Whilst one appreciates that most of these amendments were probably put in by the hon. the Minister in the Other Place at the request of the Association of Law Societies, I wonder if he would be so good as to explain the new paragraph (j) in this clause. It provides for regulations to be made exempting certain persons practising in adjacent territories, i.e., Rhodesia and the High Commission Territories, from service of articles. It would also seem that they may be exempted permanently, not temporarily, from writing the examination in the English or the Afrikaans language. This appears to be a privilege which South African citizens practising at the Side Bar are not entitled to have. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister would explain why it is that this has been brought about and whether difficulty is foreseen in certain practitioners from adjacent territories coming to the Republic who will never ever become proficient in one or other of our two official languages?

I brought about this amendment at the request of the Rhodesian attorneys. I gladly brought about those changes in case Rhodesian attorneys should be forced to come and practise here as a result of circumstances which I need not explain here, circumstances which the hon. member understands just as well as I do. These changes, after all, will now place them on the same footing on which they were before we passed our new legislation. I felt that I could make this concession to them under the specific circumstances which obtain at the present time.

We had an idea that that was the reason. We are very grateful for the fact that this amendment has been brought about. We believe that the Law Society was perfectly correct in asking that this be done.

Just to put the record straight, the Law Society did not ask for this. I inserted this clause after consultation with the Rhodesian attorneys.

New clause put and agreed to.

New Clause 18 and amendments in old Clauses 17, 21, 24 and 28 put and agreed to.

On Wednesday when the hon. the Minister introduced his Budget we on this side of the House very briefly gave an indication of our general reaction to his speech and his proposals. It is now the time to state our reaction more particularly and in greater detail. In order to indicate for the benefit of members of the House what our main points of criticism, constructive criticism, will be in this debate I should like to read the amendment we propose to the Minister’s motion—

1. (1) is concerned about the problems of railwaymen and is taking action to meet the legitimate claims of the staff;
2. (2) is taking active and efficient steps to alleviate the staff shortage on the South African Railways and Harbours, which is causing many employees real hardship and threatens serious consequences for South Africa;
3. (3) will inform Parliament and the public more fully of its plans for the implementation, or otherwise, of the recommendations of the Committee on Railway Rating Policy and Industrial Location in South Africa in order to remove uncertainty in the minds of railway users, producers and consumers; and
4. (4) will show greater efficiency and realism in planning the South African Railways and Harbours as part of the transport system of the Republic.”.

In discussing this amendment and the hon. the Minister’s proposals we on this side of the House shall deal with broad principles only. We do not want to get bogged down in little details and particulars. We feel it is not the function of the Opposition to try to manage the South African Railways and Harbours. It is our function to criticize the policy of the Government in guiding the management and the administration of this great undertaking. We shall therefore deal with particulars only if they are in themselves of great importance, of such importance that they should be elevated to principle; or otherwise we shall deal with particulars to illustrate the principles we try to make.

One of the major things to which we want to draw the attention of the House is that the difficulties the S.A. Railways are experiencing to-day, and they are experiencing great difficulties as the hon. the Minister admitted on almost every page of his speech, are mostly due to Government policy. They are not the fault of the Minister as an individual; they are not the fault of the Administration or the Management or the people who work on the South African Railways; they result from the fundamental, insuperable weaknesses of the policy of the present Government. We have the same position we had in 1954 when the S.A. Railways and Harbours faced a major crisis, a major crisis when a Minister had to be sacrificed in order to allay public unrest. But that crisis was due, as we said at the time, to weaknesses in Government policy. It was due to the fact that the Government, after it had assumed power in 1948, could not visualize the potential of South Africa as it had been stimulated by the war effort. They cut down on capital expenditure at the rate of millions and millions of pounds per year and landed our transport system in a hopeless mess. The position is similar to-day. It is true there is no restriction to-day on the part of the Government on the money made available to the S.A. Railways for capital expenditure. The Railways seem to get unlimited funds. But to-day the S.A. Railways and Harbours are suffering, like so many other sectors of enterprise in South Africa, from a manpower shortage, a manpower shortage which results from many causes but principally, and immediately, for the purposes of this debate, from the Government’s lack of imagination in curtailing the United Party’s immigration policy from 1948 to 1961. It is tragic to reflect what the value would have been to South Africa of another 250,000, perhaps 500,000, trained White people, White people who could have come to South Africa had it not been for the complete short-sightedness and lack of vision on the part of the Government.

It is not only the manpower shortage which is giving the Railways difficulty. There are still, unfortunately, examples of bad planning and lack of foresight. It is amazing that this should be so when one recalls a statement by the hon. the Minister of Finance earlier this Session, that the present economic upsurge in South Africa had been planned and foreseen by the Government. It is a pity that the Minister of Railways and Harbours—he is entitled to it—was not taken into the confidence of the Government. But that is by the way. Let us be specific. I think it is tragic that when representations were made many years ago by motoring organizations and by this side of the House for the construction of an oil pipeline from Durban to Johannesburg those suggestions were treated with scorn to be revised a year or two ago after valuable time had been lost. To-day we all know that one of the major problems facing the S.A. Railways is the congestion at Durban harbour and the inability of the S.A. Railways to move the goods that come to Durban from there to the interior, especially to the Witwatersrand. The pipeline which is now being constructed will not be finished until another two winters have passed. The S.A. Railways are likely to face another two winters of major crises before the tremendous relief that the Railways can get from the operation of this pipeline will become effective. Sir, to give you a minor example, intended to illustrate the principle, and illustrate it very forcibly. I refer to the Hex River tunnel. That that was one of the favourite plans of the old United Party regime because it was a spectacular plan; it was the sort of plan that appealed to the public’s imagination. I take it it was for this reason that this Government abandoned it. How could they confess to the people that the previous United Party régime had great foresight and vision in these things? Now the plan is being revived. I am sure the hon. the Minister will give us very good reasons why it has to be revived at this stage. What is interesting, Sir, is that in those days before 1948 it was expected that the construction of this tunnel would cost about R2,000,000.

£2,000,000.

Now the plan has been revived. It is not going to cost £2,000,000 but R14,000,000—almost four times as much. That is inevitable because in the years that have intervened costs have risen, the value of money has depreciated. But it gives us an indication of what these delays and this lack of foresight on the part of the Government is costing the taxpayers of South Africa.

There is the other example where planning has failed the South African Railways and that is in the construction of certain lines which, if they had been constructed, would greatly have alleviated the pressure on certain sectors of the Railways. My favourite example—I hope I get the names right this time—is the line between Commondale and Gandover. That line will bring great relief to the Natal system by taking away the pressure of the growing traffic in Zululand on the existing lines. It is short; it is a comparatively easy line and it could have been built by now. Instead of which, of course, we have had the very imaginative plan on the part of the Government to construct a line from Vryheid to Empangeni through some of the most difficult mountainous terrain in South Africa, a line which inevitably will take many, many years to complete. Then I think of the very interesting and important line, a line which has been in the Brown Book for six or seven years, I think, the short line to connect Midway with Natalspruit south of the Witwatersrand. This line would do tremendously much to divert traffic from the over-congested Witwatersrand lines, marshalling yards and stations. I think that has been on the Brown Book since 1958 and yet not constructed.

Another example is the line from Modder River to Koffiefontein. Why does the Government not give attention to that? That line will divert the ore traffic from Sichen and Hotazel, and those parts, away from the overcrowded De Aar section. These are examples of lack of planning. The third point of a general nature I should like to mention is that I do hope the hon. the Minister and hon. members opposite will not get too much comfort from the surplus which the Minister has announced. We are glad there is a surplus; we have already congratulated all those concerned with it. But a surplus at a time like this is not a criterion of efficiency. Indeed when a railway system is over-taxed, as our system is, then there is a tendency for it, in spite of inefficiency, to show a surplus, because everything you have to offer is taken up. But that does not mean that everything you offer is sufficient for the needs of the country.

I want to return specifically to the amendment I have moved. I want to deal with the first two legs of that amendment which refer to the problems of the staff and the shortage of manpower on the S.A. Railways and Harbours; these two go together. The hon. the Minister indicated in his speech that he was short of about 7,500 people in various grades. I would like to ask him whether that is the total shortage? When he puts the figure at 7,500 does he include the shortage of trainees to fill the various grades on the S.A. Railways? I ask this question, Sir, because I am also puzzled about the fact that the White graded establishment of the S.A. Railways and Harbours seems to be coming smaller. A year or two ago it was quoted as being about 105,000 and now it is 102,000-odd according to the Minister’s speech. What has happened to the other 3,000? It should also be noted in which categories the shortage is most noticeable. It is most noticeable in the categories of the highly skilled, the engineer and the technician. It is also most noticeable in other categories who have to do with the running of our trains. Indeed I believe, and I think the Minister will agree with me, that it is a miracle that our trains have been kept running in the past year in the manner and to the extent to which they were. They could have been kept running only at the cost of terrific strain on the part of the staff concerned. When the Minister speaks in his speech, as he does again and again, of how the S.A. Railways and Harbours were saved by increased productivity I think it is a pity that he did not emphasize that that increased productivity was only made possible by the sweat and the exhaustion of a large section of the staff of the S.A. Railways. Yet there were times last year, and I am afraid there are going to be times again this year, when even that tremendous effort, even that tremendous sacrifice on the part of the staff of the S.A. Railways and Harbours, was not fully adequate to meet the demands made upon our national transport system.

Sir, at the time of the shortage I took the trouble of visiting one or two of the marshalling yards on the Witwatersrand to have a look for myself. I went to places like Angelo, Apex and Welgedacht, to give only a few examples. I went to others as well. Everywhere one saw the same picture owing, I think, to the shortage of shunters especially. One saw tremendous congestion and bundling up of trains outside these marshalling yards and outside the signals. On one occasion I counted as many as 40 trains standing outside waiting to go into the marshalling yard. I spoke to some of the people. I spoke to an engine driver who told me he had been sitting in his cab for 16 hours. He had been on duty for 16 hours and that was not rare. I found examples of members of the running staff who had been on duty almost without a break for as much as 20 hours. I think that proves the tremendous sacrifice on the part of the railwaymen, something for which the people of South Africa should indeed be grateful. Every member of the staff to do with the running of the trains during the last winter has had to give super-human effort to the S.A. Railways and Harbours. I was told that at times shunters had, for a long period, regularly to work a 12 hour shift. It became almost a matter of course for them to work 12 hours and not less. In January—this is a case which was brought to my attention supported by documents—a guard in Natal was paid R524 for one month’s service. That is excellent; it is a marvellous income. But how did he earn that income? He earned it because during that whole month of 31 days he could only spend 49 hours at his home depot. Think of it, Sir: out of a month of 744 hours he spent only 49 hours at or near his home. I do not want hon. members to imagine that this man stayed awake and did not rest or sleep all this time. I assume that between signals, when the train was standing at stations, he did have time to rest; but is it fair, is it just that a man should be on duty—that is what it amounts to—for almost 700 hours in one month with only 49 hours at his home depot? That is why we on this side of the House, and I am sure hon. members opposite as well, pay special tribute to those members of the staff who are concerned with the running of our trains in this time of crisis. But we should at the same time realize that this cannot continue as normal practice. We should realize that this must lead to exhaustion on the part of the staff and that it must endanger the safety of the people who use the South African Railways. It cannot continue. It is humanly impossible that such a situation should continue. Many members of the staff to-day are unhappy. They are short-tempered. They are not normal in their reactions because of the strain that is put on them. At the same time they are still subject—I suppose it is almost unavoidable on a great transport system where the safety of people and goods is involved—to the same discipline to which they have been subject in normal times. Men have come to me and to other hon. members on this side of the House and complained that when they commit some minor transgression of the safety regulation after being exhausted after 14, 15, 16 hours on duty, they are prosecuted and punished as though they were fresh on the job. The sacrifices they are making are not adequately taken into consideration. I am speaking of specific instances.

That is not so.

In the opinion of the staff it is certainly not taken into consideration adequately.

The other difficulty about this unfortunate situation on the Railways is that the standard of living of too many people on the South African Railways is becoming based and dependent upon overtime earnings. It is abnormal and in the long run essentially unhealthy that people should be called upon to work such excessive overtime. It is becoming part and parcel of the pattern of these people’s lives and will eventually become an indispensable constituent of their standard of living. We are living in a time of rising costs; the cost of living is going up. Many of these railway people are adjusting their standard of living to the rising cost because of the overtime they are earning. What will happen when we return to normal in South Africa, when that overtime ceases to the extent which they get to-day? What adjustment will they have to make then? And how will they make it? That is why from many quarters of the staff there is a growing demand that they should be paid a proper basic wage, a proper basic wage which will compensate them for the rising cost of living and that they will not be expected to depend on these abnormal and excessive earnings in overtime to maintain the standard of living to which they have become accustomed.

This was told to my by my hon. friend, the member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton): The railwaymen are saying to us, to him particularly, that what is happening to-day is that a railwayman, because of the overtime he has to work, gives 50 years during his working life, instead of the more normal years, to the South African Railways and Harbours. But when he retires on pension that pension is calculated upon the 40 years of service or less. Overtime is becoming a permanent aspect of these people’s lives. Why should they make this sacrifice, a sacrifice which may even shorten the period for which they will enjoy a pension one day? Why should their pensions only be based on part of their earnings? Why should their pensions not take into account the tremendous sacrifice that they make? The trouble is—and this is perhaps inescapable from the employer’s point of view—that when there are discussions with these people about their standard of living, their wages and their demands, the Government, the employer, looks at what they receive in toto instead of to their basic wages in calculating whether their income is a fair one. This is a situation which should end. The Minister should give particular attention to it. The standard of living of employees on the South African Railways and Harbours should not be related to their total earnings; it should be based on the basic wage without bringing into account the overtime paid.

We had the same position years ago when many employers, including the Government, tended to look upon a man’s earnings plus his cost-of-living allowance as his basic income. That led to such grave injustices as far as pensions and overtime payments were concerned that eventually the Government, and even private employers, consolidated the cost-of-living allowance with basic pay. A similar problem is arising in relation to these overtime earnings. This is a time more than ever before when the Government should give particular attention to maintaining the morale of the workers in a great organization like the S.A. Railways and Harbours. Good labour/management relations are a key to the problem that the hon. the Minister is facing in this country. I want to suggest that there are certain fundamentals to which the Minister should give particular attention. The first one, as far as good labour/management relations are concerned, is that the workers should be taken care of in their essential needs. They should be paid a wage which enables them to feed their family properly, clothe them properly, shelter them properly and to make provision for other necessities like medical treatment and entertainment. I think one can say that to a large extent we in South Africa, including the S.A. Railways and Harbours, do meet this requirement. But it is something we should watch that that requirement is not met by temporary earnings like overtime. We should also inculcate into the workers of the S.A. Railways and Harbours a loyalty, a loyalty not to an abstraction like the State or the Railways organization, but a loyalty which, in the nature of things, must have a concrete symbol, a person. It is a question of personal relations. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister is convinced that the position is satisfactory on the S.A. Railways and Harbours? It is perfectly true that thousands of supervisors on the S.A. Railways have been trained in staff relations. But when one hears of the reaction of the staff in these times of over-exertion to the Superintendent’s discipline, and to the way and manner in which discipline is exercised on the Railways, and to this principle, which I have never yet heard justified by anybody, that after a man has been tried before a court of law and found not guilty he can be charged departmentally, found guilty and heavily punished even to the extent of losing his job for all time, I think notice should be taken of the situation. Every time the courts are overruled it is a vote of no confidence in the court concerned. The men cannot understand it and members of the public cannot understand it. There is much in this relationship between individual and individual, the relationship between the men on the S.A. Railways and the Administration, that can be improved. I think the Minister should devote particular attention to giving every railwayman in South Africa a sense of belonging to this great organization, a sense of functioning in this great organization. Let me give you one example, Sir, of how the Government and the Minister fail to bring about this sense of belonging, this sense of functioning on the part of the staff. At the end of this month a number of the catering establishments of the South African Railways and Harbours are being taken over by private enterprise.

