Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned on Wednesday, I had made certain general remarks about the Budget by way of a gentle introduction to the debate. I do not intend repeating all those remarks. I think they were valid at the time and I want them to stand as part of the record of the Opposition’s objection to the dismal Budget with which the hon. the Minister has treated the House. I may, in the course of my speech have to reemphasize some of the points I made. I do not intend repeating them all, except to emphasize that this Budget reveals the state of our country’s economy which is an unhappy one at the moment. This Budget reveals that the South African Railways and Harbours, as a major enterprise of our nation, is suffering under the policy of the Government to a similar extent and in the same manner as private enterprise is suffering under the policies of this Government.

I want to emphasize that this Minister is in a very fortunate position because of his seniority in the Cabinet. He can force the Cabinet to agree to deviations from Government policy in his case, deviations which are not permitted to private enterprise. The major deviation from Government policy which this Minister is permitted contrary to the national policy of the Government, is the use, the wise use, the highly recommended and praiseworthy use, of non-White labour in areas which were formerly the preserves of White workers but where White workers are no longer available. On this I want to pause for a moment. I made a statement on behalf of and on the authority of my party last year that the Minister should go on with this policy, and that we would not exploit it for political purposes. I want to re-emphasize that point. But I also want to say that there should be no misunderstanding about the attitude of this side of the House. When I gave that undertaking, I gave it against the background of South Africa’s political experience, which is that whenever the previous Government—the United Party Government, or even when the United Party in opposition recommended or pleaded for a change in the labour pattern of South Africa as is now done by the Minister of Transport, we were not spared the accusation that we were “kafferboeties” and wanted to destroy the security of the White worker in this country. I want to re-emphasize that in no circumstances will this side of the House tolerate any one of its members who seeks to exploit the greater use and the wiser use of Native or other non-White labour on the railways or anywhere else in South Africa as part of a Black peril campaign and as part of “swart gevaartaktiek” in South Africa’s politics. But, that does not mean that in the political debate in South Africa we shall not do as we are doing, namely to hold the Minister and the Minister of Transport up as an example to the nation of the constructive work that we can do in South Africa to improve the fate of South Africa and to improve the lot of our non-White people and at the same time raise the standards of our White people by using non-White labour more effectively.

I now want to take the opportunity of giving the hon. the Minister two arguments which he and I, and all of us, can use together when we deal with the verkrampte attack upon the relaxation of the colour bar in South Africa where White workers are not available to do work that is normally reserved for them. The one is this: Under the Physical Resources and Planning Act it is laid down that there should be a certain ratio between White workers and Bantu workers. On the Witwatersrand that ratio as far as I can remember is 1:2 or 1 :2,50. That is tolerated by the Government. I know they want to reduce it to one to one-and-a-half, a goal they will never reach. But the point I wish to make and one which we should remember is that on the South African Railways the ratio is still about one to one. The Railways are far ahead of the rest of South Africa in protecting the White worker. They over-protect the White worker. Not individually but they over-protect the White worker by trying to maintain an unrealistic ratio between White and non-White in the labour force of the South African Railways. The hon. the Minister appreciates this. Where he is changing it he has the support of the Opposition.

The second argument is a justification of the attitude of this party over the years against the narrow, bigoted, limited, restrictive approach of the government, i.e. in changing the labour pattern you also create greater opportunities for the White workers of South Africa. It is not possible to think of a more graphic justification of that policy than the statement by the hon. the Minister that as a result of the change in the labour pattern on the South African Railways and Harbours, 1 250 unskilled railworkers have been promoted to graded positions in the Railway service. The hon. the Minister has those arguments, and we share those arguments with him; he should not be concerned about the attacks of the petty and the ugly in South Africa who want to deny the peoples of South Africa the benefits that will accrue to all of them as the result of a change in our labour policy. Sir, I wanted to say that, so that there should be complete clarity about it. There will be no political exploitation of this in the sense of creating a Black peril psychosis and inciting the White workers against the Government. But, Sir, it will certainly be part of the political debate; it will be part of the argument that we shall use and that hon. members opposite should use in order to bring about a new deal in labour in South Africa.

Sir, having said that, one returns to the Budget and one feels concerned that this Budget, which as I said on Wednesday, is part of the machinery at the disposal of the State to influence the economic development of our country at any particular time, is so barren of imagination. It is a miserable state of affairs that the Minister had to report a huge deficit in the past year and another expected deficit for the next year; almost a complete exhaustion of the Minister’s reserves in the Rates Equalization Fund; very little of a bright outlook for the future except that the Minister hopes that as the result of devaluation, things will change economically in South Africa. That is about all; no signs of a new militant, bright, imaginative approach to the problems of the Railways or the financial problems of the country as far as the Railways can influence them, except again the very fortunate deviation from Government policy as far as the use of labour is concerned; that is the only thing that is new or imaginative in the policy of the South African Railways. For the rest, we get what I can only call a holding operation: Let us carry on as we are; let us exhaust the reserves; then, let us pray for a miracle; let us pray that as the result of devaluation our economy will be so stimulated that when we come to the House in a year’s time we shall be able to present a better picture to the country of the S.A. Railways and Harbours and its situation. Sir, one feels somewhat concerned about this complete, almost exclusive reliance by the Government, as evinced in the speech of the Minister of Transport, upon the benefits of devaluation. One wonders whether devaluation will prove to be the simple universal panacea which the hon. the Minister expects it to be. Because if it were, one must ask oneself: Why do all Governments throughout the world resist devaluation as much as they can? Why normally do all Governments deny their intention to devalue until they do devalue? If devaluation is such a simple remedy for the economic ills of the Government, and specially when the Minister calls it “bold devaluation”—“moedige devaluasie”—then surely a Government as “moedig” and as bold as this one should, when they are in economic difficulties, simply tell the people: “Please don’t worry; everything will be all right; when necessary we will devalue.” Why then restrict consumption; why then restrict income and credit; why try to encourage production; why ask the people to make sacrifices against the consequences of inflation? All you have to do, if you can rely upon it so implicitly, is to let inflation develop and then eventually let the former value of your money catch up with inflation by devaluing at the right moment. It does not seem to make sense, Sir. But I wonder, Sir, apart from anything else, whether this confidence in this particular method is so completely justified. Some people who know more about economics than either the Minister or I, have expressed doubts whether we are in fact, as the Minister suggests in his speech, in a period of consolidation. Fears have been expressed that the economic curbs which have been introduced by the Government before devaluation in an attempt to stem inflation have cut deeper into the body economic of South Africa than many of us suspect, and that it is going to be a harder task to restore South Africa’s economy to health after these surgical operations than many people expect. Indeed, the consequences of the curbs which the Government have introduced are shown by the Minister’s Budget itself, which for the third year now is a Budget which could not be balanced. Next year, for the third year in succession, there will be a raid upon the Rates Equalization Fund. The Railway workers, who have a just claim for relief, get no relief and they get no comment from the hon. the Minister; because he knows that he is not in a sound position and he is not so confident that there will be a change during the next year, although he hopes for the best.

You see, Sir, some of us here have lived through devaluations before. The most interesting and the most dramatic one was the one in the 1930s, which certainly did bring relief to South Africa in quite a spectacular way, but there was this noteworthy difference, and the hon. the Minister should remember this : When the Government was forced off the gold standard and had to devalue as a result of the insight of the old South African Party, there was a depression and there was a large slack in many of our factories and enterprises; there was unemployment; there was a slack to make up, and the immediate consequences of devaluation, by way of a pressure upon prices and wages and salaries, did not occur. The same position obtained in September, 1949, when we followed Britain in devaluation, to a much lesser extent. Then similar situations were beginning to occur as a result of the aftermath of war and the change of Government in South Africa, which destroyed confidence and created a recession in South Africa. But they were not there then to the same extent as in 1932-33, and the benefits did not last as long. Sir, can anyone say that today we have devalued at a time when there is a true slack to be taken up in our economy; that there is surplus capacity in our factories, that there is a pool of unemployment which has to be absorbed first before you have the inflationary consequences of devaluation? None of those things exist, and therefore one wonders to some extent whether the hon. the Minister is wise to base so much of his hopes and his anticipations for the future upon the continued benefits of devaluation. One even wonders whether the great expectation of the hon. the Minister that our exports will be stimulated will be fulfilled; whether the income from exports, apart from the increase in the transport of agricultural goods as a result of natural factors, will bring him the additional income that he expects. One wonders to what extent that benefit to the South African Railways will be set off against the immediate higher costs of replacing his worn, obsolete capital goods, many of which have to be imported from overseas, either complete or in part. It will be interesting to see because the Minister can be assured that there will be an immediate increase in the cost of most of the things that he has to buy in order to keep the wheels of the railways turning in South Africa, and although the one may be capital and the one revenue, as I will show later, one can no longer see these two aspects of budgeting completely separately in South Africa. Indeed, when one considers the price increases that the Minister will have to face in the near future, one is all the more astonished that he should have tried to disguise his deficit; that he should have tried to disguise his distress by reducing his contributions to the Renewal Fund in two important aspects, as one could see from his speech. I would say, Sir, that prudence would have called upon the Minister to increase his contributions to the Renewals Fund, because everything that he will have to replace by way of capital goods will cost him more. It would have been right, instead of making a reduction of 50 per cent in some aspects of the fund, to have made provision for an increase of 12 per cent generally in his contributions to the Renewals Fund to compensate for what will be the inevitable result of devaluation upon the prices of the goods that he has to buy in order to replace wasting assets on the South African Railways.

I also want to warn the Minister that he is on the wrong track if he tells the House, as he did, that inflation has been imported. There is very powerful evidence to the contrary, that much of the inflation that we have in South Africa is due to internal factors. I remember that in 1966 Dr. Waasdyk, a well-known economist, addressing an economic society on the subject, and dealing with the direct question as to whether South Africa imports inflation, said—

In other words, Sir, we were creating inflation in South Africa three times as fast as we were importing it. That position has slightly improved since 1968, but if one looks at the price index for South African goods and for imported goods, one finds that they have increased from 95,4 per cent in 1968, in the case of South African goods, to 108,2 per cent in 1971, and, in the case of imported goods, from 97 per cent in 1968 to 108,3 per cent in December, 1971. I am not sure. Unfortunately I have not had a chance to check on it, but I think this excludes the customs and excise duties, but even if it does not, it shows that for every percentage contributed to inflation by imports there is an equal contribution by our internal activities in South Africa. Dr. Waasdyk in his speech referred to certain factors in our economic practice in South Africa which cause internal inflation apart from the normal economic ones. He mentioned, for example, price maintenance schemes, the activities of control boards and the effect of tariff protection, but he did not mention what we on this side of the House regard as a more important inflationary factor in South Africa, and that is interference by the Government in our labour supplies and in the organization of our labour resources, which greatly restricts the contribution that good management can make to combating inflation in South Africa; and he did not mention the effect on our economy of the forced industrial development on the borders, requiring the creation of an infrastructure which cannot be justified except for ideological purposes and which causes huge investments of capital in useless areas such as we have just had in the case of Phalaborwa, where almost R2 million was invested and not a single factory was erected in the years that have gone past. I want to warn the hon. the Minister that he must not look to such a simple solution to our problems. Having said that, I want to say that it was a good thing that the Minister in trying to meet the vast problems he faces because of the stupid Government policies under which he suffers with us, avoided obvious inflationary measures like an increase in rates. We approve of that. We asked him last year not to increase rates but to use his Rates Equalization Fund for what it was intended, and that is to prevent in a time of inflation further inflationary measures. He chose not to do it and in that sense he added to the inflation which forced devaluation upon us and which caused the problem in which he finds himself today. But even if it is a year late, we are still grateful that after a delay of a year, he accepted the advice the Opposition gave him. But unfortunately in an indirect fashion, the Minister, while not guilty of inflationary measures, was guilty of one or two inflationary stunts. I think for example of the manner in which he disguised the actual extent of his deficit by doing things which amaze me. To reduce his deficit he reduced, first of all—and this is not relevant; it is by way of an aside—his contribution to the Superannuation Fund to make up for the actuarial deficit in those funds.

Is that disguised?

The hon. gentleman obviously is not with us in the full sense of the word at the moment, so I will not take notice of him. I am just old enough to remember how members of the party opposite stamped across South Africa and the propaganda they made, and the tears that they wrung from the withers of the railwaymen, by saying that Mr. Sturrock was stealing the pension funds, the security and the hope for the old-age of the railwayman. Now he is doing the same, Sir. It took him 25 years to realize that Mr. Sturrock was not a thief. But I am not going to criticize him for this. For a long time we on this side of the House have said that they place an over-emphasis on the need for a fund like the Superannuation Fund of the S.A. Railways and Harbours to be actuarially sound, and we pleaded that we should accept the principle that the working generation be responsible for the pensions of the retired generation. We pleaded that the contributions of the workers to such a fund should end except in so far as the interest on the fund should be available to help pay pensions and therefore entitle the railwaymen still to have a say in the administration of the fund. I am not criticizing him for that, but I do criticize him, as I have already criticized him, for not making higher instead of smaller contributions to the Renewals Fund.

You see, Sir, this was done by the hon. the Minister against good advice, against the advice of the Franzsen Commission in its third report, which is available to all of us. The Franzsen Commission very definitely indicated that the time had come that we should find more of what our public utilities need—for the purposes of this argument I include the Railways under the heading “public utility”—by way of capital from income every year and less from continued borrowing. The Franzsen Commission attached great importance to this recommendation because of the spiralling costs of replacing worn capital goods and the way the costs of capital requirements increased year after year. In his speech the hon. the Minister inadvertently illustrated what is happening to the costs of capital goods when he told us that one of the plans he had for the near future was the construction of the new railway line from Bellville to Kensington to ease the congestion of the railway line from the platteland to the Peninsula.

I took the trouble to establish what the position was in 1945, when that wise old Scotsman, Mr. Claude Sturrock, supported by a brilliant engineer, Marshall Clark, recommended exactly this line for reasons which were valid then and which I am convinced must be even more valid now. The construction of that line was recommended and there was a Bill before Parliament which became an Act of Parliament and it is still on the Statute Book. The hon. the Minister will consequently not have to come with a new Bill at all. In that Act Parliament empowered the Railways and Harbours to build this little line of eight miles in length from Kensington to Bellville in the Cape Peninsula at the cost— take note of this—of seven hundred and thirty nine four hundred and seventy eight pounds.

Seven hundred? Surely, that must be wrong.

£739 478. The Minister, of course, is my best friend in this House. I appreciate it so much.

I must keep you on the right track.

Yes, you do very well. Converted into rand the cost would have been R1,5 million. In 1945 this line was necessary; Parliament was convinced of its necessity and passed an Act. It would have cost R1,5 million to build it, but now, 27 years later, the present Minister comes and he finds that Messrs. Sturrock and Marshall Clark were right, the line is necessary and now he wants to build it, but what is it going to cost now? Not R1,5 million, but according to the speech of the hon. the Minister, R17 million. [Interjections.] These are the hon. gentlemen on the Government side who accused Mr. Sturrock because he had plans like this of being a Haroun el Raschid, of being a spendthrift, throwing away the money of the people.

Why did he not build the line if it was necessary?

Why do you not ask his spirit? Quite obviously he did not build it because this Bill was passed before the War had ended and unfortunately before he could build it after the War ended, a disaster struck South Africa when the United Government was defeated and the National Party came into power. That was the reason, quite obvious.

I quote this example first of all because it does the heart of a United Party man good—even the ex-United Party Minister of Community Development smiles with joy as he realizes to what a good party he once belonged. I quote it also with another object, and that is to show the justification of the Franzsen Commission’s suggestion that we have to take into consideration that with creeping inflation, renewals of capital goods will always be more expensive and that we shall be building up an intolerable burden in the services charges upon the capital of an undertaking like the Railways, Escom or the Rand Water Board, unless we acquire a larger proportion of our capital from revenue. I would like to give hon. members some idea of how the Franzsen Commission approaches this, because I think the Minister should give us his reaction to these suggestions.

Then I would also like to make a suggestion to which I hope the Minister will react after I have given him these quotations. In paragraph 190 of its third report, the Franzsen Commission refers to the South African Railways. This is an interesting statement of fact—

Escom has asked for a Bill to enable them to increase their contribution from revenue to capital. What is the attitude of the South African Railways and Harbours? The Franzsen Commission refers to a recommendation made by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in paragraph 191 of their report, suggesting that public utility corporations should be responsible for financing between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of their total capital expenditure from internal funds. In paragraph 193 they referred to something to which I have already referred, and it is that this problem becomes acute when one looks at the costs of replacing capital goods. In paragraph 194 it points out that the consequence of this is that the present practice causes an unjustified shift of the burden of higher prices on to future generations. It makes the following recommendation in paragraph 195—

I have figures here to show that the Railways are not doing what they should in this connection. I am not finally committed to these figures, because unfortunately they were worked out under pressure, but it would appear that had the Minister for example in 1970 made this type of contributions to his capital funds, which the Franzsen Commission recommends, his deficit would not have been R13 million, but R56 million. I do not want to go into that, except to ask the Minister whether he has given consideration to these …

Could you just repeat that?

