends along more animals than the abattoir can cope with. [Interjection.] We are not debating the actions of the control board now. We are discussing the Railways. At a later occasion we shall be able to deal with this matter adequately under the Part Appropriation Bill. If we discuss this matter any further now, I am sure that you will call us to order any moment now, Sir. Anyway, I have made my point. I now come back to the South African Railways and Harbours. I want to know why it is that such a situation can arise. Surely it is elementary that, when a carrier accepts responsibility for conveying livestock, it should also ensure that that livestock will not suffer, and even suffer death, as a result of being deprived of something so elementarily necessary as drinking water. I want to ask the Minister another question. I am sure that there must be a simple answer, because otherwise it staggers the imagination. This much maligned Johannesburg Municipality. when it heard of the plight of these animals, that they were dying of thirst and heat, offered the help of its fire fighting department, the Johannesburg Fire Brigade, to take water to these animals and to spray the trucks to provide the animals with some moisture. That, I am told authoritatively, was refused. I cannot understand, Sir. I am sure that there must be some explanation and, by heaven, the Minister will need a very good explanation for the refusal of this offer. I notice that other people concerned with the conveyance of livestock have indicated that the trucks used for this purpose to-day are obsolete and old-fashioned. They say that there is a considerable bruising of animals, that it is difficult to feed and water them. Suggestions have been made to change the construction of these trucks by introducing removable lattices in the side so that troughs of water can be attached to them at stations. I do hope that, as a result of this unfortunate experience near Johannesburg, something will be done. This is not the first time that this has happened. I hope that the hon. the Minister will tell us that he has asked his Planning Department or his Technical Engineering Department, or whoever is concerned with the design of these trucks to go into the possibility of changing the construction of trucks used for the conveyance of animals.

There are a great many other matters we shall discuss with the hon. the Minister, but I hope that when he replies he will give his attention to this matter. As always, he can sneer at us and try to belittle us. He can insult us.

Why anticipate?

Why should I not anticipate him, Sir. There have been no signs this Session that the hon. the Minister has changed his nature or his ways. I want to say that he is welcome to do so, but I also want to ask him to deal specifically with the points we have raised, in the interests of the people concerned and in the interests of the Administration.

There are other points we shall discuss further, points in which I am very interested, such as the changing labour pattern of the South African Railways and Harbours, but may I say something now that may set the Minister off. I hope that the emergence of the reconstituted Nationalist Party is not going to frighten the Minister from doing something which is necessary for the South African Railways and Harbours, namely to accept the fact that his labour pattern will have to change, that he will have to employ more non-Whites in positions formerly occupied by Whites, and that he should give his white employees the opportunity of accepting more responsible and more remunerative work as a result of this changing labour pattern. I am nervous, Sir, of the phobia that the Government has developed in regard to the reconstituted Nationalist Party. In many ways they are really determining the action, the thinking and the reactions of the Government I do hope that in this important matter he will be able to resist the temptation to be weak and not to stand up to the criticism, and very often the unreasonable criticism …

Order! I do hope that the hon. member will not go too far.

I am sorry, Sir, I do not follow you. I want to obey you, Sir. What am I doing wrong?

The hon. member must come back to the Bill and to the motion of the hon. the Minister.

As you wish, Sir. I am a little bewildered, but I shall do my best. I want to say that I hope the hon. the Minister will, in spite of political changes in South Africa, and in spite of new dangers from the right, persist in following the wise policies and the good advice he has been accepting from the United Party, and that he will continue to accept them, to negotiate with the staff associations in order to bring about a more efficient pattern of labour use and labour deployment in the South African Railways and Harbours.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat undoubtedly has the ability to elevate the commonplace to the profoundest wisdom and, in addition, to flatter himself with great self-satisfaction and make himself believe that he is impressing people. It is in fact a form of presentation which is more suited to the stage of a theatre. One cannot omit to express ones regret at the fact that this hon. member who has a very good delivery and a fine oratorical talent does not confirm his facts before he comes to this House. I do not know whether one should lay this charge at his door or at the door of his party which does not give him enough time to consider, prepare and state his arguments properly. In pursuance of a few introductory remarks he made here I want to explain what I mean. The hon. member stated amongst other things that more officials were leaving the Railways each year than were being recruited. This is an unconsidered statement and devoid of all truth. This hon. member must be afforded an opportunity of considering these matters in all responsibility and he must get away from the tendency to blow up an innocent little balloon into a monster with big ears and great fangs and then stand behind it, shouting spitefully: “Busch court”, annoyance among officials, etc. Surely these are merely stories to frighten children with late at night. They are not appropriated to this House.

What do the latest figures in this connection indicate?

I shall mention many figures in this connection in a moment. Between 1959 and 1969 the white staff of the Railways has increased from 113,000 to 115,000. This shows a continually rising trend. How can this be possible if the number of those leaving the service is greater than the number of recruits? Surely that is childish nonsense.

What about the past two years?

In the past two years the staff of the Railways has increased from 113,000 to 115,000. This figure decreased in one year, i.e. between 1966 and 1967, but this was over a period often years. This is nonsense therefore which does not belong here. I am going further in regard to the statement which was made about the inaccurate Estimates. We replied in detail, I did so personally, to this last year and the year before and pointed out that according to scientific methods the Estimates of the Railways could be regarded as 100 per cent estimates because the deviation in the various departments was seldom more than 4 per cent. It usually varies between 3 and 4 per cent. People from outside who are acquainted with these practices confirm this. These are 100 per cent estimates, but the matter which was not stated is the envy and the jealousy that profits are being shown, globally speaking. This may simply not be mentioned, for it is not to the benefit of the Opposition. This may simply not happen, because it can bring benefits to the officials. This may simply not happen, because it can be progressively utilized for better services in the Railways. But that they do not say. These people are canvassing for votes from an intelligent staff of a very large Department. What do they say to these officials whom they are courting? “You cannot manage your own affairs. You hold ‘bush courts’. There is annoyance and injustice as regards your discipline and your administration.” This is stated emphatically in so many words. It appears on page 26 of this yellow pamphlet. I find it incomprehensible and tragic that an Opposition in this country and in this House can make itself guilty of such practices.

But I have an explanation for this. It is born out of panic. In his few introductory words the hon. member for Yeoville made it very clear in this House to the Minister that he accepted that there are certain matters for which they would still have to wait 40 to 60 years. The leadership of the Opposition Party in South Africa is giving judgment on itself. He is in a political prison for 40 to 60 years. He has no hope that he will attain the objectives for which he stands and which he advocates. What does that mean in practice? A life sentence! They who have drawn up this charge sheet, are already the accused and are suggesting to the electors’ court of South Africa: “You will have the right to sentence us to 40 to 60 years.” I only hope that after my plea the electorate, and particularly the railway officials will pass sentence of 60 years, but suspend the last 20 as a result of mitigating circumstances, lack of time, seriousness and thoroughness on the part of that party. When all is said and done it remains, in effect, lifelong imprisonment. Sir, just imagine an Opposition who utter idealistic slogans here like: “Free competition! Abolish the monopoly of the Railways!” And who cannot even compete! They do not want to compete. They accept that they have been eliminated, that they find themselves in political imprisonment and will remain there for the next 50 years.

We must not make blind and disconnected statements. Let us make a practical analysis of the few matters the hon. member for Yeoville put forward here, with particular reference to their notorious policy pamphlet—

What are the true facts? This is a rash statement, the implications of which are lost to sight. This is the shouting behind the balloon with ears like a rabbit. “Watch out for a bush court, sin, scandal and hardship!” Of a total of 115,000 white employees on the Railways there are only 12,000 who earn less than R100 per month. To this last group belong the labourers, trainees, apprentices, waitresses in restaurants, and so on. These are workers who participate in medical funds benefits, free holiday journeys, as well as other facilities, which, annually, are worth many rands to these workers if one were to express it in terms of money. To this must still be added a very important fact. The apprentices and the trainees comprise 6,813 of this total of 12,552. These are not people who work for the Railways, but are people who are receiving free training. In other words, more than half of these people. Expressed as a percentage it means that a mere 4 per cent of the total number of workers are earning less than R100 per month. In all fairness hon. members opposite must compare this with industries in Johannesburg. They will then find that in this connection the Railways are setting a very praiseworthy example. Only four out of every 100 of the Railways white employees are low wage earners. In certain industries this ratio is two to one in favour of non-Whites. Why then this illogical and groundless statement? What do hon. members on the opposite side mean by making a statement like that? Is it fair that this statement should be left unanswered and that these assertions should be bruited abroad unanswered? I think it indicates a total underestimation of, if not an insult to, the intelligence of railway employees. Such statements are without doubt cheap and in bad taste.

People who have during the past ten years received R147 million in salaries and wage concessions, as well as considerable improvements to pension benefits, will definitely not allow themselves to be misled or impressed by such sophistry. A staff that received more than R200 million in housing benefits, i.e. 51,000 houses under this Government, has already developed too much selfrespect and built up too much confidence to offer themselves at a United Party vote auction. These persons have already built up enough immunity not to fall for this welfare call from the Opposition. The hon. member was quite right yesterday. I admit that he was quite right in saying that there was no hope for them in their lifetime. I also want to mention a few reasons, seen from the point of view of the staff, in support of this. Mention was made here of meetings which were attended by more than 800 discontented officials. I know of meetings which were well attended by officials out of honest interest. They attend these meetings in their own interests and in order to make positive contributions. They do not do so in order to break down and spread poison, but in order to do something constructive. It is usually meetings such as these that can be easily handled by the head of this Department, the hon. the Minister, and that is the reason why one hears nothing more about it afterwards.

They say there is annoyance and unrest among the officials on the railway staff. They say the situation is disturbing. In the Volksblad of 6th March, 1958 the following report appeared on the meeting of the Pensioners As sociation in Cape Town last year (translation)—

It does not seem to me as if this man has a grievance. Nor, apparently, are his members aggrieved, because he speaks on their behalf. The report goes on to state—

This is not a staff which suffers from the disease of discontent. We can carry on mentioning examples in this way. The Cape Argus is the United Party’s own mouthpiece. It is not our mouthpiece. In this newspaper we read the following—

That is the reply he was waiting for. This reply was furnished by his own mouthpiece. He said the hon. the Minister should come and explain here what he had done to combat the shortage of staff and to compensate as far as his administration was concerned. Here the Argus gave him that answer a few years ago. To-day he comes along and asks the hon. the Minister for a reply to that. Can one imagine anything more pathetic before an election than that an opposition party should kick up a fuss in such a way and expose itself to ridicule in such a manner? For after all, this is old news. I can mention other examples, but I do not want to take up the time of the House with them.

There are, however, a few other matters to which I should like to draw the closer attention of railway officials, arising out of what we have heard here this afternoon and which we shall still hear. In the pamphlet mention is made of the Railways which will be managed by well-paid staff. They will be paid in accordance with the responsibility of their work after the work has been evaluated by experts. Please note: These people cannot even say what they want to say. Or they do not know what they want to say. They can decide for themselves which is true. I proceed. “The Railways managed by well-paid staff …” Who manages the Railways? Its chief manager or deputy managers? Or is it its labourers and ordinary employees? Whom are they courting here? The Management or the ordinary labourers? And who must undertake the valuation. Must a man like the hon. member for Yeoville undertake this valuation, a man who does not even know what he wants to say, or cannot even say what he wants to say? The hon. member for Hillbrow tried to explain here with a great fanfare and very seriously that they advocated that the labour market be thrown open to the Bantu and the non-Whites, for the financial benefit of all financial and economic institutions in South Africa. In the last sentence of his speech to-day the hon. member for Yeoville said that we should change the pattern of employment and the pattern of manpower in South Africa. Is that perhaps the reason why they are exerting such strong pressure on the dissatisfaction of the officialdom of the Railways and are talking about a crisis which has arisen in this country? Is that the reason why they want to have the colour bar abolished? Why are they not man enough to state it frankly and say: We have too little white labour. Let us throw open the doors. This was also put to you two years ago. But now the railway official is expected to fall for these sugar-coated pills, the arguments, illogical and contradictory. They expect them to fall for it. No, that will not happen. The railway official will see to that on 22nd April. To capitalize on, under the guidance of the Opposition party in South Africa, cheap labour at the expense of the Whites, this will definitely not be allowed to happen. It was also said that the disciplinary system on the Railways would have to be revised “in order to eliminate injustice and annoyance”. What does this mean by implication? The regional committee and the disciplinary appeal board on which officials of the Railways itself sit. take pleasure, according to the United Party, in causing their own colleagues annoyance and doing them an injustice. This injustce and this annoyance must be rectified, so it is said, by amending the disciplinary system. You who are sitting there now, officials of the Railways, you have so little conscience that you are causing your colleagues annoyance and doing them an injustice. You, chairman of the disciplinary appeal bord. and ex-magistrate, you are unethical towards your own profession. You are doing other people an injustice and you are causing them annoyance. That is what these people are alleging, and then display the naïvity of coming to ask these officials for their vote. Yes, this is being done on this day of our Lord, 10th February, 1970. First insult him and then ask him please to vote for you. They do not yet know whether this comprises the Railway Management or whether this comprises the labourers, but they are asking them please to vote for them. One can be very dejected and perplexed in this life, but you can at least try to be decent. You will then still be able to approach a situation in a dignified manner.

It is also being said here that no worker on the Railways will be punished for alleged offences once an independent court of law had found him not guilty. And what does that mean? I say. there is water! A train driver is charged with manslaughter in an ordinary court and is found not guilty on some or other technical point. That often happens. In the meantime it has been established that the speed that train driver was maintaining was too great or that he did not obey his signals. The result was that lives were lost and government property damaged. But, no, he is not guilty. He may not be tried again. The impression is being created here that he is being tried again. He is not being tried again on the same charge. He is being tried on the grounds of his own disciplinary regulations which are a condition of service of that official. What do you think of the intelligence of the railway official, esteemed valuator of Yeoville? What do the hon. members think of this hon. member if he makes such assertions and such rash statements? We must make an appeal to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to give this hon. member more time to do his homework. This was nothing more than a disciplinary step in terms of the Railway’s own domestic arrangement, as consolidated and stated in the disciplinary regulations of the Railways. Must these now be abolished? Do the hon. members know what this valuator is doing and saying? He is buying votes at the expense of lives and the safety of government property. He says that they will abolish this system. They are prepared to make these sacrifices as long as they can get the votes of these workers. Really, this exceeds all boundaries of dignity and political decency.

He also said that an immediate inquiry would be instituted into the possibility of converting the Railways pension system to a noncontributory pension scheme. We have heard this before. It is a carrot as old and shrivelled as the United Party itself. I am calling upon the evidence of the hon. member for Kensington on this subject. This radish is just as old and as shrivelled as the United Party itself. In addition it is not even a radish, but a totally imaginary fiction. Hon. members can imagine for themselves what would happen if such a scheme were to be introduced for 100,000 or 200,0 officials. This could easily be done in the private sector, for with a small increase in the profit margin or a small increase in the turnover it would easily be possible to compensate for such an additional expenditure. However. to apply it to 100,000 or even 200,000 officials whose personal contributions to the pension fund total R19 million, is merely a fiction. It forms no part of the practical world. It belongs only with those who want to convert this State into a welfare organization and who want to injure the sense of honour of the Railway officials. Only in such a person can such a daydream be found. Where must that money come from? Must it come from the Treasury? Must it be recovered from increased tariffs or must it be recovered from the private sector? Who must pay for it? We heard a moment ago that it was unfair and unreasonable that the little group in Johannesburg should subsidize the rest of the country. They are supposedly paying such high income tax, and yet they must pay a lower price for petrol. That could only be United Party logic. The farmer in Lichtenburg and the bank clerk in Ladybrand must, I suppose, subsidize that lot there in Johannesburg, for, after all, it makes no difference. He may as well pay a little more because he received his petrol by rail.

You are really talking absolute nonsense now.

At least I am glad I have progressed so far as to make this hon. member realize that he was talking nonsense. What would the reaction of the officials who have for many years already been contributing to such a pension scheme be if they suddenly had to share equally with new recruits who had not contributed a cent to their pension scheme? Would this not cause annoyance among the railway officials? Would it not be an injustice? Take the officials who play a part in the administration of this pension scheme of theirs on which they are represented; if such a voluntary scheme were to be introduced, their presence there would become unnecessary …

No.

… and they would no longer have any control over their own pension scheme.

No.

I want to say to the hon. member for Yeoville that if disaster should ever strike us and they should once again take over the government of his country and we should once again find ourselves in a position similar to the one we were in in 1948, when the Treasury was so bankrupt that the Railways could not perform its normal function, and this pension fund should peter out after 30 or 40 years, what chaos and what a fiasco would that not cause? Do you want to link the future of the railway official to this? Sir. it is not necessary for me to reply on his behalf.

We also heard here about the monopolistic policy of the Administration which should be abolished. What is meant by this? Sir, the private conveyancer must convey high tariff goods at the expense of the railway user, the inevitable result being increased tariffs, and in the meantime I hear it at the top of their voices, from among their ranks: “We object to the transportation of motor cars per road on these multidecker trucks at railway tariffs; they ought to do it at a cheaper rate.” Do you see the logic; do you see how these people contradict themselves? Sir, did the hon. member really think before he spoke? [Time expired.]

We have just listened to the hon. member for Yeoville who put up a tremendous argument here in order to canvas the votes of railwaymen and railway officials, but what I find strange is that the United Party cannot retain a single seat in the constituencies where there are many railwaymen.

What about Port Natal?

That is not true.

I am now speaking about the Cape, the Transvaal and the Free State. They could not retain a single seat there.

And Natal as well.

Yes, in Natal as well.

Umhlatuzana is one example.

Sir, these are now the people who come along here and try to canvas the railwayman’s vote, but the railwayman has long ago learned not to have confidence in what the United Party says. He cannot believe the United Party; he cannot trust the United Party. The railwayman is also afraid of something else, i.e. that if the United Party were to come into power he would not be so certain of his job. He is afraid that cheaper labour will perhaps be used to take over his work. Sir, we have the same position in respect of the farmers, about whose interests we had a dreadful lot of agitation here from that side of the House. Not one of the Cape Midland wool farmers on that side represents a rural constituency, not a single one.

And your Minister is now running away from the farmers.

They represent constituencies such as East London (City), Port Elizabeth, King William’s Town, etc.

Newton Park.

And those are the people who are making such pleas here for the farmers. If the United Party is right, why do the farmers not have confidence in them? If they are right, surely the farmers would vote for them. But the United Party’s problem is that their reputation is dogging their footsteps. If you have once deceived you can do so again. Sir, I am glad that the hon. member for Yeoville is present. He said here that the hon. the Minister had neglected to give particulars about the railway personnel. Was he then not listening yesterday when the hon. the Minister submitted his Part Appropriation?

Yes, I was.

I wonder if he knows how the wages and remuneration of railway personnel have been increased in recent years, since 1948? I do not know whether he knows that their wages were increased by more than 100 per cent. Why does he not tell the railwayman that his wages have been increased by more than 100 per cent since the National Party came into power? Why does he not tell the railwayman that his housing position has improved by more than 100 per cent since the National Party came into power? What was the housing position of railwaymen in 1948? As someone who has represented a railway constituency for almost 20 years, I can tell you that the majority of those houses—which were zinc houses—were demolished and replaced by the Minister. And now the hon. member does not want the railwaymen to pay rent for those new houses.

Are you satisfied that all the railway people who ought to have houses have received them?

I am quite satisfied that the housing scheme is in good hands.

It is much better than it was in the days of the United Party.