There are a number of people employed in the catering department at East London, Port Elizabeth, Windhoek and Ladysmith, for example, and at most of the airports, who do not know what is going to happen to them when private enterprise takes over. Some of them own homes; some of them have children at school. Surely they could have been told before now what arrangements are being made for their future so that they can make plans concerning their own personal lives. I mention this particular case to illustrate a principle. Why is there not such a relationship between the S.A. Railways, the Minister and the staff of the Railways that these people can also feel: “We belong to the Railways; what happens on the Railways must affect us; we are entitled to know in advance and in good time what is going to happen to us.” There are many things like that which run against the creation of good and high morale on the S.A. Railways and Harbours. There is the feeling, for example, that on the S.A. Railways and Harbours there is such a thing as favourite groups, that promotions to high positions tend to come from particular groups in the S.A. Railways and Harbours. We have had this before. We have had long debates on it. It is not my intention to drag the names of individual members of the staff across the floor of the House but that feeling is there. Again, there is strong resentment that many of the lower grades on the S.A. Railways find themselves in water-tight compartments. They have to look for their advance, whatever their ability may be, in the section in which they happen to find themselves. But when you go to the higher levels you find that people jump from the one department to the other to get promotion. Too often it is said they jump from one particular department which happens to be the favourite one for the moment.

Mention names.

If hon. members insist I will. I am stating the principle now. I shall mention names. There will be another opportunity for that.

Then I think the hon. the Minister should consider the nomination system of promotion on the S.A. Railways. There is much that is amiss with that. It is not always clear to a man who is nominated, perhaps nominated in circumstances which put him very low on the list of possibilities, why he does not get the appointment. He thinks to himself: “Why am I nominated; why have I been nominated more than once and why don’t I get the position?” Is it wise to raise false hopes in the minds of members of the staff? Is it wise to follow a system which causes superior qualities of particular staff members to be lost? Because nominations are limited to certain people and do not permit of the elasticity to go down perhaps a little lower in the ranks to pick up people of exceptional quality. I know of a man who was employed on the S.A. Railways and Harbours as a platelayer, and afterwards as a chef to a very high dignatory. I will not mention his name.

From platelayer to chef?

Yes, Sir. Very strange indeed. But the strangest part is this that this man could not really progress after that. He was an able man, a man who could speak four languages. He left the S.A. Railways in despair because he was in a bottle-neck. And to-day he is the sales manager of one of the greatest international airlines in this country. This is after a year or two outside the Railways and Harbours of South Africa. Surely that shows that some investigation into the system of promotion is necessary especially to permit the discovery of men of exceptional quality.

The other problem as far as labour relations are concerned which deserves the attention of the hon. the Minister, which deserves the attention of every Government Department, is the problem of how pensioners are to be properly compensated for the gradual and persistent depreciation in the value of money. It is obviously wrong that people should buy pensions, because that is what it amounts to, by contributions in expensive money, and then as time goes past and they go on pension the value of their pensions depreciates and they become almost dependent on charity for compensation. It is true that some pensioners, subject to a means test which limits it to the lowest ranks of pensioners, are being compensated and generously compensated in some cases; but what about the middle ranks for example? What indeed about the senior ranks? Why should they, because of Government policy, and it is Government policy not only in South Africa but it seems to be Government policy wherever free enterprise is practiced in the world, fear a steady deterioration of their income to which they contributed with good money because it is the policy of governments to-day to allow creeping inflation as one of the methods to combat undesirable cycles in trade and economic activity? These things should be given attention.

But fundamentally the staff problems the hon. the Minister has on the S.A. Railways and Harbours are problems of manpower shortage to which I have already referred. What puzzles me about the Minister’s speech—I listened carefully to it—is that nowhere, although he dealt with the staff shortage, is there any indication of what the Minister plans in order to overcome that staff situation. I hope this does not mean that the Ministerial eyes are closed to the staff shortage. I hope it does not mean that the hon. the Minister wanted to draw a veil over the staff shortage and his plans to alleviate it, for the purposes of this debate. Surely the Minister is giving this matter thought. Surely he has certain plans. Surely it is time he took, not only Parliament, but his own staff into his confidence as to what these plans are and could be. I want to make some suggestions to the hon. the Minister. He probably will not accept them …

If they are good I will.

They are very good, Sir. They are superb.

You will not gain one vote.

It is very difficult to conduct a debate against an hon. gentleman whose mind is limited to two things—sheep and voters—and sometimes he cannot distinguish between the two. I understand the hon. Minister has a committee dealing with the manpower shortage, and I wonder whether the Minister should not consider asking the committee to concentrate more upon research. Might I, for example, suggest that it should be asked to look into a few matters like the following: Whether the conditions of employment in the S.A. Railways and Harbours are really realistic for the second half of the twentieth century. When I visited these marshalling yards I spoke of, I was surprised that these places were isolated, far away from towns and shops and conveniences like that, with no attempt whatsoever to bring comforts and amenities to the people who have to work there—at that time all of them were regularly working for 12 hours non-stop. They could not buy a packet of cigarettes; they could not buy a hot cup of coffee; they were out in the veld at big marshalling yards; all coming there with their tins of food, but obviously suffering discomfort for the lack of amenities, for the lack of a cafeteria. Thousands of people were working at these various places under the most difficult circumstances. I wonder whether it is realistic to put an advertisement like this in the newspapers—

Now listen—

The rate of pay, Sir: R135 to R155 per month. Even if the hon. Minister gets applications he will not keep a man in that job very long. This is part of the explanation why there is this shortage of manpower in the S.A. Railways and Harbours. That is why I think that some research should be conducted into the terms of employment applying to individual sections of the railway staff. I wonder whether such research could not be conducted by such committee into the payment of an incentive bonus also to those sections of the staff concerned with the actual running of our trains. If ever people were entitled to such consideration, it is the people who are responsible for the running of our trains in these days. The advantage of that would be that it would also lead to an increase in income which they then can maintain for as long as they are willing to give an extra effort to the S.A. Railways and Harbours. Should consideration not be given to the greater encouragement of railwaymen who are pensioned to come back and to help the S.A. Railways and Harbours while they are in the present state of emergency. Why should these old pensioners, many of them able and willing to do a very fine day’s work for the Railways, why should they be penalized when they come back? Sir, they receive a special allowance, not because they are beggars, but because it is right that they should be compensated for the depreciation in the value of money, to which I have referred before. But the moment they come forward and say: Look, although I am on pension, I am still willing to contribute something to South Africa, the means test operates and very often they lose all of the special allowance. It may not be a permanent arrangement, but surely there is a crisis in South Africa in regard to manpower and therefore it is wrong to discourage people in this manner from coming forward to offer their services to South Africa.

Finally, there is the very interesting question whether the hon. Minister should relax the colour bar in respect of the S.A. Railways and Harbours. I am not talking about job reservation. Many people try to confuse the conventional colour bar with job reservation. It is well known that as far as we are concerned, we think that job reservation should go. But in any case job reservation is never applied in the S.A. Railways and Harbours. The Minister of Labour has no say over the labour policy of the hon. Minister of Transport. But the Minister should consider whether the time has not come to relax the colour bar in the case of certain unpopular occupations of the S.A. Railways and Harbours, the poorly paid occupations, so that the White labour force can be used to better advantage than in those particular occupations which in any case they are showing, when they can get other jobs, they do not want. I am quite sure that if the Minister were to be frank about this matter, he would say that he is considering it. But then I want to ask the hon. Minister for an assurance and that is that if he does contemplate any relaxation of the colour bar in respect of the S.A. Railways and Harbours such relaxation will only take place after full consultation with the staff associations concerned and with their approval and consent, that he will accept, as the Johannesburg Municipality has accepted when it did relax the colour bar in respect of Native bus crews, and as apparently the Chamber of Mines has accepted in the experiment they are conducting now to relax the colour bar, that the only way it can be done justly, without creating any impression of injustice, any impression of departing from the traditions of South Africa, is to get the approval of the trade union concerned. There is no other organization that I can think of in South Africa that will be more jealous of the interests of the White workers affected than the trade union concerned. I do hope that the hon. Minister will give us that assurance. I take it that the hon. Minister is very much interested to know that experiments, with the knowledge of other Ministers, are being conducted on this issue. I take it that like many of us the hon. Minister is watching the experiments in the Transvaal gold mines with bated breath, because so much may depend on him on the outcome of those experiments, and I think with us he will regret that members of the party opposite have been trying to make political capital out of these experiments and that they have tried to destroy these experiments in advance, against the interests of the very workers concerned and against the interests of South Africa. This is a serious matter for the hon. the Minister and I do hope that the hon. Minister will make some statement on this matter when he gets up, that he will give some assurance to the workers concerned that their trade unions will be recognized in this and that he will admit—that he will clear the air in the thinking of so many people in South Africa—that it is necessary to consider adjustments in these matters, if possible with the consent of the trade unions, and as far as we are concerned, not only “if possible”, but definitely with the consent of the trade unions.

And if they do not consent?

That is a very interesting question. If they do not consent, then it will be because the Minister and his advisers fail to convince them that the relaxation will be in their interests. And the chickens will be coming home to roost, because all these years it has been one of the main lines of propaganda on the part of the Government, and the hon. Minister was one of the chief propagandists, that any relaxation of the colour bar will weaken the security of the White workers. Now he is paying the penalty for their irresponsibility, their shortsightedness. Therefore I say it will be due to the inability of the hon. Minister and those concerned in this matter to show the White workers and their organizations how greatly they can benefit by an intelligent relaxation of the conventional colour bar. If they will not consent, it will be the fault of the hon. gentleman behind the hon. Minister, and the whole Cabinet and the entire party over there.

Another leg of our amendment concerns the Schumann Commission, the committee on rating policy and the location of industries. I want to say, as I said on Wednesday, that it is a pity that Parliament has been so scantily treated in this connection and that all users of the Railways, have all been so scantily treated in this matter. The Minister referred to it in two short little paragraphs, almost mere sentences, in his speech, He said certain short-term concessions would be made amounting to R6,000,000. The Minister must be fairly committed to those concessions because he says that his expected surplus of R7,750,000 will be reduced to R1,750,000. But why did he give Parliament no further information about this whole matter, about whom will be affected by these concessions? This information on short-term concessions is interesting, but what about the long-term additional burden on the users of the S.A. Railways that will follow from the implementation of this commission’s report?

Are we entitled now to assume that the Minister accepts the Report of the Schumann Commission? I want to give the hon. Minister the opportunity to say to us whether they accept the principles upon which this commission based its findings? I think we are entitled to know. You, know, Sir, in business, in enterprise, people have to plan ahead, and it may affect the planning of large sections of our economy, of our entrepreneurs, to know what awaits them as far as railway rating is concerned. I think, e.g., that farmers in planning their future should know whether they will be called upon to pay an additional R12,000,000 in railway rates? I want to ask the hon. Minister to give a specific answer whether the Minister and the Government have accepted the fundamentals of the Schumann Report. And then, Sir, comes the $64,000 question: Has the Treasury agreed to accept responsibility for the additional cost to railway-users should tariffs be increased to end the system under which the Railways cut tariffs and their income in the public interest. That is the most important question. I do not think that an intelligent discussion of this report and its consequences is possible unless we are told, yes or no, whether the Treasury has accepted the responsibility for any increased rates which follow as a result of this report?

Finally, our amendment deals with the general planning of the South African transport system. The House will remember that last year we on this side of the House made that the very theme of our discussions. We were promised at the time, or shortly afterwards, that a special commission would be appointed to investigate the matter. When we are dealing with the Minister of Transport we have learned to be very patient, and we patiently waited …

That commission would not be appointed to investigate the planning of the S.A. Railways.

I take it that it will also investigate the relations of the S.A. Railways and Harbours vis-à-vis other forms of transport.

Not planning.

I am sorry if I used the wrong phrase, but the commission was promised to us last year, and it was not appointed. Now we are told that the Minister is about to announce the personnel and the terms of reference of this commission. I want to say at once that we are sorry that the Minister has taken so long, because the present situation is such that urgent adaptations have to be made to our general transport system, which affect the South African Railways and Harbours. On page 12 of the copy of the hon. Minister’s speech, he mentions the major concessions that have already been made to private hauliers, affecting things like sugar-cane and coal. The Minister says in that reference that these concessions have been made on a permanent basis. What I would like to know, Sir, is whether these concessions have been made as part of a general, wider plan, or are they panic measures; have they been forced upon the hon. Minister because of the emergency that he faces? I think we could test that by asking the hon. Minister just two questions, and his answer will tell us whether this has been planned or whether it is actually an emergency measure that has been forced on him by the situation: Was the Minister when he made this concession satisfied that the private sector of transport could cope with the additional traffic that he offered it, without deleteriously affecting the duties it is already performing in the transport of South Africa? After all, this is a tremendous challenge to private enterprise to say to it: Look, I am relaxing restrictions on the transport of coal to the Witwatersrand, and I advise private enterprise, industrialists, power stations, to stockpile coal forthwith, to avoid another crisis in the winter. That is a tremendous challenge to private enterprise. But what reason did the Minister have at the time to think that private enterprise would be able to meet his challenge? Was there any planning before he took this step to ensure that his challenge could be met? Up to now private enterprise has had nothing but restrictions placed on it, and can such a restricted sector of industry be called upon suddenly in an emergency to undertake great additional responsibility? To judge by results they are not succeeding very well. We can find very little evidence of satisfactory and effective stockpiling of coal supplies on the Witwatersrand for the coming winter. I hope the Minister is happy, we are certainly not. The answer to that question will indicate whether this was planning or whether it was an emergency panic-stricken step. The other question is not quite so important, but it is interesting: Before this relaxation was made, did the Minister satisfy himself that our road system could stand up to the additional strain to be imposed on it by these heavy lorries? The House will remember how about ten years ago the Minister also had to relax the restrictions on private hauliers as far as coal was concerned, and the result was the destruction of certain national roads in South Africa, especially the road between Witbank and Springs which cost fabulous sums to restore. Is the Minister satisfied that that will not happen again?

It has not even been restored yet.

Yes, parts have not even yet been restored, but that is not the Minister’s fault, that is the fault of the most incompetent provincial administration in South Africa, the Transvaal Provincial Administration. I am glad that I can clear the hon. Minister in that respect. We as an Opposition have been pleading for years a national approach to the transport requirements and needs of South Africa, and the S.A. Railways and Harbours should take the initiative in bringing about such a co-ordinated plan, because that is the organization most closely affected. It would be most unfortunate if any change in the transport system of South Africa would come about as a result of individual decisions by local transportation boards. It is necessary that the Minister should get experts to sit down and think this out, to advise him on the facts, to advise him on what can be achieved, and to advise him on a course or action. It should be a commission, not only of railwaymen. It should, if possible, be a commission under an impartial chairman, on which should be represented the major railway users in South Africa: Industry, commerce, agriculture, the mines, the private hauliers—they certainly should not be omitted from such a commission—and upon which should be representatives of the S.A. Railways and other specialists, people like economists, statisticians, railway executives, representatives of the staff organizations.

You are suggesting a conference.

No, I want a commission that will represent all the people interested in this matter, who can give the Minister advice in regard to the needs and requirements and aspirations of all the people likely to be affected. It does not matter if this commission takes long to report, because we must hope that its report will bring about a complete revolution in the transport system of South Africa for which posterity will thank, if not this Minister, then at least the Opposition because we have urged such a step.