I am struggling a little bit, but I am trying to save time. [Interjections.] In the 1969-’70 Budget capital expenditure on all services on the Railways, Harbours and Airways was R141 million. To satisfy the Franzsen Commission’s requirements, the transfer to capital funds should have been R56 million, that is 40 per cent of R141 million. In actual fact, it was only R21,6 million, including contributions to the Level Crossings Fund and to the Sinking Fund. The deficit in 1969-’70 was R13 million and on the above calculation it should have been R48 million.

I think you are getting your figures mixed up.

Possibly. I am not committed to these figures, but the point I want to make is that if the minister were to carry out the recommendations of the Franzsen Commission every year in regard to finding the capital needs of the Railways, his results would be considerably different from the ones which he presents to Parliament. I am not …

Do you mean that the deficits will be bigger?

The deficit will be bigger or the surplus will be less. I am convinced of that; I am not criticizing the hon. the Minister; this is a practice that has been inherited from the days when South Africa became a Union. Here we have an influential commission that seems to have the support of the Government, suggesting that there should be a greater contribution from revenue to capital requirements. It is quite obvious to anybody that, as the Railways are run today with its financial or business policy, that would not be possible. Some sections of the Railways and railway users carry an unconscionable burden in order that the State may transport a vast volume of goods at non-economic rates.

That brings one to the question of what one can do to put the finances of the Railways generally on a sound basis. I do not think it is sound at the moment when 80 per cent of the goods conveyed by the Railways, according to one of the Staff Association officials, are conveyed at uneconomic rates.

Eighty percent?

That is the figure Mr. Benade used. A huge proportion of our goods is conveyed at uneconomic rates and a small volume of goods must carry the rest of our enterprise. As a matter of fact, it is not only a question of a small volume of high-rated goods carrying the State when it demands that the vast bulk of the goods transported by the Railways should be transported at uneconomic rates; it is also a question of sections of the Railway organization carrying other sections. Look at the figures for the last year and the present year for which we are budgeting. In 1971-’72 the Railways ran at a deficit of R81 million. The Harbours showed a surplus of R25 million to subsidize the Railways; but the Harbours surplus is maybe something of passing value because one never knows when the Suez Canal will be reopened and the position change. The Airways last year showed a deficit of R600 000, but the pipeline carrying petrol and other fuel from the coast to the Southern Transvaal and to the Northern Free State showed a surplus of R44 700 000, thus in itself paying more than half the deficit of the South African Railways. If one looks at the hon. the Minister’s Budget figures for the new year, he again expects the Railways to run at a deficit of R74 million. He expects the Harbours to show a surplus of R21 million and, for reasons we shall discuss, the Airways now also show a deficit. But he expects the pipeline and the motorists of the southern Transvaal and the northern Free State to subsidize the transport of South Africa in the interests, not only of the Witwatersrand, Sasolburg or Pretoria, but in the interests of the State as a whole, to subsidize the deficit of R74 million on the Railways to the tune of R47 million. There is an imbalance. That is why I say that the time has come to the hon. the Minister to make a statement to this House concerning the attitude of his Administration, his Ministry and his Cabinet to the recommendations of the Schumann Commission; which in principle has the support of both sides of this House, namely that we should depart from the principle that one should charge what the traffic can bear and that one should come to a cost-based rating policy for the South African Railways and Harbours. The national interest requires that. I do not mean that there should be an inflationary increase in rates generally. I mean that if it is in the interests of the State as a whole that goods should be transported at a loss, that loss should be carried not by a section of railway users or by the Airways, the Harbours or the pipeline, but by the taxpayers of South Africa, i.e. by the Consolidated Revenue Fund. That is the principle we should like to see established. I for one would be very grateful to hear what the hon. the Minister’s reply to this will be. This, too, would bring about a state of affairs where justice to the employees of the Railways will be done regularly and as required, so that we will not have the unhappy phenomenon we have had in this Budget from the hon. the Minister that, while his men are crying out for relief and the benefits of the 1970 increases have been dissipated in inflation, he has not a word of policy, approval or sympathy to say to them whatsoever. The time has come that the hon. the Minister should look at the problems of his railwaymen in two phases. The one is that the worker in any enterprise, but certainly a State enterprise, should be compensated regularly for the decrease in the value of his pay cheque as a result of inflation. Periodically he should also be entitled to a share in the increased net national income of the people of South Africa. The Minister’s salary or wage policy should be a twofold one. In the first instance it should provide for regular adjustment in the income of his workers to compensate them for inflation and, secondly, it should provide for adjustments in their salaries over longer periods to enable them to share in the prosperity of South Africa.

As I have tried to indicate, we feel that the Railways are not playing their part as an influence on the economy of South Africa, that according to this Railway Budget the Government lacks the foresight and the insight really to do something and to devise a plan to give us whatever benefits may stem from devaluation and not to fritter them away. Accordingly I move the following amendment—

Mr. Speaker, we learnt from the report of the General Manager that the old, well-known and beloved steam locomotives will soon be seen only in museums by us old acquaintances. The hon. member for Yeoville roused my sentiments because I saw and heard him traditionally in the position of the old, well-known locomotive which, as it leaves a station, says: “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can …” and when it gets into second gear, that locomotive starts slipping when it has to pull the weight of the load. This was also typical of the hon. member for Yeoville’s speech. When it had to pull the load, the locomotive said: “But I can’t, but I can’t, but I can’t …” At the end of his speech the hon. member got rather confused, also in respect of his notes, and reminded me of the hungry dog running from dish to dish and chasing everyone from every dish but not eating anything.

We heard the same old story this afternoon: The Superannuation Fund, the Rates Equalization Fund, a bit about devaluation, inflation, and tariffs and then the most important and conspicuous of all, the stale topic of the Milnerton-Bellville railway line. Legislation in this regard was introduced in this House in 1945, and still exists. From 1945 to 1947 that hon member’s Government could do nothing about the matter, and since they could do nothing about the matter, does he now have the moral right to reproach us for doing something about it now? What an argument! What a ridiculous argument ! In all respect, he made only one rational point this afternoon, namely when he referred to the possibility of narrowing the gap between high-rated and low-rated traffic. Logically and technically speaking, I am prepared to give him marks for that; but against the background, which I will sketch in a moment, of the other railways of the world, I do not know whether he is going to make the grade.

Talleyrand, the famous diplomat, said on occasion:

The diplomat of Yeoville tried his utmost this afternoon to qualify as far as this instruction is concerned. But he forgot one point—Talleyrand was a diplomat and knew that one should say things in as few words as possible. Furthermore, as a diplomat, one’s facts must be absolutely correct, otherwise one fails. With due respect, the hon. member failed this afternoon. I do not want to be unreasonable. I shall show him point by point where he failed.

The first time he failed was when he donned this cloak of political morality and wanted to rectify the mistake he made the other day by telling the Minister that on behalf of himself and his Leader he undertook not to make a political issue of non-White and White labour on the Railways. But, Sir, to whom did he address that? I want to put this question to him: When did he change his mind? As far as I know, under the umbrella of the Herstigtes they proclaimed far and wide at Brakpan that the White man was being ousted by the Black man. They did not call him “Bantu”, but “Kaffir”. This was just the other day, and I want to predict that this little song will be sung loudly at Oudtshoorn.

But I proceed. Forget about Brakpan. We come closer to the present. What did the hon. member say in this House last Wednesday about this specific matter? I quote:

Mr. Speaker, as far as I know, a poor-White is a person living below the breadline. Do you know when last Railwaymen were in that position?—in 1944, when those people in that Government paid them 3/9d, a day. Today these people get R3,85 to R5 per day, as opposed to 3/9d. We are going to strip those morality people of their false cloaks this afternoon, so that we may see them in their political loin-cloths and show them to the people. If clarity of thought and balanced judgment were to be the symbolic golden thread, the product today would have been too little to knit a pair of mini-pants for a dickey-bird, let alone a loin-cloth, which should at least have a section hanging down at the back. Mr. Speaker, I do not know what we are going to make for the hon. members for Wynberg and Houghton. I do not really know. Perhaps “tiranas”. They need not blush; it is a very safe covering. This “papal cloak” of the United Party under which they conceal ringworm sores and sandworms—one only picks up a sandworm when one crawls low enough into a sand-pit and the worm creeps in under one’s skin—we must strip off and expose the political sores to the healing power of the sun and the light—of enlightenment. We are going to tear off that cloak. We are going to tear it off this afternoon, man for man. In addition, we are going to change the idiom of this debate, the Railway debate. We are going to move away from the traditional things we get here, such as complaints of a staff member who has resigned three times in order to get his pension and who is not reappointed the fourth time, or complaints about the colour of the roof of the siding at Kortdoringshalte. We are going to get away from that. Those are matters for the Committee Stage and matters that can be dealt with administratively with the department. This afternoon we are going to deal with policy. If there are economic arguments to be advanced, they must be advanced …

[Inaudible.]

I am still coming to you, friend. If there are economic arguments to be advanced, they must be advanced. I am back at that cloak of the hon. member for Yeoville. He is the one who has more than one undertaking or word of honour. He gives the one to the Minister, an integral part of the Government, while the one he gives to the Government itself is something different. He gave the Minister the undertaking that he would not drag in politics, but he nevertheless arrogates unto himself the right to drag in politics as far as the Government is concerned.

Mr. Speaker, what are the facts of this matter? Does the hon. member not know that last week the Minister of Labour gave a written reply to question 261, which was put by the hon. member of Hillbrow, the prophesier?

Madame Rose.

Madame Rose. In that connection the hon. the Minister of Labour mentioned more than 100 cases in which the work reservation regulations had been suspended, for example in the engineering industry, for health inspectors in Natal, barmen in Natal, building workers in the Free State and in the Transvaal, and drivers of heavy lorries. There were literally hundreds. But here the political pope from Yeoville comes along and gives out that the Government has done nothing in this regard. He does so merely to have an excuse and to get around his undertaking to our Minister on behalf of his Leader, namely not to make a political issue of this. This is typical, traditional and easy United Party conscience.

What is the position of the Whites and the non-Whites on the South African Railways? Because of the bad economic situation in the country at the time, it was decided at the end of 1906 to authorize the use of Whites as labourers on the Railways as a temporary emergency measure. In the succeeding years, the original idea to provide only temporary work to Whites as labourers, gradually became the normal practice. At the time of the amalgamation of the various railways after Union, the utilization of the services of White labourers had already become a feature of the operation of the Railways. In 1924 a start was made with the civilized or White labour policy. After that, increasing numbers of non-Whites were replaced by Whites. But because of the rise in the standard of living and the attraction of the labour market in general, it became increasingly clear that White labour would become increasingly scarce for these posts on the Railways. For that reason an amendment was effected in terms of which the 947 non-Whites on the Railways in 1941 increased to 16 917 in 1970. Here you have a good argument which may be used in Oudtshoorn in respect of ousting if you want to break your undertaking. As a result of changed circumstances further steps were taken and as from 16th September, 1970, approval was granted for posts for railway workers being permanently filled by non-Whites on condition that (1) no suitable Whites were available for appointment and (2) no work was done on a racially mixed basis. Here you have a policy standpoint. Here hon. members have the will and the proof that this Government, as always, will stand or fall by sound control. Here is the proof that something out of which hon. members want to make political capital today, was a natural, normal evolution which took almost three-quarters of a century to develop on the South African Railways. It is an evolution which took place under control and the maintenance of policy. It did not come about sporadically or was not introduced on the spur of the moment or by means of the “hit and run” tactics of the opposition that we know so well.

We are still dealing with the cloak of morality. I read in the Hansard of 17th March, 1971, that the hon. member for Yeoville once again gave an assurance in regard to the political aspect. I read—

Quite correct.

To talk about poor-Whites or that the White man is being ousted? Is that not politics? To circumvent this and to make the attack against the Government that it does not allow itself to be guided by the intelligent leadership of the Minister of Transport? Is that not politics? Then I should like to know what politics is. When one thinks of these matters, one wonders where this United Party country is, this United Party country which the hon. member for Yeoville wants to conjure up with words and more words. They want to insult the White man by this; they want to prejudice the Black man and harm race relations in this country. It is this sand-worm we want to cut out and freeze so that we may heal the wounds caused by it. But, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Yeoville went further. On Wednesday last week he referred to the 70 per cent production increase in comparison with only a 6 per cent increase in staff and a small salary increase to the staff. He called it the “bonsella” of Langlaagte, which, to use his own words, had been eaten up a long time ago by the rise in the cost of living. In a condescending way and with traditional swaggering, he tried to make out what was, according to him, a very important case. But what are the true facts? The facts are that while we had a price increase of only 6,9 per cent, there was a salary and wage increase for the railwayman of between 10 and 15 per cent. Furthermore, the increase in production which the Minister mentioned in his budget speech extends over a period of 10 years, not only one year as was suggested. But what has happened in this decade in respect of wage increases and benefits for the railwayman? In this decade the income and the housing of the staff have been improved at a cost of R218,2 million and R127,7 million, respectively, i.e. R345,9 million. But conveniently the hon. member remained silent about that, of course, and in this respect he accordingly failed as a diplomat; his facts were not correct and he did it on purpose. Sir, if he were dependent on me for an appointment an the diplomatic corps, I would not give him a third-rate post. But what else did the hon. member for Yeoville say? He referred with great wisdom to the Rates Equalization Fund, and according to the Hansard of 15th March, 1971, the hon. member said the following (col. 2717)—

Hear, hear!

The hon. member says “hear, hear” to such a ridiculous statement. This was his standpoint last year when selective tariff increases were introduced, but a few years previously he had said: “What is the Fund there for? It must be exhausted”, and a few years prior to that, since the days of Hamilton Russel, whom he imitated, he had said: “You must build up the Rates Equalization Fund to R30 million; you may not touch it, because this is the insurance or pension scheme of the railway workers.” However, when it suits that hon. member, he is prepared to exhaust the fund. Sir, it seems to me as if hon. members opposite have as many stories as they have policies—one for each day. Go and read that hon. member’s Hansard over the past five years and you will find that every year he had a different story about the same subject, about the same principle and about the same economic policy. Sir, it is becoming boring to hear continually from that hon. member: “I think I can; I think I can; but actually I can’t, I can’t. I can’t.” Sir, if the hon. the Minister had accepted this United Party advice, if the Rates Equalization Fund had been exhausted last year, what would the Minister have had to do this year? He would have had to increase the tariffs; he would have had to reduce the salaries of the staff. Is this what hon. members opposite wanted, because then they could have made political capital? No, Sir, the Opposition is dealing with old hands here: they will not allow themselves to be caught by transparent United Party tactics. This side follows a sound Joseph’s policy. We save and will not allow ourselves to be put off. Hon. members opposite are children in the world of finance and in the political life of South Africa; why should we then take them seriously? Sir, this Government is a strong one; it is a government which has insight and perspective, a government which does not fall for the Delilah stories of that side, a government Which is prepared, when necessary, to smite the Opposition utterly with the traditional Samson’s jawbone of sound policy and merit. And, Mr. Speaker, in the coming election at Oudtshoorn you are really going to see a big and utter slaughter! The hon. member for Yeoville spoke generally about world conditions and said that we were bankrupt, and that we wanted to make a virtue of devaluation. This devaluation is a matter of merit now. Sir, for 22 years they have reproached us with wanting to isolate our country by our policy of separate development. But what do we hear this afternoon. We are already isolated, never mind the process of isolation. As far as the economy of the world is concerned, we are isolated, because these stupid Nationalists and the stupid voters of the Republic of South Africa do not know that in the past year the Japanese national railways showed a loss of R329 million. They do not know that the Austrian federal railways showed a loss of R64 million, even less do they know that the German federal railways showed a loss of R290 million; even less do they know that the Italian state railways showed a loss of R380 million and the Dutch railways 19 million guilder. Our electorate does not know this; let us take the chance; we don the papal gown, conceal the facts a little and play the part of diplomats. Then we get away with it. Are these facts also an admission of hopeless government in Italy, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands? Are these hopeless governments with hopeless policies? What is the message of the railway worker to the United Party supporter of South Africa? He is saying from Upington that as a result of the large deficit he and his colleagues have discussed the matter and are asking whether they cannot contribute their share. Five ticket examiners were budgeted for and planned for, but the leader there says that they are writing of their own accord and will do the work, and that they have to cut down and to pull in their belts. This is the railwayman whom you are accusing of being a poor White and whom you want to deceive with your superficial stories in this House, and then you expect him to believe these stories. What else is the Railway worker doing under these circumstances? He is establishing efficiency committees in every department in the Railways in order to apply self-criticism and to see where they can improve matters, reduce expenditure and advise the Management. They are not disloyal; they do not project their problems onto others and reproach them. He says, “No, I am a self-respecting man; I occupy a post and I shall carry out the responsibility attaching that post to the utmost.” This is something completely different from what the United Party people are able to do. Sir, is this perhaps the reason why we have one of the best training centres in the world today? Is this perhaps the reason why we are going to introduce one of the most beautiful international long-distance trains on our railways one of these days? Is this perhaps the reason why one of the largest packing sheds, the largest under one roof in the Southern Hemisphere, could be taken into service at our harbour in Durban, recently? Does this show their people to be unwilling, over-worked poor Whites, or is it proof of the best insight and scientific knowledge and the best co-operation imaginable under the circumstances we are experiencing in this country today? No, I should like to refer to Portland White Cement, the fruit packing co-operative societies and the Maize Board, which all wrote to the Railways to offer them bouquets for their services, for the transportation of ore, chrome and manganese. If time permitted, I should have liked to submit these. But I conclude. I promised to change the tone of this debate, and now, with your leave, Sir, I want to give these instructions to my little group of men : “Charge, men, man for man. Clear up Cape Town and after you have taken over the English and non-Nationalistic newspapers here, say to Dawie of Die Burger that he must quickly train people in journalism and give them an elementary training course in patriotism, national loyalty and pride; take over, and chase these loin-clothed politicians up the Gamtoos, right through Oudtshoorn and past the Ciskei, but just do not allow them to go to Kaiser Matanzima, because he does not like people who are un-South African. He has said so in public. Beware of the Orange Free State, because they do not know United Party people who wear loin-cloths. They must take them up the Caledon Valley as far as Majuba, just in order to let the United Party know what is waiting for them in future. [Interjections.] Invade the Witwatersrand from the east. Start with the East Rand, take it over and give A. M. van Schoor, Carl Nöffke and Schalk Pienaar the same instructions you gave Dawie. Take over and clean up. Everything which is against South Africa must be replaced. Drop in at Randburg and you will find a person there by the name of Horrible van Rensburg. [Interjections.] Say to Horrible he must have those registrations of vacant plots and those unknown people in houses which do not exist, cancelled.

