I move—

Mr. Speaker, seldom in my parliamentary experience has a Minister of Railways been so embarrassed by a surplus as has this Minister. The very size of his surplus is growing week by week and this must, as I think he knows, proportionately increase the error of his judgment. I think it proves the one thing on which all our arguments during this last week have hinged, namely that he need not have raised railway rates by 10 per cent to pay for the well-earned increases of the railwaymen. The Minister cannot dispute his own figures and they prove conclusively that if railway rates had not been raised there would have been sufficient revenue to have paid for the wage increases and still leave his original estimates for the year completely intact. I do not think he can deny that fact with any degree of sincerity.

Before he introduced this Budget this year the Minister knew—he had figures up to the end of December and they already showed him that he had a surplus of over R9,000,000—that this figure represented R 12,000,000 more than he had estimated. He knew that the wage increases would only cost just about R12,000,000 up to the end of March 1963. When the Minister delivered his Budget statement, Sir, he already knew that he had made up in surplus the cost of the wage increases and he knew that he still had three profitable months to go. He now revises his estimates and says he will have a surplus of R 10,400,000. I believe he knows that this is probably a most unrealistic under-estimation of what his real surplus will be. I believe that he dare not now reveal what he knows that surplus actually will be, because if he did the public and this House would be righteously indignant. He would be proved, even more conclusively, to be in the wrong about raising rates. We can only hope, Sir, that when the Minister introduces his Supplementary Estimates, before we adjourn, he will give us more accurate figures, figures which should more nearly approximate what his precise surplus will be. Then we may have a chance of examining more fully the error of his ways.

Let us take a look at his estimates for the next three months. As I have said he already has R9,200,000 surplus. He estimates that January, February and March will only bring him in an extra R 1,200,000. He estimates this knowing and at last admitting, even boasting (and we agree with him), that our economy is striding forward fast to prosperity. He knows that this year will probably show more buoyant revenue than has ever been known in the history of the Railways. Yet he says that these three months will only earn him another R 1,200,000 surplus. Now, Sir, in 1959 these three months earned him over R11,000,000; in 1960-1 R4,300,000 and in 1961-2 R6,000,000. Yet these last two years I have mentioned were years of retarded economic advance. But this year of more than usual economic activity, according to the Minister (and I accept what he says), he estimates that these three months will only bring him in a surplus of R 1,200,000.

I did not estimate that that would be the revenue.

The Minister already has R9,200,000 surplus and he says he will have a surplus of R 10,400,000—the difference is R 1,200,000 which is all that he estimates he will get during the last three months.

That is not revenue; it is surplus.

Thank you for correcting my slip of the tongue. I meant to say that he estimates that he will have a surplus of R 1,200,000 for those three months.

There I agree with you.

Thank you. The other figures I mentioned were surpluses of revenue over expenditure. If we take an average of the last three years when our economy was alleged to be static, we find that he got a surplus of R7,000,000 for these three months. If this average which was achieved in adverse economic times is maintained the Minister ought to end up with a surplus this year, not of R10,400,000 but of R17,500,000 at least. If he does that, Sir, I think he will owe an apology to the country and to this side of the House. I am sure he will have the grace to give it to us when he makes his Budget speech next year or preferably when he asks for supplementary estimates in June.

This time last year Parliament approved a request by the Minister to operate his portfolio and show a deficit of R2,800,000. He says that if he had not raised rates he would have shown a deficit of R2,600,000. What excuse can he possibly offer for not doing precisely that? He now says, and I quote: “If I had not raised railway rates I could not have put anything into the Statutory funds. I could not have put R4,000,000 into the Betterment Fund.” But he did not budget so to do. He says: “I could not have given R2,000,000 to wipe off the irregular loan I raised with the Betterment Fund.” But he did not estimate to do that.

I did not use the word “irregular”.

I used the word “illegal” and I have now reduced it to “irregular”. It is both I think. The Minister said this, Sir:

If there is one thing this Minister must now admit it is that he need not have panicked either in the month of March or in August; that he could have waited a few months; that he could have taken advice and that the increase in rates was most inopportune and uncalled for. It need not have been 10 per cent; as it turns out to be it need not have been 5 per cent; in actual fact it need not have been anything at all. In this new Budget year 1963-4, if he had felt the future was uncertain he could have told us that if he did not raise rates this year he estimated that there would be a deficit of some R22,000,000. Had he presented a good case this Parliament would have approved; indeed his parliamentary majority ensures approval of his plans. But the way he has gone about it is no proper way to do things. He made a panicky, out-ofsession, unnecessary increase in rates and used the workers’ needs and desserts as an excuse.

Before this series of debates which has nearly dragged its weary way to the third reading, ends I feel it is necessary to say a word in connection with the Minister’s faulty philosophy of railway management and his unusual ideas of some of the functions of a Minister of Transport. He seems to regard the profit of the Railways as more important than the general good of the people and of the country. He has said this in quite unequivocal language. He was put a precise question by the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje). It was this: “If you could cut the country’s transport bill by R 100,000,000 would you not be prepared to run the Railways at a deficit of R20,000,000?” The Minister’s answer was a most emphatic, even indignant, “no”. He said that the taxpayer would have to pay for the deficit, “does the hon. member for Jeppes think that it falls out of the sky?” Mr. Speaker, I think that the hon. the Minister should re-read what the hon. the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council said on the subject of co-ordinated budgeting. I will quote to him what the Prime Minister himself said on the question of economic budgeting. He said this—

Surely. Sir. the Railways should follow this line of balanced economic budgeting, this line of co-ordinated budgeting. Surely they should not be run as an entirely separate entity divorced from the financial and fiscal and economic policies of the Government. Are not railway affairs a matter of Cabinet responsibility? Or is this Minister a law unto himself and the Railways a law unto him? The Railways are not an end in themselves; they are a service industry that should be part and parcel of the economy of our country. Surely the Railways must be fitted into the policies of the country and transport must do its duty as an important part of our whole economy. The Railways cannot dictate policy to the rest of the country and should not devise policies without any relation to the general welfare of the country. I think it is blameworthy for the Minister to admit that, in order to save a deficit of R22,000,000 to the Railways, he would be quite unperturbed in pursuing policies that might saddle our country with a transport bill of an extra R80,000,000. Surely, there is a necessity for re-thinking on his part, and not only on his part but on the part of the whole Cabinet. Perhaps in the past they have been so busy working out their own strange ideologies that the economic welfare and advance of this country and of the Railways have ceased to be a priority of the Cabinet. How fortunate it is that our country is so strong economically, so fortunate in everything to counteract the ill-effects of bad goverment and bad planning. Even a bad Government cannot stop our economic advance which is a lucky thing for the Railways. We have the gold. rich supplies of other minerals; we have raw materials, coal, power, land, labour and ability, all in abundant measure. These assets, not the Government, keep our country moving forward in spite of the deleterious effects of a Government devoted to ideology and a Minister of Transport devoted to his Railways rather than to the country.

The Minister’s decision in connection with the pipeline is a perfect example of what I call unbalanced thinking. It shows serious flaws in his methods of policy making. He clearly conceives it to be a function of the Railways to protect Sasol. He was defending himself when he said this; defending himself for having said that in spite of the construction of the pipeline and the consequent reduction in the cost of transporting petrol inland, he refused even to consider reducing the price of petrol to the consumer or passing on any of the savings to the industrial user of petroleum products inland. He said this: “I will protect Sasol which will suffer if petrol inland is reduced in price.” Let me remind the Minister of two things: First, that the Republic of South Africa Act lays down that the Railways should be run on business principles with due regard to the development of both agriculture and industry and by the provision of cheap transport to help the development and progress of inland centres—inland centres like the Witwatersrand which will be affected by the price of petrol. It does not meet either of these demands to freeze our transport system and restrict the profits of any technological development towards cheaper transport in order to swell railway revenue and surpluses. Second, if Sasol needs protection the cost of it should not be a burden which is laid upon the railway users. Nor is it the function of the Railways to act either as a taxing machine, as it proposes to do in connection with the running of the pipeline, nor as a protective agency for special industrial undertakings like Sasol. If any protection is needed for Sasol, or any other industry, or any other sector of our economy, that protection should be supplied out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund; that should be done by a different department altogether. I can think of nothing more fatal to correct railway policy, than to allow the Minister of Railways to use rates to protect special industries. If there is to be any subsidizing it must be done in the proper way, by the proper department and in the open. Surely the proper course, if Sasol were embarrassed, would be for the Board of Trade and Industries to work out whether it needs protection and the degree of protection called for. Or is Government policy now so confused that they have two bodies to decide which industries must be protected and to what level? May I quote back to the hon. the Minister his own words in this debate, used when he was refusing to help the marginal mines. I quite agree with the Minister’s statement in this respect. I think it was quite wrong of us to suggest, as we did suggest—and I withdraw it—that he might do something as Minister of Railways to alter railway rates for that section of the mining industry. The Minister replied correctly that he could not do that. But I was enheartened by the fact that he acknowledged that the case of the mines was a good one, that the marginal mines had indeed been placed in a precarious position by the increase in rates. We ask the hon. Minister now to use his undoubted influence with his Cabinet to see that some relief is given by the Minister of Finance, to these marginal mines. Believe me, they are in a very serious state. I will not go any further into that, except to remind the hon. Minister of what he said. I would like him to apply his own policies to Sasol. He said—

That is exactly what he proposes to do in regard to Sasol—

That is exactly what he proposes to do for Sasol—

Now I ask the hon. the Minister “where will it end?” And leave him with that thought.

In conclusion may I say that I have been very intrigued throughout this debate by the efforts of the Minister and his chief assistants to prove that an increase of 10 per cent in railway rates has such an infinitesimal effect on the cost of living and on the tempo of economic development that it is scarcely worth even considering. Floods of figures (most of them refuted in advance, may I say, by industry and manufacturers) have been poured out to prove that the rates increase did not increase the price of commodities railed and sold to the public. In fact the Minister even quoted from what was apparently a “clearance sale” advertisement in the Argus to show that the rates increase had actually lowered the price of groceries in Cape Town. Streams of statistics were produced to prove that South Africa’s economy was bounding forward with unusual energy and speed, and that the railway rate increase had almost stimulated and advanced the speed of our industrial progress. No wonder the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) was tempted by interjection to say “Why not increase the rates by 20 per cent and have a real boom?” I will not waste the time of this House in proving what has already been proved over and over and over again, namely that unnecessary increases in costs do lay a burden, particularly on the lower and the middle income groups, as they know to their cost, and that it cannot have any other than a retarding effect on industry, commerce and the marginal mines. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has pursued a very dangerous line of argument. He will in future find it very difficult indeed to justify, in any time of industrial advance, a refusal to increase wages to railwaymen by saying, as he has said in the past: “I cannot give you a wage increase, no matter how much you deserve it, because if I give it to you, I will have to increas railway rates, and if I increase railway rates it will increase the cost of living and adversely affect industrial growth in this country.” The Minister has been hoist by his own petard … and there I will leave him dangling for the moment.

I am not going to try to reply to the speech made by the hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Russell) because I want to make use of this opportunity to put in the right perspective certain accusations which have been made in this House in connection with the speech that I made here. I feel that so far the Opposition’s attack on the Government has been of such a nature that they have had to find something else to distract attention from their unsuccessful attacks and at the same time try to find some way of focusing the attention of the public and of the railwaymen on some other matter. The two members who were selected to speak were the right members to use for this purpose. It is an easy matter to gain notoriety; it is more difficult to become famous, and the road that was followed here by the representatives of the Opposition is certainly the easy road. I should like to repeat just briefly certain points that were raised by me in the course of the debate. To begin with I should like to point out that I first spoke here about the satisfactory way in which the railway staff and the railway heads were performing and extending the services entrusted to them. I want to repeat the words that I used according to the unaltered Hansard report of my speech—

I then went on to mention the various services that they were performing, and then I said—

I then referred to Hartenbos and I also mentioned the A.T.K.V., etc. The whole of my speech was a tribute to the management of the Railways and the Minister and the staff, and I then said that there was one matter that I wanted to raise in an attempt to remove any misunderstanding that there might be. No constructive suggestions were put forward by the other side of the House, but it is a remarkable thing that as soon as a member on the Government side tries to make a constructive contribution that may result in an improvement in the railway service, his words are represented in the wrong light. I say “represented in the wrong light” because that is a fact. I am going to read out what I said in this House and then I am going to quote the speeches made by hon. members opposite. I want to start with what the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) said after I had spoken; I want to read out what he said and what I said. The hon. member for Orange Grove said—

I then interrupted him and said, “I never said that”. The hon. member took no notice of that but went on to say—

He went on to say—

The hon. member for Durban Point (Mr. Raw), who spoke in English then said …

On a point of order, is the hon. member allowed to deal here with what happened during a previous stage of this debate?

