When this debate was adjourned on Wednesday I had reacted in a general way to the speech made by the hon. the Minister in introducing this Bill. I had referred to the fact that we took it amiss —I want to emphasize that—that the hon. the Minister had such derogatory criticisms to make against the Marais Commission which investigated the co-ordination of transport in South Africa. The Minister, in disagreeing with their recommendations, which is his right, accused them of being superficial, of not having studied their terms of reference, and he said that the appointment of the commission had been seized upon by interested parties to further their own interests. I am not quite clear as to what the hon. the Minister meant by that. Is he accusing the commissioners of furthering their own interest? I do not think so, Sir, but then it is still a shameful thing to suggest that a commission of this calibre, with men of this quality serving upon it, allowed themselves to be used by interested parties. I looked again at the minority report of Mr. Joubert on this question of the quality of the investigations conducted by the commission, and it seems to me that his greatest objection was that the commission did not give the Railways adequate opportunity to put their point of view. That, to me, is a strange admission of neglect. The Minister can say that other interested parties seized upon the appointment of this commission to further their own interests, but the Railways did not! That is the complaint, Sir. Why should the commission be blamed if the Railways did not seize the opportunity afforded them of putting and arguing their case before the commission? But I am beginning to wonder now about this commission.

It had distinguished members on it. The chairman is a most distinguished South African economist. Other members of this commission have served on the Newton Commission and on the Schumann Commission, where they did such good work that the Minister thought it wise to appoint them again, but now suddenly they have become superficial and unintelligent and have lent themselves to abuse. This same Dr. Marais is now chairman of another very important commission which is investigating the agriculture of South Africa. Can the Government have confidence in him in that position after what the Minister of Transport has said about the commission of which he was the chairman which investigated the co-ordination of transport? Has the Minister recommended to the Cabinet that Dr. Marais be relieved of his position as chairman of this agricultural commission? Because if he does not do so, he could not have been serious when he made this unfortunate statement to the House on Wednesday.

And, Sir, it raises another issue. I think that all governments in South Africa and all government in the democratic world are grateful that men of learning, men of experience and men of proven insight are willing to serve on commissions, which is not a very remunerative occupation, in order to give to the government of the day the advantage of their experience, their knowledge and their wisdom. But if this is the manner in which a commission is going to be treated by the Minister responsible for the Department appointing it, if this is the thanks they get, if this is the sort of side-swipe administered to them because they render a report with which the Minister concerned does not agree, one wonders whether in time men of real integrity, men of self-respect, will agree to render these valuable services to the country toy serving on commissions. I think the Minister owes an apology to outstanding citizens of South Africa. He has the right to differ; he has the right to reject their recommendations; but without issuing gratuitous insults to men who deserve better of their Government than the Minister has accorded to them.

Sir, we on this side of the House do not agree with all the recommendations of this commission, but we are grateful—and I want it to be noted that the Official Opposition are grateful—that men of this stamp and of this quality are willing to assist Parliament and the Government and the nation to make up their minds on the problems before us. We still believe that in spite of the Minister’s attitude there is much of value and much that deserves careful consideration in the report that has been rendered by the Marais Commission. We shall come back to this.

It is quite clear from the Minister’s speech and the memorandum he has submitted, and from information which is available to the public, that the Railways are returning to the position in which they found themselves in the days of the Minister’s predecessor and that they can no longer accept the traffic offered. While the Railways apply and claim a monopoly of transport in South Africa they cannot discharge their functions by transporting the goods which the public of South Africa offer for transport.

Now the hon. the Minister had many excuses. It was the manpower shortage; it was the drought; it was the flu epidemic. It was also a fact which was the main cause for Mr. Sauer’s difficulties, namely that the Government is not allowing the Minister a fair share of the capital available for public investment in South Africa. I think the House should note how inadequate the services of the Railways have become. The services rendered by the S.A. Railways are so inadequate that they are limiting the growth of South Africa, restricting the entrepreneurs of South Africa and frittering away the opportunities offered to the people of South Africa to become a great nation economically. I want to give a few examples.

The Natal Associated Collieries told us recently that they arranged for exports totalling 240,0 tons, 200,000 tons more than they had before, to be exported from April of this year until March, 1971, to the value of R1.5 million. They felt that they had to increase their exports further because their markets internally were being reduced for a variety of reasons. They were advised by the Railways that no significant increase would be possible until the harbour at Richard’s Bay had been completed. Sir, the completion of the harbour has nothing to do with flu or with the drought; it is just that the planning of the Ministry has not kept up with the development of South Africa and the changing needs of the transport users of South Africa. It has nothing to do with flu or with the drought. In view of this, one is entitled to ask the Minister when the harbour at Richard’s Bay will be completed. Can we have a progress report so that those people who are being restricted at the moment will know how to plan for the future more accurately than they can at the moment? The same Associated Collieries relate that they were allocated trucks for 1,040,000 tons for April, May and June of this year, but could get only 825,530 trucks, a deficiency of 20 per cent. To what extent was that due to drought or to flu, or is it just that the Railways can no longer cope with the demands made upon them by the people and by the industries of South Africa, by our enterprise?

If one reads the latest economic survey of the Stellenbosch Bureau, one finds that they complain about bottlenecks on almost every page. The chief bottleneck, about which we shall have more to say, is the manpower shortage, but they also rate the inadequate transport system very high on the list. We find that the Railways cannot cope with the transport of lime, citrus for export, iron ore, chrome, manganese or coal, and generally businessmen are being restricted. There was reported recently a speech at a meeting of the Chamber of Industries at Bloemfontein by Mr. W. Hochstetter of the S.A. Brick Associa tion, in which he said that he was offered an export order worth R100,000 a month of foreign exchange and later probably R250,000 a month, but he lost it because the Railways told him that they could not undertake the transport of these goods to our harbours. He said that when he tried to arrange transport for the goods the Railways told him that trucks were not available and he could not accept the contract. He had since heard that the Dutch company which had offered the order was negotiating in Australia instead. He asked how this experience could be reconciled with the exhortation to industrialists to increase exports. So we see, Sir, that what is happening on the Railways is running counter to the very policy of the Government that we should do everything in our power to increase exports. Mr. J. G. H. Loubser, Deputy General Manager of S.A. Railways, was present on the occasion when he mentioned it. Mr. Loubser explained “that it was not simply a case of trucks not being available but the capacity of lines had to be taken into consideration; there was so much immediate business that the Railways had difficulty in keeping up with it despite big improvements and expansions; vast planning was required, but it had to be global and not individual, and the Railways must have prior notice of any substantial increase in traffic, even 20,000 tons a month on one line; the big problem was to know what to tackle realistically in a growing country like South Africa.”

Sir, the Railways are failing South Africa. They have a problem in regard to what to tackle realistically. People are being frustrated in their enterprise. We are returning to the days of Mr. Paul Sauer, when the Railways were inadequate and could not accept the traffic that was offered. We have had other railway users describing the delays between Durban and Johannesburg as chaotic and chronic. We are told by these users that normal deliveries from Durban to Johannesburg now take four weeks and express deliveries three weeks. Express deliveries are now slower than normal deliveries should be, Sir. At the end of June we read that three uranium plants in the Western Transvaal had to close down because no line could be taken to them by the Railways. If I may pause, Sir, I should like to quote someone whom I think we will all accept as an impartial witness to confirm what I have just said, a man who is probably a friend of the Minister’s, Mr. W. B. Coetzer, chairman of the Federal Mining group and of the General Mining Corporation, who said in his annual report published in June—

It is, therefore, most discouraging for the industry to find that although significant export markets exist at prices substantially in excess of ruling local prices for coal, we are unable to export more than a token tonnage owing to lack of railways and port facilities which will take several years to overcome.

I think it is clear that the Railways are lagging behind the transport needs of the entrepreneurs of South Africa. [Interjections.]

Have you lost your notes?

Sir, I am glad that I could give hon. members opposite some relief; they were looking pretty tense a minute ago.

Mr. Speaker, I have mentioned witnesses from inside South Africa, but it is also interesting to note what visitors from overseas who are interested in expanding business with South Africa have to say of our transport system. Here I have a report from a friend of the Government, a Japanese gentleman by the name of Mr. Y. Tsuji, the president of an export-import company in Japan, who said, according to the Rand Daily Mail of the 17th July in an interview, that Japan would like to increase trade with South Africa but the major difficulty was an inadequate transport system. He said—

Sir, that is the view of an outsider. The Railways are not equipped to cope with the possibilities and the potential of South Africa.

This situation is serious, and I for one do not want to diminish the importance of the drought in causing the hon. the Minister’s difficulties. But, Sir, as we have said in another context to the Minister of Agriculture, surely the time has come for those responsible for the government of South Africa to realize that droughts in South Africa are endemic. There is hardly a year that passes when we are not stricken by drought. A drought should not be looked upon as something abnormal, as something that happens once in a while; it recurs regularly and provision must be made for it in our planning, whether it concerns agriculture or transport or any other aspect of our business. One hopes that the time will come when members of the Government will not hide behind the fact that there is a drought in South Africa because then they will be in permanent hiding; because, I repeat, that droughts are endemic in South Africa.

The other point I want to make is this. It is a strange excuse to talk about flu and drought and to advance that as an excuse. The Minister should know that the real reason why he cannot cope in a flu epidemic or why he cannot cope when a drought strikes South Africa, is that there is no elasticity in the organization of the Railways. The Railways are permanently overstrained; the staff are working excessive overtime in normal times. In any other normal business when an emergency arises you call upon your staff to work overtime and to give you more of their energy and more of their initiative to overcome the emergency. But, Sir, the Railways are in a permanent state of emergency; and when an emergency is caused by an outside factor like a drought or a flu epidemic, there are no resources left upon which the hon. the Minister can call. That is the situation in which we find ourselves in South Africa, and all this hiding behind flu and droughts does not alter the fact that the planning for the South African Railways and Harbours has been inadequate and that the responsible Minister and the Cabinet have lacked the vision to appreciate the growth potential of South Africa. They think too small for South Africa. That is our major criticism of this Government. That is why we find in the speech delivered by the hon. the Minister that he breathes a sigh of relief that he can expect a decrease in the growth rate of South Africa, which will give him a chance to catch up and to consolidate. Sir, it is a strange organization that has to rely upon setbacks in the economy of South Africa in order to be able to return to normal. One wonders whether the 20 per cent decline in investment in certain industries in South Africa during 1969 was the result of deliberate Government planning and influence because they cannot cope with the growth of South Africa. South Africa is too big for the Government!

There is no doubt that a main reason for the difficulties of the Railways is the fact that the capital resources of our country are limited, but more important is the labour shortage, which is due to restrictions placed on the use of labour, which make it impossible for us to supply the needs of our country for local purposes, for export purposes and for the growth of our industries. So the hon. the Minister breathes a sigh of relief because our growth rate is going to be reduced. He wants to become like a jackal which feeds on the lion’s kill, where the lion is the restrictions on labour and the kill is the restrictions on the development of South Africa’s economy. There is no flexibility in the Railways; there is no slack that we can take up in emergencies and the staff have to work so hard that one sometimes wonders how they survive. I think that everyone of us in this House, everyone concerned with business, everyone concerned with the transport system of South Africa should pay tribute to the staff of the S.A. Railways for the tremendous sacrifices they are willing to make in order to bolster up an inadequate Minister and an inadequate Government. They bear the burden, Sir. The hon. the Minister is not aware of it really, except through reports. They are the people who have to work excessive overtime; they are the people who have to go virtually without family life and without relaxation in order to try to overcome the difficulties created for South Africa by the wrong policies of this Government. Sir, the Minister, aware of this, has just announced increases in pay amounting in toto to R60 million per annum for the staff. We all welcome this; we welcome it all the more because the Minister now realizes that he cannot afford to ignore even the political influence of the staff. You will remember, Sir, how, when he introduced the Part Appropriation Bill earlier this year, he assured us that he did not have to try to buy the railway votes. Does he remember saying that?

I do not remember that.

You mean you have to buy it now?

I will deal with that in my reply.

The Minister will remember that in his speech earlier this year he pointed out that the United Party had lost Umhlatuzana, a Railway seat, and that it had lost this, that and the other seat where the Railway vote is important. He said that in his speech, and he said that it was not necessary for him to offer inducements to the railwaymen to vote for his party. And then what happened, Sir? After the setback which the hon. gentlemen received in the general election, he rushed off to Langlaagte, where there is a major concentration of Railway votes, to announce a R60 million increase in the salaries of the railwaymen. I am glad they got it. The only problem that it creates for me is the bookkeeping problem. Where does the hon. member for Langlaagte feature in the bookkeeping of the Railways? Is he a revenue asset or a capital asset? Does he come on the debit side or the credit side of the S.A. Railways, or is he a frozen asset? It would be very interesting to know.

There is no doubt that this increase of R60 million is welcomed and justified, but it is not going to be a solution of the Minister’s trouble. It may temporarily alleviate the shortage of staff. But, Sir, where there are not enough white workers in South Africa to do all the work for South Africa, where three and a half or three and three-quarter million people are not enough to render all the higher services required by a population of 18 million to 20 million, the Minister can be as sure as he is sitting half asleep in his seat at the moment that other sectors of South African enterprise will increase their offers to the limited number of people available to do the work that they require to be done and that the general wage structure of South Africa over a period will rise and that the Railways will again and again be in the same difficulty. As I said on Wednes-day, most surprising of all is how many people the hon. the Minister made unhappy on the Railways when he gave this increase of R60 million. Everyone of us has had letters and there were statements in the Press which were most depressing. We all want the S.A. Railways to do well and we all want a contented staff on the S.A. Railways. But yet you get letters from drivers pointing out that in Mr. Sturrock’s time the workday was reduced from 8 hours to 7 hours 40 minutes, overtime increased from 25 per cent to 33⅓ per cent and Sunday time from 50 per cent to 100 per cent.

There was unemployment at that time.

Mr. Speaker, have you ever in the Parliament of South Africa heard bigger nonsense than that interjection? At that time South Africa was importing immigrants to the tune of 30,000 to 40,000 a year to fill the gaps in the employment structure of South Africa. But the hon. member for Parow has forgotten that; he does not know what he is talking about. So, drivers tell us that in Mr. Sturrock’s time the workday was reduced and overtime and Sunday time increased. Later, at the time cost of living allowances were consolidated with basic salaries, overtime was reduced. It is only now that it is back once more at 33⅓; Sunday time is not yet back to 100 per cent while the working day is now eight hours 40 minutes. As one driver told me, he has to work 226 hours a month before he has done the minimum the Minister requires of him. The Minister will remember that on occasion he told the running staff that they were worth to him more than he could pay them. Well, does this rhyme with this interesting fact I was told by drivers that a driver today gets the same pay as an invoice typist on the S.A. Railways with six years’ experience? Furthermore, Sunday time being paid to drivers is equal to that of a receptionist at one of our airports—I think R1.90 an hour. Drivers are irreplaceable and you cannot use clerks to drive trains although you may use them to do the work of checkers and shunters. Drivers just have to work without relaxation and without social life and they are seldom at home with their families. They work, and they work hard. But the gratitude they get is that they are being paid the same as an invoice typist with six years’ experience. They tell me that it takes them from 15 to 20 years to get to the top of their grade whereas an artisan becomes fully qualified in five years. Good luck to the artisan; but why should the driver by comparison then be paid less and treated worse than typists and receptionists? This is the question the Minister should answer. How, in fact, has he succeeded in making so many people unhappy?

I spoke to some workers at Prospect in the company of Mr. Miller, their M.P. I should like the Minister to hear what they have to say. As a matter of fact, I cannot understand why these things do not come to the notice of the Minister except when we bring it to his attention. It seems as if somebody is shielding the Minister from the facts prevailing on the S.A. Railways. They want to know why a clerk or a member of the administrative services, when he comes and does their work, gets four times as much in overtime as they get? If the work of a clerk is worth R2.50 in overtime to others, why is it not worth R2.50 to them too? Moreover, they want to know why if there is overtime to be worked, they are sometimes told that although it is their job, they will not be allowed to work overtime because it has to be kept for the clerks who have been specially trained to do it? They tell us that some members of the administrative section double their income by doing overtime in jobs occupied by lower paid people. Sir, we are grateful to these people for doing it, but is the hon. the Minister setting about it in the right way? All he is achieving is to make the checker, the shunter, the lorry driver and even the stoker unhappy because they are made to feel that their work is inferior. They want to know why members of the administrative section can get four times the rate of overtime they get and want to know what is wrong with their jobs. It is, in fact, one of the worst examples of staff relations I have ever come across. It is short-sighted. How much better would it not have been if, in negotiation with the staff association concerned, the Minister had tried to bring in lower paid workers, non-white workers, to do the less skilled aspects of these jobs and to give the present incumbents higher status and income by using them in supervisory capacities? How much wiser would that not have been? How much better staff relations would that not have been? How much more contented these important producing staff units would not have been, instead of seething with discontent and resentment against the Minister and his department?

One thing has become clear from the complaints we have had about the use of about 1,500 units from the clerical and administrative sections to do overtime in these other jobs. One thing that has become clear is that the Minister cannot hope to have a truly contented staff until he undertakes a scientific revaluation of jobs on the S.A. Railways. This is a point which we have raised with the Minister before. He says they are doing just that. Well, it may be done in a haphazard manner and by people who are directly concerned and thus cannot take an objective view. The fact remains that there is something wrong on the S.A. Railways when a driver is being paid the same as a copy typist. Roster compilers, for instance, complain that the gap between their wages and those of the people for whom they compile rosters is getting wider and wider, and yet he feels he shares the responsibility of keeping trains going. This type of example I can multiply indefinitely. There is not the slightest doubt that we cannot continue indefinitely with valuing jobs on the S.A. Railways as they were valued in 1910 or in the time of the old Cape Midland Railways.