Disgraceful!

Tell him he must please clear that up, because next time we are voting with our identity cards. Close to that constituency you will find a man with the name of Dalling. Let him carry on that clearing-up work together with Horrible under Commandant Piet de la Rey, until I come … [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I should like to start off by making one or two comments on the speech which the hon. member for Randburg has just concluded. The first comment which I should like to make is that if elections are won by noise, I think the hon. member for Randburg may have some chance of retaining his seat. [Interjections.] It is his only chance. The second comment I should like to make is in regard to his comparison of the South African Railways loss with the loss incurred by railways in other countries. I believe that that comparison is entirely irrelevant. One cannot compare what is happening in other administrations without knowing all the facts which apply in each case.

But one must think logically.

I shall maintain later in my speech that there are special factors which caused the deficit and will cause the deficit next year in the South African Railways. The third remark I should like to make in regard to the speech of the hon. member for Randburg is that I believe that the labour position in South Africa as a whole, and as it is reflected in particular in the South African Railways, is far too serious a subject and far too delicate a subject to play politics with.

Oh, come on, never!

I should like to suggest that the evolution to which he referred whereby over three-quarters of a century the non-European workers have made some headway is something to be welcomed, but it has happened despite the Government and not because of the Government. What would have been a far healthier development, would have been active encouragement of this development, rather than to let it happen merely by evolution.

I should now like to come back to the Budget itself. Dealing with this Budget in respect of expenditure we are dealing with a sum of more than R1 400 million to be expended on Revenue and Capital Account. This sum is a large slice of the South African gross domestic product. In fact it represents somewhat more than 10 per cent of that total figure. It is a sum that is considerably in excess of what is spent and what is produced by the combined agricultural, forestry and fishing industries, and it is a sum that is probably in excess of what will be spent and what will be produced this year by the whole of the mining industry in South Africa. For the very reason of its size, let alone other reasons related to the nature of its operations—because the Railways is an organization which affects every sphere of the economy —the South African Railways must be regarded as a mirror of what is happening in the economy as a whole. You can be sure that the factors and problems which are affecting the South African Railways are also affecting nearly every other sector of the economy of South Africa, and conversely you can be sure that the problems and factors which are besetting the economy of the whole, are also leaving their mark on the South African Railways. I find it very disturbing therefore that the hon. Minister, who in the past has shown himself to be a realist when it comes to the internal running of his department and when it comes to his appreciation of the need for developing productivity and making economies in his department, should not also be a realist when it comes to interpreting what is actually happening in the South African economy, when it comes to interpreting what is needed to deal with the position in the South African economy and when it comes to interpreting what will happen to the Railways if the problems which are besetting the South African economy are not effectively dealt with. To me it is crystal clear, and I think it must be admitted by the hon. the Minister himself, that the South African Railways is not only feeling the overall effect of the slowing down and lack of growth in the South African economy, but is also feeling the effects of the individual problems which are effecting the economy. I would like to identify some of the main individual problems which are affecting both the economy as a whole and the Railways in particular.

The first one is the old story that the supply of goods in South Africa is not measuring up to the demand for them on account of the slowing down of the economy and the lack of growth in production. This of course affects the revenue of the Railways directly, because the Railways is in business to convey goods, and if the goods are not being produced or if the expansion in the production of the goods is not there, the expansion in the revenue of the Railways is also not there. On top of that you have the fact that the shortage in the supply of locally-produced goods is no longer being fully compensated by imports as a result of twin measures which have been imposed, namely import control and devaluation, in order to try and solve our balance of payments problem, and the South African Railways are therefore being deprived of their high-rated revenue on imports; and most of the revenue earned by the Railways upon imports is high-rated revenue. It is true that this year there is likely to be an expansion of exports, an expansion due in the first place to good agricultural crops following upon favourable climatic conditions and in the second place to the improvement in world trade and in the demand for primary products including minerals neither of which improvement, I might say, is going to come as a result of devaluation. They are going to come from other factors. This traffic that will be generated for export will not be the same high rated traffic as would have been generated had imports remained at the same level as previously.

The second problem which is besetting the economy of South Africa, a problem which is also affecting the Railways, is the shortage of factors of production in relation to the demand for them. Here, of course, I refer primarily to the shortage of labour. The Minister admitted in his Budget speech that there was a shortage of labour of 19 per cent in the bread-and-butter grades. That is the same figure as he admitted to exactly a year ago. There has therefore been no improvement in the labour position. I would like to join with the hon. member for Yeoville in congratulating the hon. the Minister on the splendid example he has set in upgrading White shunters and bringing in non-Europeans (Bantus) as train-compilers to take their places. In this respect the hon. the Minister enjoys a unique position in that he is able to dictate his own labour policy irrespective of the policy laid down by the hon. the Minister for Labour.

What does uncle Douglas say? Is he still satisfied?

In this respect the hon. the Minister also enjoys a clear advantage over other employers in the South Africa economy who have to abide by the Government’s restrictive labour policies.

He can also award them a new appellation.

It is tragic to think that, if other employers in South Africa were allowed and were encouraged to follow the example which the hon. the Minister of Transport has instituted as far as the promotion of non-White labour is concerned, the whole South African economy would change and we would be well on the way to solving our main economic problems. The Railways are, however, not only feeling the shortage of labour as far as factors of production are concerned, but they are also feeling the shortage of capital and the fact that they are having to pay a higher price for capital on account of its shortage. Without taking into account the greatly increased interest contribution which is being paid this year by the Railways to the South African Railways and Harbours Superannuation Fund, the increase in the interest to be charged this year is no less than R25 million. The hon. the Minister reports in his Estimates that this is due in part to the higher rate of interest which he is having to pay. He does not say what part of this increase of R25 million is due to higher interest rates, nor does he say what part is due to the higher costs which he is having to bear to serve foreign loans as a result of devaluation.

The third problem which is facing the South African economy and which is also leaving its mark on the South African Railways, is the inflation rate which is eating into the living standards of all South Africans and which is, of course, severely affecting the Railways itself. Despite the evidence which is present in the Estimates that there is an appreciable increase in the productivity per man in the Railways, which is a highly commendable development in the administration and despite the fact that no salary or wage increases are budgeted for, not even to compensate for the increased productivity which the Railway workers are giving, it is quite clear that the Railways are under pressure from increased prices under virtually every heading of expenditure. I think that where inflation is hurting the Railways most, however, is in forcing the Minister to make a choice between two evils. He has either to choose to maintain the existing tariffs and fares at their present level and incur a deficit at the end of the year, which incidentally is indirectly an inflationary course, because he is spending money that he is not earning, or he can choose the second course of increasing his charges, namely his tariffs and fares, which would, of course, only add fuel to a highly inflationary situation. This is a situation which virtually every other organization has to face which is not able to continue to run at a loss in the way that the Railways does. We on this side of the House are relieved that the Minister has chosen in the time being the first course, namely that of maintaining tariffs at their present level.

These are the basic problems that are facing the Railways and as they are the same problems which are facing the economy as a whole, I think that the hon. the Minister should have a very direct interest in seeing them solved on a nation-wide basis as well as being solved for his own department. I was therefore surprised and disappointed when during his Budget speech last Wednesday the Minister adopted the same complacent attitude we have heard several times this Session from the hon. the Minister of Finance, namely “alles sal reg kom”, an attitude which obviously is relying heavily on devaluation to work wonders. Something which we on this side of the House have put forward more than once this Session, and will continue to put forward, is the failure of the Government to appreciate that there is a serious structural defect in our economy under the policies which they are following and that unless this structural defect is put right, the devaluation exercise will be a waste of time. It will be buying time which is not going to be used. It will be time completely wasted. The structural defect which I refer to is, of course, the obstacles which the Government is placing in the way of the development and the employment of our productive sources more fully than they are at present being used and employed.

Be more specific.

For the benefit of the hon. member for Rustenburg I want to say that I refer in particular to the restrictions on the geographical employment of Africans, and the employment of Africans in particular jobs, restrictions on the supply of credit and the harmful effects which the high rate of taxes is having on enterprise and initiative and the desire of higher paid people to do more work. These are the structural weaknesses which are causing uncertainty in the economy. These are the structural weaknesses which are physically retarding the growth of the economy and by doing so are actively promoting inflation. If hon. members are not satisfied with our views on this side of the House of what is happening, may I quote several authoritative sources? First of all, I quote from the FCI programme for sustained industrial expansion, which says—

May I then quote the most recent review of Union Acceptances which says—

I would have thought that a realist such as we know the hon. the Minister of Transport to be, would have appreciated what the position actually is and that he would have appreciated that the measures which have been adopted by the hon. the Minister of Finance, can only be regarded as short-term negative palliatives. I would have thought that he would have used his stature in the Cabinet to bring this fact home to his colleagues, because until these basic problems which are facing the economy as a whole are solved, there is going to be no permanent solution to the financial problems of the Railways themselves. Increase in charges is no solution and is something that must be resisted at all costs. We had experience last year of what happened to the cost of living when Government-administered prices were increased. It meant a difference between a 4 per cent inflation rate which the hon. the Minister of Finance said we were experiencing and a 7 per cent inflation rate which the housewife knows we have been experiencing. But obviously, the Railways cannot continue indefinitely to run at a loss. By the end of this year, as the hon. member for Yeoville has already said, the Rates Equalization Fund will be nearing exhaustion.

To me it therefore seems that there are really only three courses open to the Railways. The first would be to increase their charges which, as I have already said, is something to be resisted at all costs. The second is to sit tight and hope that matters are going to get better, which appears to be the course which the Government has decided to follow. The third course would be for the Minister to influence his colleagues to change their restrictive practices and adopt the realistic growth measures which we on this side of the House recommend. I believe that if that course were to be followed, the Railways themselves would grow out of their problems without having to raise their charges. I have not even suggested a fourth possibility, which would be to cut back on expenses, because even if this were practical, which I doubt, it certainly would not be desirable. We on this side of the House would like the Railway organization in good fettle when we come to power. We on this side of the House also fervently hope that the hon. the Minister will adopt the third course which I have suggested.

Before my time is expired, I should like to add a few words to those already said by the hon. member for Yeoville in connection with a more detailed aspect of the Budget, namely the practice which has been adopted this year of cutting back on depreciation allowances. This has been done to the tune of R6 300 000 in regard to the contribution made by the Railways to the permanent way and works section of the Renewals Fund, where the depreciation allowance has been cut back or so-called rebated by 50 per cent. It has been done to the tune of R2,8 million in regard to the pipeline’s contributions to the Renewals Fund. In other words, in total more than R9 million has been saved from the Estimates by cutting back on depreciation allowances. I must say that I question very much the wisdom of this course of action. In the first place, assets do go on depreciating all the time, and it is only sound practice to provide regularly, every year, for depreciation over the expected life of those assets. In the second place, as the hon. member for Yeoville has already said, as a result of the inflationary pressure through which we are living, the cost of replacing capital assets goes on escalating all the time. It is seldom in practice that depreciation allowances which are based on historical values provides sufficiently for the replacement of assets when they are required to be replaced. It is necessary under modern circumstances where inflation is part of the pattern of business— even though inflation at the high rate that we are experiencing at present may not always be expected—to provide a cash flow that will take care of the higher value or costs of replacement of assets. I therefore find it very difficult to appreciate any justification for halving the depreciation allowance as far as permanent way and works are concerned or for suspending it completely in so far as the pipeline is concerned. To me this merely appears to be putting off the evil day. At some stage these provisions will have to be made. To me it also looks as if this is a measure which has been adopted to conceal the real extent of the budget which the Railways are likely to incur this year.

Mr. Speaker, I sat listening very attentively to the hon. member for Constantia. He made a few points I should briefly like to reply to. He also just said what the hon. member for Yeoville said, i.e. that the Railway Budget reflects the economy of the country. No one on this side of the House has ever said that we have not had a drop in our growing economy. No one. We all know this, and we cannot dispute the figures. But I nevertheless want to give the hon. member one consolation, i.e. that in spite of the drop in the economy, a drop which, in my opinion, is altogether temporary, we still transported a greater tonnage of goods in 1971 than in 1970. We transported more passengers in 1971 than in 1970; more people travelled by air in 1971 than in 1970, and in spite of all this the Railways transported more goods in 1971 than in 1970. It therefore does not seem to me as if the Railway Budget is a reflection of the economy of the country.

Then the hon. member spoke about another matter, i.e. the shortage in the bread and butter grades. I do not know how much the hon. member knows about that, but he is a level-headed speaker and I want to treat him with the necessary respect. I do not know which grades he means here. However, I take it he is referring to people who do shunting work on the Railways or people who do manual labour. If he meant that more non-Whites should be appointed …

That was the Minister’s definition.

… then I just want to tell him that one cannot simply go to a non-White residential area and employ 100, 500 or 1 000 non-Whites. Those people must first be trained. I want to remind hon. members that a start was made with this policy quite some time ago. One does, after all, have to train those people. I remember how unhappy the hon. member for South Coast was in this House last year about one single non-White shunter …

No, about the condition of one single railway line.

He did not trust the non-White shunter; he wanted a White man there. Sir, the South African Railways cannot stand still, and we have a Minister who will ensure that this does not happen. When he found that he could not obtain sufficient White labour locally—he did not want to bring people from overseas to do the work here, because they would not do it either—he began in good time to give training to the non-Whites. The hon. member spoke here of the number of non-Whites in the service of the Railways, but I want to remind him that there are more non-Whites than Whites in the service of the Railways. In round figures there are 116 000 non-Whites as against 111 000 Whites. Sir, I would be glad if I could get the hon. member for Yeoville’s attention for a moment; he can speak to his Leader later when they leave the council-chamber. The hon. member argued here at length, and I expected him to have something good to say about the Railways Administration and about what the Minister has done for the railwayman.

I thanked him.

The hon. member is now being sarcastic, and sarcasm is sometimes a very cheap commodity. He did not refer to a single thing that has been done for the railwayman. He said—

In other words, he wants to imply that the country is in a terribly difficult position. But, Sir, who of us does not have enough food to eat when we go home this evening? Bring me a non-White who does not have enough food to eat if he is prepared to work.

Where does kwasjiorkor then come from?

You heard that from Mrs. Ballinger.

Where can the non-Whites go and work?

They work for the Whites.

Where?

If the hon. member does not know where the non-Whites work, I would advise him to just get up a little earlier one morning and to drive along the road to Bellville; then he will see where the non-Whites work.

Sir, the hon. member began by saying that the South African Railways’ great aim is to be able to manage the traffic offered. I ask hon. members on that side: Does the Railways comply with that requirement, or do they not. I know that they do, because now hon. members on that side are deathly silent. In the second place the hon. member for Yeoville made a great fuss about the shortage. Sir, a shortage is not something I find strange.

But it is nevertheless troublesome.

Yes, there are many things that are troublesome.

Yes, it is troublesome if one loses an election.

Order!

There have also frequently been shortages in the past, but then there was another Government in power. The hon. member for Yeoville devoted 10 minutes of his speech to elaborating on the railway line the Minister has just announced here and which would have cost only R4 million 27 years ago.

R1½ million.

