I want to take this opportunity to direct the attention of the hon. the Minister to the conditions of certain railway stations in the constituency of Piketberg. I want to start by saying that I am aware of the fact that the hon. the Minister and the Administration are already giving their attention to the stations at Graafwater and Vredendal. But I want to make use of this opportunity to mention this point specially in the hope that particular attention will be given to these specific stations in the near future. Vredendal is a large and growing town to-day. When one looks at the station buildings there one always feels that the Railways are rather lagging behind; that the facilities there are not adequate to cope with the large amount of traffic which we have there now. I raise this matter in the hope that the hon. the Minister and the Administration will give their attention to these stations, not only because of the fact that there is sufficient railway traffic at these places, but particularly because I also think of the convenience of the railway officials. I have visited those stations buildings on more than one occasion and I know that, particularly in summer, the officials there work under very difficult circumstances because the office facilities there are very limited and primitive. I think also of the convenience to the public who sometimes find it difficult to obtain the necessary service simply because the railway officials are working under very adverse circumstances. We often feel that the Railways have to sacrifice prestige when the station buildings are not in keeping with their surroundings. People are inclined to regard the Railways as being inferior because those buildings are so plain. That is why I hope that where the hon. the Minister is already giving attention to these matters, he will continue to do so and that he will find it possible in the near future to erect better station buildings there. We do not ask for luxury buildings. We on the platteland do not think in terms of the buildings which are built in large cities and which have to be built there, but we ask, for the sake of the staff, the public and the prestige of the Railways, that more spacious buildings should be erected for the greater convenience of the railway officials as well.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to raise under the hon. the Minister’s Vote a subject with which he is familiar and about which we have had some correspondence. In doing so I should like to thank the hon. the Minister for the frank and unequivocal manner in which he has furnished me with the information which I now intend to use. Hon. members will remember that last year the theme of the Budget was the defence of South Africa. If one can read the signs of the times it is probable that this year’s Budget again will be a Budget on the defence of South Africa. Now, Sir, a very important part of our defence is not so much equipment as furnishing a supply of men. We know that employers have responded splendidly to the request of the Government and to the requests of members on this side of the House to support the Government, and the Minister of Defence especially, in his efforts to raise an outstanding S.A. Army, an army that will be worthy of our great efforts in the First and Second World Wars. We all know that when young men are called up for compulsory service employers like the men have no option but to obey. The young men have to be released. But at the end of their period of service it is found that certain of these young men, when drafted to their Citizen Force regiments, have all the qualities of leadership, character and physique that an officer should possess. Therefore our Defence Department is very anxious to have those young men enlist as officers. Employers have been proud of the fact that they have had in their employ young men who are officers in our active service regiments.

As recently as last Tuesday the hon. the Minister of Defence told us that the whole system depended on the officers in the Active Citizen Force. I want to give the conditions on which these young men are released by their employers for six years’ voluntary service, two or three weeks a year, and to contrast them with the conditions which are imposed by the hon. the Minister of Transport in his own Department. I can quote the banks, I can quote big employers, but I wish to take the mines, because I am familiar with the position there. If a young man in the mines has finished his compulsory period of service and is then asked to volunteer to become an officer and to be trained as an officer in the Active Citizen Force, he is regarded as of the crème de la crème of the youth of this country. These are the conditions under which the Chamber of Mines will give that man leave: First of all they say: You will have, as all mineworkers have, 36 days’ annual leave on full pay. All the workers have that. When in military service, they will have an additional 14 to 21 days’ leave on full pay if called up in an emergency, or for training; 14 to 20 days, varying according to a man’s work and the mine. And finally, when the young man goes to camp and joins his regiment in training. he will receive as a mess allowance R1.45 per day. Those are the conditions on the mines. I want to contrast these with the conditions in the S.A. Railways. If a servant of the S.A. Railways is distinguished enough to be offered this great opportunity of voluntary service, these are the conditions under which the Minister will release him: First of all the Minister says: You will have your ordinary leave of 30 days per annum, as all railworkers have. Now we come to military leave. The Minister says: You will get no military leave. If you wish to serve your country in that capacity, you will either go on leave without pay, or will take the period from your annual leave. That is the first condition. Now we come to the second one. When these young men report to their regiments, their mess allowance is not R1.45 a day but only 75c a day. In other words, the employee in the Railways is treated in this stepmotherly fashion. Here the hon. Minister is at cross-purposes with the Minister of Defence in his own Government. He is not carrying out the wishes of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Defence in giving us a Defence Budget. I want to read to the House the notice coming from the Minister’s Department—

I think it is a disgraceful slate of affairs that the biggest employer of labour in our Government should treat its employees in that manner. I am going to make this appeal to the Minister: If he insists that this should be carried through, he should say to the young men who have already volunteered: I have insisted that this regulation should be applied, and if you should wish to resign your commission I will use my influence with the Minister of Defence to obtain permission for you. I cannot imagine any young man with the right South African spirit saying that he will resign his commission. What is the position? These young men are serving their country now at their own cost, and I think it is grossly unfair that patriotism should not be found in our Department of Railways.

I do not want to follow up the argument of the previous speaker but I want to say that this side of the House has, up to this stage of the debate, retained all its strongpoints which have been attacked by the Opposition, and what is more, the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) by means of his speech probably made the largest contribution to the cause of this side of the House. Instead of his being supported by and impressing his own party, I believe that as a result of his speech he has driven a large number of railway workers into the camp of the Nationalist Party. He challenged the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) here yesterday to appear with him on the same platform. I challenge the hon. member for Orange Grove to appear with me on the same platform at Coligny and to make those same allegations in connection with the railway workers that he made in this House yesterday.

Mention one thing I said that the Minister and the General Manager did not themselves say.

I want to associate myself with hon. members on this side of the House in congratulating the hon. the Minister and the General Manager and the whole railway staff on their achievement, all of them, from the General Manager down to the railworker. It is an achievement to have a surplus of R20,000,000. This is one of the most reliable barometers of the economic and financial position in our country and where the Railways can show us this great surplus, it indicates the position in the country. Even though we have continually heard from the United Party how bad things are, this is the best answer to the blood and tears story, the tales of bankruptcy and of the banks which would close and so forth. I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his staff heartily.

1 further want to thank the hon. the Minister on behalf of the farming community for the great services which the Railways have rendered to that community. The Railways have been a true and faithful friend to the farmers suffering under drought conditions— who are still experiencing these conditions to some extent. I want to add to this that if we look at the rebate which farmers receive. I think that I can rightly say that the tariffs for the agricultural industry. are probably amongst the lowest in the world if not the lowest. Where we in South Africa have in many respects to deal with adverse elements it is always some sort of encouragement when we know that if we find ourselves in a position where the farmers have to flee with their animals, as they had to flee this year with thousands of their animals, the Railways will be on our side. I also want to congratulate the hon. the Minister on the construction of the new pipeline. When the hon. the Minister spoke about this a few years ago, I doubted whether it would actually ever materialize.

Order! The hon. member cannot make a second-reading speech now. He must confine himself to the head now under discussion.

Mr. Chairman, I hope that I will be permitted to thank the hon. the Minister for the station building which has been erected there. On behalf of all the public bodies I also want to ask the hon. the Minister—as I have been asked to do—to open that building officially for us. We will give him the date later. On behalf of the Coligny railway community I also want to thank the hon. the Minister heartily for the building of that dam. Over the years we have experienced a great water problem and we believe that the dam which is now being constructed will be the solution to that problem. We are also grateful for the transformation of the whole of the railway layout there. I also want to thank the hon. the Minister for the new grain elevator which, so we have heard, is to be built at East London. I just want to remind the hon. the Minister that this is the sixth successive year that I have advocated the building of a grain elevator and as a representative of the maize farmers and as a maize farmer myself, I believe that this grain elevator will largely contribute towards lowering the production costs of our maize farmers. Before doing so myself I want to ask the hon. the Minister to make an appeal to the housewives of South Africa, whether they are farmers’ wives or not, whether they are the wives of Judges, of advocates, of ministers or whatever the case may be, to make more use of our maize products in South Africa.

Order! The hon. member must now come back to the head.

Very well, Sir: I shall raise this matter under the Vote of Agriculture.

The second point I wish to discuss is one that is inevitable because, like the hon. Minister himself, I represent a Witwatersrand constituency. I wish to say a word about the Minister’s policy in regard to the introduction of this new pipeline and its financial aspect. The hon. Minister has offered me an inducement to come into this debate, because in his reply yesterday he said that it was part of the Government’s policy to protect Sasol. But, Mr. Chairman, Sasol is protected to-day. Sasol is protected by the Government because the import duty on petrol, other than Sasol, arriving at our ports, is 13c per gallon, while the excise duty on Sasol petrol is only 8½c per gallon. So we have immediately a protection of 4½c. That is the first protection. The second protection is of course the protection that Sasol receives from these exorbitant railway rates. They are exorbitant, they are higher than other rates in the country. As a representative of a Witwatersrand constituency, I am surprised to find the hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. P. F. Coetzee) and members representing the Free State not going over the top together with us to have this put right. Why should we in the interior have to pay this excessive price for petrol in order to provide the Railways with extra revenue? I want to put a proposition to the hon. the Minister as a compromise. He says that the Railways will lose revenue. I am not much concerned about that. I am concerned about another argument, namely, that the Railways have invested capital in transporting petrol from Durban to the Witwatersrand and to the Free State. They have these special wagons for the transportation of petrol. I admit all that. I am quite prepared to see that a pipeline scheme should pay in return some part of this capital to the Railways, to be refunded over a period of years. But there is no justification in saying that the Railways should be reimbursed because of a loss of revenue. We on the Witwatersrand have been regarded for many years as the milch-cow of South Africa. Our taxes are very high. Company taxes are very high. But here we have the Western Transvaal, the whole of the Transvaal in fact, and the whole of the Free State with us: We are suffering under this. Why should we have to pay so much more for petrol than the people do in Cape Town and Durban?

Why should we pay more for coal?

If the hon. Minister wishes to have an equitable system to deal with the position, the obvious way is this: To protect Sasol as he says, Sasol should have a lower excise duty. Then the whole country will pay for the subsidy. That is a reasonable proposition. But talking about pipelines … Was there ever such a pipedream in producing petrol as Sasol? When the Minister of Economic Affairs of those days, Mr. Eric Louw, who is now our Minister of Foreign Affairs, introduced the original Bill, he told us that Sasol was going to produce petrol at 1s. per gallon, 10 cents per gallon. Look at their protection to-day! They have, as I have said, 4½ cents protection in the shape of the difference between the import duty and the excise.

They have had that all along.

The hon. member can come into this debate. I am very glad the Free State is becoming interested at last. In addition to the two amounts I have mentioned, we know that oil companies make a gross profit of approximately 6½ cents.

On what?

On petrol. If that is not sufficient opportunity for Sasol to produce petrol at a profit, then I do not know what opportunity they require.

Where do you get that figure from?

If the hon. member would like to have the figures I will give him all the figures with an analysis and breakdown of the price of one gallon of petrol. If I can assist him, I will do so. (In addition to debating, one apparently has to introduce a little education in dealing with hon. members on the other side.) But what I wish to emphasize is that it is inequitable, it is unfair, to say to the interior that they have to pay taxation in order to maintain the Railways while the Railways give cheaper rates to other parts of the country. We notice it when we come down here to Parliament. We notice the difference in the price of petrol. I see the hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto) looking at me. I wonder what he thinks about moving the capital to Pretoria while there is this difference in the price of petrol? I hope the hon. Minister will come forward with a better scheme than the one he has given us so far. We deserve something better, and we in the interior intend to get it.

I want to bring a few matters to the notice of the hon. the Minister but I also want in the first place to express my thanks and appreciation to the hon. the Minister on behalf of my constituents and myself for having already decided to double the railway line from Klerksdorp to Beaconsfield and further southwards and also for having already decided to electrify the railway line from Klerksdorp to Beaconsfield. Because the hon. the Minister has announced that he is going to do this, the question that arises in my mind is why the hon. the Minister is going to do this. He will not do something unless there is an absolute need for it. I want to mention a few of the good reasons the Minister has for doing this. The northern Cape is without doubt the area of the future in the Cape Province. This can be proved in every respect. Once the northern Cape has been fully developed it will be necessary for good railway facilities to be available in order to transport the vast production of the northern Cape. That is why we have to have a junction, a central point, and I want to make so bold as to say that this point in the northern Cape, as far as the Railways are concerned, will be the railway station of Warrenton. That is the junction from the south. From Warrenton the line runs to Rhodesia and the north. From Warrenton it also runs to the Transvaal and further north. Important works have been tackled in Warrenton over the past period. Many railway houses have been built there which are of a very high standard and for which the railway workers are very grateful to the hon. the Minister. But if one looks at Warrenton station, one cannot understand why that station has, as it were, been neglected over such a long period. I contend that with the traffic that Warrenton will have to handle it will be necessary for an effective and modern station building to be erected at Warrenton in order to handle the large amount of goods which will have to be dispatched from that centre. At the same time I also want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the fact that Vaalharts is the largest thickly populated settlement in the southern hemisphere, and when he considers that it is still only in its initial stages of development, and he sees the tremendous production which there is annually, the hon. the Minister will realize that he will also have to give serious consideration to doubling the railway line from Poedemoe to Warrenton. I am convinced that if the production of Vaalharts does not justify this being done to-day, without doubt the production of Vaalharts and its surrounding areas will in the near future justify the doubling of that railway line. But there is also a tremendous expansion on the other side, namely, the expansion of the Free State goldfields. I can imagine that in the near future the hon. the Minister will find it difficult to supply the requirements of those goldfields by means of the line which runs from Bloemfontein to the north. I want to ask him to give very serious consideration to the building of a new railway line. I do not say that it must be built from Kimberley but it will have to be built either from Kimberley or from Warrenton because the potential of the northern Cape is practically unlimited, lust think of the amount of ore that has to be transported from the Postmasburg area; think of the lime, the dolomite; think of the fact that my neighbour in my constituency has the largest cheese factory in the southern hemisphere—all that production is there and is available to the tremendous expansion which is taking place on the newly discovered goldfields of the Free State. It will have to be transported there and that is why I feel that I have every right to ask that the serious attention of the hon. the Minister be given to these two points that I have mentioned. Not only is Warrenton suitable for that production, not only is it the appropriate railway station in this regard, but if the policy of the Government in regard to the development of border industries is fully implemented, then we can also rest assured that a great deal of border industry development will take place in the northern Cape. It cannot do otherwise. The labour is there and the raw materials are there; the water is there, there is virtually nothing missing. All it needs is a start to be made on that development and to this end the rail facilities must be available to transport those products.