We are living in the second half of the twentieth century, and the value of the jobs on the S.A. Railways should be reviewed, be modernized and brought up to date.

Speaking of staff, I should like to ask the Minister whether he intends during this Session of Parliament to bring any further relief to the Railway pensioner. I think he should know that they, too, expected something out of the R60 million. True, they are no longer working for the S.A. Railways, but they feel that they have helped to bring the S.A. Railways where they are to-day. To-day they regard themselves as being the dead people of the S.A. Railways; they no longer exist. I think the Minister will do us and them a favour if he could tell us what his policy will be in the immediate future for these people.

Speaking of pensions, I should like to ask the Minister whether he has given any consideration to suggestions he has had from various quarters, including from this side of the House, that the pension scheme of the S.A. Railways should progressively become a non-contributory scheme. The Pension Superannuation Fund is in a healthy position. According to the latest report I have here, the fund is more than R500 million strong. Its income last year exceeded its expenditure by R29½ million. Contributions from members amounted to about R21 million and the Administration’s contribution also R21 million. The interest on the accumulated funds amounted to R23 million. In addition, there was a special contribution by the Administration of R1,200,000. The total expenditure was R37 million. Now, the Administration is making a contribution of R1,200,000 because it is said that this fund is not actuarially completely sound. But actuaries based all their calculations on an assumption, namely that if for any reason the S.A. Railways and Harbours should cease to exist, there should be enough money in that fund to pay all its obligations to pensioners. But that, Sir, is an obsolete concept when it comes to State and public enterprises such as the Civil Service and the S.A. Railways and Harbours. If the day should come that the State can no longer meet its obligations towards its own contractual pensioners, then there would be nothing left of the State in any case. Here the hon. the Minister can make a real contribution in the interests of his workers by accepting our suggestion and progressively making the pension scheme a non-contributory scheme.

There are one or two aspects of the Marais Commission inquiry which I should like to deal with briefly. In dealing with that I want to point out that it is becoming ridiculous that sectors of the South African public should subsidize the Railways to the extent that they do. I find, for example, that in his present Estimates the hon. the Minister budgets for a deficit by the S.A. Railways of R74 million, a surplus from Harbours of R19 million, a surplus from Airways of R9 million; in the case of the pipeline to the Southern Transvaal and the Northern Free State, on an expenditure of R9,429,000 he expects an income of R62,875,000. That means a surplus of R53 million. Now, if the Railways have to be subsidized in the public interest, let it be subsidized by all means. I note that Mr. Joubert in his minority report on the Marais Commission spoke of the fact that the Railways should not become a social burden on the community. But what is happening now, is that the S.A. Railways are becoming a social burden on the motorists of the Southern Transvaal. I do not know why there is this discrimination. What ethical, moral or economic justification is there for it? If the Railways have to be subsidized, let it be subsidized, not by the limited number of people who use our Airways, not by the much larger number of people who use our harbours, not by the motorists of one area in South Africa alone, but let it be subsidized, as it should be in the public interest, out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Let the people get the benefit of modern progress which we see in things such as a pipeline. I cannot understand the hon. the Minister. How many years did we not go almost on our knees in this House to plead with him to establish a pipeline between the coast and Johannesburg? Each year we were ridiculed and sneered at. We were called ignoramuses for making a suggestion like that. But now he has done it and the deficit of R74 million on the S.A. Railways which he expects for next year will be met, according to his Estimates, to the extent of R53½ million from this pipeline which he scorned …

Is that pipeline your brain-child?

I did not say that. The pipeline is the brain-child of modern technology, of the human mind of the 20th century. That is the position. But we certainly pleaded for it again and again and we were scorned by the hon. the Minister for doing it. There is no doubt about that and everybody knows it. That hon. member was not here then. He is slowly learning now. I will not go into detail now but if you study the Marais Commission Report there is no doubt that the time has come for the acceptance of some of its recommendations. The time has come that the S.A. Railways, Harbours, pipelines and Airways should all be organized more and more in the spirit evinced by the retiring General Manager of Railways when he recently spoke to the South African division of the Institute of Transport. He then said that one of the main objectives of the Railways should be to render efficient transport and to avoid the unnecessary duplication of transport systems in South Africa. For that. I think we need new thinking. There is no doubt that the Railways have an important function in South Africa. We have heard from various commissions that that function is chiefly to transport bulk matter and to undertake transport over medium and long distances. In un dertaking that transport I should like to repeat that it should not be subsidized, because it is not the most economic form or most rewarding form of transport there is, by certain groups only. It should not be subsidized to this great extent by limited users or institutions like the pipeline. It should become the responsibility of the public as a whole because it does this work in the interests of the public as a whole and not only in the interests of a group of motorists or of people who fly or who send freight by the South African Airways. We find that the high rated traffic of the South African Railways which according to the Minister’s speech is only 16.52 per cent of the total traffic earns 70 to 80 per cent of the revenue of the Railways.—Here too one can perhaps wonder whether this is not asking a limited section of the people to subsidize the national transport organization and whether perhaps a rationalization of our transport system would not enable the whole nation to get the benefit of the work done by the South African Railways. The subsidy has to come from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Of course the Minister will not accept the suggestions contained in my remarks. He cannot because of the fundamental, underlying difference between the outlook of the hon. gentlemen opposite and that of the United Party members on this side of the House. The Minister is limited by his own restricted vision and the restricted vision of the Cabinet. Again and again the history of the South African Railways since 1948 has proved that they have fallen behind the enterprise of the people of South Africa. They cannot keep pace with the will and the ability to expand of the people of South Africa. We saw this in the discussion on the motion of no-confidence when my hon. Leader had a vision of a great South Africa with a growth rate approximating that of Japan. We see it in the support of economists of high standing who have emerged from that side of the House and from this side of the House, economists like Mr. Jan Marais of the Trust Bank and Dr. Frans Cronjé of the Netherlands Bank who are agreed that South Africa is capable of infinitely greater growth than this Government envisages—growth which, as our Leader put it in the no-confidence debate, could make of South Africa by 1990 one of the ten greatest trading and industrial nations of the world. We need vision which this Government lacks. We need insight and faith in South Africa which this Government lacks. We need the courage to say that South Africa is a country with 20 million people and not only 3½ million people. We need people with the courage to say to the white workers of South Africa: Your development and the increase in your standard of living is unlimited provided that through your trade unions you negotiate with your employers and also the State as an employer to take more of the non-white workers and put them in positions which white men can afford to give to them so that the white men can become available for better and more remunerative work in South Africa.

The hon. the Minister is one of the few members of the Cabinet who has done this to a limited extent. We know that there are between 12,000 and 13,000 Bantu on the Railways doing unskilled work formerly done by white people. We know that there are more than 1,000 non-Whites in the country doing graded work formerly done by white people on the South African Railways. This has been to the benefit of the white workers, the non-white workers, the South African Railways and South Africa as a whole If that vision could become imaginative, if that vision could become courageous, if the Minister could have the outspoken support of hon. members opposite and if that support could also be given to the Minister of Labour and especially to the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, there is no limit to the development of South Africa. There is no limit to the development of the South African Railways, and in a burgeoning, growing economy, it will be easier to make the adaptations that have become necessary in the reorganization rating, and planning of the South African Railways and Harbours. Other commissions have said that these changes must take place gradually, over a period of ten years; but these changes will never come, unless we are willing to see South Africa for what it is— potentially one of the great states of this world, a country in regard to which one could almost say: “The sky is the limit.” This could be the case, provided that we did not have a Government which was a brake and a retardation upon the ability, the skill, the initiative, the will and the enterprise of the people. Sir, I should therefore like to move the following amendment:

1. (1) the Minister has failed to indicate that the Government has any effective plans to overcome the manpower crisis which throws intolerable burdens on the staff, frustrates the users of the railways, endangers the safety of passengers, generally retards the economic growth of the country and threatens to undermine the prosperity of the people; and
2. (2) the Minister has rejected useful and justified recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Co-ordination of Transport in South Africa”. *

Mr. Speaker, we who have known the hon. member for Yeoville for a few years, were almost impressed when he started looking for his documents. We know that he is a personality who can occasionally be original and approach a matter soberly. Those of us who have known him longer, know that he has one great talent, and that is to speak glibly for half an hour in this House without saying anything, and above all to repeat himself. I want to refer the hon. member to what I said in this House last year. I referred to him when I made the following remarks (Hansard, Vol. 25, column 2187) —

This afternoon it was the same old story, with the addition of a little criticism from the public, the business world, and disjointed criticism from Railway officials. For six years we have heard this same old story told in this glib manner. This afternoon we once again heard, when the hon. member referred to the Minister, “how little he has offered to overcome the problem of manpower shortages; how he gave away R60 million in one year just to make his employees more unhappy”. These general, trite and vicious remarks were made by the hon. member for Yeoville this afternoon. I have known the hon. member for a long time, and I must say that one sometimes feels like, as with a forward little ram, taking his four little feet together under your left shoulder and using the pocket knife of the hon. member for South Coast to do a traditional deed, tail and all. I intend doing this too, and putting it on record this afternoon. We must ask ourselves whether we did not have a perfect application this afternoon of the advice and the guidance which the United Party obtained in regard to publicity from a specialist in a distant country. The advice was: “If you want to succeed, decry the leaders; sow confusion and predict corruption; otherwise you have no hope.” They followed that advice closely through the mouth of their first speaker. One can only ask that Party: “Where is the flag of the U.P. to be found?— Wherever there is gossip and blunder, always thereunder, no wonder.”

Reference was made to the so-called dissatisfaction among the staff and the manpower of the Railways. The testimony of the country and the Administration is that absolutely no complaints worth mentioning were received from any staff association. Individual complaints such as these to which the hon. member conveniently referred we come across every day in every business undertaking; he gets them in his own household as well. But in contrast with the allegations which the hon. member for Yeoville made here in connection with the Railways staff, there is proof of piety, trust and sacrifice, of men who volunteered their services to work overtime and to work in grades other than their own. In this way they were able to cope with a temporary near crisis from December 1969 to April this year. We hear nothing about this. We heard about overtime and that they are paid too little— so naive and so elementary! As I said last year, the hon. member had too little time to prepare himself. Overtime is paid on the basis of the basic wage, namely one and one-third for everyone. Hence the difference when officials in higher grades have to act in lower grades. This is logical, this is correct, this is fair—but no, they must prey on grievances. They must wrest things out of context as their specialist says; otherwise there is no hope for them. These railwaymen who offered their services in other grades, did os with a jealous pride; to such an extent that when the people recovered after the epidemic, certain workers could not be taken back because there were enough already. This applies especially to shunters, drivers, checkers, etc. This is truly an example of a dedicated category of people who are prepared to provide a national service.

What do we get from these hon. members? We get gossip and suspicion-mongering instead of positive recommendations, a renewed appeal and an acknowledgment that we appreciate what is being done in circumstances which affect our country generally; and not the Railways in particular. They talk about a manpower shortage. Details of the staff trained for auxiliary services and other grades, are as follows: Firemen, 395; driving and cartage services, 129; checkers, 315; shunters, 231; conductors and ticket examiners, 120—a total, therefore, of 1,190 persons. These are not aggrieved people and people who harbour grievances, but people who want to render a service. But this attitude is used for politicking in this House and these people are used as voting cattle. It is suggested that they are critical, are voicing criticism, are dissatisfied and over-worked. I waited for a positive recommendation or reference from hon. members on that side of this House as was made by members on our side of this House, some of whose sons offered their services as apprentice firemen during this crisis period. That is more than they can say. These people worked during their holidays in order to meet this problem. We have many students in this country and we should like to come across this phenomenon on a wider level. However, all we get from hon. members on that side of this House are campaigns, moral impudence and decadence, instead of this positive attitude and approach. During the past financial year 748 workers voluntarily relieved in other sections where there were shortages. Here in the Western Cape, where the shortage was minimal, the men were prepared to go to the Western Transvaal, Natal and the Northern Cape in order to supplement the shortages there. We appreciate and value this very greatly. I want to repeat that this is not proof of officials feeling aggrieved, but of officials realizing their duties and responsibilities.

And this was before the increases. In reply to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) this was long before the increases. The increases played no part in this, because these people know their duties.

At the moment it is a little early to arrive at a final conclusion about the tendency which exists in connection with resignations from and entries to the service of the Railways. However, there are a few statistics which are quite illuminating. In April, 1969, 1,599 persons entered and 1,765 left the service. This state of affairs continued until June, 1970, after the salary increases. After that there was a reduction. In July this year there was a net gain of 1,345. A loss of 8.1 per cent was transformed into a gain of 5.2 per cent. In spite of this, the hon. member for Yeoville asked with his traditional smooth adroitness what the hon. Minister was doing in order to meet this problem. He said: “How little has he done to overcome this problem!” We are replying to the hon. member. The old hollow cry of immigration was again dragged in by the hon. member. I just want to tell the hon. member that immigration is not the first and the last word in connection with our manpower shortage in South Africa to-day. The hon. member knows as well as I do that in the private sector there are numerous examples of undertakings having spent up to R5,000 in order to import manpower and having none left after a few weeks. The Railways itself had that experience a few years ago. Immigration is not a magic word, but in a moment we will show hon. members on the other side what the hon. the Minister and his Administration are doing in order to approach and solve this problem scientifically.

The history of the Railways in South Africa is a story of vision—the hon. member for Yeoville maintained that there is no vision— a story of spirit and single-minded purpose to face its own problems and to serve the country’s development, and is not one of decline and petrification such as that of the United Party. What have the hon. the Minister and the Administration done to meet this problem of the manpower shortage? They have tackled this problem scientifically, effectively and, in most cases conclusively. The Minister and his team set about with a will. In the field of electro-technical engineering, communication, mechanization of office work, centralized traffic control and other technical fields, the improvements are simply incomparable. They have worked wonders with a view to achieving greater efficiency and saving manpower. The hon. member would do well to listen to this. Thus, for example, approximately 3,000 firemen were eliminated by accelerating electrification and by using stronger diesel and electrical tractive power. Talk about saving manpower!

As far as the manpower shortage is concerned, we are supposed to open the sluice-gates, throw open the doors and let anyone come who wants to. “Let us eat and be merry, for to-morrow we die!” says the United Party. Here on our part we have systematic planning and proof of adjustment to the developments in this country. By the end of this year it is expected that there will be 444 diesel locomotives in service. The horsepower of electrical locomotives was increased from 1,070 to 3,320. It was almost trebled in order to pull heavier loads and to achieve a larger turnover with fewer officials, if I may put it like that. In this way manpower is saved and this provides proof of planning, thought and a purposeful attempt to meet this problem. The cubic capacity of petrol tank wagons was increased from 8,000 to 13,500 and that of well wagons from 91½ tons to 200 tons; all this was done to adjust to industrial consumption and abnormal loads with a view to larger production and the saving of manpower.

I mention further examples. As far as workshop productivity and technical processes are concerned, since 1960 a production incentive scheme was started in workshops with a reduction of bonus working times of 35 per cent. But that side of this House maintains that we have no adjustment, vision or imagination.

In three large iron foundries, namely Bloemfontein, Salt River and Pietermaritzburg, R2.1 million was spent on mechanization during the past 15 years, which resulted in the actual utilization of production capacity for iron at those centres being increased by 240 per cent. Mechanization, larger production with fewer people: This is planning, vision and foresight! This is proof of a will to meet a situation. Seen as a whole, productivity in all spheres of work in workshops rose by approximately 60 per cent as a result of improved methods of work and equipment. This improvement represents an annual saving of approximately 1.2 million man-hours, which is equal to the services of 400 bonus workers with an annual wage of approximately R1.5 million.

Let us look at the reparation of trucks. In the days of the United Party, in the years when they were in power, it took up to 173 days to repair one truck. To-day it takes us from 9 to 17 days with the newly introduced line system. What naïvety, what arrogance to make statements like this. We are out of date, we have not adapted to the demands of the times, we have no imagination, and we do not keep pace with the development of the country! I can go on to mention numerous similar examples of what we save with computers and signalling. Just to mention a few more examples, in the field of civil engineering the use of concrete sleepers was introduced, which resulted in a saving of 200 white supervisors, 4,500 white railway workers and also non-white labourers, because they can now be laid by means of machines. This testifies to planning and insight.

To come to the business aspect mentioned by the hon. member for Yeoville, the correlation between the growth of the Railways and the growth rate of the country during the past 20 years: it is alleged that we are lagging be hind and are not in a position to keep pace. Sir, do you know what the correlation was, as calculated by scientists? It was very significant. In the past 20 years it was 0.75 per cent, which is very close to being equal. They are rather quiet now. [Laughter.] This finding was confirmed by, among others, the Transport Research Centre, scientists in Stellenbosch, in the publication “Relationship between the Goods Transported by Rail and Economic Development in South Africa”. They know nothing of this, just as little as they know of the Marais Report, but they are presumptuous enough to have opinions about it. The fact that there is a sound correlation between the country’s economy and the Railways does not necessarily mean that the ratio between the series mentioned will remain constant. As industrialization increases, the growth of the Railways must decrease, because transport is a cost item and costs must be kept as low as possible. But during the past 20 years they have remained equal. I think if anybody here has to make an apology, it is the hon. member for Yeoville, who must apologize to the hon. the Minister for alleging that the Minister has no vision or planning.