Sir, it would certainly be a daft Minister who has a railway line built today that will only be needed in 27 years time. At that time one could build cheaply. A non-White then obtained 15 cents a day, and Whites obtained 30 cents a day. What is the position today? Today a non-White obtains from R1-50 to R2, and Whites obtain from R2-50 to R5. That is why it is, of course, more expensive to build railway lines today. It is ridiculous to come along here and waste the House’s time with such a senseless example. The hon. member then went further and again referred to the pipeline profits. He also did so last year and the year before that. Sir, it is nothing unusual in any departmental business that one sector of activities evidences a profit and another sector a loss. He now wants the profit made on the petroleum pipeline to be employed elsewhere. What would happen then? The shortage would then either be greater or the rates would have to be increased. Does the hon. member want to suggest that rates should be increased?

You were not listening.

If the profits on the pipeline must be reduced so that petrol can be cheaper in the northern areas …

You were not listening.

I made a note of what the hon. member said.

I understood very well what he said. If that is done, rates will have to be increased. Would my hon. friend suggest that?

I proposed that we look at the Schumann Commission’s report.

Then the hon. member gave a long lecture about devaluation. I now ask him again this afternoon: Is he opposed to it or in favour of it? I get no answer from him. I therefore take it he is opposed to it.

I said that the country was in such a mess that we could do nothing else.

No, that is not the case. That is not what the hon. member said.

I did say so; that is my standpoint.

I ask the hon. member again: If his party were in power would they devalue or not?

We would not have landed up in such a mess.

That is a very shrewd answer from the hon. member for Yeoville. When the hon. the Minister of Transport asked him why they did not build the railway line at the time, he replied that the then Minister is now dead and buried and that he did not want to go into that. Neither do I want to go into the shortages the Railways evidenced under the United Party rule any further. Sir, what are the reasons for the shortage? I do not, as the hon. member does, ascribe this to poor administration on the part of the Minister, because the hon. member spoke of a “dismal Budget”. I sat thinking and asked myself what the reason for the shortage is. The one big reason is that the Minister looked after his workers. I shall come back to the staff at a later stage, but that was one of the biggest reasons. Then, of course, with the combating of inflation interest rates were increased and this plays a tremendous role. Whereas interest was previously from 5 per cent to 7½ per cent, it is today from 8 per cent to 12 per cent. A very important factor that is only now having an effect is the tremendous assistance the Minister of Railways gave to the drought-stricken areas, aid that is even now still being given, the Railway rebate on this being 70 per cent.

He must not carry that loss.

That is a matter being handled by the Minister of Transport, and he gave the Railway rebate to help the farmers in the drought period. [Interjections.] But I know the hon. member has no feeling for the farmers he can have a good laugh now, but he knows absolutely nothing about farmers. Then, of course, large amounts were invested in renewal capital. Then we come to the aspect of repair costs. We must not ascribe everything to the Minister of Transport. Do you know that repair costs to locomotives, coaches and ordinary railway trucks are much greater today? You may climb into any bus today and you will see what the repair costs to buses in Cape Town are. They have been increased by 58 per cent, and here in Cape Town in only one year, i.e. 1971, salaries for bus workers have increased by R270 000. Now one cannot expect to travel at the same fares. Then we come to the wage increases that I shall come back to later. Import control has also hit the S.A. Railways heavily. The Government had to apply import control to correct the trade balance. I now want to ask my friends opposite a question. They have now seen, in the last month to six weeks, how the trade balance has improved. Are they in favour of, or opposed to, the trade balance being improved by the application of import control? This is transport that was taken from the S.A. Railways. The other reason, as I said at the beginning, is that there is a slackening in our economy, and that is also a reason why there is less transport. As I have already mentioned, transport has increased in spite of that. But I want to be honest and say it would have increased much more if there had not been such a slackening in the economy. The export of wool and mohair also dropped tremendously. Here I again want to thank the Minister today. I think many of the farmers on that side should also do so. I want to thank him for giving a special rate reduction of 15 per cent to the farmers for the transport of wool. But those are things that hon. members opposite do not want to mention. They just want to broadcast the venomous items and not mention the good things.

I agree, but I say that he should not have carried the loss. Do you not agree with that?

Now the shortages must be covered, and how must this be done? The Minister announced that he was going to do this out of the Rates Equalization Fund. But this Rates Equalization Fund might eventually be exhausted, as the hon. member for Constantia said. I do not know whether my Maitland friend is a practical man. Sometimes he does not appear to me to be so. I do not believe he is a practical man. In 1970 we had a tremendous drought, we had a lovely year in 1971 and an even better year in 1972. Where do you now get the right to say that in the ensuing years things will not go better? Certain savings can be made. Savings must be made. Many times, when travelling the highways alongside the railway lines, I have thought that there are too many non-Whites in the work gangs on the main lines. I am very glad the Minister has also seen this and said that he is going to decrease the size of those work gangs and that there will be supervision over the people remaining in the gangs. I believe that 80 per cent of those standing there do not work. Twenty per cent stand with their picks in their hands and wearing thick, khaki coats in the hot sun. That is what happens, and better supervision can also be carried out.

Whose fault is that? The United Party’s fault?

It is a wonder the hon. member for Yeoville did not speak again this afternoon about overtime and Sunday time. It is a wonder.

I shall do so later.

I specially read his Hansard speech of last year.

No, that is still coming.

Oh, is it still coming? I am still in favour of overtime and Sunday time being paid to our South African Railway people.

But the hon. member is now replying to the wrong speech.

I am speaking now; not that hon. member. I want to point out, however, that in cases where overtime and Sunday time are not necessary, we can also effect a saving. A big factor in ensuring that transport runs more smoothly is the modernization of the Railways. Tests were carried out with a very long train of 150 trucks pulled by seven diesel locomotives. That train was controlled by only two persons. Why must we, instead of such a long train, have five or six trains running with two persons in front and two persons in the back of the train? In other words, 24 persons must control those six trains, while in this case 150 trucks are controlled by only two people.

There is also another matter. The hon. member for Yeoville said: “The Railways are in a dismal state.” I ask him whether, on the South African Railways, sufficient provision is not being made for the future in accordance with the planning for the future by the hon. the Minister, the General Manager and his staff? Does the hon. member expect that a time will come when there will no longer be a truck or an engine or a goods van? I do not think the hon. member expects that. I just want to quote a few figures. The following are on order to be delivered in the course of this year: 100 electric locomotives, 200 diesel locomotives, 8 200 goods vans and 465 passenger coaches. The Minister would not invest that tremendous capital if he did not see a future for the South African Railways. This “dismal state”, of which the hon. member for Yeoville spoke, will blow over again.

I do not know whether the hon. member for Yeoville represents a railway constituency; I am in the middle of one.

Randburg and I have the same number of railwaymen.

Where are Randburg’s railwaymen?

I am in the middle of such a constituency, and I receive many letters from railwaymen. Perhaps not as many as the hon. member for Durban Point, who just reads out their complaints here so that this usually takes up his entire speech. The majority of the letters I receive are letters of thanks.

Thanks that they are resigning from the National Party?

They would not be resigning from the United Party because the United Party does not want the railway people; they never get those people’s votes.

Yet Langlaagte is also a railway constituency.

If there are complaints, they usually come from people asking for transfers from one place to another. If the application succeeds and the person is transferred, he does not obtain a house there, and then he asks whether he could not please be transferred back again. That is the nature of the majority of complaints we receive today.

I now come to the question of the cost of living. I regret that the hon. member only touched upon it so briefly. We acknowledge that the cost of living has increased, and increased greatly too. On the other hand we must acknowledge, however, that wages have also increased a great deal. The most important aspect, however, is that the standard of living has also risen in accordance with the increase in the cost of living. Today even the hon. member for Yeoville can with frankness and love enter a railwayman’s house and sit there enjoying a cup of coffee or tea. I ask him what the position was in 1948. Could he do so then?

Yes!

He could not do so. They lived in hovels at the time, and I shall now give hon. members the figures relating to what this Government did for the railway people as far as housing is concerned. If we express this in terms of percentages, the cost of living has increased by 6,9 per cent and the wages by 11 per cent to 15 per cent.

In what year?

Over what period?

In 1971.

In the one year?

Yes, in the one year. What is the position of the officials and the railway personnel as a whole? They get nothing this year.

That is a pity.

Yes. I want to tell the hon. member that I also regret the fact myself. I now want to make use of an example. Once the last of the water has been drunk from a crib there is no longer any chance in summer for animals, a lot of thirsty cattle or sheep —I would rather say sheep when I think of the hon. members opposite—to drink from that crib. In other words, today there are no funds with which to give them an increase, and as far as the railway personnel and all their officials are concerned, I have the utmost confidence that they will wait for better days before they can again obtain a wage increase. I have the utmost confidence in them. I say again that the country is glad the Minister did not increase the rates. The country is glad of that, because at this moment rates cannot be increased. Hon. members know for themselves that with a tendency in the cost of living to increase, an increase of rates would cause a further increase in the cost of living. All hon. members will understand this.

Now we come to the staff shortage, which the hon. member for Yeoville is so glad about. The hon. member for Yeoville is terribly glad about that. There is not as wonderful a shortage as hon. members have implied throughout the years, but there is a shortage in certain sections. There is a shortage of shunters. Coloured and Bantu shunters have now been trained, and I have not the least objection to their doing that work.

You have always objected.

No. To be quite honest, last year I asked the Minister if he had any objections to Coloured shunters being used. He will now tell the hon. member that he said he had no objections.

You have been in power for 23 years and you only come along with that now.

Wait a minute. The hon. Whip on that side must give me a chance. I am convinced that during the elections in Oudtshoorn the persons sitting on that side of the House are going to say: “There you have it!” We shall see what the hon. member for Yeoville does.

You listen to us.

They will say that now we are even appointing Coloured shunters.

You must just train them properly. That is all we ask of you.

My time is virtually up, but I now want to deal with the staff question. From 1948—I know that 1945 was used as a starting point a while ago, but I shall begin at a slightly later date—to November 1971 the Railways Department improved its officials’ wages by more than R315 million —an absolute record. The hon. member may write this down. The amount since 1948 is R315 million. From 1948 to 1962 the wages improved by R110 million; in 1963 they improved by R24 million; in 1965 by R20 million; in 1966 by R36 million; in 1968 by R4 million; in 1969 by R42 million; in 1970 by R12 million; in 1971 by R64 million and from 1st April 1971 to 30th November 1971, by R5½ million. That is a record. Where money was available, the hon. the Minister did not spend this on luxury articles, but ploughed it back for the benefit of his people. Therefore the South African Railways’ officials and staff are satisfied people today.

Why did it not help you in Brakpan?

My hon. friend knows, does he not, that a horse can be ridden till it is sway-backed. The hon. member himself is now becoming sway-backed.

He has political lockjaw.

So much for wages alone. I have just mentioned what the South African railwayman’s housing conditions were. I just want to say that in four years’ time R23 500 000 was spent on housing, departmental housing alone. In 1967 it was R305 million; in 1968, R170 million; in 1969, R495 million; in 1970, R517 million and in 1971, R344 million. Up to November 1971 R313 million was spent. Then there is another scheme on which many millions are spent, i.e. the house-ownership scheme. From 1960 to 1967 R22 million was spent on that, and in 1970-’71, R38 million. Care was therefore taken of the South African railwayman, not only as far as his pocket is concerned, but also in that when it gets dark he can go to a good home. The house-ownership fund is also very important. The contribution of a South African railwayman as a house-owner was only R16 880. The staff can obtain their own houses in a much cheaper way. That is why there are so many people who, after about one to six months, return to the South African Railways after they have resigned and say: “Help me to be reappointed to the South African Railways. I have now discovered that I made a fool of myself.” There are hundreds of these people.

Yes, that is so!

Before I resume my seat I cannot neglect, as far as the hon. the Minister is concerned, to …

To thank him.

Yes. I just want to tell the hon. Whip that I am glad I still have the decency to use the words “thank you”. I do not think he knows the words. I very sincerely want to thank the hon. the Minister, the Deputy Minister, the General Manager and his staff for the good work they did during 1971-72.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Colesberg, as behoves a senior Government Whip, has endeavoured to come to the defence of the hon. Minister of Transport in trying to answer some of the arguments submitted by this side of the House. What is an inescapable fact is that, on economic grounds, the dismal plight of the Railways today has an unanswerable case presented against it. I also want to say to the hon. member for Colesberg who questioned the definition of “the bread-and-butter grade” as referred to by the hon. member for Constantia, that the hon. member for Constantia was merely using the words of the hon. the Minister of Transport when he said in his speech:

The hon. the Minister of Transport must face the fact that his Government, and his Government alone, is responsible for the fact that today South Africa is a victim of a classic conflict between economic laws and man-made regulations. The fact is that the Railway Administration and South Africa as well, is today being slowly throttled by the consequences of this Government’s distortion of economic laws and that, wriggle as the hon. Minister may, the Gordian knot is slowly tightening around the throat of the economic life of the Railways and of South Africa. Today the Railways have to face this fact. Next week it will be the Post Office, and the week after the Minister of Finance when he presents his Budget will be faced with these same inescapable facts. It is the South African Railways which is the first department that has to face the impact of this classic conflict and it is to the Minister of Railways’ credit that he in his usual blunt and forthright manner has had the courage to break away from Cabinet decisions and responsibility and the common herd in introducing a labour policy in the Railways which differs from that of his Cabinet colleagues. The chief result is that he has now become a protagonist of United Party labour policy. When South Africa sneezes the Railways catch a chill. As indicated in our amendment the hon. the Minister and his department are the victims of economic circumstances dictated not through their own management but through the mismanagement of the economy by the Government as a whole. In fact, the South African Railways typify not a South African microcosm but a macrocosm and they are indeed representative of every facet of our economic life. In introducing the Railways and Harbours Appropriation Bill last week the hon. the Minister made a number of statements which would entice us on this side of the House, as politicians to say “we told you so”. Admittedly the hon. the Minister was faced with the unpleasant reality of not only having to report an overall operating deficit, but an anticipated deficit in the year that lies ahead. These two deficits combined are likely to exhaust almost entirely his Rates Equalization Fund which has been built up over so many hard and precious years. In fact, the hon. the Minister of Railways has had to scrape the pot. This situation can only be viewed with dismay and it must have been viewed with greater dismay by the hon. the Minister himself, particularly since he is on record, when he took over the department, as having stated that unless he could make a success of it, he would tender his resignation as Minister in charge of the department. In bis opening remarks the hon. the Minister endeavoured to hide the financial plight of his department by linking it with the downward recessionary trend in the economy as a whole. In fact he has gone further. He is blaming inflationary pressures which have been building up in the economy over a number of years, as having been responsible for increased salaries and wages, including the wages of non-Europeans, and also the overall operating costs. But one wonders whether the hon. the Minister has forgotten the fundamental principle of Cabinet responsibility. I wonder whether he has forgotten that he as Minister of Transport, the Minister of Finance, and the Government, have accepted over the past two years a positive policy of restraining our economy and of bringing about an artificial slow-down in our economy. The Government has been following this policy at a time when the Opposition was emphasizing the fact that the only practical way to fight inflation and to avoid recessionary moves in our economy was to initiate a policy which would engender maximum economic growth through the optimum utilization of all available sources of production, with particular reference to the fullest utilization of our human resources. Again and again my hon. leader has pleaded with members on that side of the House in No-Confidence debates and in Budget debates to face the facts of reality and to remove from the economy the stranglehold of such restrictive legislation as the Physical Resources and Planning Act, job reservation, and other restrictive labour laws. These arguments have been emphasized over and over again by the hon. member for Yeoville, the hon. member for Hillbrow and other financial speakers on this side of the House. The Government itself is on record as having committed itself to combating inflation over the years, but I submit that its record is one of failure, that nothing that the Government can achieve under its present ideological programme, can bring relief to the ordinary citizen of South Africa who has to bear the worst burdens of the present unsatisfactory economic climate. For this situation which is now making itself felt in our Railways, Harbours and Airways conglomerate, the Minister must not blame the economy, but the basic policy of his own Government for which he shares the fullest responsibility. I want to refer to an amazing statement made by the hon. the Minister. It is amazing, not merely because of its fundamental truth, but because of the fact that it was made by the Leader of the House who pronounced it as though it was something new in South African politics. The hon. the Minister is on record as having said—

He then went on to say—

One wonders whether this Minister is a lone voice in the wilderness, or whether this truism has now penetrated into the minds of the ranks of the Cabinet. He will pardon me if I quote the words of the hon. member for Yeoville in the Railways debate of 1970, when he provided the complete answer to the Minister’s present predicament. He said (Hansard, vol. 29, col. 910)—

Having listened to the wisdom of the member for Yeoville, I do not think the hon. the Minister of Transport will claim originality for this truth which he has now confirmed. The 40 million dollar question is, however, whether he will sell this idea to the hon. the Minister of Labour, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and the hon. the Minister of Finance. Just in case the hon. the Minister cannot stomach the thought of taking such excellent advice from the hon. member for Yeoville, he can find very real comfort in the fact that similar advice has been given to the Government over recent years by most of the thinking financial, industrial and commercial leaders of this country. One unpleasant fact, however, cannot be ignored. The hon. the Minister has introduced a Budget which records an almost record loss. He is establishing a trend of losses which may become irreversible during his period as Minister of this department. It is a pity that a loss pattern should have been established at a time like this, so much against the interests of our economy as a whole. The fact is that the South African Railways and Harbours hold a monopoly over the transport situation in this country. His department is therefore not subjected to the market disciplines to which other organizations operating in the field of free enterprise are subjected. This fact, therefore, places a special responsibility on the hon. the Minister of Railways to ensure that the efficiency of his Department operation is maintained at the highest possible level, consistent with the normal business practice of making a profit. This is even more important, because the Railways are inextricably bound up with our very necessary highly developed export programme for the months which lie ahead of us. The hon. the Minister has to face the fact that it is his department alone which can save this country’s export plans. In our present economic drive to avail ourselves of the precious time purchased through the devaluation of the rand in terms of the dollar, the Railways Administration remains the one medium for the transportation of our bulk commodities, whether they be mineral, chemical or agricultural, to the coast. Admittedly the hon. the Minister has made a real contribution towards holding down overall costs by not increasing our rates during this year, but by debiting the deficit of R39 million to the Rates Equalization Fund. But if he assumes the same method during the current financial year with his budgeted deficit, by the end of this year our Rates Equalization Fund will virtually have been exhausted. It is strange, therefore, that the hon. the Minister has not commented in his speech on the relevant section of the Schumann Commission, which strongly recommended a closer realignment of all railway rates with actual costs, so as to smooth out the present system of differential rating and reduce the relatively large gap between the highest and lowest rates.