They are becoming frightened already. They do not want me to quote what was said here. The hon. member for Durban (Point) used the following words—

I should like you to remember, Sir, that I started by praising the railwaymen and then said that I wished to bring certain points to the notice of the Minister. I am going to read out word for word what I said and I should like you to note that I did not once use the word “railwayman”. It was never mentioned that I had spoken in laudatory terms of the railwaymen; it was simply stated that I had insulted them.

Mr. Speaker, may I draw your attention to Rule 61—

Mr. Speaker, I consulted you and the Secretary, and I was informed that I could do so at the third reading; that I could not do so at the Committee Stage, but I was told that I could raise it here.

The hon. member may proceed.

I then said:

Not a single Member of Parliament, not even an Opposition Member of Parliament, came along to tell me that he felt insulted by what I had said. I said—

Disgraceful!

There he goes again. The biggest disgrace of all is that the man was ever born. Let me go on quoting—

One finds numbers of small children running about the corridors; they open taps in the toilet rooms with the result that the water is wasted.

The hon. member says that I stated that railwaymen should be put in separate coaches.

Read on.

Are you going to repeat the whole of your speech?

I went on to say—

I should like the Press also to note my words …

I did not talk about “railwaymen” at all. I did not say that railwaymen should be placed in compartments on their own. I shall tell you, Sir, why I asked that tourists be treated in this way. When we were in Australia we found that a coach was set aside for guests and tourists from other countries.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

The hon. member can speak when I resume my seat. I say that this is done in other countries and if it is no insult to people in other countries, why suddenly should it be an insult here?

Now I want to come to the second point. [Interjections.] I can understand why hon. members opposite are carrying on in this way.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Order!

Then I come to the next charge, and I want to start again with the hon. member for Orange Grove. Hon. members over there who are making so much noise, issued a challenge to me and I shall come to them in a moment. The hon. member for Orange Grove said—

This is what the hon. member for Durban (Point) had to say on the same subject—

Now I want to quote what I said …

Do you have to make a whole speech to explain your first speech?

You have asked me, Mr. Speaker, not to take any notice of any interjections. If I were to reply to the hon. member you would ask me to withdraw my words. Now I want to come to the liquor question in connection with Salt River and quote what I said—

I then enlarged upon this and said—

I then went on to refer to recent accidents and I asked the Minister, when he appoints the commission to go into the causes of accidents, to make the reasons known to the public. Let me read out what I said—

Now I come to what I said about Salt River—

In whose minds?

I quote further—

Aha!

The poor baboon still does not understand it!

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

For the sake of the baboon I withdraw it.

On a point of order …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw it unconditionally.

I withdraw it. I went on to say—

Mr. Speaker, you will notice that in mentioning the question of liquor and the question of accidents I did not say that the railwaymen were drunk; I simply mentioned the facts.

Please read on.

I shall read out the whole thing. I shall leave out nothing because I have nothing to hide. I then said—

That is not the next sentence.

I now come to this insult to the 3,200 workers; I said—

“A number,” Mr. Speaker, not all of them.

How many are missing?

The hon. member for Wynberg does not know what “aantal” means. In English it means “number”—

Were you not seeing double perhaps?

I am only mentioning the facts.

I want a “dronkie”.

I shall tell the hon. member something which will also make him blush. He must be careful of the Afrikaans word that he uses; I may call him that in a moment. I mentioned the facts but I did not say that there was drunkenness there. I said that investigations should be instituted, and if it is correct that there is drunkenness, then it is the Minister’s duty—I repeat every word—to take steps when the safety of the public is at stake. Whether you are a railwayman or a motorist you have no right to play about with people’s lives. But, Mr. Speaker, you may say to me that this is my explanation. The Cape Times has never sided with me and I have never sided with the Cape Times. The Cape Times would not report a speech of mine in a more favourable light if there was any possibility of putting a twist to it.

Order!

No, Mr. Speaker, I say, “if there is any possibility of putting a twist to it”. The only thing that is out of order is that the hon. member was ever born. Here I have the report which appeared in the Cape Times, and this is how the reporter on the gallery understood my speech. I want to say at the outset that there is only one word which he translated incorrectly. I spoke of a “number” of people who went across to the bar. Unfortunately the Cape Times used the word “stream” in translating the word “aantal”. Well, Mr. Speaker, a “stream” is a “stroom” and “aantal” is “number”. This is what the reporter wrote—

Precisely what I said, but hon. members opposite cannot understand that. He goes on to say—

The word “stream” is wrong because I used the word “aantal” (number)—

The Cape Times was able to understand it. He went on to say—

Order! The hon. member cannot quote the whole of the Cape Times.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that you will permit me, since my speech was grossly distorted in this House, to put the correct position. I just want to point out that a newspaper which is not favourably disposed towards me did understand what I said, and I am pointing out what interpretation was placed on my remarks by hon. members who deliberately seek to gain some political advantage from it. I quote—

There is no reference at all to “railwaymen” or any question of segregating them in separate compartments.

I want to come now to the challenge that was issued to me to go and address a meeting at Salt River.

Do you accept it?

I am coming to it. I quote from the speech of the hon. member for Durban (Point) so that he cannot say that I am distorting what he said—

Mr. Speaker, I have to “repeat” what he says I said, not what I say I said. He challenges me, not to say what I said, but what he says I said. I should like to reply to his invitation. I should like to issue a challenge to him and also to the hon. member for Salt River and the hon. member for Orange Grove. I want to say to the three of them that they can come and state their case in my constituency, Mossel Bay. [Laughter.] Do you see any joke in that, Sir? I see no joke in it. But I know what the joke will he when they come back. The one will be without his trousers and the other without his shirt. I challenge them to meet me in Mossel Bay, to nominate any chairman that they like and to come and state their case; I shall state my case and I assure you, Sir, that they will never come back again.

I think the statements which have been made by the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop), while they are really beneath the notice of this side of the House, cannot go completely unanswered inasmuch as he has accused three hon. members on this side of what he calls a gross distortion. I do not propose doing what the hon. member did, and that is to drag this House through his speech for 28 minutes. I have never heard a man make the same speech twice in one week, and then also read it from the newspaper—he thus gave us three versions—but I want to read to him his own words as he quoted them, which makes it in fact the fourth version of this matter. I translated into English exactly what he said. He referred to the number of accidents, and he then referred to a recent accident; then he said there was an inquiry into the accident, and then he went on to say immediately after that— and I hope he will find this speech of his among all the documents he has of the various speeches—“ I ask it because there is a great suspicion amongst the people outside that the misuse or abuse of alcohol plays a great role in some of the accidents that happen”, and then he said “I am going to mention the name of Salt River. If you stand at that bridge and the whistle goes, you will see a number of people …”, and then he said a few things I do not want to repeat and continued: “They are there in the hotel for almost the whole time they are off for lunch.” One of the remarkable things about the whole speech was that he started off by saying that he would tell us what he was going to do in regard to the challenge issued to him by the hon. member for Salt River and the hon. member for Durban (Point), but finished up by inviting them to come to Mossel Bay! Of course. I am just an ordinary logical individual, but it seems to me that if I am challenged I must either accept the challenge or reject it, but I do not issue a counter-challenge. With due respect, Sir, I am very sorry that the time of the House has been wasted.

Order! I hope the hon. member will not waste more of the time of the House.

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to say that the hon. member for Mossel Bay wasted the time of the House?

That is the hon. member’s opinion. He may continue.

I want to remind the hon. member of what he said at the outset. He said that sometimes you seek fame and achieve notoriety; that is exactly what he did this afternoon.

Order! That is irrelevant.

I will leave the subject and deal with certain matters arising out of the Administration of the Railways. I want to ask the Minister whether in his view he received good value for the contribution which was made by his Department to the S.A. Tourist Corporation for the year 1960-1 and which has been increased for the year under review to R268,158. I ask that because I have certain views and information on the matter, but the Minister is in the best position to judge to what extent value has been given by Satour for the money that has been spent by his Department. One of the first things I am sure he would wish to bring to the notice of the Minister who has just been given the new portfolio of Tourism, is that the current report of the Tourist Corporation which we are now discussing in March 1963 is dated April 1962.

You cannot discuss Satour. It does not fall under me. You can only discuss my contribution to it.

You are wasting our time.

I want to discuss some of the details of this contribution. Do you rule that I cannot discuss the affairs of Satour, Sir?

It cannot be discussed.

Then I want to come to my next point, which is the question of the cost of fuel in the inland centres, as determined by the cost of transportation of that fuel. We have heard the Minister say that when the new pipeline has been built, he does not intend in any way to reduce the cost of the transportation of fuel to the inland centres. I, as a Member of Parliament for one of the Johannesburg constituencies, have to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that Johannesburg is in fact the centre of an area which is commonly known as the Witwatersrand complex, and which embraces such cities as Pretoria and Germiston, and such towns as Springs and the whole of the Reef to Randfontein, the “Far West”, and Vereeniging, a very important industrial and commercial centre, the most densely populated in South Africa, and which has about 40 per cent of the entire number of motor vehicles of the Republic. Therefore one is entitled to tell the Minister exactly what he is planning to do. He is planning to perpetuate a situation which has already borne very heavily on the people of the Witwatersrand complex, where some 40 per cent of the entire population of South Africa lives, and from where the entire economy of South Africa is generated. He is going to perpetuate a situation where those people in respect of the use of their motor vehicles, whether for commerce, industry or private transport—and, of course, public transport comes into the picture too—will have to carry the baby for the rest of South Africa. Now, the Minister was heard to say in another context that a burden should be spread equally. Does he mean to say in all seriousness that by refusing, as he has done so far, to consider an amelioration in the incidence of this cost factor of the transportation of fuel, he is doing anything but spreading the burden unequally? Because from the ordinary motorist who may use enough fuel to travel 500 miles a month, the Minister is deliberately going to continue taking R2 a month out of his pocket in order to let the motorist at the coast go scot-free. I am basing that R2 a month on a factor of 5 cents a gallon. In other words, if the Minister were prepared to reduce the cost of carrying fuel through the pipeline by 5 cents a gallon to the inland motorist by R2 a month, and the inland centres, he would reduce the cost that would save the Rand at leastR1,000,000 a month, which would remain in circulation there and not go into the coffers of the Minister. Considering that the greater part of the economy is centred there and that in fact the self-generating power of the economy comes largely from that area, it is only reasonable to assume that when the Minister has said he will not make any change in the cost of the transportation of fuel, he said it in a moment of heat, and that on further consideration he will be prepared to see the matter in a different light. I would like to remind him that is has long been opportune for the Minister to review the transportation charges on fuel, even before the pipeline came into the picture. I would like to remind him that during three years alone, from 1959 to 1962, the estimated surpluses he earned have been of the order of R16,200,000, R23,600,000 and R8,600,000, and the profit of carrying petrol for the period 1959-61 averaged between R 11,000,000 and R 12,000,000 a year. Surely the Minister cannot say that with that margin of profit which he has had in recent times, carrying petrol in a more costly way than by means of a pipeline, he will keep on applying these punitive rates—because they are punitive to commerce and industry and to the private motorist—on fuel. Furthermore, I would like to remind him that whereas, e.g. in the case of Johannesburg, the vehicle population is of the order of 180,000 it is anticipated that within the next 15 years that will have grown to 300,000, and the incidence of growth of the vehicle population is in proportion to its present existing basis. In other words, he will be imposing an even bigger burden pro rata on the vehicle users and therefore on the economy of that part of South Africa which is the heart of our economy, unless he is prepared to alleviate the burden in some way when his pipeline is ready. I know it is useless asking the Minister to consider a reduction in railway rates, but my plea to him is that when he turns over a new leaf in regard to the carriage of such an essential item as fuel, and he has his pipeline carrying the fuel, he should by that time have reconsidered the position in regard to a reduction of the cost of transportation of fuel. The Minister may, of course, give me some answer to-day which may give me a clue as to whether he has such a possible reduction in mind.