There is another side of this picture which I should like to illuminate, namely the share of the Railways in the industries of South Africa. The hon. member for Yeoville must listen again. It is interesting to note that under this Government, many practical and positive steps were taken not only to stimulate our own industries, but to expand them into modern giants in their own fields, something which that side of this House never thought of when they were in power, because their attitude was: We have the gold, so let us buy the goods with our gold; we do not need to manufacture here and we rather import them.

To-day the South African Railways invests millions of rands in industry and its annual account in respect of rolling stock is staggering. At the end of last year, orders to the value of more than R151 million were placed; these included 151 modern electric locomotives, 55 diesel locomotives, 982 passenger coaches and 7,000 goods trucks. The history of the Railways in South Africa, Sir, is a story of vision, spirit and purpose. During the past six years purchases by the Railways and Harbours reached R230 million, of which only R8 million was ordered from overseas suppliers. In the time of those people, it was just the reverse. They talk about development; they talk about the growth rate. They may have dreamt about it and may have obtained a vague impression of it on account of the achievements of this Government. Of the R240 million, only R8 million was spent overseas in 1969. Can hon. members of the Opposition recall anything similar in their time? Sir, if any South African cannot rightly be proud of the South African Railways, its chief, its officials and its contribution to the national growth of South Africa, he can only be a United Party supporter; of that I am convinced.

Sir, during his term this Minister has done much for this industry in South Africa. Take salary increases, for example: In 1955, R9 million; in 1962, R20 million; in 1964, R12 million; in 1965, R36 million; in 1968, R43 million; in 1969, R10 million; and in 1970, R60 million; in other words, R190 million in the last 15 years. Sir, can you expect any railway worker not to mention this with appreciation and pride instead of allowing himself to be dragged along by the Opposition’s politicking? What was done in connection with housing?

Departmental houses, R74 million; house ownership scheme, R103 million; number of houses made available, 11,000; house ownership, 25,000. Constant endeavours are made to improve methods in order to ensure higher productivity. During the past four years the administrative processes were carefully examined by the Railways’ own organization and method officials, and what happened? What was the result? As a result of that, 1,838 posts could be abolished. Because of this saving, the regrading of 2,358 posts could be financed, while the project could still show a saving of approximately R2 million, based on the salary scales after the recent concessions of 1st June, 1970.

Sir, we will have to go far and we will have to search far to find a more effective, more scientifically developed and more centralized transport scheme, which is adjusted to the development of the country and the growth of the country in general, than the Railways of the Republic of South Africa. Its Airways are the best in the world, its transport costs are among the lowest in the world; and it takes a United Party member to say in this House in the year 1970 that these services are outdated, that the Minister lacks vision and that the Railways are not keeping pace with the development of the country. The time has arrived for that side of the House to realize that apart from political peddling, they also have a national contribution to make in the sense of positive sacrifice, positive recommendations and positive co-operation in a situation such as that in which the Railways has found itself during the past four months.

Sir, if the hon. member for Randburg had gone on a little bit longer we would not have had a staff shortage; we would have had a surplus; we would have had to pay off staff. But he did not go far enough. He could have made his comparisons much more interesting and much more impressive. For instance, in 1850 odd it used to take my grandfather nearly six weeks to get from Durban to Johannesburg by ox-wagon. Just think of the improvement! You can do it now in 14 or 15 hours by train. That would have given the hon. member a much more impressive comparison. But let us get a little bit more modern. I have here an extract from the Natal Year Book of 1910, in which it is stated—

They can sometimes clear within eight or nine days in the year 1970. It is this sort of argument we have had to listen to from that hon. member. The euphoria in which he lives makes it possible to understand how 3,000 of his majority at Randburg disappeared with the morning mist at the last election. If you realize that even the 140 odd that is left may disappear, then we realize that the hon. member was making his swan song. Furthermore, one can understand why you get in the index of the Government Gazette of 3rd July, under Item 1070, under the heading “Indecent, obscene and objectionable goods”, an item like the following: “Result of by-election, electoral division of Langlaagte.” That hon. member had the nerve to get up in this House and state that there were no complaints— “geen noemenswaardige klagtes nie”; no complaints from trade unions or from staff associations. And yet until the Langlaagte increase, there were three inquiries afoot in connection with three disputes declared as such. These have now been cancelled. Yet the hon. member says there are no complaints! When last did he talk to a railwayman? No wonder I am treating him as a joke and reply to him with jokes, because he Obviously has no concept of what is going on on the S.A. Railways.

That hon. member says: “Don’t worry; the hon. the Minister is going to solve our staff problems. Just leave it to him and he will solve it.” Well, I have the annual reports here of the General Manager for the past couple of years and in 1967-’68 he said: “The Department continues to experience serious staff shortages.” I quote again: “During 1968-’69 staff shorages in key grades persisted.” Go to the Budget speech of the hon. the Minister this year, for 1970-’71, and you hear of a state of near emergency during the last couple of months. Yet the hon. member’s reply to all this is: “Leave it all to the Minister and it will all come right.”

Looking at this mass of information we have here, it is no wonder that the S.A. Railways have gone over to third-generation computers. I am not going to try to compete with the hon. member for Randburg in quoting statistics. I do not have a third-generation computer mind. I have only a simple mind. All I know is from what I have seen and from what I have heard in direct contact with people, and that is that the staff position is leading to a complete breakdown in morale amongst a large number of railway employees. And if that hon. member does not realize this, then he is completely out of touch. Furthermore, not only is there this discontent, but there is a user-crisis also. The hon. member for Yeoville listed some of the things which could not be moved. There are yet others—timber, cement, lime, etc., and there were reports of uranium mines that had to close down because they could not get trucks. So it goes on week after week—reports of the Railways’ inability to move goods. Thus, we have frustrated users and a despairing staff. This is the picture the Minister has to face in this debate.

We have before us the guesstimates of last year; I call them “guesstimates” and not “Estimates”, because what do we have? In revenue they were R36 million out, or 4.2 per cent; in Airways 7.5 per cent out; in pipelines 13.5 per cent out—surely a pipeline is one thing one ought to be able to estimate correctly? We have a surplus of R27 million instead of the estimated deficit. What happened? Is it that the third-generation computers went out of action or is it that we have a past-generation Minister? Is it not time that instead of trading in computers we traded in the hon. the Minister for a Minister who is prepared to look ahead and to plan ahead? The only thing that worries me in this connection is, if we did get a change, who would we get? The hon. the Deputy Minister? Maybe we should retain the present Minister a little bit longer until such time as we can get rid of the lot. The Minister has at his disposal all these modern means: computers, staff—everything you can think of to guide and advise him. But what do we get?—an inability to deal with the problems facing him. I remember the hon. the Minister placing his reputation at stake that he would make a success of the South African Railways.

He is doing it.

Hon. members say he is doing it. But is it making a success of the South African Railways if you are unable to move the goods offering, if you have staff crises and if you have people working the sort of overtime they are required to work? That is what hon. members call a success. When the hon. the Minister himself, at our request, calls for advice, what does he do with that advice? He insults his own advisers whom he has called upon to advise him. Let me give the House an example of the reaction of some of the Minister’s own people to his rejection of the recommendations in the Marais Commission report. I want to quote from the S.A. Pilot, the magazine of South African Airways pilots. I am quoting from an editorial in the summer volume of 1970. What I am going to read is the reaction of the Minister’s own pilots to his decision—

The article ends as follows—

That, Mr. Speaker, is the Minister’s pilots’ own answer to his rejection of the advice which he himself sought from people he himself had appointed.

Separate control over the Airways have been advocated by us over and over again in this House.

For how long?

Ever since I entered this House. Certainly in 1965, for which I have the quotations here. Even before my time other hon. members were pleading for separation of Airways and Harbours from the Administration of the South African Railways. But the hon. the Minister rejects many of the reasonable recommendations made.

Let us look at the question of the Airways. We have a Railway service in which R2,500 million are invested. The Airways are able to produce from an investment of R55 million, a revenue of R59 million In other words, their revenue was greater than the capital invested in the Airways. Does that not show that the whole problem of the Airways is a different problem from the capital loaded requirements of the Railways? We have had a commission of experts, not experts whom we call experts, but people whom the hon. the Minister himself regarded as experts. I have here his announcement of the appointment of that commission. He referred to the members of that commission at the time and said—

Then he quoted all the qualifications—it took up nearly half a column—of the outstanding commission which he had appointed. He went on and said—

The hon. the Minister then went on to deal with the interests that were represented. So, it is not our view. It is the hon. the Minister’s view of a commission which he now calls superficial and one which has not done its job. But when he appointed them in 1965, he did not think that of them. But now, because they do not agree with his hidebound ideas, ideas which belong to the past, they have become useless and superficial.

The hon. the Minister has consistently in Budget after Budget, treated with contempt requests from this side of the House to look further than the immediate few yards ahead. Does the hon. member think back or does his memory not go back far enough, to the appeals we have made year after year from this side of the House to look further ahead and to plan further ahead? Let us take the simple question of aircraft in the Airways Department. I can remember how the hon. the Minister ridiculed me, debate after debate, and asked what I knew about it. He said that they were doing the planning. I remember how in 1965 the hon. the Minister brushed aside a suggestion by me that the Airways acquire Boeing 737s. He said at the time that no consideration had been given thereto and that if they needed planes in future they would buy what they need. Now we are flying them. But that is five years later. For years passengers have been unable to get the bookings they want on aircraft. Year after year, way back to the early sixties, we pleaded for a computerized automatic reservation system for the Airways. The hon. the Minister said that it was not necessary. Eventually he said that it was going to be considered. Now, at long last, in late 1970, we are going to get Saafari. But what of the years that have been lost? What of the traffic and profit to the Airways that have been lost because of the hon. the Minister’s obstinate refusal to look just a little bit further ahead than the immediate future?

Let us take the question of trucks. One of his problems is staff, but another is trucks. In 1968-’69 the relevant records showed that there were 4,191 trucks due for delivery while 7,071 were on order. In 1969-’70 there were 3,900 expected to be delivered out of the 7,0 on order. But only 2,837 were delivered. Now another year has gone and suddenly the hon. the Minister has woken up and placed an order for approximately 10,000 goods trucks of various types. But why does it take year after year and crisis after crisis before you can get action out of the hon. the Minister, before you can get him to look just a little bit further ahead and to plan further than to-morrow morning? One could go on with more and more examples of the hardship brought about to the users of the South African transport services by the hon. the Minister’s failure to plan ahead.

I rather want to deal with the other crisis, namely the staff crisis. Last year we put to the hon. the Minister five problems which faced the staff, namely salaries and wages, overtime, housing, discipline, promotion and working conditions. A year and a quarter has passed and apart from the Langlaagte increases nothing whatsoever has been done to deal with any of the other four problems. In regard to the pay increase, which was one of the five issues we raised, I want to support what my colleague the hon. member for Yeoville said, namely that it seems incredible that anyone could have made so many people unhappy with R60 million.

I want to deal with one of the groups, a group in respect of which the hon. the Minister is at present 33 per cent short of staff in the Durban area, viz. that of checkers. Checkers used to start with a salary of R140. Their starting salary has now been increased to R160. A checker with seven or eight years service would have received approximately R170. Today, as a result of the R60 million increase he will receive R180, but he will have to wait another year before he reaches his top scale and can apply to become a special grade checker. The result is that the man who starts as a checker to-day receives only R20 less than the man with seven or eight years service. Then there is the generous increase in overtime pay, namely 7½ cents and five cents. I took the following figures from an actual pay slip. I have the example of a checker whose basic pay is R180. In that particular month, namely June of this year, he worked 165 hours overtime, for which he earned R235, giving him a total salary of R402. When he had had his deductions taken off, the pay he took home amounted to R281. That included a stop-order deduction of R59 in respect of his house. The rest were normal deductions. [Interjections.] I saw the actual pay slip and took these figures from it. If the hon. the Minister can prove me wrong instead of shaking his head, I hope he will do so. If he can prove me wrong in saying that a man earning R180 who worked 165 hours of overtime and Sunday time would earn R402 and after deductions, including R59 for a house, would take home R281, I hope he will do so.

Is your complaint against the deductions?

No, my complaint is about the number of hours this man has to work and the unreasonable reward he gets for it. I say this because that same worker, if he works on a Sunday, will earn approximately R20. Before the increases in pay a clerk working the same number of hours on a Sunday would take home between R40 and R42. He would receive R3 per hour for Sunday time. I put a question on the Question Paper in this regard well over a week ago but I notice that I have not received a reply to it yet. I will probably receive it after this debate. I am therefore quoting the figures that were given to me instead of the figures I asked the hon. the Minister to give me so that we could have his official figures. I nevertheless hope that he will give us the official on the comparative scales of overtime. My point is that we are making people work overtime. Here is a specific case, where a man had to work 165 hours of overtime in order to take home a living wage on which he can give his wife and his children a decent home, decent furniture and a decent upbringing. What is more, he is only R20 a month ahead of the youngster who starts work now under the new salary scales. This applies to most workers in the middle group. As usual, they are the forgotten people. These are the people who have sufficient service behind them to make it difficult for them to resign, because they have too much to lose. These increases are aimed at drawing new people, or boosting the top scales. The middle group is the group which loses out time and time again.

The hon. member for Randburg, who has just left the Chamber, speaks of the loyalty of the railwayman. Of course he is loyal, Sir. If the railway worker had not been loyal, the Railways would have stopped running months ago, if not a year or more ago. The Railways have been kept going by the loyalty of the railwaymen, but that loyalty is being strained to breaking point. It is being strained beyond the point where the Minister can continue to run trains on loyalty. He will have to start running the Railways on hard cold facts and common sense and not on emotion. You cannot run a orgaization like the Railways purely on loyalty. It is all very well to talk of overtime, but these railwaymen do not want to work overtime. Do you think any man wants to leave home at 6.30 a.m. or earlier in order to start work at seven in the morning, only to return home at 9.30 or 10 p.m. every night of the week? Do you think any man wants to work every Sunday as well, even though he may perhaps have Saturday afternoons free? Do you think he wants to do that, Sir? He does this because he needs the money.

Why not propose to do away with all overtime?

Do you see, Sir? That is the type of answer one gets. I should like this to be placed on record. The hon. member for Koedoespoort asks why I do not propose the abolition of overtime. The reason is that if we were to take away overtime from the Railways, we would bankrupt 85 per cent of all the railway workers in South Africa. The railway worker would lose his car, his fridge and his furniture in 80 per cent of cases because he obtains everything except the bare necessities of life as a result of his overtime work. That is our complaint. Our complaint is not that they are earning extra money, but that their basic earnings are too low to allow them a decent existence. One has to bear in mind, too, what can happen to these people if they do not work overtime, despite the hon. the Minister’s assurance in this House. I have two cases here, which I do not have the time to quote, where train drivers were fined for this very reason. One man was fined R25 and then R35. He appealed right through to the Railway Board. His offence was that he refused to continue, after already working 14 hours 40 minutes on the Monday, nine hours 50 minutes on the Tuesday, 14 hours 41 minutes on the Wednesday and 14 hours 49 minutes on Thursday. When he refused to continue working on the Saturday morning, after 12 hours on duty on the Friday night he was fined R25. When this happened again later after 15 hours on auty, he was fined R35. These are facts. Those hon. members say that the Railways are running on the loyalty of its workers. When, however, a man, because of sheer physical tiredness, says that he cannot work any longer, this sort of thing happens to him.

We dealt last year with discipline. The position is just the same, Sir. There has been no improvement. We have this elaborate machinery, where volumes and volumes of paperwork are required to deal with one single case. I should like the hon. the Minister to tell me when last he read all the papers concerned with a simple disciplinary issue. I am not talking about major issues now. I am speaking of ordinary disciplinary issues where a driver, for example, is fined. When did he last take the trouble to read through all the documents relating to such a case? As far as I can see, in case after case, what is decided at the bottom is simply rubberstamped and approved right through to the top. We have a Railway Appeal Board, which heard 438 appeals, of which only 56 were upheld. In 167 of the cases, there were divided opinions. 161 Cases were dismissed, and in the case of 54, the sentence was altered.

But if you talk to a railwayman, he says: “What is the use of appealing?”. The reason is that if a simple and usually not very highly educated person has committed some minor offence, he cannot prepare his defence case and put it down on paper. I have read dozens of them, where they had good cases, but just could not express it. They can ask for help, but even with the help the cases are sometimes not clearly put. Therefore the papers just go through from stage to stage; they are looked at and the decision is upheld. I have often wondered why it is worth typing letters to these people. It should just be a printed form to say that all the documents have been considered and all the facts in relation to the case have been taken into account, and that there is no reason to vary the decision. It is a standard letter. I almost know it off by heart, because I have read it so often. That too is one of the complaints. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he should get an exjudge or an ex-magistrate to act as chairman hearing appeals so that he can look at them from a point of view of an impartial person who can give an impartial judgment. This should be done because this is creating bitter discontent.

An exmagistrate is chairman of the Appeal Board. Didn’t you know that?

I am talking of a judicial approach which will deal with all the complaints. The Railways and Harbours Board is the final court of appeal and that is not an impartial court of appeal.

Did the hon. member now know that a servant has the option of appealing to his own appeal board upon which he is represented or to the Railways and Harbours Board?

Where there is a divided opinion, it has to go back for a decision every time. In this case from which I have quoted, in 167 out of 438 cases there were divided opinions I repeat to the hon. the Minister: “Go and ask the men, the men who are subject to this system”. I have no time to get involved with the hon. the Minister in argument, because my time is running out.