It is the Railways’ inescapable role as the largest single undertaking in the country’s economy, and as the sole conveyor of the bulk of the country’s goods and provider of transport services, that makes the Minister’s financial crisis so important to our country. South Africa cannot afford further the burdens which have been imposed upon the economy if either goods transport rates or passenger rates are to be increased in order to eliminate the current losses which this Minister is experiencing. The hon. the Minister has stressed the role which the South African Railways will have to play in the economy of the country if we are to meet the export growth rates which have been set for the period 1970 to 1975 by the hon. the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Committee. Indeed, the 1973 export target with an expected 5½ per cent growth rate has been set at R1 850 million, and it has been stressed that this level of exports must be regarded as a minimum target. To that extent we are dependent on the Railways and the Railways alone for our economic salvation through exports and the saving of foreign exchange. If we fail in this target, our balance of payments position may well become critical. The Railways therefore have a very real responsibility in accepting all goods offered for transport expeditiously and at economical tariffs.

I want now, Sir, to deal in some detail with the present programme for the expansion of our existing and future major ports and harbours. In his Budget speech the hon. the Minister made reference to the development of Richard’s Bay at a cost of some R121 million. In addition, for the provision of the necessary railway line to serve Richard’s Bay and so enable mass export of coal towards the end of 1976, a sum of R125 million has been allocated for the provision of the line from Broodsnyersplaas to Ermelo. Then there are to be extensions to the Durban harbour and also extension Number One and extension Number Two to the Table Bay harbour. Of course, we also have the proposed development of Saldanha Bay as a major bulk ore-loading port for exports. It would appear too, from recent developments that we cannot afford to ignore St. Croix as a possible interim outlet for our bulk exports. All this will involve a high degree of capital expenditure which may be difficult to finance and to come by just at this time.

Then I want to refer to the highly profitable exports of anthracite coal which were prejudiced during 1971 through the inability of the Railways at the Durban harbour to handle the optimum coal exports which we were offering. It is for this reason that I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to give special consideration to the creation of an advisory consultative committee which will pay special attention to the overall economic implications of our future and present planning of harbour schemes. In making this appeal, I in no way wish to cast any reflection on the permanent South African Railways’ departmental staff, their technical ability, or their dedication to their office. I make no comment that is detrimental to the Minister himself and to those who advise him with his planning, but I believe that the permanent staff are carrying out their operations under difficult circumstances in an exemplary way. It is my contention that when we consider the planning of future harbours, the creation of new harbours, their siting, their shape and the size of such harbours, then of overriding importance to commerce, industry and agriculture, will be the fact that these harbours will have a tremendous economic effect on the growth of the country as a whole.

I am sure that the hon. the Minister of Transport will recall way back in 1967 the occasion when, during the planning of the new Cape Town harbour, representations were made by commerce and industries and the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut, die Sakekamer, the Chamber of Industries and the Chamber of Commerce, who felt that they had been left out in the over-all planning of that harbour at the time. Due to these representations the hon. the Minister agreed to the Moffatt Departmental committee being appointed. As a result thereof the evidence given was certainly made use of in the present planning. The concept of the Rietvlei scheme was discussed at length and was bitterly fought for by commercial interests in the Cape, but was opposed by the Railway Commission. In the end result we have the Cape Town harbour as it is now, with modifications which have been suggested from time to time as experience has dictated. If the planning or re-planning of the existing harbour complexes is of such importance, then the planning of new harbours must create socio-economic problems whose horizons are far wider. It is here where outside experts, scientists, industrialists and men of vision should be called in on an ad hoc basis in order to give the Minister and the country the benefit of their over-all reactions to these plans, to the extent that they will fit in with our economy in general.

Then I want to speak briefly on the subject of the giant dry dock, which was indicated during the last session would be undertaken as a construction work in our new Cape Town harbour, using the initiative of the IDC together with private enterprise. This undertaking received enormous publicity and was welcomed as initiating another sphere of growth in the Cape Western Province, an undertaking which would have brought about enormous income-earning opportunities of foreign exchange and also labour opportunities in this area where we need growth so badly. As you are aware, there are few dry docks in the whole world which offer such facilities and which can cater for the super tankers that are rounding our coasts at the moment. The decision to discontinue negotiations for the building of this dock was a tragedy for South Africa. I appeal to the hon. the Minister to use his influence with those concerned in order to reopen negotiations with all interested parties if at all possible.

Then there is the question of the IDC and its identification with the ownership of several new super tankers. There is the question of the acquisition of a number of super tankers by the Industrial Development Corporation and the fact that these tankers are now out for charter for the carrying of oil. Although they are South African-owned, in the sense that the IDC are the owners, I believe that they are still sailing under foreign flags. In fact, because of our inadequate repair facilities, they have virtually no home port of call where they can receive the necessary repairs and maintenance. The foreign exchange commitment in itself and the expensive maintenance they have to undergo are a tremendous loss to the South African economy. Our ports and our harbours need all the revenue which is available to them. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister will enlighten us on some of the details of this Industrial Development Corporation’s handling of the tanker business. I wonder whether he would indicate to the House whether these tankers are in fact owned by the Industrial Development Corporation and how much South African capital is involved. I understand that recently the IDC acquired a tanker called the Kronberg and that this vessel has been experiencing endless trouble from almost the date of its acquisition. In fact, I understand that the Kronberg after a refit in Cape Town during last year again broke down completely in the Indian Ocean and was towed to the Persian Gulf in terms of a salvage agreement. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister would indicate just what the cost of this salvage was. Then I understand that some days later the tanker Kronberg broke down again off the Somaliland coast and was required to accept tug escort to Mogadisio, and once again staff from South Africa had to be flown there to effect more repairs. This unfortunate vessel eventually arrived at Durban, where its boilers had to be retubed. Perhaps the hon. the Minister would indicate to the House the costs of these tugs and the cost of the repairs involved and the loss in foreign currency to South Africa, and it would be interesting to know just how many voyages this vessel completed last year and whether it has had further trouble just recently, because I believe that Lloyds Casualties have registered this ship recently as having mechanical trouble in a foreign port. I believe that this House has the right to know whether these ships are sailing under the South African flag and, if not, whether they are sailing under the flag of Bermuda, Canada or Liberia. If this is the case, Sir, one wonders whether South Africa has any guarantee, if these ships are registered as foreign ships, that they will not be commandeered or requisitioned in times of grave national emergency.

Then, Sir, the hon. the Minister has indicated his desire to effect savings in expenditure wherever possible. I wonder whether he will tell this House something about a storage shed at Paarden Eiland, which I believe was rented from the Farmers’ Co-operative Wool and Produce Union Limited by the South African Railways on a long lease for R6 500 a month, ostensibly for storing an overflow of uncleared cargo from the Cape Town docks. Regrettably, Sir, with the Government’s present restrictions on imports, the cargo business is now so restricted that I believe there are empty sheds in the docks and I believe that this R6 500 a month could possibly be saved to eliminate in part the losses which are at present being experienced by the Railways and Harbours.

Finally, both Durban and Cape Town have Harbour tugs operating which are giving trouble and which have had to have their engines renewed. I believe that these S.A.R.—owned tugs have been held up for a number of months due to the non-availability of minor parts and that a decision to re-engine these ships with diesel engines would have saved the Government thousands of rands. These are the sort of economies which should be effected in a tight situation such as the Minister is experiencing. Finally, Sir, with regard to the South African Airways, I wonder if the Minister would indicate whether he is completely happy with the decision to continue the negotiations for the acquisition of two more 747 Boeings in, I believe, September/ October of this year, and whether he has considered the possibility of our present unsatisfactory Airways results receding much further into the red as result of the fact that this country will be operating a fleet of three of these 747 Jumbo Jets. Notwithstanding the kudos that we get and the prestige attached to them, it does appear to have become apparent that unless these are machines at a 72 per cent to 78 per cent over-all passenger listing, the companies operating them are running deeply into the red. I should remind the hon. minister that the results of the pipeline operation are no longer so remunerative to the country in balancing his Budget. The harbours are not so remunerative any longer and the Railways must therefore carry the burden in fairness to the economy of the country. That being so we can ill afford to proceed with the acquisition of these tremendously expensive aircraft, unless a thorough survey of the traffic offering is carried out and of the the increased overheads and ability of the country to meet these overheads.

Finally I would ask the Minister to deal with his local staff and to get them to exercise greater tact in their negotiations with ships rounding the coast. I understand that only in recent months ships chandlers were told that they would not be allowed to revictual ships mooring off our Cape Town harbour, but outside the port limits. It was indicated that all these super tankers and others would have to come into the harbour limits if they expected normal service at this port, and that merely to enable the S.A. Railways and Harbours Administration to obtain minor port dues which are completely insignificant in terms of the goodwill and the welfare of the ships using this port. The net result was that these ships bypassed the port and went to other ports where they were made more welcome. As the result of serious representation put up to the Railways Administration, I understand that this practice has now been discontinued. But this Government needs above all things to make friends and not to make enemies. For that reason I have great pleasure in identifying myself with the amendment before the House.

When the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens was discussing harbours he put forward a few interesting ideas here on the merits of which I do not want to form an opinion at the moment. However, when he was discussing the Railways, it sounded very much to me as if he was presenting a review of some or other speech made by the hon. member for Yeoville.

I should like to begin by saying that this Budget, which may be described as a reasonably sombre Budget as compared to the reasonably good Budgets we have had under this Minister during the past few years is probably not a pleasant one for the present Minister of Transport either.

We do not envy him this Budget; but there is at least one important and shining ray of light in the whole matter. This is that we have not yet in this debate, as in many of the debates we have listened to in the past, heard the old Hamilton Russel refrain from any member of the Opposition, i.e. that there is Ministerial and managerial incompetence on the Railways. I say this is an important ray of light and a major admission on the part of the Opposition that there is nothing in the administration and the management of the Railways which they can criticize. This mighty transport organization is being controlled and managed today in the most modern and the most efficient way and in spite of continual increases in the number of passengers and freight the joint services of the Railways and this national transport system is keeping pace with the traffic offered in South Africa. The most modern technological and scientific aids are already part of this transport system today, and as a result of these modern aids a productivity has been successfully achieved on the Railways which is unequalled in South Africa. Now the United Party comes here, and because they cannot criticize the management of the Railways, and cannot accuse the Minister either of being administratively incapable of managing the Railways, they flounder around with a few arguments; I just want to deal with a few of them.

The hon. member for Yeoville again made a great fuss today about the orderly employment of increasing numbers of non-Whites by the Railways. Sir, one would have sworn, judging from the way he carried on here, that this had in fact been a United Party achievement. I want to point out to the hon. member that the fact of the matter is that it is this Minister who, through negotiations and with the cooperation of the Railway worker, succeeded in achieving what has already been achieved in this regard. I want to point out to hon. members that this is all a matter of confidence and co-operation. The fact of the matter is that these people, and they are the Railway workers who are employed in the lowest grades, trust this Minister and the Government, but they will not trust the Opposition and that is the whole crux of the matter. That is what makes the difference. It is because these people trust the National Party and the Minister; that is why they are prepared to give their cooperation. That is why it was possible to do these things in an orderly way and without disruption on the Railways. But what would have happened under a United Party Government? After all, these people have no assurance that they will on the part of the United Party, enjoy the protection they are enjoying under the National Party Government. I predict that if all these things had happened under their regime, there would have been disruption, revolution and rebellion among the lower grades of the Railwaymen. I say the United Party must not pretend that this is something they achieved.

The hon. member also spoke here about the rates increase, and said that the rates increase last year added to the inflation. Sir, I could simply reverse that argument and say to the hon. member for Yeoville that the Railways is today playing an important role in stimulating the South African economy. The Railways establishes infrastructure and in South Africa, with its long distances, the cost of transport is an important cost factor. Last year the whole pattern of Government action was aimed at retarding the overheated economy, and then it would have been foolish to cover the deficit from the Rates Fund. Now is the right time to do this, because now South Africa is geared to stimulating controlled growth in the economic sector, and for this reason we are this year meeting the deficit from the Rates Equalization Fund. Just think what would have happened if the hon. the Minister had accepted the arguments put forward by the hon. member for Yeoville and his supporters on the opposite side last year, and had not increased the rates. What sort of mess would South Africa then have been in at present? Just imagine, there was at the time an amount of R91 million in the Rates Equalization Fund. The Minister is now budgeting for a deficit of R38,6 million, but we have this year, according to the Estimates, received an additional R58,5 million as a result of the selective increase of rates. If we had not done that, we would not have had this R58,5 million at all. In other words, the Rates Equalization Fund would now have had to bear the burden of a deficit of R97,l million. How do the hon. members’ minds work? Cannot they see this? We would then at this stage, When we want to stimulate the economy, have had to introduce rate increases. It was not a question, as hon. members on the opposite side say, of a lack of confidence last year on the part of the Minister in the economy of the country. It was a question of pure practical-minded realism, sober realism; but on the opposite side it is sheer opportunism and short-sightedness. I want to remind hon. members that we told them last year, repeatedly, why we were doing these things, and were we not right? Were we not right when we said last year that it was not so easy to say that one should have confidence? There are three things which one should take note of. The first is that this Government is adopting drastic measures against inflation, and we must foresee that these anti-inflationistic measures will have an effect on the economy, and that it will have an effect on the volume of transport which will be offered. The hon. members on that side of course thought that we were playing games with these measures which we adopted, that they would have no effect; that is why they argued as they did. On the other hand we told them that we must take into account that intensified import control might be introduced later on in the year, if it became necessary. Import control would inevitably have a tremendous effect on the high-rated traffic in the harbours. Consequently this Budget has shown that the Railways’ economy is in fact extremely sensitive to the high-rated traffic, and this is reflected in the deficits we have been experiencing since December of last year in the harbours.

In the third place we told them last year that they must not bury their heads in the sand like ostriches or stare before them at the ground like oxen. We told them that they should lift up their heads for a change and look around them at what was happening in the world, then they would see that there were certain phenomena which we had to take into account. There is instability and uncertainty in many countries of the world with which we have close economic ties. If what we had expected to happen there did happen, the right time to increase the rates was then and not later. As I said it is not a question of lack of confidence on this side, it is simply a question of taking into account the true facts. In the case of the hon. members on the opposite side it is of course a question of no responsibility, that is why they are as opportunistic as you can hope to find.

The hon. member for Yeoville tried to draw a comparison to indicate how we are doing things very expensively now which we could have done cheaply 25 years ago. He referred to the Bellville/Kensington railway line. Fortunately I know a little about this railway line, because most of it runs through my constituency. The fact of the matter is that it was planned by the U.P. Government in 1945. I wish the hon. member for Yeoville would, at leat occasionally, display a measure of courtesy by listening. That railway line was planned in 1945 as a future by-pass railway line. The United Party at the time had no idea of ever constructing that line. The evidence I can produce for the truth of this statement is that on the day they were defeated they had not yet spent a penny on purchasing a single site along the route of that railway line. Every site required for that purpose was bought up after 1948 by this Government over a long period of time, because it was not an urgent matter. However, that railway line was planned at the time.