What is more, we also looked after the unmarried railwaymen very well. To-day he does not have to live in a hotel or in a boarding house. In ail the large centres we have built hostels for the young people, and those hostels are under the control of matrons and house-masters; I do not know whether the hon. member knows about that. These young people are kept under control, just as in any large school. I am altogether satisfied with the housing position. I am frequently in Noupoort, in Burgersdorp and in De Aar where I see how the people are housed. Virtually a new town has developed in that portion of De Aar where zinc houses once stood with rotten, grey veranda pillars.

In the miserable United Party days.

In addition the hon. member says that the Railways are a monopoly. Where does he get that from? [Laughter.] The hon. member is laughing because he is embarrassed. Who told him that the Railways are a monopoly? It is a business institution like any other. The hon. member also says that the hon. the Minister does not know how to budget. I should like to see the Budget which the hon. member for Yeoville would submit.

You will see it one of these days.

It is a very difficult matter to draw up a Railway Estimate which is even approximately correct. Within two or three months circumstances within the country can change to such an extent that one has a shortage or a surplus of millions. It can happen very easily.

I said so myself.

Why then does the hon. member make the accusation against the hon. the Minister?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member devoted a large portion of his speech to overtime. I now want to ask him a reasonable question. I want him to get up and propose that overtime be done away with altogether.

Your Minister did away with Sunday time and he could not persevere with it.

I am asking the hon. member to propose that we do away with overtime.

Overtime is unnecessary if there are decent wages.

We shall come to the question of wages in a moment.

Is the hon. member for Durban (Point) in favour of increased tariffs?

The hon. member elaborated further about the large number of resignations from the Railways. I know that resignations are taking place in the Railways, but I receive hundreds of letters from people who have resigned and who subsequently write to me, saying: “Sir, I have now discovered that I made a mistake. Could you not please try to get my work back for me? Please write to the General Manager or to the Minister or to the System Manager. I am just a railwayman, nothing more.”

In addition the hon. member for Yeoville referred to what happened at the Johannesburg Abattoir. Sir, we all regret very much what happened there. We are very sorry for the animals that died there of hunger and thirst; we are very sorry because it is cruel. But who is responsible? Is this House the right place to raise the matter in to-day? At Colesberg, Noupoort or De Aar I load my cattle or sheep onto the trucks of the S.A. Railways and I make out my consignment note to Newtown, Johannesburg, and it is the Railways’ responsibility to get the consignment to Newtown. In the meantime, as the hon. member said to-day, there are places for off-loading the animals in order to give them fodder and water. I take it they drink water and I also take it they do not eat fodder, because an animal that comes from the veld will not eat fodder. You cannot blame the Railways for that; they give the fodder which they have at their disposal. I think it is very wrong to blame the Railways for the death of those animals.

I did not blame the Railways.

Why then did you mention it in this debate? I made the claim here that it was the duty of the Municipality. It is their duty to provide for offloading and slaughtering facilities.

They did provide for that, but if there are too many animals arriving there are simply too many, and why are there too many?

There are insufficient slaughtering facilities. Sir, do you know that there is a tremendous shortage of slaughterers at the Johannesburg Abattoir? I am not talking about butchers but about slaughterers. Do you know that the Municipality does not want non-Whites to work there as slaughterers? Have you ever been to Newtown?

Yes, many times.

And the day the white slaughterer does not turn up there are no people to do the work.

Must they be replaced by Natives? Is that your policy?

That would make no difference to me, and you may go and proclaim that from any platform. Who slaughters your sheep in your backyard? The sheep or cattle of all of us on this side of the House are slaughtered by a Bantu or a Coloured, and it makes no difference to me.

Who drives your tractor?

A Bantu.

Why then may he not drive our buses in Johannesburg?

That is once more a municipal matter, but I am coming to it now. Do you know how bad the slaughtering facilities there are? It is causing a meat shortage in Johannesburg, in spite of the fact that there are thousands of animals waiting that cannot be off-loaded, firstly because they cannot be slaughtered. Do you know what happens then? Butchers in Port Elizabeth then buy up those slaughtered sheep on the market, transport them to Johannesburg in refrigerator trucks and sell them at 5 or 6 cents profit per pound. Johannesburg’s Municipality is responsible for all these problems because it is a United Party municipality and they do not want to improve matters.

But you refuse to let them spend the money.

The South African Railways has a very big task to fulfil. In the past year, 1968-’69, such high demands were made on the Railways in the transportation of livestock to better grazing areas and in the transportation of fodder to drought-stricken areas, etc. You may now ask any practising farmer sitting here to-day if he ever ordered a truck for the transportation of his livestock or fodder and did not get one. When loading sheep one ’phones one’s stationmaster and within 24 hours one has a truck, and I say that this is an achievement for the S.A. Railways. All its required duties are fulfilled in the shortest possible time. But one needs planning for that, and planning is what that side of the House does not have. The Minister saw how the country was developing. He saw from experience what could happen as a result of droughts and floods, and he planned ahead. He saw how our country’s economy is growing stronger and stronger, and he planned ahead, because the Railways must play a tremendously large role. He ensured that enough locomotives were ordered. This costs a great deal of money. There are 250 electric locomotives, 190 diesel locomotives and almost 600 passenger coaches. There are 196 suburban electric coaches and almost 11,000 goods trucks.

Then I also come to the road transport done by the Railways. One has many places that are not near a railway station. Take the road transport services, for example, between Norvalspont and Venterstad. There is regular road transport and there are never any complaints. To-day the people in Venterstad do not mind not having a train service. An hour or an hour and a quarter after the train has stopped at Norvalspont, their goods are at Venterstad. There are no problems involved.

Then the hon. member spoke about the housing of the officials. I have already said a few words about that and I want to repeat that at the time the United Party was in power the people lived in zinc shanties, but show me a zinc shanty to-day at large railway centres. Because one paid £3 for a zinc shanty at that time, one cannot expect to pay the same amount to-day for a decent house. Since the cost of living increased adjustments have been made for the railwaymen, and I shall read out a letter here to you in a moment. In those four years between 1963 and 1967 almost 14,000 houses were granted under the three schemes, the home ownership scheme, the ownership assistance scheme and the departmental housing scheme.

You did not listen to what I was saying.

You said that the housing of railwaymen was being neglected and that he should only pay a certain percentage of his salary in rent, but who does not pay this? [Interjections.] The amount spent on housing exceeds R52 million. Now I ask you whether we, who are dealing with railwaymen every day, receive complaints about housing? I want to give the assurance that I do not receive a single one.

How often are you in Johannesburg?

You are speaking about things you know nothing about, while I am speaking about things I do, in fact, know something about. That is the difference.

How many railway-men live in Yeoville?

Quite a few, and they are the best.

We continue. For 1969 alone 1,200 loans were granted and 450 departmental houses were built.

I now come to the staff. I have already said that there is a shortage. We all acknowledge this, but does the service as a whole suffer from this? Does the public suffer for it? I say no. With savings and with improved techniques the work is being done without the public having to suffer for it. The private sector took up many of the people, and the Railways cannot always compete with the private sector. A good man perhaps has his price. If they offer him a price he will perhaps leave the Railways. However, there are many of them who return after a while.

I have already dealt with the question of overtime. I now come to wages and salaries. I do not want to claim to-day that the South African railwayman is paid enough, but I do, in fact, say that now, under this Minister, he is very much better off than he was in the days when the old United Party was in power. Sir, I saw them then. To-day, when one attends any large railway function one notices that most of the people there possess motor cars. Earlier they had to walk wherever they wanted to go. Or they rode an ordinary bicycle. Just look at how many motor cars there are at any of our large depots. Just go to their houses and look at how these are furnished. They need not be in the least ashamed of inviting Mr. Schoeman into their homes. Those homes are well furnished. Under this Minister those people reached a standard of living which they would never have reached under the United Party.

I have already mentioned this point, but I want to repeat it. Since 1948 wages have increased by more than 100 per cent. It is an achievement that in the past 22 years the Government has succeeded in increasing those wages by more than 100 per cent. Hon. members who are still to get up will say: “Yes, but what is money worth?” but I say again that they should go and look at those houses. Go and look at those people’s radiograms, their refrigerators, etc., which they could never afford before. For the following figures I am now including all railway personnel. In 1961 the average wage was R1,674 per year. In 1963 it was R1,899, in 1965 it was R2,180, in 1967 it was R2,517 and in 1968 it was R2,586. What did the Minister do in 1968? He had a surplus of R44 million. He did not go and play with that. He said: I am going to give this to my people. You take that R44 million for yourselves. What did he do at the end of last year? Every man received his vacation bonus. R12 million was paid out for that purpose. Mr. Schoeman does not need the money. He is thrifty, but if the money is there he gives it to his people.

I now want to mention a round figure. Since 1948 the wage improvements have totalled more than R200 million. Let us compare the wages with those paid under the United Party. The hon. member for Randburg has already dealt with the question of pensions, and I shall not go into it any further. I have already said that the cost of living has indeed increased, but adjustments were made from time to time.

In spite of the staff shortage goods traffic has recently increased by more than 125 per cent. Revenue goods have increased by almost 250 per cent. The number of passengers have increased by 102 per cent and goods handled at our various harbours by 271 per cent. Planning was needed for that. One cannot handle so many goods if one has not planned for it in advance. The Minister saw what was going to happen and made the necessary preparations. That is why large amounts were spent for this. For example, from 1948 to 1969, R2.477 million was spent. If he had not done so we would have had congestion. Fortunately, with a look into the future the Minister saw what was going to happen in the country and subsequently made provision for it. The same applies to electrification and dieselization. In 1948 our tractive power was 4,500,000 tons. What is it to-day? Today it is 33,800,000 tons. So much has it improved. I have a short letter here in front of me. I do not readily quote letters in the House like a certain hon. member on the other side loves to do. This letter is from a Mrs. Wakefield. She lives in Durban and the hon. member for Durban (Point) who is sitting there may as well listen carefully to this now. The letter reads as follows—

This is a sensible woman.

I have a husband who is ticket inspector, a married son who must write his engine driver’s exam in a few years time, and an other son who is a fitter. Well, they all work long, hard hours, but their wages are good. Before my sons began working my husband’s salary kept us well provided for. All four children were then still at school as well. We lived well, we have good furniture and in the meantime we have also bought a new motor car. ft is just so hot in Durban that we would like to see our poor husbands getting lighter uniforms.

That is a request to the Minister, It is a matter which the hon. the Minister could perhaps consider at a later stage. I want to conclude with a special word of thanks to-day to the hon. the Minister of Transport, to the General Manager and his staff and to all Railway officials throughout the country for the fine service they give to the Republic of South Africa. They deserve the thanks which, after to-day, will stand recorded here in Hansard.

Mr. Speaker, being the good Whip that he is, the hon. member for Colesberg tried to come to the rescue of the hon. the Minister. But I think that in doing so he has not really made the task of the Minister any easier because all he has done is to put across a number of percentages and other figures which really mean very little when they are tossed across the floor of the House. My colleague the hon. member for Yeoville put a number of pertinent questions to the hon. the Minister and he made some constructive suggestions. The hon. member for Colesberg, quite rightly I suppose, did not attempt to reply to those suggestions and we shall wait with interest to hear what the hon. the Minister has to say.

I rise this afternoon to deal with one particular matter to which the hon. member for Yeoville made brief reference, namely the question of level crossings. The recent tragedy in the Transvaal has of course shocked all of us and it has I hope again quickened the conscience of the whole country, I think that all of us should hang our heads in shame at the thought that such accidents can still happen, I can look back to 40 years ago when the question of level crossings was debated in this House. A commission reported in 1927 on the question of level crossings, It made certain recommendations and stressed the urgency of the matter even in those days. It also made certain recommendations as to who should bear the cost involved. Three years later, in 1930, a private member’s motion was introduced by a Mr. Roper, the then member for Wynberg, who afterwards became a distinguished judge, calling on the Government to implement that commission’s report. The motion was seconded by the then member for South Peninsula. Modesty forbids me to mention his name, but he made quite a good speech. There was general agreement on both sides of the House about the urgency of the matter. But there was disagreement between the Railway Administration and certain authorities as to who was going to pay for it. I remember we argued that the question of who was going to bear the cost was surely a secondary matter, because in any case it would be the taxpayer who would pay, either through the Central Government, the Provincial Administration or the local government. But that was a stumbling block in those days to reach an agreement and get the thing moving. However, a permanent committee was appointed to deal with the question of recommending and advising how these level crossings could best be protected. Much, of course, has been done since then. But, Sir, 40 years is a long time. There still does not seem to be any agreement as to how many crossings should be attended to. At any rate, there are between 3,000 and 4,0 level crossings still in the country. Very many of them are either unprotected or inadequately protected. These distressing accidents—they are worse than distressing—continue to occur with the most horrid regularity. I understand they occur at the rate of very near to three a month. I shall later quote the exact figure which I was given. Figures have been published by various authorities recently. I do not want to go into too many of them, but I think one must mention some just to illustrate the urgency of the matter and to have it on record. Since 1927-’28, when that committee was first established, some 752 crossings have been eliminated and 276 protected. The hon. the Minister passed fresh legislation in 1960. A new committee was formed whose function it was to administer the fund which was established then for the elimination of crossings. This committee, as I understand, has up to date listed about 380 out of these 3,0 to 4,000 existing crossings to be eliminated. They have dealt with 127 of them in the last 10 years. They have 31 of them in hand at the moment. They still have 230 on their list to be dealt with. I leave it to you, Mr. Speaker, to do a little mental arithmetic and see how many are still left for this committee to tackle before the matter can really be considered adequately dealt with. In the last 10 years, according to the Automobile Association, there have been 350 accidents on level crossings. That is very nearly three a month. In the eight years from 1960 to 1968, 664 people were killed and over 1,000 injured. There does seem to be a serious gap in the machinery. The committee that was appointed in 1927 had the specific task of making recommendations for protecting level crossings that could not be eliminated. I think it is here where the gap occurred. Elimination is one thing that is not proceeding as fast as we would like to see it and probably not as fast as the hon. the Minister would like to see it. Another aspect is the protection of level crossings, which I think is more urgent than the elimination of level crossings, because there are far more of them. It will still be many years before even the more important level crossings will be eliminated. According to the Automobile Association only some 250 level crossings have been made safer by the erection of warning devices during the last 40 years. They say that in 1967-’68 20 level crossings were eliminated, but in that year only five level crossings were protected by means of flashing lights. This is where I think the gap comes in. The 1927 committee was empowered to advise on the best methods of protection for level crossings which could not be eliminated, but the 1960 committee—if I understand correctly—was established solely to handle the fund which was then created to finance the approved elimination of level crossings. The responsibility for dealing with the protection of level crossings was taken away from it and, as far as I know, it has not been assigned to any other particular body. Whilst the Administration is naturally concerned with the matter, it would appear that there is no particular body or committee charged with the urgent matter of creating protection for these level crossings. As I have said, 40 years is quite a long time. This I know to my cost. The Nationalist Government has been in power for well over half of that time and the hon. the Minister has been in charge of his portfolio for some 15 years. It is quite clear that the Nationalist Government and the hon. the Minister must accept a large measure of responsibility for the position as it exists to-day. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister, just as I appealed to a previous hon. Minister of Railways, the late Mr. Charlie Malan, 40 years ago. to make an all-out effort to tackle this problem effectively, first of all by speeding up the elimination of level crossings. I understand that the money that has been voted and is being voted is not all being spent, so it is therefore not a question of finance these days. Secondly, machinery should be created, even further machinery if necessary, to make the fullest and speediest use of the many protective devices which are in use here in this country and in other countries as well. I do not want to take up the time of the House by listing these devices, because I have no doubt that they are even better known to the hon. the Minister than to myself. A great deal can be done, if this matter is tackled energetically, to protect level crossings apart from eliminating them. About this I also do not have the slightest doubt.

The whole country has been shocked by this recent dreadful accident in the Transvaal. which has brought to a head this continuing stream of accidents at level crossings. One does not for a moment suggest that the officials of the Railways are solely responsible for these accidents. There is no doubt that many of them are due to the carelessness of the road-users themselves. However, that does not alter the fact that quite literally hundreds of people will lose their lives during the next 10 years. Many hundreds more will be seriously and possibly fatally injured on these level crossings. It is our duty to see, as far as possible, that that menace is removed. We know that the hon. the Minister of Transport would have all the members of this House supporting him and I am sure the support of the whole country, if only he would undertake and give the lead in a campaign to eliminate as far as humanly possible these crossings and to eliminate this continuing threat to the safety and the lives of what is a steadily increasing section of our people. Year after year the number of people using the roads is increasing. The number of cars, the number of lorries, the amount of heavy traffic is increasing. It is becoming more and more important, I think, that steps should be taken to protect these crossings as quickly as possible, and in the most efficient way possible. I have no doubt that the hon. the Minister could get all the money he wants to carry out such a campaign.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Constantia devoted his entire speech to the question of the accident which took place near Vereeniging. The hon. member for Yeoville also devoted a great deal of time to that matter. To say the least, it would not be fitting for the United Party to try to make political capital out of this tragic accident.

Oh, no.

But why then did the hon. member for Constantia’s whole speech deal with this? We are not unfeeling towards these people. The hon. member for Yeoville blamed the hon. the Minister for not sympathizing with those people in his speech. But surely the hon. the Minister did so on the day the accident took place. Why is he now being blamed for that? I just want to put a question to those hon. members. We are aware of this task that awaits us. And we are busy eliminating these railway crossings. However, the United Party was chiefly responsible for their creation. To-day, under this hon. Minister no more roads are being built without bridges being constructed at railway crossings. Under this party such things do not exist. We did not create these problems. They are problems we inherited chiefly from the United Party. Now I want to ask those hon. members what they did, during all the years of their administration, to solve this problem? The hon. member for Constantia was himself Minister of Railways. Let him tell us to-day what was done in his day. He did not spend a cent to eliminate one single railway crossing. Now that hon. member has the audacity to deliver a sermon to the present hon. Minister of Transport. There sits the hon. member for Constantia: he is old and decrepid and has now sung his swan-song. As I have said, that hon. member was himself Minister of Railwavs, but can he get up in this House now and mention one single instance, during his term of Office, where a railway crossing was eliminated. It is surely not fitting for them to point a finger at us now. Surely it is their problem that we are saddled with now. We spend R3 million each year on the systematic solution of this problem. However, I want to leave the matter there. The hon. the Deputy Minister will, in fact, give a full reply to this matter which is now obviously being exploited against the National Party.

For how long was the hon. member for Constantia Minister of Railways?

Three months. He broke all records.

Yes, that is why I can say it.

Of course, as was clearly indicated during this debate, the United Party will make every possible effort to impress the railway personnel, because there is an election in the offing. The Railways have a large staff. There are about 115,000 Whites in the service of the Railways with a right to vote. Therefore I do not blame hon. members on that side of the House for putting their best foot forward now in order to win the favour of the railway officials and in order to try and make a good impression on them. But things have now gone a little awry for the hon. members of the Opposition. This is not the first Railway debate being conducted here. There was also one last year. Last year the United Party was blissfully under the impression that the general election would take place in 1971. Then hon. members’ strategy in respect of their Railway debates caused them to be caught very much on the wrong foot now. They did not think the election was just around the corner. Last year, under the pretext of a manpower shortage, they made a deliberate attempt to accuse the Minister of neglecting to employ non-Whites to replace Whites on the Railways. The lead was taken by the hon. member for Salt River who is now sitting and looking at me like a Father Christmas. Politically speaking that hon. member has never been further than the Salt River bridge. Last year the United Party made an attack here on the Minister under the pretext of a tremendous manpower shortage, the whole purpose of which was to get it across to the Minister and to persuade him to employ non-Whites in positions which were previously occupied by Whites. [Interjections.] Yes, now they will whine, but they think we have short memories. They cannot expect the railway people to have forgotten it already at this stage. The railwayman surely knows that the United Party has never shown any respect for that traditional principle which is maintained in the Railways, i.e. that certain work is done only by Whites. They have never respected that principle and time and again they have intimated as much. The railwayman knows that that old Jagger disposition is still prevalent in the United Party. It remains true to itself. It is an integration party. With this record, how do hon. members on that side expect to be able to appeal to the railwayman for his vote? I also want to tell the hon. members on the opposite side of the House why their efforts are still going to fail. The railway people remember that a few years ago the Opposition wanted to raid the Railway Rates Fund. When salary increases were announced to the staff and tariffs had to be increased with a view to defraying these, those hon. members said that we should rather make use of and deplete the railwayman’s guarantee fund. They said that that money should be taken to make good the losses and that the salaries should be defrayed from there. This would be done to the benefit of commerce and industry. The railway people will not easily forget this.