Finally I want to deal with housing. The hon. member for Randburg referred to houses. It is again quoted in the Minister’s memorandum. 2,000 Odd houses were built during the last five years. In 1967-’68, however, 170 were built and 551 were withdrawn from service. This resulted in a loss of 381. In 1968-’69 there was a net gain of 32. That means that almost as many houses were withdrawn as had been built. The fact is that less houses are being built in the whole of South Africa this year than there are on the waiting list in Durban alone. People who are on the waiting list are often lower down on the list at the end of the year than they were at the beginning of the year: I have a case here of a person who started 85th on the list and who was lower down at the end of the year. This happens because people are brought in and are given priority above those on the waiting list. It is all very well to quote massive figures, but the fact is that the houses are not there for the people to live in.

Similarly, we have discontent in regard to working conditions and promotions. I want to conclude by saying again that what we need is a new approach, a new approach such as that outlined by the hon. member for Yeoville. His is a new approach which can be applied in so many ways to streamline, smooth out and expedite the running of the Railways and to restore the satisfaction of the staff with their working conditions.

Mr. Speaker, in his speech the hon. member for Durban (Point), who has just resumed his seat, mentioned the tremendous housing shortage in Durban. Now, I do not know whether this refers to Durban (Point), or to what part of Durban it refers, but he must be a very poor member and a poor representative. Why, then, do such complaints not emanate from other constituencies? He has never yet brought anything to the Minister’s attention. He comes along and sits there with a lot of information, and he makes statements which are not altogether correct. He made a statement, for example, about a man who had worked a certain number of hours, could then not go on any longer, and was fined R35. That man did not do his duty. He should have told his immediate superior “Look, Sir, I cannot do any more work, because I am dead tired”.

He did.

No, he did not. That train would then probably have been one of the trains that was withdrawn.

Here is the case.

I have seen it all. This man did not follow the procedure he should have followed.

He was probably too tired.

The hon. member is talking even greater nonsense. This man simply did not follow the procedure. Last year in his Budget speech—I do not know whether the hon. member listened to it—the hon. the Minister said that if anyone could not continue to work he had the right to notify his immediate superior immediately, because it is dangerous. It is dangerous to put someone on to a train who is going to fall asleep, for example a driver. This dare not be done, because such a man could cause an accident.

You rather fine him.

No, he is not fined, but he should merely adopt the right procedure. I can clearly see the trend that speeches by hon. members opposite are taking. It is now shortly before the provincial election, and hon. members opposite are making election speeches to see whether they cannot catch a few Railway votes. That is the whole idea of the speeches made here this afternoon by hon. members opposite.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) said that cement and lime are available, but that it cannot be transported. How many building operations in Cape Town do not have supplies of cement and lime? Here there is not a single case where building operations could not be continued with as a result of a shortage of those commodities.

Come to Durban.

Apparently this is only the case in Durban, and one can only ascribe this again to a poor member of the House of Assembly. If the hon. member were more wide awake in his constituency he would receive fewer complaints. I represent a constituency with thousands of railway people. What complaints am I receiving to-day? I am receiving complaints from people who have to move for personal or family health reasons. Some of them want to go to Durban and I do not discourage them. They must just not go to Durban (Point).

I do not want to give lengthy attention to the hon. member for Yeoville, because he has received sufficient replies from other hon. members on this side of the House. The hon. member wants to return to the days of Mr. Strauss. Shame!

The good old days.

The good old days when overtime, as well as Sunday time, was cut to a certain percentage. Those good old days when the Whites still worked for 35 cents a day.

That was not in Sturrock’s time.

One does not speak of someone who is no longer there, but Sturrock was regarded as one of the poorest ever Railway Ministers. The National Government inherited a bankrupt Railway Administration from him. He had to cut down the overtime and Sunday time payments, because he did not have money to pay the people.

You people cut it, not he.

The hon. member mentioned the figures a moment ago, but he now feels ashamed of it. I just want to repeat that that was the time when the white railway worker earned 35 cents a day. Now compare the present-day position. At a later stage in my speech I shall do so. The whole afternoon the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Durban (Point) merely criticized the hon. the Minister. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that during 1969’70 he did a great job of work. I want to include the General Manager, the Deputy Managers and the staff in this. One cannot only criticize. The country has made a great deal of progress, and the Railways is a barometer of that progress. The greater the amount of goods offered for transport, the stronger the economy becomes. Our country has made a great deal of progress, in spite of the fact that hon. members opposite accused the Government of a recession in the economy. But this afternoon, now that the Railway debate is in progress, this is no longer the case. Oh no, now the economy has progressed too rapidly. The Minister cannot handle it. One must at least remember, to a certain extent, what one said the previous week. One must just remember a little; then one could perhaps get a little further.

I admit that trains were withdrawn. I admit that there is a staff shortage. I know it. One surely cannot deny something that is true. But I now ask the two hon. members there: How are they going to supplement the shortage?

But he told you.

Yes, I know. I am coming back to that. Hon. members must not be too hasty. Now a lot of immigrants must be brought into the country to drive trains here. Where is one to get them from? Where is one to get immigrants to work as stokers?

But who said so?

Hon. members just criticize and do not make any suggestions.

But he did not say so.

Yes. He said we should supplement this by immigration. What does it mean? If one is to supplement it by immigration, he could perhaps have said that we can use Bantu as stokers. But we cannot. The stoker of to-day is the driver of to-morrow. Hon. members cannot deny this.

Yes, we know that is so.

Oh, does the hon. member at least know that? Good. One cannot let a Bantu work in the brake van at the back as a conductor. I now ask hon. members: Where are you going to put the people? One must find them in one’s own country.

And if they are not there?

I made a note of an extract from the editorial of last Thursday’s Burger—hon. members may now believe this or not—to the effect that our traffic in recent years had increased by 100 per cent. Our staff did not increase by an equal amount. The staff did increase, but only by 18 or 19 per cent. But now so many other improvements and facilitations have been introduced that it would have been unnecessary to increase the staff by 100 per cent.

Hon. members spoke scornfully here of the result…

For Langlaagte.

… for Langlaagte. Yes, I am glad the hon. member is mentioning it. I would also have done so.

With tremendous results, not so?

But just compare it now with others. One perhaps gets a horse that throws its rider more quickly. But if hon. members were now to analyse the question of the 4,000 voters who have left and whose addresses could not be obtained …

Ours as well.

But let us now regard it proportionally. The hon. member will surely know that the ratio is three to one. 1,000 of their voters left, as against 3,000 of ours. These are the proportions in any constituency with a majority of between 3,000 and 4,000. (Interjections.] No, it is not. The hon. member may go to my chief electoral officers and he will find out that that is the relationship they lay down. Take an out-and-out Railway constituency such as Uitenhage. There the hon. member for Uitenhage sits, and I asked him. He increased his majority by 1,300, notwithstanding a poor Minister and poor officials.

And Umhlatuzana?

And I am speaking of my own constituency as well. In spite of the fact that the United Party went around telling stories, I pushed my majority up, and the number of United Party votes decreased. The United Party says that the increase of R60 million was an election promise. That is not so. Someone made the less attractive remark—I do not want to say base remark, because that is unparliamentary—about the Minister trying to buy votes. It is scandalous to say that.

Who said it? You are the one who thinks it. None of us said it.

[Interjections.] It had to be given. Must one now wait until the stars fall from heaven?

There could have been a Press statement.

But nevertheless, over and above that, the Railways still cannot compete with the private sector. The private sector can still offer higher wages at any time, and the money talks now and then, although not always because one has one’s loyal railwaymen who will not leave the Railways. But there are people who will leave the service for more money. And the private sector can easily do it because the higher wages are simply added to the price of the product. But the Minister cannot increase his tariffs every year, because then there would be the devil to pay. He simply does not do it.

Another aspect of the staff position is that many people resign. As I said a moment ago,

I represent a few thousand railway people, and I receive hundreds of letters from people who have resigned and who, after a few months, are sorry they did so, and they ask me to help them to get their jobs back on the Railways. I get hundreds of those letters. He was just a railwayman, but the little more money enticed him to resign, and then one has to try to get his job back for him. And I may say that because there is, thank goodness, a scarcity of these people, we could place them all back in their jobs.

Not all of them.

The Estimates budget for a deficit of R14 million, but Railway tariffs will not increase; they are remaining the same. That is why there is a Rates Equalization Fund, to which the Opposition also objected by asking why the fund stood at such a high level. But this is in order to cover possible shortfalls, otherwise one has to increase tariffs every now and then, and the Minister of Transport cannot do so. He would become the most unpopular of ministers. But you may ask any railwayman to-day—go to Maitland, which is now represented in this House by that big-wig sitting there and ask them—if they want any Minister of Transport other than Ben Schoeman, and the answer will be that they do not want any other Minister. (Interjections.] That has been my experience. We have had big problems in the past year. I have already mentioned the manpower shortage. We cannot supplement the manpower shortage by employing non-Whites.

And yet they do do it.

Yes, but then where one cannot get Whites and where the non-Whites can work separately under white supervision. I would have said this at a later stage, but since the hon. member is making the interjection, I shall say it now: One cannot let a White and a Coloured or a Bantu work in the same office. If one were to allow that one would have chaos. Who would then leave? The Whites would. Is that what the hon. member for Yeoville wants? Does he want the Whites to leave because non-Whites must sit with them in the same office? The hon. member does not reply; if I were in his place I would also have kept quiet.

You are knocking your own skittles down now.

In spite of the manpower shortage it was still possible to handle the major portion of the transport offered—perhaps not as quickly as would have been the case under normal circumstances: we admit that. There was a heaping up of trains; there was, for example, a bottleneck at Bloemfontein. I was virtually in daily contact with the System Manager in Bloemfontein, from whom I received the most courteous and polite treatment, particularly during this drought. The hon. member for Yeoville said we should remember that there would always be droughts. Yes, there will always be droughts, but must the hon. the Minister now order 50.0 or 100,000 trucks, appoint superfluous staff and then sit and wait for a drought so that he can use the trucks and the staff? It would be stupid for a Minister to do this. I know that we will have droughts again, but then we must handle the position as we are doing at present. There was tremendous pressure on the South African Railways during this drought. In one drought-stricken district —I now want the hon. member to listen so that he will also know something about drought-stricken areas …

You are now busy with a drought-stricken speech.

The hon. member himself is drought-stricken. One drought-stricken district, which uses maize and cane for fodder, needs at least ten trucks a day, and this includes Sundays, because one cannot only feed an animal six days a week. This means 300 trucks a month in one district. During the four months in which the farmers have now had to feed their livestock, one district has thus far needed 1,500 trucks. It is very easy for hon. members to sit there and to criticize the Government and the Minister. In the past four months one district has needed 1,500 trucks for the transportation of fodder.

What about private transport?

There are hundreds of districts in the same position. There is, a farmer sitting at the back there who has just entered Parliament; he will confirm every word I am saying here. There are hundreds of drought-stricken districts. I therefore do not find it strange that there are 3,000, 4.0 or 5,000 trucks standing at Bloemfontein at one time. What did the General Manager say when I telephoned him and asked him to make a plan about getting fodder trucks through more quickly? He said that 30,000 railwaymen were down with flu. Hon. members opposite are now coming along and making political propaganda out of that. [Laughter.] Yes, you are making political propaganda out of that. The people were sick, and who must now do the shunting? Who must do the stocker’s and the driver’s work? No, Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is the right approach to criticize the Minister here as hon. members opposite have tried to do to-day. Because we are faced with an altogether abnormal state of affairs. If we had not had an unprecedented drought, this abnormal state of affairs would never have come about. Even so. the Minister did not sit still. There are 11,000 trucks on order, a portion of which has already been delivered, in addition he has 200 diesel locomotives on order, as well as 482 trailers which are necessary, particularly here in the North West; 450 electric locomotives; and 600 passenger coaches.

Resignations from the service have decreased and the staff is getting stronger by the day. In listening thusfar to the two speakers from the other side of the House, one could gain the impression that the Government was doing nothing for the railwayman. And yet the Government has increased the railwayman’s wages tremendously. The hon. member for Durban (Point) said there was insufficient housing. Well, let me just tell him that there are three schemes, and under these three schemes no less than R136 million has been spent on Railway housing since 1950—R136 million in the last 20 years. Just take a look at Nou-poort, in my constituency. The old zinc houses that stood there have been neatly rebuilt and restored in the past number of years. On the one side there has been virtually a new town, consisting only of railway houses, established —all of them neat houses with garages and everything. Why has specifically the hon. member for Durban (Point) been so hard hit? I wonder if it is altogether as he has sketched it to be.

Let us look at the wage position. In the last two years R113 million was granted to the railwaymen in increases alone. Mention one other industry, even in the private sector, that can equal this? In 1962 the per capita income in the service of the S.A. Railways was R1.674; in 1963, R1,899; in 1964, R2,180; in 1965, R2,359: in 1966, R2,517; in 1968, R2,967; and in 1970, R3,176—almost twice as much as in 1962. From this one can surely see that the Minister is not neglecting his people. In fact, they did not leave the Railways because they did not receive increases, but because the private sector offered them more. But they are now coming back again.

Now we come to overtime and Sunday-time. Last year I asked the hon. member for Yeoville to stand up here and propose that overtime and Sunday-time be abolished. He did not do so. I now repeat the same question today.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) replied to that.

You are the main speaker about Railway affairs on your side; that is why I am asking you.

My reply is the same as that given by the hon. member for Durban (Point).

How many letters do I not receive in which railway people tell me that they would like to work overtime because they want to get something or other for their home.

Must they work overtime for that?

Yes, why not? To mention an example: if the wife wants to buy a piano or a radio and her husband buys and pays for it out of his overtime, he can refer to it with pride as the result of his labours.

Is it fair to have to work overtime to buy a radio?

The hon. member is now trying to make the whole thing appear silly. But I say again: I would be glad if the United Party would say that they would like to see Sunday-time and overtime abolished. What is the United Party doing now? I experienced this in Railway centres such as Burgersdorp, Noupoort and De Aar. They go along and make a tremendous amount of promises. But the railwaymen no longer believe in the promises of the United Party …

No, they only vote for the United Party.

The outsider can easily make promises because he knows it will not be necessary for him to carry them out. If I were sitting on the Opposition side, I could make a world of promises because I know that I would not need to carry them out. However, if you are on the Government side, then you must keep to your word.

I want to conclude by once more thanking the Minister and his head officials for the great job of work they have done in the past year under extremely difficult circumstances. They nevertheless succeeded in transporting all the goods that were offered for transport. Although there were delays, they could nevertheless handle it all.

Before replying to the hon. member I should like to thank the outgoing General Manager, Mr. Kruger, for the services he has rendered to South Africa. I hope he is going to enjoy his rest and that it will be a long and enjoyable one. I know the incoming General Manager, Mr. Loubser, is taking on a very heavy cloak, but with his ability and with the assistance of his Deputies and from this side of the House, he will be able to fulfil his duties as he should. I should also like to thank all railwaymen in South Africa for the wonderful job they are doing under these very difficult employment circumstances.

As for the hon. member for Colesberg, I hope he did not intend misleading the House. I understood that he actually increased his majority at the last election. That is what we on this side of the House understood him to say. I have here Die Burger, and he has great faith in it. According to this paper his majority was 3.261 in comparison with 3,854 in the election of 1966.

Read out my percentages too.

The hon. member for Colesberg also said …

Also read out the percentages of the votes that were cast.

… that if we were wide awake we would not have all these complaints. I am coming to some complaints just now in my own constituency which I have to disclose to this House. Although I was a cliffhanger, according to the Afrikaans Press, and I was fighting for my political life, those very railway people in Pietermaritzburg voted for me because they know that when they bring a complaint to me, I attend to it as it should be attended to.

What was your majority—

My majority, after conceding 10 votes to my opponent, was still 1,740. That was equivalent to a rise of 1,720.

I should also like to refer to the commission of inquiry. The rejection of this report by the hon. the Minister was one of the greatest disappointments to commerce and industry and the country as a whole. Looking at the names of the commission members it was impossible for anybody to have appointed a more select group of men than those that appeared in the Gazette as the commission. One must remember that the hon. the Minister appointed these gentlemen. He selected them. What did the hon. the Minister say in his preamble in the Gazette when this appointment was made? He said—

But, Mr. Speaker, four years and R100,000 later, in one fell swoop their education, experience and ability are thrown into the waste-paper basket. There are no words strong enough to apologize to these gentlemen. To say that their inquiry was superficial, in simple language, is ludicrous. Nobody will agree more than the members themselves.

One point that seems to rile the hon. the Minister more than anything else, is that the commission investigated and recommended the separation of the four services. Surely, in the course of their investigation, they were led in that direction. They had no alternative but to follow and report upon it. That was their duty and that was expected from them. To say that the report was a great disappointment to the hon. the Minister can only be compared with a small child who could not be given what he wanted. Of course, the interested parties vented their disappointment to the hon. the Minister, not to promote their own interests, but the interests of the country as a whole. Does the hon. the Minister object to outside criticism? In the job that he is in, it is expected that he should accept criticism and try and rectify that which is pointed out to him. I am quite convinced of the fact that in time to come he will still ask the outside transport employers to come and assist him. The future development of the country as a whole is at stake and transport at the present time is applying the brakes on the economy of the country. I think that the hon. the Minister should reconsider the report and accept as much of the recommendations as possible. By putting it off, he is merely putting off the evil day.

