When the House adjourned on Thursday evening, I was saying that the principles contained in this Bill had been accepted and laid down by this House as far back as 1952. Since then the position has not changed at all. In 1952 the Opposition voted against that Bill; in 1957 they supported the Bill; and now in 1972 they are opposing this Bill, which contains precisely the same principles. The hon. member for Maitland said here that this sectional tax was a “pickpocket” tax, but, Sir, I want to tell him, to use his own words, that his party is a “pickpocket” party. I say this because the United Party, true to its nature, has always been and still is a predatory party politically. It really has no stable policy and attitude in this matter. The amendment moved here by the United Party objects to the so-called levy on employers; they call it a sectional tax. Sir, I support this sectional tax system or levy system because I believe that it affects those people who are in the first place responsible for the presence of Bantu workers at certain places; and, in the second place, it is they who derive direct benefit from that Bantu labour and, in the third place, it is adapted to the particular circumstances prevailing in South Africa. Although this levy is now applicable in 23 local authority areas and relates to Bantu workers living within those White areas, it is clear that the dynamic pattern of industrialization which is in progress in South Africa may in future possibly become applicable to urban Bantu who live within the homelands and then have to come to work in the White areas. This form of transport subsidization originated in 1952 as a result of the problems in the form of riots, strikes and boycotts caused by the increase in bus tariffs. That happened in 1952; it happened in 1957; but in this case it has not happened because we succeeded, in the interests of South Africa, in preventing unrest. I believe that we shall also succeed in preventing unrest in the future, because the Bantu are no longer as susceptible to incitement by agitators, and I believe that this form of transport subsidization will remain an institution and will continue to form part of the pattern of the industrial and business world of South Africa. This will remain the position as long as we have Bantu workers in the White areas. Sir, I trust that the hon. the Deputy Minister will see to it that a proper investigation is made into the financial position of the firms being financed here and that their transactions will be checked. I believe this is already being done and I hope that it will continue to be done. But I want to ask that another, particular aspect of this matter be closely and carefully examined, and that is the efficient provision of transport facilities. This is a service which can very easily disturb good relations between the various races and peoples in South Africa; it can cause friction by creating minor irritations which could have been easily eliminated. There are cases where passengers have to wait for an awfully long time before being transported. This also causes trouble and irritation. I believe this is a service which will have to maintain a high standard, and I believe that the Government should lay down specific standards in order to ensure that no discord is created and that harmony is maintained. Sir, to my mind this subsidization, as I have said, is nothing but indirect wages which are paid to the Bantu workers; wages paid in an indirect way, on a sectional basis, to those who deserve it.

Sir, with these few words I wish to support this Bill wholeheartedly.

Sir, the hon. member for Pietersburg has quite rightly said that the principle of sectional tax for services goes back to 1952. I would like to remind him, however, that this principle was accepted by the Government, and the House was forced by the Government majority to accept it, but the United Party made its position quite clear in 1952, when Dr. Gluckman, an ex-Minister, was the United Party chief spokesman. He said (col. 7773)—

He then elaborated on this question as to why it should be levied only on employers of Bantu labour. Sir, in 1954, when the Resettlement Act, which also dealt with the question of this levy, was discussed, Mr. Paul Sauer, who was then Minister of Transport, was called upon by the present Minister of Sport, who was then not in the United Party, but in opposition to the Government, to take part in the debate, although he was not the Minister in charge of the Bill.

Frankie?

Yes. Mr. Sauer then said (col. 3256)—

Was that in 1952?

He said this in 1954. He was referring to his attitude in 1952, two years previously. He said “a year ago”, but actually it was two years before that. Dr. Gluckman reminded the Government of their attitude to housing, as set out in their economic and social plan, on which they went to the election in 1948. He quoted from that as follows: “The provision of ample and hygienic housing, not miserable squatting camps, must be accepted as a national responsibility”. Mr. Sauer confirmed that in his attitude housing and transport went together and that they should therefore be a national responsibility. Mr. Sauer went on to say (Hansard, Vol. 85, col. 3257)—

Do you accept that housing is a national responsibility?

Yes, I do, and I accept that what Mr. Sauer has said, namely that with housing goes transport. I should like to know what happened to those exhaustive inquiries that Mr. Sauer instituted then. We know that the Treasury is giving a subsidy to the Railways for the transportation of Bantu workers, but I should like to know what happened to any other suggestions as to what would happen in the case of bus users.

The hon. member for Pietersburg said that, although we opposed the principle in 1952, we accepted it in 1957. Of course, that is not true. What happened in 1957? The hon. the Minister of Transport introduced a Bill increasing the levy to be paid. In introducing the Bill, Mr. Schoeman dealt with the history of this matter. He described what had happened on the Rand and explained why it had become necessary for him to introduce the measure to increase the levy. The House will remember that the hon. member for Yeoville repeated this history the other day, and reminded hon. members that there had been a bus boycott because the Bantu objected to paying the increased rate. I must say that I was surprised to hear the hon. member for Pietersburg saying that it was only a penny each way. He said: “What is a penny each way? That is twopence a day; what does it matter?” Bearing in mind the salaries these people earn, I think it is quite unjust for him to ask: “What does twopence a day matter?” That is ten pence per week.

It is the principle.

The fact is that they could not pay it. This is what Mr. Schoeman said in 1957 (Hansard, Vol. 95, Col. 7170)—

That is with the employers—

So, Sir, he blames the Chambers of Commerce and Industries for extending the boycott. He says that if they had not intervened and given this assistance, the boycott would have been broken. Then he went on to say this (Col. 7170)—

According to the hon. the Minister of Transport, he was introducing the Bill not because of the principle that the employer must pay for the transport; he was introducing it because he said the Chambers of Commerce and Industries had helped in prolonging the boycott. That was the reason why he was making them pay the extra fares, and not the principle of making the employer pay. It was not because of that principle, but because they had disobeyed him. He had said: “Leave these people alone; do not help them.” He appealed to them …

The principle was established in 1952 already.

But the Minister did not act on that principle in 1957. He did not say that this House had already accepted that principle and that he was therefore going to extend it and make the levy a shilling instead of sixpence. He did not say that. I shall shortly read out what else the Minister said at that time. At the moment I am merely dealing with what the Minister said when he introduced the Bill. Then, Sir, the hon. member for Yeoville stated the United Party’s point of view. He started his speech by saying (Hansard, Vol. 95, Col. 7171)—

He pointed out then that the Government had been unable to control the position, and because the Government had failed, the United Party was in the position that if it did not agree, the money set aside by the Chambers of Commerce and Industries would have been finished, and we would then have had the boycott and all the implications of a boycott again. The hon. member for Pietersburg today referred to the unpleasantness which can be caused if there is a boycott. We know what happened recently in Port Elizabeth, because of transport boycotts. But what did the Minister say in reply? He disowned the attitude of this hon. member now when he said in 1957 (Hansard, Vol. 95, Col. 7196)—

There was some argument as to whether it was sectional or not—

Now, Sir …

Read further.

Further? Very well—

I emphasize “at the present time”—

Until?

He does not say that. He said: “The only possible way in which we can meet the situation at the present time is by subsidization of the transport services.”

Until the employers pay better salaries.

He does not say that here. The point I am making is that when we accepted the increase in 1957, it was not because we accepted the principle of a sectional tax on the employers of Bantu labour. It was because the country was facing a crisis and because the Minister himself, the Minister in charge, had said that this was a temporary measure. That temporary measure was adopted in 1957. How many years have gone by since then? It was 15 years ago.

May I ask the hon. member a question? If the tariffs were raised and there was another boycott now, in 1972, what would the attitude of the United Party be?

Sir, I am glad the hon. member asked that question. I am coming to that. In 1957 there was a crisis. The tariffs had to be raised. The Minister raised the tariffs to avoid possible bloodshed. He then told us that it was a temporary measure. Fifteen years have since gone by. I ask, what has this Government done in the meantime to put that right? Sir, there is no crisis before us now. There is no boycott before us now. The only crisis they have is that the bus company is losing money, as it has been losing money over the years. But there is no crisis now like the crisis in 1957. Why did not the Minister come with other plans then? He said this was temporary and he did not like it. What has he done in the 15 years to put this position right? We cannot be asked to continue supporting a measure of this kind. Supposing we agree now that there is a crisis because the bus company is losing money and cannot carry on and we say that in view of the crisis we will support the Minister now and allow him to pass this Bill, what will happen? In another 15 years, time, when they want to increase the rates again, they will say that we supported the principle in 1972. Sir, we are not supporting the principle. We opposed the principle when the original Bill was introduced, and we still are opposed to it. The hon. member in his speech asked what the difference was and said that we were only applying it to women now—

I should like to ask the hon. member what has happened to the application of their policy. He says—

*I ask where these women come from. In terms of the law they should only be in the urban areas if they are living there permanently.

†Where do they come from all of a sudden? Why are more being employed now? Is the Government allowing more in on a temporary basis? The fact is, on the hon. member’s own admission, that Bantu women are being employed now when they were not employed in 1952 or in 1957. He nods his head. Sir, this is proof of the failure of the Government’s policy. These people are supposed to be going out. In the case of Bantu men I could still understand it, because Bantu men are allowed in on a temporary basis, on a contract basis. Are women now being allowed in on a contract basis too?

That has nothing to do with it.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says that has nothing to do with it. Where do these women come from? I say this is further evidence of the failure of the Government’s policy. The hon. member for Yeoville asked for an investigation into the whole transport question because obviously the ideal solution is not before us now in the Minister’s own words. The hon. member for Pietersburg also asks why there should be an investigation. In March, 1970, the hon. the Minister for Bantu Administration said, just before the election, that an inter-departmental committee had been appointed to go into the whole question of transport. I should like to know what happened to the report of that inter-departmental committee and what they suggested. I fail to see how these hon. members opposite can ask the United Party to support a measure here now which their own Minister says is not ideal and which 15 years ago he regarded as temporary. We say we will not support it. It is time this Government put its house in order and finds the proper solution.

Mr. Speaker, we have been listening to a very interesting debate so far. I must say that one of the things that interests me was to hear so many Nationalist speakers stand up and profess themselves to being against discrimination. That seems to be one of their points in this debate. Speaker after speaker, like the hon. member for Bloemfontein East and the hon. member for Pietersburg, stated that what they were doing in this Bill was to remove discrimination. And what is the discrimination that is being removed? It concerns the tax that the employers of Bantu males were paying; they were being discriminated against and the discrimination is now being removed by enforcing a tax on the employers of Bantu women. Well, that is one way of removing discrimination—to see that everybody pays the same penalties! I should like it very much if hon. members would carry their reasoning a little further and perhaps remove discrimination in a way that does not mean that everybody shares in the punishment. It would be a very nice thing for them to do.

I do not wish to repeat any of the arguments that have already been used. They were very ably put by members on the Opposition side, who pointed out the fact that the hon. the Minister in introducnig the Bantu services levy in 1957 had done this admitting that it was not the most desirable way of imposing a tax, that it was a sectional tax and that it should only be on a temporary basis. The hon. member who has just sat down has already mentioned that. I should like to deal with this from rather a different point of view. I want to state at once, perhaps in answer to the question the hon. member for Pietersburg had put to the hon. member for Transkei, a question which he did not answer and which I am going to answer, namely what the Opposition would do— and I am now obviously excluding myself from the official Opposition—if there were another bus boycott, which is by no means unlikely. [Interjections.] Cost of transport is going up all the time. Pay packets are not keeping up with the increase in cost of transport and other essential costs. The situation has got to be met. I believe that it has to be met by means of a subsidy but not a subsidy paid by the employers because this immediately gets translated into an additional cost to consumers, and that of course is inflationary. It is absurd to do it in that way because all of us are benefiting from the use of African labour in the urban area.

Oppenheimer too.

Oppenheimer, me, the hon. member and everybody else in this House—every employer of labour and even every non-employer of labour benefits. The hon. member should know that every farmer is also benefiting. These people are then earning more and they are able to buy more. The greater internal market, the demand for services and goods, be they agricultural or industrially manufactured goods, or ordinary services, is to the benefit of every single producer in this country. The hon. member sitting there looking at me with what I would not call the most intelligent look on his face, should realize that as well.

Who is that?

I am not mentioning names. In fact, it could be practically anyone.

But now, Sir, I am going to answer the question. Of course there must be a subsidy but not by way of a tax on employers. This subsidy must come from general revenue. It must obviously come from general revenue, in the ordinary way in which we subsidize railway services from general revenue and food prices from general revenue. That is how it should be done. The temporary expedient which has now become permanent and which the hon. member said would remain until the employers paid decent wages, is going to remain a permanent feature at this rate. As long as the Government sets the example by keeping statutory minimum wages well below the poverty datum line, you are not going to get employers, who are not philantropists, paying wages that are adequate to meet all these high costs. You are not going to get it. Some employers are paying much higher wages than the minimum wages laid down by the statutory Wage Board. But most of them think that if they pay a few rand per week higher than the minimum, that they are doing all they need to do.

I believe it is up to the State to set statutory minimum wages at a decent level, at a level below which nobody ought to be employed, be they garbage removal workers, agricultural workers, domestic workers, or factory workers. There should be decent minimum wages below which nobody can be employed.

Who stopped the employer from paying that?

The hon. member does not follow my reasoning. There is no law stopping employers from paying decent wages. Many employers are paying decent wages. But I must point out to the hon. member that we are living in a competitive society. If the Government lays down minimum wages on a statutory basis which are below the poverty datum line, that tends to lower the wages throughout the community.

That is nonsense.

Wait a minute.

What about Oppenheimer?

Hang on a minute. If you add to that the fact that Black workers have no trade union rights in this country that are recognized by law and they have no collective bargaining rights recognized by law, then the wages are likely to be even more depressed. Hon. members talk about industrial peace, the hon. Minister boasts about industrial peace, but I should imagine that we would have industrial peace in a country where a man goes to jail if he goes on strike and where a man has no collective bargaining rights recognized by law. This does not mean to say that wages are satisfactory and it does not mean to say that workers are satisfied with the wages they are being paid. Therefore, in the given circumstances, where statutory minimum wages are lower than they ought to be, where there are no collective bargaining rights for workers if they are Black and there is job reservation for certainly a percentage of the occupations in this country and Africans cannot join trade unions and consequently cannot become artisans, if you take into account the fact that all closed shop occupations are barred to Africans, all of which places a ceiling, laid down by law, on their earning capacity, and over and above that if you take into account the conventional colour bar in South Africa, then wages are low, wages are depressed and workers cannot pay for essential services like transport. It behoves the Government to subsidize their transport. Over and above that if you …

What do you pay your workers?

You would not believe what I pay my servants; it is so much beyond anything you would think of paying them. It is so much higher than what you would pay a Black man. Anyway, that is absolutely irrelevant; it is completely irrelevant to this question. Let me get on with what I want to say. If you add to that the fact that Government policy has made it compulsory for Black workers to live many miles away from where they work, all the more reason for the State having to subsidize. Let me put this to the Government, i.e. that if you add all these factors, there is an overwhelming duty on the Government to subsidize transport services. Here we have this situation and the hon. Minister comes along, but how does he deal with this? He levies an extra tax on the employer of female Africans. I ask of you, what a way to deal with the situation, what a drop in the ocean! He levies an extra amount on the employers of African labour; an absurd way for the State to deal with this problem. It is the State that has decided that Africans have to live in residential areas situated many miles from the city. In other countries it is the rich people who live in the country or on the outskirts of the big cities. They are the people who commute to work every day. In South Africa, the poorest workers have to do the commuting. The distances are sometimes enormous and are becoming greater and not less. When you correlate the factors that I have already mentioned, the statutory limits on wages, the customary limits on wages, the trade union restrictions and so on, plus the extraordinary distances between say Soweto and Johannesburg, between Umlazi and Durban and between the other adjacent industrial areas and the townships and if you add to that the new Government policy that has been coming into operation over the last few years—i.e. the resettlement of families from existing urban townships into sometimes adjacent but more often quite far distant homelands—the situation becomes more critical than ever. As I have mentioned before, and this is very relevant to this debate, a whole new pattern is evolving in South Africa as the result of the Government’s directive to the local authorities to site their townships for Africans in the homelands wherever possible. The families are to be housed in the homelands and the workers must have hostel accommodation in town. In some cases this means that the families are moved as much as 200, 300 or 400 miles away, so that the worker is lucky if he gets a visit home once a month. I may say that if you happen to be working in Langa and your family lives in the Ciskei at Comittiesdrift which, as far as I can work out, is the nearest homeland to Cape Town, it can cost you something like R22 return third-class on, I may say, a very badly equipped train in so far as facilities are concerned.