There are also other things they will remember. The railwayman will not forget that, in the sixties, the Opposition was behind the agitation for the closing down of railway workshops and their transfer to the private sector. During those years the Opposition consistently took part in agitation to persuade the Minister to close down the Railway Workshops and to transfer them to the private sector. The argument was that the Railways or the State should not compete with the private sector. If the Minister had accepted and implemented the recommendations of the Van Zyl Commission what would have happened to the hundreds and thousands of artisans on the Railways who would have been without work? These things will not be forgotten so easily by the railwaymen. That was what the hon. member for Salt River wanted. What would have happened? He would have been without a constituency. Neither will the railwaymen forget how hon. members opposite were continually undermining the trade unions. They will not forget how the hon. member for Durban (Point) made a blatant attack on the trade unions here last year when he accused them of disregarding the complaints of their members. He accused the trade unions of neglecting to convey the complaints of members to the management and the Administration.

Quote my words. Do not distort them.

It is easy for the hon. member to say that I am distorting his words, but he knows what he said. The hon. member came here and made an attack on the trade unions with the intention of undermining their authority. Why? Because there are responsible leaders in the trade unions who do not want to play ball politically with the hon. member for Durban (Point). The hon. member for Durban (Point) must not speak now. The hon. member for Durban (Point), who is now courting railway votes to such an extent, is a member who insults the railwaymen at every opportunity. He referred in a humiliating way to the railwayman with his “railway mentality”. That is now the hon. member who believes he can obtain the railwayman’s vote. I believe in the railwayman’s sound judgment and I believe that all this courting by the United Party in this debate will bear no fruit. There are other reasons why the railway personnel will not let themselves be enticed by the stories and the sloppy promises which are now being made from the opposite side of the House. With their criticism through the years the hon. members have systematically been trying to discredit the major employer in this country, i.e. the Railways. Where would the railwayman have ended up if his employer had landed in difficulties? For example, in season and out of season they objected to the unlawful protection the Railways enjoyed under the Motor Carrier Transportation Act of 1930. At every opportunity they pleaded for the repeal of that Act. They wanted the protection to be taken away. They pleaded for greater freedom to use the private sector for their transportation. They said that fewer, or even no, restrictions should be placed on new forms of transportation, even though this would also mean that large amounts of capital, which were put into the Railways, would have to be written off. This was the attitude of those hon. members. They said that the Railways should go in for the transportation of mass freight, such as ore and coal. Coal already constitutes 30 per cent and ore 10 per cent of the Railways’ goods freight. They pleaded that the Railways should renounce its small amount of high rate traffic to the private cartage contractor. How did they then want to balance the Railways’ books? The hon. member for Yeoville said that he did not understand why the Railways’ books could not balance. But if the management of the Railways were to be left to him, the Railways’ books would never ever balance, because only 17 per cent of the freight transported by the Railways is high rate transportation, and this provides more than 50 per cent of the Railways’ revenue. The hon. member is prepared to give a large portion of this 17 per cent, the high rate traffic, to the road transport contractors. Once he has separated the Railways from the Airways and Harbours, how does he see his way clear to balancing the Railways’ books, as is expected under the South Africa Act? Sir, over the years hon. members opposite have consistently tried to discredit the Railways by their criticism. They also did so in other ways and they are still doing so today. According to this United Party booklet which they published, from which the hon. member for Yeoville read the text of his sermon to-day, it is United Party policy—and this was also pleaded for here repeatedly through the years—to separate the Railways, the Airways and Harbours, i.e. a breakdown of the Railways, of the National Transport Service. If this happens, how must the Railways carry out its national task. In this memorandum of the Minister various reasons are mentioned why this cannot happen, why it would not be in the interests of the country to do so. The hon. member for Yeoville may read this memorandum himself if he has the time. I just want to point out that the chairman of the commission said that this was contrary to international trends. It is contrary to general business practice. The tendency is to bring large economic forces together to obtain the maximum benefit. But the hon. member wants to retrogress; he wants to go against the stream. He wants to fragment the Railways; that is his purpose and that is why he is doing it, and then he expects these people, who earn their bread and butter from this institution, to vote for him on 22nd April.

Sir. the hon. member for Yeovillle is pleading for the separation of the Airways, the Harbours and Pipelines from the Railways and for the independence of their accounts. I want to point out to him that according to the White Paper tabled here last year the Railways suffered a working loss of R15.7 million in the year 1965-’66. The following year, 1966-’67. it suffered a loss of R17.8 million. In those two years the end result was that the Railways showed a loss of R13.3 million and a surplus on its joint services of R1.5 million, respectively, because every year about R11 million to R12 million is spent on the appropriation account fund, which must still also come from the profits of the Railways. According to the accounts, what have the trends in recent years been? Last year there was a shortage of about R30 million on the Railway Account. It is expected that it will be about R40 million in the present financial year. Where does the hon. member want to get the money to supplement these shortages if he does not do so from the other services? How does he want the Railways’ books to balance? He has a free and easy philosophy He believes that one simply has to go to the Exchequer and say that the Government must pay from the taxpayer’s pocket. Sir, it is a very easy philosophy to shift the transportation burdens onto the ordinary taxpayer and to benefit the merchant, the industrialist and the mining magnate. That is the hon. member’s objective, but we cannot be so irresponsible. Sir, the railwaymen will reject the United Party because of the political opportunism which has characterized their criticism of the Railway Estimate over the years.

In the short introduction to his speech here yesterday the hon. member for Yeoville said that the National Party Government had ignored the blueprints which lay ready and waiting in 1948, had filed them away and had failed to implement them. It is a simple matter for the hon. member to speak like that now. He surely knows what the position was. No matter how many blueprints there were, the Railways did not have the money to implement the plans: there were no funds available. Sir. you know that the financial position of the Railways was very strongly and very seriously criticized by the Controller and Auditor-General during the United Party administration. You know that the financial position of the Railways was far from being sound. How then were they to implement those blueprints which they had? It is all very well to have blueprints in a drawer, but what good are those plans if one does not have money with which to implement them? In the meantime they wasted money. For large sums of money they bought fantastic paintings of English hunting scenes, but on the other hand the rolling stock looked like poultry stands and rattle traps. That is how they handled the Railways, and then they expect us to do the same. They may have had the plans, but they did not have the money to implement them. They also had other things that they did not implement; they had apartheid notice boards made which lay here in Salt River, but they did not have the courage of their convictions to use them. What is the use of having the things and hiding them in one’s drawer? Apart from that, supposing that, when the National Party Government came into power in 1948. it could have obtained the money from somewhere; it surely goes without saying …

There was £80 million in England which it could have withdrawn.

Sir. I am speaking about the Railways. I think those hon. members had more time for England than for the Railways. Even if, in 1948. the National Administration could all of a sudden have injected a fantastic amount of money into the Railways, it would have taken years to extend the service so as to keep pace with the development of the country. That is why the Railways landed itself in a crisis in 1954, on the one hand because such tremendous economic development had taken place in the country under the National Party Government. and on the other hand because the Railways was so grossly neglected during the war and post-war years as a result of the mismanagement of the United Party Government.

Sir. when I arrived here as a newcomer in 1958-’59, the Railways being engaged in a tremendous. constructive plan to inject millions of rand into the capital programme to extend the Railways and to enable it to carry out its task, I remember how the Opposition members referred scornfully to the Minister and said that they could positively predict that Minister Schoeman would never extricate the Railways from the shambles; how the leader of the railway group on the other side, Mr. Russel, said at the time (translation): “This attempt on the part of the Minister is a panic measure; the Railways will not succeed; more money must be put into the Railways.” That was their attitude.

Sir, at that time they went as far as to plead very seriously for the removal of the Railways from State control and its transfer to the management of a utility company. Can hon. members still remember that? They must not think we have forgotten it; they must not think the railwayman has forgotten it: they must not think the railwayman has forgotten that they had so little confidence in our national transport service that they wanted to sell out to the private sector. At that time they did not have the confidence in the Railways that they have to-day, now that we have brought it to its present level. At that time they referred scornfully to the efforts we made to extend the Railways so that it could carry out its task.

Sir, the United Party did not make allowances for the determination of the Minister of Transport and his staff to get this wagon up the hill. That objective was achieved in 1960 and since then, for ten years, there has never been a single occasion when the Railways and its related services have not been able to handle the traffic offered in South Africa. Give me an example of another period in our history when this has happened. For ten years the Railways has consistently transported all the traffic offered; it never fell behind. notwithstanding the fact that there was tremendous development in the economic sphere, that there were nation-wide droughts which affected the Railways, that there was inflation, that there was a rush of traffic to our harbours as a result of the closing of the Suez canal and that there was a manpower shortage. Notwithstanding this the Railways never failed in its task. I say that at that time they pointed to us with contempt and then something else happened. In 1961 and 1962 there was an economic recession in this country and the Railways had a surplus capacity, and what did the Opposition do then?

Sir, they veered round just like that; instead of encouraging the Minister to extend the Railways, they veered round and said the Minister was pumping too much capital into the Railways. Then they stood up here one by one and said that the Minister should stop pumping such a tremendous amount of capital into the Railways each year because he was loading the Railways with an impossible burden of interest: he was influencing the profitability of the Railways; he was harming the private sector by harming private road transport, and he was neglecting road transport. And now in recent times they have dropped those stories altogether, and the hon. member for Yeoville is singing an altogether different tune to-day. Sir, how can you expect the railwaymen to be satisfied with such an opportunistic Opposition and to place his trust in its members? That is surely not possible. We, and the railwaymen in South Africa, have never known where we stood with the Opposition.

They also discredited the Railways in other fields, and if we had followed their policy we would have done the country the greatest disservice possible, and I want to support this statement with reference to the Opposition’s criticism of the railway tariff policy. Other members and I have previously said that railway transportation plays an extremely important role in the economic development of our country. In fact, it is the hub around which our development in South Africa takes place, this national transport system; and the tariff structure of the Railways is based on the simple principle that tariff charged is what the traffic can afford. And it is a flexible tariff; it is a tariff which has made it possible for the Railways to carry out uneconomical services in the national interest from time to time, and the loss is then, to a degree, compensated for by the more profitable freight transported. But constantly this has been violently attacked here by the Opposition. They said it was wrong that one load should pay for another; they demand that each freight tariff should consistently cover its costs. Their policy was that the costs of the service should be the tariff.

Sir, had the Minister accepted that each individual tariff should cover the transport costs per unit, what would the results have been? Then production costs and price levels in South Africa would have increased in every respect, because the railway tariffs have such an extremely important influence on the general cost structure. I therefore say that industrial development would have been restricted if the United Party had had its way with its criticism of the tariff policy of the Railways. Prices of manufactured goods would generally have been higher. Industrial development based on basic raw materials which had to be transported over great distances, would have been retarded. We in the Western Cape would have had to pay more for our coal while, for the transportation of our manufactured goods to the north, to our markets, we would also have had to pay more. This would have prejudiced the existence of many industries in the Western Cape. But that is what the hon. member for Salt River wants. In general it would have impeded industrial decentralization in this country.

The Railways has a national task to carry out and the United Party’s attitude in the past was that it made no difference to them what happened. If the Railways must perform a service in the interests of the country, the Central Government must pay the piper and I said a moment ago that it was an easy philosophy calculated to transfer the transport burden and to off-load it onto the ordinary taxpayer. I say that the United Party’s approach to the railway personnel will pay them no dividends. They know the United Party too well for that, and South Africa cannot afford to have the national transport system end up in the hands of those hon. members. It would be disastrous for South Africa. If they were to take over the railway system they would break it down and they would be doing South Africa a disservice.

I was quite obvious that the hon. member for Parow was making in this House this afternoon what possibly would be his swan song. I know the hon. member has been here for over 20 years. He has had a good innings. But I think he realized that it is time he sang his swan song, because the possibility exists that he will not come back here. Not only that he will not come back, but that hon. members now sitting on that side of the House will not be sitting there when we reconvene on 17th July. It was quite apparent from the way he went on, the way he harped on what happened in South Africa before the rinderpest in 1948, and the way he harped on what he assumed was the attitude of the United Party towards the Railways, that he is desperately afraid of the outcome of the election on 22nd April. He did not deal with matters which should have been dealt with under this particular Bill; he dealt merely with what he thought he could use as part of his election campaign between now and 22nd April.

This hon. member started off by taking us to task for raising the question of the elimination of level-crossings. He tried to point out how little was done before 1948, but I think we can forget about 1948. In fact, we can even forget about 1958. What has this Government done in 21 years? It has done a certain amount. I will grant the Minister and his Department credit for having taken certain steps to eliminate level-crossings, but can that hon. Minister and his Department in all clear conscience say that they have done all that they could have done? Is the Minister satisfied that no more could have been done in regard to the elimination of level-crossings? I do not want to make political capital out of it. This side of the House has not tried to make political capital out of it. This is the only question we have put to the hon. the Minister, and if indeed he is not satisfied we appeal to him to do more than he has done.

The hon. member for Parow raised the question of the introdudction of non-white labour on the Railways, doing jobs which traditionally have been retained for white people. He accused us of being an integration party and of being the ones who want to take jobs away from the white workers. But this Minister has admitted in this House that he has introduced non-Whites into jobs which have always been retained for Whites on the Railways, and he has had the courage, which this hon. member did not have, to say that this was done in the interests of South Africa: and I say more power to his elbow. But that hon. member is still living in the Dark Ages before the rinderpest. Does he know how many hundreds of non-white platelayers, gangers, shunters, checkers, etc., are being used in the Railways today? So, it is no good his trying to hide behind this. This is a fact to-day, and the railway workers know it. I want to say that, although he tried to make capital out of this, and although he is going to use this for his election campaign, it is not going to work, because that Minister has been pragmatic enough to accept this principle, which we have been trying for 20 years to get him to accept. I believe that the railway worker will be behind him in accepting that principle to keep the Railways going.

The hon. member for De Aar is unfortunately not here, but I should like to mention a few points regarding staff matters. The hon. member for De Aar and others mentioned the question of staff conditions and salaries. The hon. member for De Aar read a letter from a housewife in Durban, the wife of a railway employee, saying that she was happy with the salary he and her son were earning. But she did not say how much of that salary was in respect of overtime worked. I want to ask the hon. the Minister if he is aware of the fact that the trains working staff on the Natal main line are all still working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. They work these hours to be able to earn enough to purchase the luxuries referred to by the hon. member for De Aar. I say that they are fully entitled to purchase those luxuries, including motor-cars. I do not believe that they have to get around on foot, as the hon. member for De Aar seems to think they should. I believe that they are entitled to these luxuries, but not at the cost of having to work 12 hours a day for seven days a week, month in and month out. Does the hon. the Minister know that station masters are employed almost eight hours a day working trains, and that they have to burn the midnight oil to get their administrative work done? I am sure that he is aware of these conditions, but he is not telling this House about these things. The hon. member for Parow and others are trying to hide these facts, or otherwise they are ignorant of them. We had the situation a little while ago, on the narrow gauge system which runs through my constituency. where for two days no trains ran at all. Farmers received no mail. Perishable goods perished at all points. The farmers are dependent on the railways for the delivery of their meat, but in this case the meat perished before it was delivered. When I made inquiries, I found that the reason why the trains had not run for two days was that a guard, one person, had unfortunately had an illness in his family and had been given compassionate leave. So far, so good, but do you know, Sir, that in the whole of the Natal system there was not a single relief guard to be had to relieve that man so that the train could run? Eventually, in desperation, a station master guarded that train so that some form of service could be provided after two days. This is the staff position in the Railways to-day. When one person goes off sick, a whole system stands still.

I should very much like to hear the other side of the story as well.

I do not know what “other side” the hon. member is talking about. This is the hon. member who is satisfied with the road motor services in his constituency. I hope that his voters know that he thinks there is nothing wrong with the road motor services. I know that his voters know about this, Sir.

Is that the hon. member for Klip River?

The ex-member for Klip River.

Yes, he will shortly be the ex-member. Sir, salaries and conditions in the Railways are not good. I am sure that if the hon. the Minister is honest, he will, when he looks into his heart, admit that they are not as good as they could be. This is why we have this shortage of staff to-day.

We have a similar situation developing in the Airways. Before I begin with the Airways, I want to pay tribute to the staff of the South African Airways. They have a wonderful record for punctuality, for efficiency and for safety. In fact, they have a record second to none in the world. I should like, however, to ask the hon. the Minister how long this is going to last. The staff that he has are being worked to the limit of their endurance. The strain on these people is terrific, not only on flying staff, but on ground crews as well. I am sure that he is aware of this situation. I am sure that he is aware of the responsibility and the strain which rest on the flying staff when they bring in these monsters, laden with passengers. We find that some of these pilots are bringing in these huge aircraft after having worked a continuous shift of 9½ hours. This is the case on domestic flights, when they are perpetually landing and taking off. We heard, when the Minister replied to a question here this afternoon, that on international flights some pilots are landing aircraft after a continuous shift of 15 hours and 45 minutes. Surely something can be done about this. Is it essential for us to have such a system where a man, at the end of a shift of over 15 hours, has the strain of having to land this heavy machine? I want to ask the hon. the Minister to look into this matter. Is it not possible in some way to reduce the length of the shifts these men have to work? Some of these men on the international flights are completely and utterly fagged out at the end of a flight. As I have said, they have to land at Jan Smuts Airport after a shift of more than 15 hours’ continuous work.

There is another point I should like to make. I must thank the hon. the Minister for the replies he gave to my questions to-day. I have not yet had time to evaluate them fully, but there is one aspect which perturbs me. I am referring now to the actual flying training of pilots for the various types of aircraft they will have to fly. The length of actual flying training which the hon. the Minister considers sufficient to enable a pilot to handle a Boeing 707 or 727 aircraft is 10 hours. Ten hours’ flying time would comprise two circuits of our main aerodromes, namely Johannesburg to Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and back to Johannesburg, without time for bumps. That is all it comprises. After that short period these men are considered to be capable of taking control and flying those aircraft. In the case of the Boeing 737, it is considered that only five hours flying time is sufficient to train a man adequately to take control of the aircraft. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister really thinks that this is sufficient time. I wonder whether this is not why we have had more reports of bumpy landings and of bad take-offs. I am asking these questions in all seriousness, because I want to see this wonderful record of the South African Airways maintained.

You are being very irresponsible.

I do not know about being irresponsible, Sir. The hon. member for Zululand, with his Hopalong Cassidy story about the rustlers, and so on, certainly cannot talk about being irresponsible.