In the meantime the necessity for constructing this railway line became progressively less because the main railway line from Cape Town to Bellville was trebled when it became necessary to work on it. Since that line had to be modernized in any case, it was trebled at the same time, and therefore the Bellville/Kensington railway line was not constructed. The most important point, however, is that the Bellville/Kensington railway line was actually planned with view to expansions in the Cape Town harbour. The expansions in this harbour will have been completed soon, and that is why the National Party Government is now constructing this railway line. That is the whole story, and there is no substance in the argument which the hon. member for Yeoville advanced here. [Interjections.]

I should like to discuss the operating results of the Railways as well, and I want to tell hon. members that if one is dealing with such a Budget as this, there are certain questions one wants to ask, and then there are certain things which cause concern, and one asks oneself what possibilities the future holds. That is why I went back into the past a little and examined the operating results of the Railways over the past few years, under this Minister in particular. If one analyses these, one comes upon certain clear trends. Hon. members will recall that during the war years, of course, very little could be done about the development of the Railways. Just after the war the United Party again did nothing; they neglected the Railways very badly. The result was that the Railways lagged behind in regard to the tremendous economic development which took place after the war. In 1954 the whole problem reached a climax. The Railways was in trouble.

Why did you cancel all the orders? [Interjections.]

This Minister took over in 1954, and he began to develop and modernize the Railways on a five-year basis. As a result of that development and modernizing programme the Railways was able in 1959-’60 to catch up with the economic development in the country, and in the early sixties the Railways under the Minister outstripped the economic development in the country. The result was that at one stage there was a tremendous surplus capacity. We can arrive at certain conclusions now. In the first place, between 1954 and 1959 the Railways displayed a tendency to instability in respect of its operating results. During this time there were no fewer than three rates increases. Then you find another period from 1960 to 1965, a period during which a stability was discernible on the Railways, despite the setbacks South Africa experienced at the beginning of the sixties owing to the internal disturbances and our withdrawal from the Commonwealth. During those first five years of the sixties decade, the Railways systematically showed a reasonably good profit on its operating total. If you go further you find that as from 1966 a degree of instability set in again. In the period of the last seven years over which this extends, there were deficits on four occasions and on three occasions there was a surplus, although the surplus in 1967 was very small, namely R1,5 million. If you come to the end of the period, to the last three years, namely 1971, 1972 and 1973, you will find that there has in fact been an increasing deficit each year. If one dwells for a moment on these figures, one must unfortunately arrive at certain conclusions. One comes to the conclusion that the Railways is no longer able to balance its statements and its books unless it introduces an adjustment of rates almost every year. I should like to spend some time on this point, but first I want to mention other facts. I want to demonstrate to the House that in recent years the relative increase in the controllable expenditure of the Railways, which hon. members opposite also mentioned, has by no means been as sharp as the increase in the past. In fact the increase in this controllable expenditure of the Railways has been checked as a result of measures which were adopted to reduce expenditure. In this connection I want to pay tribute to the Railway staff who stated voluntarily that they wanted to make a contribution so that expenditure could be reduced. I want to mention to hon. members that payments for Sunday time were R276 000 less between September and December, 1971, than in the corresponding period in 1970. Overtime payments between September and December, 1971, amounted to R174 000 less than in the corresponding period the previous year. In the same way we find that the pruning of operating costs, for example by reducing the number of staff at operating offices, has already had an influence. We find that in the Western Province alone 7 900 manhours per month are being saved by means of these reductions. In Natal 6 800 manhours have been saved; in the Western Transvaal 5 800 and in the Northern Cape 3 100 man-hours per month. So far there are 50 stations which are closed over weekends so that there need not be any additional expenditure. This controllable expenditure has not increased recently, in fact, it has been checked.

What is the position in regard to revenue? Revenue simply does not keep pace with expenditure. The revenue is simply not there to cover all the expenditure. The conclusion one must inevitably arrive at is that, as I have said, if the rates are not adjusted every year, the Railways simply cannot come out even. I do not know whether anyone else thinks that it is possible, but that is my humble opinion. Owing to the tremendous development during the past decade conditions have changed to such an extent and the demands made on the Railways to transport uneconomic goods in the national interests have increased to such an extent that this cannot be reconciled with the idea that the Railways must be operated on a paying basis, not as long as it has to render these services at such a great expense.

I should just like, briefly, to mention two reasons why I think the Railways finds it difficult to get its books to balance. I think that in times when the Railways is in such a position, we should have greater understanding of the problems which this tremendous service experiences. One reason which I want to mention as to why the Railways is falling behind with its revenue is that the rates index does not keep pace with the consumer price index. If we take 1948 as a base, and accept that in 1948 the index stood at 100, the rates index in respect of the transportation of goods and coal increased to 159,9, while the consumer index increased from 100 to 212.

That is why we are having such a hard time of it.

If we accept that the index stood at 100 in 1959, the rates index, by 1971, had increased to 126,3, but the consumer price index increased from 100 to 141,1. This makes one wonder whether it is right that railway rates should only be increased sporadically, as the need arises. The operating costs increase every year as the index increases as a result of labour costs, material costs and other costs. One also wonders whether it would not be better to adjust the rates index regularly in proportion to the increase in the consumer price index, on the express condition that it should be done with retention of the differences in the various rates categories. In my opinion this would have a greater stabilizing influence on the Railway revenue. Another reason I want to advance as to why I think the Railways is finding it difficult to get its books to balance is that in 1910 the convention fathers imposed a task on the Railways in the Constitution Act to perform transportation services which were not economic, in the national interests. That task has today really become an unbearable burden to the transport service. There were times when the volume of social traffic which the Railways had to transport was less and the task more bearable. However, with the tremendous economic revolution which has taken place in South Africa it has in recent years become simply impossible as a result of the proportions assumed by these uneconomic services. For example, let us take passenger services. During 1970-’71 slightly more than 552 million passenger journeys were undertaken, and calculated statistically the loss suffered during this period on passenger services was approximately R72 million. When one comes to agricultural produce and agricultural requirements the following goods, were transported by the Railways at an unprofitable rate during the period 1st April, 1970, to 31st March, 1971 —unfortunately I cannot present the entire long list, but I would like to point out a few items: On the transport of livestock the Railways suffered a loss of R20,9 million; on the transport of livestock fodder R5,6 million; on the transport of fertilizer R6,39 million; on the transport of maize and maize products R3,7 million; on the transport of fresh vegetables, more than R4 million. During the same period 875 567 tons of fresh vegetables were transported by the Railways, which earned the Railways R5 184 000 in revenue. The total cost of transporting these vegetables was R9 833 000, with the result that the Railways suffered a loss of R4,6 million on the transportation of fresh vegetables. So I can go on. For example I can point out how the Railways had to maintain certain branch-lines, although these are uneconomic. I can also point out how the interest burden of the Railways is becoming more and more onerous because the Railways has to spend millions of rands every year on capital works precisely in order to manage this uneconomic transportation. The Railways has to do this for example to transport passengers, ores, maize and coal, goods from which it does not make money. We must therefore consider that the Railways cannot alone be responsible for this burden. Here I want to concede that there was something in what the hon. member for Yeoville had to say about this matter. I do not agree with him entirely, for the policy of the United Party is not the same as ours in this regard, and I cannot spend any time on that now because my time is running out, but I just want to mention that certain services are today being subsidized by the State. In this way services on certain railway lines to resettlement areas and other lines are being subsidized by this State, but I feel that the Exchequer should go further. The Exchequer should at least see to it that on certain of these uneconomic services, the Railways is at least able to recover the direct cost of transportation on those services.

Hear, hear!

Hon. members on the opposite side know that I do not have the time now to tear their policy to shreds. However, I shall come to that on some other occasion. The Railways can then, with the more beneficial and profitable rates, pay the overhead costs. Out of the profits on other services it may be possible that revenue surpluses become available, which may be applied to this tremendous capital account which builds up every year. This is not a new idea, something which will only apply in South Africa. I want to point out that this is already being done in Japan and England. In the Railway Gazette International of February, 1972, the following is said in regard to the Japanese Railways—

Provision is therefore being made for the maintenance of uneconomic social services. This is also being done in Britain, in terms of the British Transport Act of 1968. In terms of that Act the capital account of the British Railways was reduced from £1,562 million to £300 million precisely because they felt that the interest burden for the British Railways was becoming too heavy. Annual concessions are also being made for the maintenance of certain uneconomic services. I think it is quite correct that the Exchequer should make a contribution in respect of certain of these services. The question is who makes use of suburban train services these days? It is the people who cannot afford to come to work with their motor-cars. There is no reason why the State cannot make a contribution to their transportation costs. That is why I feel that in this regard we will have to think further. If the Railways has to keep on bearing this burden, I do not see how it will eventually be able to get its books to balance.

Mr. Speaker, there are one or two points which I would like to mention to the hon. member for Parow who has just spoken. We did not criticize the General Manager or his staff as was alleged by the hon. member. If the National Party inherited such a poor railway system in 1948 from the United Party why has it then not put matters right in the 24 years it has been controlling the railways? The hon. member says that rates should be increased every year, but why have they not been increased this year? Because hon. members opposite know very well that there is a very good Opposition on this side of the House that is watching matters. The hon. member also said that the transporting of maize, coal and ores do not pay, but surely these commodities are not railed free of charge. I thought that was a very lucrative income that the Railways had.

During the recess I was fortunate to visit the House of Commons in London during a debate on the European Economic Community. It was a very important debate for Great Britain, not so much whether she should join the Common Market, but rather on what grounds and terms. Britain with 56 million consumers was joining a community of 250 million consumers, making a total of more than 300 million. England is our largest overseas trading partner and via England we have entrance to that vast Common Market. In this Common Market area it is accepted and agreed that uniform containerization is the most practical and most economic method of moving cargo between the world’s developed countries. Whether it is by sea, land or by air all are looking for cost savings and are increasingly using containers. More and more large shipping companies are switching from conventional cargo shipping to containerization. It is estimated that no less than 130 fully containerized ships are in service transporting some 200 000 containers and study suggests that this could rise to one million by the end of this year. This extraordinary growth is motivated to halt spiralling shipping costs. Containers help to protect high-value cargo in harbours and to increase ship service efficiency. All large harbours throughout the world are rapidly providing facilities for handling containers to avoid losing shipping trade. Likewise, road transport companies are replacing worn-out equipment by container carrying vehicles. To expedite the moving of containers, customs legislation in many countries is being modified and up-dated. It is hoped that South Africa, too, will put more liberal interpretations of the presently woolly and confusing customs regulations at our land and sea borders. Haulage problems in an enlarged European economy community to permit top weight 40 ft. containers to be trucked all over the Common Market highways, are being discussed by the Big Ten. South Africa must see that she is being kept well informed in this respect. Are we satisfied that our roads and bridges can carry these heavy loads? What steps are the Railways taking to acquire trailers to take 20 ft and 40 ft containers? The hon. the Minister mentioned last year that 50 containers monthly were being manufactured in the South African Railways’ Workshops. What is the present position? Are the three container berths in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban in working order? I, in any case, have noted a great improvement in Durban and Cape Town. The large number of ships anchored in the roadsteads of these two harbours awaiting berths seems to be something of the past.

I understand that a South African has patented a new method which will revolutionize the loading and offloading of container ships. I am referring to the Rail-on/ Rail-off container transport system, where a section of a train, fully loaded with containers, is shunted into a container ship and off-loaded, and vice-versa. I also understand that the inventor has had talks with high Railway officials. It would be interesting to learn what the outcome of these talks has been. This container handling system appears to be most feasible, as the lifting device in the ship would not have to lift more than 1 000 tons at a time. It is considered that a ship with 50 000 tons dead weight cargo capacity and accommodating 2 500 twenty-foot containers, can be completely loaded or unloaded in 45 minutes, which is 37 times faster than at the present time. The inventor of this system of loading and offloading container ships mentions the 12 following points of interest. I would like to quote from the Travel and Trade Review of November, 1971. I quote—

As it is suggested that container ships would operate at service speeds of 35 knots, it would take only six and a half days between Cape Town and European ports. It would therefore be a great boon to South African exporters especially when exporting perishables. The economy of scale has also operated in the development of the bulk carrier.

Whom are you quoting now?

Sir, I must presume from the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech that all the ore trucks on order have now been delivered. I must state that it was a very pleasing sight to see a Press photograph of the General Manager of Railways in the cab of one of the units pulling a 1½ km-long train made up of ore trucks; it is quite an achievement, but why the hon. the Minister was not in the leading unit himself requires some explanation. I am glad to see in the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech that the department has nevertheless done all the necessary preparatory work and is ready to adapt itself to any of the proposed schemes which may be decided upon. We must keep up with the Joneses, Sir, if we wish to remain abreast of world developments in the field of transport.

*Then there are a few staff matters I should like to refer to. During November, 1971, the Federal Consultative Council had an interview with the hon. the Minister. One of the main items for discussion was the house-ownership scheme. Because there was no money available—approximately R7 million per year is necessary for 10 years—it was suggested, since the Minister controls various Railway funds that are earning 5,4 per cent, that if those funds could be deposited in the house ownership scheme, the staff would be prepared to redeem the housing loans at the same rate of interest. It was also suggested that money from the Rates Equalization Fund should be made available. This could not be accepted either, on account of the Railways’ large deficit for the financial year, which might total approximately R40 million, and because, since the deficit must come from the Rates Equalization Fund, the fund would be exhausted completely. The hon. the Minister concluded by saying that the deficit for the 1971-’72 financial year might exceed R18 million, and that the deficit for the next financial year would be considerably more. All he could promise was that more money would be voted annually as more funds became available. Where, may I ask, will these extra funds come from? Now that the Railway Budget has been tabled, it is clear that the hon. the Minister had to take R39 million from the Rates Equalization Fund in order to balance his Budget. In other words, it was a case of naught for your comfort, Sir.

Then the staff also asked that double pay for Sunday time should be reintroduced. This was also refused by the hon. the Minister because there were simply no funds available for an improvement in Sunday time scales. The request that Family Day be made a paid public holiday was also, on account of the present financial situation, refused, to the disappointment of the staff.

†I must say, Sir, that the railwaymen are experiencing hard times. The move to cut staff by 5 per cent on the Railways has been well received by the Trade Union Council of South Africa. The General Manager of Railways has, however, explained that this does not mean heavy sackings; it merely means that vacancies will not be filled and that employees that leave or retire will not be replaced. Sir, the plight of the Railways reflects the sagging state of the economy, brought about mainly by the implementation of a misguided strategy to combat inflation. It is the incredible consequence of the Government’s persistence in stubbornly placing a sterile ideology before the economic welfare of all race groups in South Africa.

What are you quoting now?

Sir, one pleasing aspect of the working of the Railways was that there was no shortage of trucks during the last winter on account of the stockpiling of coal for the railways and power stations. They were able to carry the full maize crop, despite a large unexpected importation of steel, and were able to transport thousands of tons of export ores in excess of their commitments.

Sir, I notice that some 235 females are being employed in certain positions traditionally filled by men. Are they receiving the same salaries as their male counterparts? I sincerely hope so. Then, Sir, I should like to know whether the non-Europeans who are being employed in the place of White shunters are to be classified officially as shunters, as compilers, or as train marshallers? Although I understand that non-Whites will not be fully-fledged shunters—this is frightening—they will be fully trained in this very important job. I also notice that they will work under the supervision of qualified White staff, but that there will be no racially mixed working. This does not make sense. How can the non-Whites be supervised by the Whites if they do not mix?

Then I come to the South African Airways. During our recent visit overseas, my wife and I did all our travelling interstate by air, and we used 10 different international planes on these journeys. We kept a close watch to be able to compare these airlines with our own domestic airlines, especially the catering, comfort, service and security. We were very satisfied and can say emphatically that our South African Airways need not stand back for any of the overseas companies. Although I consider that our security precautions are thorough and sufficient, I did notice one item of security in Switzerland which is worth mentioning. All passenger luggage accepted for a particular flight is placed on the tarmac near the plane in a row. All passengers, as they pass the row of luggage en route to the plane for embarkation, must point out their items of luggage to the chief porter. The porters immediately remove these items of luggage for loading on to the plane. In the event of any article of luggage remaining unclaimed, an immediate inquiry is held to ascertain where this item came from and to investigate the possibility of its having been added to a barrow between the reception desk and the plane. Until this is cleared up the item is suspect, and for safety reasons the flight may be held up. This is to avoid sabotage or hijacking of the plane. This point could be considered by our security officers at our international airports.

In conclusion, I think the General Manager has had a very difficult task to run our transport systems during the past year. He has been faced not only with a shortage of money, but also a shortage of staff, and I would be failing in my duty if I did not thank him and his staff for a job well done. I support the amendment, Sir.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg City devoted the first part of his speech to his favourite subject, i.e. containerization. Now I just want to say to the hon. member that perhaps he did not study the Budget Speech of the hon. the Minister properly, because on page 16 the Minister referred as follows to containerization and to what was being done at Durban harbour—

On page 35 the Minister dealt with this in even more detail, as follows—

This partly answers the questions put to the Minister by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District.