To turn to another matter which sits heavily on my chest in regard to the administration of the Railways, and with which I have busied the Minister from time to time I once put it to him that in regard to certain of the claims made for the comfort and convenience of passengers travelling by train, it was often the case that the passengers found that these claims were not well founded. The Minister said he would investigate the matter and would write to me; subsequently, he was good enough to do so, and in this letter he said: “I quite agree it is undesirable to make claims in advertisements which cannot be fully substantiated in practice. Instructions have therefore been issued to ensure that every care must be taken to make sure that advertisers do not become over-enthusiastic, and that it presents a true picture of what the railway services can offer.” Well, I accept that in the spirit in which he wrote it, but I would like to remind him that in the nature of things, it is not possible or even feasible to expect the Publicity Department to draw up advertisements which tell the truth as candidly as they should. It can hardly tell of all the grim details involved in travelling on some of the-long-distance trains. I do not expect that, but what I do expect is that the Minister should find ways and means of improving those services so that they live up to the general standard proclaimed in the advertisement. I would like to give him an example, because I naturally do not wish to ask him a question on the lines of: how many trains run over a distance of 250 miles, or through the night, where do they start from and what is their destination and do they have dining-cars? etc., I could keep the Minister busy for a year that way, and he would not enjoy it at all. Therefore I want to give him just one example, because I am not in the position to say that this applies to every long-distance journey or overnight journey, but the Minister and the administration will be able to determine whether or not this case is typical. My example is based on my own experience, and I am sorry the hon. members more concerned than I did not raise this matter with the Minister.

My experience is based on a recent journey in the Johannesburg-Messina train; what amazes me is that hon. members opposite do the Minister the disservice of standing up one after the other and singing the same refrain: “We thank the Minister”, until it becomes like a Hallelujah Chorus—only less melodious—instead of saying: This, that or the other is wrong with the Railways, as we know the position in our constituencies. Then they would be doing him and his Department and the railway users, and therefore the economy of the Railways, a greater service by telling him the truth, instead of concealing it under the bouquets which they keep handing out to him. Therefore it should not have been for me, who fortuitously made this journey, but for the hon. member for Pietersburg, or the hon. member for Soutpansberg, to say to the Minister: This is the position on our train.

If this journey is undertaken from Johannesburg, the train leaves there at 7.15 p.m. and unless you have first gone to the Tourist Bureau you are not made aware of certain deficiencies on that train which will seriously embarrass any passenger, particularly women with children. I want to give the details very briefly, but by the time you reach your destination the following morning, I can guarantee to the Minister that the passenger has sworn a hundred times that he will not travel on a train again; it merely makes enemies of the passengers, and the Minister admits that the passenger service is his Achilles’ heel, the soft under-belly of the economy of the South African Railways. He will never diminish the losses unless he makes improvements on long-distance trains. You are in the position of wishing the journey were over; in fact, if Eugene O’Neil had written a play about this train journey he would have called it, “Long Night’s Journey Into Day”. What happens is this. You leave at 7.15 from Johannesburg, first class, and you think you are going to have a fairly good journey because you know the S.A.R. gives an efficient service, but then you discover that there is only one first class coach, one second class coach, eight third class coaches and two other vehicles carrying baggage and goods, and you discover further that there is no dining-saloon, and of course there is no shower. I have taken that up with the Minister before, but when you inquire why there is no dining-saloon or a shower you are told, as I was told by an official: “When Mr. Tom Naudé used to travel on this train it had a steel coach with a shower for a Cabinet Minister, and sometimes for ar M.P.”—but not for the general public! You discover also that on that train there is no facility to get anything to eat or drink. But you do not necessarily know these things when you board the train. I put it to the Minister that the innocent travelling public does not know these things. If one gets on to the train with a child, it is physically impossible to get anything for it to eat or drink. The odd thing is that because there are eight third class coaches, there is a Native vendor employed apparently by the Railways, who sells biscuits and sweets and other refreshments in the third class section of the train, so that the Whites travelling first class simply have to watch, the Bantu buying refreshmens, but the Whites themselves cannot buy them because the vendor has no access to the first class coach. This is one of the paradoxes, in which the Bantu is better off than the White man. The odd thing again about this situation is that you are told, if ’you want a cup of coffee, that the first place where you can obtain it is at Soekmekaar at about 6 a.m., if the train arrives there on time.

Do you want your coffee earlier?

The Minister has rushed in where angels fear to tread. The train by which I travelled was delayed at Pienaar’s River for two hours, so this train arrived at Soekmekaar at 8.20 a.m. that is, 13 hours after it left Johannesburg! When you observe the number of people who leave this Chamber in order to have coffee every 15 minutes, and you put yourself in the position of a first class traveller on that train, or even a second class traveller, then for 13 hours you are on a mobile Sahara desert, because you can eat or drink nothing as far as the Railways are concerned; you say to yourself: Why should anyone go on a long-distance railway journey in South Africa except on the recognized luxury trains like the Blue Train, or possibly the Trans-Karoo Express? This is an impossible experience to ask anyone to undergo, and so the net result of it is that if you say to someone in Pietersburg—and I ask the hon. member for Pietersburg to listen to this—that you have come up by train, they look at you as if you were daft. They say: Surely you did not come on that train? I had that experience also in Louis Trichardt. People said they did not believe I came on that train, because you can get nothing to eat and drink and the train is always late, and they asked why I did not come by car. It so happens that I am one of those people who like to travel by train. I admire the efficiency, safety and courtesy which the administration provides. I assure the Minister that as long as there are people, such as myself, who like to travel by train, he has a certain market left for his long-distance trains; but when he has finally discouraged everyone on the basis of their own experience, I can assure him that with the exception of three of four trains, he will never have enough passengers to fill his longdistance trains. [Interjections.] This was the train that left Johannesburg on the night of 30 October 1962. My point is that if the Minister wants people to patronize the Railways, I would suggest with great respect that he should investigate the entire system and find out, as only he can, whether there is more than one of these “mobile deserts” which he runs through the country, because there may be 50 such routes or journeys, every one losing money for him because he does not provide even the minimum convenience. It goes without saying that there are certain other improvements which will attract more custom to the trains, such as more refrigeration in the dining-cars. The Minister should know that for the average user of the train, a cold drink is unknown, because there is insufficient refrigeration. You get a tepid drink or a warm drink, but hardly ever a really cold drink. I should not mention beer because that will send the hon. member for Mossel Bay off again.

I admit you are an authority on drink. I can see it.

All right—if it pleases the hon. member, I am an alcoholic! I want to deal very briefly with a few points I have brought to the notice of the Minister before. These are such a simple matter that I believe they have been overlooked amongst all the detail of running an enormous railway system. Firstly, the question of providing the minimum amenities, like a drinking glass in a first class compartment. I think they should be in all compartments, but certainly when you charge a man a few rand more to travel first class, he thinks you are giving him the normal basic amenities. You get into the Trans-Karoo Express, which is a good long-distance train from Johannesburg to Cape Town, and if you want to drink water you cannot drink it in your compartment because there is no tumbler, so you think, quite wrongly, that the thing to do is to stagger along the corridor where all those children are always playing, according to the hon. member for Mossel Bay, and go to the cloakroom—that euphemism for the toilet—and, of course, you find that there is no glass there! There is no glass, there is no hand-towel, there is no paper-towel; there are none of the things that people expect today in a railway station cloakroom, let alone in a first-class train.

Then I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the question of clothing and laundry, for which provision is made here in the Estimates of Expenditure. According to Item 382, it appears that in 1963-4 he intends to spend on clothing for dining cars, R25,880. What puzzles me is that he has seen fit for some reason or another to reduce the amount provided for 1962-3 by R3,400. This is one of the very few items which has been reduced, and I would like to ask the Minister why this has been done—because if he knew what I knew about that item he would not reduce it; he would increase it. Sir, when you make a journey on the S.A. Railways overnight and there is a dining-car and there are stewards, they are as a rule very, very polite and clean young fellows; but by the time they serve you on the second day their uniforms, being white mess jackets, are a disgrace. They are filthy and stained, more particularly in summer, and when you say, as I have often said to them, “why don’t you chaps get a clean uniform on the second day?”—oh! Mr. Chairman, I understand that time has expired. In the circumstances I merely ask that that be gone into and that more money be provided for more uniforms, and more laundry facilities.

Mr. Speaker, you will agree with me when I say that it is no longer possible at this stage to advance new arguments. I intend, therefore, to confine myself to the general impressions which the Railway Budget debate in all its stages have left and I want to confine myself in particular to the role which the official Opposition, the United Party, has played. You will remember that when the hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Russell) started to criticize the Budget he said that the most important matter that would be discussed would be the 10 per cent tariff increase which the Minister had imposed. The Opposition advanced the following four main arguments against the tariff increase: In the first place that it would raise the cost of living; in the second place that it was unnecessary to raise tariffs; in the third place that it would place an unreasonable burden on the railway user and in the fourth place that it would seriously hamper and harm our economic and industrial development. All these statements were made by Opposition members and all of them, at least most of them, were incorporated in the two amendments which they moved on previous occasions. But, Mr. Speaker, what proof has the Opposition advanced to substantiate their statement that the increase in tariffs has increased the cost of living to such an extent that it has placed an unreasonable burden on the country? What proof did the hon. member for Wynberg produce in his speech this afternoon? This side of the House has produced irrefutable proof that the increase in the cost of living as a result of the tariff increase has been negligible. I think the Opposition has failed to refute the arguments which have come from this side of the House. One at least expects them, when they make such a statement, to prove it, but they have not advanced any proof. Take, for example, their allegation that it was unnecessary to increase tariffs, an allegation which the hon. member for Wynberg repeated this afternoon. The hon. member said that the Minister had not budgeted for strengthening the Rates Equalization Fund and the Betterment Fund. But this side of the House has clearly indicated that it was indeed necessary to increase tariffs. That was necessary in order to derive income and to avoid a deficit; to derive revenue with which to increase wages and pensions; it was also necessary to prevent the Rates Equalization Fund from becoming exhausted; on the contrary it was necessary to strengthen it because it is the important guarantee fund for both the railway user and the railway employee. We indicated that it was also necessary in order to place the Betterment Fund on a sound financial basis. Mr Speaker, I ask you what did the Opposition advance against this argument? On the contrary all of them welcomed the wage and pension increases and they agreed that the Rates Equalization Fund as well as the Betterment Fund had to be strengthened. In other words, the Opposition did nothing else with all their arguments, even if they did so in an indirect way, than to subscribe to our attitude that it was indeed necessary to raise tariffs.

But let us go further. Did they produce any proof that the increased tariffs had placed an unreasonable burden on the railway user? The hon. member for Wynberg simply assumed this afternoon that you could take it that it had placed an unreasonable burden on the railway user. It is difficult not to smile when you read, as we did in the local English newspaper of this morning—

Mr. Speaker, you were present at the second-reading debate yesterday, a debate which lasted over a period of four hours. Did you hear another word on that subject other than a reference to it in the amendment of the Opposition? No, you did not. Nevertheless we were led to believe that that was the important matter which was discussed yesterday. Neither the hon. member for Wynberg nor any other hon. member opposite said a single word on that subject.

Where were you?