That is not so.

The hon. the Minister of Transport admitted it last year when I asked him what dining saloons there were and what toilets there were. I got an answer which was highly unsatisfactory. But anyway, the return fare, and this is my point, is never less than R22. That comes out of the worker’s pocket, because although the employer pays it he deducts it from the worker’s wage. Who will subsidize this? Obviously the State will subsidize it. What has the Government been doing all this time? It has been planning all these new townships and about 100 local authorities are concurring and they are moving their African townships further and further away so that the workers either have to go by train or by bus and very often they have to go by train and then by bus. When they get to, shall we say, East London, they then have to take a bus to wherever the homeland area where their families live happens to be. This involves enormous cost. Take for instance the people living just outside Pretoria. Their weekly bus fare is at least 77 cents.

That is our policy.

Yes, that is your policy. May I just point out to the hon. member for Pietersburg that the fact that it is the National Party’s policy does not make it the word of the Bible. It is not the Holy Writ. If it is not working, if it is uneconomic, and it is uneconomic, it ought to be changed. Not only is it uneconomic, it is inhuman in many respects as well.

Then you must convince the people to vote for you.

Order!

I would not be so excited about …

Order! The hon. member should proceed.

Thank you, Sir, I will proceed. The hon. member for Pietersburg must not be so pleased with the fact that the people have been voting for them. They may change their minds there too. You cannot look at this Bill in vacuo. It is part and parcel of the whole policy, as the hon. member has said. There are other things we have to remember. It is not only part of the policy of homelands resettlement, families in the homelands and the workers in the hostels; it is also part of the “White by night” policy, the Boksburg policy, the Randburg policy. Where is the hon. member for Randburg? There he is. [Interjections.] It will cost him his seat next time. I will tell the hon. member why. It is not because people are thinking that deeply, but they do not want their domestic servants to have to be uprooted and go and live either in Thembisa if they have houses, which very few of them have, or in those hostels in Alexandra Township which I described in graphic detail on Friday. They want their domestic servants on the premises. Every irate housewife in Randburg will rise up and vote against him. I want to tell the hon. member that he ought to remember that Boksburg is not very far from Brakpan. Boksburg has a “White by night” policy; it is quite possible that along the wings of the East Rand all sorts of people are beginning to wonder when the “White by night” policy will hit them too. That might have had its effect in Brakpan. This policy is not necessarily very popular. I see this as part of the whole resettlement plan. I see it as part of the “White by night” policy for the White cities and I also see it as part of the locations-in-the-sky policy, because thousands of Black domestic servants are going to be uprooted from the flats where they live, from their existing accommodation and they too are going to have to travel. That adds thousands of more workers using that hopelessly overloaded transport system that we have in practically every urban area throughout the country. That means more services to be provided and more subsidization to be provided. Since the Government is frightened of taxing the general taxpayer any more, it decides to put the taxes on the employers of Bantu labour. If you think of this combination of factors, it is no wonder that I too will vote against the Second Reading of this Bill. I want to make it absolutely clear that I am in favour of subsidization of transport, because under present circumstances with all these prohibitions on the increase in African earning power, many of them Government prohibitions and others customary, and lack of trade union rights as well, it is unlikely that wages will ever catch up sufficiently to allow the Africans to pay for transport. As it is, they pay far too high a percentage of their pay packets in transport. Therefore, although I am in favour of subsidization, I believe the subsidization should come from general revenue and not from a tax on employers. Therefore I shall vote against the Second Reading.

Much has been said about this Bill since we started this debate and I want to repeat a few of the more important pronouncements which have been made. The hon. the Minister of Transport said that Bantu workers were an uneconomic group and that their transport must be subsidized. I think one has heard enough to realize that all members of this House are agreed on that particular principle. In an earlier debate the hon. the Minister of Transport had said that this was a temporary measure. In 1957 he said that it was a temporary measure, but just now, when the hon. member for Transkei was speaking, the hon. the Deputy Minister interjected and said that the principle had already been accepted in 1952. Surely, the hon. the Deputy Minister knows that in 1952 this formed part of the Bantu services levy, which was also a temporary measure and which was also subject to the promise given by the late Dr. Verwoerd, namely that it would disappear as the services were provided.

He never said so.

Yes, he did. There is no argument about that and it was proven quite conclusively in this House last week with chapter and verse being quoted. We also had the statement by my hon. friend from Yeoville who said that we are now dealing with a permanent manifestation in our socio-economic development. Even speakers on the other side have now got to the stage where they are prepared to accept that this is something permanent. Even the hon. the Deputy Minister, by his interjection, has indicated that he accepts that this is something permanent now and that this is something which we are writing into our Statute Book as something which is going to be and remain with us until, in the words of the hon. member for Houghton, wages are raised to the point where the subsidizing of the transport of these people are no longer necessary.

We have accepted in this House the principle that there should be a tax, discriminatory as it may be, on the employers of Bantu men and that they should be taxed to provide this very subsidization for the transport of Bantu men. This afternoon we are asked to accept a new principle, namely that the transport of Bantu women workers as well should also be subsidized and that the amount of the levy being paid by employers of Bantu men should be increased. As the Act stands today we have the position that this levy applies only in certain areas, i.e. only in the urban areas of the Republic of South Africa. Dealing with Bantu women and leaving Bantu men aside for the moment, because they are not the subject of this amendment Bill, I want to make a case with the hon. the Deputy Minister that he should consider a further extension and amendment to this legislation. I want to put it to him that we have had a change in the pattern in South Africa since the 1957 legislation primarily as a result of Government policy, a change which he and his fellows in the Cabinet however seem to have lost sight of when they brought this amendment. The points that I think the hon. the Deputy Minister has lost sight of, are firstly that we have had a change in the pattern of industrial development where industrial development has been channelled into the border areas and where there has been a decentralization of industrial development. Arising out of this point, and also out of the policy of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration, we have had the development of vast rural Bantu townships. Some of them are in fairly close proximity to the central urban areas, but some of them are very much further away. But in these rural Bantu townships are today settled many thousands of workers who are daily commuting to the urban areas and the industrial areas for their employment. That transport is not subsidized by anybody. It is not subsidized as a result of the tax on the employer.

You do not know the Bill. The original Bill provides that if necessary they can be subsidized, provided it is a proclaimed area. There is no change in the Bill.

I do not want to fight with the hon. the Deputy Minister this afternoon. I want to co-operate with him, and I hope he is going to accept what I am saying in that spirit. I want the two of us to co-operate for the benefit of the workers and of the Republic of South Africa. The hon. the Deputy Minister said that there is provision that a proclaimed area can be included and brought under the scope of the Act as it is today. I wonder if he can give me one example.

I will give you the example later.

I want to say that I do not think the hon. the Deputy Minister has quite understood me, or else I do not understand him; but as I read the Act at the moment, it can be applied to Umlazi because it forms part of the area under the jurisdiction of the Durban city council in terms of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Act. Umlazi is part of a homeland. It could be referred to as one of the vast rural Bantu townships to which I have referred. But I know that that transport is subsidized. PUTCO is subsidized today in terms of this Act. But I am not referring to those places only. I want to refer the hon. the Deputy Minister to Mpumalanga township at Hammarsdale.

It can also be subsidized.

I am afraid that as I read the Act, it cannot be subsidized. But I would be extremely glad if the hon. the Deputy Minister in his reply will not only say that it can be subsidized, but that it in fact will be subsidized. Although the hon. the Deputy Minister may not know, I am sure my friend, the ex-member for Benoni, the member for Langlaagte, will know that it is not two months ago that we had a lot of trouble at Hammarsdale, that there was a bus boycott. This bus boycott was brought about because of this very point the hon. member for Pietersburg raised, neamely that the Bantu are very “sensitive” about bus fares. I can agree with him. There was an increase in the bus fares in that area. The daily transport of the Bantu (who have been compelled to live there by Government policy with their families) from Mpumalanga township to their work, both in Hammarsdale and in Pinetown, have been undertaken by a wholly Bantu-owned company which has done a magnificent job of work over the years, without any assistance from the Government. It has provided a magnificent service for these people, but now, for the first time since 1958, they are finding themselves in a position where they are forced by rising costs and unfair competition from pirate taxis and suchlike to increase their bus fares. But as was said by my hon. friend from Yeoville, the question of an increase of bus fares has become a symbol for these people, and we immediately had a bus boycott. Immediately—here I must agree with the hon. friend from Pietersburg—the agitators stepped in. The rabble-rousers, the troublemakers were there and tried to egg these workers on to further acts to take the matter further. But I must say, too, in deference to the responsibility of the Bantu workers in that area, that they did not fall for this story, and the matter has not escalated. It has been settled, but on the basis that the bus company has to reduce its fares back to the 1958 level. That hon. Deputy Minister and hon. members know that it can only be uneconomic. It can only work ultimately to the detriment of the Bantu workers themselves, because they will not have a bus service unless that service can be subsidized. Now, Sir, accepting that the argument of the hon. the Deputy Minister is correct and that this bus service can be subsidized, I want to plead with him this afternoon to subsidize that service, because to my knowledge nearly 10 000 workers per day are transported by this bus service to the industrial areas of Hammarsdale and Pinetown, border industrial areas which have been developed at the behest of this Government in pursuance of its policy.

Sir, I want to add my word to the weight of evidence which has been brought before this House by other speakers before me, that this subsidy should come from the General Revenue Account; that this should not be a tax on the employers, and particularly that this should not be a discriminatory tax where certain employers are singled out as the people to be taxed. I am very glad to hear from the hon. the Deputy Minister that this can be done; I sincerely hope that he will do it. I will resume my seat now, and I hope that I will get that answer from him.

Sir, I am not going to reply at length to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District, who has just spoken, because in actual fact he only repeated what previous speakers had said, except for two things, to which I am going to reply immediately. I told the hon. member by way of interjection that he did not know this Bill. We are not proclaiming residential areas in terms of the Bill. The Bill provides that we may proclaim industrial areas and that the employers there will then pay the levy. If the labour comes to those employers’ areas, even though it comes from a Bantu homeland area, those employees also qualify for the subsidy. In other words, it is already being done and no amendment is needed for that.

It is being done somewhere?

Yes; I shall give the hon. member the particulars in a moment. Sir, I think there is one thing we should put on record very clearly right at the start, and this is that hon. members opposite are now suggesting that all the money should come from the Central Government, from the pocket of the taxpayer, and that there should be no contribution from the employer.

He pays tax.

I shall come to that in a moment. Sir, I want to place it on record here so that South Africa may know that compared with the R22 million which has been contributed up to now towards the costs of transport services by way of a levy paid by the employers, the taxpayers have contributed R106 million from the Consolidated Revenue Account. In other words, the Government has not neglected its duty in this whole development. The Government has already contributed five times as much as the employers. But I do not want to talk only about that. [Interjections.] I know that hon. member is going to make use of this to say to the taxpayer in the rural areas: “Look, you have to pay for the city dweller’s labour.” I know he will do that, because he always likes sitting on two stools.

Now you are playing politics.

Sir, that hon. member dragged this Bill into politics right from the start. But there is another fact which should be placed on record: This Government has already paid a subsidy of R96 million from the Treasury for the establishment of train services in order to transport these Bantu from the resettlement towns to the places of labour. If this is added to the R106 million, the Government has already paid a subsidy of R202 million as compared with the R22 million paid by the employers, but in spite of this, hon. members opposite persist with this story.

Sir, let us first look at the United Party’s amendment; it is an extremely important amendment, because it reflects the policy of that party. The amendment reads—

And you must listen to this—

Here an amendment is moved in which the employees, male and female, are being separated.

But the one is a new principle.

The hon. member must not run away before I have made my point. What will the logical consequence of this be? If the amendment should be accepted, it would mean that the employers, for whom the hon. member for Houghton wants to act as a champion here, would want to employ the cheaper female labour, because the employers would not have to pay the levy for Bantu women. This would be the logical consequence, and hon. members cannot deny it. This amendment means that the United Party is advocating a new labour pattern in South Africa, namely that we should now attract Bantu women to the labour market because the employers would have to pay them less than male Bantu. What would the result be? The result would be that the males who become unemployed would have to go and look for work in competition with women who are paid lower wages. Already there are certain cases where this is being done. Sir, this would be the practical result of the acceptance of this amendment, and this should be placed on record, so that South Africa may know that the United Party has moved an amendment which means in effect that they are advocating that women, who receive lower wages than men, should be employed instead of male workers. Sir, that hon. member may shake his head if he likes.

That is absolutely untrue. May I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he is aware that the rules of this House preclude an amendment being moved which is in conflict with the principle of the original Act?

Sir, if this is the camouflaged hiding-place in which hon. members opposite want to hide, they could simply have moved an amendment to the effect that they refuse to agree to the Second Reading, but they have motivated their amendment. They have motivated it and linked it with the women. They could have moved a simple amendment, simply that this House refuses to pass this legislation, but this they did not do. The linked it specifically with the women. They motivated it. I want us to forget their speeches first, and to analyse this.

Why did you link the Bill with the women?

I shall tell you why. I shall give hon. members the numbers in respect of places in regard to which they have put forward pleas and where up to 500 women are already employed in the industries and factories and are using this daily transport.

Up to 5 000 at Hammarsdale.

No, the hon. member will not be able to run away from this. Do you know, Sir, what I have found in this entire debate? I have found the attitude of hon. members opposite has been “to be all things to all men at all times”. As far as policy is concerned, they are absolutely bankrupt, because what are they doing now? On the one hand they want to scavenge on the dissatisfaction of the employer who has to subsidize, and on the other they want to scavenge on the dissatisfaction of the employee who has to pay higher bus fares. They want to scavenge on the discomfort of the employer and on the cost involved in this way of life. But at the same time—and this is important—the hon. member for Yeoville says the South African way of life is such that we must have separate residential areas, Bantu on the one side and Whites on the other. Then he says that it has their blessing; it is their policy too. They want to go and say to the electorate: “Look, we are as responsible for the fact that we have separate residential areas in South Africa now”, but to the employees they want to say: “As a result of the separate residential areas which the National Party has established, you have to pay this additional levy.” They want to sit on two stools; they want to reap the fruits of their twofold propaganda and do not want to accept the responsibility. But what they say is not true. The statement made by the hon. member for Yeoville is not true. Have they forgotten how we had to introduce special legislation in order to clear up Sophiatown? Have they forgotten that Dr. Verwoerd had to put special legislation through Parliament in order to empower him to force the unwilling United Party City Council of Johannesburg to undertake slum clearance? But now the United Party wants to collect the kudos for themselves. They repeatedly fought resettlement and residential segregation. It is only the hon. member for Houghton who still adheres to her standpoint and says that we should not have residential segregation. Those other hon. members have already accepted that the electorate wants resettlement, that they approve of it and that they want separation. Now they want to claim the credit of this for themselves. But while they want to claim the credit, they also want to say to the employers: “You have to pay for it because the National Party created that state of affairs.” This is the twofold propaganda they are trying to make.

The hon. member says they could not put it differently in this amendment, but they have no objection to the increase from 10 cents to 20 cents in respect of the men. No, it was perfectly acceptable to them. They could also have objected in their amendment to the increase from 10 cents to 20 cents, but they did not do this; they linked the amendment only with the women, because they wanted to be able to say to the employers: “As a result of the National Party’s resettlement policy, of its apartheid policy, you will now possibly have to pay a 20 cent levy in respect of the men instead of 10 cents, but we have opened a door for you: You may employ women without having to pay the increased levy”.

Are you going to agree?