I have tried to give the Minister some idea of the reaction of the Opposition to his Budget. I want him please to accept one thing: That reaction may be faulty in parts, I will accede at once that it may be possible for the hon. Minister to point to individual weaknesses in this reaction, but as Langenhoven said: People do not point to one hole in a sieve and ridicule that. I want the hon. Minister to accept this in all sincerity: The reaction that he is going to get during the next few days from the Opposition is also the reaction of thinking South Africans, people who on the whole are well disposed towards the hon. Minister. The Minister is in this lucky position that with not great difficulty he is the most popular Minister in the Cabinet, I think the only popular Minister. But that does not mean that there is not deep and real concern in South Africa over the points that we have raised and will raise on this side of the House. It is our duty as Opposition to be critical, but it is not our intention to be petty. We shall try to be constructive because we know that sooner than many people realize, members on this side of the House will be called upon to do what the Minister is failing to do to-day. In that spirit shall we approach this debate, because the S.A. Railways and Harbours is a great organization that belongs to the people of South Africa, to all the people. So when we speak to the hon. Minister, as we have done to-day and shall continue to do, about the position and difficulties of members of the staff, we speak about things that come to us from members of the staff and we only try to sift and separate the wheat from the chaff. When we speak to the Minister about the shortage of manpower, we speak as South Africans who are concerned and unhappy about the situation that is arising throughout South Africa, and when we make suggestions, we hope that some of them may be constructive. So too when we speak about this important Schumann Committee, it seems to us that if accepted it may bring about a complete transformation the general approach to transport in South Africa, because the great problem of subsidized or uneconomic services by the S.A. Railways will disappear, and what is now wrongly the problem of the Railways will become, what it should be, the problem of the Treasury. So too, when we speak about a national approach and a national plan for our transport system, we believe that it is overdue. Throughout the world it has been shown that Railways can no longer cope with the modern needs of a modern industrial nation; the Railways have their part to play, but they only play a part. In most countries of the world the mass of goods of certain types are more efficiently and more cheaply transported by other forms of transport. We obviously must learn from these experiences and we must be willing to adapt. I appreciate that it is difficult for the Railways as such to adapt themselves. They are a vested interest and they think as railwaymen, and it is right that they think as railwaymen. But then the Minister’s advice in this particular instance should come from a much broader base than people who are only concerned with the Administration of the S.A. Railways and Harbours, and he should organize that advice. I move the amendment.

The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) has tried by means of exaggerated statements to convince himself and his friends around him that he is right, but the hon. member will agree that he has not been convincing here this afternoon. The trouble is that he did not believe in the case that he was putting forward here. It is indeed a sad day for an Opposition when its main criticism stems from the fact that the Government in power so effectively ensures economic development, so effectively ensures economic prosperity in the country, that it does not have sufficient manpower to cope with that prosperity. It is indeed a sad day for an Opposition when it has to rely on that fact as its main point of criticism.

What did we have from the hon. member for Yeoville? What was the crux of his criticism? The crux of his criticism was that the Minister did not have vision, that he was not planning efficiently, that he did not take steps to see that there was sufficient staff to handle the carrying capacity of the Railways so as to cope with the economic prosperity of the country. Sir, surely that is an admission of thorough and fine planning on the part of the Government in connection with our economic development. Can one criticize the Government when its planning is so that the country’s economic development exceeds its greatest expectations. The one accusation made by the hon. member for Yeoville was that the planning was weak, that there was lack of efficient planning, that there was no long-term planning. But, Sir, in 17 years of National Party rule more than R1,500,000,000 has been spent on the development of the Railways, almost R90,000,000 per annum. But the hon. member says that there is lack of planning! Has the hon. member read the report of the Schumann Commission? I take it that he has read it, and in that case he must be aware of all the planning that has been undertaken as far as the Railways are concerned, because the question of planning is dealt with exhaustively by the Schumann Commission. He must be aware, if he read the report, that the report indicates the main functions of the Planning Council. This is a Planning Council which was specially called into being for this purpose in 1954. The report goes on to describe that every year in November the Railways obtain information with regard to the anticipated increase in traffic and the anticipated development in the economic sphere, from outside organizations, from various sectors of our economy, from commerce, from industry from agriculture, from the mining industry and the financial institutions. On the basis of this information which is obtained from large undertakings such as the Reserve Bank, the Government Departments concerned, the control boards, the Association of Chambers of Commerce, and the Federated Chamber of Industries of South Africa, the S.A. Agricultural Union, the Industrial Development Corporation, and important clients of the Railways such as Sasol and Iscor and Escom, the Railways then attempt to estimate in advance the production level of secondary industry, of the mining industry and of the agricultural industry as well as the turnover in commerce and to form a picture of anticipated imports and exports. In this way the Railways endeavour to determine the revenue for both the current and the following financial year. These are all steps which are taken by the Railways with a view to short-term planning. But there is also long-term planning on the Railways, as the hon. member for Yeoville must know if he read this report. The Schumann Report clearly sets out what link there is between the Railways and bodies such as the Economic Advisory Council, the Natural Resources Development Council, the Permanent Committee for the Location of Industries and Border Area Development, the Statistics Council, all bodies on which the Railways are represented by their own representatives, and in this way the Railways timeously become aware of developments which may possibly influence railway activities in the future. The report sets out what contacts individual members of the Railway Management have with outside bodies, large-scale users of the Railways, as well as the contacts maintained by System Managers with local bodies. In addition to that the Planning and Productivity Division of the Planning Council, which has at its disposal the services of technical and operating staff, is used to make analyzes and to investigate projects which have to be considered by the Council. Surely the hon. member must have read this in the Schumann Report; he must also have read the conclusion to which the Schumann Commission came in connection with planning on the Railways. I want to read it out to him …

What are the recommendations contained in the report?

The report of the Schumann Commission says—

Surely the hon. member must have read all this. [Interjections.] If the hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) had taken the trouble to listen to me it would not have been necessary for him to ask what the advance estimates are. Sir, why did the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) not inform his leader with regard to these matters, his leader who stated in this House that the Railways were an example of inadequate planning: that the Minister lacked vision with regard to the future of the transport system, and that the Railways had failed to meet the needs of our growing economy? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition obviously took great pleasure earlier this year in saying in this House—

The hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) thereupon made the apt interjection, “And he did.” The Leader of the Opposition then went on to say: “Ask organized trade and industry what they have to say about it.” But what is the opinion of organized trade and industry? If the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had read the Cape Times of 4 March he would have seen what they have to say about it; he would have seen the comments made by the President of the Federated Chamber of Industries, Mr. Morris, with regard to the Railway Budget, comments which the Cape Times summarized in the heading, “Railways did good job in 1964.” But I do not think that the Leader of the Opposition, when he asked that question here earlier this year, was aware of the opinion expressed by commerce and industry. This same report of the Schumann Commission which states that Railway planning takes place on a scientific basis was signed by the representatives of organized trade and industry. Does the Leader of the Opposition not know that?

Do you accept that report?

I can say for the information of the Leader of the Opposition that the representatives of commerce and industry who signed this report are Mr. H. G. Ashworth, nominated by the Association of Chambers of Commerce of South Africa, Mr. G. T. Downes, nominated by the S.A. Federated Chamber of Industries, and Professor Dr. G. Marais, nominated by the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut. But the hon. member for Yeoville comes along to-day and tells the Minister that a commission should be appointed and that commerce and industry and agriculture should all have representatives on that commission to investigate the question of planning on the Railways. Here we have the report of the commission which dealt with planning and on which commerce and industry and agriculture were represented. This report, however, was not signed only by these representatives; it was also signed by a person whom the Leader of the Opposition ought to know. I refer to Mr. O. T. van der Merwe, M.P.C., who was nominated by the producers of base minerals. Why did the hon. member for Yeoville not mention this also to his leader? This Mr. O. T. van der Merwe was until recently the United Party member of the Provincial Council for the Johannesburg (North) constituency.

He still is.

No, he is not; he is fighting an election. The United Party reposed so much confidence in him that they again made him their candidate. The Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Yeoville may tell this House that there is defective planning on the Railways, but even the United Party candidate for Johannesburg (North) does not believe it because he signed this report which says that the planning is undertaken on a scientific basis. Sir, I want to put this question to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and to the hon. member for Yeoville: How do they expect the country to believe them when they are not even believed by the new talent in their party?

The hon. member for Yeoville is very perturbed and complains that the Commission on the Co-ordination of Transport has not yet been appointed. But here we have a commission which has just completed an investigation into, inter alia, the question of planning on the Railways, but the hon. member comes along and asks that the question of planning be investigated.

The Minister said that he would appoint it immediately.

That is in connection with the question of co-ordination of transport, which is something quite different from Railway planning. It seems to me that the conscience of the hon. member for Yeoville is troubling him now that he has read the Schumann Report and now that he realizes what ridiculous statements both he and his leader made in this House earlier this year.

The hon. member for Yeoville also says that it is due to lack of planning that the Railways are not keeping pace with the country’s development.

I did not say that.

The hon. member did say it; he also said it on a previous occasion.

That is true, but I did not say so to-day.

Why did the hon. member not say so to-day? I accept his word, but why did he not repeat this serious accusation to-day which both he and his leader made in the no-confidence debate? I will tell you why. Sir. In the meantime the hon. member for Yeoville has read the Schumann Report and he has now told his leader, “We made a very great mistake and we must rather not repeat this story.” After referring to the rapid economic development of South Africa, which has resulted in almost trebling the national income over the past 20 years, the Schumann Commission says the following in its report—

The commission therefore finds not only that the Railways have kept pace with the country’s development, but in addition to that the commission finds that the Railways have been providing cheap transport for the country. The commission says that since World War II the retail price index has risen by approximately 135 per cent and the wholesale price index by approximately 190 per cent, whereas goods rates in general have increased by only 115 per cent during this period. Let me tell the Leader of the Opposition that this portion of the report was also signed by Mr. O. T. van der Merwe, M.P.C., and by the representatives of commerce and industry. Sir, if this is not a glowing testimonial to outstanding planning on the part of the Minister, then I do not know what sort of testimonial hon. members opposite want.

The hon. member for Yeoville said a moment ago by way of interjection, “I did not say that to-day,” but the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did say earlier this year, “The Minister of Transport has failed completely because he has not been able to plan for the future. He has placed himself in a position where he is not able to cope with the growth that is taking place in our economy.”

Sir, there is one respect in which I want to associate myself wholeheartedly with the hon. member for Yeoville, and that is where he expressed his thanks to the railway staff on behalf of the Opposition. I too want to express our sincere thanks to the railway staff on behalf of hon. members on this side for their high degree of productivity and efficiency. Of course, it is completely beyond my comprehension how the hon. member for Yeoville can say that the staff is extremely efficient but that the Minister who stands at the head of the Railways is extremely inefficient; that his planning is inefficient and that he is not making provision for the economic growth of this country.

He is a member of a weak Government.

The hon. member referred to the cruel treatment of the staff. Sir, if the hon. the Minister is so inefficient and if the railwayman is treated so cruelly, one wonders what magic wand the hon. the Minister uses to obtain the wholehearted co-operation of the staff to maintain this high degree of efficiency. What has happened over the past seven years on the Railways must surely be one of the seven wonders of the world then. The hon. member says that the justifiable wage demands of the railwaymen must be met; that the Minister must prove his thanks to the staff in some tangible way. I find, however, that the Minister did precisely what the railway staff, through their organizations, wanted him to do. The Federal Consultative Council for Railway Staff Associations met the Minister of 24 October 1964 and on that occasion the following was said—I quote an extract from the report of the discussions which then took place, according to Salstaff Bulletin of December 1964—

And then there follows this significant request—

It was stated beyond a shadow of doubt by the staff associations that they would prefer a holiday bonus to a wage increase; the Minister acceded to their request and agreed to holiday bonuses which will cost the Railways R12,000,000 per annum. The hon. member now wants to know how the staff will adapt their income to the cost of living if their overtime is taken away. But what is the position to-day as far as the earnings of railwaymen are concerned?

In October 1964 the weighted average consumers’ index stood at 110.7. In other words, from October 1958 to 1964 the cost of living rose by 10.7 per cent. How does that rise compare with the rise in the wages of the railwaymen? Let us compare the rise in the cost of living with the rise in the salaries and wages of the railwayman, including the holiday bonus which he received on 1 November 1964. During the same period in which the cost of living rose by 10.7 per cent, the salaries and wages (including the holiday bonus) attached to various posts in the railway service increased by the following percentages: rail workers, 15 per cent; shunters, 22.8 per cent; clerks, Grade I, 23.2; artisans (mechanical department), 16.5; technicians (Airways), 21.6; machine workers, class III, 13.7; assistant foremen (mechanical department), 17.2; assistant superintendents, 20.2; superintendents, 23.6; first-grade clerks, 19.8; firemen, 17.2; ordinary drivers, 30.4; ordinary checkers, 16.4 and station foremen, class II, 29.6. Mr. Speaker, it is perfectly clear therefore that the increase in wages and salaries has more than kept pace with the rise in the cost of living. In many cases the increase in salaries and wages has been twice as much as the rise in the cost of living. If we include week-day overtime, Sunday time, payments for bonus work and emergency work, there has been an average increase of 20 per cent in the average earnings of White railwaymen during this period of six years from March 1958 to March 1964, and that does not even include concessions amounting to R20,200,000 which have been made to the staff during the current financial year. It must be remembered that considerable amounts are earned by the staff every month through overtime, Sunday time and bonus work. The average income of artisans in seven mechanical depots as a result of bonus payments, overtime, Sunday time and the payment of the locomotive shed allowance, amounts to R95 per month. [Interjection.] Does the hon. member for Yeoville know that one artisan has already earned as much as R239 per month just in bonus payments?

But let us look at the picture under National Party rule-and see how the position of the railwayman has improved. The cost of living since 1948 has risen by approximately 65 per cent. As against that, the average earnings of a White railwayman during the same period has increased by 123 per cent. That is the treatment which is meted out to the railway staff by this inaccessible Minister! That is the cruel treatment that is meted out to them, an increase of 123 per cent in their average earnings over the past seven years, whereas the cost of living has risen by only 65 per cent. No wonder the Minister succeeds in obtaining the wholehearted co-operation of the staff in maintaining this high degree of productivity.

The hon. member then went on to say that the colour bar should be relaxed in the railway service. He said recently that the Minister had already relaxed the colour bar. Sir, I want to say that more misrepresentations have been made by the Opposition and particularly by the hon. member for Yeoville with regard to the employment of 40 non-Whites in semiskilled occupations in Durban than we have ever had before with regard to any other matter in South Africa. They represented this as something brand-new but, Sir, the practice in the railway service of employing non-Whites in graded posts when Whites are not available has been in vogue ever since 1935.

And you always deny it.

I have never denied it. I challenge the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) to quote one single occasion where I denied it. He is talking through his hat. But in the nineteen-forties the United Party Government employed non-Whites as flagmen, level-crossing attendants, deckhands and in other occupations on tugs and dredgers, and in 1946 they employed non-Whites as unclassified skilled workers. The National Party Government, since it came into power, has also employed non-Whites in posts occupied by Whites, but why raise this sudden hullabaloo as though this represents a departure from past policy when in fact this is a policy which has been applied in the Railway service for more than 30 years?

A second misrepresentation that is being made here is that non-Whites are now going to be employed en masse in the Railway Service, according to the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje)—and I think the hon. member for Yeoville also made that statement. The Railways have always employed masses of non-Whites. The non-White staff of the Railways has increased by 23 per cent during the 17 years that the National Party has been in power, but does the hon. member know by what percentage it rose during the last eight years of United Party rule? By 67 per cent, almost three times as much. Sir, the hon. member for Yeoville says that the Minister stated that the White staff numbered 102,000. The hon. members should listen a little more carefully. The Minister was talking about graded posts, not about Whites. In actual fact, the number of non-Whites employed in the Railway Service dropped from 120,000 to 110,000, a drop of 8.3 per cent, from December 1957 to December 1964. The hon. member has again come forward with the charge that the Minister is relaxing the colour bar … [Interjection.] Of course, I prepared myself. I do not come unprepared to this House. I do not come here unprepared like the hon. member for Yeoville and then make irresponsible statements as he does; I do not ask the Minister what he is doing in respect of the training of staff without taking the elementary step of first reading the General Manager’s report in that connection. In this regard I have more respect for the country and for this House than the hon. member for Yeoville. Whereas there has been a drop of 8.3 per cent in the non-White staff over the past seven years, the White staff has increased by 11.1 per cent. I hope that the hon. member for Yeoville, when he again addresses meetings in the rural areas and issues statements to the Sunday Times will adhere to the truth in this regard and that he will not make all sorts of untruthful statements. The presence of non-Whites in the Railway Service does not mean economic integration. These people are not treated on the basis of equality with the Whites. There is still differentiation between the White staff and the non-White staff. But the hon. member comes along with the reproach that there is confusion on this side with regard to job reservation in the Railway Service. But that is not true. It was none other than the hon. member for Karoo (Mr. Eden) who stood up here last year and pleaded for the abolition of job reservation in the Railway Service and it was the hon. member for Yeoville who then stood up and corrected him and said that the Industrial Conciliation Act was not applicable to the Railways. But what happened during the recess? The hon. member for Jeppes obviously did not listen to the chief lieutenant of his party and he proceeded to accuse the Minister and to say that the only practical way which the Minister could follow was “to compromise on job reservation” and apartheid and to employ non-Whites en masse. [Time limit.]