I should now like to deal with rail accidents in South Africa and especially in Natal. This is a cause of anxiety. One must ask what are the main reasons for these accidents. What is the Minister doing about them? Something must be done. The Administration itself cannot afford the cost of these accidents. With the terrific pressure on staff and the turnover of staff one must ask whether they are sufficiently trained to control the running of trains. I am thinking of this dreadful accident that occurred only about ten days ago at the railway station in Hammarsdale where the one train was stationary and the other train crashed into it. Surely that was caused by human failure. Is the Administration satisfied with the condition of the railway tracks throughout the country? Is it satisfied that there are sufficient gangers to service these tracks? I ask this, because what really alarms me is the safety of our passengers. We must at all costs prevent them losing confidence in our trains.

Then I also want to speak about the staff position. It is quite alarming to notice the wastage of staff I am quite convinced that pay is the main reason for the present staff position. We must accept the fact that pay and overtime have become synonymous for the sole reason that no Railwayman can live without his overtime. It has become part of his life. This is altogether an unhealthy state of affairs. Salaries must constantly be reviewed and improved. A. heart specialist in Pietermaritzburg discussed the matter with me recently. He asked me whether I realized how many coronary cases amongst railwaymen caused by stress and strain were being brought to their notice. It is quite alarming. It is a physical impossibility for these human beings to work these long hours that they have to work to earn this overtime.

Working conditions should be improved where possible. After writing the last high school examinations two matriculants went to the railway station to look for employment as clerks. This is a similar case to the one mentioned by the hon. member for Yeoville. After seeing the small offices with very little ventilation and with electric lights and very poor furniture, they took the application forms and left. A month later they too were found in a local commercial bank and when this Railway official asked them why they did not come back to the Railways, one replied: “How can we work under those conditions? Here at least we feel that we are part of an organization where we are looked after.”

Then, Sir, I want to come to my old pet subject, the disciplinary code. I want to know once and for all: What is the procedure regarding complaint, investigation and fine? Who has the authority in the Railways, throughout the country, to impose fines? When is a case referred to the disciplinary inquiry officer? Does this happen only in serious cases? I have three cases here which require a little elucidation, especially in view of the manpower shortage, and the Minister’s remarks on re-employment. The first case is that of a stoker who was apparently sick one morning. When he eventually reported for duty, he produced a medical certificate. He was, nowever, apparently discharged “omdat by gedros het”. On the 3rd September last year he received a letter saying that he could renew his application after 12 months, subject to the usual requirement of acceptable references. On the 20th May, 1970, he was told: “Die aangeleent-heid geniet nog aandag”. On the 12th June, 1970, he was told: “U word aangeraai om elders werk te aanvaar en as u dan na verloop van twaalf maande nog in ’n betrekking by die Spoorweë belangstel, en bevredigende getuigskrifte kan lewer, sal die aangeleentheid heroorweeg word.” We notice from this communication that the initial period of 12 months had now been extended for a further 12 months. Sir, who is the person who is putting the spoke in the wheel for this man to be re-employed?

Then I have a report here dealing with an apprentice on the Railways, which I thought was very interesting. During a period of 2½ years service, this person was fined R130. He is someone I refer to as a schoolboy. In the private sector he would be regarded as a person learning his trade. After reading a report drawn up by the Railways in this connection, I asked for an explanation. I asked for a description of the tools, together with their value, which were alleged to have been removed by this apprentice. The tools in question happened to be an eight-inch screwdriver, bearing his own marks and apparently the private marks of another apprentice on it, worth 50 cents. I asked for this information because theft, a common law offence, was involved. I thought that if anybody deserved to be punished, he should have been punished. On the list of irregularities of service, however, no mention is made of this matter. The peculiar point here is that there is also nothing in the report which states that this person’s work was not satisfactory. I should like to know who fines these people. Were the other apprentices, working with this person, also fined? I investigated this case and I interviewed this young man. He is the son of a professional officer in Pietermaritzburg. When I was reading all this, I expected to find one of these long-haired and peculiarly dressed individuals. However, I did not. When I arrived there, he had just come back in a track suit after he had run several miles for exercise. He was well-groomed. The only fault that I could see was that he had a wrong name.

Shame!

No, there is no “skande” about it. That is how alert I am; where is the hon. member for Colesberg now? I attend to these things, when they are referred to me. I am their member of Parliament and the funny thing is that these people to whom I am referring each have a vote. Their vote has exactly the same value as my vote and the hon. the Minister’s vote. Here I have another matter and this is a case of a trainee. He was a railwayman who went on a military course and who, after he was there for a while, received a circular which had been sent out by the Railways to find out whether he was coming back. He said he was not coming back. So they wrote to him and sent him a statement of his financial matters and eventually stated that he owed them R203.50. His father who was also an official phoned me and said that he could not balance the amount and that his son had never earned anything like that, according to his building society book. So I told him to write another letter and to make inquiries. The official in Durban replied in such a way that it was a case of take it or leave it. Those were the facts. Nevertheless, he wrote a letter and the result was that they kindly informed him that the amount in which he was indebted to this department was only R52.91. This was the final amount he owed them whereas it was R203.50 in the beginning. What I, as a member of Parliament, object to is this. We were querying the amount when there was a mistake, and a legitimate mistake; they wanted practically four times more from the man than he owed them. He was told, however: “It may be mentioned that should you fail to advise this officer of your intentions regarding this debt, further steps will be taken against you.” We are still investigating the case. Why threaten a youngster? He is only a kid who had commenced his duties in the Railways before he went for military service.

Referring to housing, I notice in the 1968’69 Estimates that 495 houses were built at a cost of approximately R12,800 each. During 1969-’70, 517 houses costing approximately R8,000 each were built. This gives us a difference of R4,800 which is the amount by which each house is cheaper than the ones built the year before. How can this be, when costs have been going up? Did the hon. the Minister build sub-economic houses for the Railwaymen? How could he have done it at only two-thirds of the cost of the previous year? It would be most interesting to hear what the position is. In the beginning of the year I asked the hon. the Minister whether it was not possible to subsidize the Railwaymen who have to rent homes in the private field. They have to pay high rents whereas the civil servants are subsidized to pay their building society interest. I still want to know whether it will be possible for the hon. the Minister to consider that concession. All the railway pensioners in my constituency have asked me about an increase in railway pensions. When they heard of this terrific largesse which was handed out at Langlaagte they thought that they would receive a part of it. We have heard that the interest earned by the fund is far greater than the amount paid out. These people say it is their own money. What they are claiming is only a small pittance of their own money. I think the hon. the Minister must consider this matter.

He is waiting for the next election.

Most likely the Provincial election. Then there is the question of women’s salaries. I am quite convinced and satisfied in my mind that the women employed by the Railways in the various clerical and other positions do exactly the same work as men. They are entitled to the same salaries. I have repeatedly asked for this. I was hoping that the hon. the Minister would lead South Africa in that direction, because he usually does things that other Departments do not do.

There is another item I was specially asked to mention. It is a minor item that; yet it affects certain people, for example, tourists and even M.P.’s. What I am talking about is the service on dining cars. Travelling on the Orange Express from Natal to Cape Town we were served tea in plastic cups, with another little plastic cup containing hot water. Plastic cups were also provided to serve the rest of the party. Coffee in plastic cups was also served on the Orange Express. As I understand it was quite cold and unpalatable. I do not know if that is an advisable way of serving tourists. The hon. the Minister will most likely tell us that he saw this on his recent trip overseas, because the first time that I have seen these plastic mugs is since the hon. the Minister returned from overseas.

Mr. Speaker, there is a budget before this House in which millions of rand are involved. This is the budget for the most important Department in South Africa, the lifeblood of our economic development. Although it is this budget which this House must debate, we have had three speeches from hon. members on the opposite side, made with a view solely to the provincial election which lies ahead. They made no contribution to the discussion of this budget and the efficiency of the Railways as such. I want to mention a few examples. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City), who has just resumed his seat, complained about the conditions under which our people have to work. Has the hon. member forgotten what the conditions were like under which their people had to work? There were hovels and galvanized iron buildings. In my part of the world we used them for cattle pens. The hon. members also spoke about plastic cups, and so on. All three hon. members on the opposite side who spoke put certain words in the mouth of the hon. the Minister, which he never used. They did so simply to make political capital. All three hon. members said that the Minister had said that the Marais Commission’s report was based on self-interest and self-aggrandizement. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) said it again a moment ago, as well as the hon. member for Durban (Point).

I challenge you to prove that.

The hon.

Minister stated very emphatically that the evidence which was led before this Commission, was motivated toy self-interest and self-ageran-dizement on the part of various bodies. That presents quite a different picture.

I am going to mention another example. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) mentioned the recent accident. He wanted to capitalize on it in order to indicate that there are insufficient people to do the work and that the safe operation of the Railways is not being properly investigated. Surely he knows that after every accident a commission of inquiry is appointed and the safety of the Railways is always given prime consideration. But I am going to mention a second example. The hon. member for Durban (Point) informed this House that, before the R50 million had been granted, there were three cases of disputes, in order to indicate how dissatisfied the railway staff were. But then he admitted immediately that after this R60 million had been granted, the disputes were settled. In other words, those who had been dissatisfied were now satisfied. But then he went on to contradict himself, just as the hon. member for Yeoville did, because he wanted to echo what that hon. member had said. But he did something else; and the hon. member for Yeoville did the same thing. He hurled the insult at the railway staff that they could be bought for R60 million, that their weight in votes was worth R60 million.

You tried to do that but they did not rise to the bait.

That is the accusation he hurled at them, that their votes could be bought. Yet hon. members know that the 110,000 railway staff members are divided up into seven staff associations. After the Minister had stated that this was the amount he had available for the improvement of salaries, the General Manager conducted thorough negotiations with all those staff associations in order to make the correct allocation and these staff associations, that are after all the mouthpiece of the staff members, stated quite emphatically that they were satisfied with the allocation. Where does the hon. member get this general accusation from that we have created more dissatisfaction?

Were the local associations consulted?

Surely the executive committees of the seven staff associations are the spokesmen for the entire staff. After all, one cannot afterwards go and negotiate with local associations as well. But I want to take another example. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City), in the same way as the hon. member for Durban (Point), complained about the system of discipline and disciplinary procedures, as well as the disciplinary appeal which is being maintained. The hon. member for Durban (Point) said that the Disciplinary Appeal Board and the Railways Board are mere rubber-stamps to set the seal of approval on what officials have done.

I said that they were regarded as such.

The hon. members said that they were mere rubber-stamps. To try to defend his case, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) took three individual cases, without getting his facts straight. The one man was an absconder.

No. Who says that?

He said it himself, not some other person. He makes political propaganda here and says that the man was not re-employed because his Christian name and surname were unacceptable. What is the hon. member insinuating with that? In other words, he did belong to the right language group. That is all it could mean. He was trying in a Railways debate to beat the drum of the difference between language groups. He knows that that is nonsense. But the hon. member for Durban (Point) furnished what he claimed was the number of appeals which had been rejected, upheld and amended by the Railways Board.

The Appeal Board.

Oh, very well. In his plea he asked that the Appeal Board should have a magistrate as chairman, but surely he knows that they do have a magistrate as chairman. He ought to know that. It shows that those people have not done their homework; that is the main problem with them.

But I want to pause awhile and deal with this accusation in regard to the Marais Commission. The hon. members are the champions of the Marais Commission report where it deals with one aspect and one aspect only, namely the separation of the Railways, the Harbours, the Airways and the pipelines. [Interjection.] I say that you are the champions of that portion of the report, and I am justified in saying that because in his Budget speech the hon. the Minister showed you which of those recommendations were already policy, had already been accepted and were already being implemented. For example, the hon. Minister referred to paragraphs 263, 273, 276, 284 and 315 which he stated were already being implemented as policy. In other words, a large portion of this report was accepted and is already being implemented. [Interjections.]

Order! Was the hon. member for Durban (Point) not afforded an opportunity of addressing the House?

Yes, Sir, but he did not say anything. Surely hon. members know that the Minister tabled a White Paper during the session prior to this inquiry, but not one of them referred to this report. Not one of them took the trouble to read it. Not one of them took into account the fact that the Constitution of South Africa makes specific provision in sections 105 and 106 for the financial implications in regard to the Railway Estimates, in order to ensure that they balance. In the same report, in paragraph 6 which deals with the financial implications of separation, it is pointed out that the Airways is making a profit and that the Railways is showing a deficit, and one is referred back to the minority report of Mr. Joubert. To ensure that the Railway Estimates balance, are terms of sections 105 and 106 of the Constitution; but it is necessary not only in terms of that, but in terms of the sound economy of South Africa to operate these four services of the Railways: the Railways, the Airways, the pipelines and Harbours, as a unit. I know that there are Commissioners who feel unhappy, just as the United Party does, because recommendations were not carried out, but what was the real injunction to the Commission? What were the terms of reference? I think I could summarize the terms of reference of the Commission as follows: (1) the roles played by the various forms of transport in South Africa in order to promote the development of the national economy in the most effective way, and (2) the nature of the control measures and the administrative machinery which will be necessary to ensure that the roles as specified in (1) are played in the most effective way, whether separately or by way of coordination with one or more of the other forms of transport. This is the important aspect, Sir. But then I go further. In addition the Commission was instructed to take into account the statutory provisions applicable to the Railways in regard to the need to balance the Budget and the fact that subsidization by the Central Government of the Railways is limited. And in addition—and this is an important provision—they also have to take the road system and the carrying capacity of the roads into consideration. Now, when we look at this, the House and South Africa must take cognizance of the fact that the United Party are the advocates of the taxpayers of South Africa from now on having to subsidize Railway deficits, if there are deficits as a result of the separation, out of the Consolidated Revenue Account as far as low tariff goods are concerned. The agriculturalist who derives the benefit of the low tariff on the transport of wool or fertilizer or fodder, or his cattle, etc., will have to bear the cost, and they will have to take cognizance of this. And the consumers of South Africa, who are dependent in particular on the low tariff goods, will have to pay the subsidies if the United Party’s proposal is accepted.

I want to consider the second part of these terms of reference. Not only did the Commission have to give attention to the roles of the various forms of transport, but also to the financial effects on the various transport organizations, and in particular on the Railways and all its ramifications. This report—and this was overlooked by those hon. members— made no reference whatsoever to the financial implications and what their effect would be. On the contrary, the chairman himself stated in his minority report that the necessary statistical data was not available in order to submit a proper report in this connection. How can one accept a report if the chairman himself informs you that there was a lack of statistical data, and how can one accept such a report for such a vast industry as the Railways without taking into consideration the economic implications? These are important. What is this all about now? For the most part the report was based—and this is to what the hon. the Minister was referring—on evidence and representations and submissions to the Commission without any further analysis of the costs and of the economic implications. Must this House, with the responsibility it has, accept a report without considering the cost structure? That shows how superficial the United Party’s criticism is, because it is fixing its gaze solely on the provincial election.

I want to point out the following implication. I have said that there were no statistics in regard to this matter as a whole. I do not want to discuss the tariff policy, but I do want to look at this next item, i.e. the costs of transport, and it is important to do so. In the determination of the role of the various forms of transport and the promotion of the national economy in an effective way. the economy of the means of transport and the consequential applicable costs of transport are important factors. What would the consequences be if we were merely to accept this report on separation as it stood? Then I want to point out that one can determine the costs of transport per rail with reasonable accuracy. We have the figures, capital investment and the costs, etc. We have those statistics, but what about one’s road hauliers? We did not have the costs of those road hauliers, nor did the Commission. All information they had concerning the road hauliers was their own personal capital expenditure, what their motor trucks, etc., cost them. But who subsidizes them? Every person who buys petrol in South Africa, has to pay 6 cents a gallon as a subsidy, as a levy to pay the costs of national roads. Every man must pay a motor car licence to help subsidize the roads. The provincial taxpayer subsidizes these people using the road. [Interjections.] These are the people the United Party want to benefit to such an extent now with this proposal of theirs. Time will now allow the analysis of this whole report. But when we consider the report we must remember a few things. This commission consisted of 12 members. Four of the 12 submitted minority reports, and in his minority report the chairman states—and this is the important aspect—

He goes on to say—

What does he say in addition to that?

It is the chairman who has this to say. But he goes further; from his experience of the Railways as a State corporation, the Commissioner finds that the efficiency of the service will in no way be impaired if the Railways, the Harbours and the Airways are retained as a unit; that is the opinion of the chairman of the Commission. Then there is Mr. Joubert, another member, who made a very thorough study of transport, not only in South Africa but throughout the world, and he stated emphatically—

But not the roles and the efficiency of the transport system as a whole. He pointed out that at some centres such as Port Elizabeth it had been indicated that the public were satisfied with the present set-up, but when the Commission heard evidence in Durban certain Port Elizabeth interests rejected the evidence which they had submitted in Port Elizabeth. He went on to say that in the absence of statistics it was not possible to take a proper decision in regard to the question, and then he states—

He said that these public bodies, many of them elected by the voters of South Africa, particularly if one thinks of the provincial authorities, municipalities, etc., were satisfied with the position as it was to-day. Who are the dissatisfied people?

How can he use words like that?