During his reply in the Committee Stage to certain comments made on this side of the House, the hon. the Minister admitted that as far as the marginal mines on the Witwatersrand are concerned, he appreciates that they are in a very vulnerable position and that as such, they are entitled to some consideration. But instead of the hon. the Minister following on the logic of the arguments of this side of the House when we said that the imposition of a 10 per cent increase in railway rates was going to affect these mines adversely, the hon. Minister said that this was a matter outside his control and that it was a matter of national importance. As such it has to be dealt with by the Government as a whole. But he stopped at that stage. Although admitting that this was a matter that deserved immediate and serious consideration by the Government, he was not prepared to say what should be the logical result of his remarks, namely, that he would be prepared to recommend to the Government that relief be given to these vulnerable mines as far as the 10 per cent imposition of rates by the Railways are concerned. We regard the hon. Minister as one of the most powerful Ministers in the Cabinet, and a recommendation of that nature from his that, as far as the vulnerable mines on the Watwatersrand are concerned, they should be given relief from the imposition of this 10 per cent increase, would carry great weight. I want to put it to the hon. Minister, whether in the position he occupies, he would not be prepared to make such a recommendation to the Cabinet, especially in view of the fact that the Budget is now going to be presented in a week’s time. A recommendation of this nature would be of much value.

I think the hon. the Minister is in a very strong position in that regard, in that he has got as an alibi the Round Table Conference which in 1958 recommended that as far as these vulnerable mines are concerned, their life could be extended by relief in respect of rail transport at the rate of 7.3d. per ton milled. I think if the hon. the Minister is in earnest about assisting the mines in this regard, he has got a golden opportunity, and a first-class alibi, in these recommendations of the Round Table Conference. I would like to remind the hon. Minister that they also went on to say that the farmers receive special relief in times of drought, and that I think is the answer that the hon. Minister has to contend with when he says; “Why must I differentiate between one industry and another?” We would like, before this debate is over, to hear from the hon. Minister whether he is prepared to recommend to the Cabinet that these vulnerable mines be given relief as far as the 10 per cent increase in railway rates is concerned, which he has recently imposed on the hundred-and-one commodities used in the mining industry, and thereby pushed up their working costs to a dangerous level.

There is another aspect where the hon. the Minister can assist the Rand in regard to the marginal mines, and that is the early recommendation by the Minister for the construction of the R3,000,000 railway repair shop at Welgedacht. Year after year the Minister has put this issue off, by saying that it has been referred to a committee, and until the committee made its recommendations he could not do anything. The construction of such a workshop with the employment it will provide for skilled artisans, and with equipment costing roughly R1,750,000, making a total investment of R5,000,000 on the East Rand, is something of tremendous importance. One would have imagined that the Minister would have been spurred on to make an early decision, and to assist us in that regard. We would like to hear from the Minister some definite decision and viewpoint as to what his intentions are in regard to the construction of this wagon repair workshop at Springs.

Another matter regarding the Railways, or rather, the Harbours, where the Minister can be of practical assistance is in regard to the foghorn that we have on the Sea Point coast known as “Moaning Minnie”. In view of what has been happening the last two days and nights, I think the Minister should do something about this archaic and outmoded contraption whereby warning is given to shipping. When one remembers that as the result of inventions after the Second World War there are electronic aids to navigation and direction finders, one feels that something can indeed be done.

Order! The hon. member cannot raise that matter under this item.

Very well. Another aspect I would like to mention is the attitude that the Railway Department is adopting towards claims made by railway users when damage is caused to motor-cars transported by rail. One knows that one signs a consignment note stating that the car is railed at the owner’s risk, but one still expects the Railways to take all the necessary precautions to see that the car is delivered to the owner in good condition. There have been numerous complaints which have been sent to the Minister and his Department, drawing attention to the damage caused to cars by the use of heavy tarpaulins. The answer invariably is—I have not yet come across a case where the Railways have accepted full liability—that the consignment was accepted at owner’s risk and therefore the Railways do not accept responsibility. If the Department were prepared to adopt a more reasonable and sympathetic attitude in that regard, I can assure the Minister that there would be considerably more transport of motor-cars by Rall, because we would not be afraid of the damage caused to our cars. In that regard I know of four cases this Session of members of this House who have been adversely affected as far as the railage of their cars is concerned. I would like to suggest to the Minister that if he has any problem in this regard, a small additional insurance put on to the cost of railage would overcome that problem easily. Alternatively, if there are two or three different qualities of tarpaulin that can be used, we would not have the considerable damage that is done to these cars. Even the better quality tarpaulin now used on the Railways—which is regarded as a light one —still causes excessive damage to cars. I would like to have the reaction of the Minister to this suggestion.

Before discussing the few matters that I want to deal with, I just want to reply to what the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) has said. He made all sorts of unfounded statements here this afternoon in his usual way. He said: “Sasol is protected” and he spoke about a 4½c duty. As far as I know, this 4½ cents duty was levied long before Sasol ever existed, and the hon. member knows it, but he now pretends that this is a levy to protect Sasol. He cannot make these wild allegations and think that he can get away with them. He also spoke about the “exorbitant railway rates” which are now being levied on petrol and he said that the petrol consumers in the interior have to pay so much for their petrol. Has he ever considered that the coal consumers in the South also have to pay much more than the people in the North? It is not the fault of the Railways that coal is mined in the interior and has to be transported to Cape Town. Is it the fault of the Railways that petrol has to be imported and transported to the interior? Besides this the Railways is also an industry in which a vast amount of capital has been invested, and it must pay for itself. That is why the tariffs are levied in such a way that it must be a paying proposition.

But I come to another matter that I want to mention. I want to associate myself with what the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) said yesterday in connection with the railway officials. I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister and the Administration on the great improvements which have been effected and on the assistance which we now receive from the railway staff in every branch, and not only on the trains. Where we have to deal with railway officials, we find a large measure of courtesy and willingness to help. This proves to us that we have a satisfied railway staff. The fact that their interests have been seen to and that their salaries have been increased makes these people contented, and that is why they are so courteous and polite to the public.

Having said this, I want to deal with a local problem and that is the section from Bethlehem to Balfour, and I want to discuss particularly the passenger traffic over this section. In the past, one train a day ran to Bethlehem and there was one train back to Balfour on the next day. Now we have two passenger trains running each day, but both of them run at night. They leave Balfour in the evening and they arrive at Bethlehem at night, and the same thing happens at Balfour. This is very inconvenient for the travelling public. I am sure that those passengers can be given those services during the day. I want to mention another problem which is a consequence of what I have mentioned—the fact that we have night traffic over that section. There is no staff on duty and there are no lights at all on the smaller stations. If one uses that service one finds that there are no staff or lights on all the stations except Reitz and Frankfort and the platforms are so short that people find it difficult to leave and board the train. I want to ask that this service should be run during the day and then it will not be necessary to ask for the platforms to be changed. There are no lights at Tweeling when the train arrives there at night and there is no staff on duty there. There is no platform either and the passengers have to struggle to leave and board the train in the dark. Many Bantu also make use of that service because Bethlehem is the nearest point to Basutoland and Witzieshoek, both of which are Bantu areas, and Bantu going to the Rand make use of that line. There are also those Bantu who get off at the small stations and who constitute a great danger to the White passengers. That is why I want to ask in a friendly way whether any assistance can be given to the passengers making use of that service.

I also want to discuss another section and that is the section from Arlington to Wolwehoek. The passenger coaches which are used are very old and, moreover, there are no refreshments served to passengers on this section and the train runs very slowly. I want to ask whether any improvement can be effected along this section.

In connection with both of these sections I want to point out that in my constituency the stations all have very old buildings. Take Frankfort. It has a corrugated iron building which is not a credit to the Railways. There is heavy goods traffic at that station and it earns a great deal of money for the Railways. I think it merits a little more attention and a better building should be erected there. I am also thinking particularly of the goods shed which is small and cramped. I ask whether attention cannot be given to this fact because I think that the traffic there justifies more adequate buildings being erected. Of course I realize when asking for these things that the Railways also have to give their attention to more important matters and that there are other places where these improvements are also justified, but I ask that the railway users should receive a little more consideration.

I wish to conclude by mentioning the Coalbrook station. This is the station through which all the goods from Sasolburg are transported. It is not actually the appropriate place for passenger traffic from Sasolburg because it is about three miles from the town. It is useless from a passenger point of view. I want again to suggest, as I have done previously, that the building of a line from Coalbrook to Vanderbijlpark via Sasolburg and from there down to Vereeniging should be investigated. Then the passenger traffic can be built up through to Johannesburg because there will be many people wanting to go to Johannesburg by train if an express service can be instituted. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, in discussing his policy with us yesterday afternoon, the hon. the Minister made it very clear that one of the major aspects he took into account was the present economic position of the country, and he quoted to us from a publication of the S.A. Federated Chamber of Industries dated 27 February, which said that the Chamber had estimated that manufacturing would increase by 8.8 per cent in the coming year, and that railway requirements would be 11.4 per cent more, and that all the signs pointed to expansion, but there the hon. the Minister stopped. I think he should have gone a little further, because then he would have found that the Chamber said this as well—

These are vital aspects in the policy of the Minister in determining his rating policy. We know that the Chamber of Industries is dead against this 10 per cent increase in tariffs. They have told him so and he admitted yesterday that industry did not want this increase. The Minister seemed to be a little confused as to whether he wanted industry to absorb these additional rates or not, because he said two things. He said that industry was absorbing portion of the rates…

I did not say that.

I apologize. The Minister said that these rates were being passed on and he referred particularly to retailers. The result of a survey done, however, shows that 80 per cent of the increase in the rates has been absorbed at this stage.

Order! The hon. member should not discuss rates now.

But the whole policy of the Minister is based on the economic situation.

Order!

Then I will go on to discuss the policy of the Minister in his actual rating, because we find that if we are importing goods from overseas to-day, it costs us 335 dollars from New York to Durban, and 350 dollars from Durban to Johannesburg. If we export it costs us R436 from Johannesburg to Durban and R376 from Durban to London, and there are dozens of similar cases. I would like to suggest to the Minister that in determining his policy he should consider seriously a reduction in rates and not an increase. The Minister has a volume business, a cash business, and a monopolistic business. Industry and commerce know that in volume businesses and cash businesses the way to make profits is to have turnover, and the way to have turnover is to reduce prices. The Minister is going against that trend. He believes that he has to put up his rates to recoup the increased salaries paid to his staff. But I think it can work much better in reverse. Perhaps the Minister should be bold, like President Kennedy, and view the situation differently. He has done it in regard to passenger traffic. He has reduced the rates on the Blue Train and he has reduced the charge for a coupe, but he did it when he was already in trouble with his passenger service, and I hope he will not wait to make reductions until he is in trouble with his goods service.

There is another matter I would like to raise with the Minister, and that is the question of excess luggage for people travelling overseas. Perhaps I can call it the nightmare of excess luggage for the normal traveller—not the first class traveller. I know you are entitled to 44 lb. only, but if you want to take excess luggage with you I understand the position is that you can only pay from point of departure to the point of leaving the plane.

Order! The hon. member can discuss that under Airways.

Is this not part of the Minister’s policy?

The hon. member is now discussing details and not general policy.

Then perhaps in general the Minister will consider the problem of the traveller who finds that he cannot purchase a round-trip excess luggage ticket, and perhaps he may help us there.

There is one other matter, and that is the question of the internal air freight rates. Again I think the Minister could do himself a lot of good if he were to reduce the charges. The rate from South Africa to London is cheap in comparison with the rate from Johannesburg to Cape Town, and I think much could be done for the Airways if those rates were reduced, but I hope to come back to these matters later.

I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister a few matters relating to the constituency of Marico. The first is to make available the largest number of railway lorries possible, and, not only that, but indeed the largest possible number of roadworthy machines for the mealie areas in my constituency. I ask for that, because farmers sometimes suffer considerable inconvenience during harvest time if there are too few vehicles to transport the mealies. In regard to roadworthiness, they also experience many delays when a large number of these vehicles are out of commission. Heavy demands are made on these vehicles because they have to carry heavy loads over bad roads. For fast and efficient service a high degree of roadworthiness cannot be sufficiently emphasized. The Minister would be rendering a great service to the grain farmers if he would devote attention to this matter. I must say that the Administration has reacted speedily and favourably to requests made by me, particularly in regard to deliveries to the agricultural co-operatives at Koster and Swartruggens. Secondly, there is the question of making available locomotives at stock-loading pens where large numbers of stock have to be railed, particularly when sales are being held. Agents and farmers sometimes find it very difficult to push these trucks to and from the loading point. Sometimes they have only the minimum of assistance available. Hundreds of head of cattle are sometimes loaded on one day. Perhaps it may be facilitated if arrangements are made beforehand with the station staff to make available a locomotive for that purpose.

Then there is a matter I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister, namely the pedestrian bridge between the goods shed and the station at Zeerust, which is being misused to-day by the Bantu of the new location and also by other Bantu who walk through the residential area of the railway staff to the great inconvenience of the public. I do not think the public object so much to the fact that the Bantu in the service of the Railways use that bridge, as to the misuse of it by large numbers of non-Whites going to and from the town. It creates a tremendous inconvenience and is also dangerous, particularly at night when they have been drinking and walk through the residential area of the station staff. The main railway crossing is near by and conveniently situated. Steps should be taken to prevent this by, perhaps, just erecting a notice-board to say that this is a private bridge which may not be misused.