The hon. member (Bloemfontein East) who has just sat down appeared to be most disappointed that the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), in dealing with the Budget presented by the Minister, did not indulge in a political speech. Instead of that the hon. member for Yeoville made a responsible and constructive speech from which the Government can derive considerable benefit if they would only take the trouble to study it. But that appeared to upset the hon. member. The hon. member for Yeoville made it clear that not only did the Minister not give the country any lead in regard to the report of the Schumann Commission, (which in the end will affect every individual in the country), as to his own or the Government’s reaction to that report—he studiously avoid doing that—but the first speaker on this side also called upon the Minister in his reply to make the Government’s position regarding the report clear. This report has taken a considerable amount of time and experience to compile, and it has been in the hands of the Government for some time. It affects so many interests in the country, decisions on which they have to plan their future that we feel it is time that the country should be given a lead by the Minister and the Government as to what their reactions are going to be. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) also dealt at considerable length with the question of the total emoluments earned by the staff and he again reacted to the proposals put forward by the hon. member for Yeoville. He dealt at some length with the various increases the staff have had and he laid particular emphasis on the benefits of the vacation bonus. But these allowances and bonuses are not the answer which the staff requires, and it is not the solution for bringing about a permanent improvement in the staff position. To get that answer, one has to deal with basic emoluments, earnings on which a man’s pay is calculated, and which can be earned within the normal hours of work laid down by regulations. Sunday time and overtime, etc., add to their earnings, but they all have to be earned the hard way, earned by long hours of separation from their families and by fatigue and strain which in the end must cause a bigger breakdown in the service than what is threatened at the moment. The hon. member has given us lavish quotations in regard to the increased figures of earnings over the last few years, and he said that they offset the increase in the cost of living. But ask the Railway staff whether the earnings they get to-day, even by working considerable overtime, can balance the increased prices of meat of bread or of food and clothing. Ask them why they have to work these long hours in order to offset those cost of living increases. That is not the thing they want. They want to work a normal day’s work and get the recompense for it which will offset their increased cost of living. The hon. member also reacted to the hon. member for Yeoville’s proposals in regard to the position of the Coloureds, but what hon. members opposite fail to appreciate—I am not so sure that the Minister does; I think he appreciates it because he had a background of training in his early days which stands him in good stead now—is that the White workers from the lowest to the highest grades are steadily moving upwards in the scale of employment.

They are doing more important, more exacting work requiring a higher standard. They are moving up, and the gap which they are creating by their upward movement has to be filled by people who at the present moment are generally fitted to do semi-skilled work. What the hon. member for Yeoville advocated and what this side of the House advocates is that the hon. the Minister in consultation with the staff associations who, after all, reflect the voice and views of the staff, and who have the knowledge of what is required and what is happening in the service, should make greater use of the vast reservoir of labour that we have in this country, a reservoir of labour that is eminently suitable for filling this gap, a reservoir of labour which any other country in the world would jump at the opportunity to utilize but which, because of the ideological policies of the Government, is debarred from taking an active part in the development of the country. We are trying to bring people from overseas to fill those gaps; we are not getting people of the type in the quantities we require, and yet in this country itself we have this labour reservoir which if the Government will only be realistic, could be utilized without any detriment to the White man. The utilization of which would, in fact, help to increase the position and the prestige of the White man and move him higher up on the scale of earnings and responsibility.

The hon. member who spoke last suggested, in dealing with the Schumann Report, that perhaps we should give some indication as to what the Government should do. Sir, it is not for us to give an indication. We have grown accustomed to the Government depending upon the advice of this side of the House as to what they should do when they get into a jam, time and time again they have accepted our proposals from this side, but this is an instance where the Government must give the country a lead in connection with this Schumann Report. We know what we would do if we were in power; we would resolve this difficulty; we have had experience and we know what we would do to overcome this difficulty. The time has now come for the Government itself to shoulder this responsibility.

Sir, I want to come back to the Budget itself for a moment and make a study of certain points contained in the Budget against the background against which the hon. the Minister presented his Budget speech to the House a couple of days ago and covered the whole of our transport services, rail, air, land and sea. The hon. the Minister reported that after three years of combined expansion at a relatively rapid tempo, the growth rate during 1964 had remained high but did not reach the ceiling of the previous year, although against that the volume of traffic conveyed by rail, air and road during 1964 surpassed all previous records. Sir, I think only a fool would object to the praise which has been given to the Department for the magnificent manner in which they responded to the overload that they had to carry. I think that people throughout the country, whatever their political differences may be, appreciate what was a magnificent performance by the Railway Administration, by the transport administration as a whole, from top to bottom, in meeting the loads thrust upon them. Particularly so against the background of staff shortages and the natural problems to which the Minister referred in the shape of snow, rain, droughts and the various other natural hazards to which we are subject in this country. But, Sir, one cannot accept these natural hazards as the full excuse for rail delays because South Africa is a country where we are used to natural hazards. Practically no year goes by without the Railways having to face up to these freaks of nature which disrupt traffic for some length of time. This one may have been a little bit more exceptional from the cold point of view, but there again this is something which we have grown to expect and which we know from experience the Railways always manage to overcome. That is part of the confidence that we have in the staff of the Railways, in the work that they do, in the way that the staff responds to these extra calls made upon them. It is true that sometimes the weather is bad and that bridges are washed away and that rails are torn up but we know from experience that the Railways will always overcome these problems. And we accept this as so.

Sir, the main theme running right through the Minister’s Budget speech, which has been dealt with at length by the hon. member for Yeoville, is the question of the acute shortage of manpower right throughout the Railway Administration, in all branches of its service. The hon. the Minister said that the Administration had to contend with a growing decline in the ranks of its professional men and other staff in certain key posts. Obviously the hon. the Minister was referring to people who he can ill-afford to lose, namely the experienced staff that the Administration has to hang on to, leaders in their particular spheres, people who are more valuable than ever in times of a shortage of staff. I think, Sir, the Budget speech could be summed up as being much more important for what the Minister did not say, than for the things that he told the country and this House with regard to his transport activities. Much more important than his failure to put forward concrete proposals, particularly with regard to staffing, is his failure to tell the country what action the Government and the Minister propose to take to overcome that difficulty. There is no doubt about it that the staff problem is undoubtedly one of the most important problems to be overcome as far as the Railways are concerned. The Minister reported there were 7,500 vacancies. With the continued development which is forecast for the Railways for this year and next year, one can expect that there will be a demand for much more additional staff over and above this 7,500 required to cope with the increased traffic demands and the increased capacity of the Railways when the new equipment ordered becomes available. The hon. the Minister himself stated that although traffic handled over the past three years had increased by 15 per cent, staff increases had been limited to only 2.6 per cent. Again it reflects the greatest credit on the organization and the staff that with a comparatively small increase of staff, the Railways were able to cope with the extra load thrust upon them. It is clear from the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech that the transport system has only been kept operating at the high pitch disclosed in the Budget speech as a result of the long hours of overtime, as a result of the excessive overtime demand of certain sections of the Railway staff, particularly the running staff. Sir, one can think of nothing more opposed to the Government-sponsored campaign of “safety first”, especially in all sections of the nation’s transport service, than the excessive hours having to be worked and the excessive fatigue created by that overtime amongst the people responsible for the custody and safety of the fast moving traffic of the country. Not only the people who are responsible for keeping the traffic moving, but also the people in the workshops who do the repairs and who have to manufacture portions of plant that has to stand up to the excessive strain of moving traffic. Work that requires the most critical examination and care in order to see that no material breakdown, which could be a very disastrous thing in a fast-moving vehicle or aircraft, occurs. Not only have the running staff and other sections been working up to 30 per cent in excess of their normal time but they have been working hours which are very much in excess of the maximum hours consistent with safety. It goes a lot further than that because, as has been explained previously, it is not only the question of extra time and the safety factor which are involved, but it is a question of the extra money earned as a result of working overtime being regarded to-day as almost a normal part of the emoluments of the Railway staff on which they have to depend to meet the increased cost of living. If it was possible by a wave of the wand suddenly to give the Minister his extra 7,500 staff and if he then reverted to ordinary time, he would find that there would be such a clamour from his staff for salary scales consistent with present-day cost of living that he would have to meet a pretty staggering demand. He would be faced with the demand that the unofficial cost of living allowance now made up by overtime worked by the staff should be taken into account in calculating emoluments and their pensions upon retirement. To a certain extent one might almost call the long hours which the staff are required to work in fact are a form of cheap labour.

The hon. the Minister has given striking figures of additional vehicles to be added to the service during the coming year: 19,000 trucks of various types ordered over the past three years, 14,500 more trucks on order, of which over 5,000 will be in service by the end of this month; another plus-minus 8,000 trucks to be ordered for 1965-6. With regard to passenger service the hon. the Minister stated that something in the region of 1,100 new coaches of various types for passenger service had been ordered of which plus-minus 600 are already in use, plus a further 400 units to be ordered for 1965-6.

Is that not planning?

If the hon. member will just be patient, I am about to say that no one has the slightest quarrel with looking ahead and planning for these advances, but the point I want to make is this: Where are the men going to come from who are going to be needed to use this increased capacity, if we cannot get them for to-day’s needs? What is being done to get the necessary manpower to cope with the planned increased capacity of the Railways? Some of the new stock will naturally replace existing stock which as seen the end of its day. But quite obviously it is clear from the Minister’s remarks that a large part of this new stock will be to supplement existing stock. This new stock is necessary to meet the growing traffic demands and the expansion of the country. You see, Sir, the Minister has been completely silent on that most important point. He has dealt with the question of the supply of equipment and material but he has said nothing at all with regard to the manpower position. The hon. the Minister in effect throughout his speech gave one the feeling that he had resigned himself to the fact that the Administration cannot compete with commerce and industry when it comes to bidding for manpower. He is prepared to resign himself to the continuation of excessive overtime in order to try to meet both the transport needs and the higher pay levels required throughout the Service. But that position, Sir, is completely unsatisfactory, both as regards overtime and as regards the safety factor. There is probably no other country in the world, as I said a moment ago, that would ignore the fact that we have a reservoir of labour which, if the Government would get down to some really serious practical thinking and if the Government would put the progress of the country, the benefit and the advancement of the country and of the people of the country before ideological legislation, could be utilized with great advantage. I am convinced that with the Minister’s drive, which he has shown, in many of the negotiations which he has had to carry out, that if proper discussions were held with the staff organizations and if this thing were put in its proper perspective, it would be possible to utilize quite a number of our Coloured people for railway work in spheres in which their services can be used and in which they would to a large extent relieve the pressure of the manpower shortage, thus freeing the White men at present employed in those positions to be used for higher posts carrying greater responsibilities. Surely it is not beyond the Minister’s capacity, in consultation with the staff associations, to evolve a plan along those lines. Sir, we put forward that suggestion from this side of the House for the Minister’s consideration. The hon. the Minister must not forget that the hon. the Minister of Finance told the House and the country a few days ago in presenting the Additional Estimates that he and the Government had planned the present boom. Well, if he and the Government planned this boom, then surely it is up to him and the Government and the Minister of Transport, if they plan a boom of this magnitude, to devise plans also to ensure that the capacity that is needed to cope with the extra load created by the boom are made available at the same time. It is no good creating crops unless you have the wherewithal to reap those crops; it is no good promoting a boom in the country to produce a vast amount of additional wealth unless we have the capacity to deal with the transport of the additional wealth created by the boom. Sir, it is not for us to tell the hon. the Minister what to do. We know what we would do if we were faced with this problem. It is for the Government now to show what they are going to do. The responsibility rests with this Government but we see little sign of their meeting that responsibility.

Sir, has the hon. the Minister exhausted the possibility of making greater use of women in railway and transport services generally? I am assuming that an elementary proposition like that would have been explored but I would like to put forward the following suggestion: Women could be employed in the ticket and booking offices as booking clerks. Overseas to-day they are turning largely to greater use of women, faced as they also are with a shortage of manpower, to fill certain posts. Could greater use not be made of women in a number of capacities in these offices where they would be eminently suitable? After all, they do bookkeeping in other spheres of public life in the country; surely with a little bit of training, women should be able to relieve quite a number of men employed in those capacities, certainly in some of the junior capacities, thus relieving the men for work in other departments of the Railways. The services of women could also be used as ticket inspectors in certain cases, say on the suburban lines short distance runs. I was surprised when I visited London last year to find that practically the whole of the London bus ticket service is run by women. The ticket sellers, the clippies on the bus services are mainly Central African Negro women or Jamaican Coloured women. Surely if that type of person can do this sort of job over there, our own much more intelligent White women in this country could be employed in some of these capacities on the Railways, thus releasing men to fill some of the positions which are at present vacant. Sir, there are other suggestions of this kind that one could put forward, but I put forward these few suggestions to the hon. the Minister so that he can get his Department to examine the possibility of making more extensive use of women in the Railway Service. We know what women did in this country during the last war when they were called upon in an emergency to do so. We are in an emergency period now as far as staff is concerned. The work the women did during the War, when they were even employed in mechanical workshops handling machinery eminently points to the fact that more use can be made of their services at the present time to relieve the shortage of manpower on the Railways.

I want to switch now to another question which also involves forward planning. The hon. the Minister dealt at some length in his speech with the position of passenger traffic and revenue derived from the suburban railway system. He stated that during the period April to November 1964 suburban passenger journeys had increased by almost 13 per cent to 265,300,000 passenger journeys, against a long-distance main line increase over the same period by 7 per cent to 16,200,000. The increase took place mainly in respect of third-class passengers, and one assumes that this increase is due largely to the Native passengers carried on the guaranteed lines subsidized by consolidated revenue. The Minister stated also that suburban rail passenger traffic had maintained its vigorous growth and that revenue derived from first and second-class passengers—I take it that it would be largely first-class passenger traffic because I am dealing with the suburban service and second-class passenger traffic is almost negligible there in this part of the country because it is being done away with—had increased between April and November 1964 by 6.9 per cent and on the non-White lines by over 12 per cent. Sir, the total passenger revenue was estimated at R55,853,000, an increase of R2,830,000 over the previous year. The suburban share of this is probably in the region of R30,000,000. At the present rate of increase the suburban passenger services will probably total some 400,000,000 passenger journeys for the present year ending 31 March next. It is fair to say that at least 300,000,000 of these will be travelled by people moving between their homes and their places of employment. In other words, this transport is an essential service in order to keep the economy of the country active. Sir, these figures indicate clearly the tremendous part that suburban rail traffic is playing in the daily economic and business life of the country and how seriously any irregularity of service will affect every phase of industry and commerce as a result of working time lost by their staffs. The majority of business and industrial concerns work to a regular uniform commencing and knocking-off time, to a time-table which varies a little in summer and winter. These people depend largely on the regularity of rail transport, or, in some cases, road transport to move their staffs between their homes and their places of employment. It goes without saying that that regularity is essential. Sir, one would therefore expect the closest liaison between the Railway Administration and employers with regard to railway time-tables. I want to ask the hon. the Minister who was responsible for the unholy mess which was created here in the Cape with the issue of the new suburban time-table when the summer service came into being on the Simonstown-Cape Town and Cape Town-Bellville-Strand lines at the beginning of the summer season. When the new time-table was introduced there was complete chaos on the Railways for the best part of two months. Trains were running anything from 15 to 30 and 45 minutes late. You had loaded trains standing at stations where platforms were packed with passengers waiting to get into trains. These trains could not move because the trains stopped ahead of them were blocking the line. The whole service was in a state of disorganization. Sir, who on earth was responsible for the breakdown of the time-table which had been built up by consultation over the past 15 or 16 years, a time-table which had been built up in the closest consultation with private enterprise and with all the interests concerned? Sir, we have been told year after year over the last ten or 12 years, first that the tracks were not sufficient to carry the additional fast trains and that you had to duplicate or quadruplicate your system as far as Wynberg at least to use them. Thereafter the old station was the obstacle; we were told that there were not sufficient platforms to permit of the introduction of a new and extended service. Thereafter we were told that the coaching stock was not available. Well, all three difficulties, or at any rate two of them, have been overcome to a large extent. The question of duplicating the line has been dealt with by diversion through the Cape Flats line and by carrying certain traffic in that direction. Over the past 12 years we have been told that as soon as these difficulties have been overcome we can at least expect a faster and better service. Sir, 15 years ago a liaison committee was formed consisting of representatives of the various interests right throughout the Peninsula who were consulted by the Railways when any major change took place in the time-tables, and in the interim if difficulties cropped up. The practice of consulting that liaison committee fell into disuse years ago; it was no longer consulted, and we have in this Peninsula area the most chaotic system that I have seen on the Railways in the whole of my experience. I have never known a period when the train service was more irregular, when it took longer to get to work and certainly longer to get home. We know nothing like this even in the worst days of the old steam-train service. The position is still not right; there are still certain trains which do not run to time; there are still certain difficulties. Even after allowing for the change-over to the new station, when one must naturally expect in these circumstances that there is going to be a certain amount of disorganization for a while. But even after allowing for that, the Administration during that chaotic period probably drove more people to road transport, between December and February of this year, than they realized. It will take years to regain the public confidence that was shattered in the regularity and reliability of the suburban rail service. We would like to know and the public would like to know—I receive letters from members of the public day after day wanting to know—who was responsible for this breakdown and what on earth the reason was for doing it. Nobody knows. Over and above that we have insult added to injury; thousands of copies of the suburban time-table were printed and sold by private interests in conjunction with the Railways, time-tables which within three weeks of issue were completely obsolete. Until a week or two ago at least there was no revised pocket time-table in book form issued for the information of the public. People still have to dither around with timetables giving the wrong times of departure. [Time limit.]