I was here and I listened attentively to all the speeches. The reason is obvious. They could not, because the truth of the matter is that they cannot advance anything to prove that statement. Mr. Speaker, did you in any of these debates hear them advance anything to prove their further statement that the tariff increase would seriously hamper our economic and industrial development? This side of the House and the Minister have produced irrefutable evidence, such as the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut, the Association of Building Societies, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Standard Bank and the Netherlands Bank, prominent businessmen and industrialists. To what effect was that evidence? The evidence was to the effect that since the latter half of 1962, after it had advanced at a somewhat slow and retarded tempo, during the first six months of 1962 there had been an unheard of upsurge in our economic development. The evidence which we quoted was also ad idem that our industrial development was continuing at the same tempo. As a matter of fact there is a statement by Barclays Bank in the Burger of this morning which reads—

No, the Opposition has simply failed to disprove or to refute any of the evidence advanced that there has been an increase in the economic and industrial growth of this country. The reason is that they are unable to do so and that is why their argument that the increase in tariffs would hamper our economic and industrial development, remained in the air; they could not substantiate it. No wonder, Sir, that the Opposition ran away from their own arguments yesterday afternoon and sought refuge in what the management of the Railways had in mind for the Transkei. I suspect, of course, that that was done on the instructions of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Wynberg was only too pleased to comply with the wishes of his Leader. But just as the hon. member for Wynberg allowed himself to be misled by the Leader of the Opposition two years ago in connection with the adverse effect which our withdrawal from the Commonwealth would have on the revenue of the Railways, the hon. member again allowed himself to be misled yesterday, because he did not catch the hon. the Minister on the wrong foot as far as this matter was concerned. As a matter of fact the hon. member forgot that the hon. the Minister had already thought about the matter and that he had already made his attitude in respect of the future of the Railways in the Transkei clear in this House last year. That is also why that portion of the hon. member’s amendment was quite unnecessary, that portion which reads that the Minister has neglected to draw up proper plans with a view to future development. The point is simply this that the Minister has not neglected to do so but that he has already considered this matter long before the hon. member for Wynberg thought about it on the advice of his Leader.

That is completely untrue.

If there is one tiling which has become very clear this year in the Railway Budget debate then it is the fact that the United Party have once again revealed themselves as the party who sits on two stools. As the party which wants to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, the party which wants to be everything to everybody in the hope that that will win them some votes— and I want to prove this statement. I can produce a series of examples from what has happened here during the past week to prove that. Take the wage and tariff increases. On the one hand the United Party welcome the wage increases that were granted to the staff but when the Minister raises tariffs in order to afford the wage increases they condemn that tariff increase. You get these contradictions from that side, Sir, because they want to get the vote of the railwayman, but on the other hand they have to remain in the good books of commerce and industry at the same time. Last year when the heart of the Opposition bled for the staff, when they thought that the staff should get a wage increase, the hon. member for Wynberg was even prepared, as the Minister pointed out, to agree to a tariff increase in order to increase wages, but now that that has happened they condemn that tariff increase because they want to curry favour with commerce and industry.

I want to bring a third proof. The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) says that the entire railway organization must be made efficient; in other words, the entire railway organization is inefficient, as the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) also said in the debate. But in the same speech the hon. member for Orange Grove said, and the hon. member for Wynberg said the same, that the railway staff was so efficient that they deserved the wage increases which the Minister had granted.

Take the example of the Rates Equalization Fund. In his zeal to attack the tariff increases, the hon. member for Wynberg advocated a financial policy which would in reality mean that the Rates Equalization Fund would become completely exhausted.

No.

I do not think I am doing the hon. member for Wynberg an injustice; I do not want to do that but that is actually what the financial policy for which he has pleaded amounts to. Nevertheless he pleads equally strongly on the other hand that this fund should be strengthened to such an extent that he does not even regard an amount of R60,000,000 as adequate. If the hon. member for Wynberg did not advance obviously conflicting arguments I should be only too pleased to have clarity on this matter, otherwise it is simply beyond me to follow his argument in view of what the hon. member has said in these discussions and what he repeated this afternoon, namely that he believes that the Rates Equalization Fund should be strengthened. What he really pleaded for was a deficit and as I have already shown on a previous occasion you cannot strengthen the Rates Equalization Fund from a deficit. The Rates Equalization Fund can only be strengthened from surplus revenue.

The hon. member for Wynberg said that the increase in tariffs would have far-reaching detrimental effects on our economic and industrial development and growth but in the same breath he accuses the Minister, as he again did this afternoon, of being too conservative when estimating his revenue and he predicted that the revenue would indeed be much more than the Minister expected. Where must that revenue come from? Surely it can only come as a result of greater economic development and growth in this country. How does that fit into the argument of the hon. member for Wynberg that he believes that the increase in tariffs will have detrimental effects on our economic and industrial development?

In the sixth place the Opposition is crying with the people outside about the increase in the cost of living which this tariff increase will supposedly bring about. At the same time they weep copiously because commerce and industry will now have to pay for these increased tariffs. That is impossible. They cannot both pay. It is either the public who must carry the increase in the cost of living, or commerce and industry who have to carry the increase in the tariffs.

Take the question of pensions. The United Party thanks the Minister for having increased the pensions of railway pensioners. They are grateful and jubilant about it, but at the same time they condemn the Minister when he tries to get revenue to pay for those increased pensions. Take the question of deficits and surpluses. If the Minister has a deficit one year then it is financial chaos; then it is, in the words of the hon. member for Wynberg, due to “managerial and Ministerial inefficiency”. When the Minister has a surplus, as he has this year, he gets criticized for showing a surplus and then the hon. member for Wynberg says he should rather have shown a deficit of R2,600,000. Take the example of the Economic Advisory Council to which the hon. member for Wynberg again referred this afternoon. The hon. member blames the Minister for not having consulted the Economic Advisory Council before he increased tariffs but when that same Economic Advisory Council recommends and supports the development of industries in the border areas, the hon. member and the entire Opposition reject the advice of that Council; then they do not want to know the Economic Advisory Council.

The hon. member for Orange Grove was quick to miscontrue the words of the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) and to claim that they were intended as an insult to the railwaymen and then to raise his voice in indignation, but a few minutes later in the same speech the hon. member for Orange Grove grasped at a few examples of thefts and irregularities on the Railways; he exaggerated those and enlarged upon them as though it was a common phenomenon that railwaymen made themselves guilty of irregularities and thefts. He does not regard that as an insult to the railwaymen.

Mr. Speaker, I have now given you ten striking examples which illustrate how the United Party is indeed a party which sits on two stools. Does the Opposition think that they will ever make an impression with criticism such as that? However, we should nevertheless be fair towards the Opposition. They are doing their best however poor that may be. The Opposition has serious difficulty with the Railways. There are four important reasons why the Opposition has difficulty with the Railways. They have difficulty with the Railways because, in the first place, the Railways are to-day being administered in a very efficient manner. They have difficulty with the Railways because the financial position of the Railways is inherently sound as a result of the continual and large-scale economic development which our country is continuing to experience under the nationalist regime. In the third place the United Party has difficulty with the Railways because they cannot swallow the fact that the railway staff is satisfied—the fact that they are satisfied due to the good treatment which they receive. And in the fourth instance they have difficulty with the Railways because of the proper planning and the judicious way in which capital is spent by the Railways to meet the transportation needs of the country. I can offer them no solace. Their difficulties will continue as long as they attack the policy and the Budget of the Minister of Railways in this illogical way.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat is the chairman of the Railways Select Committee and, I believe, chairman of the group formed in his own party for the discussion of railway matters. Sir, may I say that this debate is limited in point of time and the axe, as you know, will fall in a few minutes. It is a pity that the hon. member did not make the speech which he has just made in the course of the second-reading debate where we would have been able to take him to task. Let me say to the hon. member that what he has said here is nothing new. Everything that he said here was dealt with effectively by members on this side of the House in the course of the discussions on the Railway Budget. I fully expected that the hon. member, holding the position that he does in his party, would have played a prominent part in the second-reading debate, but instead of that he comes along at the very end of the debate and makes the sort of speech that we have just heard from him. He makes that sort of speech at this stage of the debate when the axe is about to fall on the debate. He did not have the courage to make that speech during the second-reading debate.

I have not got the time to deal with all the points which the hon. member has just raised. I wish to come back to what I regard as an extremely serious matter in regard to the hon. the Minister. I am going to put the facts before the House and ask the House to be the judge in regard to certain statements made by the hon. the Minister in respect of the increases in salaries and wages given to the railwaymen. I do so because when the hon. the Minister replied to the second-reading debate he had this to say. in his usual offensive manner. He said—

Order! I think the hon. member must withdraw the word “offensive”. It is for the Chair to judge whether a speech is offensive.

I withdraw the word “offensive” and I say “objectionable”.

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

I withdraw it. Sir, I want the House to-day to judge the standard of the hon. the Minister. You see, when a Minister makes a Budget speech in this House, whether it be the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Transport it is a premeditated, prepared speech, every word and every sentence of which had to be considered, because whatever the Minister states in his Budget speech has a profound effect on the economy of South Africa and even on the pocket of the railwayman. Sir, I raised a query in the Budget debate in respect of a statement contained in the Minister’s Budget speech, to this effect—and I quote his exact words—

I think the House will agree that what the Minister intended to convey here to the staff as a whole was: “Be patient; as circumstances warrant it I give you my undertaking that I will increase your salaries in the first half of the year as from September 1962.” Sir. you must remember that in the discussions last year I asked the hon. the Minister—and we dealt with this matter on this side of the House by way of an amendment—that railwaymen should be given the increases which the Minister had promised them some 2½ years ago, and time after time the hon. the Minister refused it. He gave many reasons for his refusal to increase wages and salaries. On 14 March in replying to last year’s Budget debate he said, “No”; on 15 March when he dealt with another stage of the Appropriation Bill he was quite emphatic. He said this—

He was quite emphatic. But the House will recall that while we had the railway debates last year, a congress took place of the Artisans’ Staff Association and on 20 March there appeared in the Cape Times a statement made by Mr. Liebenberg, the President of the Artisans’ Staff Association. Mr. Liebenberg announced—

That was on 19 March 1962, precisely four days after the Minister had made the statement to which I had referred—

“As the result of a new policy followed by the Minister.” He went on to say—

This statement was made by Mr. Liebenberg on 20 March—

Sir. discussions in this House ensued, and on 20 March last year we were at precisely the same stage in our discussions of the Railway Budget as we are to-day, and the hon. member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton) and I took up with the Minister this clearcut statement by Mr. Liebenberg. Let me repeat that statement—

Sir. note the date, 20 March 1962. But on 20 March 1962, we were dealing with the same issue in this House, and what was the Minister’s statement? He did not reply to the hon. member for Umhlatuzana but I also raised the issue with the hon. the Minister and what did the Minister say in that speech? His last words in the third-reading debate of last year were the following (Col. 2930)—

He went on to say—

Now we have to hear in the Budget speech that the Minister gave an undertaking at the beginning of the financial year and I quote his words: “I consequently gave an undertaking that should nothing unforeseen happen I will consider the matter towards the end of the first half of the financial year.”

I want to ask the hon. the Minister: Where did he give that undertaking? What was the reply which the hon. gentleman gave last night? I said to the Minister that because of his failure to give a clearcut answer as to when he had made this undertaking, the inference was that the statement contained in his Budget speech was not true. I shall show that what he said in his Budget speech directly contradicts the impression that he left with this House on 20 March that same year. I have the hon. the Minister’s Hansard here of his statements last night. The Minister said that the only undertaking that he gave was the undertaking that he gave to the Artisan Staff Association, a statement which, as I have shown, Mr. Liebenberg has contradicted. I want to quote the Minister’s reply to me last night. He said—

Sir, I say that that is not true according to the Minister’s own words. Because in dealing with that matter last year he said—I have his Hansard here which he gave me permission to collect at that time because I queried it. He said this—

He was referring to other staff associations—

“Other sections of the staff are also doing that.” In other words, the Minister had already received representations from the other six staff organizations for an increase. But he gets up in this House last night and he makes a clearcut statement that that was the only staff organization which had made wage claims at that time.