Because they did not come to give evidence. They were invited to give evidence. I am also pointing out, therefore, that that Commissioner also submitted a motivated minority report, and in that minority report he pointed out clearly that he was not in favour of the separation which was recommended in the majority report. He advocated that the three services should be retained as a unit. In his minority report he went on to say—

The Commission did, however, make recommendations in regard to the rating system. In other words, they exceeded their limits as far as this aspect is concerned. This member of the Commission pointed this out and the hon. the Minister pointed it out. Then he went on to say and this is where the United Party falls down—

For that reason he is opposed to the minority report. He goes on to say—

The hon. the Minister was therefore justified in saying that most of the evidence given in this connection was given by people to further their own economic interests, and now hon. members on the opposite side are putting the wrong words in his mouth. In addition, this Commissioner said—

Sir, this is the record of this National Party Government, i.e. that there has never been a breakdown in the country’s national transport services, and that while we have been experiencing the greatest economic upsurge which South Africa has ever experienced in its entire history. But this member of the Commission is not the only one to have submitted a minority report. Read what Mr. Anderson said in his minority report.

Read the majority report to us; after all, that is what counts.

*The DEPUTY MINISTER; What counts is this … [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Yeoville must give the hon. the Deputy Minister a chance to make his speech.

*The DEPUTY MINISTER; What counts is this: the hon. the Minister appointed a commission of inquiry consisting of 12 members, and the chairman himself was not in agreement with the majority report. In the second place there were four minority reports. I do not know whether such a report has ever been tabled in South Africa before, a report with four minority reports. The minority reports are motivated, but the majority report is not. On the contrary, the members who signed the majority report, admitted that they brought out their reports without the necessary statistical data, and without their having been able to analyse the economic implications of their recommendations. Sir, when one is dealing with the South African Railways, to which the entire economic development of South Africa is linked, then one may not take any steps or decisions if one does take into account the economic implications.

I want to assert here—and hon. members on that side will not be able to deny this—that if one were to bring about this separation which is being requested in the majority report, then the logical consequence would in the first place be that the Railways, which will be operated at a loss, will not be able to give the railway staff the benefit of any economic growth in South Africa. In other words, they are acting quite contrary to the interests of the tens of thousands of railway staff members here, for the Railways would then have to be subsidized, as the hon. member himself advocated out of the ordinary Revenue Account. If one were to start subsidizing the Railways out of the ordinary Revenue Account, then one would remove all initiative and idealism from the railway staff. Secondly if the services were separated and Airways continued to show the profits it is showing at present, then the logical consequence would be that there would be continued representations, from that side of the House as well, to offer Airways services to South Africa at a cheaper rate without taking into consideration the capital investment in Airways, without taking into consideration that the Airways was developed by the Railways from the ground floor up. There will also be strong representations, as the hon. member for Yeoville has already indicated here, that petrol should be cheaper for the Eastern Transvaal. He wants fuel to be delivered to the Eastern Transvaal at a cheaper rate because a profit is being made on the pipelines. This plea will be made without taking into account that one must balance the accounts of the Railways, the Harbours and the Airways as a unit.

Sir. for whom is the United Party a mouthpiece? They are the mouthpiece of a small group of road hauliers; they are the mouthpiece of a small number of people who want to undertake road haulage while those people are already being subsidized to a certain extent by the taxpayers of South Africa in that they are enjoying the benefits of capital investment in our good roads which were built by the Provinces, by the National Transport Commission and by the municipalities. It is these people’s cause the United Party is championing, and doing so to the detriment of the railway staff itself, for the railwayman gets his share when the railway services show a surplus. I think an hon. member spoke of R113 million or R140 million during the past year. But what is more, they are making that plea to the detriment of agriculture in South Africa, for agriculture will immediately have to pay higher tariffs on the transportation of their produce. It will also be to the detriment of the coal consumer in South Africa and to the detriment of all the timber consignors, and the hon. member was so concerned a moment ago about these people. Mr. Speaker, as far as this is concerned, I think hon. members opposite have failed o further the interests of the S.A. Railways. The time at my disposal is not going to allow me to analyse these things any further, except just to refer to the number of trains which were cancelled. When I stated in reply to a question for the opposite side that it was a few thousand, the hon. member for Durban (Point) actually whistled, so gleeful was he. But this is a mere .4 per cent of all the trains running. Does this now show inefficiency, in view of the size of the organization? Hon. members are surely aware that staff shortages are not only a phenomenon which occurs on the S.A. Railways, but that it occurs throughout all sectors of the South African economy— in the private sector as well among building contractors. But the Railways Administration has taken this into account because they have introduced mechanization, automation on an intensive scale, and have put electronic computers into operation. They have, by utilizing modern equipment, supplied an increased carrying capacity so as in his way to transport more traffic with fewer trains. Modern signals have been introduced, as well as a system of centralized traffic control to eliminate station staff as well as other staff and so alleviate the staff problem. Communication systems have been improved—for example in shunting. Traffic control has been introduced which may possibly eliminate the services of conductors.

You must remember that the S.A. Railways performs a socio-economic function far beyond its task of transportation. The S.A. Railways affords many people employment, sheltered employment. This is being done only too gladly because we do not want to see these people on the streets, ft is, as I have said, fulfilling a socio-economic function as well, as it did during the depression years—to ensure that the white man in South Africa retains his place as the supporter of agriculture, industry and the rural areas.

I shall reply later on to the remarks of the hon. the Deputy Minister in regard to the report of the Commission which investigated transport matters. Let me say this now, however: His remarks that the majority report was aimed at satisfying a small clique of people is entirely wrong and is a grave reflection on the members of the Commission. The hon. member for Yeo-ville stated to this House what he thought of the Minister’s remarks on the work of this Commission. We must remember that this Commission was appointed by the Government under the signature of the State President and with terms of reference preoared by the Minister of Transport himself. The hon. the Deputy Minister I think has misread those terms of reference because he became all “het-up” about the subdivision of transport.

So far speakers from the other side have made very little contribution to this debate. They have not come forward with a solution for the great difficulties the Minister has to face. All they did was to get up and praise him, without offering him any solution for the great difficulties he has in running his organization. There was nothing constructive, so much so that all the Minister need do in his reply to this debate will be to thank them for their felicitations.

Judging from the remarks of the Minister in his Budget speech and from the remarks of the hon. the Deputy Minister about the Marais Commission’s Report, it seems as if they anticipated a different result of this report because now they do not like it.

The Minister always presents his Budget and starts the debate on a very conservative note. He does not give one the impression that he is happy with the situation. Here we must remember that in February we had “Operation eliminate the Herstigte Nasionale Party”. [Interjections.] The Minister at that time stated that he expected to end the year’s working with a deficit but he actually ended with a surplus of R27 million. I did not think the Minister appeared to be over confident, keeping in mind that they have managed to eliminate members of the H.N.P. from this House. I do not think they have succeeded in eliminating the H.N.P. altogether; as a matter of fact, the party still exists.

Order! That is not under discussion at the present moment.

That is so, Mr. Speaker, but I think they need being reminded of it.

Order! I do not think so.

The Deputy Minister says our remarks in this debate are being directed at the provincial elections. But the Budget the Minister introduced here was directed at the provincial elections because why did he not come forward and suggest that there may be tariff increases or increases in fares to meet his deficit? Year after year we find that the Minister underestimates his Revenue; thus he can always come here with a surplus. The fact that he was able to find R60 million which he handed out to the rial-waymen at the Langlaagte by-election shows what prosperity there is in the Railway service. But after the provincial election we will find that the Minister, when he is short of cash or is going into the red, will increase tariffs and give us an explanation next year. It is necessary that we know where the profits of the Railways come from. Harbours ended the year with a surplus of R19 million in comparison with a surplus of R14 million last year; Airways doubled their surplus of last year to a surplus this year of R7.7 million; pipelines have ended the year with a fantastic surplus of R47 million after having started off as recently as 1965 and then with a modest deficit. The Railways is on the other hand the problem child. We find that they have ended up with a deficit of R25 million this year. This is an improvement over last year’s position, but it is still something which should cause everybody concern, because this problem of losses on the Railways has to be overcome. There are no two ways about it. The Minister has run into trouble during the last year, as a result of his labour difficulties and the other difficulties he has had. Notwithstanding the speeches of some hon. members on that side of the House, I can tell the Minister that the state of morale amongst railway employees is very low. I know that hon. members on the other side will say that it is high, but I know that the hon. member for Parow was asked by one of his constituents, during the last election, to pay a visit to the Paul Sauer Building, so that he could see for himself what the state of the morale was, and how much dissension existed among employees.

Where did you hear that?

I heard it from one of the hon. member’s constituents. I was canvassing in his constituency and this is what I was told. The claim, that the Minister makes, that productivity has been increased by working with a smaller staff, and by carrying a greater tonnage per mile, is of course a fallacy. The Minister cannot get the staff. Throughout all the speeches here this afternoon, we have not heard, even from the Minister, how he proposes to overcome the staff shortage. All they can do is to ask: “What are you going to do?” Sir, it is out of our hands. It is the Government which has to solve this problem. Sir, it is not enough merely to pump R60 million into the pockets of the railwaymen and then to say: “We have solved the problem. There apparently have not been too many resignations since the increased salaries took effect, and we now have more staff joining than there are resignations.” Sir, they seem to forget that before the general election they pumped R9 million into the staff pockets by way of a holiday bonus. And then, Sir, they, the Government, went down the drain, and we now have nine more seats on this side of the House.

Staff shortages have not arisen overnight. They have been with us for a long time. We still have not had a solution to this problem from the Government. It is all very well for the Deputy Minister to tell us of the loyalty of the railway worker, how hard he has worked, and how certain clerks have gone outside to do certain jobs of work to help the Railways, but is that the way to run an organization the size of our Railways? Surely, if the Railways are dependent upon unqualified persons in a crisis it is a deplorable state of affairs. This is a matter which really should be investigated.

Sir, we were talking about resignations. The question has been asked: “Why do they resign?” I do not know whether the hon. the Minister follows up the reasons, but when one talks to individuals who have resigned from the Railways, one finds that the main reason behind their resignations, as the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) has said, is the ap plication of the disciplinary code. We have told the hon. the Minister this before. The fact is that a dead end is reached with the Appeal Board. Once one has appealed and the Appeal Board has turned down one’s application, one has had it. It is also a most difficult matter to see the Minister. We feel, as I have said before, that there should be a disciplinary code in the Railways, but we object to its administration. Another factor which emerges when one talks to these people is the system of promotion within the Service. The anomalies which exist in the application of the pay scales have also been pointed out here before. The Deputy Minister told us that that was something which was entirely in the hands of the staff associations and the Railways. There are, however, anomalies which are considerable. This is a matter which should be investigated because it is creating tremendous dissension in the Railways at the present moment.

As I have said, the man in the street and industry are hoping that the Government, after winning the election, will make some statement as to how they intend overcoming the manpower shortage. We want to see the hon. the Minister getting away from the political ideology of his Party and tell us what he intends to do.

Any suggestions?

No, you are the Government and it is your job to tell us. I want the hon. member for Germiston to get up and tell us what he is going to do.

Have you any suggestions?

Are you expecting us to take over the Government? We will do it for you. Now, it is no use coming along and telling us of the critical situation and the fact that trains have had to be cancelled. It is no good hiding behind the flu epidemic as this only lasted for a short time. It is over now. Let us therefore have something better than the excuses we have had up to the present moment.

We have heard much about planning. I feel that the trouble the Railways are in at the present moment, is in fact the result of a lack of long-term planning. I do not blame the staff for this. Certain members of the Select Committee on Railways had the privilege of visiting the head office, saw the work of the planning council and met individuals serving on the council. The members of the Select Committee found that they were very capable people. But I am convinced that a number of the plans of this particular planning council of the hon. the Minister never see the light of day. They are killed at birth for the simple reason that the Government makes the excuse that the funds to carry out these plans are not available. That is the end of it. I am fairly certain that the present position obtaining on the Railways, namely the shortage of trucks, and the general shortages of railway staff, is due to a lack of acceptance of longterm plans. Most business houses of any capacity have forecasting and long-term planning. The Railways have it as well. But I am fairly certain that the plans of these very capable railway servants never see the light of day. This is a serious matter although hon. members on my left do not seem to think so. The S.A. Railways handle a budget of approximately R966 million which is to be spent from Revenue this year. That is very big business. They also employ quite a number of persons. There is something like 225,000 people employed on the Railways. By any standard that is very big business.

When one reads the report on co-ordination of transport one feels that the Railways are not unlike the house that Jack built. There have been additions to it from time to time and we have never really got down to reorganizing this immense structure. I do not think hon. members on the Government side appreciate the size of this enormous utility service that we run and in respect of which moneys are voted by Parliament.

The Marais Commission, on the co-ordination of transport to my mind did keep to their terms of reference. I am sorry that the hon. the Minister does not like the result. They did do a job of work. They examined the position very closely. Much has been said about the chairman’s minority report where he says that the practice in the commercial world to-day is to amalgamate companies of similar types with a view to the better running of the unit and in order to save money.

Yes.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort says, yes, that is correct. But there is a considerable difference. What they do in commercial life is to form a holding company and to run the units that are taken over as separate units, which in turn are answerable to the holding company. That is the difference. If one of those companies run into the red, it is reorganized.

We have that situation at the present moment of one unit running into the red. If the Government were to form a holding company of the Railways, the pipeline, the Airways and the Harbours, as separate units, it would be up to the holding company to find out what they are going to do about getting the Railways out of the red. The hon. the Deputy Minister asked whether we were going to ask the man in the street and the farmers of course the farmers must be included—to subsidize the Railways. I think the sooner industry and the public in general realize what is happening, the better. It is wrong to take the profits from the pipeline, Airways and Harbours to bolster the Railway system, because you hide any inefficiency that exists in that system.

For what do you want to use the profits made on the pipeline?

I would suggest that the considerable profits on the pipeline be reduced so that the people in the Transvaal can obtain petrol at a lower rate than at present.

But the Railways supplied the capital.

I think that the capital involved has been repaid. I am certain that an outside concern would take over the pipeline and repay the Railways for its capital investment. There will be no difficulty in raising that capital.

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

No, my time is running out. In his statement the hon. the Minister of Transport said he was restricted in his purchases of equipment by the shortage of capital funds. He remarked that it might be necessary for him to have a look at the funds he has on hand at the present moment. We see in the hon. the Minister’s use for the replacement of rolling stock and memorandum what funds he could possibly use for the replacement of rolling stock and possibly also for capital development. He has nearly R14 million in the Betterment Fund and R241 million in the Renewals Fund. In those two funds he has a lot of money which he could use to make purchases for capital development on the Railways.

Much criticism has been levelled at the report on the co-ordination of transport. The hon. the Deputy Minister told us that certain of the points mentioned in the report are already being carried out on the Railways. We do not know how old this report is or when the Government received it, but it is only recently that we heard that the Government was introducing a heavier type of truck on the Railways, as well as heavier rails and airbrake systems which will be used in conjunction with the vacuum-brake system. This report was handed to us only recently, but I am certain that the Government must have known its contents a long time ago. The Minister calls this positive thinking in the advances as far as transport is concerned. He talks about increasing the truckloads and the weight of the trains and introducing diesel locomotives and electric locomotives. I think that the Deputy Minister will agree that that is progress. But at the same time the same positive thinking allows him to provide three narrow gauge steam engines and narrow gauge rolling stock and to retain out-of-date narrow gauge railways of 2-foot gauge. How are narrow gauge railways and the building of steam engines co-ordinated with positive thinking? The hon. the Minister has told us that the day of the steam engine is gone, but we have just built three new steam engines for a narrow gauge track. According to the Estimates, we are also going to buy some diesel engines for this narrow gauge Railway. That is what one calls a backward step. We take one step forward and go ten steps backwards. Surely the time has come that we scrapped the narrow gauge services. Let us take, for example, the Port Elizabeth line. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn will know that line that goes through the Langkloof, a great fruit-growing district. If that line were improved and made a wide gauge track, Port Elizabeth would be brought closer to Cape Town by rail and the farmers in that particular area would enjoy better service. I think the hon. member for South Coast also has difficulty with his narrow gauge track.

I should also like to speak about the Saldanha Bay project and the announcement by the Government that they have approved the building of a new rail link with Saldanha Bay and the building of a harbour there. The hon. the Deputy Minister can go to have his coffee now. The Government has approved the building of a rail link with Sishen in the Northern Cape. Mr. Speaker, I welcome this; I take the liberty to tell the hon. the Minister how wrong he was about Saldanha Bay. The hon. the Minister will recall that I appealed to him last year that the Saldanha Bay harbour should be developed and that a rail link should be constructed. I consider Saldanha Bay as one of the finest bays in the country. I am not the only one who thinks this. There are a number of other people including those who recommended that Saldanha Bay should be the ore port. However, the hon. the Minister said that he would not see the development of Saldanha Bay in his day nor would I see it in my day. I should like to remind the hon. the Minister how wrong he was. This is not by any means the only error that the hon. the Minister has made in his day. Much has been said about this harbour. I have seen during the war period one of the largest convoys of ships in the world there. With the building of the nuclear power station adjacent to the harbour, it is evident that we will have very vast development in that area.

What about Richard’s Bay?

Richard’s Bay will play its part as well. It is very necessary that it be developed too, and I hope the Government will go ahead with its development. The Government has been asleep over the years and has not been developing these harbours. I know the hon. member for Parow does not like Saldanha Bay. The committee who investigated the potential of this harbour recommended that it should be developed, but having listened to the hon. the Minister’s speech, I have the feeling that he is not in favour of the development of this particular harbour or the railway line. He told us that Iscor would build the railway line and the harbour and that they would provide all the facilities. The Railway organization will run it as a guaranteed line. It seems that the hon. the Minister is not very interested in the line at the moment and that he does not have any confidence in it. However, I hope that when the report comes through and there is a suggestion that the line should not be three feet six inches wide but four foot eight inches wide, he will not put a spanner in the works. In view of the importance of this Bay, I hope he will make plans at this stage to improve the railway connection between Cae Town and Saldanha Bay. Taking into consideration the severe competition we have from other countries in the export of our ore, we have to transport ore to the harbours and export it as cheaply as possible.