This is the sort of propaganda they are making. No, I am not going to agree. I shall ensure that the Act provides that the employers of women have to pay the levy as well. Those hon. members therefore accept that within this zoned, demarcated area, commerce and industry, the employers, are obliged to carry or to help carry the costs for the transport of their labour. You will not be able to show me one place in their speeches, Sir, where they stated this specifically in respect of the men: they linked everything with the women. Furthermore they merely displayed a touch of malicious joy and levelled accusations in order to make propaganda in the Press. Now they make the statement that the hon. the Minister said in 1957 that it was a temporary measure and that it was hoped that the measure would eventually cease to exist, but they should go and re-read what he said. The hon. the Minister qualified it very clearly. He said this temporary measure would unfortunately have to be applicable in South Africa as long as the employers, commerce and industry, did not pay the Bantu a big enough salary to enable him to afford the transport.

Where did he say that?

Go and read it in the speech he made in 1957. He did not say it only there either. The memories of the hon. members are very short. The Minister pointed it out again last year under the relevant Vote and said—

In regard to the Coloured people he then said the following—

He referred here to the Coloured people and went on to say—

Yes, but that was last year.

He continued—

Now I want to challenge the hon. member for Houghton and the other hon. members opposite if, politically speaking, they are so honest about this matter. Why did they not move an amendment to say: We refuse to have this levy paid to finance the subsidy, because the wage scales of the employers in South Africa are too low? Why do they not put forward a proposal here? Why do they not propose that the statutory wage be increased and accept the responsibility of saying to the employer and the industrialist in South Africa: We as the United Party are accusing you; you are paying too little, that is why the transport has to be subsidized. No, they do not want to do this either. They want to be popular with them. I want to say this to the hon. members, and I should like the hon. member for Houghton to listen as well. There is nothing at all preventing the employer in South Africa from paying a proper salary to his employees. She said across the floor of this House that the farmers also benefited, but the farmers house their labourers properly, provide them with water and firewood and even transport them if necessary. They do not come to the taxpayers of South Africa or to the Government and say: Pay for my workers’ houses and for their water, transport and everything else I give them. They pay their labourers in competition with the industries of South Africa and they ask no subsidies in this regard. But now she wants to make this charge against the farmers. [Interjections.] I repeat that there is nothing which prohibits the employers of South Africa from providing housing themselves and from paying a decent salary, one which will enable the employees to afford the transport and which will raise their standard of living.

Will it not be more difficult for them to pay such a salary if they have to pay this levy as well?

The hon. member is leg before wicket now. Surely he knows very well that if the employees were paid a decent salary it would not have been necessary for a subsidy to be paid now. This was the position in the past. No, Sir, their ideal in regard to the standard of living of the Bantu is mere words. They are doing nothing at all to ensure that they attain a decent standard of living. I go further. Now they want to tax those people doubly. There are thousands of employers who pay their domestic servants a salary and even buy their monthly or weekly bus tickets, even at the higher tariff, and who do not come and ask for this subsidy. I shall mention you one case after another, in Pretoria, Johannesburg and other places, where private institutions, employers, not only pay their employees a salary, but also give them their bus tickets so that they may come and sell their labour there. But now the hon. members want to plead for those institutions who do not do this, and who do not pay a salary which enables these people to pay their transport costs, and they want the other persons who are in fact doing their duty, to help transport the employees of those industries and of other employers and to subsidize their employees’ transport. This is what these people are doing. Then they want to present themselves here as the protectors of the taxpayer and of the housewife. Only the other day the hon. member for Durban Point said that if his wife goes to town with R5, she cannot even bring him a bottle of beer after she has done her shopping, because there is no money left. But now he wants her to help subsidize those industries and employers from her own taxation as well. In other words, in the debate conducted here—and I should like to place this on record—the United Party expected the housewife of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and the whole of South Africa, to contribute from her earnings in the form of taxation in order to help the large employers and industries to transport their labour home. Hon. members should take note of that. This is what they want and what they are doing at present.

I have already mentioned how important this amendment is in regard to the women. The result of this is that the women are being played off against the men. I want to give certain figures to you in this regard, Sir. Hugo’s canning factory at East London alone already employs 500 Bantu women who make daily use of these bus services between Mdantsane and East London.

It is a border industry.

He says it is a border industry. Now the hon. member for Newton Park wants the employers who pay those women a lower salary than the men, to draw even more women from the border areas. No levy is payable in respect of the women, while it is in fact payable in respect of the men. This is the logical consequence. This, then, is also my reply to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District. I mention the example of Mdantsane. In Mdantsane, which is in a Bantu area, there are 500 women who come from the Bantu area to work in the border industrial area. That transport will have to be subsidized by means of the payment of a levy. But that hon. member says they should not do this, that they should obtain increasing numbers of women and that the others which employ the men, should also pay for those who employ the women.

One may well ask: What does the United Party want? Does the United Party systematically want to introduce a new labour pattern in South Africa whereby the woman may compete with the man? It is strange that the employer pays the woman a smaller salary than the man. They want to encourage it so that the men become unemployed. And once they are unemployed, they have to compete with the women at a lower salary to be re-employed. They want to force the men to do this. They want to create a new labour pattern in South Africa in order to establish a migrant labour system or a new type of attraction for the women. They want to establish a new socioeconomic set-up. They want to create new family problems by this proposal of theirs.

I want to deal with the hon. member for Maitland now. This is the hon. member who coined the new word, the so-called “pickpocket” tax. In Afrikaans it is “Sakkeroller-belasting”. I think another hon. member has already said that the United Party is a pickpocket. I shall tell you why I say this, Sir. Levies are not something which was introduced by this National Party. Sectional taxation was not started by the National Party. The very first one was introduced in 1935. At that time the United Party introduced a levy on fuel for the construction of national roads. It is identical to this one.

But they are opposed to the principle.

But they are opposed to the principle. They are opposed to the principle of a levy scheme for a specific service. But in 1935 they introduced a levy on fuel in South Africa for the construction of national roads. That was a levy for a specific service. Now they are opposed to the principle of it; but this is not all. Under that party’s policy no fewer than 26 different levies were imposed in South Africa.

Twenty-six?

Yes.

Everyone in the interests of those paying the levy.

Who introduced the first levy on maize and on wheat so that a certain specific task could be carried out? A levy was introduced on wheat so that the consumers could pay less for the bread they ate. A levy was placed on maize so that the consumer could help to pay for the loss on the export of maize. Thus we have various levies in South Africa. I am going to mention a few others. It is a pity the hon. member for East London City is not present to listen. During the war years they introduced the levy on wool. After the levy had been collected, we begged them to build a factory, but they would not, because they said at the time that the wool farmer could shear alone. Subsequently a levy was placed on fresh milk and on dairy products, and similarly there are various other levies in South Africa. Now we have introduced this legislation and we want to impose a levy so that the employers who have the benefit that the State already provides their Bantu with housing and that the State has established the separate residential areas in the pattern of life in South Africa, and has also carried out the resettlement, can also contribute towards the transportation of the workers. Now a levy is something evil and is a concealed tax which is being introduced by the Government, while South Africa was inundated with various kinds of levies when the United Party governed. Their memories are too short. When this debate commenced, the hon. members covered a wide field. They started in 1957, but I want to go back even further than that. I first want to take a brief look at 1952, when the first levy was introduced. What did we find then? The hon. member for Houghton must listen now. In a 1952 edition of the Rand Daily Mail I found the headline “A just levy”. I quote from the report in the Rand Daily Mail—

Then it stated—

This is precisely the same as they are requesting now. The rest of the public of South Africa must subsidize commerce and industry. The Rand Daily Mail went on to say—

The same applies to the transportation as well. But this is not all. What did The Star say? Let us look at what The Star said in this regard at the time. It is important that hon. members should see this—

This was while the United Party was opposed to it—

As far back as 1952 the Press of the United Party, their mouthpiece, told them that they should not be foolish, because the industries had the benefit that these Bantu were able to sell their labour to them. Furthermore, they told the United Party that they should ensure that the industries paid part of the cost of the transport services of the workers.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to dwell on this for much longer. I just want to state very clearly that this pickpocket story …

Is correct.

Yes, it is correct in so far as the United Party is a pickpocket in that it squeezes nothing but opportunistic propaganda from everything and does not carry out its responsibilities and obligations. In that respect the story is correct. To see the matter in the right perspective, to see the matter on a balanced basis and to place responsibility where it belongs, these things the United Party cannot do because it has no policy and only wants to reap the benefits of the short lived opportunistic propaganda through its pickpocket politics.

It is only their vulture politics.

Yes, it is their vulture politics.

Mr. Speaker, my problem is that I am concerned with a factual position. If one refers back to the debate of 1952 when Dr. Verwoerd imposed a levy in respect of housing and transport, one will see that he used the same words, i.e. that he was concerned with a factual position. That factual position is that the Bantu labour we have in South Africa at our industrial areas and at our large White complexes, is separate in terms of the resettlement policy. South Africa wants this. It is only the hon. member for Houghton who does not want this. The second factual position with which I am concerned is that their salaries are not of such a nature that they allow them to carry the increased costs of transport. Therefore the money must come from somewhere. The third factual position I am concerned with, is that it has become a policy internationally that in some way or other the transport of those earning lower wages, the subsidized labour, is not or cannot be shouldered by that labour. It must come from somewhere.

The fourth factual position with which I am concerned is that the housewife is being excluded in this Act in respect of domestic servants.

That is not the story they told in Brakpan.

I want them to know this. They told a different story in Brakpan. In this Bill the domestic servant is specifically being excluded because we already have the phenomenon that thousands of employers have the decency to pay not only the salary of their servants, but also their weekly or monthly fares. The United Party wants more taxation to be drawn from those who are being this decent, so that the transport costs of the servants of those employers who do not do so may be paid.

The fifth factual position I am concerned with, is that these industrialists establish their industries where they may most readily obtain labour, raw materials, etc. In their cost structures they should take into account the fact that that labour cannot be brought to their doorsteps on the backs of the taxpayers, but that they, too, should make their contributions. The State has already contributed more than R106 million over that period to which I referred a moment ago.

Lastly, there is the factual position that the transport companies under the jurisdiction of the National Transport Commission cannot simply increase their tariffs. The Department of Transport conducts a very thorough investigation into the cost structure of these companies, into the salaries they pay and into their subsidiary companies in order to assure the taxpayer of South Africa that investigations are conducted with the aid of a magnifying glass and that unfair and unreasonable tariff increases are not granted so as to enrich those companies through monopoly. We must maintain the balance and we must place the matter in the right perspective. In this way, and in order to achieve and retain labour peace in South Africa, we are protecting the employer who has to pay the levy as well as the employee, so that the tariffs which he has to pay, do not increase too much. In this way we are able to transport labour to where it has to be transported.

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

Tellers: W. A. Crywagen, P. C. Roux, G. P. van den Berg and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and J. O. N. Thompson.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

As hon. members know, the fares of Bantu using bus transport in the larger cities of the Republic are subsidized in terms of the provisions of the Bantu Transport Services Act, 1957 (Act 53 of 1957). After thorough consideration of all the implications involved in the resettlement of Coloured persons and Indians, there is no doubt that making available to the resettled Coloured persons and Indians the same benefits granted to the Bantu by Act 53 of 1957 cannot be delayed any longer. For practical reasons it is impossible to amend Act 53 of 1957 in such a way as to include the employers of Coloured persons and Indians, and for this reason separate legislation is envisaged.

It is pointed out that transport contributions payable in respect of Bantu are normally paid simultaneously with levies in terms of the provisions of the Bantu Services Levy Act of 1952 (Act 64 of 1952) by employers to local authorities in respect of Bantu registered with such local authorities. Coloured and Indian employees are, however, not registered with local authorities. In view of this, it has been decided that the Department of Transport should collect such transport contributions. Except for this new principle, the provisions of this Bill correspond with those in respect of Act 53 of 1957. As in the case of Act 53 of 1957, the idea is to apply the Bill selectively by collecting contributions for transport only in those areas where there is a need for subsidized bus transport.

Before a subsidy in terms of the provisions of Act 53 of 1957 for a road passenger service is approved, its entire administration, finances and efficiency are thoroughly investigated; cost analyses are made and economic fares are determined for the service. Under this Bill it is proposed to follow the same procedure in regard to applications which may arise from this.

Hon. members have an explanatory memorandum on the Bill in front of them and in order to save time I am not going to deal with the provisions of each clause separately. However, where hon. members desire more information about any particular clause, I shall gladly furnish it. We have just debated the Bantu Transport Services Bill, and that debate is still fresh in the minds of hon. members.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister in introducing this Bill has made no attempt whatsoever to establish a case for the measure before us. He has simply said: “This is the same sort of Bill as the one that we have just passed in the case of the Bantu.” He has made no attempt at all to indicate why the Coloured and Indian communities are in such difficulties that there is a need for their transport to be subsidized. It is therefore left to us on the Opposition benches to justify the need for the subsidy, since the Deputy Minister has not endeavoured to do so. We are entitled to assume, since that is the basis for the Deputy Minister’s case, that all the arguments which he advances in respect of the subsidization of Bantu transport apply equally to the subsidization of Coloured and Indian transport. That being so, this Bill makes out a perfect case—a complete case—for the condemnation of the socio-economic situation which has developed under this Government over the last 24 years; a situation in which, by the admission of the Government through the introduction of this very Bill, wage levels are such that over 2 million people are unable to afford economic transport.

Sir, what an admission for a Government to have to make! It is an admission that the entire Coloured and Indian communities of South Africa are unable to afford one of the basic necessities of life, one of the basic needs of any community and of any worker, that is, an economic transport system. It is an admission of what the hon. the Minister of the Interior has raised over and over again, an admission of a dangerous wage gap between Whites and non-Whites. With this measure we now have the completion of subsidization proposals for three of the four race groups, but not for the fourth, the Whites. There is no indication that the Government intends to subsidize White transport users, and therefore we must assume that this is an acknowledgment not only of the existence of the wage gap between Whites and non-Whites but an acknowledgment of the permanence of that wage gap. I want to place it very clearly on the record that by introducing this Bill the Minister is stating by implication that the Government does not foresee the day when the wage gap between Whites and non-Whites will disappear.

What do you suggest?

Sir, if it is necessary to incorporate into our permanent legislation, into the law of South Africa, a subsidy of this nature for three race groups, then it is an acknowledgment that the Government does not foresee the closing of the gap which would make this subsidy unnecessary. Fifteen years ago, in the case of the Bantu, it was to be a temporary subsidy. It is now being made into a permanent subsidy, and it is being extended to the Coloured and Indian people. We do not dispute, and we could not dispute, the need to subsidize Coloured and Indian transport. The need is there and we accept the existence of the desperate need for some sort of aid. What we deplore, Sir, is not the intention to subsidize, but the fact that this should be necessary at all. The fact that it is necessary at all reflects upon the philosophy of the Government in regard to the whole economic situation in South Africa. The hon. the Minister, in dealing with another measure, made great play of the fact that the employer was not paying his employees enough and that this measure was really being introduced to punish them because they were not paying enough.

Where did I use the word “punish”?

The implication is that they are not paying enough and therefore they are going to be taxed in this way. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to tell the House and South Africa when he replies to this debate what his department is paying Coloureds and Indians vis-à-vis Whites in the different grades in which they are employed. I want him to get up and deny that the wage gap between White and Coloured and Indian—there is even a gap between Coloured and Indian—is far bigger than it has ever been before. I want him to get up and to tell this House that he believes that the South African Railways are paying a living wage which makes it unnecessary for these people to be subsidized.

We are paying them much better than your Government did.

Because if he cannot say that the South African Railways are paying their non-White employees a living wage, which makes subsidization of their transport unnecessary, then he will have to say that they require subsidization. He cannot have it both ways, and he cannot blame the private employer when the State is setting the example. The State is setting the example in discriminating in every field on the basis of wage levels; that applies even to doctors and nurses. In every field the State, by deliberate policy, discriminates and pays a far higher wage to Whites than to non-Whites. We have heard odd encouraging sounds from the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs, who says that it is their desire to narrow the wage gap. We have heard encouraging sounds from the Minister of the Interior.

Where do you get that from?

Sir, we agree with it. Our quarrel is that while the Government says it is their policy, it is doing just the opposite in practice. I ask the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs: What is the wage gap between a White teacher and the Coloured teacher in his department? I ask him to tell us what that is. I ask him to tell us whether he has done anything about closing the wage gap. I ask him to tell us whether he believes that the Coloured people employed in his department do not need this subsidy because they are being paid an economic wage. Now he is silent, Sir. He will not say that the employees in his department, the Coloured people, do not need this subsidy.