Up to now the speakers of the hon. members of the Opposition had two qualities in common, with the possible exception of the speech of the hon. member who has just spoken. The first was that little was said about the South African Railways. They were concerned mainly with the economy of the country in general. The second that they gave the Government general advice on how to combat inflation, inter alia, as one hon. member put it, through the “utilization of all human labour resources”. These were the words of the hon. member for Gardens. In other words, without reservations, non-White labour should be allowed into the economy in general, and naturally into the Railways as well, and hey presto !, the inflation problem would be something of the past. Leaving aside the established policy of the Government, we on this side are not so naïve as to believe the Opposition. Neither the White worker, not the voter outside, and even less, is so naïve as to believe the Opposition on that point.

The hon. the Minister of Transport has always put all his cards on the table for the Opposition, as he has in fact done now too, but, more important, he has always put all his cards on the table for the Railway worker and for the electorate and the country when it has come to the preparation and presentation of a Railway Budget. In the case of the present Budget, the hon. the Minister has not beaten about the bush either in outlining the prospects. Issues have arisen in regard to the South African Railways and its development on different levels, due partly to the slackening of the economy. In this particular regard the hon. members of the Opposition now in fact want to excuse the Minister to a certain extent and attribute the entire situation to the action of the Government. I just want to say that the hon. the Minister does not need this sly, hypocritical sympathy. The Opposition wants to suggest that it is not so much through any fault of the Minister that this situation obtains, but that it is in fact due to the general economic position of the country. This veteran Minister in no way needs the Opposition trying to adorn him with a kind of rose garland on the one hand, and criticizing him on the other hand as a member of the Government and of the Cabinet. As it was put by a previous speaker, “He could have used his stature”. He does not need to be praised by them, only to receive, on the other hand, those opportunistic dagger stabs as a member of the Cabinet. This party, which exploits matters in season and out of season for political gain when difficult situations arise, as is characteristic of it is trying to create a psychosis of dissatisfaction and frustration among the Railway workers who may have had expectations in regard to wage increases. I maintain they are an opportunistic party with no real solution. They want to exploit matters merely for political gain. In this process of decision in this negative attempt, they have the active support, of course, of their loyal Press, especially the English-language Press. This same anti-government chorus rings throughout this Press, also on the level of the handling of this momentous transport undertaking. Allow me, Sir, to quote in a minor light of this anti-government Press. I have here in my hand a cutting from the Pretoria News of 23rd February, 1972, with the headlines “Railmen to be sacked”, with a smaller caption underneath, “It could make 5 000 jobless”. I shall read out a section of this report. It comes from Johannesburg—

This report is “from our correspondent”. And in fact, no fault is to be found with that report as such. In outline it is correct and it certainly contains the essence of the speech of the General Manager who, like the hon. the Minister, has nothing to hide and always puts all his cards on the table for the staff associations as well as for the staff as such. But I object to the misleading headlines in bold print, “Railmen to be sacked”. Surely this creates the immediate impression that railway workers at present in employment, will be dismissed—5 000 of them. Nothing is further from the truth. Not a single railway worker has been discharged or will be discharged because of the fact that he has become redundant. There are in fact posts which are not filled as a result of people retiring on pension, but this is done judiciously. Now I challenge the Opposition to mention examples of people who were dismissed because there was no longer any work for them. This is the impression created by these headlines, a totally false impression. But do you know. Sir, why those headlines were used that day? On that particular day, 23rd February, 1972, the voters went to the polls in a provincial by-election in Gezina, Pretoria. The United Party had no candidate. In spite of all their big talk, they had no candidate in Gezina.

Where were you in Kensington?

You had no candidate in Gezina. At the moment we are discussing Gezina and this report. The United Party had no candidate, as has happened on numerous occasions in other by-elections in the Transvaal. A report like this would lend support to the Hertzog Party alone and would encourage their own people, the United Party supporters, in a subtle way to vote for the party in question so as to cast a protest vote against the Government in that way. At the H.N.P. table at the polling booth in Wonderboom South in the constituency of Gezina, a few completely unknown persons eagerly bought this newspaper when it appeared and held it aloft for the male and female workers of the National Party to see. The H.N.P. evidently obtained several hundred votes from the United Party in Gezina. I think this report influenced the voting.

What this English-language newspaper and the Opposition overlook is that there is in fact a constant increase in the number of staff employed by the Railway Administration. For example, from December, 1970, to December, 1971, there was an increase of 3 951. The Minister said on page 44 of his Budget Speech that at present there were 6 500 vacancies, especially in the bread and butter grades—many of the members do not know what this means—and that purposeful attempts to recruit the staff for these grades had not been very successful. Can you see now, Sir, how absolutely misleading a caption such as this “Railmen to be sacked” is? Why should the Administration dismiss staff if there is such a large shortage? Surely it is sheer nonsense and it is evident that it is intended for political propaganda only.

Through the mouth of its main speaker on railway matters, the hon. member for Yeoville, the United Party is supposedly congratulating the Minister on the so-called realistic labour policy in respect of the employment of non-Whites in certain grades and even in advanced grades. He and the United Party even claim that the Minister is following United Party policy in this particular regard. Recently, in regard to plans to let non-Whites do more advanced work on the Railways in posts and grades where not enough Whites or no Whites were available, the hon. member for Yeoville said—and he repeated it here this afternoon—that they would not exploit for political purposes any successes achieved in this regard. I think the hon. member for Yeoville really ought to receive a compensation prize, but he will just have to ensure that the hon. member for South Coast does not come across or see another black permanent way supervisor soon. The claim of the hon. member for Yeoville that this allegedly is an acceptance of United Party policy, should be examined a bit further. This House remembers only too well how the hon. member for Yeoville floundered a year or two ago when the Minister cross-questioned him on this matter. The hon. the Minister asked him what his solution was to the shortage on the South African Railways. His reply was that he would employ non-Whites, even in higher posts, but in co-operation with the staff associations. The hon. the Minister then asked him what he would do if the staff associations would not agree. To this the hon. member performed the customary United Party egg-dance. He, in turn, replied by putting the same question to the Minister. The Minister replied unambiguously that he would do everything within his power to obtain the co-operation of the staff associations and the trade unions, but that he, if he did not obtain this, would use non-Whites judiciously because, as he said, he had an obligation towards the country to keep the wheels rolling. The Minister obtained co-operation. The leaders of the staff associations are practical and reasonable people whose eyes are open and who are standing with both feet firmly planted on the hard surface of reality.

The Minister himself lays down certain conditions in regard to the employment of non-Whites. In the first place, there must first be an acute shortage of White workers in the particular grade or grades. In the second place, the Whites in similar posts must not be prejudiced by the appointment of non-Whites, and it must lead to the promotion of the Whites and the fair treatment of non-Whites in similar posts. The third condition for the employment of non-Whites in posts previously occupied by Whites, is that it must take place in co-operation with the staff associations. In the fourth place, there must be no mixing of races at work which may possibly give rise to racial friction. These conditions were accepted by the staff associations. Once again this bears testimony to the harmonious co-operation and the mutual trust, to which various speakers on this side referred, between the Minister and the Administration on the one hand and the Railway employees as represented by the Railway associations on the other hand.

I should like to make a few remarks about the staff. It has become common practice to say that the South African Railways is the largest employer in the country. With a White staff of 111 526 and a non-White staff of 116 143 as at the end of December, 1971, the salary and wage bill of the South African Railways amounts to close on R500 million per year. To a large extent this gigantic amount is ploughed back into trade and industry. Consequently the Railway staff represents the largest single stimulating economic group in our country’s commercial life. The Management of the South African Railways and the related undertakings such as the Airways, etc., invested heavily in its rolling stock, its buildings, at stations and elsewhere, in its mechanical workshops, in work-yards and in the houses for its employees, etc. In addition, the Railways have invested heavily in the variety of means and inventions which promote mechanization and automation in an attempt to eliminate the shortage of staff in this way. Furthermore, the Administration has invested heavily in its staff which must man so many ramifications of this comprehensive service. Of all these investments, the investment in the staff, both as regards training and wages, remains the most important and essential, because without a staff operations cannot proceed. In the past decade, the Administration has concentrated very heavily on the training of its staff. In the same way as one says of education and training in general that it is the best investment for any people when it trains its youth, it is also true that the investment which the South African Railways makes in respect of the training of its employees, is very important. It is valuable and profitable. This investment yielded many positive results in the past; the fruits of this investment will increase in the future and higher dividends will be yielded. The Railways realizes very well that the success of its undertaking depends on the way in which its staff performs their daily tasks. Recruits to the service are selected scientifically and placed in positions for which they show most aptitude. By training the staff intensively after they have been placed, it is ensured that they will become fully productive as soon as possible. Furthermore, it already is standing practice to acquaint the staff continually with the latest systems and methods and to have them make use of aids so that their abilities may be used to an optimum.

In this regard I want to read out a quotation from page 111 of the General Manager’s annual report. It is very informative and interesting and refers to this very matter—

I have quoted this merely to prove that this large investment in the staff is of the greatest value; that it is the most valuable asset of our national transport system and that consequently this investment is not misplaced.

Furthermore, large bursaries are offered to young persons who want to enter the service of the Railways. This includes bursaries for study at universities for training as engineers, or training in various other directions. In this way, there are bursaries for studying for a B.Com. degree. Training in service and the work being done at Esselen Park as well as in other related branches, are especially very important and continually help to improve the qualifications of the staff. However, there is the added advantage that any member of the staff who has initiative, is afforded the opportunity of obtaining further qualifications and, as a result, of occupying a higher post and earning a higher salary. The Railways offers these young people exceptional opportunities. I want to go further by referring to the facilities the Railways makes available to its employees. The South African Railways Administration is pleased to be able to do this. Those benefits which the employees receive, cannot so much be measured in terms of rands and cents, but they are in fact real benefits. When we consider that as far as housing is concerned, there are approximately 45 000 housing units for Railway workers and that approximately 70 per cent of the staff enjoy the benefits of housing, it is something to broadcast. Furthermore, there are the medical benefits of the Sick Fund. In respect of the Sick Fund, the Administration is contributing R5,11 million in the current financial year, 1970-’71. In recent times pension benefits have been extended, too, in that the Administration is making larger contributions. In addition, there are the travel facilities for Railway workers, pensioners and widows of former Railway workers. These people appreciate this very much. The fringe benefits enjoyed by railway employees—more than what I have just mentioned here—are in many cases preferable to the direct financial benefits, especially in these inflationary times in Which we are living. I want to repeat that the Railway workers appreciate this. They appreciate the salary increases granted from time to time. It must be remembered that those salary increases have already become part and parcel of the salary structure and will remain part and parcel of the salary structure in the future. The railway servants and their staff associations are realistic people. They are practical and right-minded people who realize that there is a slackening of revenue at present. They are aware of the general economic trends, and as loyal servants of the South African Railways, but also as loyal citizens of this country, they will be willing to assist in pushing the economic wagon out of difficulties.

Mr. Speaker, I honestly think that the hon. the Minister is really going to get a swollen head here today, because I do not think that he has ever had so many compliments paid to him in this House. I do realize that some of the members on this side of the House have complimented him on the bold steps he has taken in introducing Bantu into work previously done by Whites. I personally would also like to compliment the hon. the Minister and the Management for the steps they have taken. I think this is a terrific step forward and I do not think the hon. the Minister had any alternative but to do this sort of thing otherwise the Railways would have found itself in very serious trouble. A few jobs that do come to mind are those of brush hands, forklift operators, shunters—although they are known by two or three other names—and gangers. I think this has been a terrific step forward and that the hon. the Minister must be complimented on this. One cannot excape the fact that the staff shortage in these lower grades is really very serious and this situation could not have been allowed to carry on because it could have disrupted the service. As I have said before this was quite a big step for the Railways, particularly in view of the fact that in the past hon. members on that side of the House had said that this sort of thing would never happen, namely that non-Europeans would encroach on jobs held by Whites. Mr. Speaker, I also want to suggest that I do not think the staff position is going to improve. I personally predict that it is going to become a lot worse, in so far as the lower-graded grades on the Railways are concerned. I cannot possibly see the position improving, also possibly as regards the blue-collar workers. When one thinks of the tremendous undertakings and developments planned for the future by the Railways, I cannot help but sit back and wonder whether the staff are going to be found to man all these future developments. The shortage is pretty crucial as it is now.

Having said a few words about the Bantu, and knowing that in the very near future very many more of these grades are going to disappear and the vacancies filled by non-Europeans, I do not think the hon. the Minister can escape the fact that this position will come about, no matter what he does about it. The days of the Europeans in the lower grades are finished. They are definitely going to disappear off the face of the earth as far as the Railways are concerned. You cannot overlook the fact that our youth today are more education-conscious than they have ever been. You will not find that these young people are going to come and work for the Railways in these lower grades. That is why I predict that these grades will definitely be taken over by non-Europeans. I really feel sorry for the hon. the Minister, because he has a terrific amount of bargaining to do with the different organizations and trade unions.

For what grades? For what posts?

You have probably only heard a train whistle and now you know all about the Railways.

Coming back to the Bantu, I do not disapprove of this step. I think it is a pretty wonderful thing that is happening. The only objection I have is to the training method. You cannot overlook the fact that it takes a European two, three and four years to learn to do these jobs they are doing now in the lower grades, the bread-and-butter grades. Now, when you find you are in a difficulty, what do you do? These Bantu Railway labourers are sent away for a crash training spell of six weeks. Now, Sir, you cannot tell me that that leads to efficiency. I could never accept that. I personally think that if the hon. the Minister knows about the staff shortages in various grades, he should now prepare and train these people properly. Otherwise it is being unfair to the Bantu. It can cause accidents. It can be harmful in all respects and definitely will not lead to efficiency. Efficiency in all respects is what we have to strive for. I do not see why the non-Europeans who are now being elevated to these grades, should have to undergo this sort of responsibility. Believe you me, Sir, there is a tremendous amount of responsibility now being placed on these people. I do suggest that this is not fair to them. It definitely is not fair to the Administration where we are not going to get the efficiency. It can be harmful, it can cause injury and a tremendous amount of damage.

I do not like being highly critical of this, because I do approve, but I do suggest that the non-Europeans be given a more thorough training than they are receiving now. Nobody would ever convince me that six weeks’ crash training is going to be of any benefit to anyone. It has been mentioned that the introduction of Bantu into these grades may be a temporary measure. I do not accept this. I personally believe that the Bantu, who have now been elevated to higher positions, have come to stay and that nothing in the world is going to remove them from their present positions. The hon. the Minister and the whole Government cannot do it, because these people are there; they are going to be responsible and they are going to make a contribution, a very valuable contribution, towards the working of the Railways.

I am quite happy to leave it to the Minister.

There are many grades where the Railways are really working with a skeleton staff. The position is more serious than a lot of people realize. I do not think hon. members opposite know anything about it. I know that the hon. the Minister does know about it, but he is not prepared to tell us just how serious the position is. I really do know that the position is a lot more serious than is generally appreciated, and therefore I suggest that the hon. the Minister should take steps now to get these men ready to fill the vacancies in those grades where the men are working under a terrific strain. There are certain grades where there is a terrific staff shortage. There is one grade in particular to which this applies. I really would not like to be in the hon. the Minister’s shoes when he has to solve this particular problem. I do not think I will go into details, because the hon. the Minister knows what I mean. The Minister is going to be in a terrible dilemma because there are going to be problems which he may be forced to solve by methods which are going to be unpopular; this I can promise him.

What do you suggest? You are the shadow Minister.

Sir, I am going to go on to another subject, and that is the staff position as it is today. I know that hon. members opposite have said that the railwaymen are happy and content and all that sort of thing. I cannot agree with that statement. When you have been on the Railways yourself and you meet the railwaymen from time to time and you listen to their problems, you realize that they really have problems. Here again, I say— and I say it in all sincerity—that the hon. the Minister does not know what the staff position is in the Railway Service. I do not think the Management knows. Sir, I do suggest, as I have been told by the staff, that “Oom Ben weet nie wat aangaan op die Spoorwe� nie.” I am not saying this merely because I want to say it; this is a fact. These are things which I am told every day. I hope to be able to quote several reasons why the railwaymen are unhappy today. There are good, sound reasons for their unhappiness.

Quote a few.

I notice that the hon. the Minister congratulated the staff and thanked them for their loyalty and productivity. Sir, that is all very well; those are nice words, but I suggest to the hon. the Minister that he should thank them in a more material way. This sort of thing is not good enough. Hon. members opposite talk about the hundreds of millions of rands spent on giving increases to the railwaymen. They still say that it is not good enough. Sir, when you realize under what conditions the railwaymen have to live today and what wages they earn, you wonder how they exist and you wonder why the devil they are working for the Railways. Personally, I would not recommend to anyone that he should join the Railway service today.

That is not what you said last year.

I wish that hon. member would shut up.

Order!

One sees newspaper advertisements every day in which they talk about the wonderful future in the Railway service, and I wonder why the devil they make statements of that kind when they are not true. If they were true, the people would flock to the Railway service, but they do not.

It seems to me you are becomming a United Party man now.