Then I should like to put it to the Minister again that the public in the Bushveld area around Dwaalboom appreciates very much the three Commissioners having visited the area to ascertain whether their request in regard to extending the railway line from Middelwit to Dwaalboom was justified. The thorough investigation made is appreciated. The public is, in any case, not satisfied yet with the negative reply given, and still believes that the development of the agricultural potential, together with the fact that Middelwit station is situated in a Bantu area, supports their request and, therefore, I am raising the matter again on behalf of those people. This request must remain on the waiting-list.

Then the public are also very grateful for the concessions granted by the Railways to the agents delivering fuel at Dwaalboom and in the vicinity of Swartruggens for the delivery of fuel for agricultural purposes. The extensions of a number of road motor service routes in the constituency to terminals which are situated more deeply in the rural areas are much appreciated. I should also mention the institution of fast bus services for passengers between the Rand to Mafeking via Zeerust as an alternative for the inefficient service rendered by the passenger trains, which no longer receive any support. This is an excellent service which is of great value to the public between the Rand and Pretoria to Mafeking via Swartruggens, Zeerust and other smaller places.

Then I want to say a word of thanks to the Minister for the facilities which were made available during the drought in regard to the transportation of fodder and of stock to other grazing. That was much appreciated by the farmers, and it was of great value to them. Last, but not least, I want to mention the fact that on the whole of the road between Rustenburg and Mafeking, after the completion of the macadamized road, there are only two bridges over railway crossings which are still uncompleted, namely the two at Swartruggens. I think the Minister should really devote attention to those two very dangerous crossings. It will be realized that since the road has been tarred motor-cars will approach those crossings at even higher speeds and that the possibility of accidents has been doubled. In addition the one is right in the centre of the town. In view of the fact that all the other crossings have now been completed, preference should be given to those two. We owe the hon. the Minister a debt of gratitude for the few essential improvements effected at Zeerust station, and particularly for the road bridge over the railway line on the eastern side, the building of which within the near future has been approved of.

The hon. the Minister in his Budget statement made reference to the electrification of certain railway lines. Sir, we, who live in Port Elizabeth, realize that the Minister has been extremely active in the development of our area, but I will say that we have come to the time when we, too, feel that we should ask the Minister whether he has any plans for the electrification of any of the lines in the Cape Midlands. I have in mind particularly our suburban lines. The one which I have in mind particularly is Uitenhage-Port Elizabeth, which could well be a very good starting-point for further development to the northern areas. As the Minister knows, these are becoming very highly industrial areas, and a line between Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage would be of extreme value in our development. Then again we have a tremendous labour force, of course. The Minister may be able to give us some information as to how he is going to provide transport for the future to facilitate the position.

Thanks to the excellent service of our Railways, various rural towns surrounding the cities have over the past years become popular residential areas for persons earning their living in the cities. Because of the service given to them by the Railways these people are able to travel very swiftly every morning from a restful rural town to their work in the cities, and back again in the evening. One of these sections to which particular attention has been given recently is the service from Eerste River to Somerset West and the Strand, a section which has been electrified. This means that those areas are becoming more popular as residential areas for persons earning their living in the city and that is why we want to thank the hon. the Minister and his Department very much indeed.

But I also want to take this opportunity to direct the attention of the hon. the Minister and his Department to the facilities at Stellenbosch station, Stellenbosch which is one of the oldest towns in the Republic and which to-day, as a result of development, has very heavy passenger traffic, apart from the fact that with more than 5,000 students who are there during the course of the academic year, very large numbers of students also travel to the city practically every day in connection with their studies, for practical work and so forth. But every morning a large number of Whites and Coloureds also travel from that station to Cape Town. Visitors often come from the interior, from Pretoria, Johannesburg and other parts, to Stellenbosch for scientific discussions. We find to-day that the existing platform facilities on the station are of such a nature that if a mainline train draws in from the North, passengers from Johannesburg and Pretoria have to leave the train beyond the platform because the platform is too short. They have to disembark at a point where there are a number of signal wires, and this of course makes things very difficult for them. But not only is this platform too short for long mainline trains; the fact is also that the existing platform is too low by modern standards and that people stepping down onto the platform, particularly old people, find it very difficult to disembark. Many elderly women also stay at Stellenbosch; there is an old ladies’ home there. These ladies have often to come to Town for medical reasons and when they board the train from that platform it is quite a process: they always have to be assisted to board and to disembark from the train. I trust that the necessary attention will be given to the platform of that station which is a show station. The station surroundings are really very pretty.

Another matter that I want to raise on this occasion is the deviation of mainline trains at the start of university terms. Some of the trains from the interior carrying students run through Stellenbosch but others run directly to Bellville. It sometimes happens that some of the trains carry students and these trains run directly to Bellville. This means that the students have to disembark at Wellington and have to wait for some time for a train direct to Stellenbosch, or otherwise they have to disembark at Bellville and wait there for a connection to Stellenbosch. It is felt that this creates some measure of dislocation and that people have sometimes to stand waiting for trains at most inconvenient times of the day or night. It is felt that with little inconvenience—because the destination of most mainline travellers is Cape Town station— the train can be re-routed to run through Stellenbosch station.

I wish to refer to the question of the elimination of level crossings in regard to which the Minister made certain remarks. The Minister indicated that the question of the elimination of level crossings was contingent upon finance and he said that the elimination would be carried out as fast as possible, finance permitting. I wish to point out to the Minister that in the Report of the General Manager it is indicated that the balance in the Level Crossing Elimination Fund has increased by over R1,000,000 in the last year, and I feel that in view of that increase in the actual money available steps can be taken possibly to expedite this matter. But there is a question of policy which I would like to put to the Minister in regard to the level crossings which at the moment are not on the plan for elimination. Certain questions were addressed to the Minister concerning the number of level-crossing accidents, where these had taken place, what fatalities there had been and what damage had been done. I do not wish to go into a whole string of figures but I do wish to point out that the matter is one which I believe to be urgent, because if one considers that a level-crossing accident occurs practically every day of the year throughout the year and that one person is killed at a level-crossing accident every 4½ days, I believe that the matter is urgent and worthy of consideration from every point of view. Sir, there are differences in the figures which have been provided. In answer to a question which I asked the hon. the Minister he indicated that the number of deaths at level crossings during the year under review was 208, but according to figures which had been issued by the Auto-mobile Association and which they confirm were taken from the Annual Report of the General Manager, this figure is a great deal higher. The Automobile Association claims that no less than 416 people were killed at these level crossings, and that figure included pedestrians. Now, certain powers exist under the Level Crossings Act, but under that Act no provision is made to deal with the protection of level crossings as distinct from the elimination of level crossings. Apparently any research which may take place in regard to various warning devices, forms part of the functions of a Department of the Minister. I believe that this is an aspect which could receive far greater attention than it does. In this very informative pamphlet which has been published by the Automobile Association reference is made to the fact that it will take at least 24 years to eliminate level-crossings on roads other than secondary roads and that in the meantime steps should be taken to provide more effective warning devices. The Minister has said in his answer that all the accidents which have taken place, took place at level-crossings where some form of warning device has been installed. I believe that there are many ways in which development in this matter could be encouraged. I have in mind a particular case which I think is a good example of how the difficulties which exist as the matter stands at present can be overcome. A little while ago there appeared in one of the daily newspapers a letter headed “Gadget was refused”, and on inquiry through the courtesy of the newspaper in question, I received a reply indicating that the letter had been written by a third person reporting the fact that a warning device which could operate at level-crossings had been submitted to the Department, together with a request for certain information in regard to the whole question of level-crossings. This particular invention seemed to have great potentialities. It was something which could supply a flashing light at a level-crossing, irrespective of whether electric power was available or not. It functions from the locomotive and is operated through a system through the rails, and it can work either with steam locomotives or electric units. This particular inventor wrote to the Department and asked for certain information in regard to level-crossings and what facilities there were for a person who put forward such suggestions and he was told that any suggestions which he had to make would be treated in confidence; that they could be submitted. He was also told that the information regarding the frequency of accidents was not readily available, and he was told too that the majority of these accidents were due to the negligence of the people who travel on the roads or who use level-crossings. But there was no really sympathetic understanding of the problem which he wished to deal with and that was the installation of a simple warning device, and as far as I can make out his suggestion was not acceptable. The Automobile Association refers to that aspect and it says that many suggestions which had been put forward have been “turned down with monotonous regularity”. I feel that although there is perhaps a Department within the Railway organization which does deal with this aspect, sufficient emphasis and publicity is not given to the need for developing certain warning devices. I believe that this Department could encourage people to submit further plans and could examine these plans practically, and that there might then be many solutions to this very dangerous problem. In America there is a body which deals specifically with these inventions, and it would seem that the general public is encouraged to make use of the facilities. They are told how to approach the matter and each suggestion which is put forward is received sympathetically and examined with great care. During the war this was particularly useful in assisting the armed services, both offensively and defensively. Altogether over 200,000 suggestions were submitted during the period 1940 to 1946. It is true that only about 4 per cent of these suggestions were developed to the stage where they could have some practical significance, but in many instances they proved of inestimable value to the armed forces. I believe that just as this man had a suggestion which he believed could save life and could be developed until such time as the complete elimination of all the level-crossings could be effected, there may be other people who with a little encouragement may be in a position to offer the Minister some definite assistance. The Automobile Association also went on to say that the Minister had agreed to set up some committee to deal with this particular aspect, but as far as they knew this committee had not functioned nor had it met apparently for two years. I would like to put it to the Minister that this matter is urgent; it involves human lives which we need very badly in this country. I shall be glad if the Minister can give some indication as to what steps can be taken not only to encourage people who make these inventions but also to establish facilities for research by his Department itself and also to test the various inventions and schemes which are put forward by members of the public.

I want to bring to the notice of the hon. the Minister the lack of adequate provision for travelling facilities for passengers on through journeys from Pretoria wanting to make use of through coaches. It often happens that once travellers have booked their seats to coastal areas or to distant places, they learn that an insufficient number of through coaches are available and that accordingly they have to change at Germiston or Johannesburg. We all know that it causes a great deal of inconvenience and trouble to change trains, particularly in the case of old people and especially where one has a large amount of luggage and also where one has small children. It is not always so inconvenient or troublesome to change trains during the day, but this becomes difficult when it has to be done in the evening or during the night.

Where passengers are instructed to change at those two places, it sometimes happens that they prefer to go to the extra expense of making arrangements to be taken to one of those two places by car. I have a specific case at the moment in connection with school children who have to come down to Cape Town during the coming holidays and who cannot get bookings on through coaches from Pretoria; they are the children of officials and also of Members of Parliament. They have already been told that they will have to board the local train leaving Pretoria for Johannesburg at 8.40 p.m. and arriving at Johannesburg at about 9.45; that there they will have to change to a train for Cape Town which leaves at about 10 p.m. I know of cases where parents have already tried to make arrangements to have their children taken to Johannesburg by car by friends in Pretoria in order to avoid this changing of trains.

I have information here but I cannot vouch completely for its accuracy in every respect It will in any case support my argument. This information deals with the trains and the through coaches which were made available in Pretoria in September 1962. Altogether there were 19 coaches for Pretoria each day on 11 trains having through coaches. If an average train consisted of 16 coaches, there were therefore 176 coaches of which Pretoria receives slightly more than 10 per cent. We have the same picture in connection with train services to Pretoria. During the same period that I am discussing now, September 1962, there were 12 train services to Pretoria on which only 18 through coaches were supplied for Pretoria. If once again we take an average of 16 coaches per train, less than 10 per cent of those coaches were available to travellers to Pretoria and to the Northern Transvaal. I may also state that travellers from Rhodesia and Mafeking all have to change at Johannesburg if their destination is Pretoria or any place to the north of Pretoria.

I want to say that this position in the first place causes inconvenience and unnecessary expense. In the second place it results in the fact that people wanting to travel sometimes use other transport services, particularly motor cars, instead of the train services. In the third place, I contend that this may perhaps have an adverse affect upon the tourist industry which is dependent exclusively upon train services and road motor transport. In conclusion, on behalf of travellers from Pretoria and further north. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to have this matter investigated, of the unfair treatment of tourists or passengers from those areas, to see whether any improvement can be effected in connection with the supplying of through coaches from Pretoria.

I have listened over the last few days with great interest to the Minister’s exposition of his policy on Railways, but I wish to raise this point under the hon. the Minister’s policy. He has, to my mind, completely ignored the basic problem of the South African railway system, which is the limit in the speed and capacity which is set to-day by the narrow gauge of our railways. In the Minister’s reply yesterday to my colleague, the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood), he said that the speed of the Orange Express was limited by the narrow gauge. While I appreciate that the changing of the gauge is a very difficult and costly and lengthy task without interfering seriously with traffic, and it is for these very reasons that I feel that unless a start is made immediately with the planning and the technical details and estimating the cost and the time schedule of such a project, the South African Railways must and will fall behind in the demands made on them by the country’s expansion, the expansion of its population and the expansion of its production. Consequently we may have the position arising that while all over the world the efficiency and the speed of transportation and the promotion of the country’s economy are being speeded up, here in South Africa the reverse situation might arise. Even in South Africa to-day it is appreciated that the speed of road transport and of internal airlines and the transport of oil by pipeline are following the world pattern of higher efficiency and higher speed in transport systems, yet none of the Minister’s plans that I have looked through makes any reference to preparations for overcoming this basic bottleneck that may develop in the South African railway system. This bottleneck may prove to be the planning for the widening of the gauge of our railway system throughout South Africa. I feel that perhaps the hon. the Minister’s Department has made some study of this problem and that perhaps it has some plans which have not yet been disclosed to this House. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister to tell us in detail how he is going to tackle this problem; what the anticipated cost is, what the time schedule would be, what increase in speed is anticipated, what saving is anticipated in rolling stock and what reduction is anticipated in the cost of haulage per mile? The introduction of jet planes with larger capacity and higher speeds has made possible the swift turning-round of planes so that you need fewer planes, and one would like to know whether the same would apply to the South African Railways when the narrow gauge is replaced by a wider gauge. I feel that it is imperative that we should have some idea from the hon. the Minister what is envisaged in the planning-ahead of the gauge of the South African Railways. It is obvious that a great deal of capital cost will be involved in this, but capital cost such as this can be regarded as a valuable investment by the State in producing higher profits in the end on the South African railway system. It would also be a necessary aid to industry and mining and agriculture in transporting their products. I feel that it is no good postponing these decisions for future generations and I would like to ask the hon. the Minister to give us full details of what he envisages in this regard.