I should like to do what the hon. member who has just resumed his seat has not done, viz. to thank the personnel for the good work they have done during the past year—I think it is only right to do so—and to thank the hon. the Minister for what he has done to make the Railways run so smoothly. I think every decent person owes a debt of gratitude to them. The hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) said that the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) did not make a political speech but a very constructive one. I am afraid the hon. member did not understand the hon. member for Yeoville, because the hon. member for Yeoville was doing nothing else but trying to catch votes before the provincial election by means of that speech of his. He tried to foster unrest and dissatisfaction among the train personnel, the drivers, the stokers and the conductors, because they have to be absent from home for such long periods. There was a time when there was a superfluity of staff, when there was talk of curtailing Sunday time and overtime, and what was the result? The railwaymen stood as one man and said: “No, we want to work overtime,” but now the hon. member comes here and says that the railwaymen do not want to work overtime any more. I cannot understand how one can make such a statement merely for the sake of catching a few votes. Sir, you can go to any large railway centre and see who represents the railwaymen there. Do the representatives of the railwaymen sit on this side of the House or that side of the House? That is the test. In my own case I can remember that years and years ago I had a majority of just over 30 in a large railway centre, and to-day it is a few thousand. It is mainly railwaymen who vote in that constituency. Why do they vote for a Nationalist candidate if they are so dissatisfied? No, the hon. member for Yeoville has not succeeded to-day in making the railwaymen dissatisfied. To some extent I cannot blame him for trying to sow dissatisfaction amongst the staff just shortly before a provincial election.

The hon. member for Simonstown also talks about the long hours drivers and stokers have to work. It is true that they have to work long hours but these people get their hours of rest. They are absent from home for a long time but they are not working all the time. They have suitable quarters where they can eat, drink, rest and sleep properly. It is true that they are absent from home for long periods, but the railwaymen know that this would be expected of them when they joined the service. These people were prepared to work these hours when they joined and they are highly satisfied with their hours. [Interjection.] These people are paid for the overtime they work. If the hon. member does not know it, then he can get the figures from the General Manager’s office or the Minister’s office.

Hon. members opposite said that the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) had prepared his speech before he had heard the speech of the hon. member for Yeoville. I also prepared my speech before I heard that hon. member’s speech in this House. The whole matter just concerns planning and dissatisfaction and low wages, etc. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) said that since 1948 almost R100,000,000 had been spend on planning every year. But we should remember that there was another government in power before 1948, and that government shamefully neglected its duty because it was such a bankrupt government. They did not plan for the future, and why did they not plan? Because they had no faith in South Africa. This Government has confidence in South Africa and that is why it plans properly and ensures that the railway system is systematically expanded. I am surprised to hear to-day that the Railways cannot transport the traffic offered. Listening to hon. members opposite, one would imagine that they receive letters every day in which people complain that goods are piling up and cannot be transported. To tell the truth, I have not received a single letter during the past 12 months. Last year we had this tremendous shortage and there was also a shortage in my constituency. What happened in other constituencies I do not know. However, I telephoned headquarters in Kimberley and within half a day the position was improved. One just has to do one’s duty. We succeeded in obtaining some coal from the Railways to supply those people who did not have any. That coal was later returned to the Railways. That was done with the consent of the System Manager and there was not a single further complaint. That is what happens when people co-operate. The test is whether the goods can in fact be transported.

Has the hon. member read the report of the coal mining companies in which they refer to the shortage?

It is not necessary for me to read the report; I was in touch with those companies telephonically at the time and the trucks were on the way. What is now the test as to whether the Railways can transport all the goods offered? There are of course certain problems. One gets seasonal production such as in the case of plums, apples, etc., when one has to pluck those plums or apples within a week or a fortnight, depending on climatic conditions. There is perhaps a drought and one has to transport thousands and hundreds of thousands of sheep to better grazing. There are cases where in times of drought one has to transport cattle from South West Africa to the abattoirs before their condition becomes too bad, as is now happening. There are seasonal difficulties but they are of a temporary nature. One cannot blame the Railways for that and say that they could not transport the goods.

Another characteristic of planning is to keep tariffs in line with traffic. Let us compare our tariffs in South Africa with those of other countries. The comparison is so favourable that one is surprised that our tariffs are still so low.

The United Party is not consistent. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Mr. Dodds) is sitting over there. Last year still he made a speech in which he referred to planning, and do you know what he said, Sir? He said we were spending too much capital on planning. How can one plan without capital? I am sorry that that great economist, the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) is not here now. He said the same thing.

Where?

Just look at Hansard. He said that we should not devote so much money to capital expenditure. How then can one plan? He just said that because he had no confidence in the economy of the country. Because he has no confidence he says our capital expenditure is too high. That is why I say that if one has no confidence in one’s own country then one talks that sort of nonsense.

Your argument is based on false premises.

It is not necessary to say that. It is just fortunate that the hon. member did not also complain about the surplus this afternoon. The hon. member for Yeoville, who introduced the debate this afternoon, did not complain about it.

I am sorry that I disappointed you.

You really disappointed me, because otherwise I would have replied to you on that point too.

Let us just proceed a little further in regard to planning. I may tell hon. members that I have ascertained from a very authentic source that the planning has already been completed for 20 years ahead.

The Minister never said that.

It is no use the Minister telling you that. I will put it this way, that the planning has been done for a long time ahead. It is not made public, but a system is being followed according to which one can plan for the future. Just take last year. There was planning for R145,000,000 for this present year. In 1964 R108,000,000 was planned for. One can understand that in one year there is already a difference of almost R40,000,000. Now take the years before that, Sir, and you will see that the planning was such as to keep pace with the flourishing economy of the country. We hope it will not happen but there may possibly be a relaxation in our economy, and then it may be necessary in future to reduce these amounts. During the past ten years R924,000,000 was invested in planning in order to cope with the traffic systematically. That is a lot of money. Then it upsets one a little that there are hon. members opposite who still say that there is no judicious planning. The planning is there for the building of railway lines and other items of expenditure. In the last few years 443 miles of new railway lines were built. If you look at the Brown Book, Sir, you will see that double lines are being built wherever there might be bottle-necks. The hon. the Minister is wide awake in that regard. He tries to let the traffic flow as fast as possible. We who often travel by train know how long it took to transport livestock from De Aar to Cape Town, or from De Aar to Johannesburg. Those times have been shortened by hours because there was better planning. The same applies in the case of trucks and locomotives, for which greater provision has been made. Two hundred electric locomotives have now been ordered again. That is planning for the future.

Where are the 200 drivers?

Good heavens, Sir, is that not a stupid question? If a teacher dies at a school to-day, will the hon. member also ask where the next teacher will be found? I do not think it necessary to answer such a stupid question. We have a responsible Government which will ensure that those persons are there. No fewer than 19,000 short and long trucks have been ordered …

Where will you find the shunters?

That shows how stupid my hon. friend is. The hon. the Minister is spending large sums of money to make the gradients easier, to cut out the gradients. Instead of having 20 trucks behind one locomotive, one can now perhaps put 30 or more behind one locomotive. But that the hon. member will of course not understand. In the case of passenger coaches it has been planned that there will be no shortage in future. I do not want to give the figures because I still want to deal with the wages in regard to which so much has been said. I can only say that in regard to the harbours there has also been an improvement of approximately 30 per cent.

I should like to direct a special word of congratulation to the Minister in regard to the Airways. Even though the hon. member for Yeoville did not do so, I want to say that to-day it is a pleasure to travel by air. The treatment on the aircraft and in the harbours is 100 per cent.

I referred last year to the people who are now said to be so badly paid—hon. members may perhaps have referred to it in Hansard—that they no longer want to remain in the service. I must add that we can hardly compete with the private sector. Here I now have the official figures. A driver, special class, in 1948 …

Are those official figures? Where do you get them?

It is a pity you do not have them also. In 1948 a special class driver received R92.45 a month. To-day he gets R173 a month. A qualified stoker got R67, as against R140 at present; a shunter got R65, as against R135 now; a conductor got R74, as against R155 now; a checker got R69, as against R145 now; a signalman got R82, as against R160 now; a leading examiner and repairman received R84, as against R170 to-day, and a platelayer got R80 against R175 to-day. With a few exceptions, there has been a 100 per cent increase since 1948. That is why we can boast that we take proper care of our workers. Surely the circumstances are totally different from what they were in 1948. Did you ever during that time go to the houses of many railwaymen, Sir? They lived in poverty, but to-day the position is quite different.

I just want to go a little further. How did these wage increases come about? In 1951 there was a wage increase of R12,000,000; in 1952 it was R500,000; in 1955 it was R8,000,000; in 1956 it was R4,500,000; in 1958 it was R11,600,000; in 1961 it was R11,470,000; in September 1962 it was almost R4,000,000; in December 1964 it was R17,000,000 and there was a further increase in 1964 of almost R2,000,000. There were two increases in 1964. In other words, according to these figures, from 1951 to 1964 there were wage increases amounting to R91,000,000. Now if this is not a Government which looks after its workers then I do not know where else one will find such a Government.

But that is not all. Steps were also taken to look after these people in their old age. In 1951 provision was made for a R1,500,000 increase in pensions. These are also official figures; hon. members may check them. In October 1953 pensions were increased by R1,500,000; in 1955 by R1,000,000, and a further R90,000; in March 1956 by almost R2,000,000; in April 1961 by R2,500,000, and in April 1962 by R2,000,000. Therefore those members of the railway personnel who contribute towards pension funds have had R10,000,000 added to their pensions during those few years. I do not say it is enough, but R10,000,000 more over a period of a few years is a great improvement. I did it last year, and I do not want to repeat it now; last year I compared these figures with what the pensioners got under the United Party regime. Just as in the case of salaries, pension benefits have increased almost 100 per cent. This Government looks after its workers.

There is something I want to ask the hon. the Minister, and this is a very great request. I want to ask whether, in consultation with the Minister of Finance, the possibility does not exist that in the case of the railwayman who works a lot of overtime some small relief may not be granted in regard to the income he derives from overtime and Sunday time for income tax purposes? I think that is a reasonable request because the man works beyond his normal hours, for the benefit of the State. Then I just want to say this in addition. I did last year and I want to repeat it. We will always have the human factor. We have people on the S.A. Railways who do things—to put it at its mildest—which they should not do. Eventually they are discovered and punished, and some are dismissed. I am one of those who think that when a man has served his punishment he should be given another opportunity. I ask the Minister and the General Manager, in view of the present manpower shortage, to try to give them another opportunity. If he has served his sentence, give him another opportunity to become a respectable citizen of the country.

Then there is just one final point in regard to the development at Norval’s Pont. With the building of the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam a tremendous amount of material is off-loaded at Donkerpoort and Norval’s Pont. I think they are building an additional line at Norval’s Pont, but I wonder whether the System Manager at Bloemfontein should not investigate the position. It has been brought to my notice that a bottle-neck may arise there. The Provincial Administration of the Cape does not see its way clear to build the road from Plankkuil to the Van der Koof Dam. Personally I do not see how those millions of tons of soil can be transported over that gravel road. Cannot an attempt be made to tar that road as soon as possible? I was in touch with the Administrator of the Cape Province and he says that the Administration does not have the funds for it. The hon. the Minister will have to talk nicely to the Minister of Finance and get him to assist.

Before I resume my seat, I heartily want to thank everybody who contributed towards this tremendous budget, for the services they rendered over the past year. I hope the Minister will be spared for many years to be the Minister and the leader of the S.A. Railways.

I like the quiet approach of the hon. member for De Aar/Colesberg (Mr. M. J. de la Rey Venter) to railway matters. He always gives the impression that he is pouring oil on troubled waters. His solution of the problems connected with the transportation of coal however will give satisfaction to neither the producer nor the consumer, I am afraid. I think the hon. member rather misunderstood the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn’s) argument and I do not think his criticism was justified in consequence. I should perhaps say I do not dislike his approach to the question of tax relief in respect of money earned by over-time on the ground that the workers concerned are serving the State. But I should like to ask him if that is to be an experiment why not start here.

I am pleased that the hon. member dealt with the question of planning. But he also misunderstood me as to what I said last year. My complaint over the years has been that the Railways have become over-capitalized and have a considerable amount of dead or unproductive capital, with the result that the stage has been reached when further injections of new capital do not bring increasing returns but very soon revert to diminishing returns. This can only be remedied by periodical increases in rates. However, I have dealt with those matters previously and I do not intend pursuing them immediately.

I do want to say something about planning. This is the new word or the new concept that has suddenly come into fashion in Government circles. The Minister himself made a lot of use of “planning” in his Budget address, so did the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) although he was, of course, commenting on the commission of inquiry into rating rather than into planning. But social and economic planning in South Africa, of course, is “old hat”, as the hon. the Minister of Finance had to concede only a few days ago. As every one knows the Social and Economic Planning Council set up by General Smuts did excellent work until it was pushed aside by this Government. But as I say planning has now again become fashionable and it came into fashion when the present Prime Minister took a hand in the matter, firstly, by setting up his own Economic Advisory Council and then by creating a new Department under the Minister of Planning. I believe, however, that historically the credit for this new fashion must go to the hon. the Minister of Transport because he was first in the field when he started his own Planning Council a few years ago.

Eleven years.

I said a few years back. The number of years does not alter the argument, but if that is so then I find it still more strange that the work of this body has apparently been given no recognition in the Economic Development Programme recently published by the Minister of Planning. I find it particularly strange because of the fact that railway development and economic development are in South Africa so closely linked and therefore should be closely co-ordinated. What I find even more strange, however, is that I can find no reference to the work of this Planning Council in the latest report of the General Manager of Railways. I certainly could not find any reference as to what this body is doing in either of these documents, i.e., neither in the Economic Development Programme nor in the report of the General Manager. Whilst I accept that the Planning Council is fully occupied and is employed to good purpose—I do not and cannot criticize what is doing because so little information is available about its activities—I do question two matters connected with its operations. I question, first, the Minister’s presentation of its work to Parliament and, secondly, the lack of evidence of any co-ordination on its part between physical planning and financial planning. I say this not only because there is no evidence of co-operation between these two sets of official planners but also because they seem to be operating in directly opposite directions. Let me explain: What the Government planners are set upon bringing about is optimum co-operation and disclosure between the private and the public sectors of the economy and in that way to get better planned and co-ordinated development schemes for the country as a whole over the next four years. The Administration and its planning on the other hand seem to operate in circumstances of minimum co-ordination and disclosure. Sir, what sticks out a mile once again in the present Budget is how difficult it is to get any insight at all into how far physical planning and financial planning on capital projects are being co-ordinated by the Administration. It goes without saying that there is nothing personal in one’s criticism of planning or administration. The systems in operation, not the persons responsible for operating the systems, are the subject of criticism. I agree with hon. members opposite and on this side who have indicated appreciation for what the Railway staff does. Everyone admires the diligence, the zeal and the ability of the persons concerned in tackling the problems that confront them. But every businessman knows that a blue-print itself, without a progressively planned budget of concommitant costs up to the time the project comes into operation, is worthless. Yet, Sir, this hon. the Minister, in outlining what he called “Forward Planning” was content to give the House a list of projects already completed or in the process of being completed without a single reference as to the capital costs or the capital commitments involved. A study of the Brown Book, the current one, reveals that Parliament is being asked to commit the country to the huge outlay of R600,000,000 on Capital Account. That sum is more than a third as much again as the total capital invested in the Railways to date since its inception. When you look at that figure it is apparent that to compare the Railways with business you would have to say that the Anglo American Corporation is really just a nice little firm with some R300,000,000 invested.