Sir, while I am talking about aircraft, I particularly want to speak to the hon. the Minister about the question of the hijacking of aircraft. I want to discuss with him what the South African Government, and he in particular, as the Minister in charge, have done about this problem, and what I think he should do. I should also like to mention where I think he has perhaps been remiss. Hijacking has, of course, become an international problem. It is a problem which has assumed immense proportions in certain parts of the world. Admittedly, up to now in South Africa we have been free of any of this sort of piracy. In 1969 a conference of the International Air Travel Association was held in Amsterdam. This has become known as the Amsterdam Conference. I believe South Africa was represented there. At that conference a resolution was adopted, requesting governments to secure multilateral agreements with other countries to include provisions regarding the extradition and /or the punishment of hijackers. Many countries have taken this action, but I believe South Africa has not. In reply to questions which I put to the hon. the Minister, I have found that South Africa has no agreements with any countries regarding the hijacking of aircraft, either with regard to the punishment of the hijacker or the extradition of the hijacker to South Africa or to the place of departure for punishment, or even for the return of the aircraft, or for the safe custody of the passengers and crew of the aircraft.

Also during 1969 a conference was held in Tokyo. This conference has become known as the Tokyo Convention. This conference dealt with hijacking and certain other offences committed aboard aircraft. My information is that at this convention sound international law was established to promote the safety of civil aviation. In reply to a question I put to the hon. the Minister, he informed us that South Africa was not immediately a signatory to the Tokyo Convention. Nor is South Africa a signatory to-day. He informed us that he and his department are still considering the matter and that there are shortcomings in the agreement. I agree that perhaps the Tokyo Convention did not close all the loopholes and of course it cannot work unless all countries are signatories to it. But surely South African pilots, passengers and aircraft should have some protection. The hon. the Minister tells me that he is awaiting the outcome of a meeting of the legal committee of the I.C.A.O. in March, 1970 and that after that he will take action and decide whether South Africa should become a signatory to the Tokyo Convention or not. But what about the present? What about the situation to-day? If one of our aircraft was hijacked this week, we have no agreements with any countries and we have no undertakings from any countries as to the safe return of passengers and crew. We have nothing. Where we do have bilateral air agreements with other countries, notwithstanding the fact that we were represented at the Amsterdam Conference, I find from the replies given by the hon. the Minister, that South Africa has not included any conditions in any bilateral agreements (those we have with the countries mentioned by the hon. the Minister) with regard to the extradition or punishment of hijackers, the return of the aircraft or the safe conduct of crew or passengers. Surely our aircraft crews and passengers should be protected. Has the hon. the Minister not perhaps been remiss as far as this matter is concerned? I asked the hon. the Minister a further question in regard to hijacking. I asked him whether any precautions had been taken to prevent hijacking. This hon. Minister, in his customary manner, which usually displays the arrogance of the whole of the Cabinet, replied than it was not in the public interest to answer my question. If I had asked the hon. the Minister what precautions had been taken, I could have understood why he gave that reply but I merely wanted a reassurance from the hon. the Minister. It is not only I but the pilots of South African Airways, the passengers and the people of South Africa who merely want a reassurance from the hon. the Minister that some active steps have been taken to prevent the hijacking of a South African Airways’ aircraft. Our pilots are in the dark. They do not know whether we are signatories to the Tokyo Convention or not. They will know now. In the absence of any light being thrown on that question and on the question of whether any action had been decided on or whether any precautions had been taken with regard to the hijacking of South African Airways’ aircraft, they have made their own decision. Their decision is that they will not resist a hijacker. They will go along with him in the interests of the safety of their passengers, their crew and their aircraft. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister is aware of this. At any rate he is aware of it now. Against this background of a lack of action on the part of this Government. I want to discuss this whole question of hijacking. President Nixon of the United Stages of America, U Thant, the Secretary-General of U.N., and world leaders throughout the whole world have realized the seriousness of this question of hijacking. They have gone as far as to say that they consider this to be one of the most urgent problems facing the United Nations Organization. The International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations, which is known as IFALPA, has given this question top priority. U.N. was asked to act last year and in fact sat for two days on this question but failed to reach any decision. It failed through lack of unanimity amongst those countries which operate international airlines. Not all the countries which operate international airlines have brought pressure to bear on U.N. and I am sorry to say that South Africa is one of those countries which has failed in its duty to bring this matter forcibly to the attention of U.N. South Africa is one of the countries not actively campaigning at U.N. for the application of some sanctions not only against the hijackers, but also against those countries which will offer succour to and harbour hijackers. Why has South Africa not combined with these other countries in this matter? Does the hon. the Minister think that we are safe here in the southern tip of Africa? This is a growing menace. It is a menace which is spreading. It is better that we should not wait until a hijacking results in a major disaster before we decide to take effective action. Planes that have been hijacked have landed not very far away from us. In fact, there is still some doubt in the minds of certain people that the crash which occurred in West Africa a few months ago was not the result of a hijacking. Aviation in general and in particular the aviation of South Africa is not immune to the hijacker. For many years now it has been accepted that piracy on the high seas is a crime against all mankind. All nations have always had an obligation to suppress piracy and to bring the guilty parties to justice. Air piracy, hijacking, comes to the same thing. Why is South Africa not prepared to join these other countries who are actively supporting IFALPA in their campaign to eliminate this terrible crime against humanity? Air piracy is as much a matter of universal concern as piracy on the high seas was in the old days. Only conserted action by all the countries will eliminate this threat to freedom of air travel. The International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Association, realizing the importance of this and realizing that they were not getting anywhere fast as far as many countries and particularly U.N. were concerned, requested all their affiliated associations to bring to the attention of their controlling companies or to their governments, if they were government airlines, the seriousness of this problem. They have suggested that a world-wide stoppage of international air flights should take place. It is their intention that this should be a stoppage for 24 hours only to bring forcibly to the attention of all people the seriousness of this question of hijacking. In this way they hope to bring this matter forcibly to the attention of U.N. so that perhaps some action would be taken whereby mandatory sanctions would be imposed upon countries which harboured and succoured hijackers.

I am already getting scared of flying to Johannesburg on Thursday.

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to hear that because that is the point to which I am coming. Individual associations have approached their controlling bodies and their governments for permission to join this stoppage. Many of them have received that permission. This action is being taken by most responsible men who are members of a most responsible organization and who probably have the greatest responsibility ever imposed on a few people in bringing in these monsters of the sky. I believe that the South African Airline Pilots Association approached the Administration for permission to join in this 24 hour stoppage. I asked the hon. the Minister whether he had been approached in this regard and his answer was that this had not been done. We have heard about a credibility gap, but I am afraid I cannot accept that now as the reason why the hon. the Minister said no. Perhaps these representations have not reached him in his Office. But I want to say that my information is that an approach was most definitely made. It was made to the Deputy Chief Executive of the South African Airways, who refused permission to the South African Pilots Association to partake in this 24-hour strike. Surely, that Executive would not have taken such an important decision on his own without referring to some higher authority. Be that as it may, I now want to appeal to the hon. the Minister, if such a decision has been made, if such permission has been refused, will he not now reverse that decision. Perhaps he can give this House the reasons why such a decision was given and why permission was refused. In terms of our industrial legislation no pilot can associate himself with such a stoppage without the prior consent of the South African Airways. I would be very glad to hear from the hon. the Minister why this permission was refused.

This was a request made by a group of very responsible people. This permission to participate in the stoppage has been refused. There is no other motive behind the actions of the South African Pilots Association in their request for permission to participate in this stoppage. Has the hon. the Minister considered the consequences of his refusal? Firstly it means that when IFALPA goes to U.N., it does not go with the backing of all the countries. It does not go with the backing of South Africa. But has the hon. the Minister thought of the effects on South African Airways and the aircraft of South African Airways which during that particular 24 hours will be flying international flights?

They have abandoned that. We do not have to argue.

That is news to me.

There is a lot of news you are going to hear.

When the hon. the Minister says they have abandoned that, what does he mean by “they”?

The International Pilots Association.

Well, this certainly is news to me. But just let me continue and ask the hon. the Minister whether he considered the fact, if this stoppage was called and South African Airways were to send up their aircraft, that they might arrive overseas and find no ground staff, no fuel or landing aids.

Let us then at that point leave international flights and let us come back to domestic flights and this question of hijacking. Has the hon. the Minister considered the possibility of a hijacking in South Africa on domestic flights? Our Pilots’ Association most certainly has. They are extremely perturbed at the possibility of the hijacking of an aircraft. If one thinks of an aircraft flying from Johannesburg to Salisbury it carries sufficient fuel to take it to Zambia, Tanzania or even to Kenya. Similarly, an aircraft from Johannesburg to Windhoek has sufficient fuel to take it into the Congo or to Zambia. We carry on our aircraft international passengers. We are not aware of whether any precautions are being taken. We know that there are no international agreements with anybody who will be able to assist us in the event of an aircraft being hijacked.

The hon. the Minister says that he has many things that he will tell us, that he has much information on this particular subject. I wait with interest and I sincerely hope that the hon. the Minister will accept what I have said this afternoon. I hope he will accept in good faith that I have put forward this case, not so much as criticism of the Government for political reasons, but as criticism of the Government for not having taken what I consider to be sufficient and adequate steps in the light of the information that I have, to protect South African Airways and the passengers who are flying on it.

Mr. Speaker, if there is one thing that proves that this hon. member will not be returning to this House it is the fact that he made a 20-minute speech on a matter which does not exist. He heard what the hon. the Minister told him, i.e. that the International Pilots’ Association had decided that the 24-hour strike, during which the aircraft would remain grounded in order to bring the importance of airways strikes to the attention of the world, was not going to be carried out because it was not practical. The world realizes only too well how extremely problematical the situation of aircraft hijacking is. To paralyze the airways of the entire world for 24 hours and to disrupt services with the purpose of bringing it to the attention of a world which is already aware of this matter, they themselves decided would not be done. The hon. member spent all his time asking the hon. the Minister why he had prohibited the deputations from South Africa from voting in favour of it. They themselves found that it was not worth the trouble and was unnecessary. This is one example of the complete ignorance which the hon. member displays in this House. That is why he will not return.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, Mr. Speaker, I only have half an hour and he struggled for a full half-hour to talk about this matter. This hon. member, in the same way as the hon. member for Constantia and Yeoville, once again discussed the matter of level-crossings from an emotional point of view. He stated that he did not want to make political propaganda with it and that he had not duscussed it for the sake of political votes. But even in the no-confidence debate the hon. member for Port Natal already broached this matter from an emotional point of view in order to see whether they could not catch a few votes as a result of this tragic accident, which we all feel very unhappy about. He is the fourth speaker to have broached this matter. What are the actual facts, Sir? I furnished the figures here in the House of Assembly during the no-confidence debate. I quote—

These hon. members say that they must all be eliminated—

The hon. member for Parow made it very clear to hon. members that we do not build any new railway lines where there are crossings without seeing to it at once that a fly-over or a subway is built. We inherited this position. Since April, 1968, the amount has been doubled in that the Department of Railways, the National Roads Fund and the Treasury, equally divided, make R3 million available for the purpose of eliminating these crossings. But with this plea these hon. members are in fact advocating irresponsibility, rashness, and contravention of the law; because if this applies to railway crossings, it applies equally well to unguarded level crossings where major roads cross, where one sometimes finds the fourway stop streets. The road ordinances for the entire South Africa stipulate that one may not drive over a railway crossing without first having stopped and ascertaining what traffic is approaching. This is a road ordinance, and it is the law. If one does not obey this law and drives over a railway line without stopping one is contravening the law.

But what is the case further? We instituted a thorough investigation, and I want to inform you that the number of crossings—we have no data in respect of the number of private crossings from farm gates—which are equipped with warning signs on public roads, number 4,000, as I told hon. members. Then we have a number of level crossings equipped with warning signs plus stop signs, so that the stop line is also indicated on the road surface, which one cannot always have on a gravel road. We are not absolutely sure how many of these there are. We have equipped a number of level crossings with warning signs and flashing lights, i.e. 64. When one approaches a railway crossing and the light flashes on and off, then surely it is very clear that a train is approaching and that you should, in the interests of your own safety, know that you must stop. The number of level crossings equipped with warning signs plus booms or bells are nine. There are four level crossings with half-length booms as well as one level crossing which is equipped with bells. There are also a number of level crossings with warning signs which are also controlled by level crossing attendants. Level crossings of this kind are important, because I shall point out in a moment that accidents take place even there. There are approximately 58 railway crossings which are guarded day and night. A large number of railway crossings near stations are protected by railway staff, while shunting is in progress. This is the picture as it is at present.

I mentioned the other day how many railway crossings had been eliminated and how many are being eliminated. However, it is also important that we note the important fact that despite all measures which have been taken, accidents have occurred at level crossings. At level crossings where there are warning signs as well as flashing lights, there were 30 accidents during 1967-’68 and 18 in 1968-’69. At level crossings where there were warning signs, booms and bells, there were two accidents in 1967-’68 and two in 1968-’69 as well. At level crossings where level crossing attendants were on duty who regulated traffic by means of flags, there were 53 accidents in 1967-’68 and 43 in 1968-’69. This proves that despite all these measures taken accidents still occur at railway crossings. There are approximately 3,0 unguarded railway crossings which are going to be grouped in such a way that they can be provided with half booms. These booms prevent traffic from entering a railway crossing when a train is approaching, but allow motor cars, which are already inside the level crossing, through. Six of these booms are soon to be put into operation and we will then ascertain to what extent they serve the purpose of eliminating unguarded level crossings where the Administration cannot afford to spend large amounts on level crossings. If it is possible it will be a major step in the direction of solving this problem. However, to have four speakers in this debate, as well as in the no confidence debate discuss this matter one after another, is surely abundant proof that hon. members on the opposite side either have no thing to discuss and that they have no proper criticism or they want to exploit these unfortunate accidents, with the psychosis which has been created by the Press in regard to the accidents which occurred recently, before the election, in order to win a few votes in that way. Hon. members on the opposite side have no proper criticism, based on facts, of instances where things were incorrectly done in the running of the Railways. I put it to the hon. member that this is the reason why he devoted so much time to this topic.

The hon. member also put questions in regard to the staff. Just to prove that the hon. member does not know what he is talking about, he said here that simply because a train did not have a conductor, that train was stationary for a whole day and the station master had to act as conductor for that train the next day. The hon. member ought to know that many trains run without conductors and the trains are then run on what are called “ears” in the Railways so that other trains are aware of them. Now however, it is being said here that because a train did not have a conductor the train was stationary for more than 24 hours and that there was no traffic on that line. That hon. member is living in a fool’s paradise and that is why he told the hon. member for Parow he was not coming back. The hon. member is himself afraid that he will not come back.

Are you coming back?

Most certainly. The hon. member for Yeoville made out a whole case, in the same way as the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District), about the staff shortage, and secondly that the staff of the Railways was not being adequately remunerated for the work they were doing. Let us now analyse the true position. In 1947-’48 the Railways had a total staff of 187,705.

That was long before the rinderpest.

It was long before the rinderpest, but that was also the plague which wiped out the United Party. Of these 98,065 were Whites. By 3rd March, 1969, the staff had increased to 115,142 Whites and 109,464 non-Whites, a total of 224,606. In other words, there was a 19.66 per cent increase in staff on the Railways. That was while the Railways, as the hon. member for Parow said, had to contend with a tremendous industrial explosion and the economic growth of South Africa, when a manpower shortage existed everywhere. The criterion is not how much staff there is. The criterion which must be accepted is whether the Railways is efficient and whether the traffic which is being offered can convey everything at a tariff which fits in with the economic development of South Africa. The hon. member for Parow said the same thing. The second criterion is whether there is a staff which is satisfied to perform the work. I want to dwell for a moment on this point. A third criterion is the productivity of the Railways and its staff. In this connection I should like to analyse the years 1948 and 1969. The tonnage conveyed by the Railways in 1948-’49 was 51,898,000. By 1969 this tonnage had increased to 120,855,000. In other words, there was an increase of 132.87 per cent. However, the staff increase was only 19.6 per cent.

What about mechanization?

I am coming to that. Hon. members opposite blame us for having introduced mechanization. Hon. members opposite do not want us to try to solve our staff shortage problems by means of mechanization. All they want is that more staff should be recruited. or that non-white staff should be brought in where they are not necessary. The number of passengers conveyed by the Railways in 1947-’48 was 243,694,000. The number of persons increased until in 1969 they were 102.35 per cent more, i.e. 493,109,000. Again this was done with a staff increase of 19.6 per cent. Since I am only mentioning these two figures hon. members can see what a high degree of productivity was displayed by the members of staff and the management of the Railways. I want to remind this House that when the hon. the Minister took over 16 years ago as Minister of Transport, he gave the assurance in this House that within five years he would be able to convey all the traffic offered in South Africa and would be able to cope with it. He placed his political life in jeopardy by saying that as long as he was Minister he would see to it that this could be done. The fact that the hon. the Minister has already had this portfolio for 16 years, and that he is trusted by the electorate as well as the Railway staff is proof that he has succeeded in what he wanted to achieve. The hon. the Minister mentioned certain of the improvements in his Budget speech, but let us see how the productivity of the Railways has been increased. We must accept that the Railways is the biggest employer in South Africa. Our production has increased as a result of the methods of work which have been improved and the mechanization which has been introduced. The labour productivity index indicates that the production figure has increased since 1950 by 166. This compares very well with France, Britain, West Germany and other countries. If one considers the number of staff members, we admit candidly that during the past five years we have been forced to perform our task with a worker shortage of 9 per cent. But if one has a staff of 224,000, and the shortage is 9 per cent, surely one need not feel any panic. Surely this is no reason, as hon. members on that side of the House did, to hold this up as a period of crisis for the Railways. Show me any prosperous industrial development in South Africa it makes no difference whether it is the steel industry or any other industry, which does not have to contend with a staff shortage. It is because this country, its great development, is growing so rapidly, that we have a labour shortage. Why is the burden being placed at the door of the Railways only? In spite of this shortage 16.4 million additional tons of traffic and 67.7 million more passengers are being handled than five years ago. That indicates that there is increased efficiency and productivity in the administration of the Railways. I want to mention a few of the most important aspects. It is necessary for me to indicate them. In the first instance, we modernized the accounts system for goods. In 1957 the conventional punch card installations were put into operation. The preparations for a computer were also made. After that we also acquired modern Office equipment and electronic apparatus. This brought about decentralization of the accounting Offices and the establishment of a revenue account bureau in all sections.

Secondly we installed a modern computer in 1963. The change-over to mechanized procedures in order to deal with these matters was completed within two years. At the moment we have ten computers for this. In 1957 we began a system for the mechanization and renewal of railway line maintenance. Since then this has been expanded to all sections at a cost of R9 million. The hon. members on that side of the House must not use the staff who formerly did pick and shovel work on the Railways as an example to prove that we have less staff, and a staff shortage. Track maintenance is no longer done by those people but is in fact done with the aid of these modern mechanical systems. As a result of this, it is possible for us to reduce the number of staff members in this branch of the service by more than 600 platelayers and 10,000 Bantu labourers. If the work is being done in that way now then surely there ought to be no complaints. This entails an annual saving of R1.5 million for us.

I want to mention a further example, i.e. the introduction of centralized traffic control. In this connection we have further expanded the carrying capacity of our single line sections. This train control system is extremely flexible. It presents considerable possibilities. I saw how this system was being put to use. The introduction of these centralized traffic control systems on the Kamfersdam, Postmasburg, Hamilton. Springfontein, Volksrust and Newcastle sections has enabled the Administration to reduce the number of station foremen by 72 without affecting the safety and the good control of trains. On the contrary, this was in fact improved. Now control can at all times be exercised over those trains.

My time is not going to allow me to mention all the other examples. But I want to deal with a further aspect in regard to the efficiency of the staff. Let us look at the income of the Railways. Again I want to refer to the years 1947 and 1948. Then the United Party was in power. It was also a period when, according to them, there was sufficient staff. However, that staff consisted of pick and shovel workers. Then the income of the Railways was R165,274,000. In the year 1968/1969 this income increased to R794,703,000. Surely there is no comparison. If the income and expenditure were added together so that the turnover could be calculated, there is an increase from R331,768,000 to R1,602,000,000 during this short period. Just look at capital investment. In 1948 capital investment amounted to R473 million. On 31st March, 1969, it was R2,477,000,000. This indicates the tremendous growth in the Railways.