No, they do not. The 784 Coloureds employed by me do not need it.

They do not need it? All right, then the Minister is setting an example, but I ask him to show us what the difference is between the wages earned for equal work by White public servants and the public servants in his department, including teachers. I ask the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs, the Minister who is so fond of interjecting, whether the believes that the wage differential between White and Indian workers in South Africa today is reasonable and realistic?

It is better than in your day.

Sir, that is the sort of answer you get. But he cannot deny the fact that this Bill places on record that the Government not only recognizes this fact as existing, but it recognizes it as something which is going to remain so. Having started with the acknowledgment of the need for a subsidy—and that we accept—we now come to the basic difference between ourselves and the Government. Having accepted that you must subsidize, the question is: Who pays it?

*Here we heard an interesting argument from the hon. the Deputy Minister. In connection with another Bill he referred to various levies, such as the levy on petrol for national roads. Does he not understand; is he so utterly unable to understand; can he not understand at all? I did not want to use the word “stupid”, Sir; I was looking for another word, but I obviously have to come back to the word “stupid”. I was looking for something perhaps rather less sharp.

Order! I do not think an hon. member should accuse another hon. member of stupidity.

No, Sir. This I would never do to the hon. Deputy Minister. I withdraw it, but I say this: the Deputy Minister has proved that he cannot understand a simple principle. There is for example the principle that a motorist pays a levy on petrol for the construction of roads he is going to use himself. It is a completely different principle if a person pays for something he is using himself. If the hon. the Deputy Minister wants to take that argument further he must say that a person need not pay a licence for a vehicle. It is a completely different matter when one pays for something which is to one’s benefit. But here the employer is being asked to pay a levy, an impost, which is going to be used to subsidize another group.

*Mr. Speaker, we are not subsidizing the employer; we are subsidizing people who cannot afford to pay a reasonable and economic transport fee. The hon. the Deputy Minister made much play of the fact that the State has paid much more in subsidies in regard to guaranteed lines than the employers. He has accepted the principle of State responsibility for the consequences of State policy. I do not want to repeat the arguments on State policy being aimed at the housing of people in their own areas.

Do you agree with that?

I agree; it is accepted national policy that there shall be separate residential areas, but that being so, that being State policy, it is then the responsibility of the State to pay for the consequences of that policy. Sir, here the Minister is not accepting that responsibility. He is fobbing a section of it off, the road transport section, on to the employer; he is fobbing this tax off on to the employer and he is saying: “You, the employer, will pay this tax although it is to subsidize the transport of a group which, as a result of Government policy, cannot afford to pay economic transport rates.”

Vause, you are much too heavy to do an egg-dance!

No, Sir, this is no egg-dance; this is a simple issue. Government policy says that this must be the situation, but the Government refused to accept the responsibility of their policy. We have always opposed, and are fundamentally opposed, to a sectional tax on a group of people for a specific purpose not concerned with the purpose of that tax itself. This is a tax on production.

Yes, the producer will pay for it.

No, the consumer will pay for it. All the airy fairy, beautiful hand washing by the hon. the Deputy Minister, when he was talking about the housewives, was of course utter nonsense. The housewife is going to pay, but her contribution will not be only part of the total revenues of South Africa in terms of this Bill. She is going to pay more as a result of the increased cost of living which will be passed on to her by the manufacturer. And doing it this way it will be a much higher amount because that cost must be multiplied right through the commercial system. If the cost of this levy on an item at factory level is one cent, by the time it gets to the wholesaler it is 1½ cents and by the time it gets to he retailer it is 3 cents. If the subsidy which is going to be paid to assist Coloured and Indian workers is one cent on an item, in fact by the time it is passed on to the housewife it will be 3 cents.

Where do you get that from?

Because this is a tax on the employer and the employer is the manufacturer and the manufacturer will have to recover the cost in pricing his product. I am taking a figure of one cent— you may take half a cent or 5 cents, whatever you like, but one cent is a simple and understandable figure which I think even that Deputy Minister will be able to follow, in its progression.

Prove your figure.

What I am proving is that if the increased cost is one cent at source, by the time it gets to the wholesaler it will be between 1,2 and 1,5 cents.

Why?

Because that is the wholesaler’s profit and he takes his profit as a percentage on the cost of the item, as he does with sales tax. When he sells it goes to the retailer and if the retailer’s profit is 50 per cent he will add that on to what he is paying the wholesaler, and so your cost escalates, whereas, if it comes out of Consolidated Revenue, what is taken is the basic cost of the subsidy. The Minister, by a subterfuge, is going to take far more from the housewives of South Africa than in fact will have to be paid in the form of taxation. But the principle still remains, and our opposition remains to the principle of sectional taxation on a group in order to pay for something other than the direct purpose of that tax Therefore I move as an amendment—

The hon. the Deputy Minister will notice that this refers to the total levy, and he cannot play the little game he played, because of the technical rules of this House, in regard to our amendment on the last Bill. We here, and I emphasize it, move that all the costs of transport subsidy should be paid out of Consolidated Revenue and we made it clear that in regard to the Bantu transport levy, that was our opinion as well. But because it was in an amending Bill and not the principal Act we could not move accordingly. Three-quarters of the hon. the Deputy Minister’s reply consisted of playing the fool over the wording of our amendment, which he knew was in terms of the rules of the House. Here the amendment we are moving applies equally to both race groups as well as to males and females.

Sir, this is not the only hidden tax we are objecting to. We have before us on the Order Paper at the moment the Contributions in respect of Bantu Labour Bill, the Bantu Transport Bill, this Bill and the Road Safety Bill, all with this principle of a tax on a section of the people for a specific purpose, a tax in each case which is not to be used for the benefit of the people who pay it, but which is going to be used for some wider purpose. Once you start along this road, where will we end in South Africa? Are you going to say that schools must now be paid out of a levy paid by parents? Only parents will have to pay for education.

What about all your private schools?

Even private schools are subsidized out of taxation. It is only the hon. the Minister of Sport who can send his children to private schools which do not get subsidies. I cannot afford to.

Sir De Villiers Graaff also sends his children there.

Yes, he can afford it, too. You are entitled to do so, but the point is that once you accept the principle of taxes on a section to pay for a sectional service, you are entering a very dangerous fiscal road. I believe it is necessary for South Africa that we should stick to the tried and tested principle, namely tax for the needs of the Government. Let the Government out of those taxes provide the services which the country needs. Let it come to Parliament and lay before Parliament its requirements. If the requirements be, say, R10 million, then let the hon. the Minister of Transport come to Parliament and ask the taxpayer through his elected representative to allocate R10 million from taxation. But let us not take one section of our people and say that for this or that reason they will have to pay a separate tax. The employer pays income tax, company tax, sales tax, customs and excise and all normal taxes which everybody else pays. Why should he now have to pay, in addition to the taxes which apply to everyone, a separate tax on a separate selected group? It does not even apply to all employers. It will apply to employers in some areas by way of proclamation over and above what they pay in normal taxation. The hon. the Minister is introducing this as a permanent part of our legislation. It is an impost on the manufacturer to be passed on, after increases from profit mark-ups, to the consumer.

The hon. the Minister in introducing this Bill has in a matter of a few minutes simply said that they were introducing this principle because it was necessary. But, Mr. Speaker, his National Transport Commission controls all public road transport in South Africa. No bus can operate unless it has a permit from the Road Transport Commission. But what is happening? When he builds a railway line he says to the bus-users: You are producing an economic and efficient service; we are going to stop you operating because you are competing with the Railways and you are taking people away from the Railways. That is what he is doing in Durban. Because his railways cannot compete and because there is an efficient and cheaper road service available, he says that he is going to stop that road service. Then he comes here and he talks of economic and efficient services. But he is trying to prevent economic services. Who is going to get the subsidy? It will be people who are not producing an economic and reasonable service.

The case you are quoting is sub judice.

I did not know that it had been referred to court.

The hon. the Minister is creating yet another addition to State administration. He said the National Transport Commission was going to handle this. He is going to have to find staff to collect the money, staff to administer the funds, to keep the records, staff to deal with the payment of the subsidies and staff to handle whatever system is going to be used in the selling of tickets. More and more people are being required to carry out a job which could quite simply be handled as a normal matter of Government administration out of revenue, where it is paid by the taxpayer through normal channels and from where it is simply disbursed through the department as any other payment would be.

We are opposed not to the subsidization which we believe necessary, but we are opposed to the method of subsidization.

Mr. Speaker, by this time we have already accepted the fact that in dealing with the hon. member for Durban Point we are dealing with the master of exaggeration; his only competition will come from the hon. member for King William’s Town. I should not like to delve into his exaggerations. This will probably be dealt with in the course of the debate by one or other of my colleagues. The spectacle the Opposition presents again today with its standpoint on this matter is really one of “running with the hares and hunting with the hounds". Last year in the debate about the hon. the Minister of Transport’s vote the hon. members on the Opposition side who represent the Port Elizabeth complex were the ones who particularly advocated this step before the House today. What is the Opposition’s standpoint now? Now that the measure is before the House it is one of opposition. Do hon. members know why this is so? The hon. member for Durban Point threw up an infinite number of smokescreens here this afternoon. The fact is they had a standpoint until another boss spoke to them, a boss that had to determine what their standpoint would be. That boss who has now spoken is the Federated Chamber of Industries. This captive Opposition must now adopt the standpoint prescribed for it by the F.C.I. Hon. members may listen to arguments raised here. In the previous debate it was alleged that the Minister had said this was and would be a temporary measure. Of course the hon. the Minister said so. He said more than that. He said it would be a temporary measure until such time as better wages are paid. The hon. Opposition is, in any case, not the one to do the most talking about the question of a “temporary” aspect. In 1948 they said that this Government was only a temporary one, but that “temporary” state has now lasted almost a quarter of a century. The argument is that this tax is a sectional one, and we concede that it is, but would it be less discriminatory if the subsidy were paid from the Consolidated Revenue Fund where everyone pays, whether he be benefited by the Coloureds’ labour or not? The hon. member for Durban Point is the person who continually puts on the pinafore of concern about the housewife. Does he now want the housewife in Tiervlei or in Epping to pay by way of the Consolidated Revenue Fund so that the Indians in Chatsworth can go and work in the industries in Durban? That is surely a farce. They merely want to conceal a payment by channelling it via the Consolidated Revenue Fund. He then lodges a plea here for the housewife, but in the meantime he is leading the housewife up the garden path. These arguments are simply tilting at windmills, because the hon. Opposition’s main object today is simply to get at the Government. It knows that it can best do this by complete verbal confusion on that side of the House so that no one outside can know what their standpoint is. The main argument is that because the State is creating separate residential areas, the State must pay the transport account. But the House need not specifically take my word for it that it is the view that separate residential areas specifically entail this additional expenditure. I shall call upon the hon. member for Walmer, who is unfortunately not present, and let him state what the United Party’s standpoint is. During a discussion last year the hon. member for Walmer said the following (Hansard, Vol. 33, col. 2968)—

In column 2968 he continues—

Please note, here the hon. member says by way of an allegation that these people, the Coloureds, can no longer choose where they want to live. May I now ask hon. members on that side of the House if under their policy the Coloureds can choose where they want to live? [Interjections.] We shall probably not get the answer. We shall come back to that question. During the discussion on the previous piece of legislation, the hon. member for Yeoville specifically expressed himself on this matter. I have his unrevised Hansard here. Hon. members must now listen to how he sketches the matter. He states—

He says the United Party advocates that to a larger degree and the National Party to a lesser degree. Brakpan stories sound like that. The hon. member for Green Point is a little more careful. He qualifies this story of separate residential areas. I want to quote what the hon. member said in 1969 in this connection about certain problems that crop up. He said (Hansard, Vol. 27, col. 6170)—

Then the hon. member for Brakpan, Mr. G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, who is no longer here, asked him the following question—

The hon. member for Green Point answered as follows—

You see, the United Party is to a larger extent the party for separate residential areas, but that hon. member wants this on a voluntary basis. This is surely cheap talk that one can get sick of. Then it is specifically that party which is hypersensitive when we on this side of the House charge them with being double-talkers. Our charge is that perhaps without meaning to they are creating the breeding ground for agitators by creating that grievance and hate, those thoughts in the minds of the Coloureds that they are being wronged by separate residential areas. I want to go further. In the hon. the Deputy Minister’s handling of the Transport Vote last year, the hon. member for Walmer had more to say, specifically about the bus fares for Coloureds in Port Elizabeth. I now want to let him speak again before I let the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central have a word. In Hansard Vol. 33, col. 5210, of 26th April, 1971, the hon. member for Walmer states the following—

One now sees how this hon. member at one and the same time throws the cloak of prosecutor and judge around his shoulders without having any exhaustive knowledge at all of what the situation there in Port Elizabeth was like, as I shall indicate at a later stage. That is surely the language of the agitator. When we say this, hon. members opposite are hypersensitive about it. Last year the hon. member for Houghton also sang in the same choir with the hon. members for Walmer, Port Elizabeth Central and Newton Park. I want to give you the assurance, Sir, that they formed a first-rate quartet. So excellent were they that when the applause came forth out of the darkness the hon. member for Houghton was ready to jump in ahead of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central for an encore, and she then sang a solo. I shall tell hon. members what solo the hon. member for Houghton sang on that occasion. She said that if it is the policy of apartheid to shift people round they deserved to be subsidized. In other words, this is precisely what is contained in the Bill now before the House. However, when the hon. member for Houghton stole a march on him, then already singing a different aria because she made no qualifications about how the subsidizing should be done, and before the final curtain fell on this scene, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central popped up, because after all he had to trump what the hon. member for Houghton said. He himself then spoke about the increased fares. I want to quote what the hon. member then said. He said (Hansard, vol. 33, col. 5223)—

Is that true?

Yes.

Let us then compare this with what was said by the hon. member for Yeoville, who is to a larger extent an advocate of separation of residential areas. The hon. member for Yeoville says it is a national policy and one that has been agreed upon. Where does the hon. member get his information from when he says that in most cases the Coloureds suffer at the hands of National Party policy? This hon. gentleman of Port Elizabeth Central is probably not known in this House as a master of original thought, but I would like to see any agitator who could do better than he does.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “agitator”.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw it. As I indicated, this hon. member was busy with an encore, and I shall now quote the concluding sentence of this sobsong of his. I quote from Hansard (Vol. 33, col 5223) of 26th April, 1971—

What is then before this House this afternoon? It is a piece of legislation modeled on these very lines. The hon. the Deputy Minister was so moved by that plea of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central that he could not get to this House fast enough to introduce this legislation. I am not a man who makes bets, but I would be prepared to wager 100 to 1 that he will also personally oppose this legislation today. I want to ask how long we can still afford this type of foolish play-acting. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central is very fond of addressing Shakespearean quotations to me to demonstrate his English culture to me, but he should realize that he must not do his clowning here when sensitive race relations are at issue. Let me tell these hon. members who were so long-winded about Port Elizabeth’s bus services, who actually … Sir, you would not allow me to say what I want to say.

Let me rather analyse the situation in respect of the Port Elizabeth bus services that are involved in this legislation and as a result of which this allegation was made at the time. The allegation was made in respect of the Coloureds in Port Elizabeth who were resettled in Gelvandale, to the effect that the increased bus fares were due to the fact that this Government had re-settled people in certain areas and in particular in Gelvandale. I shall now mention to you the three Coloured re-settlement areas in Port Elizabeth. Chiefly they were Southend, Salisbury Park and Fairview. From these three mixed areas the Coloureds were re-settled in a communal Coloured development area at Gelvandale. I now also just want to mention as background that the industrial areas in Port Elizabeth, on the other hand, are also concentrated in three large complexes, i.e. Struandale, Deal Party and Neave Township. Those are the three main industrial areas. Today I want to give you a comparison of what it cost an ordinary Coloured labourer in industry in Port Elizabeth, when he lived in those old areas, to go to one of these industrial areas. Before the increase in the bus fares a Coloured who lived in Salisbury Park and wanted to go to Deal Party took two buses at 9 and 7 cents respectively, making a total of 16 cents. That is the single fare. From Gelvandale to Deal Party the new fare is 12 cents. In other words, this increased fare from Gelvandale to the industrial area is 4 cents less. If the Coloured lived in Southend it cost him 12 cents for two trips; in other words, the fare was the same. If he lived in Fairview, it cost him 8 cents plus 7 cents; in other words, 15 cents. Notwithstanding the increased bus fares, it only cost him 12 cents from Gelvandale. If he wanted to go to Struandale it cost him 17 cents from Salisbury Park. From Gelvandale the fare is 12 cents. From Southend it cost him 13 cents and from Gelvandale 12 cents. From Fairview it would have cost him 16 cents; with the increased fare from Gelvandale it cost him 12 cents, in other words, still 4 cents less. The fare from Salisbury Park to Neave Township was 15 cents; after the increase it cost a mere 8 cents from Gelvandale. In other words, these hon. members expressed opinions here about a position they had not the vaguest knowledge of. That trio from Port Elizabeth and the hon. member for Houghton walked in marching file with the priest and the agitator to prove to the Coloured how he was wronged. Then the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central has the temerity to say here that what happened in Gelvandale is symptomatic of what the Coloured in South Africa suffers. Now these gentlemen come along as advocates, not for the Coloureds or the ordinary taxpayers, but for the Federated Chamber of Industries.