There are a few matters of local importance to Bloemfontein that I want to raise. The hon. the Minister will remember that last year there were a considerable number of complaints in Bloemfontein about the Airways’ time-table. The hon. the Minister received representations from the Bloemfontein Sakekamer, the Bloemfontein City Council, businessmen and industrialists in this connection. I also made representations to him and the hon. the Minister received those representations very sympathetically and was good enough to send an Airways official to investigate those complaints immediately. After this investigation was completed, the hon. the Minister informed me that the representations would receive attention in due course when an Airway’s time-table was again drawn up. I understand now that an Airways’ time-table has been drawn up and will come into operation on 1 April. I do not know its details. I understand, however, that provision has been made to obviate many of the shortcomings of the previous time-table. But what I want to put to the hon. the Minister is this: The difficulty is that this time-table is reviewed from time to time. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to issue an instruction in connection with the service at Bloemfontein that certain principles should be borne in mind in regard to any review of the time-table in future. All that the businessmen in Bloemfontein want—and I think that this is a very fair and just request—is that there should be regular and convenient air services between Bloemfontein and. in particular, the cities of Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. The services must be so arranged that a daily visit can be made by air to Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban from Bloemfontein at least once a week without this taking up too much of the passengers’ time by, for example, their needing two days in which to pay a one-day visit to one of these cities. If these principles are borne in mind this will not only be in the interests of the Bloemfontein businessmen but I have no doubt that it will also be in the interests of the Airways and that they will receive greater support from the businessmen. I also want to ask whether it will not be possible, particularly during sessions of Parliament, to re-institute a morning service on Fridays from Cape Town to Bloemfontein. This will be of great assistance to Members of Parliament who have often to address Friday evening meetings in the Free State and the Northern Cape. Of course, this does not hold good for the Free State Members of Parliament only; it also holds good for Opposition members and other members who have to address meetings in the Free State and the Northern Cape. This will prevent what is happening at present—that Members of Parliament have to leave Cape Town on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning at 7.30 a.m. which means that they are away from Parliament for two days. I wonder whether in this connection the hon. the Minister will not ask the Airways to see whether this provision cannot be made?

I also want to advocate a more convenient train service for Bloemfontein. The night train from Johannesburg arrives in Bloemfontein at 4.53 a.m. The usual train from Cape Town arrives in Bloemfontein at 2.57 a.m. and the train from East London arrives there at 3.37 a.m. The hon. the Minister will agree with me that these are very inconvenient times to dis-embark from a train. I appreciate only too well the difficulties connected with the drawing up of a train time-table to suit everyone, but I do feel that as one of the urban centres in the country, Bloemfontein can lay claim to a more convenient train service. At the same time I also want to ask the hon. the Minister to make some of the new steel passenger coaches and dining cars fitted with air conditioning, which he mentioned in his Budget speech, available to the Free State sections because the passenger coaches which are often used on the Free State lines leave much to be desired. I hope that we will have more of these new passenger coaches.

I also hope that the hon. the Minister will give serious attention to giving Bloemfontein a new station. It is a physical impossibility to apply apartheid between White and non-White passengers on the station as it is at present, I hope that Bloemfontein will be given preference in regard to new stations which are under consideration.

Then there is another matter which really merits serious attention and that is in connection with train smoke in Bloemfontein. Many inhabitants of Bloemfontein in the Hilton residential area experience a great deal of inconvenience because of the smoke from the trains. As the hon. the Minister knows, the shunting yards in that area have been greatly enlarged with the result that more locomotives are used for shunting purposes in these yards. The Administration has already made attempts to restrict the emission of black smoke by locomotives as far as possible. But I again received complaints recently. I am informed that there is really no improvement in the nuisance caused to the inhabitants of that area by locomotive smoke.

I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to whether the time has not come to change over from steam to some other form of traction in these shunting yards. These shunting yards are very close to the Hilton residential area, and the smoke from the trains is not only a nuisance to the owners as far as keeping both the inside and the outside of their homes clean is concerned, but it also means that the value of property in that area is greatly affected thereby. Home owners in the vicinity can simply no longer dispose of their homes. Because the smoke from the trains is chiefly to blame for this. I do not think that it is fair towards those house owners, and that is why I want to make an earnest plea to the hon. the Minister to have the present steam traction replaced by some other form of traction which does not create smoke. Bloemfontein has a proud record as one of the cleanest cities, if not the cleanest, in the Republic, and I do hope that the hon. the Minister will help us to maintain this proud record.

I should like to commence by expressing my congratulations to the General Manager for the very excellent and lucid report for the year 1961-2 which has given such an excellent appreciation of that year that one could follow the Budget speech of the Minister in most respects without any sense of surprise.

I would like to deal with the question of the trainees at the Railway College at Esselen Park. The Administration has a total staff of 214,000. The White staff is approximately 100,000, and the non-White staff the balance. I notice that in the year 1961-2 2,620 trainees completed their course. As against the number of total employees, this represents about 1½ per cent. If you compare it with Whites only, it will be about 2½ per cent. Just another figure to illustrate certain comparisons: The net cost of the Railway College at Esselen Park for the year 1961-2 was R621,832, which is about 3 per cent of the total wage bill or 3.75 per cent of the Railway wage bill. It is my view that, in these days in which we are living, where there is already considerable concern about the training of technical and skilled workers, it does not seem possible that the wastage in this very big staff should be so little as to warrant the training of such a very small number of persons, namely this small number of 2,620, and representing such a very small percentage of this vast undertaking. I believe that some attention should be given to increasing in some way or another, perhaps by making the service more attractive, perhaps by making the starting salary more attractive, perhaps by making the careers in the various departments more attractive, to attract many more would-be trainees, many more would-be railway workers. The salaries paid to railway workers—and I would like to give a comparison of railway earnings to labour costs—show that almost half of Railway expenditure goes in respect of salaries. This is not an unusual factor in any industry, but it indicates the importance of labour to any big undertaking, more particularly to its efficiency. The efficiency can only be maintained if it has a constant reserve or pool from which to draw skilled and trained men. I believe that a number of the complaints that we very often have from people who find that, instead of being promoted, which their years of service entitle them to, they are often superseded by people who are transferred from other departments, could be avoided if departments which suffer from a shortage of staff could continually be fed by trainees who have had the necessary training in various departments and are posted to these departments to fill the gap of the wastage which takes place from time to time.

I do believe that if you take into account the fact that a considerable sum of money is spent in many directions of research into the more material side of railway traffic and railway haulage, if you think of the enormous amounts which are spent on railway equipment, the manpower and the human resources of the railways should perhaps receive at least that measure of attention. I am not necessarily destructively critical of the hon. the Minister and his Department in the fact that this number is so small, but I do find it surprising, Mr. Chairman, and I think the House should have some explanation as to why greater numbers are not attracted. In the engineering industry, for instance, generally throughout the country, they have been faced for years with the spectre of a constantly diminishing pool from which they can draw the numbers that are required. It has already been estimated that, not only in this year, but during the next few years, we will be short of engineers numbering not hundreds, Sir, but thousands. I think in this year, for instance, the country is short of approximately eight to nine thousand engineers. If you take that as a comparative figure, you realize that in a vast undertaking like the Railways, with so many different avenues of activity, it is important not only to have the facilities for training, but to do something to attract the personnel that is required. We have always been distinguished by a very high standard in our top grades. The best evidence of the Railways as a career is to be found in the General Manager. I understand that he rose from the lowest clerical grade, right through the service, to become General Manager of this vast and remarkable undertaking. That is the spirit, Sir, and the inducements which should be created for these young men who leave school and who are looking for careers in our country.

There is just one other factor which I might perhaps mention to the Minister in dealing with his policy, and that is that, in the building of new suburban stations, will it not be wise to give attention to the provision of parking facilities so as to encourage the principle of commuting which has become a feature of suburban railway traffic throughout the world? In America, and in other young countries like Australia, one finds that this form of commuting along the suburban areas into the city has become an important factor. Not only does it assist the suburban passenger traffic, but it also assists the ever-growing traffic problems in the big cities of the world. I think that if you look at any of our big cities you will find that, if we could remove the burden of the daily parker in the cities, we would be rendering a great service from a national point of view. Millions and millions and continuous millions of rand are being and will be spent in order to provide better approaches to cities, wider roads and more parking facilities. So, in alleviating that problem even to the extent that is suggested, I believe that the Railways will be making a contribution to what is certainly to-day a national problem. [Time limit.]

I want to put two matters to the hon. the Minister in connection with the building of the two dams in the Orange River. This will affect the stations of Kraankuil and Norvalspont. I take it that plans will shortly be framed to make more facilities available to both of these stations. Certain improvements will have to be made such as the laying of more lines for shunting purposes because millions of tons of iron, timber, steel, cement and so forth will probably be offloaded at these two stations. Space will have to be found to offload these materials. Kraankuil is a very small station. I cannot say so with any certainty, but I take it that because it is closest to the Van der Kloof Dam, Kraan-kuil will be used as an offloading depot. The other matter is the transport of the material which is offloaded. Will this transport be undertaken by the Railways to the Van der Kloof Dam or will it be done by private undertaking, which in my opinion will be an impossible task? Less still can it be undertaken by the private contractor who has the contract for the building work. It will be a tremendous undertaking if the Railways decide to do it themselves. If the Railways do it themselves, provision will have to be made for a road with a very hard surface from Kraankuil to Van der Kloof. A start will also probably have to be made in the near future with the erection of new houses at Kraankuil to accommodate the staff there because I take it that a large number of extra staff will be required.

Norvalspont will present less difficulty; it is a slightly larger station than Kraankuil but the offloading space there is also rather limited. It has been brought to my attention that a start has already been made in building feeder lines. How this work has progressed I cannot say. I will be very pleased if the hon. the Minister is perhaps able to give us some information in this regard. I do not expect him to know where all the lines are being built but he may perhaps be able to have an inquiry made to see how far this work has progressed. Norvalspont station is only about two and a half miles from the Ruigtevlei Dam. The same thing of course holds good there as far as the transport and the laying of a short and strong road, and the building of more homes for a larger staff is concerned. I have studied the Brown Book carefully but I have not been able to find any provision for improvements of that nature. I hope that I have not missed seeing them. It is with this end in view that I am putting these few questions to the hon. the Minister. I do not expect him to reply to me immediately because this is something which may perhaps only take place within a year or two. Of course, a considerable period of time will be required for the necessary preparatory work such as the laying of railway lines and the building of houses and roads.

I would like to congratulate those responsible for the development of our road motor services. We are not unmindful, Sir, of the long and uncertain hours of work put in by those who operate these services. Our gratitude also to those who were pioneers in opening up this service in almost inaccessible areas, like parts of the Kalahari for instance. It is to the credit of those people that the road transport service is reflected in the sum of R13,627,000 in the Railway expenditure which is before us to-day. We are pleased that there was an increase of something like 2,591 tons moved by the Railway road transport service in the Eastern Cape during the month of December. As railway road services are feeder services to the Railways, I think for statistical purposes, they should be allocated a share of the returns credited to the Railways to-day. This service has banished the ox wagon from our roads; it has co-ordinated road transport with the Railway system and it has reduced the road transport competition almost to a minimum, to the benefit of the primary producer, the consumer and to the advantage of the Railways themselves. We appreciate that our Railways have nursed this road transport system over the years. The Railways have built it up to what it is to-day. But I think that the Railways should now recognize this system as part of the Railway system and that for financial reasons it should not be classified as a separate department. I have no doubt that if the Minister would consent to do this he would be able to reduce the rates applicable to the road transport service. If the Minister could be responsible for lowering the bus rates, especially those on primary products, he would qualify as one of the heroes in transport enterprise in this country and in the development of our agricultural industry. I think this is a special opportunity for the Minister. I give the Minister all credit for what he has done for the Railway service, he and the Railway personnel and the General Manager. They can be congratulated on the type of vehicle that they have on the road. We know what a burden this road motor service was to the Railways but to-day it is a stabilized and developing system. I do not think it should be classified as a separate department of the Railways as regards its finances. I think in the general interests of the country and in view of the monopoly which the Railway system has over that transport, that the time has arrived for the Minister to give due consideration to reducing the rates on our road motor services. I would appeal to the Minister to give this matter his most serious attention.

It is not often that I agree with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth-Central (Mr. Dodds) but I am inclined to agree with him this afternoon. I agree with him where he asks for the electrification of the line between Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth. He was quite correct in saying that the line between Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth runs through a part of the count-y where a number of industries have already been established and where even more will come into being in the future. I think that within the foreseeable future the present line will not be able to meet the demands which will be made of it. At the same time I also want to ask for the doubling of that line because one line will not be able to meet those demands.

Another urgent matter is a new station building for Despatch. I have raised this point before but I want to keep asking for it until the people of Despatch have the station to which they are entitled. The old building standing there which has to serve these thousands of people is so small that one fears that it will burst its seams at any moment. I wish the hon. the Minister could see that little building. If he could see it he would realize the conditions which the workers leaving Despatch for Uiten-hage or Port Elizabeth have to put up with. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give his serious consideration to this matter.

The hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. P. J. Coetzee), as well as the hon. member for Durban-Berea (Mr. Wood), raised a very important matter here—the danger of railway crossings. The hon. the Minister has already replied to the hon. member for Langlaagte. We fully realize the difficulties of the hon. the Minister, that where there is no electricity it is very difficult to put up the necessary flicker lights. The fact is that there is a farmer in the Uitenhage district who has designed a patent— the patent has already been registered—which will make it possible to erect flicker lights on the platteland where there is no electricity. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to go into this matter. These flicker lights can be put up very cheaply and in this way we can avoid considerable loss of life.