But now hon. members have stated that the Railways staff are not deriving any benefit from these major increases. According to them these people are not getting enough. The hon. the Minister mentioned to us here that only during these past twenty years the salaries of Railways staff have increased by R255 million. The total amount paid out in salaries is R400 million. In the past twenty years, however, it has increased from R255 million to R400 million. This is an enormous increase. I want to indicate a few of these annual increases so that this matter can be clear in the minds of hon. members. On 1st April, 1951, an increase of R10 million was announced. In June 1951 an additional R12,409,000 was granted. If we bear in mind the increase of 88 per cent in the cost of living allowance, we see that a further increase of R11,400,000 was granted in 1952. In 1955 the salary increases and loan improvements for all staff members amounted to R8,200,000. Immediately afterwards, in 1956, a consolidation of the cost of living allowance of R7,170,000 was granted. In 1958 a further amount of R13,100,000 was also granted. On 1st April 1961 another increase of R11,470,000 was announced. So I can mention the various increases one after the other. The total amount of increases during the short period between 1951 to November 1969 therefore amounts to R215,499,000, in other words, the hon. the Minister of Transport has looked after the Railway workers in this connection. I do not know how hon. members on that side can complain and say that the Railway worker is not being looked after.

I want to make it very clear that every cent of this increase in the salaries of the Railways staff and in their housing, which other hon. members will probably go on to mention, has been deserved. They deserved every cent of it. It is they who look after the lifeblood of our phenomenal economic growth in the agricultural industry, in mining and in industry. As the hon. member for Parow said, this is the hub around which everything turns. The transport system and communications is the lifeblood of our economy. The most important requirement, however, is that the railway worker himself must have confidence in the Railways. His system of appeal which he is able to make must not be demolished. Nor must his system of discipline which is applied be demolished. He must have confidence and he must be proud. I can give the assurance that the railway workers are proud of this hon. Minister of Transport. I am proud of the fact that I am able to work together with such a person, that we can have such a person here to look after the interests of the railway worker and South Africa. I want to say to the hon. member for Yeoville that the relations between the hon. the Minister, the Management and the Railway staff are carried out through the agency of the seven different Railway staff associations. Those relations are as sound as any other relations between employee and employer in South Africa. There are no other relations which are as favourable as these relations which exist in regard to the Minister in the Railways. This is because the hon. the Minister has succeeded in bringing about a position where the railway worker and the railway staff in South Africa do not regard the railways as an independent employer. They regard them as part of themselves. They are owners, co-shareholders and co-directors in this great organization which does the conveying in South Africa.

Twenty per cent resign each year.

Twenty per cent resign each year, says the hon. member. However, 22 per cent come back.

It is difficult to believe that that is true.

Yes, it is true.

Do you then get new recruits?

Because the thousands of families who are dependent on the Railways are proud of the hon. the Minister and entrust everything to him, the hon. member must not think that he will be able to ask for a railway vote on 22nd April. He can simply forget about it, because the Railways in South Africa has during this period indicated that it has succeeded in carrying the traffic offered with a staff which is satisfied and happy and well looked after and that know that they need not approach the Minister to ask him for increases before an election. They do not barter their votes. Their votes are not to be bought, as the hon. member is trying to suggest.

Mr. Speaker, listening to hon. members on the other side of the House this afternoon making their Parliamentary election speeches it was very interesting to see how they are going to conduct themselves as the friend of the Railwayman. The hon. member for Parow referred to me as father Christmas. I should like to give him a present on 23rd April, namely a new government which he will have no alternative but to accept. I listened to the hon. member for North Rand here this afternoon. I must pay him the compliment that he has always impressed me as a very good speaker as far as the Railways is concerned. He was, however, off form this afternoon. I do not know whether he is worried about the wives of Randburg and their lack of labour or whether he is worried about getting back his seat, or whether he is nervous about upsetting anymore people. In his whole speech he made very few points in replying to the hon. member for Yeoville.

The hon. member for Parow seems to feel that we were starting some type of vendetta as far as level crossings were concerned and that we were trying to catch a few votes. The Government side is so ill-informed of the dangers of these crossings that they think that we are trying to get a few miserable votes out of it. Far be it from that. The position to-day is that the voting public of South Africa and others are concerned about the conditions as far as their safety is concerned, particularly at level crossings. When you have the hon. member for Parow getting up and suggesting that the hon. member for Constantia was trying to gain a few cheap votes it becomes just absolutely ridiculous. The whole question of road safety at level crossings is one that concerns everybody. I am pretty certain that it concerns the hon. Minister of Transport.

I was listening to the hon. the Minister’s deputy. I do not know whether he had been put in because the hon. the Minister of Transport is looking forward to his retirement on the 23rd and whether he put his deputy in to see what he could really do. His deputy however did not show up too well. The deputy also tried riding the level crossing horse but I think he failed miserably. The Government and the Railways are trying various methods to overcome the difficulty of getting level crossings bridged or have them made safer than they are. We must face up to the fact that when you go to the Continent and elsewhere you see quite a number of level crossings which are protected, as the hon. the Deputy Minister indicated, by half-gates. In addition thereto they have a bell and a flasher. That is something that we have to take note of. If we cannot protect these crossings by bridges I think we should go to the expense of having them manned and equipped with flashing lights. I myself do not think one crossing is worth one life.

We were criticized by the hon. member for Parow for having said that we were in favour of closing down the Railway workshops and handing the work over to the private sector. The hon. member for Parow must know that over the years the Railway workshops to a large extent have made use of the private sector for the production of the various needs of the Railways in general. As a matter of fact our coaches are not being manufactured in Railway workshops. They are being produced by private contractors. A lot of the components that we use in the workshops for the reconditioning of our rolling stock are manufactured outside. I do not know whether he knows that. It is not a question that we want to close down the workshops. He may be hoping to catch a few votes by telling people that. It is however just sheer nonsense.

The hon. member for Parow went into the question of the report into the co-ordination of transport. He however lacks the inside business experience to really understand what it is all about. We have the White Paper which was issued by the hon. the Minister which we have not been able to consider at any great length. If one is to gather from the tone of the debate here this afternoon that the Government is going to reject this report, I think it will be wrong. I will come back to that later.

We had figures quoted here by the hon. the Deputy Minister as to what happened in 1958 as far as the manpower shortage is concerned and what the position was when the United Party Government was in power. The hon. the Minister of Transport himself also reviewed the 21 years the Government have been in power and he should be reminded that in 1948, which was just after the war—in which this Government incidentally took no part— there was a terrific shortage of everything, including manpower, goods and materials with which to conduct and run our Railways. But the United Party Government had the foresight of planning ahead. We had plans and we had the services of Marshall Clark and others. We planned ahead to build up the Railways into the force it could be. We realized that we just would not have the personnel to develop this wonderful country. It was a very prosperous country in 1948 and in spite of this Government it is still a prosperous country. This country is blessed with a wealth of minerals and a wonderful spirit we have amongst our people. One wonders however how more prosperous this country would have been and what a more wonderful country it would have been had this party been returned in 1948. We talk about manpower shortage. We had this Government scrapping our Railway plans in toto. We have been told that we did not have the money. That is just so much rubbish. It was not the case. We were in a position at that stage to lend England something like £80 million in gold. Yes, we had the cash, we had everything. Of course, shortly after 1948 the cash ran out very rapidly. They stopped our immigration scheme and so the whole machinery of our Railways ran down. Let us remind the hon. members on that side of the House that this side of the House over the years reminded the Government that they should make a change in their Minister of Railways. They jogged along until at last the Government was forced to take action and to-day we have in our ministry the hon. the present Minister of Transport. Things started to look up. He did find that he had a terrific backlog and he had to start picking up United Party plans. Taking up the United Party plans he realized that during the interim period when his colleague was there, there had been no real planning.

As far as the staff is concerned, I can just say that they have been loyal. Throughout these years, when the former Minister was in charge, there was the feeling that the Railways were going backwards and that a ministerial change would have to be made. The hon. Minister started planning and started building up the Railways, but he has had to deal with as I have heard him say once, the political/ economic views of this present Government. He had to deal with a Government that did not want to allow him to import any artisans by means of immigration. Therefore, he had to jog along slowly. Our developing country, however, was demanding a better transport system than there was at that time. We must also remember the coal crisis when power stations threatened to close down because of the shortage of trucks. We were forced to cart coal from the coal fields in Witbank to Johannesburg in order to keep the power stations and the home fires burning. That was the result of a lack of equipment because the Government had rejected and thrown overboard the whole of the United Party’s policy. Then they come along here and tell us about the wonderful 21 years! What they really are doing, and we have told them so in this House so often, is to adopt the United Party’s policy. They are resorting to sound planning and the forecasting of the needs of this country. There is still a terrific backlog, we are still short of manpower, but I want to deal with that later on in this debate.

The hon. member for Parow has made a statement about our policy, and he referred to me in particular as far as the infiltration of Blacks of white jobs in Railways are concerned. If the hon. member had listened to the hon. Minister of Transport, he would not have made this speech. Some figures were given to the hon. member for Berea to-day, in reply to a question of his. The hon. Minister in reply to the hon. member’s question has said the following—

When the hon. member for Parow stood up and said that we would like to see it happening, he was talking rubbish. It is happening. The hon. Minister of Transport, in order to keep his Railways going, has to be practical and face up to the issue: he has to be practical and he has to employ the staff where they are needed.

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

Evening Sitting

Mr. Speaker, when business was suspended for supper I was dealing with the statements which were made by the various speakers from the Government side. I would like to come nearer home, namely to the Western Cape. Here I want to deal with what the Government has done and what they have not done for us during the past 21 years.

The first item I should like to deal with is an item which is of much importance to us here in the Western Cape, and that is the first Boeing 707 flight from Cape Town to London which took place on the 1st February this year. As far as we are concerned, it was an historical occasion when the D. F. Malan Airport received recognition as an international airport. We on this side of the House have pressed for it for a number of years and we were pleased to note that the Government had at last decided to recognize D. F. Malan as an international airport. At the moment it is not the gateway to South Africa, but I think that Cape Town has been placed on the road to becoming the gateway to the Republic. What really was disappointing was that this flight did not receive any official recognition from either the Minister or his Deputy, or any senior official. They might have been there unofficially, but no official function marked this very eventful happening at D. F. Malan Airport. Not very far from the D. F. Malan Airport, there took place the landing of Sir Pierre van Ryneveld and Quinton Brand many years ago. This event which has just taken place is another great event in the history of aviation in South Africa. The public of Cape Town took a very great interest in this event and some 20,000 people went to see that plane leave the airport. It was one of the biggest congestions of traffic Cape Town has seen for a long time. The people in the Western Cape took a very great interest in this event and therefore it was disappointing to find that the Minister did not give this flight the recognition that it was entitled to.

I want to refer to another matter concerning the D. F. Malan Airport. In view of the fact that the facilities at the D. F. Malan Airport are inadequate, even for our local flights, we have been promised over the years that certain facilities would be provided. According to international standards, the facilities were nothing more than shambles, although certain facilities were provided. I feel that there should be a speed-up in completing this airport and modernizing it to international standards so that we can offer our passengers, and especially tourists, the comfort that they are entitled to. The work should be speeded up to provide for the tourists, because I think D. F. Malan is bound to become a big tourist centre. When we studied the co-ordination of transport report, another ridiculous situation showed up. Here, at the D. F. Malan Airport, we have the old story of the Public Works Department building the building, the Department of Transport controlling the Airport, and the Railways and Harbours supplying the aeroplane. I think it is high time, as far as our airports are concerned which are operated by the Minister of Transport and the Airways, that all buildings and runways came under one control. The present situation is a ridiculous one. You can imagine what would happen at the Johannesburg station if the P.W.D. constructed the building, the Minister of Transport cleaned up the station and the Minister of Railways tried to operate the trains. That is the ridiculous situation that you have at our airports. You have the one person doing the one thing and another person doing the other thing. The runways are going to be built by the Minister of Transport, the buildings by the P.W.D. and the Minister of Transport will operate the aircraft. I think the time is overdue to give attention to this item. If the Minister is not going to accept the division of the Airways from the Railways, I think the Airways are entitled to take over the control of their buildings. I think we will then see a little more speed as far as the construction of buildings is concerned, and get away from the shambles and the conditions that we have at the D. F. Malan Airport at the present moment.

To get back to the Western Cape, I want to deal with the promises made by this particular Government. We are often asked questions about the Hex River tunnel. We feel that we in the Western Cape are rather the Cinderella of the Republic. I know that for some reason or other all eyes are on the Transvaal. I do not believe that the Minister has the regard for the Western Cape that we hoped he would have. Over the years we have asked the Minister to do something about expediting the building of this tunnel and giving better service to the north. In his Budget speech of 1965-’66 he said this—

Well, we are now in the year 1970 and I do not think very much progress has been made except possibly in the drawing Office and by way of tests but that line has yet to be built. I suppose when the building of the tunnel is recommenced, if ever, the costs will be enormous. Sir, we in the Western Cape are anxious to get on. We do not want to see all industries moving to the north. We want modern rail connections with the north.

Then, Sir, we come to the question of Saldanha Bay. I can remember the hon. the Minister telling me when I asked him whether it was the intention to extend the line which at present goes to Montague Gardens to Saldanha Bay to take care of the development there that he would not see any great development in his time nor would I see it in my time. Of course, I think the Minister is going to be proved wrong.

Is this the line from Montague Gardens to Saldanha Bay?

Yes. Sir, here in Saldanha Bay we have one of the finest deep water bays in the world; it only requires development. I know the Minister has recently lost interest in this matter and has handed it back to the Department of Commerce. I know that there are great plans to make it the ore port of South Africa, not with a three foot six inch gauge line but with a five foot gauge line. If the Minister will think along those lines then he will at least be thinking along modern lines. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister to give serious thought to the building of at least a modern line from Montague Gardens. He has extended it already; it now goes as far as the refinery, but we hope to see a more modern line than we have at the present moment, instead of this outdated line running to Saldanha Bay. This would help industries in the Western Cape.

Sir, this Part Appropriation Bill reminds me of the Budget which the Minister introduced in 1965; there are certain parallels. You will remember that the report of the Schumann Commission was then laid on the Table and, strangely enough, this year we had the report of the Commission on the Co-ordination of Transport. In 1965 the Minister gave the railwaymen a financial bonzella and he has done the same thing this year; he has given them a Christmas box by doubling their bonuses. Sir, these measures are all vote-catching measures which are, of course, welcomed by the railway staff. But I would like to tell hon. members on the Government side that the railwaymen are not fools. They see right through the Government’s attempt to try to soften them with an eye on the ballot box on the 22nd April. We have heard speakers here this afternoon stressing how loyal the railway-men are to the Government and how they are going to vote for the Government on the 22nd. Well. I think those members, including the hon. the Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Parow, may be in for a surprise. The hon. member for Parow who is so sure that he will be returned to this House on the 22nd of April has lost touch with the railwaymen and so has the hon. the Deputy Minister. Sir, the railwaymen do not want these stop/go salary increases. As the hon. member for Yeoville said here this afternoon, they want something a little more permanent. With the rapidly diminishing buying power of the rand, the position to-day is that by the time the hon. the Minister has negotiated one agreement with the railwaymen it has become out of date and he has to start negotiating the next agreement, and then he stands up here and says, “I gave them a rise only last year and now they want a rise again; it is impossible; I cannot keep up with this.” He could avoid a lot of dissatisfaction if he would only adopt the United Party scheme of linking wages with the cost-of-living index. As the value of the rand diminishes, so his staff would automatically get more. He would then not have the complaints that he gets at the present moment. If he thinks for one moment that the railwayman is the best paid man in the country and is highly satisfied, then he is sorely mistaken. I suggest that if he, the Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Parow, meet these people, they will find out that they are not so happy with their salary scales at the present moment. What is more, the last salary increases given to the railwaymen were so full of anomalies that it caused serious dissatisfaction in some of the grades. It is all very well to take R40 million and to hand it over to the railwaymen by way of salary increases, but that is not enough; the Administration should go into the effect of these increases on the various grades. There is terrific dissatisfaction amongst the railwaymen in this regard. Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister also had something to say about increased productivity. I have never heard such a fallacious argument in all my life. They cannot get the staff and the Minister admits that he has only been able to increase the staff by 15 per cent and that in spite of this small increase they are conveying a much larger tonnage. They say that that is increased productivity. They are making the men work day and night to convey a larger volume of goods with a smaller staff and then they say to the world that they have increased productivity. What they are doing is to kill the backbone of their service; they are over-working their staff at the present moment.

Except the Deputy Minister.

The hon. the Deputy Minister talked here about mechanization. Well, you can mechanize to a certain extent. We went into all that in the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours and I think we are more up to date than he is as far as mechanization on the Railways is concerned. We saw what was being done by this very loyal, hard-working staff but don’t forget that it is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. They must not overdo it. Sir, the hon. the Minister is worried about the fact that he cannot get staff. We were told here this afternoon about the railwaymen who left to go to a bank and about the inspector who went along to find out why they had left, also joining the bank.

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister should not have another look at the application of the Disciplinary Code. I think it is high time something was done about this. I do not know about hon. members on that side of the House; they have a completely happy staff and they never get these complaints but we do. We get complaints from members of the railway staff about the application of the Disciplinary Code and its effect. I have a case here where a man happened to take too much liquor and was penalized and degraded about three or four years ago. But he has never been reinstated to his former grade and has never received promotion notwithstanding the fact that he is a first-class servant. He has been acting in a higher grade but he has not been able to get back to his former grade. This sort of thing causes dissatisfaction. These people walk around with a chip on their shoulder. Then, Sir, there is the case of the railwayman who would like to get on in the service. He wants to become a driver. He has been a fireman for quite a long time. They said to him, “You can go and take your examination up in the Transvaal and if you pass you can come back again and you will be promoted to the position of driver, but you will have to accept a transfer. If you do not accept the transfer you will have to remain a fireman.” Well, this poor man accepted the transfer. His wife apparently could not go along with him because there was no accommodation for them at the place to which he was transferred. In order to please his wife and so as not to disrupt his family life he has had to return and he is still a fireman notwithstanding the fact that he has passed his driver’s examination. Sir, I could go on quoting these cases. There is something wrong somewhere. Let the Minister have his Disciplinary Code, but I say that there is something terribly wrong with the application of it. If the hon. the Deputy Minister and hon. members on that side will visit the workshops and speak to the workers, they will find that what I say here is true. People are being penalized for the most trivial offences. Sir, let us rebuild the morale of the railwaymen. Let us make them really proud again to be railwaymen. In the old days they were proud to be railway-men but to-day they are not proud of that fact for the simple reason that they do not know who is spying on them.

You are talking rubbish now.

We have been asked here by hon. members on that side, “Do you want to do away with overtime?” The truth of the matter is that the railwaymen’s wages are so low that they have to work overtime in order to be able to live decently, and if overtime was to disappear their wages should remain the same. It is wrong to try to run the Railways on the basis of overtime. [Time expired.]

Before I react to the speech made by the hon. member for Salt River, I want to react to what the hon. member for Yeoville said in respect of the so-called bush court, as he phrased it. I can attribute his complaint about the so-called bush court to one of two possibilities. He was either engaged in practising cheap political agitation, or he has no idea whatsoever of what a disciplinary inquiry in the Railways means.

It is both.