And for the big capitalists.

Last year I myself tried to make out a case here indicating that the industrialist could assist in the optimum utilization of our transport services. I do not want to quote in toto from that now, but I do want to quote just one extract pertaining to what I mentioned at the time. I quote from Hansard (vol. 33, col. 5174)—

Emphasize that.

Then I concluded by saying—

The hon. the Deputy Minister did make that appeal to our industrialists. At the time we indicated in detail how our transport services could operate on a cheaper cost structure if there is this co-operation between certain zones. But notwithstanding the hon. the Minister’s appeal and the fact that bus companies followed up that request with reference to the Federated Chamber of Industries, there was only one industry that declared itself prepared to take part in the scheme. Only the Rupert organization was prepared to fall in with this arrangement. In other words, Sir, it could not be done. Instead of these gentlemen today trying to act as advocates for the F.C.I., the men who are well-endowed with capital, they should rather also do their share in trying to achieve that arrangement so that we can have optimum utilization at a low cost structure of the bus services that are at the disposal of these industries and of the Coloureds. It is no use our standing and making a fuss, saying that this subsidy must be paid from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, where it is essentially concealed, instead of involving the people who essentially utilize Coloured labour to the maximum. That is why we support the Second Reading. We look forward with gratitude to the period when Coloureds will be able to make use of these subsidized services with greater convenience to themselves and also to us.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Tygervallei spoke extremely disparagingly about my hon. colleagues who made out a case here last year for Coloured transport. He spoke disparagingly because these people allegedly acted …

He did not speak disparagingly; he merely stated what they said.

He spoke disparagingly about them because the people allegedly acted as advocates for the Coloureds who had transport problems. [Interjections.] The hon. member was so concerned about the situation in Port Elizabeth that at one stage I thought that if perhaps Tygervallei became unsafe in the future he would want to move to P.E., so well is he acquainted with conditions there. The fact is that the hon. member spoke disparagingly about the “trio” who came in here and stated a case for Coloured transport. Why did he speak so disparagingly?

Because they are so stupid.

Yes, there you have it! It is because the Coloureds have a case. To prove how sound a case the Coloureds and my hon. three friends had, hon. members specifically have before them this afternoon a Bill giving substance to the substantial matter those three hon. gentlemen came along to state here. A year ago three United Party colleagues came to the House and stated the case of Coloured transport.

And now the hon. the Minister comes along and acknowledges this.

If that is so, why does the hon. member for Tygervallei try to make us look ridiculous?

Because you vote against it.

Sir, I know why he does this. He would like to indicate to the public at large that we intercede for the Coloureds so that he can again play Coloured politics out there. Sir, the hon. gentleman spoke here of separation and more separation. I want to put this simple question to him if he is so concerned about the measure of separation: Will he concede that the contribution that must now be made for Coloured transport is the direct result of the measure of separation that exists between the Coloureds’ place of residence and their employers.

Of course.

If the hon. gentleman agrees that separation is the reason for this Bill and if he boasts about the fact that the Government is responsible for the separation, why does he then want to burden the employer with payment for his Government policy?

Separation of residential areas is also your policy.

If it is also my policy, why do hon. members on that side argue about it then; why do they try to prove that it is not my policy? Hon. gentlemen on that side want their bread buttered on both sides. But I go further.

Your old father wasn’t all that stupid.

No, the fact is just that I can see through the smokescreen the hon. member is trying to throw up. If that hon. member is trying to make a great fuss here about the separation and the fact that that separation is responsible for the Coloureds’ transport problem, I want to tell him that he will realize why we are dealing here with an extremely touchy matter. Mr. Speaker, you and I know that today the Coloured regards the transport problem as one of the symbols of Government policy, and that is specifically why the Government is in such disfavour with them. Sir, the other problem I have with the hon. member for Tygervallei is this: he wants to imply, as it were, that the employer is a terrible person; that the industrialist makes impossible profits: that if it were not for his presence the Coloureds would not have had any transport problem. He wants to imply that the employer, the industrialist, is actually responsible for these problems. Sir, let us place the matter in perspective.

To a certain extent he is and therefore he must pay more.

What would happen to the Coloureds if the industrialists were not there to give them work? [Laughter] Sir, listen to them laughing. The time has come for us to see the matter in perspective and not tell the employer we are going to punish him because he gives work to the Coloureds.

But who says that?

The whole matter has its origins in the punitive measure introduced by the hon. the Minister of Transport.

Now you are talking rubbish.

No, I know what I am talking about. In 1957, when the hon. the Minister of Transport discovered for the first time …

Discovered what? The levy was introduced in 1952.

The levy of 1952 was introduced for quite another reason.

No.

The levy of 5 cents, of 6d. at the time, was an altogether different question, and the hon. gentleman knows it.

What was it for?

The hon. the Deputy Minister may go and read that debate for himself.

What was the purpose of its introduction?

I do not want to go into that.

You do not know what it is all about.

It was for the provision of communication services be tween the city and the Bantu area …

Exactly.

… the building of roads, etc.

That is not so.

That is so; the hon. member must read the debates again. We know how the hon. the Minister of Transport came along to this House and said: “The industrialists said they were going to pay £25 000 …”

That was in 1957.

Yes, that was in 1957; I am speaking of 1957.

You are very muddled.

No. The hon. the Minister of Transport told the industrialists at the time: “You must go ahead; I am not going to take the baby off your laps, because it was owing to you that the boycott succeeded and from here onwards you will have to feed the baby and not I”. The 1957 Act was then introduced, and subsequently the industrialist was burdened as he is burdened today. It was a punitive measure, Sir. But let us get the facts straight. The labour which the Coloured gives to the employer, and the employer’s share in it, are all a part of our greater national economy. They are all a part of the growth and prosperity of South Africa. If we now want to punish the employer because he gives work to the Coloured or the Bantu, what becomes of South Africa? This is surely at the root of all our progress. That is why the United Party says that the State ought to see the matter as we see it and pay the tax, specifically because the labour is provided and specifically because we are dealing here with a national matter.

What do we now have, Sir? Here the employer is being subsidized. The subsidy is paid over to the Transport Commission, and the Transport Commission subsidizes the transport companies, the bus companies, in their turn. The transport companies transport all Coloureds, regardless of the salary the individual earns. The well-to-do Coloured, as well as the Coloured who cannot afford it, will be able to travel at the same cheap fare; there will be no distinction. But what is more —hon. members are proud of that—they say the housewife is being excluded and that she does not need to pay. But that housewife’s Coloured servant, or that man’s garden boy, also makes use of the cheap transport subsidized by the employer. It is no use telling this story about the housewife being excluded. Here is the truth: The employer is now being asked to pay for the housewife. [Interjections]. Sir, it is so simple after all. If those hon. members would only study the matter they would understand it. The bus company does not ask where the Coloured man or woman works. The bus company is subsidized by the Transport Commission, and because of that it can offer low fares to the people travelling with that bus company.

Man, you are in a muddle.

No, Sir. All these hundreds of Coloureds who work in Sea Point …

There are surely no factories in Sea Point.

All the hundreds of Coloured women who work in Sea Point will travel by bus, and that bus service is subsidized by the employer.

Nonsense!

But of course. I wonder whether the hon. the Deputy Minister will tell me whether I am correct. Will the housewife’s servant also be able now to travel cheaply by bus? Will the housewife’s servant also be able to make use of the subsidized bus service?

Only in the proclaimed areas.

Mr. Speaker, Sea Point will be proclaimed.

No.

Why not? What about the hundreds of hotels in Sea Point, or will they not be paying? Just as those workers from the Sea Point hotels will make use of the cheap service, so will housewives also employ servants making use of the cheap service. Who will then pay for that? The employer will pay for it. And that is not the end of the story. I used the term “pickpocket tax”, and I want to repeat it. I said it is a “pickpocket tax”.

“Pickpocket” is a good word.

Yes, I am satisfied with “pickpocket”. Take the employer. Let us take, for argument’s sake, a man who makes candles. [Interjections.] Brakpan has completely fused that hon. member’s light. The manufacturer makes candles, wherever he may be situated. I wish you had the candles in Brakpan, then things would perhaps have gone better. Sir, let us continue with the story. [Interjections.] That person who produces the candles will simply add those extra subsidies, that extra levy or tax, to the costs of his product, and that housewife my hon. friend boasts about so much will pay the extra costs. But the point is that the housewife does not know that she is indirectly paying that levy. She does not know that she is being taxed indirectly to pay for the transport. She does not know that she is being taxed indirectly to pay for Government policy. That is why I say it is a “pickpocket tax”; it is a tax one pays and which is taken out of one’s own pocket without one knowing it. What is more, tens of thousands of rand are going to be paid to the Transport Commission. This is a levy that is being imposed here today by legislation; it is money that is going out, beyond the control of this House. And the supreme duty of this House throughout history has been to ensure that finances are controlled. That control is now being done away with, as it was done away with in all the levies passed here in the last few days, levies amounting to millions of rand. I say this is wrong. It is a mistake. It should not be allowed by people who are jealous of the duties and the powers of this House. But what is more, Sir, have you already thought what it is going to cost to collect all these funds? In future every employer will have to open a special account and undertake special administrative work merely to pay this fund. By comparison, if one could simply impose a central levy as a State tax the administrative costs would be much less. Just examine this Bill and see what must be paid. All manner of costs have to be paid from these fees, and they are all fees that must now be paid specifically because we are dealing with a separate levy. My argument is that this is totally unnecessary. In principle this side of the House is unanimous that as a result of the socio-economic circumstances of the Coloureds we have no other option but to subsidize their transport costs, but the big point at issue is how this must be done. I have heard no case whatsoever advanced from the other side, except that the person primarily responsible for the presence of the Coloureds here is the employer and therefore he must pay it. I say that if the employer benefits from the Coloured’s labour, from that of the female Coloured, the Indian and the Bantu, it is also to the benefit of the whole of South Afrca, because South Africa as a whole is gaining from it.

Indirectly, yes.

Directly or indirectly —it makes no difference. How can the employer pay his normal tax if we do not enable him to provide employment to his people by putting up a factory? It is surely an absurd argument to hold the employer responsible for this. No, it is a part of the whole economic pattern of South Africa, and the sooner we realize this the better. The time has passed when we could break the South African economy up into facets. Where do we get the right to hold the employer responsible for the presence of the Bantu? He surely contributes as much to the country’s progress as any other man in South Africa, and why can the State not subsidize the contributions? By the way—and the hon. member for False Bay knows this well enough—the Cape Province, is already subsidizing the bus companies from central sources, one may just as well say from Government sources. The State is already subsidizing the Railways from central sources.

Yes, but they do their share.

Where does this deviation now come from, this side-track, these extra administrative costs, and are people again expected to incur extra expense, to do more administrative work and bookkeeping. This is surely totally unnecessary. There is only one reason for this—so that the hon. the Deputy Minister and his party can go to the public and say: Yes, the Coloured’s transport is being subsidized; the Indian’s transport is being subsidized; the Bantu’s transport is being subsidized, but you pay nothing; no, the employers pay and, as the hon. the Minister said the majority of them are United Party supporters. That is the only excuse there is. No excuse, no case whatsoever, has been made out for this except a weak excuse with which to achieve political advantage, and for that reason South Africa must forfeit thousands of rands by way of administrative costs. The hon. member for Durban Point was quite correct. If the employer pushes up his costs by 1 per cent as a result of this levy, the housewife will one day be paying 5 per cent more when this reaches the consumer.

That case has been well pleaded.

I wish the hon. Minister of Defence would take a look at the purchase tax for once. At factory level it is 15 per cent, but 35 per cent to 40 per cent at consumer level, the consumer having to pay tax upon tax. Where was the hon. member last year when we emphasized the same point? This is a direct increase of the cost of living, and why? To achieve a single weak political advantage, and the hon. Minister knows it. The majority of the employers are United Party supporters, after all, and they must pay. The people do not pay, yet eventually they do pay, and as in Brakpan you will not be able to fool the people now either. They see through the smokescreen and they will vote for us and not for you.

No two United Party members ever tell the same story. Today the housewife was held up here as a screen to conceal the lack of policy of the United Party. The hon. member for Durban Point is dissatisfied because the housewife has not been included. The hon. member for Maitland, on the other hand, says this is so much politicking on our part; the housewives will not pay, their employees will travel free of charge.

Not free of charge.

Sir, these people will only travel on certain buses. For the most part the factories are not situated in those White residential areas to which the servants go to work for the housewives. These employers will pay for their employees who travel to the factories, and they are not situated in the White residential areas.

But they travel on the same bus.

The hon. member made out a terrible case here against the hon. member for Tygervallei, who had supposedly made such disparaging remarks about his colleague.

That is correct.

I do not know since when it can be disparaging to quote from hon. members’ Hansard to see what they said. Sir, I think they are ashamed. I think the hon. member for Port Elizabeth is very ashamed of what he said last year and what he is saying today. Sir, these hon. members are always promoting a dualistic policy. The hon. member for Maitland and the other hon. members opposite have advocated that this tax should be paid by all taxpayers. That is interesting. A few years ago the Provincial Administration of the Cape Province made an amount of plus/minus R300 000 available to the bus services in Cape Town to subsidize them when third party insurance as well as motor vehicle licences went up. That came out of the State coffers. And do hon. members know that the United Party members in the Provincial Council opposed it. That was not sectional. That was not only for Coloureds, Indians, or for these people or those people. It was for all who travelled on those buses. I am referring now to the amount made available by the province in the form of a subsidy. Their Party opposed it.

That is a different matter.

There was one argument they raked up here against this legislation. This was also the case in respect of previous legislation. The argument is that it is supposedly a sectional tax.

When those hon. members were in power, hospital services were paid for according to income, as is still the case today. This is a sectional tax. Under their régime school-fees were, over the years, paid by some people—not by all in South Africa. Some people paid for their children’s school books. To my way of thinking sectional tax is as old as the hills. The consumer and user of an article pays for it. It is not all the taxpayers who pay for it.

Who pays excise duty on tobacco? All the taxpayers in South Africa? Who pays the duty on liquor? Is that not a sectional tax? If that is not a sectional tax, I do not know what kind of tax a sectional tax is. After all, you do not force the entire population to pay duty on tobacco and liquor, and so on. The consumers pay for that. I can see no reason whatsoever why the users of labourers should not pay. They should pay for their services. Why should they not pay for their employees’ transportation?

They pay for it in any case.

In any case?

In the form of taxation.

No, he is shifting it on to the State. In this country of ours the State is supposed to do everything for industry. The State must supply them with houses. It is the State which has to create the infrastructure in South Africa. Why cannot these people then pay for the services?

I want to put a question to those hon. friends of ours today: The most important accusation they have for a few weeks now been making in the debate against this legislation and the previous legislation was that this Government wants to make people pay for its policy.

You say that.

No, you say that.

Who must pay for the implementation of the policy of apartheid?

The people.

Of course it is the taxpayer, or the people; they voted for it. That is the Government’s only source of revenue. The Government gets its money from the taxpayer, and I have no objection whatsoever to the taxpayers paying for this. After all, it is the policy for which the taxpayer voted, and the taxpayer is prepared to pay for it.

He even pretends that he is also in favour of it.