I want to know from the hon. the Minister whether the Bestbier Commission, which is now the McMillan Commission, has already started its activities and, if so when the hon. the Minister expects it to submit its report, and whether that Commission will go from place to place to hear evidence. There are only one or two further matters that I want to raise. It is often noticeable when one drives from D. F. Malan Airport to the city in a Railway bus, that there are only two or three passengers in that large bus. I wonder whether it is not possible to make use of smaller vehicles in such a case, even of cars, as is done on the Rand. There is another point which strikes me —that the flight staff are transported in another bus while there are only those few passengers in the Railway bus. Is it not possible for the flight staff to be transported in the vehicle that the passengers use?

There is one last matter that I want to raise which deals with the casual railway workers. I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that they are often paid off quite arbitrarily. I am not now pleading the case of the casual railworker who can no longer do a day’s work but I am pleading for those people who are still able to do a full day’s work. It often happens that a casual railworker, a man who is not yet 65 years of age, is dismissed from service. He has no place to go; he is not entitled to one cent pension; he is simply dismissed from the service. What is to become of that man? In some cases that person still has dependants. He may even have children at school. I have such cases in my constituency. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he cannot give his attention to this matter and ensure that a little more discretion is shown when these people are paid off.

I should like to draw the hon. Minister’s attention to a phrase in his Budget Speech when he said, dealing with suburban transport—

That has been my case for several years, and if the hon. Minister has not already done so, I think it is time that a section of his Planning Committee gave some special attention to suburban transport. Some years ago, we expressed the need for fast electric transport at Kwa Mashu. Many years elapsed before the service was actually introduced, and I think the Minister will agree that the introduction of that service has been highly successful. Representations were made by Durban members for the improvement in services, electric train services, in the southern areas, at Umlazi, etc., and representations have also been made in respect of the new Indian area Chatsworth, but so far nothing has been done.

The Minister mentioned also yesterday that as far as electrification was concerned, the effect of electrification was to speed up services. I want to submit to the Minister that the old mainline in Natal has been electrified, but we have seen no improvement in the speed of services. I am informed that the railway gauge in South Africa is the same as in Japan. Last year I was in San Francisco and I met a Japanese member of Parliament and two senior Japanese railwaymen, and I was given times for distances from the main Japanese centres and while the top speed of the trains was the same as ours, the average speed between points was much faster than the average speed on our Railways here. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that far more could be done in raising the average speed between points than is being done to-day. I am sure that if the average speeds were raised and if we replanned many of our urban areas, we would have people going back to trains instead of away from the trains as has been happening for several years past. In the meantime what has been created is a congestion of road transport, much of it capital which is not being used. If you take a R1,400 or R2.000 motor-car and you drive it ten or 12 miles into town and leave it standing around all day, it is capital that is lying idle. I suggest that in many cases you would save waste in road transport, you would save much of the money being expended on roads, if you could improve the suburban services so as to raise the average speed. Take my own constituency to-day. It takes as long to go from Durban to Hillcrest, although the service has been electrified, as it took 20 years ago. There has been no improvement in the speed. Further stops have been introduced, but the average speed has not been increased. I suggest that the Minister should get reports from the staff who have been over to Japan. I am quite sure that they looked into the suburban rail transport, and perhaps they can tell us to what extent the present services can be increased and to what extent it would be necessary to replan in order to accelerate suburban transport systems. All our major cities have the problem of serving factories, shops and so on, from Native townships lying some distance outside the towns. It is part of Government policy to create these townships some considerable distance away, and if we are going to get greater efficiency from the workers and a happier state among the workers, we have to cut down the travelling time between their work and their home. I submit that a great deal can be done in improving these services, and although the Minister says and has said in the past, that suburban transport services do not pay, I am quite sure that if he reorganized the services, so that we got a mean average improved time, not only would we get a better satisfied staff amongst our industrial workers, but we would increase the flow of passengers to the suburban transport, we would increase the revenue and those services would then pay, and in addition to that we would ease the congestion on the roads and help in the planning of our cities, and save the tremendous increase in capital on trunk road services which is becoming necessary owing to the fact that the suburban Railways are not carrying the traffic they should.

I want to refer to a new and very sensible policy which is being applied in the Railway service to-day. I refer to the fact that, before people are employed by the Railways, they have to undergo an aptitude test. In this way one of the first important principles of scientific staff management has been introduced by the Railways, that principle which ensures that a worker is the right man in the right position, and that he is, therefore, happy in the service in which he is placed, and will, therefore, be a good worker. This is something which is being followed by most large industries in the world to-day—scientific staff management—and in this case it is the principle of staff management, of ensuring that one has the right man in the right position. I trust that the men handling this matter are all qualified industrial psychologists, men who are properly equipped for this important task. I understand that this work has already had great success. I am also told that, by means of these aptitude tests, people have been found to have an I.Q. of 136. In the case of a man who applied for a clerical position, it was found that he had an I.Q. of 136, and the Railway Administration also followed the correct policy there and sent that man to university on a bursary. I am particularly grateful that effect is now being given to this policy, because there have been repeated pleas from this side of the House in the past that, before people are employed, they should undergo aptitude tests to ensure that the right man is given the right position. We are all pleased about this, and we trust that this principle of staff management will be extended; that not only will this principle be applied, but that most of the principles which are accepted in the civilized world to-day will also be applied in the Railway service. I think, for example, of the case of a man asking to be transferred for some or other reason, or of a man who, because of circumstances, has on the other hand to refuse to accept a transfer—all those things which deal with the human factor. They must come into their own as a matter of policy. I am grateful that I can state that most railwaymen whom I have met in my constituency are happy because the right policy is being followed, and I just want to express the hope that the hon. the Minister will continue to have the principles of scientific staff management applied throughout the service to an ever-increasing extent.

There are a few points in regard to the hon. Minister’s policy I should like to raise. Following the remarks of the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell), I would also like to urge the closest study of suburban traffic, not only from the time factor and the other ancillary services necessary as outlined by the hon. member for Pinetown, but also in regard to the design of the new type of coach being put on the suburban run. There I particularly want to ask the hon. Minister if he could not arrange that the Department examines those coaches from the point of view of the long-distance traveller on the suburban line as compared with the shorter-distance traveller. For the shorter traffic of eight to ten miles they are probably quite satisfactory, but for the longer distance, where people have to travel say, an hour, in one of those coaches and under crowded conditions, under climatic conditions which exist during certain periods of the year here in the Cape Peninsula, they are most uncomfortable. There is the question of the ventilation of the areas in which the standing passengers are grouped. At peak time that area is one solid mass of passengers, and you find that the ventilation leaves a tremendous lot to be desired. Passengers who have to stand from, say, Muizenberg to Cape Town and vice versa—and many of them do— suffer acute discomfort from lack of ventilation, because generally the windows are closed. You know the type of passenger you get on a suburban passenger train: One wants the window open and the other wants it shut, and generally the man who wants it shut wins, and then the ventilation goes. The seating could well be examined in an attempt to make it a little bit more comfortable. I am not decrying the general condition of the coaches which, I think, are an improvement on the coaches that used to be in use, but I do believe that, for the longer run, we want something more than what is, perhaps, best symbolized as “tram” or “bus” accommodation. Something more approaching railway accommodation for the comfort of the passengers doing that run is needed.

I also wanted to ask the hon. Minister, in regard to the policy which he has initiated and which is a most valuable one, that is the elimination of level crossings, and particularly where they are eliminated by subways connected with the Railway service, if he could not arrange perhaps for planning attention being given, in the overall picture, to do away with some of the darkness and some of the unsatisfactory features which are attached to so many of these subways. I appreciate the difficulties which exist in planning and building them, but there is no, question about it that, under present-day conditions, womenfolk in some of the bigger suburban areas are dead scared, especially after dark, to have to traverse these subways, which appear to be the haunt of undesirable characters and undesirable types of person; they are used for the most undesirable purposes something for which they were never designed, and they are far from hygienic at times. Womenfolk are worried and afraid, because there have been instances of attacks, bag-snatching and worse, in the dark corners of some of these subways. I would ask if, perhaps, in the general overall planning, something could not be done to try— maybe by artificial lighting—in some shape or form to endeavour to minimize that danger factor, and also another factor that, where the approach or exit is in the form of a fairly long ramp, it has been found in a number of the earlier subways, at any rate, that it does not take long for those to become very slippery in wet weather and acutely dangerous for the people who are not on the one side or the other where they can have access to the handrails. These are features which, I think, could be examined.

I wonder if the hon. Minister would consider also, in connection with some of these big subways, which are very costly affairs, to ascertain if it is not possible to recoup some of the costs by an annual revenue, such as is done in many instances overseas by the institution of small cubicles or shops where commercial goods can be sold and some revenue derived from them in the subway itself. This practice in turn applies a sort of a check on the misuse of the subway and the better protection of the people using it.

The other point I want to touch on, Mr. Chairman, is the question of the completion of the fishing harbour in Table Bay. I know the fishing harbour itself is not a Railway prerogative, but the completion of the fishing harbour in Table Bay does affect the Administration in this respect, that it will release in the dock area itself very valuable space which they urgently need for other forms of commercial traffic falling under the jurisdiction of the hon. Minister. We know that there has been a committee set up, we know that various sites have been examined, but I think it is perhaps one of these features where a little bit of push, which we have seen the Minister demonstrating his ability to apply so well in many respects, applied to these talks that are now going on, might bring results. It will be of tremendous benefit to the fishing industry itself and certainly of tremendous benefit to the Administration to get the docks cleared. I think the hon. Minister, also in his share in the planning of these harbours, might take into account the fact that they may be required not only for the inshore fishing type of small craft, but also the bigger deep-sea trawlers which are now cluttering up the commercial dock down here. Any site selected and any harbour built must envisage that type of occupation as well as by the smaller craft.

One last point before sitting down: I want to return for a moment to the question of the shipbuilding sites in the various ports. I refer to the part reply the hon. Minister gave earlier about the position at Durban in regard to the delay which has taken place there in regard to the allocation of a site. I am not referring now to the Norval Commission’s Report, of which I am well aware, but to the statement issued by one of the big firms, James Brown & Hayner, who reported that their plans for a shipbuilding venture in Durban harbour had to be shelved for the time being because the company had been informed by the S.A. Railway and Harbour Administration that a committee will shortly consider whether leases already provisionally allocated for ship-repairing, should be granted. They were, furthermore, informed that the committee would consider what areas should be set aside for shipbuilding and under what conditions “the company thus may not receive the lease of the site actually already allocated to it, and in these circumstances (that was a statement by the chairman of the company, Mr. J. M. Russell), the company’s plans must be kept in abeyance ”. I would like the hon. Minister to tell us whether there is such a committee in being, whether they are, indeed, operating now in view of the report of the Norval Commission, and when a reply can be expected, quite apart from the other features envisaged in the Norval Report, so that the firms in question will have some knowledge as to when they will be permitted to proceed.

I want to bring to the notice of the hon. the Minister a need which has existed for some time in the North-Eastern Cape and that is the expansion of the bi-weekly air service from Queenstown to Aliwal North and further East to areas such as Maclear and Matatiele. We feel that this will most probably not be a paying proposition at the start, but it will pay eventually, just as other services have started to pay after a time. The distance from Queenstown to Aliwal North is 150 miles and from Aliway North to Matatiele is a distance of 300 miles. In order to join up again with the air service in the East, Durban is the nearest airport, the Louis Botha Airport, and that is about 200 miles from Matatiele. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to this— the extension of this air service.

Secondly, I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the station at Ida. Last year a severe drought prevailed in that area, and the water in the river dried up. I made representations and a drill was sent there. Boring operations were carried out and a strong flow of water was obtained. I want to thank the section Manager at East London most heartily for this. In the meantime they are renovating the station but the farmers’ association there feels that the enlarging of the goods-shed may perhaps be held over. They are afraid that this may happen. Ida is also a key station where a large amount of artificial fertilizer and so forth is offloaded and where wool is loaded, and it is necessary for the goods-shed there to be enlarged as soon as possible. In the third place I want to direct the attention of the hon. the Minister to the goods-shed at Ugie station. It is also felt that something should be done in this regard. Ugie falls in a high rainfall area and the farmers there complain that their artificial fertilizer is damaged by the rain because of the fact that there is no covering at the goods-shed. I want to see whether something cannot also be done in this regard. Lastly I also want to thank the hon. the Minister for increasing the carrying capacity of the line between Franklin and Matatiele and for the new locomotive shed which is going to be built at Franklin. We hope that all these things will contribute towards the eventual linking up of the line between Maclear and Matatiele in order by so doing to connect the Cape from the East with Natal, also from the East.

If I have to accede to all the requests in connection with stations and improvements and new railway lines, I am afraid that I will need R70,000,000 additional capital. In connection with station buildings I want to ask hon. members on both sides of the House to put up their hands if they want new station buildings. I do not think there is one member in this House who does not want a new station building. If it were in my power to do so, I would accede to all the requests because I should like very much to assist hon. members and give them all fine station buildings. I must add that there are many more requests for new station buildings than those which we have had here to-day. I am continually receiving letters and representations from bodies, from local authorities and so forth in connection with new station buildings. It is true that there are literally hundreds of station buildings in South Africa which are obsolete, which are no longer very attractive, which are not entirely adequate and which have to be rebuilt or which have to be demolished. But I am afraid that if I had to use all my available capital for that purpose, the Railways would again find themselves in a transport crisis because the money would then have to be withdrawn from urgent works and from projects designed to increase the carrying capacity of the Railways. I think hon. members will agree that the most important requirement to increase the carrying capacity so that goods can be transported, and the capital at my disposal is very limited. I only have R70,000,000 this year and this has to cover not only the improvement of lines, the increasing of the carrying capacity of lines and the electrification of lines, but also has to be used for the purchase of a large quantity of rolling stock and locomotives. As much as I want to assist hon. members in connection with all the requests which have been made to me in regard to the erection of new station buildings, I am afraid that I will not be able to comply with all the requests. This does not mean that new station buildings will not be erected. The Management draws up a priority list and every year certain new station buildings are erected but this is only done where the need is the greatest and where it can be justified on merit. It is not as though we have no programme for the erection of new station buildings. This is being done but it is being done gradually and in easy stages.