The document to which I have referred, although it deals with a huge sum of R600,000,000, is completely silent as to what the period is over which this commitment is to extend and how the spending of that large sum is to be timed in order to co-ordinate it with the economic development plans of the Government’s own Economic Development Programme. On all those matters the document is silent and the whole matter is a completely closed book. Surely this is an antiquated gap in financial administration which must be eliminated if planning and co-ordination of economic development on the lines of the E.D.P. have to have any meaning. When I last dealt with this matter there was no Department of Planning. But now there is an endeavour on the part of the Government as a whole to get a economic development plan on a basis, not of one year, but of five years at a time. It seems to me—I am sorry the hon. Minister of Planning is not present—that this is one of the matters which he, his Department and his consultants should look into. I say that particularly if we are not going to have a repetition of what happened two-and-a-half years ago when this honourable Minister slapped on his 10 per cent surcharge on railway tariffs, if not completely without consultation, then in any case in conflict with what the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council at that time proposed in its “co-ordinating budgeting and growth point economic planning”.

So, to-day, Sir, the theme, as I say, is coordinated planning as visualized by the Government as a whole. But thinking back on that incident, I believe it would be fair to say, or to conclude, that co-ordination is not this Minister’s strong point, although it is equally obvious that he likes to keep it in mind. When I say that, I am thinking of the fact that it is now more than a year that this hon. Minister had in mind the appointment of a commission of inquiry designed to bring about proper co-ordination in transportation in South Africa, but no commission has as yet been appointed. Meanwhile, in spite of this hon. Minister’s outburst in January last of “arrogant nonsense”, I can assure him that the business public is exhibiting growing concern about this lack of proper co-ordination of transport, and that the public generally is fearful that the country will have to face another major transportation crisis as the winter months approach. So the matter is a very pertinent one in the minds of the public and certainly of the business public at this time.

Before I come to the figure side of this Budget, I wish to commend the Administration for the regular publication in the Government Gazette of its monthly figures in regard to revenue and expenditure. I think the Government Printer must also be commended for having at last come to realize the public value of those figures and for now having made it easier to trace the information in the Gazette. But there still remains this complete blank throughout the year as to what the Administration’s operations are on Capital Account, that is what its operations are on the Loan Funds drawn from the Treasury and on the various capitalized reverse funds, which are public moneys under the control of Parliament. All that remains a deep-hidden secret, and it requires questions in this House to get even the barest insight into how these public moneys are being used and are being spent. This too seems to be a matter which the Minister of Planning with his consultants might profitably look into if modern concepts of a planned economy in all spheres of public spending are to play their appropriate part. You see, Sir, publicity is not only the essence of parliamentary control, but it is also the hallmark of a good system of financial administration. Even at a glance at the Minister’s past performances one finds that he has now got used to budgets of plenty and to money galore. But it is my guess that this money spree is drawing to an end, and it is that circumstance which possibly accounts for the way this hon. Minister is dragging his feet in regard to the implementation of the major matters of principle enunciated in the Schumann Commission Report. The hon. member for Yeoville has mentioned the matter and has asked the hon. Minister specific questions in regard to the Government’s acceptance of that report. I hope the Minister will give a reply to the questions raised, however, Sir, the Minister having indulged so often and so long in budgets of plenty, I fear it will now be inflation that will be dogging his steps in future. I say that because the big surpluses in the hands of the Administration cannot be immobilized from current use; they are simply being added to the money accumulation that is currently competing for men and materials. That too, is a matter which, if the planning department is to perform its functions correctly, could be looked into.

It has now been apparent for some time that the Administration will end the current year, that is 1964-5, with another embarrassingly big surplus on Revenue Account. In that regard the hon. Minister has predicted that there will now be a surplus of R14,000,000, an increase of R4,000,000 over his original estimate. I would draw the attention of the House, however, to the fact that the actual surplus at the end of December already exceeded R15,000,000 and it exceeded R15,000,000 after the hand-out of the holiday bonus to staff and after allowing for certain staff concessions which had brought the spending for the nine months to R16,000,000 ahead of the Ministers planned spending for the year. Sir, this R15,000,000 surplus at the end of December 1965, actually leaves the hon. Minister nearly R3,000,000 better off than in the comparable period of the previous year 1963-4, which ended, as we all know now, with a surplus of R22,400,000. In the same regard another good year from the monetary point of view is predicted in the Minister’s Revenue Estimates for 1965-6. These forecast yet another big surplus. It is no wonder therefore that the Financial Mail in a recent issue thought fit, to print a headline like this: “Mr. Schoeman has the money: But where is he to get the men to operate the transport system?”. That is a pertinent question which is being asked from this side of the House, and in effect of course it is just another way of highlighting the Minister’s lack of co-ordinated planning. I hope therefore that the matter as raised quite pertinently by the hon. member for Yeoville, will be answered, it is headlines of that nature which are not certainly also a tilt at what the hon. gentleman chose to describe last year as planning ahead on a realistic basis”. Sir, the most stark realism for the railway-user in the coming year is the 7,500 vacancies in graded posts alone. What the manpower shortage is as regards the full complement of staff employed by the Railway Administration, the hon. Minister has conveniently left unsaid.

I come next to the Budget proposals on Capital Account. Here I too, want to congratulate the hon. the Minister for having resurrected the Hex River Tunnel plan and for having revived this scheme. What a pity it is that the plan was ever thrown away, because inevitably the scheme can now only be put into operation at some inflated cost. I agree with what the hon. member for Yeoville has said in regard to this project and I suggest that the added capital charges on the Exchequer in regard to this project must simply be seen as representing the measure of this Government’s inefficiency in realistic planning in the past. That will be the test, that will be the measure of the cost of its inefficiency. But there is another question mark against the Minister’s so-called “planning ahead on a realistic basis”. It arises from the additional appropriation of R30,000,000 from Loan Funds during the current year 1964-5 which the House approved a week or two ago. This R30,000,000 is additional to the original appropriation of just under R90,000,000 from Loan Funds. That addition represents an increase of nearly 33⅓ per cent in the dying days of the fiscal year. The question which it raises is what then becomes of the hon. Minister’s “planning ahead on a realistic basis” in March last, when he finds it necessary before the end of this March to incur major commitments on Loan Account of nearly one-third as much again? I put that question to the hon. the Minister because I think it demands greater elucidation from the hon. Minister than he has thus far given this House. I do not want to anticipate his reply, but it may seem to persons that this also is to be seen as the measure of the cost of inefficiency of this Government’s planning in the past. I hope the hon. Minister will be able to explain the position and to indicate that that is not the case. I accept that some R7,000,000 out of this R30,000,000 will be needed to re-imburse the Renewals Fund. Why the Renewals Fund has to be re-imbursed to that extent is because the Administration has over-reached itself once again in making capital commitments against this fund. I think the hon. Minister as much as admitted that position during the Additional Appropriation discussion. Quite obviously the Administration has over-reached itself in making capital commitments against this fund. I am also aware that R9,000,000 of that R30,000,000 will have to go to working capital where it will take the form of a sort of revolving capital account. But even after eliminating those two items, there still remains an added commitment of R14,000,000 which is an omission or an error of some 15 per cent in the original capital plans for the current year. But the matter does not end there. What makes this matter perhaps more puzzling, or should I say more unrealistic, is that by the end of January 1965 the Administration had expended no more than R72,000,000 out of its total Appropriation of nearly R120,000,000 on Loan Account. For the purpose of my argument I leave out of account capital spending during February and March from the Betterment Fund, the Renewals Fund and other similar capitalized sources, which in themselves provide quite a substantial sum the Administration is able to draw upon. But as I say, leaving that aside, the result is that spending on Loan Account during February and March will have to be at a rate of R24,000,000 each month if the excess of R48,000,000 is to be fully used. I take the matter slightly further because in a reply of the hon. Minister to a question I put to him on 2 February the Administration’s spending rate of Loan Funds up to the end of October averaged R6,500,000 a month, moreover, if you take the calculation up to the end of December the spending still remains at the average, rate of R6,500,000 per month. Quite apart from the manpower and material shortages, I must say I find it difficult to appreciate how it is going to be physically possible for the Administration to speed up spending from that average monthly rate of R6,500,000 per month to R24,000,000 per month for February and March. There may be an explanation which I have missed, but if there is an explanation which I have missed then I revert again to my question: What becomes of this Minister’s “planning ahead on a realistic basis” if in the last two months of the year spending has to be at a rate of R24,000,000 per month to meet the appropriations on Capital Account. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just sat down explained to us what he actually meant by what he said three years ago when he told us that far too much money was being spent on the Railways. I want to tell the House what the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) said last year in connection with planning. He said: “There is no imaginative planning in regard to the future development of transport in South Africa”. The hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) objected very strongly last year to the heavy capital expenditure of the Railways. I want to ask you, Mr. Speaker, what one must think of an Opposition which blows hot and cold in this way. One moment they say that here is no imaginative planning and the next moment they say that there is too much capital investment. Personally I think that in reality they do not know what they want. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Souh) (Mr. Plewman) accused the hon. the Minister of not having consulted the other sectors of the population sufficiently. For example, he said that the hon. the Minister had not adequately consulted the Economic Advisory Council of the hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. member did, however, admit that the Department of Planning was only brought into being in August of last year. What we have before us is an example of what the hon. the Minister and his Administration are doing. They maintain a very close contact with all the other sectors of the population in the economic sphere and plan accordingly. They also plan for a long while ahead, ft has been emphasized repeatedly that the Railways should not invest capital irresponsibly and should not plan irresponsibly with the result that after a few years they find that they have invested too much capital, that they have purchased too much rolling stock or have invested too much money in sections of railway and so forth. That is why I honestly think that the accusations of the Opposition are unfounded and that the hon. the Minister and his Administration know what they are doing. I trust that they will continue with the good work they are doing. I also want to give the Opposition, and particularly the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) the assurance that the hon. the Minister will remain in close contact with the new Department of Planning, although the hon. the Minister has not told me as much himself. He will plan the future of the Railways accordingly in order to ensure that the Railways keep pace with the development of our country.

Actually, I enjoyed listening to the hon. member for Yeoville. My thoughts went back to the days when I was still a small child and I remembered how Father Christmas used to come along every year to distribute presents. The hon. member for Yeoville stood up in this House like a Father Christmas and accused the hon. the Minister of not having given his children enough, of not having given the railway employees sufficient in certain respects. It is true that the function of the Opposition is to express criticism, to keep the Government, in this case the hon. the Minister of Transport, on its toes and to criticize where necessary. But I really do not think that it is the function of the Opposition to become a laughing stock by making ridiculous suggestions here which the hon. member for Yeoville knows just as well as we do are impracticable and silly. From what he said, he apparently expects the hon. the Minister’s Department to pay railway employees a basic salary which will at least be equal to their present basic salary plus overtime, and that they should then work no overtime. I ask you, what will become of the South African Railways if the hon. member, who is a possible alternative Minister of Transport, should ever come into power and try to run the Railways on that basis, and this at a time when we are experiencing a tremendous shortage of manpower, not only on the Railways, but in all sectors of our economy? Is what the hon. the Minister of Transport doing so wrong? Would hon. members opposite prefer to see a high percentage of unemployment in this country, the economic deterioration of our country to such an extent that such a position would arise? Of course, hon. members predicted that it would happen. They said that the country would go to wrack and ruin with a Nationalist Government in power. And now, because we have not gone to wrack and ruin and have developed to such an extent economically that there is more employment in the country than we have manpower for, the Nationalist Government has committed a great crime! When hon. members of the Opposition were in power, did they also play Father Christmas to the railway officials? Why did they not at that time provide better housing for railway employees, provide better pensions, not only for railway employees who retired but also for their widows? No, they did not give any consideration to these things. Why did they not make provision for better conditions of employment for the railway workers at that time? There we have the hon. member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton). He was a fitter and turner and I think that if he will cast his mind back to the treatment he received during the period of office of the United Party Government, he will pray that the United Party will never again come into power. If the hon. member is honest I am sure he will admit that he would have preferred to have done that work at the time under a Nationalist Party Government because then he would have known that he would have received a good pension on the day he retired and that his wife and children would have been properly looked after. It is, of course, not an art to play Father Christmas if one bears no responsibility. During this same Session we experienced even greater irresponsibility on the part of the present Opposition when we were dealing with the Railways and Harbours Acts Amendment Bill. The Opposition virtually suggested then that the railway workers should work according to the manual and they opposed the legislation which provided that Railway officials would not be permitted to work according to the manual or engage in what was virtually a go-slow strike. I want to ask this House: Is it a responsible Opposition which acts in that way? Is it acting quite responsibly? I say that its actions have only one purpose and that is to win votes during the forthcoming provincial elections. I can give hon. members opposite the assurance that they will have to bid far higher than that. The coming provincial election will result in a crushing defeat for the United Party but a greater defeat will be inflicted upon them during the coming parliamentary election than has ever been the case in the past.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) also blamed the hon. the Minister of Transport for not having continued with the Hex River tunnel at the time. Of course, we Nationalists know it as the United Party tunnel. It is true that the Hex River tunnel could have been built before the Nationalist Government took over, not for £2,000,000 as the hon. member for Yeoville told us but for R2,157,000 in 1946. That is quite true. But in 1946 I could buy a tractor for R400 while to-day that same tractor costs me R1,400. But the Nationalist Government was not so stupid that it could not see that it would have to pay more for the building of this tunnel at a later stage. The point is that this is a typical example of United Party planning. This was their planning. The wheels of the South African Railways stopped turning.

When was that?

When the Nationalist Government took over in 1948 virtually all the locomotives were on their last legs. There was no money to buy spares. The wheels of the Railways virtually ground to a halt. It instead of buying more rolling stock and locomotives, we were to have built this expensive tunnel which at that stage would have cost more than R2,000,000, what would the position have been? This is typical of the planning of the United Party. Now that provision has been made for all these other necessities and now that we have sufficient rolling stock and sufficient locomotives and everything that we need for the Railways, that tunnel will be built. I admit that it was planned correctly and we are improving on that planning. The tunnel will now cost considerably more—R14,360,000, but only now have we been able to see our way clear to building the tunnel.

I am not one of the Opposition and so I cannot talk for half an hour. For this reason I want at this stage to raise a matter which is, to my mind, of great importance. I want to say a few words in connection with the Schumann Report. The hon. the Minister knows that the commission agreed that all the railage on goods transported by the Railways should at least cover the direct expenditure incurred in the transport of those goods but that, even if this were to be done, there would not be sufficient funds to cover the total costs and that the indirect costs should be covered as well. The Commission stated (translation)—

If the Railways were a business undertaking the policy followed in determining tariffs would be a policy which would have to cover the direct and indirect costs as well as showing a small profit. But the Railways are a State undertaking which must in terms of Section 103 of the Constitution have as its aim the promotion of the settlement of our industrial and agricultural population in all the provinces by means of cheap transport. It is for that reason that since 1910 the State has made the tremendous sum of R1,600,000,000 available for the Railways. I should like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the fact that if the recommendations in the report, in so far as agricultural products are concerned, accepted by the hon. the Minister, I am afraid that we as farmers will be very hard hit. That is why I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give very serious consideration to this matter and I want to thank him for not having over-hastly and irresponsibly accepted those recommendations as the Opposition would have liked to have seen him do. That is why I appreciate the fact that he has appointed a commission of inquiry to provide him with the necessary information after which he will arrive at his own decision. If those recommendations are adopted, it will mean that a large number of our farmers will be so hard hit that numbers of us will no longer be able to continue producing. I want to mention a few examples.