Then there is another problem which arises from the shortage of staff. You find that because of the staff shortage the men who remain on the job are forced to work long hours of overtime. I would like to add that if anyone refuses to work overtime, he is fined, and fined heavily. After working overtime for years, the railwayman may refuse to work further overtime and then he is fined. This is where the bush law comes in again. It is completely wrong to fine a man who refuses to work overtime because he is tired. I have letters to prove that this sort of thing happens. I have people coming to me daily and complaining about the way in which they are being fined. We all know what the procedure is. I know the hon. the Minister is going to tell me that the staff should know what the procedure is and that they should not come to me, and all the rest of it, but the fact remains that they would not come to us if they were contented. They only come to us because they do not get the right treatment when they do go through the correct channels. Sir, what I am concerned about is the fact that these people who are working with skeleton staffs in the various grades are called upon to work excessively long hours. This is happening every day of the week. These people get tired and they then go to the Railway medical officer. This is true, because the medical officers have told me this. They say that the staff approach them and ask to be booked off for a couple of days because they are tired. The doctor then books them off. There is nothing wrong with them except that they are terribly tired. The reason why they ask for a medical certificate is that if they take time off they are fined R15, R20 or R25. Sir, where is the justice of this? These people are giving of their best to the Railways; they are proving their loyalty, and the repayment is a fine of R25. It is shocking. I really would like to know how many thousands of rands are collected annually in fines from the staff. That is where I feel it is so unjust. You get the so-called bread-and-butter staff, the lowest-paid men on the Railways today but yet this is what is happening to them. They are constantly being fined and abused, and when I say abused, I will produce a letter and give it to the hon. the Minister to show what type of supervisory officer he has today. These people are taking advantage of their position and they become abusive. I would not like to read the letter I have here. This would shake the hon. the Minister, to think that these fellows are behaving in this way towards the staff and doing this in spite of the fact that they are so short of staff. Honestly, I do not know what is happening. The Railways has just gone mad. It is a darn disgrace to see what is happening today. I know the Minister will turn round and pick me out about this, but I want to assure him that what I am saying is fact, and no one can tell me otherwise. I deal with these people every day. I spent my life working with them and they come to me with their problems. The Minister may tell me that I do not know what I am talking about, and all that sort of thing, but what I say is a fact and no one can tell me otherwise. Sir, I would like to give you a few reasons why there is all this unhappiness among the staff of the Railways. I have here a case where a clerk from Durban was sent to Johannesburg. This fellow went up there for a test to qualify for promotion. This man qualified and they told him he had qualified. Then he was sent to another office. Sir, can you believe this? The man was asked “Hoe stem jy?” He said: “Politics has nothing to do with this. I am here for a test for promotion.” The man in charge then told him this has everything to do with it and it is to his interest to tell him how he voted.

Nonsense!

The position is that this man did not get the promotion then. He went back to Durban and then appealed to the hon. the Minister and the Minister upheld his promotion; he got his promotion. He got it only after appealing to the Minister, but he lost seniority, and that is not the only case.

Do you believe that story?

The Minister believes it. I have another case, also of a clerk. This man could speak Afrikaans probably better than any of us in this House and he was sent to pass an Afrikaans test. Unfortunately this man has a big mouth. He goes around shouting his politics all over the place, telling everybody that he belongs to the United Party and he does not care who knows it. He went for the test and he was failed and then he went to the University of Natal and he said to the professor in Afrikaans: “Test me in the highest grade of Afrikaans you have here”. He took this test and he passed. The professor passed him but the Railways would not pass him. [Interjection.] There was another case recently of a fellow from the Transvaal who also applied. He was senior by eight years to a man who had been promoted to Durban. He appealed, but his appeal was turned down. And I am going to tell you, Sir, that this junior clerk who was promoted to Durban, had very high influential friends. Sir, this is not fair. If you want staff, and if you want contented staff, for heavens sake let us treat them like human beings and not as politicians. [Laughter.] Then there was another incident—this is quite recent too—where the following instruction was issued. Let us say five or six men are working in an office, and suddenly they find that they are one person short because one clerk was going off because of illness or some other darned thing. They could not obtain relief and they are told by one of the senior clerks to work so many hours overtime a day in order to make up for that clerk. This senior clerk will have to work overtime at the rate of the lower clerk. This is an instruction, but I do not know how you can do this sort of thing. For heaven’s sake, how can you instruct a senior man to do a lower grade man’s job at his rate of payment? This is wrong. There is something wrong here.

Then I have another complaint. I refer to the track-welders, and the hon. the Minister knows who they are. They build up the points and crossings and they do the welding in the middle of the sections where you have spliced rails. These spliced rails have to be lifted, the rail must be fitted and then … welding must be done. All this is being done by the track-welder and I consider him to be quite a qualified man, but lo and behold, when the day comes for promotion there is nothing in the offing for him! They bring a chap out of the workshops and he is brought on to the track and what is to happen now? This man now has to be taught by the bloke who has been doing all this work. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to go into this and to see to it that these track men who are doing the job every day of their lives receive some sort of recognition. Let them be promoted into these jobs, and do not bring a man out of the workshops because he has the grade of a welder there. It is not fair to bring a man out of a workshop to come and work on the track. These blokes are doing this job between trains—I know what I am talking about— and they get no consideration whatsoever. These are little things which add up to big things, and these big things are annoying the staff right now.

There is another funny incident I would like to mention. A storeman applied for a month’s leave. When the time arrived, this bloke went on leave. When he came back, after he had been away for a month, he was charged for being absent without leave for two weeks. He lost two weeks’ pay and he was fined R15 for being away. This man had filled in an application form for a month’s leave, but he was not advised that they were unable to give him this leave, or they did not send him the leave form to amend accordingly. He was told nothing; he was just fined. This fellow, a matriculated lad and one who was very keen to be on the Railways, was so disgusted at the injustice of this action that he resigned. Even though he was keen to be on the Railways, he resigned after this action and said : “I cannot work for a mob like this ! [Interjections.]

I have another small problem which probably will not even be considered as a problem by the hon. the Minister. Another group that is short-staffed are the guards. Now there is a guard in Bayhead who had been overpaid by R20 per month for six years. Now the Administration come along and they say : “come, give back—we have overpaid you R20 for six years.” I want to know what the auditors are doing. These books, everything are audited every year. What have the auditors being doing then? Is this the sort of efficiency you want? This is shocking. I want to know from the hon. the Minister whether he is going to let that man pay the amount back? Are you going to take back that money from him after six years? Where is your justice? I cannot understand the Railway Administration; it has gone mad!

I have another problem. [Interjections.]

Order!

A station foreman was recently dismissed from the Railways, but I interceded on his behalf and I managed, with the System Manager, to keep him in the job. However, he was reduced in rank. This man was found with brandy in his cabin. I do not uphold this and I agree that this sort of thing should not happen; particularly not in a signal cabin. This bottle, which was only a small little bottle, was found and the man admitted that he had had one drink. He continued to work for five months before he got a letter to say he had been dismissed from the service. He was not under the influence of drink because the operating inspector, the district inspectors, everyone went to see him in the cabin …

Because of the bottle?

The bottle was confiscated. The authorities let him work for another five months and then they wrote and told him that he had been dismissed from the service. They brought along a relief man and this very same foreman had to teach that young man to take over the cabin. The foreman has been reduced to a checker at a checker’s lower rate of pay. I want the hon. the Minister to investigate this case and to reinstate that man to his cabin without any loss of remuneration because this is definitely an injustice.

With or without his bottle?

No doubt the hon. the Minister is more worried about cricket and sport. He knows nothing about this subject. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Umhlatuzana will have to learn that one gets the most deadly poison in the smallest bottles. Another thing he will have to learn, as he was a very loyal railway official for many years, is that to some extent he is being subjected to the indoctrination of the United Party and coming under its influence now, and consequently he did not act today as we would like to know him in this House, i.e. as a person with a sense of loyalty towards the department he served very well for many years. He objected to the crash programme. The hon. member for Hillbrow is so upset about that that his mood in point of fact is one of sullenness because, after all, he believes in the “big crash”. This hon. member’s whole approach to life seems to be “I want to be happy, but I cannot be happy unless you are happy too.” The hon. member for Durban Point, too, is very fond of quoting the kinds of letters the hon. member quoted here. I have a nasty suspicion that the letters from which he quoted were ones he had written to himself. It is tragic, but that is how it is. The hon. member for Durban Point is having a bad influence on this good, mature member who usually conducts his debating on a particularly high level in this House. I think he should beware of these United Party members, because one of these days he may find that he, too, is a United Party supporter! [Interjections.]

I should like to point out certain trends in this debate. After the hon. the Minister had introduced this Budget, I found it striking that the hon. member for Yeoville rose to give a brief reply and then went into raptures and made all kinds of wild statements. We expected …

Such as?

I shall tell you in a moment. He made statements concerning the economy and labour. I repeat, he made all kinds of wild statements. That happened on Wednesday. Today he walked into this Chamber and was so nervous that he floundered. He floundered because he had come to realize that the Budget which had been introduced, was one which was in the interests of the Republic of South Africa. He had been criticized by organized commerce and by his advisors. He had been informed that he was on the wrong track. In what respect did the hon. member flounder? The hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Constantia made statements concerning devaluation. I thought the United Party would be more careful after the Part Appropriation and would instruct its speakers not to speak so lightly of devaluation. This did not happen. On the contrary. Today he said the following—

With all due respect, it is this kind of statement which causes the private sector to be concerned about the future as regards industrial development and the development in this Republic of ours. It is this kind of remark which discourages foreign capital. Every country in the world goes through periods of devaluation and evaluation so that the international monetary set-up may be rectified and a country’s currency may be placed in a position which will enable it to compete with other countries. The United Party is the last party that ever ought to make statements of this kind. When we became a Republic these very same people also spoke of insolvency. The hon. member for Constantia, like the hon. member for Yeoville, spoke of insolvency.

We must understand very clearly that when it comes to that the economic setup of the Railways is such that we are dealing here with a service-rendering department. This department does not make profit-making its object. If the Budget is analysed—there are economists on the opposite side who are able to do so, but they do not do it—it will be found that whereas we have a Budget exceeding R1 000 million, we have a deficit of R39 million. When there is no deficit, no thought is ever given to taking steps along the lines of profit-making. Let me put this hypothetically : I challenge the hon. member for Yeoville to show me one private company, no matter what private company, that would have been prepared, if this service-rendering department had belonged to the private sector, to render the transport services of this Republic of ours with that capital expenditure and on that basis, and that would have rendered them as efficiently as this Government is doing.

This is the obvious political move of the hon. member for Yeoville, because in that short speech he said the following of the Minister—

The hon. member for Yeoville may show some courtesy and listen to what I am saying, because I want to point out to him in what he is engaged. Let us see what the real position is with regard to this service-rendering department. How many of the tariffs charged operate at an absolute loss? They show a loss for a very good reason. Geographically South Africa is a vast country. The position is that our potential for expansion, for the mining of minerals, for agricultural activities, etc., is spread over the entire country. So as to be able to render services to the sectors concerned, it is essential to have such tariffs. What is the actual position? The first nine scales are profitable but after that they are not. We can take a quick look at the various products which are transported at tariffs which are not profitable. Now the official Opposition must tell me whether we should transport those products at those tariffs or not.

In whose interests are those low tariffs fixed?

Let us take butter and cheese. If one looks to see what percentage the revenue is of the cost, one finds that it is 70,4, or R328 000. In the case of eggs it is 40,2 per cent—a loss of R238 677. Citrus fruit: a loss exceeding R3 million. The percentage is 49,6. Manganese ore: 68,2 per cent—a loss of R1 684 million. Chromium ore: the percentage is 75,3, a loss of R1,4 million.

If the private sector is to be brought into this, as the hon. member for Yeoville wants, the question has to be asked whether the private sector will be prepared to transport these products at these tariffs. I want to tell him—and I want to tell this to the country outside as well—that these tariffs may not be touched, and for a very sound reason. Let us look at the agricultural industry. Thirty-eight per cent of the manufacturing industry in Sooth Africa depends simply and solely on agricultural produce. Could hon. members form any idea of what the position would be if these tariffs were to be increased? It would affect not only the agricultural industry but also the manufactured product directly.

Who has to carry those losses?

Those losses will be carried by the economic potential of the Republic and the further development of secondary industries.

But in that case you are agreeing with me.

In this Budget we find that the hon. the Minister did not act in an inflationary way but with a great deal of optimism for the future of this Republic. I shall tell this House why.

[Inaudible.]

That hon. member knows less about finance than he does about other things. Mr. Speaker, I have a nasty suspicion that some of the back-benchers of the United Party are paid not to make a noise but to grumble. I am trying to advance an argument concerning the financing of the Railways. I do not mind when good interjections are made.

If the Budget is analysed, it will be found that R400 million is to be spent on capital works. In other words, more efficiency and increased capacity are being created and large-scale planning is being undertaken with a view to the further development of secondary industries. If a further analysis is made of the Budget, it will be found that capital expenditure is being curbed to a large extent. It will be found that capital from the Renewal Fund will be used for pipelines for example. Furthermore, 50 per cent of the Renewal Fund for railway lines will be used in 1972. In other words, the hon. the Minister tried in all possible ways not to present an inflationary Budget. That is in the interests of this country. The Railways can serve as a barometer for reading the economic climate in our country. Whereas our economy showed a growth during the past decade which can be compared to that in the rest of the world, a gigantic achievement, it is so that in the past year we have had a slackening and watering down in this growth. But this happens in every country of the world. In South Africa, however, the graph tends to show only economic growth for a period of virtually 10 years. For that reason it is correct not to increase tariffs in times of slackening so as to avoid bringing about inflation in that way. Then the Rates Equalization Fund must be used. Then that Fund must be used to combat inflation. The hon. the Opposition ought to understand this. Had we done what the hon. member for Yeoville suggested in his amendment last year, i.e. to make up the deficit by using the Rates Equalization Fund, we would have found ourselves in an embarrassing position today. Since the factual position is that the S.A. Railways is a service-rendering department and the Republic of South Africa is particularly grateful for this service which is rendered—I can testify to the fact that people speak with great appreciation of the service rendered—a tremendous responsibility rests on the private sector in these times to stimulate industrial development in this country, to effect capital formation and to give tangible proof of the unshakable confidence in the future of this country by investing in secondary industries. It is interesting to read what Mr. Kitshoff, the chairman of IDC, said when he addressed Safta. According to this report he said (translation)—

You see, Sir, here we have a department which is setting to work energetically through heavy capital expenditure. Now I want to address a polite and courteous request to the official Opposition to take a hand in the development of this Republic. Let them stop making misrepresentations about the development of border industries; let them assist in encouraging the industrialists to go to the decentralized areas where the future of South Africa Will be entrenched demographically for the White man and where the identity formation of these homelands is placed first and foremost. But we get just the opposite from the official Opposition. Time and again they have tried to deride the idea and the concept of the decentralization of industries. Today this happened again. The immediate reply of the hon. member for Constantia was. “This ideological policy of decentralization”. Now let us examine what the hon. member for Yeoville said about this concept. He spoke of poor government, poor management, disorder, etc. An official Opposition that is thinking of taking over power will have to act differently. One cannot for one moment conceive of the general public ever accepting the kind of attack which was launched here today.

The second aspect I should like to deal with is the labour situation. I want to tell the hon. member for Yeoville and that lieutenant sitting next to him that they should not try for one moment to allege to the people outside, as the hon. member for Yeoville did in his speech on Wednesday, that we have taken over their policy, the U.P. policy. Sir, that is not true.

But it is our policy.

There is a world of a difference between their policy and ours, just as there is a world of a difference in figure and build between that hon. member and I. I shall prove this. Their policy concerning non-White training differs drastically from ours, for a very good reason. There is a world of a difference between the political concept of the governing Party and that of the United Party. In terms of our political concept we afford the Bantu opportunities in their own areas and we ensure the entrenchment of the White man’s position. Even though we employ Bantu in the White area, the Bantu have the privilege of taking up employment in their own areas ultimately and of utilizing there what they have learnt here. What is the policy of the Opposition? Their policy is representation in this House of Assembly. Their policy is Bantu and Coloured representatives. Those representatives will bring pressure to bear on them and say, “But we are not satisfied to act as train compilers; we want other positions; we want integration”. One will get labour integration under their policy. That is a foregone conclusion. Our Bantu train compilers are being trained to work in certain goods yards, not integrated with the White workers. Though out the years this party has protected and entrenched the position of the White worker. The hon. member for Yeoville spoke here of “poor Whites’. That was a scandalous thing to say. In the Republic those days are over.

“Poor White people”.

Here it is in Hansard—“poor Whites”.

I said “poor White people”.

The hon. member for Yeoville spoke of “poor Whites”. There is no such thing today. You know what that designation means, Sir, and so does the hon. member for Yeoville. It is a reflection on the railway workers. If it pleases you, Mr. Speaker, I should like to take this further tomorrow and I shall point out in what that hon. member was engaged. If I could be given those 10 minutes, I would appreciate it.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23 and debate adjourned.