Oh, if it suits him, the hon. member for Sea Point is one of the great champions of separate residential areas. That is what happens when he is faced with a Progressive Party opponent in Sea Point. Then he fought such a battle in the front lines that the English-language Press had to write him off as an arch-enemy.

He even wanted to keep the swimming baths White.

As far as sectional tax is concerned, I want to tell hon. members that if there is one group of people in this country who have paid sectional tax over the years, then it is the farmers. They pay sectional tax and never in the history of this House has a United Party member stood up to suggest that the farmers of South Africa are paying a sectional tax. The State does not supply the housing of the employees and the labourers of the farming population, the farmers have to do this themselves. The State did not create an infrastructure for the farmers’ labourers. The State is not responsible for their water, fuel and lights; it is the farmer himself who is responsible for that.

Medical services too.

As far as medical services and transportation are concerned, let me tell hon. members today that if a farmer’s labourers fall ill, he cannot put them on a subsidized bus. Often his farm is 60 miles or 100 miles from town, and then he has to bring the labourer to a doctor himself. In addition to that he must still pay the account. This is the real position in South Africa. Let us go further. The employees of the manufacturer and the industrialist are given schools. Who must supply the schools in the rural areas and in the outlying districts? The farmers themselves. They must take out loans in order to supply these schools, and the rate of interest on those loans is 8, 7 and 5 per cent. In addition to that the farmers are responsible for the maintenance of that building.

You farmer haters!

That has been the position over the years, but not one of the hon. members on that side of the House has ever stood up to say that this, as far as the farmer is concerned, is a sectional tax. But if the employer of the Bantu, the Indians or the Coloureds has to make a contribution to the services he receives from his employees, they come along and say that it is a sectional tax. I say it is not a sectional tax. They make the profits, and as a matter of fact, the major employers and the big capitalists in South Africa have always paid their employees too little. It is not this Government’s fault that there is a vast gap between the wages of the Whites and the wages of the non-Whites. The Government knows what its duty is. As far as the teachers and the public servants are concerned, the State is already closing that gap. Recently, and this was not many years ago—it happened in the course of the past two or three years— the Coloured teachers received two increases. The State is in truth closing that gap. What is private enterprise doing, since the State does not prevent them from paying their people more, but only determines a minimum wage? As a result of the Government’s policy of separate development the big capitalists have succeeded in placing the blame for everything which goes wrong at the door of the Government. The hon. members on that side of the House have revealed to me today what has been wrong all these years, and is still wrong The fault lies with them and those who think like them.

The hon. member for Malmesbury concluded his speech with that ancient type of politicking which we have had in South Africa before. The hon. member tried to create the impression again that this side of the House and the major industrialists in South Africa are supposedly not paying their workers properly. The old Hoggenheimer stories one expected …

Did you not say it yourself last year?

What did I say?

That these people are not paying their employees properly?

Oh please, you are talking nonsense.

We shall see.

I shall quote what I said at the time, if the hon. the Deputy Minister wants to hear it.

The hon. member for Malmesbury said that he cannot see why the user of labour should not pay for the transportation of that labour. But does the hon. member not see the difference? Here an indirect tax is being levied on the man who is going to employ Indians and Coloureds. If the hon. member says that he cannot see why the user of labour should not pay this, I want to ask him at once why a tax is not also being levied on that man who employs White labourers. Why does the hon. member not ask Parliament to come forward with a tax on the thousands of people who are employing White labourers in factories?

Their buses are not being subsidized

Precisely. That is the whole point. Now that hon. member says that he does not see the difference. We see the difference very clearly. We realize that it is the function of the State to render certain services in certain respects. The State creates the infrastructure, and the question of transport, the question of railways, is its responsibility. Surely that hon. member cannot say that they want to evade their responsibility in this respect and that it should be left to the employer of labour to help pay for the transportation of these people. Where is it going to end if it has to go on like this? We on this side of the House—hon. members have repeated it I do not know how many times—are not opposed to any form of subsidy We know that the transportation of these people must be subsidized because they are not in a position to pay for it themselves. From what other source is the money going to come? I want to ask the hon. member for Malmesbury whether the provincial administrations, when they subsidized the bus services a few years ago, introduced a special levy on the employers? No, it came out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the province. That is all we are asking this Government to do.

You opposed it at the time.

The hon. member for Tygervallei stated that although this side of the House had asked for the same thing last year, during that debate, we were now opposing it and that we had been telling certain agitators and certain clergymen what to say. Apparently the hon. member is not acquainted with the background to what happened last year in Port Elizabeth. The hon. member said that he is better acquainted with the background to this matter than I am. I wonder whether the hon. member went to the trouble to read the Cleary report.

Yes, man.

If the hon. member had gone to the trouble to do that, he would not have risen to his feet here today and talked such absolute nonsense about what happened in Port Elizabeth. What did Mr. Cleary say? In his report Mr. Cleary stated the following quite clearly: “The increase in bus fares was just a catalyst which triggered off general public resentment of numerous aspects of urban conditions in Coloured townships and the rising cost of living”. Mr. Cleary also mentioned certain figures. He said that there were approximately 97 000 Coloureds in the Port Elizabeth area who comprised approximately 24 per cent of the urban population of Port Elizabeth. What is even more significant is that of a total of 29 000 Coloureds who are economically active in Port Elizabeth, 58 per cent are employed in industry, 24 per cent in the services, 9,8 per cent in construction and 8,6 per cent in commerce. These people were moved out to Gelvandale and many of them are already living in Bethelsdorp today. These people simply could not accept —since many of them are already living below the bread-line that they should absorb the increased bus fares. These are the facts of the matter.

But they were, after all, lower than the previous fares in the other residential areas.

I admit the hon. member is correct on that score. The bus fares were perhaps less than they would have had to pay from Fairview or from South End to the factory area, but the hon. member forgets that since a few years ago there has been a fantastic increase in the cost of living. This was, as Mr. Cleary made very clear in his report, not the only reason why there was trouble. He said that “the increase in bus fares was just the catalyst which triggered off the general public resentment”. What is also of importance in that report is the following: “The bus boycott found the common frustrations of rich and poor were completely alike”. In other words, the richer and more well-to-do Coloureds indentified themselves completely with the less well-to-do Coloureds. This was because the cost of living had increased to such an extent, and because general conditions in Gelvandale, where these people are living today, are not what they should be. There is no shopping centre, for example, nor are there the normal facilities in the form of halls. The cultural activities of these people are suffering as a result. Nor are there enough playgrounds and sports fields either. This increase in the bus fares was the last straw which broke the camel’s back. If the hon. member now thinks that these people are capable of absorbing those increased fares, he must bear in mind what the University of Port Elizabeth found in a survey they made of the income of Coloureds. They found that there were 8 341 men, 54,3 per cent of all full-time Coloured workers, who were earning less than R67 per month. Cleary made it very clear in his report that the poverty datum line should not be less than R70 per month. If one bears in mind that 68 per cent of the full-time Coloured workers in Port Elizabeth travel by bus, one can understand why the increases in the bus fares gave rise to those difficulties. We realize, however, that this was not the main cause, and that there were many other reasons for that as well. But to imply here now, as hon. members on the opposite side did, that the United Party pleaded last year for something similar to what is contained in this legislation, is absurd. What we pleaded for last year was that there should be a form of subsidy, and that it should, not only be paid by the employers of South Africa, but that it should be paid by the State through the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Where did you say that?

Quote!

Last year, when we had that discussion here, there was not one member on this side of the House who created the impression that we were in favour of a sectional tax only on the employers of South Africa. The hon. member knows that that is the case. The employers of Port Elizabeth or of Cape Town who employ Coloureds are regarded by us as being people who are not only helping to keep the economy of South Africa going, but also as important contributors to the general income of South Africa.

And the farmers?

I shall still come to the matter of the farmers. We think that to levy this tax on these people today is not only unfair, it is also unjustifiable in the sense that those very people who have to keep the development of South Africa going, are being singled out. This will lead to the employers of Coloureds and Indians again having less confidence in the future as a result of the passage of this legislation, because they will regard this legislation as a way of restricting their future growth. That is why this tax is so unfair. I now want to ask why it is impossible to allow this subsidy to come out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Hon. members on the opposite side say that only certain industrialists and employers will need to pay this tax. However, let us look at the definition of an employer as defined in clause 1 of the Bill. They will then see that it is any person who employs these people. According to clause 1 an employer is “a person who employs one or more adult Coloured persons or Indians, and includes the State and any person who manages the business of an employer”. One of the ensuing clauses gives the State, the Minister, the right to demarcate certain areas in which this tax will be in force. Now if one takes, for example, the case of an hotel or a boarding-house employing 50 Coloureds and Indians—the same applies to flat-owners —is the hon. the Deputy Minister going to inform an area like Sea Point that it need not pay this levy? The same question can also be put to the hon. the Deputy Minister in respect of Constantia or Simonstown, for example. There is not an area in which there has been a little development in the shape of factories or in the shape of services which this hon. Deputy Minister cannot include under this legislation.

But services may, after all, be included.

Precisely. That is my whole point. The question which the hon. member for Maitland put to the hon. the Deputy Minister is whether a person could have the situation that the employers of Sea Point, for example, may be excluded from paying this levy, while their Coloured employees will also in due course make use of those services.

The same bus.

Yes, the same bus and the same service. If the hon. the Deputy Minister is going to discriminate in this way …

If the route serving Sea Point has to be subsidized, and their are services such as hotels and boarding-houses in Sea Point, that levy can be charged to those services.

We realize that. If the hon. gentleman wants to, he can tell certain employers that the tax will not be levied on them. He can apply even greater discrimination in terms of this measure. Why cannot the amount therefore come from the Consolidated Revenue Fund? The factory owners and other employers who keep the wheels rolling are already paying taxes today in scores of ways, whether it is divisional council tax, municipal tax, health tax or income tax. There is not a form of tax which they do not have to pay. The hon. the Deputy Minister is now, however, also going to levy a tax in respect of the employees they have in their employ. How can he therefore expect the Federated Chamber of Industries, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Afrikaanse Sakekamer to have any confidence in this legislation? That is why the Midlands Chamber of Industries sent us all telegrams saying “Oppose this legislation”. [Interjections.] That is old news. We said before that we had received these telegrams. But of course, after Brakpan, they remember nothing and they do not know what is happening in this House. I cannot for one moment believe that the industrialists and the businessmen of South Africa are so unpatriotic and unfair that they are not prepared to make sacrifices for South Africa’s development. They are in fact prepared to do this; but what they are not prepared to do, is that a tax should be imposed upon them here, which they alone should pay, while all other people will benefit from it.

Then the hon. gentlemen said that the farmers of South Africa were making sacrifices in this respect. The hon. gentlemen were quite correct. I am pleased the hon. member for Malmesbury raised the housing position and the question of transport. But I should like to point out to the hon. member that in our farming system in South Africa, as a result of our vast distances, it is absolutely essential that the labourers should be on the farm. This is unlike certain European countries where the labourers can live in the towns and travel out to the farms every day. That is why the South African farmer prefers, and his circumstances lend themselves to this, that he should in fact have his labourers with him on his farm.

At his own expense.

That is quite correct. We are not arguing about that. But now the farmer has this advantage that if he wants to make provision for housing on his farm today, he can go to the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure and obtain loans at a reduced rate of interest. But that is not the point. The point is that since South Africa is becoming a manufacturing country, since the manufacturing industry is making a greater contribution to the national income, since they are employing more and more people, and are consequently making a greater contribution to the State coffers, this legislation will only be of a discriminating nature, and we will not have the progress we ought to have.

You want the farmers to subsidize the industrialists.

The hon. member is talking absolute nonsense, for he knows that the farming sector, the commercial and the industrial sectors are all interdependent in South Africa.

I now want to conclude by showing the hon. members how serious the situation is among the Coloured population group in that they are in fact not able to pay for their own transport. In this regard one must for example bear in mind the figures which Prof. Erika Theron furnished last year when she said (translation)—

What is the point?

Sir, if the situation is as serious as all that, then I think that we should in fact help them. If they have not yet been raised economically to such an extent that they are able to make a contribution to South Africa’s prosperity, then I think that these peoples’ transport, particularly if they are living in the city, should be subsidized. I think South Africa as a whole realizes today that there is in the hearts of the Whites a far greater willingness to make sacrifices, particularly in the interests of the Coloureds of the Cape. I do not think that the taxpayer of the country would mind if such a subsidy, which is necessary for the transportation of Coloureds, were to come from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. I think that they will accept and welcome this, and that is why hon. members on that side ought to think further, instead of wanting to tax only one group in South Africa in this respect.

Mr. Speaker, I have always been under the impression that the United Party has only one master, and that that master is the Press which forces them to hold frequent conferences with certain editors in Johannesburg. But from the speech made by the hon. member for Newton Park this afternoon, it is clear to me that a second master has emerged for the United Party and that that master is the Chambers of Commerce and the Chambers of Industries, which send them so many telegrams. It seems to me as though hon. members on that side have been instructed to speak here on behalf of those interested parties. One asks oneself what interests they have in the matter.

Sir, two principles are involved in this, two basic sets of facts which, in a certain sense of the word, have to be reconciled with each other as they are also opposites, and this is precisely what is envisaged in this legislation before us today. In the first instance there is the principle that one should maintain efficient transportation in any modern, sophisticated, industrialized community, because the workers must have the opportunity to be conveyed from their homes, which must be decent homes, to the factories and places of employment where they have to earn their living. Therefore it is absolutely essential for efficient transport services to be maintained. The infrastructure of transport must be present, and therefore it is also essential for one to have, in addition to the Railway services, which are maintained by the State in this instance, other feeder services such as bus services. This is an absolute necessity, and irrespective of whether these feeder services are maintained by a public body such as a city council or a utility company or whether they are maintained by a private company with a profit motive, the principle remains the same; it ought to be placed on a paying basis. Of course, with the rising costs we find that the tariffs for making use of these services, are constantly rising. Therefore the one basic principle is that the necessary transport services must be available and that they must be maintained on a paying basis.

On the other hand, it is a fact that the tariffs charged by some of these services so as to render their efficient maintenance possible, are such that certain groups of employees are able to pay them with difficulty only. That is the other side to the matter. There are not, as the hon. member for Durban Point suggested in this House this afternoon, 2 million people who find themselves in such a straitened position; there are not 2 million Coloured people and Indians who live below the breadline or who find themselves in these straitened circumstances. This is the figure mentioned by the hon. member for Durban Point; it is a quite irresponsible statement. It is only a percentage of the Coloured people and a percentage of the Indians who are subject to this pressure of higher bus tariffs.

What percentage?

I think that this matter was dealt with very well by hon. members on the Opposition side. It was mentioned by the hon. member for Newton Park when he analysed the report and quoted the figures of the Port Elizabeth University. The hon. member for Durban Point made a quite exaggerated statement here by saying that every Indian and every Coloured person had to be subsidized by way of this levy. Talking about exaggerated statements, I come to another one, i.e. the standpoint of the hon. member for Newton Park who adopted the attitude that this levy was a tax on industrialists just because they employed Coloured people or Indians. According to him they are being penalized because they employ Coloured people or Indians. This, of course, is also nonsense and a quite exaggerated standpoint too. They are not being penalized. They are being asked only to make a contribution so that we shall be able to get these people, who find it difficult to pay these tariffs, to their places of employment. That is the basis of this Bill, and therefore we are reconciling the need for proper transport with the fact that we have to obtain a contribution from the industrialists so as to enable their employees to get to their work.

Sir, it is not only the industrialists who make a contribution. A very large contribution is made by the State to bring the employees of the industrialists to their factories. Hon. members must not forget that the State must maintain the Railway services, which, too, are being subsidized to a large extent. This is an enormous contribution by the State which comes from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Over and above these large contributions from the State, the State makes other large contributions as well in regard to the housing of these Indian and Coloured employees in the Peninsula, in Port Elizabeth and in Durban. The State makes an enormous contribution to the cost of municipal services which have to be provided there; it makes an enormous contribution to the cost of telephone services and other essential facilities such as police stations and other social services which have to be provided. All these contributions are made by the State so that there may be a happy group of employees who can be employed by our industrialists. Therefore hon. members on that side should not say, as some of them did, that this is a tax only on the industrialist, that only the industrialist is expected to make a contribution. That is not true. That was the standpoint of the hon. member for Newton Park, and I think it was the standpoint of the hon. member for Maitland as well. It is not correct. Enormous contributions are made by the State in order to make it possible for the industrialists to employ these people.