There is a worse aspect about the matter, Sir. If it is true what the Minister says that he gave this undertaking, and he gave this undertaking behind closed doors to the Artisans’ Staff Association because he admits that he gave it to nobody else as I shall show in a minute, then I want to point out that I asked the Minister last night by way of interjection that if he gave “that undertaking at the time when the matter was being discussed in this House. why did the Minister not tell the House? Why did the Minister tell the House something opposite?” The Minister replied—

I put the facts, as borne out by the Minister’s own words, before this House. I say to the Minister that this is probably the first time in the history of our country that statements contained in a Budget speech have been queried by a member on this side of the House or by any member. Because the former statements of the Minister completely contradicts what is stated in this financial statement on railway finances. I say that that is a pity. What we on this side of the House are entitled to ask, is that when we deal with matters in this House why should this House be deprived of any information because the Minister was faced with difficulty? The Minister was faced with difficulty at the time, on his own admission, and he came to a private agreement with certain executive members of the Artisans’ Staff Association. I want to know from the Minister whether that is the only justification for the statements contained in his Budget speech? The Minister has been asked twice in this debate to give an indication where and when he had given that undertaking to the railwaymen of South Africa that he would increase their salaries and wages in the first half of this year, by September, if railway finances increased accordingly. Because the last words which the Minister said in this House on 20 March last year showed quite clearly that he was not prepared to grant that increase unless and until he saw at the end of the financial year what the result of the workings were. You cannot find better evidence than that which is to be found in the general statements of the Minister made before this House to the vast mass of 210,000 railway workers and to the public at large that if he increased rates and tariffs and if he increased wages and salaries to the railwaymen that would be against the interests and economy of the country. I repeat that it is a tragedy that we have come to this stage of political opportunism in South Africa that statements of this nature are to be made by the Minister and queried across the floor of the House.

The hon. member for Turffontein has on various occasions gone out of his way to try to play off leading executive members of the Artisan Staff Association against the hon. the Minister. The hon. member for Turffontein has spoken on a few occasions in this debate and on every occasion he got to his feet he went out of his way to quote Mr. Liebenberg and the Artisan Staff Association, to drag them into the debate and to try to play them off against what the Minister is supposed to have said in this debate. I think that is wrong. I do not think the hon. member for Turffontein is doing Mr. Liebenberg and the leaders of the staff associations of the Railways any good by using them as a political football in debates in this House. The hon. member talks about making political capital, he has extracted every drop of political capital he possibly could to use against the Minister. What benefit does he derive from that? What benefit do the members of the staff associations derive from that? If the hon. member for Turffontein wants to use them as a political football in this House what benefit do they derive from that? The Opposition must clearly understand that the hon. the Minister said that he enjoyed the full confidence of the railway staff associations. Those people feel at liberty to state their case to the Minister and to the management. The Minister’s door is always open to them. That does not mean that the Minister always accedes to the representations which they make to him but they know that the Minister knows their difficulties and that they can trust him. We have seen time and again that the Minister is the person who can handle the staff associations of the Railways better than any member on that side of the House. The hon. member for Turffontein must not think that he can steal a march on this side of the House and on the Minister by quoting from the speeches of Mr. Liebenberg and other trade union leaders and to use those as arguments against the Minister. What is very clear and what has become as clear as a pikestaff in this debate, is the fact that the Opposition is disappointed. The Opposition is disappointed because this railway debate does not afford them an opportunity of making political capital out of the discussions which have lasted for days. They are disappointed because the Railway Budget is in essence as sound and stable as never before and because the Minister has introduced a record Budget, a tribute to this national transport system of South Africa. Members of the Opposition are now trying to exploit certain things that have been done, such as, for example, the increase in salaries and wages and the concession in respect of railway pensioners, for their own benefit. They are trying to make the world believe that it is due to pressure on their part that these benefits have been granted to the staff. I do not think they have convinced anybody. When the leader of the Artisan Staff Association approached the Minister last year, the Minister said that he did not see his way clear at that stage to grant them an increase. He said it would not be fair if he made an exception of their group at that stage and made concessions to them. He said the time was not opportune for that, that he did not have a whole picture of the economic position of the country and of what he would be able to do towards the end of the financial year. He told them to wait until October and if he could afford to grant benefits he would grant them to all the railwaymen. And the Minister has kept his word. Why is the hon. member for Turffontein making such a fuss about that? He is doing it because he is disappointed. They thought the hon. the Minister would not be in a position to grant benefits to the railway staff. They thought they would be able to come here this year and repeat the old story that the Minister was not sympathetic towards these people who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow. They are disappointed. We realize that they are disappointed but why do they cry about it, why do they protest so loudly if they have no case? It has become clear to us during these times that there is only one Minister who knows what he wants and what his objective is as far as the South African Railways and the railwayman are concerned and that is the hon. the Minister of Railways, Mr. Ben Schoeman.

On the conlcusion of the period of two hours allotted for the third reading of the Bill, the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No. 105.

The hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Russell) again dealt with the increase in rates. He repeated all the arguments that he used during the Budget Debate. I think hon. members will agree with me that repetition is tedious and I have therefore no intention of reiterating all those irrefutable arguments which came from myself and from this side of the House. I think the House is perfectly satisfied that the Opposition has no case whatsoever. As a matter of fact the Opposition was very embarrassed in being compelled to produce a case against the rate increase after what they said at the beginning of last year. I am not going to deal with that again because, as I have said, repetition is tedious. I only need refer hon. members to Hansard. If the hon. member for Wynberg wants a reply from me, I suggest that he reads my speech in Hansard.

There are two points however with which I want to deal very briefly. I want to deal with the general statement which the hon. member made. He said that the Railways should not pursue policies that were not in the general interests of the country. He went on to say that the Railways should not prevent cheap transport to swell railway profits.

I do not think you have it right.

If the hon. member will correct me, I will be only too pleased. He said that I should not prevent cheap transport from being provided to enable me to swell railway profits.

My point was that you should not make profits out of the pipeline to swell railway profits.

In any case that was the kernel of it. The trouble with the Opposition is—and that is the impression anybody will gain by listening to them—that they apparently regard the Railways as a private profit-making undertaking. If the Railways were a private profit-making undertaking their arguments would be germane. Sir, they regard the Railways as a private profit-making undertaking and that is why they use the arguments which they have used in this debate. They do not realize that the South African Railways is a great State undertaking whose primary function is to serve the country and the people of the country and that it is not a profit-making undertaking. In other words, all the profits which the S.A. Railways make must be ploughed back into the Railways, either by way of increased wages or the reduction in rates. That was the intention of the framers of the Act of Union. The prime function of the Railways is to serve the people and the interests of the country. That has always been the policy of the Railways, namely to serve the general interests of the country and not the interests of a section of the community. The trouble with those hon. members is that they want the Railways to follow a policy whereby only a section of the community and not the country as a whole will be served. That has been shown over and over again by the tenor of their debates and by the arguments that they have used. They are concerned with a section of the community. They are either concerned about the railwaymen as such, or about commerce and industry.

In regard to the pipeline their only concern was about the consumers of petrol on the Witwatersrand. They were not concerned about the interests of the whole country. They are not concerned about the fact that if the Railways were to lose the millions of rand revenue it might lead inevitably to an increase in rates and when rates are increased they are increased on all the commodities and the whole of the country has to bear that burden. But they are not concerned about that. That is why I say when the hon. member says that the Railways should not pursue policies that are not in the general interests of the country, he should apply that to the Opposition, because they are the people who are not prepared to support policies that are in the general interests of the country and not only in the interests of a section of the community. That has been over and over demonstrated in this debate.

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) is a young member in this House and he hopes that he will have a very long future in this House. I want to commend some words to him and I do so out of kindness. I want to quote the words which Fénelon once wrote—

The hon. member for Hospital spoke for 30 minutes and dealt with two matters, the one was the pipeline which had been dealt with over and over again at different stages of the debate. He added nothing new. The second matter was in regard to the train from Preoria to Messina in which he once travelled and which lacked a dining-saloon. It took him almost 20 minutes to tell the House that. At the end of his 30 minutes he was still going strong when his Whip came over and stopped him. I hope he will remember the words I quoted. It will be to his own good in future. The hon. member said that it was a train which consisted of one first class and one second class coach. He now wants a dining-car on that train. I do not think those two coaches were full so he wants a dining-car to serve probably a dozen odd people.

I did not say that.

What does the hon. member want then?

May I ask you a question? Does the hon. Minister not remember that I said there were third class Bantu passengers who were served by a Native in uniform selling refreshments. I did not ask for a dining-car, I only asked that the same facility should be extended to the White passengers.

The hon. member’s complaint was that there was no dining-saloon, there was no shower and that there were no facilities to get anything to eat or to drink. The only facility you can get for Europeans is a dining-car.

I did not ask for a dining-car.

The hon. member asked for coffee and tea to be served so obviously there must be a dining-car. There are no other facilities for European passengers. The hon. member knows, if he travels by train, that we are continually trying to improve our services. We are trying to give the public the best we possibly can. We have had tributes paid to us by people who travel on the long-distance trains. There is the question of expenditure about which hon. members opposite are continually complaining. The dining-car service is run at a loss. Surely we cannot provide those facilities on a train when there is no demand for them.

Mr. Speaker, I have been a big game hunter for many years. Some people believe that the elephant has the thickest hide but that is not true. The animal that has the thickest hide is the rhinoceros. You require a high velocity rifle to pierce his hide. He also has other characteristics: he is arrogant, foolish and very impulsive. He charges at the slightest provocation, he does not know what he charges and sometimes he even charges his own shadow. I said last night, the hon. member for Turffontein is inclined to judge others by his own standards and those standards are not very high. The hon. member has never enjoyed a high reputation in this House for truth or accuracy in what he says. Time and again over the years that has been proved. When the hon. member has made statements and given figures he has been proved to be totally wrong. The hon. member has accused me of making a statement in my Budget speech and he implied that that statement was untrue. Had that come from any other hon. member I would have resented it but coming from the hon. member for Turffontein I merely regard it with contempt.

I will deal with this matter very shortly. I have the Afrikaans copy of my Budget speech here and I said the following—

I was referring to the Artisans Staff Association which was the only staff organization that had submitted wage claims at that particular time. Over the years many of the staff organizations had submitted claims but when this matter was under discussion at the beginning of the year the only definite wage claims before the Administration were those submitted by the Artisans Staff Association. I said—

That was the statement which I made in my Budget speech. My last meeting with the Artisans Staff Association was on 23 March. That was in Cape Town. After a full discussion with the representatives of the Artisans Staff Association I gave the undertaking which I quoted in my Budget speech. They were the people affected, not the United Party, not the United Party who was trying to make capital out of this matter, The United Party which suddenly came forward as the champions of the railwaymen, the United Party who wanted an increase in wages and salaries even if it entailed an increase in rates. I was not concerned with the United Party or what they thought or what they wanted to do. I was dealing with a staff organization. That was the undertaking which I gave the Artisans Staff Association. Let me tell the hon. member this: He can check with the Artisans Staff Association, with Mr. Liebenberg, and if what I have just told him is not correct I am prepared to resign my seat if he will do the same. [Interjections.] That is the only way, Sir, in which you can make that hon. member accept the truth.

I am not querying Mr. Liebenberg’s statements.

The whole implication of his speech was that I have told an untruth.

I said that that was the inference and that you should give us an explanation.

On the same date on which I met the Artisans Staff Association a joint statement was issued by the president of the Staff Association and myself. Does the hon. member know about that Press statement? No, he does not know. That Press statement was issued on 23 March while this House was sitting. Does the hon. member not read his newspapers? How dare he come to the House and make allegations when he does not know what he is talking about.

Why did you not tell the House?

Why should I tell the House? Why should I have told the United Party who was trying to make capital out of it? That shows the type of member we have to deal with in this House, Mr. Speaker. He comes to this House without any information and without any facts and then he makes wild statements and allegations which he cannot substantiate. That is why I referred to my big game hunting days because the hide of that hon. member is so thick that even a high velocity rifle cannot penetrate it.

That applies to you as well.

On the same day a Press statement was issued to all the newspapers. I shall read it—

I am quoting the Burger of 24 March—

The meeting with the Artisans Staff Association was the day before and this statement was issued on that day. The Burger goes on—

This statement also appeared in the Cape Argus; it appeared in all the newspapers. In other words, Mr. Speaker, it was announced in the newspapers that the matter would be considered. The statement which I made in my Budget speech was made to the Artisans Staff Association. While Parliament was still in session the Federal Consultative Council met in Cape Town and I sent the General Manager of the Railways, on my behalf, to tell them what I have told the Artisans Staff Association, namely that all the personnel would have to benefit if they benefited. That was on 3 April. It was a meeting between the Federal Consultative Council and the management which took place at Cape Town on 3 April. The General Manager told the other staff associations, on my behalf—the Artisans Staff Association was not there—that that was what I had told the Artisans Staff Association and that I wanted those other staff associations in the meantime to examine their own position and to submit their claims in time. I say, Mr. Speaker, that if that hon. member wants to imply that I made an incorrect statement then he does not know what he is talking about. I would have resented it from any other hon. member but not from that hon. member.