The hon. member for Piketberg as well as other hon. members spoke about the elimination of level crossings. As hon. members know, two years ago a Bill was passed by this Parliament and that measure made provision for the establishment of a special committee. The committee consisted of representatives of the Railways, the Department of Transport and the Provincial Administrations. It was also laid down in that Act that a certain amount would be voted each year for the purpose of eliminating level crossings. The Railways would contribute R500,000, the Treasury would contribute R500,000 and the National Transport Commission would also contribute R500,000. Therefore the funds of this committee which is entrusted with the elimination of level crossings amount to about R1,500,000 per annum. It was quite rightly stated by one hon. member that there is a considerable credit balance in that fund. On a previous occasion I explained that the reason for this was that negotiations first have to be entered into with local authorities and the Provincial Administrations in connection with the elimination of level crossings because notwithstanding the fact that the fund has been established, local authorities are also expected to contribute a sum of money towards the elimination of these level crossings—towards the building of the bridge. Then the plans have to be drawn up and tenders have to be called for. All these things take time and since this committee was only appointed during 1960, they have not yet got into their stride. But from now onwards things will of course move more quickly. If hon. members look at the Brown Book they will see that a considerable number of level crossings are eliminated annually. The tempo will gradually increase but will always be restricted by the amount of money which the committee has at its disposal. In that connection the Minister can do nothing. He cannot give preference to A, B, or C. The committee draws up a priority list and takes all the factors into consideration—the amount of traffic using the level crossing, the number of trains using that section each day, the approaches to it and so forth; everything is considered and a priority list is drawn up. They start from the top of the list in eliminating these level crossings. I think that this is the most satisfactory way to deal with this matter. In this way preference is not given to some constituency or other or to some level crossing or other because of pressure which may perhaps be brought to bear upon the Minister. These things are dealt with strictly on their merits.

Hon. members also spoke about warning devices. It is quite right that there is no provision for the installation of warning devices in this particular Act to which I have just referred. That is a matter for the Railway Administration. I might say that the Management have over the years received dozens and dozens of suggestions in regard to different types of warning devices. The overwhelming majority of them have been tested and found to be impractical or too expensive and that is why they have been rejected. But every suggestion that is made receives the most serious attention. It is only when it is found that it is quite impractical, although it might look nice on paper, that it is rejected. Hon. members will realize that the Administration cannot embark upon a programme to provide warning devices. I am not now referring to the ordinary warning boards, where some of the boards may have a locomotive painted in luminous paint, but I am referring to warning devices such as lights, or flickering lights or gates. Apart from the fact that electric power is not always available, there is the cost to be considered, and I might say in this regard that some responsibility also rests on the motorist. I realize that you have got to protect people against themselves, but when one finds that the overwhelming majority of accidents is due to negligence on the part of the motorist, one is constrained to say that after all there should be some responsibility on the motorists that they should be more careful and not be negligent. We have had numerous accidents on crossings where there are lights. In spite of the flickering lights accidents still occur there. It is a question of negligence. As I say, we have to protect people against themselves and in the interests of safety crossings should be eliminated and warning devices provided wherever in any way possible, and we do that, but we cannot embark on a programme of providing warning devices at every crossing, or at every dangerous crossing, for the simple reason, as I have stated, that on the one hand electric power is not always available and on the other hand the cost may be excessive. If you cannot provide lights, you will have to provide gates, and where you have gates, you will have to have somebody to operate them and in many instances that cannot be justified.

The hon. member for East London (North) (Mr. Field) spoke about the linking of the line from the Docks to Blaney and the provision of necessary marshalling yards. These are matters that are under consideration. When the new grain elevator has been completed, provision must of course be made that there will be no congestion on the lines as a result of the additional maize traffic coming to East London. These are matters which are receiving consideration. The regrading of the main line from East London to the north will not be undertaken in the near future. It is an extremely expensive undertaking. It will mean the construction of a large number of tunnels and it will mean the rebuilding of very large sections of the line, and at the present time it is not economically justified. There is sufficient capacity on the main line even to cope with the additional maize traffic. It is not economically justified at present. The hon. member also mentioned the fact that one of our tugs sank in East London harbour as the result of a collision. I can only say that this was not the result of taking away the dredger. There was a very strong wind at the time and under ordinary circumstances this would not have happened. The ore-loading plant at Port Elizabeth had to be completed in time. It is a very expensive plant and it was required urgently, and to enable the plant to come into operation towards the end of the year this dredger had to be sent to Port Elizabeth to do the additional dredging work, but I believe it is coming back to East London now.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) again raised the matter in regard to the payment of officers who voluntarily joined the A.C.F. As I explained to him, the Administration does pay its servants who are subject to compulsory military training. If they are called out for emergency duty they are also paid, but when they join the A.C.F. or the commandos on a voluntary basis they are not paid. The reason for that is that we feel we cannot be called upon to pay these servants when they join voluntarily, and if the Government wants them to be paid then it is the responsibility of the Government. We already pay them when they undergo compulsory training, but we cannot agree to pay them when they join the A.C.F. and the commandos voluntarily. The hon. member said it was a question of patriotism and that the Railways should also show a sense of patriotism by paying these men. But I think these men should also show a sense of patriotism. After all, you do not only fight for your country because you are paid to do it. I am sure that when the hon. member joined up he did not do so for the pay, but for totally different reasons. I dealt fully with the pipeline yesterday and I have nothing to add to it.

*The hon. member for Kimberley (North) (Mr. H. T. van G. Bekker) asked for the doubling of the line from Pudimoe to Warrenton and for a new railway line from Warrenton or Kimberley to the goldfields. This line is not necessary at the moment. There is more than enough carrying capacity on the line from Pudimoe to Warrenton. There is no congestion and there are no bottlenecks. All the goods offered can still be transported. There is no necessity or need at all to build a line from Kimberley down to the goldfields. This may perhaps become necessary in years to come but at this stage there is no need for it.

The hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) again raised the matter of the marginal mines. I explained last night that I cannot discriminate when rate-making in favour of any particular section of the community. In other words, I cannot discriminate in regard to the rate for coal transported to the marginal mines and coal transported to other consumers. I can exempt a commodity from the increase, as I have done. I exempted quite a number of commodities like maize and other agricultural products, and manufactures for export. But I cannot discriminate in favour of sections of the community, and that is why it is impossible to discriminate in favour of these marginal mines, when the 10 per cent increase was applied. I said last night that it is in the national interest that the marginal mines should not close down, and that it is a matter for the Central Government. The hon. member mentioned as an example that farmers received special consideration in times of drought. But they do not receive it from the Railways: the Treasury is responsible for it. My standpoint has always been that the Railways must not be used to subsidize any section of the community.

That has not always been your view.

Yes, it has, and I think the hon. member has always agreed with me. That is why I have managed to persuade the Central Government to take over this financial burden.

We persuaded you.

No. Does the hon. member really think that is possible?

Can you persuade the Cabinet to take over this particular matter?

I think the Cabinet is perfectly well aware of the precarious position in which some of these marginal mines find themselves. The hon. member also asked about the construction of the workshops at Welgedacht. I explained on a previous occasion that there is a committee inquiring into the workshops position at present, with a view to rationalization, and also the available capacity of the workshops, and only after this committee has reported will I be able to take a decision on the matter.

The hon. member also complained about the foghorn at Green Point. My reply is that, as far as I know, no device has yet been invented to make a noiseless noise. I cannot ask the owners of all the ships that call at the South African ports to have special electronic devices fitted so that people in Green Point can sleep peacefully at night. But if the hon. member remains there long enough he will get used to that noise. I know many hon. members who tell me that they cannot sleep at night if they do not hear the foghorn. In regard to the claims for cars damaged en route, the hon. member rightly said that they are accepted at owner’s risk, but I will ask the management to go into the matter in regard to the tarpaulins to see whether improvements can be effected.

*The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) spoke about the passenger trains between Bethlehem and Balfour which run at night at the present time. I shall ask the management to go into this matter to see whether it is possible to run these trains during the day. This is an operational matter, of course, and there may perhaps be very good reasons why these trains have to run at night, but I shall have inquiries made and inform the hon. member later on. As far as the passenger coaches are concerned, the hon. member knows that there is still a shortage of good passenger coaches, but we hope that sufficient good coaches will be available in the future, so that we will also be able to provide the trains on all the branch lines with good coaches. Of course we cannot have a refreshment car on every train, because the refreshment service is already being run at a heavy loss, and this will only aggravate the position.

The hon. member also asked for the building of a line from Coalbrook via Sasolburg to Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging. That would be completely uneconomic. One cannot build a line simply for the convenience of passengers. The hon. member heard in my Budget speech what amount we are losing annually on passenger services, and to build a line simply for the conveyance of passengers is completely uneconomic.

The hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) spoke about reducing rates to increase the volume of traffic. Of course that is an excellent principle, but it does not always work in practice. I do not think that by decreasing rates the volume of traffic on the Railways will increase. It will not make much difference. The internal air freight rates are reviewed from time to time. Internationally, of course, we have to conform to the general pattern; there must be some uniformity between the international airlines, otherwise there will be cutthroat competition. But internally it is reviewed from time to time. This is a matter with which I am personally concerned, and I think we are on the way now of building up our air freight in South Africa. In fact, it has been built up to such an extent that it has been decided now to utilize one D.C.7.B specifically for the carrying of freight between Johannesburg and Cape Town.

*The hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler) asked that as many roadworthy buses as possible should be made available in the maize region in Marico. I shall ask the Management to go into this. He also asked for locomotives to be made available at loading sites when auctions are held. It would, of course, be completely impossible to make a locomotive available at every loading site where an auction is held. If this were to be done the Railways would simply have to recover these expenses from the persons using those loading sites. I shall also ask the Management to go into the question of the pedestrian bridge at Zeerust which is being used by Bantu, but I am afraid that unless a policeman is on duty there day and night very little can be done to prevent it; Even if one were to erect a board there they would not pay any attention to it, in any event many of the Bantu cannot read.

I have already replied to the points raised by the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Smit) —for instance in regard to the station. I agree that the platform is short and too low but there are many other platforms which are also too short and too low; there are also many places which have no platforms at all. I think that the places which have no platforms will have to be given preference over the places which already have platforms which may perhaps be too short or too low. The hon. member also asked about the deviation of main-line trains and he asked that they should run via Stellenbosch, particularly when transporting students. Whether it is possible to do so or not is a matter for the operational section to decide. They have to consider whether the line is overloaded and whether the train can pass through quickly or not.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Mr. Dodds) wanted to know what my plans were for the electrification of the suburban lines in Port Elizabeth. There are no such plans because it will not be economically justified.

I have already replied to the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) in regard to crossings.

The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) suggested that plans should be made to widen the gauge of the railway lines. At present we have the 3 ft. 6 in. gauge. The wide gauge she refers to is the 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge that they have overseas. I am afraid it is not practicable. If we had to widen the gauge on 14,000 miles of railway line it would cost thousands of millions of rand. It would mean a complete re-building of 14,000 miles of line, in addition to the scrapping of all our locomotives and a large proportion of our rolling-stock. Some could be fitted with bigger bogies, but others not. It will cost thousands of millions. Many of the stations and all the marshalling-yards would have to be rebuilt, because the space between the lines would be quite inadequate if the gauge were wider. The hon. member will realize that South Africa will not be in a position to afford an expenditure such as this. The mistake was made by our forefathers and we suffer as the result of it, and I am afraid that future generations will also suffer.

*The hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto) asked for more through coaches on the trains between Pretoria and Johannesburg. This is done when coaches are available but they are not always available. It often happens that the train which runs from Pretoria to Johannesburg cannot pull more coaches. But this is a matter which is receiving the attention of the Management and when there are sufficient passengers and it is possible for this to be done, it will be done.

The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. Van Rensburg) spoke about the Airway’s time-table. A new time-table will come into force on the 1st April. I cannot remember what provision has been made for services to Bloemfontein but I know that the Management has given its attention to this matter. In connection with the introduction of a Friday morning service to Bloemfontein during Parliamentary sessions, I am sure the hon. member will readily agree that a service cannot be specially introduced for Members of Parliament only. It depends on how many passengers would make use of such a service. If the number of passengers justifies it, it can be considered. As far as locomotive smoke in the shunting yards at Bloemfontein is concerned strict instructions have already been issued to all the footplate staff to cut down smoke to a minimum. The change-over to diesels is something which has already been considered and on which we have tentatively decided, but this is a long-term policy. There are many shunting yards, particularly in the harbours, where the diesels will first have to be put into service because of economic consideration. There are no railage expenses attached to the use of diesel oil at the harbours while it has to be transported to the interior by rail. It is economic therefore to use a diesel shunting locomotive at the harbours but it is completely uneconomic in the interior. But this is something which is already receiving our attention and the use of diesels as shunting locomotives will be extended in due course.

The hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) felt that not sufficient Railway servants were being trained at Esselen Park. I think that all members will agree with me that Esselen Park is, we can almost say, a university of which South Africa can be proud. I think it was one of the good things that Mr. Sturrock did in his time as Minister of Railways, to build Esselen Park. But the number of students who are trained there cannot be compared with the number of Railway servants. Obviously there are thousands of Railway servants who are already experienced and do not require training. It is mainly new entrants to the service who have to be trained, and who receive preliminary training, and the number being trained at present is quite adequate for our purpose. But we have also instituted a different form of training, to train experienced officers by giving them extension courses and training them in the art of management. So the training scheme we have is fairly extensive and at present it meets with all our requirements. In regard to the provision of parking space at suburban stations, I can inform the hon. member that that is the policy, and where the necessary ground is available we do provide parking space. I fully agree with his remarks in that regard.

The hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) pleaded for the lowering of the rates on the road motor services for agricultural products. He realizes, of course, that at present the service is being run at a loss, particularly in the Eastern Province. If the rates were reduced, the loss would be even greater and that would result in the withdrawal of many of these services, which would not be in the interest of the farmers. It is much more expensive to operate a road motor service than it is to run a train, and that is why the road motor rates are slightly higher than the railway rates. The hon. member will, however, know that I did not pass on the 10 per cent increase in rates to the road motor service rates.