It is recommended that the tariff on vegetables be increased by more than 100 per cent. This will mean that farmers in the Low-veld who produce during the winter and transport their products as far as Cape Town, will be very hard hit indeed. I want to show what the present position is. The railage on a box of tomatoes of 15 lbs. from Nelspruit to Cape Town is at present, under the old tariff, 5 cents per box. If this is doubled, it will become 10 cents. I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that over the past five years the average market price—these are reliable statistics which I have obtained from the office of the Director of Markets in Cape Town—has been 46 cents per box. If the railage becomes 10 cents and the box itself costs 10 cents and the marketing and agent’s commission is 5¼ cents, it will mean that the total cost to the farmer of marketing that box of tomatoes will not be less than 25¼ cents. This will mean that the farmer will only receive 20¾ cents per box, at average prices. But when we have to deal with the below-average price—and it often happens that a box is sold for 25 cents—it will mean that numbers, particularly of the smaller farmers, will have to cease production. The same thing holds good for fruit, particularly tropical fruit and citrus from the Lowveld in whose regard it has also been recommended that the tariff be increased by 100 per cent. What will the result be? It will mean that the vegetable farmers of the Lowveld will no longer be able to send their vegetables to Cape Town. It will no longer pay them to do so because the tariffs will be too high. The result will be that they will glut the nearest large markets and that prices will fall to such an extent on the Johannesburg and Pretoria markets that more farmers still will have to stop producing. The farmers will suffer a great deal of hardship because of this fact.

I want to go further. The Schumann Commission recommended further that the railage on production essentials should also be raised considerably, and I want to mention a few of these production essentials. They recommended that the tariff on fencing material be increased by 18 per cent and that the tariff on oil cake and oil cake flour, of which the farmers use an enormous amount for feed mixtures, be raised by 40 per cent; that the railage on salt be increased by 14 per cent, on lucerne by 76 per cent, on dip and fungicides by 62 per cent and on artificial fertilizer by 27 per cent. All this will mean that the production costs of the farmer will be increased without his receiving any compensation therefor. The position of the farmer is quite the reverse of that of the dealer. While the dealer adds the cost of railage to his cost price, I as a farmer cannot add the railage to the price which I receive except in regard to certain controlled products such as maize and maize flour and wheat and wheat flour which are handled by the control boards. The State pays subsidies in this regard. But when I send these things to the market, the railage is deducted from the price which I receive, not added as is the case in practically all the other cases of producers and suppliers. That is why I want to make a very earnest appeal to the hon. the Minister who himself has experience of farming to give the matter very careful consideration before he agrees to increase the tariffs on agricultural products. It is suggested that the tariff for the railage of oxen from South West Africa be increased by 55 per cent. This will mean that the farmers in South West Africa will have to pay a very much higher railage rate. At the moment, beef is scarce and expensive as a result of drought, but once we return to the old floor prices of below R12 per 100 lbs. and the railage costs of the farmer are increased considerably, it is obvious that the farmer will be at a disadvantage. That is why I hope and trust that the hon. the Minister will give this matter very sympathetic consideration and will not permit these new tariffs to be introduced. If tariffs must be raised, I feel that agriculture can make out a very strong case for a subsidy from the State as is paid in the case of border industries and Bantu suburban services. I think that I have said sufficient to bring this matter home strongly to the hon. the Minister and, as I know him, I am sure that he will be sympathetic towards agriculture. I just want to point out to the hon. the Minister that there was a representative of the South African Agricultural Union on that Commission and he signed those recommendations together with the other members but what his motives were in doing so I cannot say. What he did tell me was that he signed them because he agrees that the railage on all goods which are transported should at least cover the direct costs of transport. But I want to assure the hon. the Minister that the farmers are not in agreement with that recommendation and that if that recommendation is accepted the farmers will have something to say.

Very interesting!

I listened with greatinterest to the argument advanced by the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) on this question of the tariffs proposed by the Schumann Commission in respect of agricultural products. It is an extremely important matter, of course, but what interests me particularly is the fact that without turning a hair the hon. member unequivocally rejects that recommendation. Two or three speakers opposite, as well as the main speaker, have told us, however, what a good report that is. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) said it was an authoritative report and he talked as though he accepted everything contained in it.

Of course it is authoritative.

I asked myself how it was possible that the hon. member could mention all these facts without telling us what he thought about the recommendations, and surely he is the main speaker after the Minister.

I could not deal with the entire report, could I?

I shall return to the hon. member. He told us how the wheels of the Railways nearly came to a halt in 1948 as a result of the weak United Party Government. Does the hon. member remember the commission his Government appointed to curtail the capital expenditure envisaged by the United Party for the very purpose of acquiring additional rolling stock? If the wheels were going to come to a halt why purchase still less locomotives and trucks and carriages? The hon. member said the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) had advanced ridiculous arguments. He said the hon. member for Yeoville had said you must not consolidate a portion of overtime earnings with salaries. He says that is a ridiculous idea. I want to say this to the hon. member: Go and tell the railway workers that they are ridiculous to make such a suggestion because thousands of railway workers are to-day thinking along those lines. [Interjections.] It is no use the hon. member for Bethlehem saying we are ridiculous; he must say that to the railway workers. The hon. member for Yeoville did nothing more than to give expression to the thoughts of thousands of railway workers.

But I want to return to the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East). After all he is the authority after the Minister and what does he say? The hon. member for Yeoville said that with a view to the serious manpower shortage he wanted to suggest to the Minister that non-Whites should be taken in on the Railways at the bottom and that the White workers should be moved one step higher at the same time.

He was very innocent about that this afternoon but outside he is not as innocent.

Give me a chance. The hon. member for Yeoville said: Give the Whites an opportunity of getting one step higher and push in the non-Whites from the bottom. But this hon. member says with much ado: Look at the picture we have of the officials on the Railways; over the past few years under National Party regime the number of non-Whites is beginning to decrease more and more and the number of Whites is increasing. [Interjections.] In other words, there is a declining tendency as far as the non-Whites are concerned and an increasing tendency as far as the Whites are concerned. I want to ask the hon. member, and as the leading figure he can reply to me: Is it the policy of the Nationalist Party he propounds when he says that? Is that the tendency he wants the Government to bring about, namely, fewer non-Whites and more Whites in the Railway service?

I stated a simple fact.

With pride.

The fact of the matter is that that is a position which has developed as a result of the actions of his Government and now I ask the hon. member: Is it the policy of the Government progressively to have fewer non-Whites and progressively more Whites? And that bearing in mind the fact that the majority of posts in the Railways are to-day to be found in the lower-paid categories.

Where do you get that from?

I may be wrong but are the majority of posts on the Railways to-day not to be found in the lower-paid category of posts? Is that the position that vociferous member want to have in South Africa and is that the policy of his party. [Interjections.]

Order!

I want to say this to the hon. member. If the Minister were to find in future that, as a result of the manpower shortage which is already so serious to-day, he has to go to the trade unions and say: “Look here, must we not push the non-Whites in, in other words, should we not increase the number of non-Whites?”, what will he say to that?

Just tell us where you want them to be pushed in?

In the Railways.

In which posts?

Wait a minute. What will the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) say in that case? Will he then say: No, you may not do that because my policy is to decrease the number of non-Whites?

My counter-question is this: In which posts?

Order!

Surely not in unsuitable positions, but in suitable positions, positions which suit those people.

I return to the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East). He tells the House that the United Party is hopelessly misinterpreting the question of the colour bar on the Railways; we are making a tremendous amount of propaganda out of it because, says he, the Railways have always adhered to the traditional policy that non-Whites may be taken on on the Railways and do work which at some time or other was done by Whites.

May I ask a question?

No, wait. Let me first state my case. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) must listen carefully. He says it has always been the traditional policy of the Nationalist Party to allow non-Whites to come in and to allow them with the passage of time to do the work of Whites. That is the reason, he says, why we are making such a hullabaloo when the Minister decides to employ a number of non-Whites and we are misrepresenting the whole position. I want to ask the hon. member this: Does he remember the years round about 1955 when Section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act elicited so much argument and when he told the nation that they were busy safeguarding the White workers of South Africa for all time by introducing job reservation? But the point is this. Hon. members are carrying the label of job reservation round their necks for public consumption and while they are carrying that label they are busy doing exactly the opposite. The hon. member for Yeoville did not launch an attack on the Nationalist Party. All he said was that the Nationalist Party must be honest for the first time in history and say: We introduced job reservation but the economic pressure is such that we simply cannot apply it on all fronts. But they lack the courage; that is their difficulty.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) told us about the wonderful salaries railway workers were receiving. He told us that while the cost of living had risen to 65 per cent the wages and salaries of railwaymen had increased by more than 100 per cent. [Interjections.]

Order!

I now want to know from the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) why then do trade unions which represent thousands of railwaymen knock at the door of the Minister and ask for more money? If they are so well-off why do they ask for more money? Or does the hon. member want to tell me those are the gluttons on the Railways, those are the people who want too much, as the hon. the Prime Minister said? Are they the persons? Are they so irresponsible that in spite of the position, in spite of the fact that they are living in luxury, they are still asking the Minister for more money? Did the hon. the Prime Minister have those people in mind? No, the fact of the matter is simply this: The railwayman cannot live on statistics; he cannot live on figures and I think the railwayman of South Africa is sufficiently responsible not to approach the Minister for a 17 per cent increase in his wage while he knows he ought not to get it. They are not the gluttons or those who simply desire more to whom the Prime Minister referred. They are responsible people. The hon. member for De Aar-Colesberg took one of his colleagues to task for not having thanked the railwaymen. These people who are reviled by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) as being the gluttons, the people who desire more …

I never said that.

That is the implication but I want to tell the hon. member that had it not been for the railwayman with his sense of responsibility the Minister of Transport would have sat here with a totally different face to-day. The public of South Africa know that these people have been accused and the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) must not tell us this sort of thing that the railwaymen are asking for money but that they ought not to get it.

I did not say that.

That is the implication.

Yes, your distorted implication.

I want to return to another matter of great importance. It is well known that the transport system plays a dominant role in the national economy of any country but I do believe that in order to play that role successfully you must not only provide fast, safe, cheap and regular transport facilities, but the Railways of South Africa must also come to this House and to the people outside and submit a properly planned scheme for the future. I think it is of primary importance that the Railways must not only plan for the conveyance of goods and the passengers of South Africa for the next year; not only must they keep pace but they should actually be ahead of the development in South Africa. That means that they must not only plan for the present, not for 12 months, but for the future and try to give us a picture of what they envisage for the future. The Minister stated it very clearly in his introductory speech. He said that when it came to the question of the future needs of the Railways you could not simply wave a magic wand; you could not just press a button and all the requirements would be there. You had to plan ahead not only as far as railway requirements were concerned but you also had to plan ahead so that trade, commerce, agriculture and mining would know what the Railways had in mind for the future.

When we look at these Estimates and we think of the planning for the future we look in vain for it. Nowhere do you find it. The hon. member for De Aar-Colesberg told us with a beaming face that he had learnt from a confidential source that the Railways had a blueprint for the next 20 years. Where does the hon. member get that from? The hon. the Minister does not know about that and if he does he has not yet enlightened us on it. [Interjections.] Is it not the duty of the Minister to enlighten the public? This report is nothing more than simply a bookkeeping report for the next 12 months. It contains nothing about the future. One looks in vain for a plan for the next 20 years in it. The fact is simply this that we have no picture whatsoever of what the Railways have to provide in future. We only have a picture for 12 months. We do not even know what the position will be like in five years’ time. We do not know nor do industry, mining or agriculture know and they are the people who have to plan for the future. The Minister has exempted a few cartage contractors but the cartage contractors do not even know what the future has in store for them. They do not even know how much capital they can invest in their private transport undertakings because the Minister only tells us what his plans are for one year and he leaves it at that.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Schumann report is that we learn in it for the first time the way in which the Planning Council functions which the Minister has appointed. We are told how that Planning Council acquires information from a thousand sources in order to plan ahead. I think I am correct in saying that a few years ago the Minister approached trade and industry and told them he now had a Planning Council and that in 1961—I think that was the year—there would be no need for them to worry because the Planning Council would plan everything for the following five or six years and that they would never again have to worry about shortcomings in South Africa. But the point I want to make is this: Except to tell us how this council functioned, where it got its information from, nobody knows what its plans are for the future; we are not told that. Even the Schumann report only tells us how this council sets about its task but this House where millions of rand have to be voted, here where the representatives of the nation have to accept responsibility for the expenditure, has no picture of the future. The hon. member for De Aar-Colesberg (Mr. M. J. de la R. Venter) is obviously one of those people whom the Minister takes in his confidence but he does not take this House in his confidence. We now ask the hon. the Minister to tell us what is happening. We are living in a time of great economic upsurge and now more than ever we at least want to know what the Railways envisage for the future. We are not asking the hon. the Minister to tell us what he envisages for the next 20 or 30 years but let the people, the country, trade, industry and agriculture know what the picture will look like in ten years’ time; we are at least entitled to that. But what do we do now? We are living from hand to mouth.

You are disappearing.

Mr. Speaker, I trust the hon. member is not referring to the Railways. Let us analyze the Schumann Report itself. This is a report which really touches at the very roots of the entire Railway tariff system; this is a report which suggests revolutionary changes in the tariff system. So far I have not heard a word said about this report. The hon. the Minister disposed of this report in two paragraphs in his introductory speech and this report was already available in April of last year. It is already nearly April again and nobody knows what is happening. We do not know whether the hon. the Minister is going to accept or reject the recommendations in regard to agriculture to which the hon. member for Bethlehem has referred. We do not know whether the hon. the Minister has in the meantime spoken to the Minister of Finance or with the Cabinet about the State subsidies envisaged by the Schumann Commission. The people do not know, nobody knows but we are being asked to approve of Estimates and to judge whether the hon. the Minister and the Government are doing their duty as far as the Railways are concerned.

But let us deal for a moment with another aspect of planning. Never before has the question of the manpower shortage been so emphasized in a Budget speech as precisely in this Budget speech. Practically on every page of the Budget speech reference is made to this manpower shortage. I want to put it this way to the hon. the Minister: It will be of no avail to have all the trucks in the world, to acquire all the machinery in the world and to build all the harbours; the essential element in the entire railway organization is the human material and you do not buy human material in a factory. In order to meet your manpower requirements you have to do preparatory work over a long period. I want to put this question to the hon. the Minister: Against the background of his own Budget speech, against the background of this acute manpower shortage, what are his plans for the future? No plan whatsoever is suggested in his Budget speech. All the hon. the Minister does is to tell us that there is a manpower shortage. But he is not satisfied with that; he advances that as an excuse for specific problems which confront him. No, the hon. the Minister must sit back and say: “No, it is not an excuse; I am making a mistake; I plead guilty as the Minister responsible because I am one of the people who helped to squash the biggest effort ever made in 1948 to recruit manpower for South Africa by way of immigration.” That is what he should say. It is not an excuse; it is one of the most serious accusations that can today be levelled at any Minister in South Africa. Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time we have heard about this manpower shortage in this House. Only last year the hon. the Prime Minister got up and said: “You are chasing up a hare; there is no shortage; the shortage is not so serious that we need worry about it.” The hon. the Prime Minister had hardly uttered those words when that hare became a tiger and it is now sitting on the shoulders of the hon. the Minister of Railways. It has become such a tiger that, hyper-bolically speaking, he had to refer to it in practically every sentence of his Budget speech. Mr. Speaker, they are the people who told us: “Let the immigrants stay out; they are the people who will come and take your homes; who will take the food out of the mouths of your children; we do not need them.” What is our position to-day? Can you imagine where we would have been had there been a normal inflow of White labour into South Africa over a matter of 16 years? Do you think the Minister would have come here to-day with this type of Budget speech?