Then you deny all the statements which you made in the course of the debate last year.

No. I am not denying any statements. The way the hon. member tries to interpret my statements and to present them to the House—I cannot say he twists my statements; that would be unparliamentary—is what I resent. He has the habit of quoting words completely out of their context when presenting them to the House.

I challenge you to read what you said.

What I said in the House was quite right I said that I was not prepared to grant any increase at that stage. I have ready my own speeches in the course of this debate. I quoted them to the hon. member for Wynberg.

May I put a question to the hon. the Minister: At what stage did the hon. Minister abandon this policy which he had announced to the Artisan Staff Association that only at a Budget would he be prepared to introduce major wage changes?

I did not say only at a Budget That is again a misquotation. If the hon. member says that I said that, then I say it is a misquotation. I said, and that is what I told the staff continually, that I was not prepared to grant an increase in the middle of the year. That is what I told them last year. In the middle of the year I have no indication as to what the future holds. That is why I said that if nothing unforeseen happens during the first half of the next financial year I would have an idea of what the year would hold in store and what the financial position was going to be, and then I would consider the question of granting an increase.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned last night, I had been dealing with the effect which this measure will have on the remainder of the Republic of South Africa and on the White people who will be in that remnant of our country. I had dealt with this Bill as a measure of abandonment of the responsibilities of the White man; I had dealt with it in terms of its fragmentation, and through that fragmentation its admission of the failure of this Government to govern South Africa as an entity, despite the proof presented by the hon. Deputy Minister of the fact that South Africa is one entity and should so remain. I am not surprised that Government members did not like what I was saying, because they must know that what we on this side of the House are saying is what the people of South Africa are thinking and feeling, including many members on the Government benches themselves. The Government knows that on this measure, which they are trying to force as a theoretical ideology on South Africa, the vast majority of the rank and file of the people of South Africa are unhappy, very unhappy. That will be tested. But hon. members opposite know in their hearts that we speak for the ordinary man and woman of South Africa who still has faith in the retention of South Africa as one united people. Can they be so naïve as to believe that this Bill is not an abandonment of responsibility, that this Bill does not abandon the duty and the responsibility of the White man in this country to give his leadership and his guidance to the non-Whites? You cannot escape that inevitable consequence of this Bill, because only a naive person would imagine that this Government will be able to continue to determine policy in the Transkei once independence has been created. They know that the vast majority of the Transkeian electorate—I speak of the Black electorate that will be formed by this Bill—that the vast majority of the electorate who are articulate, who are literate, are living and will continue to live outside the Transkei. as the hon. Deputy Minister pointed out. Can they then not realize that that articulate and literate group of voters must exert a tremendous influence and ultimately become the dominant influence on the policy-making of the Transkeian Government? So it will not be the Prime Minister, or the Minister of Bantu Administration who will direct the policy of the Transkei after self-government—it will be the influence of the voters who will determine the policy of the Transkeian Parliament.

But I want to go further and look not to the effect outside the Transkei, but to the effect inside the Transkei of this measure, and I want to say that inside as well as outside the Transkei it is an abandonment of responsibility. It is more, it is the physical abandonment of our kith and kin who are living in the Transkei. In a military retreat. Mr. Speaker, there is a group of troops who have been known in history as expendable, the troops who are put on the other side of the bridge which you are about to mine in your retreat. They are the troops who are the expendable force which is going to be sacrificed in the retreat from the position which you are trying to hold. I say to this Minister that the Whites in the Transkei are the expendable forces of civilized South Africa which he is preparing to sacrifice in order to carry out an ideology not necessary and alien to the principles and concepts of the South African people. I refer in particular to the traders in the Transkei. We have seen a statement made on 26 February, stating that the traders in the Transkei must realize that the protection of the two-mile limit is going to disappear when the Transkei attains self-government. This is not a new demand. I want to quote from the Hansard of the Transkeian Territorial Authority of 8 May 1962 when for the fourth or fifth time the issue of the two-mile limit was being debated, and I quote now the words of Chief Kaizer Matanzima, the presiding territorial chief on 8 May (page 71)—

I charge the hon. Minister and his Department of having deliberately encouraged the representatives of the Transkeian Territorial Authority to take this step which is going to have such chaotic economic consequences for the traders in the Transkei. When his Department was approached in regard to this matter, they did not give guidance; they did not say that in the interests of sound economy this should not be done. Their answer to the deputation was: “When you have got self-government, you will be able to do it yourself”. When asked why it was not done now, they did not say “Because it would be wrong”, but the reply was “We are considering the matter”. Therefore on this specific issue, here in the evidence of the Hansard of the Transkei, there is the proof that the Government was not concerned about the future welfare of the White traders left in the Transkei. I quote that as one of many specific instances which I have not time to deal with in detail now. Mr. Speaker, we must not blame the Transkei when the Government is giving that sort of leadership to them. But these economic implications go much further. The hon. the Prime Minister speaks of “provocation”. On Friday, he spoke of “provocation”. What is more provocative than this sort of guidance that is given to the Transkei. But economic effects go much further than that, because again referring to the minutes of this body, we find that a demand was made on 8 May 1962, for instance for a minimum wage of 60c per shift for mineworkers. That was a year ago. We find now on 26 February this year that the Prime Minister elect of the Transkei stated that he was going to negotiate on a “respectable” level in regard to the wages of the workers of the Transkei. The Government has been warned. What sort of guidance is it giving to the Transkei? What sort of guidance does it think it will be able to give when these matters are finally matters which they will be able to deal with on their own? But this same body dealt with the question of industries, and speaker after speaker, ultimately the whole Assembly by unanimous resolution, decided that they were not in favour of border industries, that they wanted industries within their own Transkeian area. not outside. The reason they gave was that they wanted these industries to be brought to the workers and not the workers taken to these industries. I have not the time to quote the debates, but the hon. the Minister has this document and can check it. In that debate there was also a demand by speakers that White capital should be used in the building up of the industries. That was withdrawn after debate, because “it would not please the Government”. but they still unanimously passed a resolution demanding that industries should come into the territory and not be established beyond the borders. The Government says “Oh no, that does not matter, we will settle this because we will bring industries to the borders”. I have here the April Digest of the S.A. Department of Information, Pretoria. And they show on 16 April 1962, the progress made in the development of these border industries. They state that R3,000,000 has been spent already to employ 1,239 Bantu, an average of R2,420 per worker employed. But they say that that is only the beginning “because we have before us applications which involve an amount of R12,000,000 and that will cover the employment of 900 Bantu”. Therefore R13,333 per worker employed. Now I want to issue this challenge to the hon. the Minister: That is the rate of progress in employment that has taken place throughout the Bantu areas in South Africa. If an offer should be made to the Transkeian Government of say R 100,000,000 or more by America or any foreign power in order to develop industries to give jobs to the people of Transkei, would this Government allow them to accept such an offer? If not, they would be saying that they are not interested in jobs for the people. If they do allow it, they must face the consequences. But that is the question which the hon. Minister must answer.

Finally, I want to deal with two other aspects of this measure. This measure in its preamble states that the Bill is designed to maintain law and order and to ensure justice for all. It is being introduced at a time, Mr. Speaker, when in the Transkei the whole area is being governed under emergency regulations, under Proclamation 400, at a time when we are unable to find out what force of police are in the territory, at a time when murders of headmen are almost daily news and do not even hit the front pages. But this Bill is being introduced to maintain law and order and ensure justice for all. I want to quote the attitude to justice of a headman belonging to the trible of Chief Kaizer Matanzima. Various headman gave evidence before Justice Snyman, and I quote from the Cape Times of 26 February, and this is their attitude to justice—

They should be sentenced to death. If he is arrested he should be gaoled right away and not defended.

Others went on in the same strain, taking the line that there should be no trial and no defence in respect of people suspected of an offence, and that they should have their throats cut. We have read of some of the barbaric punishments which have been applied. I want to ask the hon. Minister why he has not warned these people to whom this Bill will give control of justice, that that is not the attitude to justice which we expect of them? But the Minister remains silent and allows this sort of statement to be made, and there is no repudiation from the Government. Not only no repudiation, but they are prepared to give to the Transkei their own flag, their own anthem, a flag which is to fly alongside the South African Flag. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) has really proved the truth of the adage that if one sleeps on a matter one often comes to wiser conclusions, because whereas yesterday for the greater portion of his speech he just gave us a preview of the politicking which he will no doubt indulge in at Pudimoe for the next three years, this afternoon he touched on a few points which had substance in them. Therefore I want to take the trouble to reply to them. The first is in regard to the Transkeian traders. I shall devote attention to the United Party’s concern about the protection of the economic interests of the Transkeian traders against Bantu competition in a Bantu area on the day when the United Party is prepared to protect the White workers in the White areas against competition from the Bantu, by means of job reservation.

Economic protection.

Yes, I am talking about economic protection; the hon. members want economic trade protection in the Bantu areas. The last point the hon. member raised was in regard to industrial development in the Transkei. Now I just want to refer him to the book “The Economics of Under-Developed Countries” by P. T. Bauer and Basil S. Yamey, published by the University of Chicago Press, two recognized experts in regard to the development in the economic sphere particularly of under-developed areas. What do they say in regard to his concept of £100,000,000, the typical misleading we get in connection with the development of the Bantu areas?—

Then he goes on to advocate small-scale industries as the only possible industries for the development of all the Bantu states in Africa. So much for the two points which were made.

But I want to come back to a point the hon. member made last night, when he again allowed his blood to talk, and when he expressed himself sneeringly in regard to the Afrikaners and the National Party as the political mouthpiece of the Afrikaners, and intimated that the Afrikaners did not have the courage to maintain the White man’s standpoint against pressure from within and without.

The party.

We give expression to Afrikanerdom. The hon. member for Hillbrow should rather keep quiet and ruminate on what he felt at Prieska in his young days as an Afrikaner.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) stated the proposition that we view this Bill from the angle of group interests and approach it with trepidation. Now I do not think that in regard to an accusation of being afraid one should brag, or extol oneself even in reply to bragging. But in regard to being afraid I can tell the United Party this. Their standpoint reflects their fear of the reality of our times. Their standpoint reveals that they are afraid to tell the truth as to what their eventual policy is and it reveals fear of the situation of our country as an African state. But what is more important, it concerns the question of viewing this problem from a group standpoint. On that I want to say that the United Party has approached this whole debate in a most cynical manner from a purely party-political group interest point of view. In the first place they hope by means of this debate to catch the Afrikanderdom napping by giving wrong interpretations to the objects of this Bill. And if once Afrikanerdom, as it finds its political expression in the National Party, loses its political power, then hon. members opposite have admitted here what their standpoint is from the point of view of their group interests. In the first place they will then try to gouge out the eyes of the bound Samson of Afrikanerdom by making sure that they obtain 12 or 15 seats in the Cape Province permanently by means of the Coloured vote, and in the second place they will want to bind them with the ropes of eight Bantu Representatives here. That is a naked attempt to seek to promote their interests as a group, because the United Party is aware that the only possible way for them to come into power and stay there for any length of time lies in this announced federation policy of seeking political allies behind the colour bar. And then they still talk about political group interests!

Another matter which was raised here by the hon. member for Point and other hon. members the question of the eventual sovereign independence of the Transkei. Those hon. members say, and I think it is correct on the basis of this debate, that the crux of this Bill is not necessarily contained in its provisions, but that this measure is an expression of a policy which has been announced previously. On this basis they say that the National Party and the Government have promised sovereign independence to the Bantu homelands.

Hear, hear!

That is not true. What is true is that the Prime Minister stated, and Nationalist speakers repeated it again and again, that our party and this Government will not be afraid of granting full independence to a Bantu homeland if the development of the Bantu in the course of history warrants and necessitates it. In other words, no artificial barrier has been created by saying that as a matter of policy this will not happen. But never has it been stated that it is our object, that it is the pattern of action of the National Party, to grant sovereign independence to those Bantu homelands. That is a matter which depends on the initiative and the ability of the Bantu on the one hand, and the dictates of history on the other.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Not at the moment. What does this assurance given by the National Party mean? It means that under the pressure of domestic and foreign historical forces which demand the political evolution of the Bantu, we accept that the result may be that those Bantu homelands may become sovereignly independent.