*The hon. member for Colesberg (Mr. M. J. de la R, Venter) spoke about the railway facilities at Norvalspont when the dams are built at Van der Kloof and Ruigtevlei. I just want to say that there is close co-operation between the Railways and the Department of Water Affairs and when the Department of Water Affairs asks for additional facilities to be provided, this will be done. But at the moment there is no necessity for it. Tenders have not yet been called for. The consulting engineers are only being appointed now and at present we do not yet know what will be required.

The hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Badenhorst) spoke about using a smaller bus from the Airport to the city and asked why the flight staff could not also make use of that bus. As far as a smaller bus is concerned this is something which the Management can consider. I do agree that if there are insufficient passengers to fill a large bus, a smaller bus can be used. As far as the flight staff are concerned, it often happens that they have work to do at the Airport before they can go into town and the passenger bus cannot be held back for them until they have finished their work. As far as the casual railworkers are concerned, I just want to say if we still have work for them and if they cannot be replaced by younger men, we will continue to retain their services. But when there are younger men available who also want work, it is not advisable to retain the services of these casual railworkers if they are older than 63 years of age. But we are very sympathetically disposed as far as this matter is concerned and where it is at all possible to do so their services are retained.

The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell) also dealt with suburban services and spoke about the Umlazi Bantu area and the Chatsworth Indian area. Both these matters have been investigated by an interdepartmental committee. In regard to the Umlazi link to Reunion, that will be built, and it is quite possible that before the end of this Session I will introduce a construction Bill. The Chatsworth position is different. Nothing has been decided yet in that regard. I might inform the hon. member that it will be a very expensive undertaking to provide a rail service to Chatsworth, because it is very difficult terrain and tunnels will have to be built, and I do not know at present whether it is feasible or in any way economically justified. The hon. member of course also realizes that the Central Government only guarantees the losses on Bantu services and not on Indian services, and unless I am guaranteed against losses on that service I will certainly not build it.

The hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) said that the suburban coaches are very uncomfortable and complained about the ventilation. I will ask the Management to go into that matter. We cannot provide more seats. These coaches were specially designed to carry a larger number of passengers than the old coaches, and the only way to do it is to provide for standing room.

I was pleading for the long distances.

They are interchangeable. You cannot have certain sets only for long distances and others only for short distances.

Can you say anything about the increased speeds?

The hon. member wanted to know whether average speeds could not be increased. It is not only a question of the speed itself. Very often it is the delays at the stations. That is why some of these trains are so slow in getting from one point to another. It is mainly due to delays at the stations. It is not really necessary to increase the speed. There is a maximum speed of about 65 miles per hour on certain lines and the timetables are such that the highest possible speeds can be maintained between stations, but the main delays are at the stations themselves. The mission that went to Japan got some very valuable information there, especially in regard to the timekeeping of trains. In fact, after reading the report I do not think there is any railway system in the world where there is such excellent timekeeping as in Japan. As I said yesterday, they go so far as to have at their stations special people to push people into the coaches directly the train stops, because the train has to leave within a stipulated time. If I had to appoint people to push passengers into trains there would be trouble. But I am giving the Management instructions to go into the whole question of the speeding up of trains, both suburban and mainline trains.

The hon. member for Simonstown complained about the darkness in subways. There is a lot of vandalism in the subways. In many of them the electric lights are continually being broken and unless I have a policeman on duty day and night in the subways, it is very difficult to prevent it. There is no other way of lighting these subways except by electric light.

But there are special light fittings which are unbreakable.

At the Mowbray Golf Course there is a subway and we have light fittings set right into the concrete with very thick glass, but whenever I play there I see that the glass and the globes are broken. It is almost impossible to prevent it. In regard to providing small cubicles where things can be sold in the subways, there are very few subways where there is sufficient room for cubicles, and it will be such an expensive undertaking that it will not be economically justified. The hon. member wanted to know when the fishing harbour would be completed. As he rightly said, that is a matter for the Department of Economic Affairs. The Committee which was appointed suggested several sites in Table Bay Harbour, but apparently something has been found wrong with every site suggested. At present tests are being made to And out which is the most suitable site in Table Bay for the building of the harbour. There are also complaints from the residents. If we want to build a harbour near Milnerton they complain about the smell, and if you put it in another place the residents there complain. I am anxious that this harbour should be completed as soon as possible so that we can get additional space in the Victoria Dock. The hon. member may be assured that I am making representations to my colleague to speed up the matter.

There has been reference to an in-shore Ashing harbour, but the harbour the hon. member for Simonstown has in mind is a deep-sea Ashing harbour.

No, it will not only be for line Ashing boats. It would be useless to build a harbour in Table Bay only for line Ashing boats. It will have to be for trawlers as well. There is insufficient space in the Victoria Dock for trawlers. I have received a number of applications from companies who want more facilities and we are simply unable to grant them.

The hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) also raised the matter of ship-building sites. As I said last night, the Norval Committee was appointed to inquire in regard to the question of the establishment of a ship-building industry in South Africa, and the most important Andings and recommendations of this Committee are the following:

1. (a) Durban Harbour is the most suitable for the ship-building industry;
2. (b) ship repair work is an integral part of ship-building and will have to be undertaken in conjunction therewith;
3. (c) a suitable building-site will have to be made available on a long-term basis and the principle of Government assistance conceded;
4. (d) if a consortium of ship-building and ship repair undertakings should come into being within a reasonable period, or within three years at the outside, the Government should give a measure of assistance to such undertakings; if not, the Government should establish a shipbuilding corporation with or without the inclusion of private enterprise, and
5. (e) the allocation of ship-building sites to be arranged by the Railways Administration in close collaboration with the Department of Commerce and Industries.

These recommendations and Andings were made known by the Department to all interested parties who gave evidence before the Committee and the Department of Commerce and Industries requested them to submit their comments thereanent. As soon as the comments are available, the matter will, according to the Department of Commerce and Industries be decided at Cabinet level. The allegation that the Railway Administration is responsible for the matter is therefore not correct, as the Administration is in its capacity as the land owner, only concerned with the matter insofar as the provision of the necessary sites are concerned. Until such time as a decision has been taken on the principle of Government assistance, no railway land will, of course, be made available.

Are you in the meantime going to provide land facilities for ship repairs until this other matter has been decided. This is long-term over three years.

No, this is not a long-term matter. The decision must be taken within a very short time.

The report said within three years.

No, it said that if a decision is not taken within three years then the Government must form a corporation of its own.

*The hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. H. J. Botha) spoke about extending the air service to Aliwal and Maclear and other places. I just want to tell him that the present air service between Port Elizabeth, Queenstown and Grahamstown is run at a heavy loss; this service is really not justified. Before that service was introduced I was assured by the Members of Parliament concerned that there was a large passenger potential but once the service was in operation we discovered that there were hardly any passengers at all. We have air services which touch down at Victoria West and Beaufort West and those air services are run at a heavy loss. On an average there are one or two passengers per Aight and when there are only one or two passengers per flight, such a service becomes quite uneconomic. The hon. member will agree with me that if it is so uneconomic at places which are much larger than Aliwal and Maclear—places such as Beau-for West, amongst others—it will certainly not be economic to extend these air services any further. Besides this we have to have properly equipped airports and eventually navigational aids will also have to be provided. Radio facilities etc. will have to be provided and all these services will result in a fairly large outlay of capital. Therefore, if there is an in sufficient number of passengers, such a service cannot be introduced.

May I ask the Minister whether he is not prepared subsidizing private civil aviation companies for these feeder services.

Subsidization, of course, is not a matter for the Minister of Transport; that is a matter for the Minister of Finance as the hon. member knows.

What about some sort of contribution from Airways?

No, I have told them that they can undertake these private services and I am prepared then to withdraw my services on certain routes, if private enterprise wants to institute services. They have also received some benefit by way of taxation. They have been placed on the same footing as ship owners. Subsidization however, is a matter for the Minister of Finance and my attitude has been that I am not in favour of subsidization. If private undertakings have to be subsidized by the Government, then the Central Government might just as well subsidize S.A. Airways which can then continue to operate these uneconomical services.

But it costs much more.

Private undertakings can use much smaller planes. The smallest plane that the S.A. Airways has in operation is the Dakota, but private enterprise for these feeder services could use planes with a seating capacity of seven or eight passengers. They also require less personnel. In other words, they can run services of that kind much more cheaply than S.A. Airways.

That is my point.

That is why I say that they should attempt to introduce these services even without a subsidy, as they are doing in certain instances at the present time. I believe that there is a service between Welkom and the South Coast.

They have dropped it. It does not pay.

With regard to the question of goods sheds which the hon. member also raised I shall ask the Management to go into the matter.

Head put and agreed to.

On head No. 5. — “Traffic Expenses ”. R79,196,000.

May I refer under this Head to the matter raised by the hon. member for Bloemfontein-East (Mr. Van Rensburg) which particularly affects my constituency and that is the question of shunting at harbour termini, for which provision is made under this Head. In the whole of the Point area down towards the docks, the smoke problem caused by shunting is making it almost impossible for the inhabitants of that area to leave their windows of their homes and flats open. There is a complete area down there where the dirt from this shunting has become a serious nuisance and a danger to health in some cases. In considering the question of eliminating coal trains from shunting yards in built-up areas, I would like to ask the Minister whether the Railways are subject to any restrictions in regard to air pollution. In other words, do the normal restrictions which apply to other carriers in regard to air pollution, also apply to the Railways. I shall be grateful if the hon. the Minister could perhaps give me this information.

The hon. member is aware, of course, that the air pollution Bill has not yet been before the House. The Minister of Health is still going to introduce that Bill as far as I know. The Railways will to a certain extent be restricted but they will work in co-operation with the Department of Health. I might inform the hon. member that it is the intention to convert and to modify the old electric El units, as soon as they can be replaced, for shunting purposes, and where these yards are electrified, electric units will eventually be used for shunting purposes and that will eliminate the smoke altogether.

Head put and agreed to.

Remaining Heads put and agreed to.

Estimates of Expenditure on Capital and Betterment Works.

I would ask hon. members in discussing these Estimates to refer me to the item on which they want to speak and to confine themselves strictly to the items as they appear.

On Head No. 1.—“Construction of Railways”, R923,500,

Sir, I am alluding to page 15, item 127.

Order! That does not appear under this Head.

The provision under this Head for the completion of the Duff’s Road scheme, as you will notice, is a very small amount, but the question has been raised with me in relation to the Dowell bridge facilities. Kwa Mashu is the station at the terminal and the town terminal at the present time is Dowell Bridge.

I understand that there are no facilities there to enable the train crews who have to stay there quite a while to get any sort of refreshments. I understand that. representations have been made to the Minister….

No representations have been made to me.

The complaint is that train crews who are compelled to stay over at Dowell Bridge for quite lengthy periods find that they have great difficulty in getting any sort of refreshments, and what I want to ask the hon. the Minister is whether the Minister contemplates providing any sort of refreshment facilities out of the money that we are being asked to vote here to-day.

Not under this amount.

Will the Minister go into that question to see what can be done?

I will go into the matter, of course, but it is not usual to provide refreshment at stations where train crews have to stay over. During the years when I was on the footplate and I had to stay over for several hours I had to bring along my own food and my own refreshments. As far as this particular matter is concerned I have received no representations but I will ask the Management to go into it.

Head put and agreed to.

On Head No. 2.— “New Works on Open Lines”, R63,669,070,

There are several items that I wish to raise. The first one is on page 15, item 127, “Danskraal: Extend marshalling yard and deviate main line between 203 m. 60 c. and 204 m. 62 c… The second one is on page 30, item 276, “Danskraal—Van Reenen: ReRall, resleeper and partially reballast 206 m. 10 c. to 228 m. 60 c.” Then there is one item on page 40, item 371. “Danskraal— Harrismith: Deviate and Regrade line between Brakwal and Van Reenen.” Then on page 56 there are three items, 643,644 and 645: “Danskraal: Gas Cylinder shed at flash-butt welding depot; Offices for Electrical Engineer, and Waterborne sewerage and lavatories.” These items in respect of Danskraal have been appearing for many years now in a slightly changed form. They come forward regularly, but every year something more is added. Take the item to which I have referred on page 30: “Danskraal—Van Reenen: ReRall, resleeper and partially reballast 206 m. 10 c. to 228 m. 60 c.” I want to compare that with last year’s item which said: “Danskraal—Harrismith: Deviate and regrade between Brakwal and Van Reenen.” The other three items on page 56 to which I have referred also appeared last year in the same form: “Danskraal: Offices for Electrical Engineer”; Danskraal: Plant and machinery for flash-butt welding depot ”; and “Danskraal: Waterborne sewerage and lavatories.” Whilst it shows that some money was spent the year before and that some is going to be spent this year and that some is still going to be spent in the future, it leaves the whole situation in the air. Sir, I am amazed that hon. members do not shout as they usually do when I refer to Danskraal. They are under the impression of the importance of this place that they constantly allude to Danskraal, and I find even the newspapers writing about Danskraal. I shall be very grateful indeed therefore if the hon. the Minister could give me the full picture as to the rerouting and the regrading of this line between Danskraal and Harrismith. I shall be glad if he will tell me what progress has been made with the gas cylinder shed at the flash-butt welding depot and whether they have all the machinery that they need; whether the electrical engineer’s offices have been erected and what has been done in connection with the provision of waterborne sewerage. Sir, when you see the tremendous amount of money that is to be spent on it, Sir, you will realize that what I have been saying in this House for years and years was true. These people have not had the facilities which they should have had. Danskraal is a very big railway centre.

These items have nothing to do with facilities.

The waterborne sewerage? Well, perhaps the hon. Minister can tell me what he calls it.

That is what has been left in the air.

Anyway, I would like to have the particulars about this. The Minister tells me that this has nothing to do with facilities. Sir, I made a great point in this House about the flash-butt welding depot where people had to work in the open air….

They are not facilities, they are amenities.

Sir, I grant the Minister the difference between the two words, but I would like in all earnestness to have the full information about this. Sir, you will remember that the first time I spoke about the flash-butt depot in this House the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) got up and said that what I had been saying was untrue, that these people had to weld these rails, 20 foot in length and longer, with the sun beating down upon them. I told the House that I had been there personally and that I had tried to touch a rail and it was so hot that the skin came off my hand. The Minister will remember that the hon. member for Bethlehem told me that that was untrue. [Interjection.] Sir, I do not need the help of the Minister of Information. Anything that he ever touches is messy. This year the hon. member for Bethlehem again spoke about the same subject and thanked the hon. the Minister for paying attention to the needs of the flash-butt welding depot workers of his own accord without the hon. member for Danskraal, as he called me, ever having raised the matter. I would very much appreciate a clear picture as to what is going on there and when the work is going to be finished.