Sir, I want to continue by pointing out to hon. members on the opposite side that this legislation has been drafted in a very flexible way. This is an exceptionally flexible piece of legislation in the sense that it may be adapted to the circumstances as they change from time to time and as the need for subsidization arises in a specific area. When we look at the legislation before us, we see, inter alia, that clause 2 (1) provides for the demarcation of certain areas. Therefore it is not all areas that need be brought under the Act at once. The need for subsidization in a particular area may and will be investigated by the National Transport Commission whereupon a recommendation will be made to the Minister who will designate a particular area as one in which industrialists have to make a contribution as envisaged in the legislation. Therefore, this is not a general application of the legislation to all industrialists; it depends on circumstances.

Then we go further. It provides further that this may be applicable to Coloured persons or to Indians or to both. There is a further flexibility as far as this situation is concerned, which makes it possible for the Minister to be accommodating under special circumstances. But there is a further important element of flexibility in this legislation, and that is contained in clause 3 (4) in terms of which the Minister may provide that this legislation shall apply to a particular class or kind of employee. Therefore the Minister may, if he thinks fit, distinguish within the framework of a particular area, between people who, say, work in the motor industry and those who work in the hotel industry. And he does all of this not simply because he feels like it, but each time he acts on the advice of the National Transport Commission after it has conducted a proper investigation. Therefore I believe that this legislation has a special kind of flexibility which is to be welcomed under the particular circumstances. I believe that if this legislation is applied with discretion, it ought not to have a hard-hearted effect. Then it will only be to the advantage of the industrialists who have to make a contribution, in the sense that they will then have excellent feeder services for bringing their employees to their places of employment.

In conclusion I just want to react to a few remarks which were made here. The one was made by the hon. member for Maitland. He asked where the control over the finances were to be found. Obviously the hon. member did not read clause 6 of the Bill. In terms of that clause there is to be proper accounting of the funds for the two groups, i.e. the Indian and the Coloured employees. These funds are administered by the National Transport Commission and, as in the case of any other Government body, they will be subject to auditing by the Auditor-General. If that is not proper control, the hon. member should say so. As far as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central is concerned, he very clearly adopted the standpoint here, according to what the hon. member for Tygervallei said, that legislation should be introduced which would apply a levy as in the case of the Bantu transport levy. That was his standpoint last year, but now the hon. member for Newton Park is trying to gloss over the story.

I did not ask for a levy.

The hon. member asked for the same kind of legislation, and that was the legislation which existed. Therefore one must have regard to the fact that these two hon. members are again contradicting each other, so that the one always has to act for the other in order to cover up his mistakes.

I want to mention another remark here, also a remark by the hon. member for Newton Park. He said it was the industrialists who were keeping the State going. What absolute nonsense! Let us not deny that the industrialists do make a large contribution already, and let us not deny that they are going to play a far bigger role in the economy of this country and render a great service in the future, but he completely failed to appreciate the services of the other sectors, such as mining, the agricultural industry and the State itself. Therefore, to my mind, he made a completely unfounded statement.

I am satisfied with the legislation before us. I think it is a step in the right direction. I think that if it is applied sympathetically, it will not have a hard-hearted effect and will be of great benefit to the stabilization of proper transport services in our growing cities.

I do not intend to keep the House very long in my discussion of this Bill because as far as I am concerned much of it would be repetition of the discussion we had on a previous Bill this afternoon. Many of the same arguments apply and as I say I do not want to be tedious. But I will say that the hon. member who has just spoken, the hon. member for Bellville, has probably been the most reasonable speaker on the Government side. He was as a-political as it was possible to be and tried to advance reasons for the introduction of this Bill which were at least based on some fairly sound logic. To some extent he was speaking to the converted, because nobody here was arguing against the need for subsidization. It was not necessary for him really to tell us that a subsidy was needed for the Coloured workers and the Indian workers because their wages were not adequate to meet the cost of transport, and the fact that it was necessary also to subsidize essential services like housing. We all admit that housing and transport are essential and that the State has to play its part in seeing that these things are provided for the workers. I think where we perhaps differ is on the question of whom should provide the subsidy. This is the big issue here. No-one is arguing against the principle of subsidization. Exactly the same arguments that apply in regard to low wages for African workers, also apply to the low wages for Coloured and Indian workers and there is a very large percentage of Coloured and Indian workers who are in fact below the poverty datum line. There is a tendency in South Africa to think that every Indian is a wealthy merchant, but in fact if one examines the reports put out by the University of Natal, by its Department of Sociology, one finds that very many Indians live below the poverty datum line. The hon. member quoted a report to show that in Port Elizabeth over 60 per cent of the Coloured workers of Port Elizabeth are also living below the poverty datum line. And if one goes to Cape Town and examines the conditions under which many Coloured people are living one finds exactly the same thing. So the need is great for a big percentage of the Coloured workers and the Indian workers to be given assistance in the provision of transport and housing. The whole question is aggravated by the fact that many hundreds or thousands of Coloured families have been moved under the Group Areas Act, not only in Port Elizabeth but of course in Cape Town as well. If one remembers for example that all the workers who lived in District Six, the vast majority of them, were within walking distance of their places of employment, and they have now been moved to Bonteheuwel and other places on the Cape Flats, one realizes that those people have to be subsidized with regard to their bus fares.

But they work on the Cape Flats also.

The hon. member for Malmesbury broke my heart. I was so upset about the fate of the farmers, the terrible burden of taxation that they have to bear he said that they were being taxed selectively, that they were sectionally taxed and that they had a very bad time. Sir, I should like to meet one single industrialist who would not swop his basis of taxation with those of the farmers. They are not allowed for instance to off-set their capital expenditure the way farmers can. The hon. member mentioned divisional council taxes. I wonder whether he has ever heard of assessment rates in the urban areas and whether he has ever heard of assessment rates in the urban areas and whether he has ever heard of assessment rates in the urban areas and whether he has compared it with what the industrialists contribute to the coffers of the State. So let us not get into that silly argument that the poor farmers are being overtaxed in this country. I must say as far as I am concerned it is the industrialists and the employers of the huge numbers of workers in the urban areas who contribute—I suppose it would not be an exaggeration to say over 90 per cent of the taxes which this Government is very busy spending on all sorts of ideological schemes, and wastefully spending at that. It is costing the country millions of rand every single year.

Leave the farmers alone, they are not worrying you.

The farmers worry me very much indeed, because if you talk about wages and what farmers pay in wages—we have heard a great deal about the wages which the industrialists pay—I would like to know the average cash wages which are paid on farms in this country. I wonder how many farmers are able to hold any comparative standards to the wages paid in the urban areas although those are very low.

I wonder if the hon. Deputy Minister, when he replies to this debate in this House, would care to give us information about the work of the inter-departmental committees that have been formed. As far as I know, there is quite a top-heavy structure of inter-departmental committees in this country sitting on this very subject of the provision of transport for non-Whites. There is a committee which is supposed to meet annually or bi-annually and it consists of the heads of various departments including the Department of Community Development, the Department of Coloured Affairs, the Railways and the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. I understand that they are supposed to be working out schemes for the transport of workers who have been shifted around under the Group Areas Act or under the resettlement schemes. I wonder if the hon. the Minister could give us a little information about what plans these inter-departmental committees have formulated in order to tackle the transport problem and the subsidization problem on what I at any rate, would consider a more logical basis. Simply coming along here and saying that the employers of Coloured labour, Indian labour and African women, who were discussed earlier this afternoon, must foot the bill in every case, seems to me to be a very superficial solution to what is really a burning problem. It is not only the subsidization that is being considered today, from the point of view of catching up with the increased costs that the bus companies for instance are unable to meet—I believe they have a very good and a just case—but it is the whole question of the adequacy of transport that is being provided. To the best of my knowledge there is not a single route between the urban townships and the industrial areas, be they routes from African townships such as the Soweto-Johannesburg route or be they the routes from the Coloured townships such as Bonteheuwel-Cape Town route or the Gelvandale-Port Elizabeth route, that are adequately provided for. What plans can we expect to evolve from the hon. Deputy Minister’s Department and from the inter-departmental committees that are sitting as far as the provision of adequate transport is concerned. We should not be only considering the financing but the overall question of improving the provision of transport. This is one of the burning grievances which the non-White people have to cope with. It is not something which happens to them once a month, but for the working man this happens twice a day, namely when he tries to get to and from his place of work, and having to spend hours and hours waiting for buses. Sir, if the State moves people many miles from where they work, the State not only has to subsidize the transport, but it also has to see that there is adequate transport. I hope that when the hon. the Minister replies he will give us some idea of the plans of the inter-departmental committees which are sitting on the provision of transport.

I shall oppose the Second Reading for the very reason I gave in the earlier Bill this afternoon, and that is that I believe it is the duty of the State to provide the money out of its coffers and not from the employers of labour. I also believe that if you limit a man’s earning capacity as is done, if a man does not have a White skin and he is not provided with free and compulsory education, if he does not get adequate vocational training, if he is unable to make full use of his capabilities and if he has job reservation and other things to cope with, then it is even more so the duty of the State to subsidize essential services.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a brief speech in pursuance of what was said by the hon. member for Houghton and also to make a few remarks on the speech of the hon. member for Newton Park. I gained the impression that hon. members on that side of this House are concerned about one thing only, and that is the industrialist.

We are concerned about South Africa.

Never mind, I shall make my speech. You have completed yours.

Simply read the annual reports one by one and you will see that the profits of the industrialists go higher year after year. The hon. member for Newton Park said the industrialists were the people who had to keep the wheels turning. I want to tell the hon. member that the wheel would not turn one-quarter of an inch if he did not have the Coloured, the Indian and the Bantu to make that wheel turn.

Therefore you want him to be taxed.

It is the duty of the industrialist to pay that labourer a wage which will enable him to afford his transport. I think the hon. member should be informed of a thing or two, because he brought this House under a complete misunderstanding when he said that the farmers were being subsidized in respect of their workers on the farms. He asked for the transport of Coloureds and Indians to be subsidized by the State as well. This was how the hon. member concluded his speech. I made a note of it. He asked for a State subsidy. I do not know whether my hon. friend is aware of the fact that no subsidy whatsoever is paid in respect of servants, Coloured, Bantu and Indian workers on farms.

But I did not say that.

You did. No subsidies are paid in this connection. The farmer can obtain a loan.

Yes, for housing.

He can obtain a housing loan. This was introduced only a year ago.

For the labourers in the town.

Yes. This was introduced recently. The difference is, however, that the farmer pays 5 per cent interest on such a loan, whereas the Coloured and Indian who build a sub-economic house only pay ¾ per cent interest. Therefore they are in a much more favourable position than the White.

He may deduct that from his income tax.

We are not discussing income tax now. That hon. member said the employer would be taxed to such an extent that he would have to increase the prices of his products and that the consumer would have to pay up in the end. That is not necessary. How much difference will it make if he has to deduct that tax from his profit? It will not make the least difference. It is more likely to put a lot of money in his pocket if he deducts it from his tax. He may enter it on his tax form as “transport paid”. I think hon. members on the opposite side must think a bit further and not rise and make a lot of wild statements. If one were to have listened to what was said by the hon. member for Maitland one would truly have believed that the industrialists would go bankrupt if they had to pay that levy.

Many of them do go bankrupt.

The hon. member does not know enough about business. He can speak of Bantu, but not of these matters. As I have just said, simply go through the annual reports of industrialists in this country and you will see that their profits rise year after year. Those profits rise year after year. Those profits they make from these poor people they do not want to pay. Who are the people who keep the wheels turning? They are not the industrialists. The same applies to the farmer on his farm. If I did not have labourers I might as well give up farming altogether and leave my farm tomorrow. Who would help me to plough the lands? Who would help me to gather the sheep if I did not have labourers? That is why I pay them— so that they can stay with me. The services which the farmer provides for his labourers are never mentioned. Not the slightest mention is made of those services.

But that is not in the legislation.

If my labourers on the farm become ill, they are transported free of charge. I am not going to make them pay because I transport them in my lorry or in my motor car—at times I transport them in my motor car. The same applies to the industrialist. He, too, can have an open heart for his employees. Our industrialists should have a more generous heart and treat their people better. Only yesterday I had the case of having to increase the wages of a servant who has to make use of transport services by a certain amount per month so as to enable her to pay for her transport. Now I ask, if I can do so, why cannot the industrialist do the same? That levy is not going to amount to many rands. It is but a small levy and I think it is a disgrace that that side of this House is objecting today because the Minister wants to impose a small levy on the transport of Coloureds and Indians by means of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Colesberg made an interesting observation—it seems to me a new thought to explain away what happened in recent times—that it is now the industrialist with whom we on this side are concerned. I will be interested if he can tell me whether it was 2 333 industrialists who changed their allegiance in Brakpan? [Interjections.]

The hon. the Deputy Minister in introducing this Bill was very brief and left unsaid a good deal which one would have expected him to have said and to explain the connection with this measure. At this stage I want to put certain questions to him which I believe are very material on matters which one would have expected that he would have outlined when he introduced this Bill. First of all, I want to know what the potential revenue is which the Minister believes this fund will receive. He works on a levy of not more than 20 cents per week, which will produce R10,40 per annum per Coloured or Indian employee. What does he anticipate is going to be the revenue? Can he give us some idea of the type of areas which he feels should be proclaimed? We have in a city such as the city of Cape Town a transport system which is used by all races. These transport services are run by one company and one accounting system is used. I should like to know how this subsidy is to be handled, how that transport is to be dealt with in a case of this nature. It may well be that there is one service which runs from a new residential area for Coloureds to the centre of the city or near the centre of the city and then there is another service which is used by all races and which takes them on to their places of employment. On what basis is this subsidy to be considered in so far as a mixed service is concerned?

The third point I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister is whether he considers that it is likely that the subsidy should be for the service or for the passenger totals which are carried or for passenger journeys which are undertaken. I want to indicate to him that the City Tramway Company, which undertakes part of the bus services in the city, completed 260 million passenger journeys in 1970 and an increase of one cent per passenger journey would mean a considerable sum of money. That means a considerable sum of money—R2 600 000 in gross revenue to that operating company. Does the Deputy Minister contemplate dealing with this on a passenger basis or a passenger journey basis? I cannot understand the opposition from hon. members opposite to the suggestion that this fund should be financed from moneys obtained from Consolidated Revenue, as has been suggested by this side of the House. If the hon. the Deputy Minister will read clause 6 he will see that the fund which is to be established will be from moneys in terms of this levy, which can be as high as R10,40 per employee per annum. The money can also be obtained from moneys appropriated by Parliament to this account. In other words, the principle of appropriating funds from Consolidated Revenue is in this very Bill.

I have already given you the figures during the other debate …

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister can reply in a moment.