But what about the United Party? Their alternative is that under the pressure of these domestic and foreign historical forces they will give expression to the political evolution of the Bantu by giving the Bantu eight members in this House. As against that, the standpoint of the National Party is very clear: We would rather grant sovereign independence to the Bantu homeland than give the Bantu one vote and one member here to have a say over the White homeland. That is the difference between the two parties, and I hope it is now clear. The question has been asked: What is safer, eight members here or eight Bantu homelands? Our reply is quite clear. To us it is a matter of life and death that the Bantu in South Africa will not deprive us of our right to self-determination by having a share in the Government of White South Africa. Every nation ought to fight to retain its right of self-determination, and that is what the United Party wants to grant as a voluntary concession one day to fortify its potential political position. To conclude, in so far as sovereign independence is concerned: Many dangers have been mentioned which may arise at the stage when the Bantu homelands become sovereignly independent. I just want to deal with these dangers generally and make this statement: Every danger which will arise because the Bantu homelands become independent is a danger which is inherent in our position as a White state on the Black continent of Africa. No new dangers are being created; these are dangers which are inherent in the fact that God has destined us to live here, dangers with which we should cope if we want to survive as a nation.

I should now like to deal with the question which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked in his speech. He asked: Why should this Government be able to limit the Coloured representation in this House permanently to four, and why will the United Party not be able to limit the Bantu representation permanently to eight? Now I first want to give three replies which are applicable to the Coloured and the Bantu, and then an additional two. In the first place the Coloureds are a related national group, and not a different, antipathetic majority group which enjoys continental support against the White régime here. Therefore we believe that it is possible permanently to keep the related Coloured group in a certain position in terms of the arbitration of the White electorate, and for that reason also we believe that it will not be possible for the United Party permanently to keep the Bantu in a definite position. In the second place the Coloureds are numerically a minority group vis-à-vis the Whites in South Africa, whereas the Bantu are numerically a four to one majority group vis-à-vis the Whites. Therefore I believe that it is possible to maintain the Coloured representation at a certain figure, whereas it is not possible to do so in the case of the Bantu representation. And a very important third reason is that the National Party as a political body is not dependent for its power, nor will it be for the foreseeable future, on the four Coloured representatives, whereas the United Party, if it ever comes into power, will be dependent for the continuation of its power on the eight Bantu representatives in this House. For that reason there is a tremendous difference. and there is a great probability that the United Party will extend that representation. But there are two further reasons.

How will your party keep the number of Bantu representatives at nil?

If the hon. member had listened to what I was saying he would known the reply to that question.

There are two further reasons I wish to mention, and that is the fourth reason why the number of Bantu representatives will not remain at eight, and that is that the United Party has not yet told us in this House the full truth in regard to federal Bantu representation. They have spoken about the eight Bantu representatives, the eight urban representatives. That is in terms of Part two of their political plan, which reads—

But Part three of their programme has also been announced, and it is this—

And this race federation has at all times, according to the United Party statements made, also had a geographic content, namely that the essentially Bantu areas will have to play a part in this federation as geographical units. In addition to these eight Bantu representations in this House they mention the United Party know that they mean to have additional representatives for the Bantu areas in this Parliament which will be turned into a federal Parliament.

The final reason I want to advance as to why they will not be able to limit the Bantu representatives to eight is their political conception of the nation and of society in South Africa. The Leader of the Opposition has stated it as clearly as possible. He advocated that one common allegiance to one nation should be developed on the part of the Whites as well as the Bantu. He said that Pan-Africanism should be combated by an appeal based on a common allegiance on the part of all our people to one State, the Republic of South Africa—and “all our people” includes the Whites as well as the non-Whites. He spoke about building up a common allegiance to the Republic, a policy which is aimed at building up a common patriotism and a common ideology to combat the siren call of Pan-Africanism. Well, one cannot as the basis of one’s whole political philosophy accept that the Black man forms part of one’s nation and shares one common loyalty and is susceptible to the same patriotism that one has, and then turn round and say: You will be permanently limited to having eight representatives. Therefore the National Party says that it is our policy, and it is possible, to maintain the Coloured representation as it is to-day. but for the United Party it is impossible to lend truth to their proposition that the Bantu representation will be limited to eight members in this House.

But let us take another aspect in regard to which the parties are opposed to each other and which is perhaps the crux of this matter. That is the different party views about the pattern of relations in South Africa, and what is true of South Africa is also true of the continent. We have now had contact with the Bantu here for about 1½ centuries. For the first half-century it was a contact of group against group and a contact of strife, but for almost a century now there has been peace, and what was the cardinal characteristic of the relations between White and Bantu during this century? I should say that it was the historical development of a master and servant relationship. The White man brought a socio-economic order here which is quite foreign to the Bantu in every respect. The White man knew more and was the superior of the Bantu in every sphere. The most ignorant White man knew more than the most developed Bantu, and was more at home in this economic sphere, and finally the social and political group structure of the Bantu was broken in every significant respect. The master and servant relationship which arose was projected from the individual to the State pattern, and that is where the idea of trusteeship or guardianship originated. The White State, as a good master and employer, had to care for the non-White servant. This basis of White-Bantu relationship has been upset, and the changes which came about were caused not by the winds of change Mr. Macmillan referred to so dramatically, although they were assisted by events after the last war, but the real changes came about because the Bantu became acquainted with our socio-economic order, and many Bantu acquired the skills and the knowledge necessary to maintain themselves in our economic order. The most important of all—and that is the key to Africa and to our country to-day—is that a new group consciousness has developed amongst the Bantu after their social disruption during the previous century. In South Africa this group consciousness is at least still canalized largely on an ethnic basis, but the cardinal characteristic of the Bantu to-day is that he has acquired a group consciousness, and now the stage of emancipation has evidently been reached. For years we spoke about trusteeship and guardianship and said that the time would arrive when the ward would have to be emancipated from the care of his guardian. That time has now arrived. The old dispensation is something of the past. How will this emancipation take place? Are we going to have a projection of the old master and servant relationship, the individualistic relationship, and say that the individual Bantu should be given more rights, or will we let this emancipation take place on group basis and grant recognition to the group consciousness? That was where the British policy in Africa failed and the fault with Mr. Macmillan’s motto of “merit and merit alone”. The Bantu here and in Africa is in fact not interested in the individual Bantu obtaining more opportunities to achieve something, but what the Bantu here and in Africa really want is recognition of their communal existence as a group; they want to be recognized as a group. In passing, incidentally it was the traditional Voortrekker standpoint that the relationships should be regulated communally, as group towards group. But I just want to make the point that where we have now come to the parting of the ways, where the old period of the master and servant relationship is past and new relations have to be created between the Whites and the Bantu, we have on the one hand the standpoint of the United Party that the individual Bantu should receive recognition according to merit. The developed Bantu must not be prevented by the colour bar from earning increasingly more, the politically conscious Bantu should be given the opportunity for political expression. That is the individual approach. As against that, the approach of our party is on the basis of the communal and group existence. We believe that the new relationship between the White man and the Bantu can only be determined successfully and permanently if there is a conciliation between the Whites as a group on the one hand and the Bantu as a group on the other. And that is the basis of this Transkei Bill. Our basic standpoint differs from that of hon. members opposite. We believe that a successful arrangement cannot be reached by granting privileges to individual Bantu. We believe that the Bantu themselves do not want that; we believe that the Bantu really want to be able to express themselves as a group. And this Transkei Bill is a method of giving expression to the desires of the Bantu to come to an arrangement as a group with the Whites whereby they will be granted recognition as a group. That is the crux of the difference between us. We must study history and interpret the events in Africa in order to ascertain who is right and who is wrong.

I want to conclude by referring to the future of the Transkei, and more particularly its constitutional future. I have already dealt with the idea of sovereign independence, but I want to put it this way: What do we on this side of the House foresee for the future? In the first place we believe that the Transkei has economic viability. I should have liked to go into this subject if time permitted me to do so, but in passing I want to say that the Transkei has 17 per cent to 19 per cent of the water resources of the Republic. The potential of the Transkei to generate electricity is half that of the Orange River scheme. The Transkei has a potential economic viability. But the know-how, the technique and the entrepreneurial guidance for the Transkei is in the Republic. The Transkei falls within the monetary and fiscal sphere of the Republic, and it is almost impossible to visualize it as having a separate monetary and fiscal policy. We believe that the Transkei, strangely enough, is the ideal realization of the old United Party slogan of justice to the Bantu, and in this case freedom to the Bantu, under White leadership. That is in fact the essence of the Prime Minister’s view of the future. The hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) asked what the Prime Minister meant by an eventual commonwealth relationship. Constitutionally a commonwealth relationship as the Prime Minister outlined it, would be nothing else but a confederal relationship in which there would be Black states linked confederally with the White heartland. The crux of the confederation is that the confederal states will not derogate from each other’s sovereignty, and that the one will not exercise control over the other. In such a situation there is nothing inherently against the Republic, as the confederal leader, keeping control over the central monetary, military and diplomatic powers. What is in favour of this confederal view is the fact that it leaves room for the development of the whole of Southern Africa, of other areas in Southern Africa which are now constitutionally related to us or which may become so in future. I want to point out that such a confederal concept, in which certain confederal states will have no part to play in the army, and in the monetary and fiscal policy, will not necessarily be regarded as not being sovereign internationally. The hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) should make a study of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and the Byeolo-Russian Soviet Republic, which are constituent parts of the Union of Soviet Republics, but which have been granted international recognition as sovereign states. This confederal concept is infinitely adaptable. And why should this confederal concept differ so much from the federation plan of the United Party? The difference is this. The federal concept of the United Party results in the Black areas having a share in the sovereignty of the White area. The result will be that Bantu individuals will be able to exercise political power in the White state, and finally, as I have already indicated, it does not give expression to the desire on the part of the Bantu to exist as a group of their own.

I want to conclude by saying this. It is unimportant in a debate like this whether we win a seat for the National Party or a seat for the United Party. The question is whether at this stage we know and understand the forces of history with which we are dealing, whether we are fearlessly and unselfishly devoted to seeking our future salvation, as history has taught us; and in the third place, are we preserving the essence of the values derived from the past in terms of the present and the future? I believe the National Party is doing so, particularly in so far as the latter is concerned. The essence of our values derived from the past is the maintenance of the right of self-determination of the Whites in the White area. That is the highest value we wish to preserve. Therefore we can fearlessly answer this question affirmatively and say that we are trying to interpret history correctly, that we are trying to give expression to what history has taught us, that we recognize the undercurrent of history and that on the foundations of the past we are trying to give form to our future existence. I am afraid that the United Party is on the one hand deterred by their own self-interest from doing so, and on the other hand their actions are based on a few cardinal mistakes and on the wrong approach, which make their point of view basically unacceptable as a solution for ensuring the safety of our country in these times.

I have listened to this debate carefully, and I am sorry to say I have still not heard any justification for the introduction of this legislation. Let me say at the very outset that I belong to that group—and I am proud to belong to it—which feels that this is one of the most drastic steps this country has ever taken, and which will possibly have greater repercussions on the Whites and the Bantu of this country than anything we have ever had before us in this House by way of legislation. In this state of unrest, with division and hatreds in the Transkei, surely this Government realizes that to introduce legislation of this type at this time, even if it is justified, is one of its biggest mistakes. I maintain that this legislation can only lead to disaster. I want to pose this question to the hon. the Minister. Is he blind to the direction in which the Native is going in the Transkei and to the influences which are being brought to bear on him? This Government poses as being the enemies of Communism. I want to ask the Minister just to look at the picture in the Transkei as we have it to-day, and believe me, Sir, I have a right to speak, knowing what I do about them and living in close proximity to them. Can the Minister deny that among the leaders in the Transkei to-day you have some of the keenest students of Trotski and Lenin, and that these are the people who are leading the Transkei to-day? If the Minister asks me I will tell him how I know all these things. They have lent themselves to Communism over the years and they are practising under the Poqo movement what can only be described as Communism. They were ardent supporters of Clements Kadali, Moses Kotane and Sam Kahn, who was one of their instructors, and another of them was an ex-Senator, a self-confessed communist. Those are the people who indoctrinated many of the present leaders of the Transkei. Has the Minister any reason to suggest that they have changed their ideas? These are the people who have whipped up the anti-White feeling amongst the Bantu of the Transkei during the last ten or 15 years. They are anti-White and advocate the overthrow of the White people, and it has been going on for a long time. But some of them quite obviously have changed direction, and because they have changed direction they are now being despised in the Transkei. They are accused of conniving with the Whites, and their lives are in danger, as the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) said. The Minister knows that. He has a cordon around some of these leaders which makes it impossible for anyone to get at those people.