I want to refer to item 806 on page 65: “Germiston: Hostel”. The existing hostel makes provision for 183 boarders but the new hostel will only make provision for 157 boarders. The reason for this drop is apparently that there are too few members of the junior staff who comply with the qualification laid down as far as their earnings are concerned, namely, R80 per month. It seems that a greater number of these young men earn more than R80 per month and therefore no longer qualify to live in that hostel. Mr. Chairman, the fact that less accommodation of this type is provided for this kind of young man does create a problem because in many of our cities there is the problem of finding good lodgings and many of our young men have to take up lodgings which one would not actually recommend. The food and the accommodation that they get and the supervision over these young men often leave much to be desired. One wonders whether the time has not come for the earnings qualification to be reconsidered so that more of these young men can be accommodated in hostels where they can be better fed and where they can be under better supervision. In this connection I shall be pleased if the hon. the Minister can tell us what is going to become of the old building which is now going to be vacated. One cannot ask that some of these young men should be accommodated there because it would be quite uneconomic to maintain an entire household there, but I would like to know what the building is going to be used for.

I want to refer to items 392 to 404 on pages 42 and 43 in regard to the Level-crossings Elimination Fund. We appreciate this provision of R2,397, 200 to ensure greater safety on our roads, especially in view of the tragic number of deaths which are so frequently caused at railway crossings. We would like to encourage the Minister as much as possible to provide further overhead crossings on our Railways. I was wondering what contribution the Minister now expects from municipalities where these crossings are provided within municipal areas. I know that there are many towns where there are most dangerous level-crossings. They cost the Railway Administration a great deal of money in maintaining gates …

The hon. member must confine himself to a particular item.

The item to which I refer appears on page 43: “Contributions to local authorities for elimination of level-crossings.” I was wondering what percentage contribution the Minister expects from municipalities in respect of the cost of eliminating level-crossings. I think everything possible should be done to get rid of all level-crossings on our railways. I know that some of these level-crossings can only be eliminated at a cost which is almost uneconomical, but we would like to have the assurance from the Minister that his policy is going to be to rid this country of every level-crossing that is in existence to-day.

In the first place I want to say a few words about item 625. The estimated total cost is only R3,800. This amount is intended for improvements to the loading facilities at Brandfort station. Those facilities are greatly welcomed by the community there because for many years they have had to suffer the inconvenience of loading their wool during the rainy season when the whole platform is covered in pools of water. On behalf of that community I want to express my appreciation to the hon. the Minister. I also want to say a few words about item 824 and items 1016 to 1021 and 1948 to 1051. We are dealing here with an amount of more than R20,000,000 which is being spent on Bloemfontein for additional workshops and additional machinery, machinery for locomotive repair work and iron foundries and model shops. We realize the importance of Bloemfontein as the central city of the Republic and a great deal is being done for Bloemfontein. These improvements are being effected so that the thousands of workers whom we have there will be able to do their work more efficiently. Additional facilities will also be made available for them. It is for that very reason that the efficiency of the Railways has increased to such an extent over the past years. I cannot neglect to express my particular thanks and appreciation to the hon. the Minister in this regard.

I want to refer to Item 48 on page eight. This work has been proceeding for a number of years. I should like the Minister to indicate when he expects this particular job of work to be completed. Because of one important factor. The completion of this work will make a tremendous difference particularly to the suburban services in and around Durban. The reason why I am asking the Minister for a completion date is this that the completion of this work and the improvement it will bring about in the suburban services will require the closest co-operation between the Railways and the Durban Municipality in the provision of what I hope will be road feeder services by the Durban Corporation to assist the suburban services in their development. My question to the Minister is when this work is likely to be completed and whether he has made any preliminary move towards having discussions with the Durban Municipality.

I want to refer to Item 511 and 512 on page 50, which deals with the provision of the new station at Cape Town and the decks over the platforms. On the two items an amount of roughly R4,250,000 is still to be spent. I want to ask the Minister whether provision is made in any shape or form in the lay-out of this station for bringing into operation the most modern methods of transport at approaches to the station. We have an example at our airports at Johannesburg and Cape Town and other centres, of the tremendous loss of time between the arrival of the plane and the time the passengers arrive in the city itself. It takes a shorter time for a passenger to travel by air from Kimberley to Johannesburg than it takes him to get from the airport at Johannesburg to the city itself.

I don’t get your point.

I was merely giving that case as an example. The point I want to make is in regard to the station. The station is to have a deck over it which I understand will be used as a parking area.

The station front will be on Adderley Street. What provision must be made?

I am going to ask that now. I understand that a portion of the deck has been allocated for parking purposes. Whether that is correct or not, I do not know. I want to ask whether provision has also been made for the landing and taking off of helicopters in the vicinity of the station—this also applies to some of the other major stations which I cannot discuss under this item.

No.

That would solve half the trouble straightaway as far as the time factor is concerned in travelling to and from the airport. It does seem to me that for a modern station of this magnitude we want to take advantage of the best methods of transport offering. It would seem to be the proper place for the establishment of such a service.

I now want to refer to Item 395 on page 42 and to Item 407 to 414 on page 43. These items deal generally with the elimination of level-crossings and the provision of subways. Incidentally the one item does deal with the area to which the hon. the Minister referred when he replied to a previous question in regard to the undesirable practices which occur in subways. The Minister referred to the sabotage which takes place in regard to the lighting in subways. I want to know, while this work is being done, whether further consideration cannot be given to the use of more modern materials. to-day we have materials which are practically unbreakable. It need not necessarily be glass, but even in the case of glass you can get armoured type of glass which is practically unbreakable. The Post Office was faced with the same problem in regard to sabotage in their telephone booths. They had to overcome it. It does seem to me that seeing that light is the main factor to provide security, particularly to womenfolk, in these subways, that further research should be made into the use of modern materials which will to a considerable extent nullify attempts by vandals to destroy the lighting. The very fact that these lights in the subways are destroyed by vandals points to the fact that the lights are destroyed for the specific purpose of creating a dark patch where bag snatching and other assaults can take place.

Research is being undertaken in regard to the matters raised by the hon. member but it is not only a question of providing unbreakable materials. When you fit a light you must be able to open it so as to put the globe in. These vandals break the lock or the seal which closes the lid and they take out the globe; that is what happens. I don’t know how to prevent that; even iron-bars do not seem to prevent them from doing that.

The Post Office have to a large extent overcome their problem in regard to telephone booths.

No they have not; they are still having the same trouble. Provision is not being made for helicopters at the new station. As the hon. member knows the helicopter can land in a very small space. Had there been a flat roof to this building they would have been able to land here. If the time does arrive for the helicopter service to be put into operation the necessary provision will be made; we have ample space.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana wanted to know the completion date of the Booth doubling. It is estimated that it will be completed in 1965. It is a very difficult section; it entails a great deal of work and it has to be done in co-operation with the Durban Corporation. As the hon. member knows certain bridges had to be built. The date of completion is 1965. Consultation are continually taking place between the Administration and the Durban Corporation.

The hon. member for Albany wanted to know what contribution is being made by municipalities in respect of the elimination of railway crossings. It all depends on the financial strength of the municipality and the population of the particular area. There is no fixed amount. The amount is only arrived at after negotiation between the Administration and the local authority

*The hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Cruywagen) has asked that the hostel be enlarged so that it can accommodate more people. At the moment there is provision for 157. After an inquiry had been instituted it was found that this provision was quite adequate. That hostel was built in such a way that it can be enlarged if necessary. I can assure the hon. member that if the need arises the necessary provision will be made for additional boarders.

The hon. member for Drakensberg wanted to know when the items which she mentioned would be completed. All those items are in connection with Danskraal. I will deal with them seriatim. In regard to the extending of the marshalling yard and deviation of the line if the hon. member will look at the amounts which have been allocated for this year and the amounts still to be expended, she will see that it will still take a year or two before that work is finally completed. She will also note that the expenditure up to 31 March has been estimated and that an amount of nearly R175,000 has already been expended. Next year about another R175,000 will be expended, plus the amount out of the Renewals Fund, and the balance is in the last column.

In regard to Item 276 I can tell the hon. member that rerailing, and resleepering are of course quite different from deviating a line. Then the hon. member must always note the mileages; she should note between which mileages the resleepering is taking place. She will find that between Danskraal and Van Reenen a section of the line is being resleepered but it might be quite a different section every year. This is for the purpose of resleepering between mileage 206, and partial reballasting, to 228 m. That is for a distance of about 22 miles. That will be completed in the course of the year. Item 371 is in regard to the deviation and regrading of the line between Brakwal and Van Reenen. That has been completed, these are only outstanding debits that still have to be attended to.

Item 643 gas cylinder shed at flash-buttwelding depot—this will be completed this year. Item 644; Danskraal, Offices for Electrical Engineer; this has not yet been completed. There is still an amount of R15,000 to be spent. Item 645; Danskraal; Waterborne sewerage and lavatories. This work will not be finally completed this year but it will probably be completed next year.

Head put and agreed to.

On Head No. 3.— “Rolling Stock”, R12,982, 253,

I want to refer the Minister to Items 1141/2 and 1143 to 1145, dealing with the purchase of new electric locomotives. It is clear that this indicates that the Minister is not following a policy of replacing the steam locomotives that have served their useful lives, because I notice in the General Manager’s report that he says—

The figures in the General Manager’s report indicate a decline in the tractive power available. I should like to ask the Minister to indicate whether these items for the purchase of new electric locomotives are to replace the existing steam locomotives that are being withdrawn from service. I should like the hon. the Minister to clarify that position.

Then I should like to know from the hon. the Minister why we are only called upon under this Head to vote the amount of R400. We are being asked to approve in principle that these items be included in the Brown Book. When one looks at the statement made by the Minister on 7 January this year you will notice that he indicated that when he took delivery of the first South African manufactured electric locomotives, he indicated that there would be a continuing delivery of these locomotives. I assume that that company is not going to work without being paid. Am I to understand that the payment of these locomotives under this contract will take place out of the Renewals Fund? I shall be grateful if the Minister would indicate what the situation is. We are dealing here with a total number of 302 locomotives. We have already voted some money. I assume that the money which has already been voted has already been paid out to the company for those deliveries. I shall just repeat briefly what the Minister said in that statement—

I assume that Item 1146,72 electric locomotives, is the amount for which tenders will be invited. We are asked to approve of this item as a new item and that tenders will still have to be placed. I assume that in respect of the other locomotives, according to the statement made by the Minister, that those tenders have already been placed. I shall be pleased if the Minister will give a clarification of the position.

Then I would like to ask the hon. the Minister this: The locomotive of which he took delivery in December is the first South African manufactured locomotive as I understand. I assume that that locomotive has been in operation since that date and I should be glad if the Minister would give an indication as to the efficiency of that locomotive now that the Minister has had an opportunity of having had it in service, and whether subsequent deliveries are also proving to be satisfactory.

You had better hurry, I still have to reply.

I will cut it short, Sir. I want to ask the Minister to make a statement in regard to the whole position generally. There are other items here in regard to bogie trucks for vast sums of money under the same Head which we are asked to approve. If the Minister can enlarge on that statement I think the country and the House will be grateful.

I shall reply as briefly as possible. In regard to the 110 electric locomotives payment is made as the locomotives are delivered. The first locomotives were only received in January. A certain number of locomotives are being delivered every month; the tempo of delivery will gradually increase. As delivery takes place payment is made. The hon. member can see what payments have been made to date to that particular company in regard to the locomotives. In regard to the other locomotives for which only R400 is provided, those tenders have not been placed. Tenders are being adjudicated at the present time. In a case where tenders have been placed, delivery only starts in 12 or 18 months’ time. In other cases where the items are included in the Brown Book, the specifications have not yet been drawn up and consequently only a nominal amount is required for the current year. Payment will of course start at the beginning of next year after tenders have been placed and shortly before, during and after delivery. In regard to the replacement of steam locomotives, the hon. member will realize that whenever a line is electrified a large number of steam locomotives are released. One of our problems is to absorb those steam locomotives. Many of those locomotives are mainline locomotives and cannot be used on branch lines. But as we have spare steam locomotives, as a result of electrification, we are in a position to withdraw old and outdated locomotives from the service.

What about the efficiency of the new locomotives?

My information so far is that they are quite satisfactory.

Head put and agreed to.

On Head No. 6. -“Airways”, R405159,

When I spoke last night I was told by the Minister that I should raise this point under Airways. I want to raise the position of the new airport …

I told you that an airport fell under the Minister of Transport. I told you to raise it under the Transport Vote.

Head put and agreed to.

On Head No. 7.— “Pipeline”, R250,000,

We have discussed this item fully …

I am introducing an amending Bill and you will have an opportunity then to talk about it.

Head put and agreed to.

On Head No. 8.—“Working Capital,” R5,022,000,

I would like to ask the Minister for an explanation in regard to Item 1412. I find this a unique transaction of bookkeeping or otherwise. How can this House be asked to vote money for the sale of an article? The House is being asked to vote R1,500,000 for what is called the sale of departmental quarters. I hope the hon. the Minister will, within the short time that is left, explain this item to us.

Those houses have been built by the Administration and in order to obviate the continual loss which the Administration has to bear as a result of letting these departmental houses, it has decided to sell them to the staff. They are in a position to buy these houses. This amount of money is actually for loans to the staff to enable them to purchase these houses. The staff repays the loans in monthly instalments.

Then you must call it a loan not a sale.

That is how the bookkeepers do it.

Head put and agreed to.

Remaining Heads put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Estimates of Expenditure from Revenue Funds reported without amendment and the Estimates of Expenditure on Capital and Betterment Works reported without amendment.

Estimates of Expenditure adopted.

The Minister of Transport brought up a Bill to give effect to the Estimates of Expenditure adopted by the House.