But I am talking about Indians and Coloureds. Does the hon. Deputy Minister know, for instance, that according to the figures given recently by the hon. the Minister of Community Development, some 76 000 Coloured families have been declared disqualified in the Republic, and that they must move, but that only half has been moved so far? What is the position in regard to further removals and how are these removals going to be financed? Is there going to be a State-owned transport service, a point raised by the hon. member for Houghton? How far has this inter-departmental committee got? These matters indicate that there is an urgency in this question of dealing with this transport system. It blew up at Gelvandale and we must not blame agitators. In the Cape we have a law-abiding Coloured community who are reaching the end of their ability to meet this growing cost of living. At this very moment, the hon. the Deputy Minister may or may not know, there is an application which will be published on the 3rd March, if I understand correctly, by the Golden Arrow bus service, to increase their bus tariffs. The application is to be heard on the 15th March and somehow or other the Coloured community must have some representation to put their case before this board. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows, because I raised this matter with him last year, that this board does not give reasons for its decisions as far as the raising of bus fares are concerned. I want to warn the hon. the Deputy Minister, and I do it in all sincerity, that if this local transportation board handles this matter as it handled the application in 1970, he will have to face the consequences in the Peninsula, not only amongst the non-Whites but also amongst the White travelling public in the Peninsula. What has happened? When the ratepayers’ associations go and try to find out what the operating costs are, they are told that the board has some figures but that they cannot see them. The legal representative of the objectors can also not see them. When the travelling public get home and they open the evening paper they read, as for instance in 1970, when fares were increased considerably, that the holding company in the one case increased its profit by 38,8 per cent and that the holding company in the other case increased its profits by 20 per cent. There may well be an explanation, but until there is a proper handling of the applications and a fixing of the tariffs for the ordinary bus travellers this dissatisfaction will continue. I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to consider this matter very seriously and to see whether he cannot take steps to see that this pending application in the Cape is at least delayed until such time as the question of whatever subsidy is to be paid has been settled. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister must use his persuasive powers with the Transport Commission to see that no final decision is taken on this pending application until some formulas have been arrived at for subsidies. It is going to create tremendous hardship for a large number of Coloured persons if this is not done. I want to point out to the hon. the Deputy Minister that I am not at this stage talking particularly about the employer who is going to be charged, but about those large numbers of Coloured persons who until some subsidy is arranged, will have to pay the increased tariff on this dual race service that is run in the Cape Peninsula. I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister will be good enough, and I think it is his duty, to set at rest the minds of the people who are worried in the city of Cape Town and its environments at the present time about the outcome of this application. I do believe it is something that should not be rushed. That an opportunity should be given to consider it in full measure.

As the hon. member for Tygervallei has returned to the House I want to say to him, just in conclusion, as I said in 1969, and as he correctly quoted, that we on this side of the House oppose the harsh compulsory aspect of the Group Areas Act. I went on further and said in 1969 that we believed that much could be achieved by persuasion and attraction. I want to ask the hon. member whether he will now take cognizance of the fact that the Minister of Coloured Affairs, who is now sitting in the House—if I could have his attention just for one moment—was good enough to see a deputation in King William’s Town recently in connection with the closing of Schornville as a Coloured area and the establishment of a new Coloured area at Breidbach. I want to say publicly that one was gratified to find that the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs said to the Coloured people of Schornville, “You will not be forced to move out of Schornville; Breidbach will become so attractive that I know you will move there of your own free will.” I want to say to the hon. the Minister that we appreciate that attitude, and the member for Tygervallei will perhaps take a little more cognizance of what we say on this side of the House in regard to the implementation of separate residential area legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Durban Point moved as an amendment—

I want to pose this question to the hon. member: When Putco was subsidized in 1946, where did the funds come from? The United Party was in power in 1946. Putco was subsidized in Pretoria in that year. I am posing this question to that hon. member, who comes to this House with all the know-how and accuses me of not doing my homework. He accused me of being “onnosel”. I am putting the question to him: Where did the funds come from?

I cannot tell you.

Not from general revenue.

He cannot tell me. Now I want to ask the hon. member: Has the United Party never raised money to subsidize transport in South Africa by way of a levy imposed upon certain employers using that transport?

I do not know …

The hon. member has the opportunity of replying to my question.

*You see, Sir, this is the hon. member who is known for trying to prove his superiority here in a swaggering manner, and for saying personal, derogatory things here, and now he cannot reply. I want to put the question clearly: Has the United Party never subjected employers’ organizations to a levy for subsidizing transport services?

I do not know of such a case.

He does not know.

It is against your principles.

He did not do his homework. In 1946 Putco’s services in Pretoria were subsidized by a levy. Gen. Smuts introduced it. Iscor is one of the employers’ organizations which paid that levy, and the industries paid that levy. But now, according to the hon. member, it is this Government and this Government alone which is introducing sectional legislation in order to punish the employers, as he puts it.

No, Sir, it is no use making propaganda only. But I want to come back to his amendment. On that side of the House there are hon. members who made certain statements here in the course of the Budget debate last year. They have to decide now whether or not they are going to vote for his amendment. The hon. member for Newton Park made the statement that in that Budget debate, when the point at issue was the bus boycott at Port Elizabeth, the United Party had adopted the attitude that the subsidy had to come from the State coffers. By way of interjection I asked him to quote to me just one of those speeches, but he did not do so. Let us see what happened. In the first instance, while the hon. member for Algoa was speaking, the hon. member for Walmer said by way of interjection—

He said that 50 per cent lived below the poverty datum line. Did any of those hon. members say at the time: “The time has arrived for the employers of Port Elizabeth to pay their employees more so that they need not live below the poverty datum line?” No, they took up the popular standpoint that the Government simply had to answer for any losses on these services. No, the people who have the use of this labour, the people who are buying this labour daily, should simply continue to pay such low wages so that hon. members on that side may say in this House that 50 per cent of the Coloureds are living below the breadline.

Then I come to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central. What did he say? I quote—

Sir, how is Bantu transport being subsidized?

What column is it?

The hon. member for Parow furnished the column number here. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central asked for Coloured transport to be subsidized in the same way as Bantu transport was subsidized. Bantu transport is subsidized by a levy paid by the employers. [Interjections.] We are talking about bus transport here, and the bus boycott at Port Elizabeth did not concern train services; it concerned bus transport. Bantu bus transport is subsidized from a levy paid by the employers, and that hon. member said: “Mr. Deputy Minister, I want to make an appeal to you; subsidize the Coloureds in the same manner as the Bantu are being subsidized.” He will have to vote with this side, or else I shall consider him to be unscrupulous. He does not have the courage of his convictions to vote for something for which he pleaded in this House. He said here: “Mr. Minister, please, subsidize their transport in the same manner as that of the Bantu.”

May I put a question to the hon. the Deputy Minister? Did I plead, as he has quoted me now, for the introduction of a subsidy on Coloured transport—for the principle of it—or did my plea deal with the manner in which that subsidization should be effected?

I shall quote further what the hon. member said; he went on to say—

Nowhere did he say that the money was to come from the State coffers; Coloured transport had to be subsidized, just like that of the Bantu. But then he went on to say—

So what?

Sir, it is no good the hon. member saying: “So what?” He motivated his request. He did not only say that Coloured transport had to be subsidized; he asked for Coloured transport to be subsidized in the same way as Bantu transport is subsidized, and the Bantu are only subsidized in this regard in one manner, i.e. on the basis that one has separate accounts for every area, and in that area the employers have to pay a levy in accordance with the demands made in it. One builds up for that area a separate account for subsidizing Bantu transport in that area, and as one builds up reserves, one may reduce one’s levy or abolish it entirely. But as one requires money, the employers in that area are assessed by way of a levy. The hon. member asked for Coloured transport to be subsidized in the same manner as Bantu transport is subsidized. He will have to do one of three things. He will have to vote with this side and bear the consequences; if not, he will have to ask his caucus permission to run away, for that party is a run-away party; and failing that he will, in my eyes, have to pass for a person who does not have the courage of his convictions. He does not have the courage of his convictions to stand for something for which he asked here on a previous occasion.

Sir, the United Party should not think that they can get away with cheap politics by suggesting here that I do not understand the Act; by posing here, when a boycott and stone-throwing took place, as advocates for a subsidy system, and then by saying here a year later, after receiving instructions from their masters by way of telegrams—as the hon. member for newton Park said: “No, please do not take any notice of our pleas of last year; this money must now come from the State coffers, because our masters have said that they are not going to pay it” …

In spite of Puteo.

… in spite of what they did with Putco. Sir, I want South Africa to see that party as a party which, for the sake of temporary, short-lived propagandist advantage, makes popular speeches here, but which is not willing to see a matter in its correct perspective. [Interjection.] It is not even necessary for me to refer to the hon. member for Houghton. She does not speak here on anybody’s behalf.

I was elected just as you were.

She also took part in that debate and said that those people were not being paid properly. But has she ever told those employers that they should pay their people more? I want to ask this basic question, for it is important. Is the party opposite in favour of residential separation between Coloureds, Asiatics and Whites? They must reply to this. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is sitting over there. Are they in favour of residential separation in South Africa for Coloureds, Asiatics and Whites, not even to mention the Bantu?

I said so.

Is this voluntary separation or compulsory separation?

Ask Jannie Loots.

Ask the hon. member for Green Point.

The Minister of Planning and others have set out our policy very clearly, but is that party in favour of voluntary or compulsory residential separation? This is a cardinal question.

May I reply to the hon. the Minister? [Interjections.]

Sir, here one finds oneself saddled with a party which does not want to tell South Africa whether it wants voluntary or compulsory separation. That is all they have to say. But what do they want then? What do they want to do? Acting on the instructions of their employers, i.e. the F.C.I., as the hon. member for Newton Park openly admitted, they want to tell the world that because the Government brought about separation, the Government has to pay for these transport services out of the taxpayers’ money. This they want to suggest in order to satisfy their employers, the F.C.I., but they want to tell the housewife and the voters who have to vote on Wednesday that they are in favour of residential separation. No, a party cannot sit here so devoid of any policy.

The hon. member for Durban Point, with his exaggerated statement, said that a case had now been made out here in full for the weak socio-economic situation in South Africa. But now I want to ask him this question. Do they want to accuse the Government of having created a weak socio-economic position? He refuses to say whether they stand for residential separation. No, they are only after popularity, but he will not get away with that. Then he said that the State was setting an example of discrimination in salaries, and he mentioned doctors and teachers. Surely he knows that there is a rapid trend which is being implemented by the Minister in order that the salaries of Coloured teachers and officials may be raised at a faster rate, but that these salaries can only be raised as fast as the production potential of the nation permits; furthermore, one must always have regard to the fact that under separate development those people will have to offer their services to their own people, and one cannot set a standard which their own people cannot afford. That is why we are doing it in a balanced manner; otherwise they will outstrip their own people, and their own people will not be able to make use of their services. This is sound socio-economic development. No, they will not get away with that. Now I want to say, first of all, a few words in that regard. I have been asked what this inter-departmental committee is doing for the transport of non-Whites in South Africa. This is an important question, one which I must answer. I want to begin by furnishing the House with the details. This committee is under the chairmanship of the General Manager of the Railways, and the following departments are represented on it: the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, the Department of Finance, the Treasury, the Department of Planning, the Department of Community Development, the Department of Indian Affairs and the Department of Transport. This, therefore, is the composition of the committee. The operation of that committee is important, and we should know what it is. The committee was established by this Government in 1954. Its terms of reference are as follows—

The hon. member should listen to them, because in a moment I want to test his wonderful economics—

1. (1) The effectiveness of existing transport services, more in particular by means of the Railways …

Hon. members should remember that I say it refers to the Railways—

1. (2) Steps required for improving the existing but inadequate services, as well as the manner in which such improvements may be expedited;
2. (3) The nature and extent of the transport that will be required for serving any existing or any potential area, where such facilities are still lacking entirely at the moment;
3. (4) Indicating routes along which the provision of public transport is essential on the basis of either the present population density or the planned development, including the desirability of the moving or improving or otherwise of the existing railway construction which serves non-White areas or non-White residential areas or is situated nearby.

The hon. member must remember this, because I shall come back to the statement he made in this regard on the Railways—

1. (5) The arrangement of the essential transport routes for improvement for this purpose in the order of preference;
2. (6) Estimating the capital and other construction costs involved and the operating costs which such a proposal will entail, as well as the anticipated revenue in every particular case;
3. (7) Drawing up estimates for the financial trading results in the proposed transport services to the various non-White residential areas;
4. (8) Who is to bear responsibility for the financial loss which such exploitation may involve;
5. (9) The basis on which liability for such losses is to be apportioned among the departments concerned and/or other bodies; and
6. (10) Any other matter which may have a bearing on transport or financing such transport services for the benefit of the non-White employees.

I have quoted this in full in order to point out to hon. members that in regard to resettlement and the transport for resettlement we are not governing in South Africa in a haphazard manner. I have done so to show that action is being taken in a proper and co-ordinated manner. The great philosopher of the United Party came along, the person who introduced this motion, and in his speech he mentioned that we were stopping effective transport services because we wanted to divert these people to the railway services. I am not going to mention this specific case, because I have already told the hon. member across the floor of this House that the matter is sub judice at the moment. Now I want to ask this House a question, and I want the United Party, which made the accusation that the State was wasting and spending money in a disorganized manner, to reply to this question. Does the United Party and does the hon. member for Durban Point want us to vote capital in this House of Assembly for the construction of railways in order that non-White traffic may be conveyed by metropolitan trains, whilst simply allowing private transport units—which still have to be subsidized— to disparage those railway services, to operate them at a loss or to make them uneconomic? Are those the economics he wants to submit to this House? This is the way the person who is so knowledgable about economics is talking. He wants us in this House to approve of a railway line being constructed—after the inter-departmental committee has worked out the whole plan, has made a submission and after a report has been received from the Railway Board—so that certain non-White services may be provided. That is the case to which he specifically referred. He wants private transport services to be retained in competition with these services, which the House approved and for which the House voted, so that both services may be uneconomic. Those are the economics which this hon. member, with his verbosity, is submitting to this House.

Advertise the train services and these people …

The fact of the matter is that South Africa has local road transportation boards and a National Transport Commission to which applications for transport service permits may be made. The National Transport Commission is the autonomous body as far as appeals are concerned. The National Transport Commission, having regard to the report of this inter-departmental committee, decides on where transport permits will be issued and for what periods they will be valid. Sometimes the National Transport Commission decides that a railway line will be built in a certain area as soon as there are 20 000 passengers a day in that area, but not before that time.

After all, there must be transport services in the interim. In such cases the National Transport Commission grants a licence for the interim or the anticipated interim, together with notice to the transporter to the effect that if a railway line is built there one day, that permit will be withdrawn the following year. Now the hon. member acts here as the advocate and says that this should not be done. This is the clever economist. After the railway line has been built, the local transporter is to be allowed to carry on his transport service in competition with the Railways. That is the proposal the hon. member made.

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend repeating what was said by the hon. member for Tygervallei. I just want to say that he made out a very thorough case. He furnished this House with an analysis of the way resettlement is effected. It is effected with due regard to the transport needs and other circumstances that may obtain. He also showed what the distribution of labour is. The hon. member for Maitland objected, in the first place, to separate accounts having to be kept. Yes, it is no use the hon. member staring like that. The hon. member said in his speech that it would cost thousands of rands extra to keep separate accounts.

Every employer.

He had apparently not read the Bill. The debate on Bantu transport services corresponds with this debate. If he had read both pieces of legislation or just one of them, he would have seen that it is provided in this legislation that when a certain area is proclaimed to be a municipal area, the levy is used exclusively for that area. It cannot be transferred to another area. For instance, the funds collected in the Pretoria municipal area, may not be used for the transport services in Johannesburg, Vanderbijlpark or any other place. And yet the hon. member says that there should not be separate accounts, as it would cost thousands of rands.

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. the Deputy Minister?

No, the hon. member had lots of time. The hon. member once again told the story that the levy was a “pickpocket” policy. When I pointed out to him that service levies had also been imposed in 1952, he said that they had not been imposed for the same purpose.

They had nothing to do with Coloureds.

He says they have nothing to do with Coloureds.

Correct.

In 1952 that levy amounted to 2s. 6d. Two shillings of that amount was utilised for housing and the sixpence for transport. This the hon. member denied at the time. Let us look at what happened in 1952. When Dr. Verwoerd proposed it in this House, he made it very clear that two shillings of this amount would be utilised for housing and that the sixpence would be utilised for transport. I am referring now to column 7767 of the Hansard of 1952.

Bantu.

It does not matter whether it was in respect of Bantu. It was still a transport service levy. Dr. Verwoerd, who was still Minister at the time, said the following—

These are the people who are now giving them instructions, who are now giving them orders to oppose this legislation—

The hon. members must listen to this—

If that was the standpoint of the Federated Chambers of Industries at that time, I want to point out the following: Last year we had in Port Elizabeth a bus boycott and stone-throwing which led to something very ugly. Several hon. members pointed out that the economic position of the Coloureds was still as weak as that. There are hon. members who said that 50 per cent of them were living below the breadline. In other words, the position is still the same. Why can they not tell their employers, who sent them these telegrams: “Look here, listen to what Williamson said at the time and abide by it, for you are using the labour, you have the benefit of the labour; by way of the subsidy you can help to get labour to your places of employment.”

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

Upon which the House divided:

Tellers: W. A. Cruywagen, P. C. Roux, G. P. van den Berg and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and J. O. N. Thompson.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.