Perhaps I may lay both of these charges at his door. Sir, in the first instance I want to deny most vehemently that there are such things as courts in the set-up of the Railways. These are nothing but disciplinary inquiries. One does not need to have legal knowledge to know that it is an elementary principle that in certain Government Departments, such as the Railways and the Police Service for instance, one has disciplinary inquiries from time to time. For instance, it may happen that in the ordinary courts of the country a shed foreman is charged with theft of railway property and that he is acquitted, but it is quite possible and very fair and just that the same shed foreman would stand trial in a disciplinary inquiry on a charge in terms of the regulations, for instance that he did not exercise proper control over the same goods. For that reason I reject the reference made by the hon. member for Yeoville to bush courts as ordinary bush propaganda.

Then I come to the hon. member for Salt River. He furnished us with a nostalgic retrospective view of the state of the Railways during the last months and years of United Party régime, but few of us present here, and few members of the older generation in our country, will share his nostalgia. What a Railways organization did we have in 1948! Exhausted funds, blatant political discrimination, in respect of which the National Government had to appoint a grievances commission to straighten out these matters. And then a point is made of saying that at that time the planning was right, but the question is not whether there was planning; the question is rather whether the planning was carried out intelligently. To pass over the bread-and-butter matters and to buy luxuries such as paintings, most definitely amounts to planning being carried out unintelligently, no matter what angle one views it from.

Once again in this debate much has been made of the staff shortage, and as was the case in other debates, the hon. the Minister of Transport and the hon. the Deputy Minister admitted quite frankly that the Railways did have a staff shortage, and they took the House into their confidence as regards what measures had been taken. But may this United Party speak of a staff shortage and a slackness in meeting this shortage? The present hon. member for Constantia was Minister of Railways during the last few years of United Party régime, and on 19th February, 1948, when he made the last Budget speech for the United Party, this is what he had to say. (Hansard, Vol. 72, Col. 1854)—

The hon. member for Constantia had to make this admission, in spite of the fact that in his Budget speech he had admitted that as a result of the demobilization scheme they were in a position to re-employ more than 17,000 white ex-servicemen. How can a party which during the last year of its régime also spoke of staff shortages, a shortage when the labour market at the time was in the favour of the employer, now fling reproaches at this side of the House? But this hon. former Minister of Railways went even further than that. He proudly announced in his Budget speech that railworkers would in future receive 10s. 6d. a day. It is because that party was a 10s. 6d. party that they were kicked out a few weeks later and has never been able to come into power again.

But it was worth a lot in those days.

Yes, in those days it was quite a lot, but in comparison railway workers are earning much more to-day. When reference is made to-day of staff shortages and ways of meeting them, railway workers and railway officials should, in the first place, look at what philosophy each party holds in regard to safeguarding the white workers. It is being said that our labour pattern will have to change, and that is why we have to go into the philosophical background of the policy of each party. In the course of the non-confidence debate we recently had, the hon. member for Yeoville did us the favour of giving us a reasonably clear statement of their policy. Inter alia, he said: “Job reservation is unnecessary because the conventions of South Africa have looked after that for years. These conventions will remain.” And later on he said—

Section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act provides safeguards against inter-racial competition for work. It provides comprehensive machinery under which, after a proper hearing, the industrial tribunal may, inter alia, recommend to the Minister that (a) white employees shall not be replaced by non-Whites and (b) work shall be either partly or wholly reserved for Whites. The United Party now wants to abolish this safe, tested machinery provided in the Industrial Conciliation Act, and in the place thereof they want to provide the vague machinery of conventions and promises that other channels will be created. I think the white staff of the Railways of South Africa will not allow this Opposition to come into power with such a philosophy, with such vague promises to the white worker, i.e. that they will safeguard his position. The white staff of the Railways also know that they are dealing with a Minister who is always prepared to improve the working conditions and remuneration of the staff, even if this sometimes means the introduction of unpopular tariff increases.

I now want to pause for a while at the report of the Marais Commission. As far as agricultural products are concerned, I want to thank the hon. the Minister once again for the fact that in many respects he is making concessions by not falling for the principle that transport costs are the primary factor in determining tariffs. In this way many agricultural products have been classified as lowrated traffic, which holds a great advantage not only for the farmer, but also for the consumer. In view of the fact that the Marais Commission emphasized once again that lowrated bulk traffic over long distances would remain the function of the Railways, it is obvious that the Railways will remain the principal transport organization for the agricultural sector. That is why I courteously want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to paragraph 237 of the report of the Marais Commission, i.e. the provision of more storage facilities at loading and terminal points. In this regard I specifically want to plead for the planning and construction of a grain elevator for maize at Richard’s Bay to be expedited. The improved farming methods of the maize farmer may have the effect that in a cycle of good years a considerable burden may be placed on the Railways if additional storage facilities are not provided. I also want to refer to paragraph 257 of the report of the Marais Commission. I want to make the plea that the hon. the Minister should, even though this matter does not fall directly under him, help us so that it will as soon as practicable be possible to abolish the tax of 10 per cent per ton of coal delivered in the Transvaal and the O.F.S. If that is done, I think that the country as a whole will be satisfied with the hon. the Minister’s decision against separating the three main branches of administration, i.e. Railways, Harbours and the Airways.

It is significant that in that Commission the two persons who are the most knowledgeable about transport matters, i.e. Mr. Joubert and Mr. Anderson, found that the question of separation did not come within the scope of the Commission’s terms of reference. Another reason why it is difficult to accept the Commission’s recommendation in regard to separation, is that they failed to present a clear picture of the financial implications and the socio-economic consequences of such a separation. In view of the fact that the other sectors are showing a profit and the Railways are unable to do so, owing to the low-rated traffic, separation would mean an appreciably higher rail rate on, inter alia, agricultural products, something which our agricultural sector cannot meet at this stage.

In conclusion I want to plead that no consideration be given to handing over any of the branches of the administration to private enterprise. The activities of the S.A. Railways are so intertwined with the socio-economic existence and progress of the people, that it is highly desirable for the Railways as a whole to remain nationalized.

There are one or two points on which I would like to reply to the hon. member for Kroonstad as and when I get to them. Firstly, he mentioned a very important point, and a very practical one, about building an elevator for maize at Richard’s Bay. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister to investigate very thoroughly what effect the heat and humidity will have on maize at that point. I believe it is a very serious matter.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has risen, I believe, twice on this subject and on each occasion he has reeled off reams of statistics, especially about the development since 1948. I should like to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that in 1948 the Government of General Smuts handed over one of the most progressive countries in the world to this present Government.

May I inform him, Sir, that the development that has taken place since, has taken place in spite of this Government. The only thing is that, if he had remained in power, we would probably have found that the tempo of development would have been very much faster. As the hon. member well knows, they stopped the immigration policy which we set afoot. It appears to me that when hon. members on that side get up to reply to members on this side of the House, they try to avoid the issue. They try to introduce political arguments instead of practicable arguments. The dust has settled on that very unfortunate Highbury crossing accident. All that remains for us here in this House to do, is to sympathize with the bereaved. But, Sir, is that sufficient? Is that where our responsibility stops? I remember that gruesome accident, a similar one. just east of Leslie, when a schoolbus from Eendracht school was hit by a train. I can still remember the scene. I think there were 11 little coffins on the verandah of the school. I predicted at the time, and again after I had entered politics, that that would be repeated. We just did not know when and where it would take place. Now it has taken place, and three times that number of victims have been involved. I believe that a Commission of Inquiry is to be appointed. I take it that this is being done to fix the responsibility. But, Sir, as I have said, is that sufficient? Should something not have been done before that accident took place? already. according to the Press we have learnt that the line there is a double track, and an unguarded one at that. There were enormous potholes between the two tracks. Strangely enough, the driver of that bus went to Pretoria all the way from the Vereeniging area near Henley-on-Klip, where the accident took place. to report the condition of the crossing. Strangely, Sir, that crossing was repaired the day after the accident. What I want to know, Sir, is: Are there no gangers on that section of the line? Should they not have attended to the condition of the crossing?

Don’t you feel ashamed to make practical capital out of it?

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious matter. It has nothing to do with politics. I do not require political arguments in Pietermaritzburg City any more.

Hear, hear!

The question arises: Was only the bus driver responsible? Were there certain responsibilities on the shoulders of the driver of the train? The hon. the Deputy Minister has given us statistics about what has been done in regard to the elimination of crossings. I say. Sir, that insufficient has been done as far as the elimination of crossings throughout the Republic is concerned. To give you an idea of what the public thinks, Sir, I should like to read a very short article on small crossings which appeared in the Natal Mercury of the 7th February, 1970. It reads as follows:

Mr. Speaker. I have previously suggested in this House that we should eliminate all crossings in the Republic. If we do not have the labour or the money to do so, we should call for international tenders. If necessary, we should even obtain a foreign loan to do so, but the quicker we tackle this problem, the better for South Africa.

Sir. what control do we have over crossings? Who keeps an eye on crossings? Is it the various section managers, or the System Manager? Is it not time that some sort of inspectorate is brought into being, which can attend to this vital problem in our Republic? We have a crossing called Sweet Waters crossing in Pietermaritzburg, which is closed or controlled by gates. There is a gateman there who closes these gates when a train passes. A very serious and fatal accident took place on the crossing inside the gate some time ago. I was one of the people who went out to investigate the matter. I asked the gateman how he was notified about the approach of a train. I asked him whether he had a telephone. The answer was that he did not. I asked him whether he had a railway timetable. The answer was that he did not have that either. The crossing is in a misty area. Thick mist occurs there in the afternoons. I asked him how he knew that a train was approaching. He said to me that they had to put their ears on the railway line or against a telephone pole.

Listening in? [Interjections.]

This is not something to be laughed about. I am not laughing. This is a serious matter. We do not want to know how much money has been spent on the elimination of these crossings. We want them to be made safe and eliminated as soon as possible. That is a practical suggestion, Sir.

I now come to disciplinary inquiries, which were mentioned by the hon. member for Kroonstad. I agree with him. It is very sad to think that a railwayman has to refer to his departmental inquiry as a bush court. I have raised this matter in this House on a previous occasion. At that time the hon. the Minister replied:

Sir, such is not the case. I think that there is a misconception in this regard. The case referred to is one where a man is charged by the Railway Police for a serious offence and the case is sent to the local public prosecutor for him to decide whether to prosecute or not. The public prosecutor declined to prosecute. Mr. Speaker, all the legal men in this House will tell you that a civilian whom a public prosecutor declines to prosecute is a free man. This is not so as far as the Railways are concerned. He still has to face the disciplinary court and he may face the possibility of a discharge from the Railways. He is not allowed to have legal representation. The hon. member for Kroonstad who is a legal man can well understand why I am so perturbed about this matter. For this serious offence the poor railwayman must go to a bush court and get one of his friends or a railwayman whom they will appoint to defend him. That is wrong. I have said so in the past, I am saying it now and I will continue saying it. The fortunate thing is that railway-men are beginning to realize what the legal implications are. They only realize this when they are faced with an inquiry. Then they realize that they are in trouble. I ask the hon. the Minister in sincerity and humility, because I am that type of person, to alter these regulations and allow a railwayman who is in trouble to get legal representation if he so desires.

During the last session the Public Service Commissssion very kindly granted subsidies to public servants to help them pay their building society interest. In view of the shortage of houses among railwaymen, and I believe that there is a shortage of approximately 40,000 houses, railwaymen have to rent houses. Some of them have to pay very high rentals. I am told that the Minister is always assisting these men. Is it not possible to pay them a subsidy towards the high rental they have to pay for private houses?

Then there is the question of transporting stock from South West Africa to the Republic by train. I received a different answer to a question I put to-day to that which I received some years ago. When some years ago I asked a similar question I was told that 100 refrigerator trucks would be made available for the purpose of transporting fresh meat from South West Africa to the Republic to supply the local market here. I was told that they would try to avoid transporting slaughter animals over that very long distance. This is a case of cruelty to animals. People concerned with the matter asked me to raise it here over the floor of this House. I should like to know how many head of stock have travelled that long distance, from South West Africa to the Witwatersrand. recently when they could not be removed from the trucks for slaughter in Johannesburg? As far as I know the railway regulations lay down that after the Railways have accepted animals it is their responsibility to at least water them while they are in their custody. They remain in their custody until they are delivered. Then there is the old question of the pipeline costs. I see that last year the amount involved was R20 million and I understood from the hon. the Minister that it would probably be very much higher this year. The motorists I have met throughout the country do not like that story of the Minister. They want to see the price of petrol averaged out. A man out in the bundu. in the north of Namaqualand where I went last Easter, objects to paying 50 cents for a gallon of petrol when I in Natal only pay a little more than 30 cents a gallon. I do not care what the hon. the Minister does with the profits. I do not care whether he uses the profits to average out the expenses of the other departments. It would not work even if he did so anyway. I ask the Minister to be reasonable towards motorists on that particular point.

Then we heard quite a lot about the importance of Cape Town on the Cape sea route from Europe and America to the Far East. During the recess I visited Australia and the Far East and I only heard one complaint from the passengers, both American and English, who were on board ship and the Officers themselves. They speak very highly of our harbours, the hospitality they receive here and the courtesy they receive from the port officials. Everybody, however, wants to know why, if Cape Town is such an important port of call, it does not have a passenger terminal.

I notice that the jumbo jets are now flying regularly between America and England although they are only half full. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is prepared to tell us which airports in South Africa will be capable of catering for these large machines. We in Natal would like to know whether he intends building an airport for these machines in Natal, and if so, where and when. I think the public are entitled to know that.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) has not introduced much that is new into this debate. He has, however, introduced two quite interesting points. I notice that he has asked the hon. the Minister about conditions of heat and humidity in a grain elevator at Richard’s Bay. This is a subject which was discussed quite fully last year and I have no doubt at all that if he refers to Hansard he will get a reply to his question. Then he introduced another unusual point. He has indicated that the hon. the Deputy Minister has risen twice in this debate. If the hon. member reads his parliamentary rules, I do not need to reply to that observation. Then he told us that he has wonderful powers of prediction. I can assure him that he will not need to use them on the 22nd April. He can ask anyone and they will tell him what the outcome will be. But, Mr. Speaker, he then went on and indicated that the position on the Railways would have been better had the United Party remained in power. What utter nonsense! That party is so confused that the Railways would have collapsed by now had they been in power.

The hon. member for Salt River stood up and the first thing he did in his speech was to make excuses for an impassioned plea by the hon. member for Yeoville to the Minister, not to be put off by the presence of the Hertzog group in this House and to employ more non-Whites on the Railways. I want to ask these gentlemen, have they made up their minds what their policy is towards the employment of non-Whites on the Railways? In 1964 when I backed up the employment of Indian shunters by the hon. the Minister, I received a pill. It was dated the 5th November, 1964. This is what it says—

If the Mercury did not carry a correct report about Indian shunters, I think we should correct it. It has caused deep concern to members of the executive and, of course, is not United Party policy in its published form.

Sincerely, Douglas E. Mitchell.

I wondered myself what the United Party policy was. So I phoned the hon. member for Yeoville in Johannesburg. He said: “You go on and you get all the publicity of that type and have the newspapers quote it for us. We love it.” So here one found a conflict in 1964, and the conflict is still there now. And that does not only apply to the employment of non-Whites by the Railways.

The hon. member for Salt River also said that he was sorry that the hon. the Minister had rejected the recommendations of the Marais Commission in toto. Of course, the hon. the Minister did not do that at all.

I did not say that!

Well, I am glad to hear the hon. member say that. I, too, want to back this hon. Minister and the three members who put in minority reports, and say that I think that the hon. the Minister has done the right thing in isssuing the White Paper, rejecting the splitting of control over Railways, Airways and Harbours.

How often did you plead for it?

Once! [Laughter.] I agree with the minority reports which were put in by Mr. Joubert and Mr. Anderson.

So you have changed your principles on that.

Yes, I have learnt [Laughter.]

Order! Hon. members should give the hon. member a chance to make his speech.

I believe that those two gentlemen who base their objections on the fact that the commisssion had in fact gone beyond its terms of reference, are quite right. What we are dealing with here, is not a question of the co-ordination of transport in South Africa, which was the main objective of this commission; we are dealing here with the denationalization and the distribution of national transport right through the private sector. Is this not against the whole spirit of the original legislation at the time of Union which brought the transport set-up into being? Is it exactly the same set up? Is it exactly the same spirit? Realizing the difficulties of our country, our system of transport was obviously designed to develop this vast land of ours and to give transport, both economic and uneconomic, to the people who required it in our land. If we hand it to private enterprise, they would naturally want the economic transport. They could not be blamed for that. They are businesses which have to show a profit. But if they are given the economic transport which pays them profits and gives their shareholders dividends, what happens to the requirments of the other man whose traffic bears no profit? What happens about that? Who carries the burden of that? Does it go directly to the tax payer, or is it distributed through the whole transport system of this country? I believe that the commission’s recommendations, had the Minister accepted them, would have destroyed the whole principle underlying our transport structure in South Africa. It would have replaced it, according to the chairman of this commission himself, with a system of private monopoly; because one, or two or half a dozen companies could not possibly under any circumstances cope with the transport requirements of South Africa. They could not capitalize it, apart from anything else. I think that without the necessary knowledge, without the necessary statistics, which I believe the commission more or less indicated that they did not have, this commission was about to do a very dangerous thing for South Africa in recommending what they recommended.

I believe, on going through this report, that one of the main reasons for them making the recommendations, especially in the case of harbours, was the evidence led by the shipping committee of the Durban Chamber of Commerce. This committee is headed by Mr. Ronald Butcher, whom I think we all know. He sat in this House. Mr. Ronald Butcher, we all know too, has pushed for this move in relation to harbours for many years. It is on record.

That is why you supported him.

He was not in this House when I introduced this subject. He had already gone. Mr. Butcher reported to the congress of the Associated Chambers of Commerce. His talk was entitled “Reorganized transport. Airways, Harbours and Railways should be administered separately”. He recommended that, we know, in 1952. He has been pushing it very hard up to this moment. I believe it was on the evidence which he presented that this Marais Commission made their decision to recommend the separation of these three departments. Mr. Butcher has for long—we all know this; it is not secret—represented private interests who have a lot to do with the harbours. We know that he is one who recommended that private hauliers should be allowed into Durban harbour, a position different from anywhere else in the country, to do the private cartage from the harbour to the various people who use the goods that pass through the harbour. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the interests which he represents are also the interests of the ordinary man of South Africa, the man for whom our whole transport system and our harbours function. I think to a large extent the fears of his committee are based upon the revolution which has taken place in transport, not only in South Africa, but throughout the world to-day. We have it here. We have it in articles that have been written. There is one which appeared in one of the trade journals which expresses the fear that the Government will take over all transport. It also expresses the fear that with the change in emphasis, where air is taking over sea passengers and air freight is taking over from sea freight everybody is going to be excluded and that the Government will have the monopoly. Surely this Parliament has control over that. Parliament controls the transport system of this country and it is operated for the benefit of the people of South Africa. As I see it at the moment I have no doubts that it will continue to be run for the benefit of the people of South Africa.