The recommendation is that to increase the capacity, the truck loads and the speed of the line we would be better off if we adopted wider tracks. I hope that the hon. the Minister will see his way clear to accept that position. I think it will be a step in the right direction. Other countries, of whom Japan is one, widened their tracks to improve their Railway system. I think that is an item which we have to face up to. I am sorry that the new line which is being built to Richard’s Bay is not going to have a broader track, because you will probably find that that line will be able to carry much more than at the present moment.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the hon. member for Salt River whether he has perhaps heard that the railway line and the development of the Saldanha harbour are not Railway undertakings, but exclusively Iscor undertakings. They are going to build the railway line, develop the harbour and purchase the rolling stock with their own money. The hon. member now pretends that the Minister did not want to build such a line last year, but that he has meanwhile decided otherwise.

What is the point you are making?

We want to appoint you as a train driver.

What about you?

Last year the hon. member for Salt River at least had a reply … [Interjections.] The hon. member must just listen for a moment. Last year the hon. member for Salt River at least had a reply when we asked him what his solution to this staff shortage was. He then said, as courageously as you please, that there was a very simple solution. He said that all that had to be done was to take up non-Whites into the positions previously occupied by Whites.

I never said that.

Yes, the hon. member did say it. Let the hon. member refer to his Hansard. I do not blame the hon. member, because he was reprimanded for that by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and to-day he is much more careful. Now he throws his hands into the air and says that there is such a tremendous manpower shortage that they have no solution for the problem, and therefore we must find a solution. Why does the hon. member talk about it then? Why does he not leave it in our hands?

If I heard the hon. member for Yeoville’s amendment correctly, it has three legs. One is the manpower shortage, another is the Railways’ inability to handle all the traffic, and the third is his criticism of the Minister’s decision on the Marais Commission. It puts me in mind of a three-legged pot, which is one of the most difficult instruments to handle. The difficulty with the pot is that if one just inserts a small piece of wood under one leg the contents immediately spill out. It also puts me in mind of the arguments the hon. members used here to-day. If one dislodges one of these legs the whole structure collapses. I do not want to say anything about the third leg of their argument, i.e. the Marais Commission and the Department’s attitude. All the arguments put forward here were dealt with fully by the hon. the Deputy Minister. However, I do want to underline one point for the edification of the hon. member for Salt River, since he could not understand what the hon. the Deputy Minister said. He now keeps on saying that this is a personal insult to Dr. Marais. The fact is that one of the most important recommendations of this Commission is that the services should be separated. It was specifically on that point that Dr. Marais differed from the rest of the Commission; therefore, the Chairman of the Commission that brought out the report held differing views. This is important and must not be lost sight of.

I now want to give attention to the other two legs of the amendment which the hon. member for Yeoville moved here. I want to begin with the manpower shortage. It would be foolish of us to deny that there is a dire manpower shortage in the Railways to-day. However, this is not an isolated problem that the Railways alone is faced with here in South Africa to-day. The extent of the problem is, of course, tremendous, because the Railways is the largest employer, employing 224,000 people. It is not an isolated problem that the Railways alone is faced with. It is a problem in all branches of the Public Service. Ask the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs how they are struggling, not only with technical staff, but also with ordinary manual labourers who must lay cables. He simply cannot get them. Every Government Department, as well as the large industries, has a manpower shortage, but now hon. members are trying to create the impression in this House that it is a problem exclusive to the South African Railways. It is a general problem in South Africa and its causes lie deep. It is very closely linked to the tremendous economic development which took place under the National Government in South Africa. The United Party has only one reason for believing that they would not have this situation when they come into power, i.e. that they know that when they come into power there will be unemployment in this country because industry, and the economic position of South Africa, will deteriorate under their régime. This is the only reason the United Party has for believing that there would not be a manpower shortage under their régime. One after the other the United Party speakers asked the hon. the Minister to tell us what he was going to do in connection with the manpower shortage. I can quote how the hon. member for Yeoville carried on in this House, before the recent general election, about this same matter, but I do not want to spend my time on that. He kept insisting that it was an atrocious injustice to the staff, and he asked what the hon. the Minister was going to do about it. I have the right to ask what the solution is that the United Party is offering, because they present themselves as the alternative Government in South Africa. In his speech prior to the general election the hon. member for Yeoville made an attempt—his attempt to-day was very feeble—at mentioning a few matters. He said at the time that attention should be given to improved remuneration for the Railway people. This has now been done. However, now other hon. members opposite are trying to make political capital out of it. The other day the hon. member for Newton Park made a very nasty statement here. During his speech on the motion of censure he said that the Langlaagte election was the most expensive by-election that has ever been conducted. He said that that election had cost the State R60 million, implying that the State had tried to bribe the Railway people.

Did they not do so?

The hon. member implied that the State used money with which to bribe the Railway people to vote for the National Party.

The hon. member for Yeoville also presented another solution here, i.e. that the pensions of retired Railway employees should be improved, and that attention should be given to a non-contributory pension scheme. The hon. member must, however, remember that last year the hon. the Minister made the largest and most extensive of improvements ever to the basic pension structure of Railway employees. Therefore the hon. the Minister cannot do so again this year. We are not Father Christmas. The hon. member, however, presents the tremendous Superannuation Fund balance and asks why the hon. the Minister could not take that R561 million and give it to the pensioners. The fact of the matter is that there is already an actuarial deficit of more than R70 million. As the hon. member said, this is to a large extent a theoretical deficit, but it has always been accepted by the administration that that theoretical deficit, if one may call it by that name, must not fall below a certain amount. That is why, each year, the Railways must contribute more than R1 million—this year it is R1.2 million—to ensure that that theoretical deficit does not fall below a certain amount. In other words, while the Railways have had to contribute an amount of R1.2 million to make good that deficit, the hon. member wants a contribution to be made to the pensioners, because there is such a large overall amount in the Fund. Last year he mentioned other matters of lesser importance, inter alia, that compulsory military service should be decreased so that more manpower could be available. But his chief argument then, as to-day, was that the labour pattern should be changed, because as far as the labour pattern was concerned he told the Minister that the Minister had just the right thing, because the latter was following the United Party’s policy. I want to read to the hon. member what he said. I quote—

In other words, and this is now the important solution he is offering, as far as that is concerned he says that the Minister must do what he is now doing. That is what the United Party also wants to do. He must negotiate with the staff associations, and then he must gradually employ non-Whites. In respect of this employment of non-Whites in the Railways I just want to say the following to the hon. member. At the beginning of the year, prior to the general election, he stood up, as piously as you please, and said that as things now stood he and the Minister did not see eye to eye, that the Minister was, in practice, actually carrying out United Party policy. There he is nodding his head again. But what did his henchmen, hon. members there behind him, and all the candidates of the United Party go around proclaiming from platform to platform in the country districts? Ben Schoeman is now cramming the Railways full of Kaffirs! Is that not so? Is there one hon. member on the other side who wants to deny that that was their slogan? The hon. member for Newton Park did it from platform to platform. The hon. member for Yeoville said that the Minister should not let himself be frightened by the verkramptes. But who were the political vultures? The United Party. They went to exploit the matter in the country districts for political gain. I say that the United Party are not sincere in their pose that they only want to employ non-Whites with the approval of the trade unions. I want to give them an example. The former hon. member for Umlazi, Mr. Lewis, said here last year that in 1964 he supported the Minister in employing Indian shunters in Durban. On 5th November a report appeared in the Natal Mercury about this speech and his support of the Minister’s policy of employing Indian shunters under certain circumstances. He then received a harsh letter from the leader of the United Party in Natal, who wrote to him as follows—

Sir, does the United Party then have various policies? Is it not true what we have been saying here throughout the years, i.e. that the United Party has a hotch-potch pamphlet (bokvreet-pamflet), a little yellow one, in which they dish up all kinds of things for the voters? But when they are in the country districts they tell another story. It is not their policy “in published form”. What is the hon. member for Yeoville’s reply to this? The former hon. member for Umlazi thought that the hon. member for South Coast was just silly. He then turned to the United Party’s chief propagandist and phoned Mr. Marais Steyn. What did the hon. member for Yeoville say then? “Harry, you simply go ahead and get all the publicity of that kind, and let the newspapers quote it for us. We like that very much.” You see, Sir, that is the opportunism of that side. That is the way in which these people want to solve problems. That is the way in which they want to solve the country’s problems. I say that this hiding behind the trade unions is just a bluff. The United Party is not honest in saying that this is their policy and that they will abide by it. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition comes along here, in a no-confidence debate on a previous occasion, and under the pressure of questions put to him by the Minister of Transport, says that he would not force the issue if the trade unions did not want to take in non-Whites in the place of Whites— “He will not use the big stick”. If that is United Party policy, how do they ever expect to persuade the trade unions to employ non-Whites? I will tell you what is happening to-day. The Minister is managing to employ non-Whites with the permission of the trade unions, because he, more than anyone in this country, has the confidence of the staff associations. The staff associations and the trade union leaders trust the Minister. They know that this Minister would not leave the white man on the Railways in the lurch. That is why he has managed to let non-Whites do work on the Railways which was previously done by Whites, particularly unskilled and semi-skilled work, and he did so without antagonizing the staff against the Administration. This is based, however, on the trust the railway people have in the Minister.

But what is the position of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition? He does not have the confidence of those railwaymen. No, the Leader of the Opposition is known as one of the arch-integrationists in this country. He is the leader of the United Party, which stands for enforced economic integration, the abolition of the colour bar and job reservation, the party that advocates the “rate for the job”.

Where do you get that?

The Leader of the Opposition is the leader of the party which over the years has advocated the fragmentation of the railway system, the national transport system, in all its facets, and the disintegration of the service in favour of private initiative. At one stage they wanted to transfer the Railways to a utility company. They wanted to transfer the railway workshops to private initiative. To-day they are still advocating that we should break up the service, and they know what the result will be. That is why I say that the United Party and the Leader of the Opposition must not think that they will get the co-operation of the trade unions and the staff associations to do what the hon. the Minister is doing. They need not think for one moment that the leaders of the railwaymen will trust them in this matter.

We then told the Minister to do it.

If that were ever to happen, I foresee strikes among railway personnel, like the strikes we had the day we took over from the United Party.

You had to make a law prohibiting it.

Now I come to the other leg of the hon. member for Yeoville’s amendment, and that is the question of the inability of the Railways to transport the goods. He said that the Minister was back in 1954, in the same position in which his predecessor was. He said that the Railways could not transport the goods; “the Railway are lagging behind the transport needs”. It is the old refrain again; this handicaps the country’s progress; Col. Shearer also said that at the time, and to-day the hon. member for Yeoville repeats it like a parrot; there is a permanent crisis on the Railways and the capital investment is too little.

Sir, do you remember the days when we were subjected to heavy criticism here, when the Minister was accused of injecting too much capital into the Railways? That was said by the former member for Jeppes, by Hamilton Russell and by Mr. Plewman, the cicada of Port Elizabeth. They all stood up here like a choir and said that the Minister should now call a halt; we are injecting too much public money and capital into the Railways, and why are we doing this because there is already a superfluous capacity on the Railways? But to-day the hon. member for Yeoville comes along and because it suits him he sings another tune. I want to tell the hon. member that when this hon. Minister took over there had, since 1910, been a capital investment in the Railways of about R900 million, and in his time, up to the 31st March, 1969, the latest figures I have, there was a capital investment in the Railways of R1,580 million. Throughout the period before he took over it was R900 million, and in his time alone it was R1,580 million. In the previous financial year alone no less than R100 million was invested solely in the improvements to lines and in new lines and rolling stock, to enable the service to transport the goods. In the financial year 1969-’70 there were 440 locomotives on order, and 58 have been delivered; 8,070 trucks are on order, and 3,435 have been delivered. But he does not speak about that; he says that insufficient capital has been invested in the service. What the hon. member for Yeoville has done here to-day, and the pattern of the actions on the part of the Opposition, is to create a psychosis here in this House, with a political purpose, of course, i.e. to the effect that there is a crisis on the Railways and now they are conducting a crisis debate here; and they must now adjust their speeches accordingly. All their attacks are anchored to two admissions the hon. the Minister made here, which I have already mentioned: the fact that there is a dire staff shortage which is creating problems, and that in certain circumstances during the year the Railways could not handle all the transport.

But I also want to mention here that the hon. member for Yeoville is not original in coming forward to-day with such an amendment. In the 1954 debates he may go and read up the same amendment, or rather certain aspects of it, i.e. those dealing with the inability of the service to handle the transport and the staff shortage. I suspected as much and I therefore read up the 1954 debate. These are the identical aspects appearing in the amendment of the then hon. member for Sunnyside, Mr. Pocock. I do not want to read this now, but it was the same. [Interjection.] No, the entire motion is not the same, but I said two aspects of it were. At that time the hon. member for Vredefort, who was then Chairman of the Select Committee on Railways, gave them a very spot-on reply, and I quote from Hansard, column 1942. The hon. member said—

He said this—

Do you see, there is nothing new under the sun. It is the same old story which is still being told here. The hon. member for Vredefort continued by saying (column 1943) —

That is the difference, and that is why I say that if the United Party were to come back into power and if they were to govern the country and administer the Railways, I foresee that, we would very soon be involved in strikes again, particularly in respect of these staff matters. I want to mention here that there were extensive problems as a result of a combination of circumstances that made it difficult for the Railways to carry out its function in the past year. Hon. members of the Opposition are trying in every way possible to ferret out information. I am referring particularly to the hon. member for Port Natal, who tried, by way of questions, to obtain information about restrictive conditions on the Railways, which he then wanted to exploit for political gain. He asked here how many shunters had been involved in serious accidents over the past five years; but the fish did not bite, because the reply was in the negative—there was, in actual fact, a decrease. He then tried again and asked how many derailments there had been that had caused damage to rolling stock, and he then had to hear that in 1970 there were fewer derailments than in the previous year; once more the fish did not want to bite. He also inquired about the railway houses which were built and bought, and he then had to learn that the figure for 1967-’68 was 170, for 1968-’69, 495 and for 1969-70, 517—an upward trend. The dice simply do not want to fall his way.

Sir, for the first time in more than a decade —is that not significant?—the hon. the Minister had to say in his Budget speech here—

For more than 10 successive years the hon. the Minister could say here year after year that the Railways could handle all the traffic offering, and now that the hon. the Minister has had to come here this year and say that the Railways could not handle all the traffic offering, as a result of a combination of circumstances, the Opposition takes courage at that and seizes upon it as an opportunity to obtain an admission that there is a crisis on the Railways. We have had a cold winter, and while we were having to transport coal, trucks had to be diverted to assist in the transportation of livestock and fodder in drought-stricken areas, and that with an already depleted staff and a flu epidemic.

But the Minister admitted there was a crisis.

The Minister made no admission about a crisis on the Railways. The Railways have done wonders in the past year, notwithstanding all the difficulties they were faced with. Did any hon. member opposite make a single positive contribution to this debate. I want to do so; I want to point out a few of the Railways’ achievements. It was mentioned here that a large number of trains, particularly goods trains, were cancelled, but notwithstanding that the Railways improved the total tonnage of goods traffic. In spite of the fact that trains were cancelled, chiefly goods trains, there was no decrease in the total tonnage of goods transported, there was a small increase. Goods trains were cancelled, but on the other hand no fewer than 412 special mainline passenger trains were put into service. [Time expired.]

The hon. member who has just sat down quoted some figures which I have asked for earlier this Session. I will deal with them in the course of my speech, but before I do so I would like to deal with one or two other remarks made by him. The hon. member for Parow made reference to somebody who is no longer here with us, the previous member for Umlazi. We now have a new member for Umlazi but I will deal with the previous member for Umlazi who mentioned the question of Indians in Railway employ in Durban. Sir, it would have been interesting if the hon. member for Parow had read out a letter which the Railway Administration sent to a certain workshop in Durban and in which it said, “In future we will be employing Indians in this workshop”. It went on further to insult every railwayman in that workshop by saying to them: “we hope that you will treat these Indians properly”. Any railwayman who did not do so. would be prosecuted. Sir, I am glad to see that the hon. member for Randburg is in his seat, because I want to refer to him before I come back to the hon. member for Parow. The hon. member for Randburg quoted some figures which, very curiously, were the same figures as those quoted by the hon. the Deputy Minister. In an earlier debate this year on Railways the hon. member for Randburg, who was backed up by the hon. the Deputy Minister, said that there were 113,000 white workers in the Railway service in 1959 and that in 1969 there were 115,000, an increase of 2,000. [Interjections.] The hon. member quoted the figure of 115,000; I have looked at his Hansard. In column 654 he quoted the number as having increased from 113,000 to 115,000.

Hansard is wrong, I suppose?

Sir, if there is time I will quote the hon. the Deputy Minister’s Hansard to him. The hon. member for Randburg gave the figure as 115,000 in column 654 of Hansard, but the interesting thing is that the Department of Statistics gives the figure as 110,000. The figure of 115,000 quoted by the hon. member for Randburg was, of course, the figure as at the 31st March, 1969, whereas the figure given by the Department of Statistics is the figure as at the end of 1969. If therefore the hon. member is correct, then surprisingly enough there was a decrease in the number of white workers on the South African Railways of 5,000 from March, 1969, to the end of the year. Sir, somebody must be right, and I wonder whether the hon. the Deputy Minister or the hon. member for Randburg would care to check those figures.