Added to this there have been tens, and in my opinion hundreds, of Bantu who have left our shores and have gone via Hungary to Moscow, where they were schooled, and they have returned to our shores. As what? Trained in sabotage, professional saboteurs and ardent communists, and agitators of the worst order, with one object only, and that is to hound the White man out of South Africa, which is the motto of Poqo. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister is going to tell us that he has not been warned of that, because may I remind him that the ex-member for Springs, Mr. Sutter, when he was in this House in 1951, as recorded in about ten columns of Hansard, warned this country of the communist influences which were being brought into this country, and he actually challenged the Government to indemnify him and some of those people if he gave the names and exposed the whole of what was going on. But it was not accepted by the Government. They were then warned that there were Natives leaving this country and coming back indoctrinated and as agitators. Those men are at large in the Transkei to-day and in our urban areas. In confirmation of that, we have no less an individual than Mr. Mbundla, and he should know. In Frank Buchman’s Secrets this is what he says—

Surely that is sufficient warning—and that is a very recent warning—of what the intentions are behind the people whom the Minister suggests are demanding this legislation.

Now the traders of the Transkei have gone out of their way to warn this Government of the infiltration of communist influences into the Transkei. Members of Parliament have warned them. There are some members of Parliament here who have made it their duty to get as nearly as possible to the extent of the influences of Communism, not only in the Transkei but also in the White areas. Now, these men have worked up these hatreds. It is this communist-inspired state of mind with hatreds unparalleled in the history of our country which has led to the greatest state of hostility against the White man that has ever existed before, when murders of the Mau-Mau type are being committed, with mutilation of the victims, and that is a common occurrence in the Transkei to-day. There is lawlessness that we have never before experienced in the Transkei, with hut-burnings on a scale only parallel with the invasions of Chaka. It is in this inflamed state of mind that we propose giving independence to the Transkei. The position is just this. We have the spokesmen on behalf of Chief Kaiser Matanzima telling us that if they find Poqo they will cut their throat. Another of his indunas said that they should have their brains bashed in. That is the sort of thing which is going on in the Transkei. Is that the sort of atmosphere in which to grant self-government?

But Poqo is a dangerous movement which should be uprooted.

Can the Chief Whip suggest how they can over come this difficulty? By giving them independence? Can hon. members realize what will happen if they get independence while this spirit prevails in the Transkei?

When Blacks do that to Blacks, what happens when Blacks do it to Whites?

One of the things that is very interesting is one of the statements which has not been dealt with in this House. It appeared in the Daily Despatch in November last year in which Chief Kaiser Matanzima said—

Is the hon. the Minister satisfied with that? They want to have the executive positions in their own Government in order that they may direct the economy of their country in the interests of the Bantu of the Transkei. Would he apply that to the traders of the Transkei, and see what happens? The Bantu would like the monopoly of trade in their own areas. These are the demands made of the Minister at this early stage. Does he realize that those 600 traders are the men who have carried the labour force to the mines and commerce and industry and agriculture for generations, and they had to carry them financially over the years, because if they go off on contract for six to 12 months, who cares for and feeds their families during that period? The traders of the Transkei. Can the Minister tell me that he can substitute Bantu traders for the White traders and he will still have the labour force available that he has now? [Interjections.] What is interesting is the statement that only in this way will the Bantu live peacefully with his White neighbours. What a challenge! In other words, this is what Kaiser Matanzima means. If he does not get complete control of every department, and if he does not get all the executive positions and the monopoly in trade, he is not prepared to live peacefully with his White neighbours. Has the Minister studied the many statements made by this gentleman? He goes on to say—

May I add this, that knowing him as I know him, he will use both. He finishes up by making an extremely interesting statement—

Is the Minister satisfied with that? Has the Minister any right to think that Kaiser Matanzima has any intention of changing his mind towards the Whites of this country?

What is important is that this Bill is understood by very few, and I would not even include Kaiser Matanzima among the few who understand it, because otherwise he could not have made the remarks he did when the language question was debated in this House. Not one of us wanted to deny Xhosa its right to be an official language of the Transkei. What is important is whether the masses understand it, and if they do not understand it, what they do understand? What do those millions understand? They understand one thing only, and I quote what was said by Matanzima himself: He used the word which means that he will release them from the bondage of the White man. Inkululeko. It releases them from the bondage of the White man to do what they like, when they like, how they like, and not in the Transkei only but anywhere in southern Africa. That is the general belief of the rank and file, of the masses, in this country to-day. Sir, what is going to happen when he tries to disabuse their minds and tells them what their real rights will be? To my mind this is dangeroux legislation to be playing with under present conditions. As I have said, we are courting disaster. May I put this to the hon. the Minister. Does he really understand what the meaning of Poqo is? It is supposed to be a religious organization, but religion only enters into it inasmuch as they are pledged to destroy every White man they can. Sir, it is nothing new; it came down the east coast with the Black man when he crossed the equator. It is nothing new here therefore, but they have combined it with their communistic inclinations and their indoctrination by those who have been out of the country. I want to say at this stage that for every Native who is endorsed out of the European areas such as the Western Province and out of her large cities of South Africa, you send out one more recruit for Poqo, and everyone with whom he comes into contact becomes a new recruit for Poqo, and the Minister himself knows to what extent intimidation takes place and what effect this is having on the Bantu. As far as the Bill is concerned may I say that the Minister has not indicated nor has a single speaker on that side indicated what protection the European trader is to get for his life, not only for his property. What protection is the hon. the Minister offering in this Bill for Border farmers? We have listened to the condemnations from everybody—and we agree with them—of what Britain has done in some of the emergent states north of us. But that is precisely what this Minister is going to do to the trader in the Transkei and he is going to do precisely that to the Border farmers. That is an undeniable fact. Sir, there is a clause in this Bill which deals with these particular borders. Can the Minister suggest for one moment that he is likely to come to a compromise with this Government that has already shown its hostility even before they have been given independence. How he is going to arrive at an amicable solution in regard to the borders of the future I do not know, because here they have staked their claims. This is what Nelson Marambana says—

He has staked his claim. Kaiser Matanzima says that the White man has no claim to any territory between the Fish River and Zululand. Sir, I wish I was nearer to Qamata because I would like to ask him which Fish River he means—the one north of the Orange River or this one, because I think that is the claim that they may stake in the course of time. Sir, I want to say this to the hon. the Minister: I do wish that he was either a trader in the Transkei or that he had a farm on those borders so that he can experience what we have had to experience; then I think he would have a sense of appreciation; then he would not be so keen on sikelele iAfrika as he is, whose last lines would be: siGlote aBelungu. He knows what that means too. It means: “We will hound out the White man”. We have some 400 miles of these boundaries in the two constituencies that we have in the Border districts. On the eastern side there are 150 miles where there are two police posts and where there have been two police posts for the last 20 years. Is that the only protection that the Minister is going to give us against these Natives when they get this freedom, a freedom over which we will have no control? Things are bad enough now; what are they going to be like when there is no control on the other side? Those farmers cannot fence their farms. I have pleaded with the Minister in this connection for years. The cannot fence; why? Because there is nothing protecting their properties, and under the new set-up the traders and farmers are just being thrown to the wolves, if I may use that word, and in using it I would perhaps be more correct than the hon. the Minister because they are being thrown to the wolves. Sir, we have thefts, stock thefts, thefts of grazing, destruction, hunting gangs, tsotsis, raiding gangs between the Transkei and the inside reserves in the corridor itself. What is the hon. the Minister going to do about it? He knows full well that he has got to have a buffer strip there at some time. Surely that should have been arranged before we started talking about independence for people over whom we have no control whatsoever. Sir, it was interesting to listen to the hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. H. J. Botha). I wonder if he thought of going back to 1957 when the former member for Aliwal (Capt. G. H. F. Strydom) moved a private motion in this House, a motion which was seconded by the hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. J. J. Fouche). In a speech which is reported over seven columns in Hansard he made an impassioned plea for some protection for the Border farmers both in the Transkei and Basutoland, and nothing has been done there. But it was interesting to hear the hon. member for Aliwal telling us how harmonious the relations were right throughout that area. It sounds laughable. It makes me laugh.

It would be if you people had left them alone.

That is precisely what you are going to do; you are going to leave them alone, and I can assure the hon. member that he will come back to the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development for some protection and help in the not too distant future.

Now I want to deal with another question which is seriously affecting the whole of agriculture in this country. The land tenure business has been left quite unattended. Agriculture is being handed over to the Natives for their own control. In spite of the best brains that they have in the Transkei the Minister knows and has admitted from time to time the damage that has been done, the destruction that has been wrought, in the Transkei. It is difficult country to destroy, but the hon. the Minister knows of the revolt against the soil erosion and soil conservation and betterment schemes. He has only got a few sections now that have submitted to his betterment schemes. There is a complete disregard of conservation schemes, of the protection of your water sheds and water, fencing, rotational cropping and grazing schemes. The Minister knows that there is a revolt againt the dipping scheme for the control of parasites. This is a most difficult matter. The Minister knows what troubles the whole country has had. He knows of the rinderpest, lung sickness and east coast fever that Tavaged the Transkei, and because it got into the Transkei and there was no control it ravaged the rest of South Africa. What is going to happen under the new system? The Minister knows that their refusal to accept dipping regulations make it necessary to keep those Natives under control, under quarantine for a period of over 40 years, and there are some of those areas which are not out of quarantine yet. He knows the ravages of the axe and fire, but he is prepared to hand over agriculture to them, and the good work that he has done he is prepared to hand back to them for destruction. Does the Minister really think that the Natives of the Transkei can control agriculture? Of course they cannot, and not even under the influences that we are likely to make felt will they do anything about it, and what will happen in the end is that this country will be handed back to South Africa as a dust bowl, and what will we have achieved in the process?

Then I come to an extremely important item, an item that to me is most important, and that is that we are in imminent danger as far as our labour force in this country is concerned. I suppose the hon. the Minister read with interest the observations made by Kaiser Matanzima in the statement issued by him. He is going to take control of all labour because they have no trade unions to protect them against exploitation by Whites. Does the hon. the Minister realize what that means? Those Natives will come under premium from this independent Government; they will have to be under licence; they will be under wage control regardless of efficiency. Are we going to be satisfied with that state of affairs and will commerce and industry be satisfied with it? Under that system the hon. the Minister knows it—Kaiser Matanzima will be entitled to complete control. He will have a weapon in his hands that can paralyse industry and commerce and agriculture in any area where labour is required. Do not let us bluff ourselves that they cannot strike. They know that that is the greatest weapon in their hands today, and they will strike.

Why would they quarrel with their own food?

Quite obviously the hon. member does not know the Native. He is one of the worst fanatics that we have in the world. Does the hon. member realize that in this whole set-up you have only about 1,500,000 in the Transkei, and you have 2,000,000 representing a fifth column in the midst of the Europeans—all under the control of a trade union in the Transkei. They will be able to walk out whenever they like. Sir, if these hon. members knew the extent of intimidation amongst those people, I think they would realize that a serious state of affairs exist in this country. We are inviting trouble. This Government has scorned the offer made by this side to find common ground that might help to solve our problems. If they are too difficult to solve we can perhaps manage them, but and until such time as this Government uses some magnanimity in their attempts to solve its problems rather than to force legislation at this time through the House, particularly under the conditions such as those which exist in the Transkei, so long will this country be deprived of the benefits which it can have.

The hon. member for King William’s Town (Mr. Warren) is afraid of a fifth column which will be created in the White area. His solution for combating that fifth column is to give them co-authority with the Whites. But at this late hour I should like to move—

I second.