Another difficulty, I believe the Durban Chamber of Commerce has, is that they are afraid that Durban harbour will lose its status as the leading commercial harbour in South Africa, to Richard’s Bay. They believe that the hon. the Minister obviously has plans which will take everything away from Durban and site it at Richard’s Bay. I am rather surprised that they have this fear because they have had many assurances. First they had the assurance of the hon. the Minister. He told them what the purpose was for establishing Richard’s Bay, Then in the South African Digest of 12th September, 1969, there was an article which said:

They therefore have the assurance of Mr. Jackson as well who is the technical consultant and who knows the purpose for thich Richard’s Bay is going to be established. It is rather interesting and I believe this underlying fear is one of the reasons for the type of evidence they gave. If you have read the harbour reports of the last two or three years you will find the thread of requests running through asking for exactly the same type of development in Durban harbour as has been requested for Richard’s Bay. There has been a request which, perhaps, I originated for the widening of the entrance to Durban harbour and the deepening of the channel so that it could take super tankers, super bulk carriers and the like. I can also remember that many years ago the hon. the Minister pointed out that the deepening of Durban harbour is not the answer. The wharves had to be rebuilt and refaced and the sheds moved. It is not only a question of dredging. It is a far more economic proposition to supply the type of requirement envisaged for Richard’s Bay in a completely new harbour than trying to establish it in an old harbour where the basic facilities do not already exist. I believe this hon. Minister was right when he said that and I believe the saving in cost alone will make it worth while for South Africa to develop the new harbour. Anybody who knows anything about Durban harbour knows that for many years to come, Durban harbour can cope with all the demands which are going to be imposed on it. Durban harbour has a good draught and many berths. The hon. the Minister has already told us that work has already started on No. 2 pier and that the work on No. 1 pier has been completed. We also know that the cross berth is finished and that that berth is available for container traffic as soon as it is so required. I can see nothing that is going to detract from the value of Durban harbour for many years to come.

At the moment the scene is clouded by diverted ships. Are we to provide for something that might stop to-morrow? Who knows what the position with the Suez Canal is going to be? When I say “to-morrow” I mean a time in which the canal may be re-opened. Should the hon. the Minister spend the money of the public of South Africa to provide facilities under these circumstances? I think the attitude of the hon. the Minister is backed up by a report which appeared in Fairplay of the 25th April, 1968. I think anybody who knows shipping knows the magazine Fairplay. The heading of this report is: “South Africa: Urgent need for giant repair dock”, and it reads as follows:

This is one point I want to put to the hon. the Minister in passing. The hon. the Minister has given us the assurance that he will build a dry dock in Richard’s Bay that will be able to take ships of up to 200,000 tons. Will he reconsider this in the light of the larger bulk carriers planned? The report goes on and states the following:

And so the report goes on. I do not want to read the whole of it, but it says that until there is some stability in the repair business along the South African coast one cannot expect ship repairers to carry stocks of standard size boiler tubes to fit all the ships that are coming round and it cannot be expected that all the facilities that are going to be necessary can be provided. This means that the Government will have to supply a suitable dry dock. Even then the hon. the Minister must be assured of some use for this dry dock. Surely, before he can go to the expense of building a dry dock which can accommodate vessels of up to 500,000 tons, he has to be assured that that dock is going to be supported and used and that at least some of the capital charges will be paid off so that it will not only be a liability to South Africa. The report states that there is a feeling in the local repair industry that there is no point in building up comprehensive reserve stocks against casual contracts. If tanker and other ship owners were definitely committed to the South African repair yards all the necessary spares would be carried, but as conditions are at present it seems that the system followed for many years will persist. I believe that this is largely the position that will persist as far as the hon. the Minister is concerned.

I am satisfied that the approach of this hon. Minister, to this problem of the development of the harbour, has been consistent and I believe that he is being proved to be correct. Thoughts on the new breeds of ships coming into the world shipping market are now beginning to crystallize. Basically I think there are two types, namely the container type ship which uses the roll-on roll-off system and the ordinary container type, as well as the “lash” type which does not need a harbour because it discharges its cargo of barges in deep water outside and these are towed in. Then there are the combination ships, which can take containers, vehicles, and so on. These are not such huge ships. The newest of these ships which has just completed its maiden voyage to Britain, built by the Cunard Line, displaces only 18,000 tons. This ship is one of the newest—it is in fact the newest. The “Atlantic Causeway” can transport nearly 900 cars on wheels plus two deckloads of trailers and coaches or break-bulk cargo, plus 600 containers at a time. This is the type of ship we are going to see as this container traffic develops. We have had much bigger ships than that in our harbours and we will have bigger ones in future.

We have the Mactra in Durban at the moment. I think that is one type of ship with which Durban harbour and Cape Town harbour can easily cope. In any case the Marais Commission has suggested that coasters should handle the container traffic from those two bigger ports coastwise, to give them an opportunity. This might well be a good suggestion. There is a new type of container handling, where cargo is side discharged. This will not need all the expensive equipment for places like East London and Port Elizabeth and yet can give them the benefits of containerization. These ships will not need so many berths either. I see the latest record in Britain for the turn-around of a container ship is 10 hours. In 10 hours the ship was brought into the harbour, berthed, loaded and turned-around again. Therefore berths will be available for at least twice as many ships and sometimes more. Perhaps five times as many ships will be able to use the existing berths, as can use them at the moment, as a result of this quicker turn-around. The other type of ship will be the bulk carrier. For these types of ships the hon. the Minister is making provision at Richard’s Bay. I do not believe that we should have too many of these types of harbours with the fantastic draughts, which have to be maintained and the specialized facilities which have to be used for this particular type of cargo carrier, whether it carries liquids, whether it carries ore, whether it carries grain or any other type of cargo. I believe that for many years to come Durban will be able to cope with the sugar traffic and it will also be able to cope with certain other bulk products. I believe that one’s approach to these problems makes all the difference. If a journal wants to take an approach which is critical of the hon. the Minister they can adopt the approach which Travel and Trade adopts in a report on a visit from overseas of a certain Mr. Clarke headed “U.K. containers expert warns and encourages South Africa”. The Natal Mercury of the 22nd September, 1969, contains an article on the same visit under the heading “Container moves by S.A. praised” in which it is said—

Mr. H. H. Clarke is reported to have said that—

Here we have another reason in favour of the administration of our harbours being retained within the present set-up. Mr. Clarke is reported to have said that within two or three years there would be few non-containerized break-bulk cargoes on the North Atlantic trade routes and world container capacity was expected to increase by 40 per cent this year. He went on—

He warned that containerization was not a remedy for all transport ills and said that the South African Government was wisely adopting a cautious attitude to this radical change. So, here South Africa is both warned and praised, depending entirely on one’s approach. Of course, when you are in opposition you would like to run the Minister down whilst when you are in the Government you have to have a good look and state exactly what the position is. Here we have the difference in approach which I am trying to illustrate.

This, then, is the picture of South African harbours as I see it. The harbours of South Africa under the policy which is at present being applied, but we still have to continue looking to the future as we go along. They have coped with the industrial explosion of South Africa and in addition to that they have coped with the consequences of the Suez crisis, pushed upon us. The staff in our harbours have, under the present policy and despite the overloading of our harbours, coped with whatever was required of them. Although there were criticisms I think we ought still to be grateful towards this hon. Minister for having stood his ground and for getting on with his job in the efficient manner he has. Similarly, we have to be grateful towards his staff who have served South Africa so well. We have had it from the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) to-night that people have praised the services we offer in our harbours and the hospitality they have encountered from the staff in our harbours. As far as I am concerned, all thanks are due to the Minister and to his staff for the efficient manner in which they have discharged their responsibilities and I am glad that he took the decision he has taken not to divide the control over the Harbours, Airways and Railways.

Mr. Speaker, very recently in this House the hon. the Minister of Transport told the hon. member for Umlazi, when he had made an impassioned appeal for separate harbour authorities, that Mr. Butcher had made this his theme song for many years and that the hon. member for Umlazi was merely following what Mr. Butcher had said. One hardly can be expected to take with any sense of sincerity the attitude of the hon. member this evening in suddenly saying that he no longer stands for separate authorities for harbours. One can hardly be expected to accept with any sense of sincerity the attitude which the hon. member adopted this evening when he all of a sudden stated in relation to the hon. member for Durban that he no longer stood for a separate authority for the harbours. But what goes further and what staggers me, if I may use that word (Umlazi), is his attitude that whatever one says depends on what side of the House one is on. [Interjections.] Surely, Sir, that is a prostitution of what the duties of a member of Parliament ought to be, which is to say what he believes and not what he is expected to say because of the side of the House he happens to be on. [Interjections.] I believe in every word I say in this House. But let me go further and finish with the hon. member for Umlazi. I think it was in Die Beeld that I read a very interesting thing a while ago, something which correctly describes what has happened to the hon. member. There was an invitation: “Kom julle Kapenaars; kom julle verligtes; kom Transvaal toe; ons sal julle liggies ‘fuse’” That is what has happened to the hon. member for Umlazi under the influence of the Minister of Transport. The hon. member’s speeches these days seem to be designed to find quotations to support the Government instead of, as he did before, spending his time finding quotations criticizing the Government.

I want to say that I agree with the remarks that have been made in this House, i.e. that this country is indeed fortunate in having such a high standard of service being rendered by the employees of our S.A.R. & H. Administration. Being connected with the Cape Town Docks, I want to say that this applies to our dock personnel especially since we have had this tremendous build-up of traffic lately. But I wonder whether we pay sufficient regard to the corresponding responsibility which is imposed on us, and particularly on the hon. the Minister, to see to it that these people who have worked in this manner and have served the country in this manner under difficult circumstances, are assured of an adequate remuneration, and the best working circumstances that they are entitled to on account of their service to the country in this field. Now, Sir, I want to say also from this side of the House that I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister on one matter. I want to congratulate him because he has had the courage to apply in the Harbours Administration those steps which we have advocated year in and year out to relieve the manpower shortage in the administration of the harbours in that he has taken into the employ of the Administration thousands and thousands of Bantu and other non-Whites to do jobs which were previously done by Whites, but not to replace them. I do not make that accusation. It is being done because the Whites are not there to do the work. I want to thank the hon. the Minister in all sincerity and one appreciates that he has taken that practical and realistic step. Particularly do we say that when on a recent occasion, when he was asked how he reconciled that with the policy of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration, he replied across the floor of the House: “Ask the Minister of Bantu Administration about his policy. I need the labour and I am going to get it.” I say that we congratulate him because he is setting an example which we hope will be followed by the rest of the Cabinet in other spheres. But those are matters I must not deal with at the present moment.

I want to express some thanks to the hon. the Minister. When I came into this House on the first occasion in 1966, I raised certain staff matters with the hon. the Minister across the floor. I referred to certain problems, difficulties and grievances which were felt by workers in the Docks in Cape Town. There were certain problems in regard to senior wharfmen and inspectors and their rights of promotion. The hon. the Minister dealt with me as a new member of this House, he being a senior and a long experienced member, and he gave me some good advice. The first part I did not think was very good advice, but I took it from him. But he said this to me—

I want to say to the hon. the Minister that that was very good advice, but unfortunately it meant an increasing mail bag for me ever since I raised this matter, without having had to tell the workers, because they saw this. They have now decided that they should inform me of what these complaints are because I raised the matter and they were told by the hon. the Minister that it was a very good thing that they should communicate with me. I want to deal presently with some of the letters that I do receive. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that with all the protestations that we have that the Railway Service is a very happy service, with all the attempts by the hon. the Deputy Minister to say that up till 1948 there were terrible conditions and that they have now improved, I hope perhaps to disabuse the mind of the hon. the Minister, and this House in regard to those matters. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that this laissez-faire idea of just leaving matters to develop through the organization has gone on too long and is not satisfying the railway workers and the dock workers.

I think one of the most extraordinary somersaults done by the hon. the Minister is in connection with the means test for pensioners. In the year 1967 the hon. the Minister, when he was asked to abolish the means test for pensioners so that they could go and supplement their pensions without losing the allowance, said that it would be a ridiculous thing to do, quite unheard of, and that it would cost millions of rands. That was his statement in the House. That is how he pooh-poohed the suggestion from this side of the House. But as has happened so often, the following year he did exactly what we asked him to do. Then it was no longer a ridiculous suggestion. He did not do it in response to us the year before because it would have been too obvious that he was reacting to pressure from this side of the House. The following year it suddenly becomes a very reasonable request and it was to cost the country R700,000. How does the railway worker react when the Minister makes statements that this would cost millions, that it is a ridiculous suggestion, and in the next year there is a somersault when he brings in this particular relief and says that it will only cost R700,000? That is why I say that this idea of the hon. the Minister, although he is a very busy man, to leave these staff matters to come filtering through the various organizations, though the Management of the Railways to him, is resulting in injustices, in hardships and disgruntlement amongst numbers and numbers of workers on the Railways.

I say that the Minister has remained aloof. I say that there is too much of an easy acceptance of the arguments put forth, as by the hon. the Deputy Minister, that everything is so good. The following letter I received, dated 3rd February, from a Railways employee—

He goes on to explain how he is being treated and so much for the bad days before this Government came into power. He says in his letter—

This is from a rail worker who, according to the …

He is a United Party man.

He is not. I do not know him. I received this letter from him because he realized that all his talking to his organizations and all the pleas of the unions and the staff associations get nowhere because they do not get attended to at the top.

What are his grievances?

He has a number of grievances. I will give them to you. The position of this man, like many others, is the result of the method in which large groups of Railways employees are treated differently from other groups. The Minister says I cannot raise them in Parliament and I cannot discuss these across the floor of the House. What about the Employees’ Union? These letters are from members of the Employees’ Union, namely those on the monthly paid scale. These are employees such as train-drivers, checkers, storemen, stewards, catering staff, and carriage and wagon examiners. What are their conditions of employment? What are their leave privileges, for instance? What are their sick leave privileges? They have through their union made representations to come more into line with the administrative staff. But nothing is done for them. After they have done 20 years of service these people get 27 days’ leave per annum, as against the scales that apply in some other branches of the service of 35 and 40 days.

Which other branches?

The hon. the Minister should know. I will tell him what the other branches are: The salaried staff side.

There has always been a difference between the salaried and daily paid staff.

I am talking about the difference between the administrative salaried staff in the Paul Sauer Building. Their conditions are far different from those of a crane-driver and an operator at the docks.

They have always been different, even during your time.

Yes. It is incredible when one becomes so verkramp that nothing must be altered because it was done 25 or 30 years ago.

There is a very good reason why they have not been altered.

Yes, Sir. I know the reasons. I want to go on to the sick leave position. The hon. the Minister knows what the sick leave conditions are for these different classes. Is a crane-driver to be penalized when he takes sick and get less privileges than a man sitting in an Office doing clerical work? Is he to be treated on a different basis? That is what is going on. That is what is happening. The hon. the Minister should know this. It should have come up to him. When the Union has made repeated requests for better leave privileges, they have been informed that the hon. the Minister does not think that the time is very opportune.

When did I say that?

I cannot give you the date.

Of course you cannot do so. You do not know what you are talking about.

I do know what I am talking about and I have heard this from a number of members of this union.

It is nonsense.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister why it is that the special overtime allowances have not been taken into account now that they can bring in that additional sum for pension rights? Must they go on forever regarding this as a non-pensionable income?

Which allowances?

The special overtime allowances. Does the hon. the Minister not know …

Special overtime allowances have never been counted for the purpose of pension contributions.

That is just the point I am trying to make. That is why these railwaymen have grievances. Here we are living in a period of an increased cost of living, of increased hardship, and the hon. the Minister says that because it has never been done there is no justification for bringing these special overtime allowances into account for pension purposes.

I shall tell you why it should not be done and why it cannot be done.

I hope the hon. the Minister will because none of these railway employees are satisfied with any explanation they have had so far.

I now want to pass to another matter. Mr. Speaker, you know that each year you. in accordance with recommendations made, may appoint a select committee to deal with pension petitions which are presented to this House. That committee sits and then it receives petitions from various persons who feel that they have grievances or who feel that they are entitled to some special consideration because of special circumstances. We all know, as practical men, that no laws can cover all circumstances and all conditions. It is for this very reason that the select committee on pensions sits and is charged with investigating petitions and then making recommendations as to what should be done in regard to the specific petitioner. The committee receives evidence and receives reports and finally it comes to its recommendation. I must say that every department, with the exception of the Railways and Harbours Administration, reacts to the recommendations of the select committee. They react and relief is granted by this House to the petitioner. When the reports of the select committee come before this House, the House, according to custom, passes the recommendations over to the Railways Administration to dispose of them or to deal with them as they think best. In other words, no decision is taken by this House. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, the matters are referred to the Administration. From my investigations it seems that very few, if any, of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Pensions are ever implemented by the Railways Administration. These recommendations are not lightly made. They are made because they are cases of hardship. These recommendations are made by the select committee of whom the majority of members are members from the Government side of the House as hon. members know, but now they are turned down with great alacrity, with great speed after they have been referred to the Administration by this House. The hon. the Deputy Minister last year moved that all the Railway pension petitions should be referred to the Administration. I want to ask whether the hon. the Deputy Minister or the hon. the Minister personally handles these matters at any stage after that. I hope the hon. the Minister will tell me because I want to deal with the position, and I think there is one particular case which should be dealt with. I mention this particular case because this man retired under very unfortunate circumstances from the Service. This is a gentleman, a good South African, who in 1934 enlisted in the South African armed forces. It was during peacetime that he joined the Permanent Force, he joined the Special Service Battalion at the age of 19. A little later he was transferred to the Permanent Force. From 1939 to 1945 he was on active service in various parts of the world in the artillery division. He served in South West Africa, the Middle East, Algiers and then he returned to South Africa. When he returned to South Africa in 1945, he notified the Defence Force on 27th August of that year that he would like to be discharged on 1st January, 1946. But within a matter of a month, while still serving with the armed forces, he applied for enlistment in the South African Railway and Harbour Police. He was accepted. So he left the armed forces on 1st January, 1946 and he entered the employment of the South African Railway and Harbour Police on the same day. In his service subsequently he attained the rank of detective-sergeant. He has been awarded the good conduct medal and by private study he attained his National Senior Certificate. During the course of his service while on duty he sustained certain injuries which were originally assessed at 15 per cent. He has now been re-boarded and has been required to retire from the Service of the Railways Administration. This matter was referred to the select committee. The select committee found that there was one thing which this unfortunate person did wrong. He posted the wrong letter first. Had he written to the Railways to apply for a job in the Railway Police before he wrote his letter of resignation to the Defence Force, there would have been no difficulty at all, and his service from 1934 to 1946 would have been recognized. However, because he wrote, or posted the wrong letter first, he has now lost that service time for pension purposes. He is retired now as a disabled person who has served his country during times of war and who has served in the Railway Police with distinction. I think this was an injustice, but I heard that the Department had turned his petition down. I therefore wrote to the hon. the Minister. I said that I hoped he would forgive me for writing to him personally, but when he had read the details I was sure he would be satisfied that a grave injustice had been done to this person. What did I get back? I got a letter from the administrative secretary which I quote—

Without abusing the processes of Parliament, I want to say that as far as I am concerned, this man is entitled to put this petition and to renew it from year to year until he gets justice from the Railways and Harbours Administration.

What is the name of the person?

His name is Detective-Sergeant Moolman. Did the hon. the Minister not read my personal letter addressed to him?

I cannot recall that letter amongst the thousands that I receive.

That just evidences my complaint to the hon. the Minister. I know he has a big department; I know that he does not want to split it up into separate controls for the Railways and the Airways and the Harbours, but these things which the hon. the Minister should be advised of are apparently not reaching him. I know the difficulties, but they are no answer to the employees in the Railways. It is no answer to them to know that somewhere along the line they are being treated in such a way that they are not getting the justice which they deserve. The hon. the Minister asked what this man’s complaint was. I shall read it to him. This is the person who said that I should speak to the hon. the Minister. He says that he was transferred. He went to the Paul Sauer Building to discuss his transfer to Cape Town. When talking about the official he spoke to there, he says: “Hy was baie onbeskof.” He then uses some rather strong language which I should perhaps not read out. He goes on to point out the difference in the treatment which the working man in the Railways is getting now and the treatment he used to get in the years of the United Party Administration.

Is he not a United Party man?