Then I come to the hon. member for Vasco who, I believe, has not spoken in this debate as yet. In the last Railway debate the hon. member questioned me with regard to Railway supporters in my own constituency. He said that they would give the answers to the various questions which I had raised in the debate. Sir, I suggest that the Railway people in my constituency certainly gave the answer to the various questions that I had raised in debates here from time to time. Sir, this debate leads to another very interesting point. Do you know, Sir, that only once before in the history of South Africa were railwaymen laid off on the Railways? Only once before since 1910 did the Railway Administration lay off workers or reduce salaries. The last time that that happened was in the early 1930s, at which time the Nationalist Party was also in power. They laid off railway workers in the early 1930s, and they reduced the salaries of artisans from 18 shillings to six shillings a day, and made them common labourers. This was done by a government which always claims to be the friend of the railwaymen. It is interesting to note that in the early 1930s the Government was going out of power, and the Railways were in a crisis. In the 1970s they are going out of power and the Railways are again in a crisis. Over the years we have heard how loyal the railwaymen are to the Government. Here I should like to deal again with the hon. member for Parow. When he mentioned Langlaagte …

No, I did not.

Sir, do you see how easily they forget. It is no wonder that they are in trouble. The hon. member mentioned Langlaagte and said that we had tried to make political capital of it. He did not, however, mention that a certain newspaper, Die Vaderland, of which the hon. the Minister is the boss, actually published a cartoon of him walking to Langlaagte with a bag of money, just before the election. This is the Government which, year after year, has boasted of the loyalty of the railwaymen. This is how much they thought of the loyalty of the railwaymen. A dispute had been going for months about increased pay. Conditions were certainly bad and they needed those increases, but the Government kept them waiting for a suitable by-election before they gave them those increases. Is this the way that loyalty is rewarded? I assure you, Sir, that when this party runs the Railways of South Africa, we will not buy the loyalty of the railway workers.

The other interesting thing about this debate is that we are not only debating the labour policy of the Railways. Under the microscope is being placed also the whole labour pattern of this Government. The Railways Administration is the largest employer of labour. It is protected by its monopolies and the Government controls its every function. If Government policy is to work, it will be seen to work in the Railways. Surely, if it is practicable, it will be practicable in the South African Railways. If that policy cannot work for the South African Railways, it cannot work anywhere. Because of the way the Railways in South Africa are run, they have every form of protection that private industry cannot have. If Government policy cannot work for the South African Railways, where else can it possibly work? The Railways have all the advantages and they can put into effect every possible aspect of their own particular crazy philosophy. But what do we find? After 22 years they have not been able to implement their own policies in this very field where it should be possible.

What do you mean?

I shall tell the hon. member what I mean. They have failed miserably, and after 22 years in the desert, the position has reached crisis proportions which should not have been reached at all. Such a stage has been reached that not very long ago, when the hon. member for Parow was boasting in this House about the Railways being able to cope with the situation, he said (Hansard, Volume 28, col. 677) —

The hon. member was making this boast during the short session of Parliament earlier this year, in February. His boast was that, for ten years, the Railways had managed to cope. What does the hon. member for Parow say now? He was very silent about this very point just now. I want to repeat that the position we have to-day is exactly the same, for different reasons, as the position which existed in the 1930s. That Government was going out of power in the 1930s, and the Railways were in a crisis. This Government is now going out of power, and the noises they now make have a slight note of hysteria about them.

Returning to the question of overtime, hon. members will recall that the hon. the Minister said that there was a 24 per cent shortage of workers in the artisan class. The artisan class is one of those particular grades which does not work a great deal of overtime. That is probably the reason why the most serious staff shortages appear to occur in this class. The hon. the Minister has heard us say year after year that members of the Railways Administration are being deliberately under-paid so that they can be forced to work overtime. If they were not deliberately underpaid, they would not work overtime. They are being forced to work overtime and, as the hon. member for Durban (Point) has said, when they leave home in the mornings their children are still asleep and when they return home in the evenings, their children are asleep. Family life among the average railwaymen no longer exists. Their working conditions have deteriorated over the past few years. It really has to be seen to be believed.

We have heard very little in this debate about Railway housing. Railway houses in the main are poorly maintained. In my own constituency some of the Railway houses are not fit for animals. When I have complained about these Railway houses—and I do not blame the servants concerned—there is just nobody to repair them. These houses leak. They are falling apart. Perhaps some hon. members, the more verkrampte members on the other side, may be well advised to bear in mind that in these Railway houses there is only one toilet, and that toilet is shared by both Europeans and Bantu people. This is apartheid! The hon. member for Pietersburg is froyning but this is perfectly true. There is one toilet, which is shared by both Europeans and Bantu.

Are you satisfied with that?

The blame lies with your Government. The side issue of this is that the Bantu servants say to their white employers: “You are badly off. You work for the South African Railways. We have houses, in Umlazi. We have our toilets inside our houses. You have your toilets outside. Of course, we feel sorry for you because you are working for the South African Railways.” Sir, I have asked for these houses to be repaired, but no workers are available. The Railways have not been able to solve the problem. They have not been able to repair the houses.

This is not all. The conditions of Railway workmen at their jobs should also be seen to be believed. I have already said that Railway shunters in a particular part of Durban are having to use what are no more than hovels as change rooms. This has been the position for years. Whenever they have complained about this, they have been told that there is a shortage of staff and that nothing can be done. This shortage goes on and on and at no stage during the last few years has the Minister been able to get up and tell this House that he has an answer. There is a shortage of nearly 20 per cent in all grades. The Minister now admits that he is using 15,000 non-Whites to do work previously done by Whites. If those 15,000 non-Whites were not used in these capacities, the overall shortage of staff on the South African Railways would not be approximately 20 per cent; it would be nearer 30 per cent.

The interesting question is: What is the Minister and the Government going to do about this shortage? We have not heard one word. Already the South African Railways employ almost one in every ten white persons. How much more can it draw from the economically active white people in South Africa? They are just not there! The pity of this is that when the Railways fail, the whole economy of South Africa is dragged down with them. The tragedy is that the Government is unable to find a solution to its problems. Hon. members have asked us what our solution is. Our solution is: Make us the Government and we shall solve the problem. [Interjections.] Sir, their laughs do not alter over the years. It is just that, as I have said earlier, one detects a slight note of hysteria in their laughter now. At this time last year, certainly in the Durban Harbour, they were short of 400 key men. General cargo handling in the Point area of Durban Harbour is 50 per cent of what it used to be. In 1962 the discharge rate in the harbour was 11.3 tons per hour. It is now 6.4 tons. In 1962 the loading rate in Durban Harbour was 12.2 tons per hour. It is now 7.9 tons per hour. This is an expanding economy! This is the economy of which we boast so much. The most surprising fact of all is that before the war we were able to offload 15 tons an hour in Durban Harbour. When he is questioned about these matters, the Minister replies: “Oh, but we have mechanization.” Mechanization in the Durban Harbour has meant that we no longer offload 15 tons an hour. We now offload 6.4 tons per hour. The figure has dropped by nearly a two-thirds of the original tonnage. This is the modern society. This is mechanization! In the Durban area lost time to ships in 1962 amounted to 100 days per year. In 1969 the figure was 521 days per year.

The hon. the Deputy Minister mentioned the cancellation of trains because of the lack of staff. What is the effect of this on the economy. To my knowledge in five days seven trains were cancelled in Durban alone. Nobody has yet spoken about the trucks of these trains. Are these trains pulling the same number of trucks that they used to pull? In one of the farming areas around Durban the number of trucks was 100 less over a period of one week. Quite apart from the number of trains, the number of trucks was less. Let us take the number of accidents. The hon. member for Parow mentioned accidents. Last year there were 397 accidents involving damage. There were 1,855 accidents in five years. Would it be right for somebody to question whether the Railways, because of its shortage which is caused by different reasons but mainly by Government philosophy, have not reached a margin of safety which now can be called into doubt? The matter is worse in that in the Durban area we are told, by way of questions and answers, there are 279 vacancies for shunters on an establishment of 625. I call into question that establishment of 625. I should like to know how that establishment is worked out. If it is based on the mechanization about which we often hear, I have already given an example of what that mechanization can mean in practice. While there is this shortage of shunters and this overtime is being worked, Mr. Speaker, do you know that 460 shunters have been killed or seriously injured in the past five years?

How many people were killed on the roads?

When we get an interjection like that, I believe it is time we changed the Government fast because that is going to get us absolutely nowhere at all. We will talk about the roads at another time. There are 460 shunters less. As this number of shunters have been killed or injured, the number of shunters must have been reduced. Connected with the question of shunters I should like to say that the turn-around of trucks has increased by one day over a period of five years. This might be one of the reasons why we are short of trucks. Another interesting aspect about the shortage of shunters is that shunters who shunt trains in marshalling yards are now fly shunting and loose shunting. A year ago this matter was raised with the hon. the Minister. This is what he replied—

At that time there were not sufficient shunters to bring these trucks to a standstill. There were not sufficient shunters then and there are not sufficient shunters now. What is happening is that trucks are being damaged in increasing numbers. Staff have also been injured in the vards. I have already written to the hon. the Minister on another aspect relating to the noise of this shunting but that is something for a later debate. Trucks are damaged in the yards. They are then taken to the mechanical workshop and there is nobody to repair them. The shortage of staff in the mechanical workshops means that the trucks are held up there. This is the vicious circle. The trucks then go onto the main lines and hence we find that the accident rate on the South African Railways is increasing. I believe that the increase of accidents is taking place because of the shortage of shunters.

According to your prognosis not a single train will be running.

It will be a lot better if the hon. member listens for a change; he might learn something. He may then do a little better in his next railway constituency. This situation cannot go on any longer. I suggest that the shortage of shunters is not only endangering the lives of the shunters, but that trucks are also being damaged because of the fly and loose shunting. These trucks cannot be repaired fast enough in the workshops, with the result that they end up on our mainlines, which leads to an increase in traffic accidents. To my knowledge, there were three major traffic accidents in Natal during the last month. One was certainly caused by a lack of staff.

In the time left to me I would like to ask the hon. the Minister a question to which I have not been able to find an answer, although I have asked a number of railway people. What happens to clerks who work overtime in other grades as shunters, checkers and drivers when they are injured on duty? What is their position when they are injured on duty? It might sound like a very easy question to the hon. member for Parow who is looking at me like that, but I can assure him that many railway officials do not know the answer. Perhaps the hon. the Minister will give his assurance that when those people are injured on duty they will receive compensation in the normal way.

I would also like to mention another aspect to him, namely that of the new salary scales. As the hon. the Minister knows, and I hope he does, because no Railway official I asked did know, that if a youngster joins the Railways with a Std. 8 certificate he earns R130 per month and that if he joins the Railways with a Matriculation certificate he earns R140 per month. When a youngster enters the Railway Service with a Std. 8 certificate and the other goes on to Matric. and then joins the Railways, he will earn R50 per month less than the youngster with a Std. 8 certificate. He will earn R50 per month less and will also have lost two years’ seniority. It seems to me that this method will certainly keep down the standard in the Railways.

Another matter I want to raise with the hon. the Minister is one that I have raised before, namely the employment of people above the age of 40. I have a letter here from a man who applied for a job in Cape Town. When he put in his application he asked for appointment as a clerk, checker or storeman. He said he was 40 years of age, bilingual, matriculated, and that he was educated at a local school. The employment office told him that the only post they could offer him was that of a railworker, a white labourer. We have heard how short we are of labour, but I have said to the hon. the Minister in previous debates and I say it again, that he is not even making use of the available white labour, never mind the non-White labour we have so often asked him to employ.

It seems to me that this Government has been hoist with its own petard. It has a philosophy in regard to labour which, if anything, it should be able to carry out in this biggest department of labour that we have. Not only has it failed to do this, but this Government has also jeopardized the livelihood of every single South African. One realizes that if the Railways collapse, the South African economy collapses too. The time has come when we do not need any more high-falluting philosophies from people on the other side or any more “dankies” to the hon. the Minister, but action. If the Government do not give it to us, the electorate will give it to us in the Provincial election?

Mr. Speaker, it is my unpleasant task to follow the hon. member for Port Natal in this debate. This afternoon he emerged as a toilet expert. In that respect I cannot rival him. The hon. member for Port Natal made a few statements here today, and I fear that if he fights another election in Port Natal, he will not come back. The hon. member for Durban (Point) held one meeting in my constituency, and I have come back with a greater majority than I had before. The hon. member for Port Natal said that the United Party was not a party which bought the loyalty of the railwayman. In other words, any increase in salary granted either by the United Party in the past, or by the National Party in the past, or still to be granted by the National Party in the future, will be interpreted by hon. members opposite as being a bribe. They will say that it is money given to the railwayman in order to buy his vote. We shall tell this to the railwaymen. What is more, in going through the statistics —for which I do not have the time now— one finds that not all salary increases granted in the course of National Party rule were granted just before an election or a by-election. Hon. members opposite have so much to say about Langlaagte now. but they should go through the statistics. If they do, they will find that the National Party Government has as a rule granted increases whenever it was in the interests of the country and the Administration to do so, and whenever increases were due to the staff.

The hon. member for Port Natal made a few statements here, and I just want to refer to them in passing. It is very easy to hit back. In 1920-’21 Mr. Jagger, the last U.P. Minister of Transport under United Party régime before 1924, cut the salaries of railwaymen overnight, without prior notice. Furthermore, why does the hon. member not tell this House that in 1939 railwaymen found themselves confronted with the threat that if they did not take the red oath and join in order to go to war, they would be dismissed? After all, this is true. Why does the hon. member not say that when the National Party came into power in 1948, it had to cancel orders for rolling stock as there was no capital to pay for them?

In what kindergarten did you learn that?

I can prove it. The hon. member for Durban (Point) must not be so quick to make an interjection. He should read the report of the Select Committee of that time. Now I come to a very important statement that was made by the hon. member for Port Natal, i.e. that the railwayman is deliberately being underpaid so that he is obliged to work Sunday-time and overtime. Is that not outrageous? The railwaymen will take note of this. Overtime and Sunday-time have been in existence since the Railways was established. As that is the case, why should there be so many references to Sunday-time and overtime now? It is a daily institution in the ordinary structure of the Railways Administration.

Are all your people satisfied?

All my people are satisfied, and that is why I am back in this House. Both the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Durban (Point) spoke very boastfully here of the large measure of dissatisfaction prevailing amongst railway officials. Does the hon. member represent a railway constituency? More than two-thirds of the voters in my constituency are railway people. There is a world of difference between the complaints I received and the complaints received by hon. members opposite. I could also quote and read out a few letters here: but this is not something that is done in a railway debate. Is it not highly peculiar that the type of complaints read out in this House this afternoon, only reached United Party M.P.s and not Nationalist M.P.s? What are the complaints in my constituency? I am merely mentioning them in passing; I do not wish to elaborate on them. The complaints I received are not of toilet standard, but are about matters that occur daily. These are not complaints of the kind being received by the hon. member for Port Natal What do we find in a railway constituency such as Uitenhage? The complaints one hears every day—actually, they are more in the nature of representations than in but of complaints were that a certain ex-official who used to be in the service of the Railways, wants to return to the service of the Administration. Secondly, one quite often finds that one has to arrange a transfer for a railway official owing domestic circumstances, etc. The third kind of complaint is one I receive every day, i.e. an official comes to one and says: “Do something so that I may be placed in a position in the Railways where I can work Sunday-time and overtime.” If this is the case, are the families of those railway officials unhappy, as the hon. member for Yeoville suggested here? Now the railwayman’s family is also being dragged into this debate. But, surely, the very opposite is true. Take the statistics. If there is supposed to be such a large measure of dissatisfaction in the ranks of the railway staff, how do hon. members explain the fact that during the period from 17th December, 1968, to 16th December, 1969, there were 21,945 resignations in the South African Railways, and that the number of applications received for re-employment was 16,272? In other words, only 5,000 of those officials who had resigned, did not apply for re-employment again. The number of officials re-employed was 8,956, because, I assume, as the hon. the Minister said here on previous occasions, the records of the others had possibly been too poor to employ them again. But if dissatisfaction were prevailing amongst the members of the railway staff, why would a person who had been in the service, apply for re-employment before the salary increases to the value of R60 million had been announced? No, Sir, I want to submit that these cases which were put forward by hon. members opposite, are isolated ones. These are cases that were selected and accummulated just for this debate, and on top of that they have been blown up with a view to the provincial elections that are to be held shortly.

The hon. member for Yeoville made a statement here in regard to railway pensioners. It was argued here that the hon. the Minister had to look after them. But now we should look at the statistics, investigate the matter and ascertain what party has really been looking after the interests of railway pensioners. You know. Sir I am actually ashamed to lay the statistics of that party before this House. Do hon. members know what the position was under United Party régime? In 1943 a married railway official received a temporary allowance of R5 a month, and an unmarried official received a little more than R1 a month. From 1st April, 1943 to 1st April, 1948, shortly after we had taken over, i.e. over that five-year period, that temporary allowance—hon. members opposite call this, as you may know, a “cost of living allowance”: this is the allowance with which they huckster on the platforms during an election—was increased to R120 a year in respect of married pensioners and R40 a year in respect of unmarried pensioners. In other words, over that five year period they granted pensioners an increase of R60 a year in respect of married persons and R20 a year in respect of unmarried persons. And the National Party Government? Since we came into power up to to-night, that allowance has gone up to R420 for a married person and R180 for an unmarried person, an increase of R300 a year for married pensioners and R140 for unmarried pensioners.