No, I do not know him. This person does not even live in my constituency. Sir, I want to say that these are the facts that come before one. This is the way in which people are treated within the Service. The hon. the Minister and those who support him in his party must not be surprised when they find that they no longer have the political support of the workers in the South African Railways and Harbours. They are not the only people in South Africa who are no longer prepared to support this Government.

Mr. Speaker, if the United Party believes that the Railway people will have confidence in them, their disappointment after 22nd April is going to be acute. We have been sitting here the whole afternoon listening to the arguments of hon. members of the Opposition. However, we have in reality heard no criticism of the steps the Railways are taking. The only criticism expressed was in regard to trifling matters which could very easily be solved on an administrative level. I do not think the United Party believes that railway workers have so much confidence in them that they will appoint them as spokesmen to the Minister of Transport. I believe the exact opposite. The railway people for whom they raised so many pleas this afternoon have their spokesmen who negotiate with the Minister and the General Management of the South African Railways as far as salaries and conditions of service are concerned. I do not think they have any confidence in the hon. members of the Opposition in this House to do it on their behalf.

The hon. member for Green Point read out a letter written to him by a railwayman. Even before he read out this letter he was already saying that all these people were dissatisfied. If I were to inform the hon. member to-night that there are at least two veterans sitting in the Opposition benches who are extremely dissatisfied with the leadership of the United Party, he would be unable to deny it, but this does not give me any reason to say that all the members of the United Party are dissatisfied. Those exceptional cases we will most certainly find. I think the Minister has a tremendous amount of sympathy with those exceptional cases. There are also many of those cases that simply cannot be helped. I believe that the Minister always has a sympathetic ear for everyone in the employ of the South African Railways.

However, there is one thing which I do not want to allow to go unanswered to-night. That is the blatant way in which the United Party has tried to canvass votes with the very tragic incident which recently occurred. Reference has already been made to this by this side of the House. After the hon. the Deputy Minister of Transport had gone into this matter very thoroughly, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) saw fit to launch another attack, an attack which was very clearly aimed at canvassing votes for the United Party out of this unfortunate incident. As was already said this afternoon, we are all shocked at what happened. We have every sympathy with those who are affected. However, it is not only the parents of the children who died in that accident who are affected. The schools are affected. The South African Railways is affected. The Transvaal Department of Education is also affected by this. We have deep sympathy with all these persons and bodies, but we also welcome the steps which have already been taken, and which will in future be taken, to eliminate incidents of this kind, if it were ever possible, so that they could eliminate them entirely. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) is the last person who ought to forget a thing like this, but he forgot this afternoon that one always has to take into account the human element. Whatever measures one takes to eliminate accidents one will always have to take into account the human element. This is deplorable, and that they should seize upon this matter in order to try to canvass votes was clear proof of the political bankruptcy of the United Party

Sir, I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister this evening because he has not yet, as is in fact the case with the United Party, given way to the temptation of using the Railways organization for political gain. The speech made yesterday afternoon by the hon. the Minister is typical of a man who is dedicated to rendering service to South Africa. He is a man who is dedicated to utilizing a service organization in the interests of South Africa and also in the interests of those who are in the employ of that organization. Throughout the hon. the Minister’s career as Minister of Transport he has continually refused to make concessions which would bring political benefits to the National Party. His primary consideration has always been whether it was in the national interests to take a certain decision. That was to him always the most important consideration. Hand in hand with the interests of the country the hon. the Minister has always had a sympathetic ear for these people who are responsible for the Railways rendering this service to South Africa. He has never yet had an unsympathetic ear for them.

On the contrary, he has always looked after the interests and the welfare of these people. Continually, and consistently, he has always said that when the financial position of the Railways allows, he will always give consideration to the review of wages and salaries. This he has always done. This, I maintain, bears the stamp of a man who will not give way to political pressure, and who does not do things which will allow the Party he represents here in the House of Assembly to derive benefit from, but who regards the national interests and the interests of the people in the employ of that organization as his most important consideration. For that, we owe him a vote of thanks. On that, I want to congratulate him to-night. The speech made here by the hon. the Minister bears the stamp of willingness to serve, growth and willingness to keep pace with that growth and to ensure that the service will always be rendered to the best of their ability. This is in contrast to the speech made by the hon. member for Hillbrow who was quite unable to make any positive contribution, but who in fact revealed an irresponsible attitude here by detracting from that which was being done and then pleading for concessions where concessions could be made. I found it really astonishing to hear how they carried on here about concessions in respect of salaries and wages while they omitted to mention how this should be done. I think it is necessary for us to refer here tonight to the transport services under the control of United Party controlled municipalities.

I want to dwell for a moment to-night on what is happening in Johannesburg where there is also a kind of miniature transport service which is controlled by the United Party controlled Municipality of Johannesburg. In this little booklet which they had published, they make all kinds of promises. They also speak of matters they envisage in respect of transport services. We as the taxpayers of Johannesburg have been waiting for many years now for them to do something in Johannesburg in order to improve those transport services and bring them to where they can, in the true sense of the word, render service to the taxpayers of Johannesburg. They speak here of a service which must be remunerative, and of transport systems which will be able to provide transport on an economic basis. In Johannesburg the transport service runs at a tremendous loss every year. This loss is simply transferred to the taxpayers. It is recovered from the taxpayers of Johannesburg. This is in contrast to what they have been pleading for all afternoon here in respect of the South African Railways. Now I want to put a question in this regard this evening. If it were to happen that the South African Railways were to run at such a tremendous loss, I want to ask them how they would recover this from the taxpayers if they are always talking here about decreased taxation. If one makes a pro rata comparison, these losses would run into millions of rand. They state in this booklet: “We shall see to it that the profits on the operation of the pipeline are not exorbitant, but are kept on approximately the same level as profits on road transport.” They also say: “We will build national roads to keep pace with the growing economy and to increase the contribution by the Government to the National Road Fund.” They want to increase contributions to the National Road Fund. They want to reduce tariffs on the pipeline. Then they want to introduce a transport service which will be profitable! I maintain that they are unable to do so, for in the Johannesburg Municipality they are unable to do so. Then they recover their losses from the taxpayers. In this case they will do the same.

The other aspect I want to mention here in this connection, is the following. This afternoon they offered a solution here to the manpower shortage on the Railways. On the one hand they spoke about wages which should be made attractive enough to draw people to the Railways. This is stated in the first paragraph of this booklet. The problem in Johannesburg is a shortage of workers. I am asking hon. members of the Opposition to-night why they do not offer wages in Johannesburg which will attract the workers needed to keep that transport service of theirs in operation? If they can offer wages on the South African Railways to eliminate the manpower shortage on the Railways, why are they unable to do so in their own transport service in Johannesburg?

But that is not all. I have never heard of the hon. the Minister of Transport having to cancel afternoon services in Johannesburg and of trains having to remain stationary because he did not have the necessary manpower to operate those trains, so that the passengers then had to go by foot to their destinations. But this is a daily occurrence in Johannesburg, where the United Party Municipality is in control. They cancel as many as a hundred bus services in the afternoon. Then the people must themselves find a means of getting home. They are the people who acted so piously here this afternoon and stated how they would control the Railways when they come into power. They cannot even control those few buses in Johannesburg. How can they control the South African Railways, the Airways and the Harbours? These people must first sweep in front of their own door before attacking in this House a man who has rendered service to South Africa like the hon. the Minister of Transport and the way in which he is doing his work. But in Johannesburg people queue up in the afternoons and then the report comes through that the services have been cancelled because there is insufficient staff to operate those buses.

Sir, but that is not all. We know that their main purpose is—and that is why they are putting forward pleas here—to have the colour bar abolished, and to staff the Railways with non-Whites. That is what they are busy doing in Johannesburg. That is why they have approached the Minister of Labour and asked for permission to employ Coloureds and Bantu on the buses which convey Whites in Johannesburg. I want to inform the United Party to-night that when we go to the polls, to the political platform to discuss our transport services in South Africa, I warn them not to appear on a platform in Johannesburg. That is probably the one reason why the hon. member for Yeoville has not made himself available for election in Langlaagte. If he has as much influence among the railway people as he tried to give out here this afternoon, and as the hon. member for Green Point tried to pretend, then he must not make himself available for election in Yeoville where there are no railway people: he must make himself available for election in Langlaagte where these people live. Then I would be prepared to meet him there. Then we can draw comparisons between the service which is being rendered by this National Party Government under the guidance of the hon. the Minister of Transport, and that which is being rendered by the United Party controlled Municipality of Johannesburg to the public of that city. Let them first ensure that they are rendering an efficient service in Johannesburg. We must take the comparison further. In Johannesburg they are dealing with the conveyance of passengers, and with the conveyance of passengers only.

The hon. the Minister of Transport and his staff, on the other hand, are dealing with the conveyance of all goods. I should like to know how that hon. member, who is now laughing so heartily, would feel if he, returning tired after a long day at work, had to stand in a queue for a bus home only to hear that the service had been cancelled because the men to operate those buses were not available. Then they are the people who claim that they will attract more people to the Railways with higher wages and at the same time are going to reduce other tariffs! In Johannesburg, however, they have increased the tariffs consistently every year. and have still shown losses every year. These losses were then recovered from the taxpayers. They have never vet succeeded in rendering the service which is really essential. I think the difference is that South Africa at present has a Minister of Transport whose source of strength is nationalism and patriotism. He therefore weighs up every decision in the interests of the country. In contrast to this, is the United Party that rejects nationalism and patriotism. It is for this reason that the United Party will never become inspired to render service to South Africa. For that reason too, they will continue to dwindle as a political factor in South Africa until they eventually disappear completely. I want to make the assertion that after 22nd April their ranks will once again have been thinned out considerably. Their ranks will have been thinned out because they conduct themselves in such a derogatory manner in this House in regard to the affairs of people who are rendering good and loyal service to South Africa, inter alia, the staff of the South African Railways. The speech made by the hon. member for Yeoville in this House yesterday bears the stamp of irresponsibility, because he tried to prescribe to the railwayman here that he should be dissatisfied and that he should not take the interests of the country into consideration. It is a good thing to-day that we have men on the Railways who, in the same way as the hon. the Minister, are dedicated to rendering services in the interests of South Africa. If this were not the case they would have done what the hon. member for Yeoville wanted them to do and then they would have proceeded to be irresponsible, which would eventually have crippled our transport system. However, these people are as responsible as the hon. the Minister and the General Management of the South African Railways, and that is why they will not allow themselves to be led by the United Party and its fallacious arguments. And that is also the reason why the railway workers are doing the opposite of what the people of the Johannesburg bus transport service are doing, people who are leaving the service in droves so that it is then necessary to say that the staff with which to supply the necessary bus services is not available. The National Party and the hon. the Minister of Transport do not hawk the difficult position of the railwaymen about in order to catch votes, for this is something which has to do with a service which must be rendered to South Africa. Under the guidance of the hon. the Minister the railway workers are also dedicated to keep on rendering service, despite the many problems with which they have to contend, in order to place the transportation system in South Africa in a position where it can remain in continual operation and render the service the public expects from it. I challenge the United Party tonight to mention one case where the transportation system in South Africa has been unable to render the service the public expected from it. This we owe to a dedicated Minister, a man who has been serving this portfolio for many years, the man who lifted the Railways out of the doldrums and built it up to be the pride of South Africa. On 22nd April the railway workers will take the lead in paying tribute and expressing gratitude to Ben Schoeman. our respected Minister of Transport in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great interest to the hon. member for Langlaagte. I was not sure whether he was making an election speech to-night for the 22nd of April, 1970 or for the Johannesburg municipal election in some two years’ time. He referred to the United Party’s policy as that of eliminating the colour bar. He knows perfectly well that that is completely untrue. That has never been the policy of this side of the House. What I do know is that there are more non-Whites in the employ of the South African Railways to-day under the hon. the Minister of Transport than there have ever been in the history of South Africa. I also know that there are 64,000 White salaried workers in the South African Railways who are earning a basic salary of less than R200 per month. It has often been said in this House that the members of the governing party have lost touch with the electorate. If ever there was evidence of the governing party having lost touch with the electorate, then we have heard it here in the course of this debate to-day. That hon. member has challenged us on this side of the House to mention any aspect in the Railway Service which is not satisfactory. I should like to deal with that part of the Administration with which I am most familiar. I should like to deal with the suburban service here in the Peninsula. I should like to tell the hon. the Minister that whereas the suburban areas are growing apace the number of trains serving those areas seem to be getting fewer. If I may give an example, between Simonstown and Cape Town during the peak-hour traffic that serves the naval base which is growing fast and the residential area that is also growing very fast, only six trains are operating between 4.15 in the afternoon and 7 o’clock. Only one of them expresses through a few stations. The rest are all-station trains. I should like to tell the hon. the Minister that if he were to go down to Simonstown at that time of the afternoon, he would find the most appalling traffic congestion because the dockyard workers, naval personnel and other civilian employees in the navy are unable to use the completely inadequate train service. From Cape Town itself to the south there is likewise—and I have drawn attention to this in this House before—an inadequate number of trains at peak hours. It seems to be thought sometimes that the seaside areas are only pleasure resorts and holiday areas. In fact, they are mainly residential areas and a vast number of people live there these days. Recently I asked a question. Stations south of Lakeside alone cater for 53,000 season ticket-holders. The hon. the Minister last year referred to a survey of the peak hour traffic on the suburban lines which is held from time to time. I should like to ask him when the survey was last taken and whether the survey perhaps recommended that there should be an increase in the number of trains between Cape Town and Simonstown and between Simonstown and Cape Town. I should also like to ask him about a matter to which I referred in this House before, namely the question of the jolting and the jarring of the trains. I know that gave the hon. the Minister and his Administration considerable cause for concern over a number of years in view of the complaints that were made about the unsatisfactory conditions in the trains, in so far as jolting and jarring was concerned. There has since been an adjusted mechanism. As far as I can see, there is an improvement. However, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is satisfied that everything has been done to make that service more comfortable than it has been. Now I should like to draw his attention to a situation which can be very dangerous for users of the trains, particularly those who are young and those that are elderly. I now refer to the opening and closing of the doors. The system is not working well and I have seen elderly people trapped in the doors when the doors should have been released and vice versa.

I should now like to deal with the stations and some of the problems which the suburban line users experience on those stations. The hon. the Minister said in reply to a question of mine some time ago that the station clocks on the suburban lines had been eliminated on account of excessive expenditure. I think he referred to maintenance expenditure. I should like to ask him whether it is not possible, at least on the more important stations, for these station clocks to be replaced.

I should also like to refer to the state of the subways. Most of the stations in the southern suburbs are served with a subway. The unhygienic conditions in those subways are to be seen to be believed. The cleansing staff does not seem to be adequate on those stations and there certainly does not seem to be sufficient patrol work done by the Railway Police in order to deal with the number of loiterers around our suburban line station subways.

And then, Mr. Speaker, there is another matter, namely the inadequate plumbing in the stations. The toilets for both men and women in many of those stations are in a most shocking condition. It is appalling to think that ladies particularly have to use toilets in the condition in which they are so often found. I have myself inspected many of these toilets and other facilities at the stations, such as waiting rooms. They are absolutely indescribable at times. I have made an offer to the hon. the Minister and to the System Manager that at any time convenient to any members of the staff I would be more than happy to take them along and to show them the facilities about which I am complaining. I repeat this offer now.

There is another matter which I should like to mention and that is the closing of the ticket Offices at some of the suburban line stations over weekends. I wonder if it is not possible for those Offices to be kept open, particularly during the season, when there are so many people using those trains.

Then there is the question of parking areas. I referred earlier to the phenomenal growth that is taking place in the Southern Peninsula; the number of people who use the trains and the greater number who would like to use the trains who come to the stations in their cars but are unable to find adequate parking facilities. Simonstown, for example, which I would have thought was a particularly important station because of its use by dockyard and naval men has no parking facilities at all, and yet the buses and cars and passengers are expected to use the very inadequate area that comprises station property at Simonstown. I should like to ask him in connection with Simonstown whether the road widening scheme in the approach to Simonstown will involve the demolition of some of the Railway houses on the main road, and if so, where he has planned to resite those houses. Will they be resited in Simonstown or will they be resited on Railway ground elsewhere in the southern Peninsula? I know that a number of the Railway people in those houses are most anxious to know if their houses are to be demolished and where they are to go. At Fish Hoek there is a parking area run by the municipality. It was taken over by the municipality from the Railways. That area is unfortunately also proving to be inadequate. More people are using the trains at Fish Hoek than ever before. Non-White and white townships have recently been established and are still being established on the fringes and the outskirts offish Hoek and I am wondering whether the hon. the Minister can perhaps go into that matter to see if it is not possible to make available more of the surplus land that exists around the shunting yard area at Fish Hoek for parking purposes. Then at Kalk Bay too there is an inadequate parking area. There is an old and redundant shunting area and I should like to suggest that the hon. the Minister makes available some of that land for parking purposes. At St. James station the road approach to the back of the station is in a most shocking condition. There are potholes and I would like to warn the hon. the Minister there are a number of elderly people who use the trains from that station. If they twist their ankles in those potholes there are going to be substantial claims against the Railways. At Muizenberg station there is no public parking facility whatsoever. Although the surplus Railway land in that area is admittedly very small, some of it could be made available for public parking. At Lakeside sufficient land is available and the parking area can certainly be extended and resurfaced. At Steenberg there is a large non-White complex. I think plans have been on the drawing boards of the Railways for a long time for a new station to cope with the numbers of people using the station. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister what stage has been reached in the planning for the new Steenberg station. The same applies to Retreat. These areas, Steenberg and Retreat in particular, have expanded as non-White group areas. At Retreat there is a most extraordinary situation in that half of the railway houses are in the non-White area across the railway line. I have drawn the hon. the Minister’s attention to this before. Vast numbers of non-Whites who live in this area go through the streets and past the houses of the white railway men who live next to the station. This gives a considerable amount of cause for friction. I think it is now time that those houses were resited in the white area of Retreat where there is plenty of land available to the Railways to build upon.

The next question I would like to raise, is the question of level crossings. Over the last three years I have asked the hon. the Minister questions in regard to the elimination of crossings on the suburban line and the most recent answer he has given me, disclosed that there are five level crossings south of Lakeside station and eight to the north side of Lakeside station. Of those south of Lakeside station I have recently drawn the attention of the Minister to the level crossing at Fish Hoek. I would like to thank him for the courtesy he has shown me when I put through a long-distance call to discuss this matter with him at very short notice. I know he specially made himself available and that he had left a meeting to talk to me. However, the Minister has ignored pleas by myself and by the local municipality for the elimination of that very dangerous crossing. I do not have to tell him that the south-easterly wind blows very strongly across the Fish Hoek beach and that the bells are completely inadequate and no safeguard to the users of that very busy intersection. There have been fatalities there and I am afraid that there will be further fatalities at any time unless flashing lights are installed immediately. I believe there are investigations being made but it seems that these investigations are taking a very long time. At any rate, until such time as flashing lights can be installed, surely the Minister can see to the employment of a flagman at this very busy level crossing. There are other problems in regard to level crossings elimination in other areas as well. At Muizenberg there is a level crossing, at Lakeside another one and at False Bay there is a very busy level crossing. The Minister has in reply to my questions some years ago indicated that that crossing would be eliminated in terms of section 4 of the Level Crossings Act of 1960. As far as I know, section 4 of this Act provides for the Railways Administration to eliminate level crossings at its own cost. In terms of section 6, however, I believe the Railways pay some 75 per cent of the cost of eliminating level crossings. In 1968 those crossings in the area were to be eliminated in terms of section 4 of the Act, which means that the Railways Administration would bear the complete cost. This year, however, it seems from the response to questions that these crossings are only to be eliminated in terms of section 6 of the Act. In other words, it is likely that the delay will increase even more. This is intolerable.