But it is not only a matter of the past; let us look at the present and the future. The hon. the Minister tells us that there is such keen competition on the labour market that he cannot compete with trade and industry. I want to know from the hon. the Minister whether he can give us the assurance that he has done everything in his power to compete with trade and industry for the available White manpower in South Africa? Sir, I simply do not believe it because when I hear how the railwaymen complain about the extremely long hours they have to work, when I hear the railwaymen knocking at the Ministerial door asking for increased wages and salaries and the hon. the Minister not acceding to their request, when I hear that when they go and work railway pensioners forfeit their temporary allowance when their income reach a certain notch I say the hon. the Minister has created such an atmosphere that he cannot to-day compete with trade and industry.

But I have not finished yet, Mr. Speaker. What about the future? [Interjections.] You see, Sir, you cannot tell the railway workers a thing to-day; the only people who may tell the workers of South Africa that they are doing something for them are the National Party members.

That is also true.

I want to remind the workers of South Africa of the old Roman warning: Beware of the Greeks when they come with presents. I tell hon. members opposite that I shall say to the workers of South Africa: “Beware of the political party who is continually telling you it is your friend.”

They were also the friends of the farmers!

The hon. member for Yeoville reminds me that they were also the friends of the farmers. After the agricultural congress in November at Bloemfontein I think that friendship has worn a little thin. But let us leave it at that. Mr. Speaker, it is the duty of the hon. the Minister to tell us that he cannot make any adjustments whatsoever on the Railways to-day and that he is simply not in a position to attract a larger number of workers to the Railways. That is the first point. Secondly I believe—and I am submitting this to the hon. the Minister for his consideration—that there are perhaps other steps that can be taken either to make the railway workers more productive or to increase their numbers. I have in mind, for instance, the apprenticeship position as it obtains on the Railways. Has the time not arrived for us, in the state of emergency in which we find ourselves, to reduce the period of apprenticeship? [Interjections.] That hon. member probably did not read the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech.

He is not interested in it.

Mr. Speaker, if we are not in a state of emergency as far as manpower is concerned in South Africa I should like to know what matters will be like when the position gets worse. I again submit to the hon. the Minister for his consideration either to increase the productivity of the railway workers or to increase their numbers. I want to put it this way: Is it not possible to reduce the apprenticeship period railwaymen have to serve in numerous grades so that they will serve fewer years as apprentices? In the second place I want to ask whether it is not possible for the hon. the Minister to find some point of contact with education in South Africa. I notice that more than 2,000 matriculants enter the Railway service annually. What I have in mind is to contact education during the two final school years so that the boy or girl who is going to enter the Railway service can perhaps start specializing. That boy or girl can perhaps make himself or herself proficient in the job he or she will occupy on the Railways. If the hon. the Minister can make that contact he will have the assurance in the first place that that matriculated boy or girl will come and work on the Railways, and, in the second place, he will have the assurance that that boy or girl will become productive much sooner on the Railways. Sir, we are in a state of emergency as far as manpower is concerned and I think emergency measures are called for. Nobody likes specialization in the secondary or primary school but with a view to present-day circumstances the hon. the Minister may perhaps consider the suggestion in an attempt to make the Railways more attractive as an avenue of employment in South Africa. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) mentioned quite rightly the manpower shortage which we are experiencing to-day. This is also apparent from the latest information before us. There are vacancies for 7,500 White employees in graded posts on the Railways and according to the latest report of the General Manager, the unemployment figure among White men and youths throughout the whole of the Republic in March 1964, was only 3,565. But while the hon. member was quite correct in his exposition of the problem, he said very little to assist this House to arrive at a solution to this problem. I want to suggest that his idea of a Railway matriculation is ridiculous. If this idea is given effect to, we will have a police matriculation, a plumber’s matriculation and various other forms of matriculation in the future which will of course be completely ridiculous.

The hon. member suggested that non-Whites be recruited for certain posts but he categorically refused to tell us to which posts non-Whites should be appointed. I want to put this question to the Opposition. It appears from the latest report that there is a particular shortage of conductors and station foremen. Because there is this shortage, would the Opposition be satisfied to have non-Whites appointed to those posts? Although hon. members opposite have spoken about a lack of planning on the part of the Government I want to refer with appreciation to the very careful planning in certain spheres. In the first instance I want to refer to the staff position and particularly to the training of staff. For example, as far as training schemes are concerned, during the year under review 108 candidates were selected for four-year courses of training as engineering assistants. Eighty-three bursaries, 27 more than during the previous year, were made available for engineering students. The promotion of scientific staff managers was assisted by staff tests. The Railway College at Esselen Park trained 2,814 officials and no fewer than 68 instructors were engaged upon this work. I also want to praise the announcement of the System Manager for the Free State that a training college will be established at Bloemfontein at which a further 500 students will be trained. I praise the establishment of that college. I also praise the principle of the decentralization of educational facilities which is fundamental to the idea because it is a very constructive method of giving attention to the shortage of staff. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to continue to apply this sound principle and to extend these facilities to the large railway centres on the platteland.

In connection with planning and as far as improved services to the farmers are concerned I also want to point out briefly that large capital amounts are made available for the transport of maize alone. For example, it is proposed to build a railway line 26 miles in length between Cambridge and Blaney. This line will be used largely for the transport of maize; the lengthening of the Whites-Odendaalsrus line to Ancona is being resorted to largely to relieve the position as far as the export of maize is concerned and this holds good too for the new grain elevator at East London, which is nearing completion.

I hope that the House will permit me to devote most of what I have to say to the Schumann Report and particularly to Chapter VI of that report which deals with the influence of railway tariffs on the establishment of industries in South Africa. Before I go any further I want to dissociate myself completely from the Opposition who advocate the decentralization of our industries in such an irresponsible way. They advocate decentralization without regard to labour intensity, and particularly the labour intensity of the Bantu. In other words, they advocate the decentralization of industries purely for the sake of bringing material prosperity to the platteland and without having regard to the results of such action. Chapter VI of the Schumann Report gives the impression that the Schumann Commission felt that railway tariffs were not a very important factor at this stage as far as the establishment of industries was concerned. Paragraph 322 states, inter alia (translation)—

But a little further on the Schumann Commission qualifies its previous finding because in paragraph 338 of the report it has, inter alia,the following to say (translation)—

The Schumann Commission goes on to admit that the basis of its investigation was 3,200 questionnaires which were sent out, and it also admits that only 600 completed forms were returned to it. In order to compensate for the questionnaires which were not returned, the Commission had cost inquiries made but only on a limited scale. In paragraph 315 it states that according to the questionnaires which were returned, it appeared that only 8 per cent of the industries in the Southern Transvaal admitted that railway tariff policy had anything to do with the wrong establishment of industries, while a large percentage, 42 per cent of them, in an area which is described as the rest of the O.F.S., stated that they had been wrongly established from a railway tariff point of view. The Commission doubts these figures but it is very clear, even though the figure may be incorrect, that there is a very great discrepancy between Southern Transvaal and the Free State as far as the percentages which are given are concerned.

But enough, Mr. Speaker of the theory of the matter. What happens in practice? I want here to refer to Chapter VI of the 1963-4 Annual Report of the General Manager of Railways. In it we find the following: A concession was made in respect of lead ingots manufactured at Tsumeb and transported to the Republic in full truck loads; secondly, export tariffs were applied in respect of a wider variety of manufactured articles, inter alia, food and motor spares; thirdly, there was a Central Government rebate of 10 per cent on railage to assist industries in the Ciskei and the Transkei. All these items prove that a rebate on the railage in respect of manufactured goods railed to densely populated market areas is of real assistance. That is why I take the liberty of asking the hon. the Minister to reconsider this matter very seriously with the Schumann Report before him and, notwithstanding the Schumann Report, to have very careful research done in this regard before he arrives at a final decision. I ask too that the so-called White platteland be divided up into main areas on a planned basis and that such areas also receive the benefit of lower railway tariffs on manufactured products railed to the densely populated market areas.

What you are advocating is United Party policy.

I said that I dissociated myself completely from the irresponsible policy advocated by that side of the House because hon. members opposite advocate the establishment of industries on the White platteland without regard to the work done there and the people who work there.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that this side of the House and any White person in this country will be struck by the fact, according to the tables appearing in the Schumann Report, that the four large industrial concentrations in this country are already responsible for 81.3 per cent of our gross factory output and that 55.7 per cent of the White population live in these areas, while only 44.3 per cent of the White population are to be found in and only 18.7 per cent of the gross factory output is forthcoming from the rest of the Republic. If the present tendency continues, there is no doubt that the figure of 81.3 per cent will increase to beyond 90 per cent and that the other figure will drop far lower than 18.3 per cent. In the interests of the whole of our country, in the interests of the safety and survival of the White man, it is my earnest plea that the hon. the Minister give his urgent attention to this important matter.

We have listened with interest to the hon. member who has just spoken and we thank him for the support which he has unknowingly given to this side of the House. He gave that support unknowingly, as did the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel). Here we have two Government members speaking one after the other, pleading with the Minister to give a decision on the Schumann Report. If the Government’s own members are so concerned that they have to rise in this debate to plead with their own Minister for a decision, then how right were we not to say that the Minister owed South Africa an answer as to his policy in regard to this report. Sir, this is a matter of tremendous concern. The hon. member for Yeoville, in his opening remarks, emphasized the need for the Minister to come to a decision; to tell the people who are in doubt to-day where they stand. Hon. members who followed pooh-poohed that plea, but now we have Government members themselves pleading either for or against this or that recommendation and tacitly supporting us in our demand that the Minister give an answer. Sir, it also indicates that the Minister has not seen fit to discuss this matter with the Railway group of his party. If members of his own party have to come along and plead as private members for a decision on this report, then it indicates that the Government has failed to accept the responsibility of getting down to the job of giving its attention to this problem and of taking a decision as a party in regard to its attitude.

May I ask the hon. member a question? Is it not possible that some of the members of our group can be away?

Yes, Sir, I am quite sure they could be away; with the elections on at the moment, I am sure most of them are away. They are away trying to deal with the dissatisfaction amongst their own supporters. [Interjections.] The question was whether I was aware that members could be away.

Yes.

Of course they can be away; I am sure their members are away.

Why do you ask then?

My point is that the Government has not dealt with this matter with the responsibility which becomes it. I shall deal with the question of why the members are away. We have had speech after speech from Government benches and not one single voice has been raised to plead for any single step in the interests of or to the benefit of the rail workers of South Africa. All they have done has been to get up and quote long lists of figures to prove how well off the rail workers are. No wonder they have to be away. The hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Mr. Otto) interjected and was completely wrong in what he said. He stated that consideration was given to railway workers who were tired or over-worked when it came to disciplinary action. I can tell him that is not true as far as the Airways are concerned.

I can prove it.

I can tell the hon. member that in the Airways a captain certified a cabin crew as flight-fatigued, as unfit for further duty. The crew were not prepared to continue, because they had then been 11 hours on duty exceeding by far the maximum laid down. They were disciplined and heavily fined. What has the hon. member to say now? The hon. member has not heard it, but that happened to have been published and taken up by the pilots’ association. If the hon. member is interested he can read about it in the journal of that association. There you have a case where it is a matter of the utmost importance that the workers under this Minister should be protected. If any workers need to be protected against excess fatigue it is the workers on the airways and cabin crews as much as anyone else. Yet when they refuse to do duty, having been certified as flight fatigued, they are disciplined and fined. That is one incident amongst many. That hon. member may know of some people who have got off and not disciplined, but there are many more who have been disciplined. The workers on the railways are being asked to carry more than it is humanly possible to bear, a burden greater than they can be expected to bear. I can speak with sympathy and with knowledge of those who are working in the harbour service of this Administration. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, these members seem to have a bug in their brains—if they have a brain in which to have a bug. All they are worried about is the vote. I happen to be interested in the welfare of the harbour workers in my constituency. Not any member on that side of the House has taken any interest in the welfare of their own workers. I happen to be interested in the welfare of the workers in my constituency, and my constituency happens to be unopposed. Therefore I am not seeking votes. I am seeking the welfare of those who are to-day being driven to such an extent that they cannot continue to carry this burden.

The hon. the Minister in his own speech pointed to the fact that the harbour service had had an increase of 30 per cent in the inward tonnage handled and an increase of 6 per cent in the outward tonnage handled. There has been a 30 per cent increase in the tonnage, but in his Estimates for this year he has allowed for an increase of 3 per cent in the White establishment in that service. In other words, he expects 3 per cent more people to handle 30 per cent more work than last year and presumably the same increase or near it during the coming year. It is not even that he cannot get the people. He is not even prepared to make provision for them on the staff establishment. We have the Estimates before us on which we are to vote. The Minister has made provision for a mere 3 per cent increase to carry 30 per cent increase in tonnage last year and close to it again this year. So one can take any of the services of the Railways. Again, according to the Minister’s own speech in which he bragged that 2.6 per cent more graded staff had handled 15 per cent more revenue-earning traffic over the last three years—2.6 per cent more staff to handle 15 per cent. This is approximately the average right through. But then in the next breath the hon. the Minister went on to say that, of course, he had a staff shortage, but he could not be blamed because he could not plan for peaks and valleys; he had to plan on the average; he had to plan for the average expectation. But the Minister himself gave an indication of the average in his own speech and I took it a little further. I went back for the last 20 years and found that the average increase in the revenue-earning tonnage handled was between 4 per cent and 5 per cent. In other words that has been the average increase which the Railways have had to gear themselves to handle. Last year the Minister bragged of an increase of 4.7 per cent in revenue-earning traffic on the Railways. In other words, this is the normal increase for the last 20 years. So with the national economy. The average over the last 50 years, if you want to go back that far, is in the region of 5 per cent per annum. In other words, there is nothing unusual in a 5 per cent increase, nothing abnormal. It is only abnormal when the Government is not prepared for it—when the Government is caught unprepared. If one wants to examine the degree of unpreparedness, then one only has to look at the record of cancellations to which the hon. members on this side of the House have referred, the cancellation of orders, the cancellation of forward planning, which would have avoided many of the headaches which the Minister has had and which, for instance, now forces him to come back to the Hex River tunnel, which his predecessor scrapped from the plans. Now in his speech he says: “Look at this wonderful forward planning.” He listed 16 items which he regarded as items of major importance in his forward planning. It is interesting to note that of those 16 items seven are in the Province of Natal, and five of the seven are matters for which we have been fighting year after year for the last 16 years. Let us look at these new projects which the Minister has held up as an indication of his forward planning. There is, first of all, the pipeline. I take them in the order in which the Minister mentioned them as major projects which were part of the forward planning which he has applied to the Railway Administration. How many years did we not plead for that pipeline on this side of the House? Before I came into this House, my predecessor and others on this side pleaded for that pipeline. I have been pleading for it for nine years, and now suddenly it has become one of the major examples of the farsightedness of this Government. The next one is the development in regard to the Durban harbour. How many years have we not warned the Minister of what was going to happen in Durban harbour? How many years have we on this side not pointed out that he was heading for a crash in the handling of shipping in Durban harbour? The Minister gave the figures only the week before last of shipping entering Durban harbour during the last three months. We find that the average awaiting entry went up from 5.8 to 8.7, to 9.6 ships per day, that the average waiting times were 35 hours, 52 hours and 66 hours over the last three months. On most days from 12 to 15 ships were waiting to enter Durban harbour. How many years ago did the Minister not know that this was going to happen? How many years ago did he not appoint the Moffat Commission? How long has he sat on those plans? How long has he refused to tell this House what his plans were in connection with the carrying out of the recommendations of the Moffat Commission. We have pleaded to have those plans, to have them placed before this House so that we could discuss them. But year after year the Minister has refused to disclose them to this House. But he had had them and he could have been planning. Now, as part of this visionary scheme of his, he at last begins to deal with the situation. He comes with one new project, the Glencoe-Hlobane electrification, because at the moment the roads are being torn to smithereens by the heavy lorries which are having to cart the coal traffic from Hlobane, lorries each of which require one driver and an assistant to carry one lorry load of coal. If you take the wasted manpower in having 30 lorries, each with its own driver, often with an assistant driver, to carry the coal which one train with one engine-driver and one guard could have handled, you see that 28 people are wasted manpower because the Railways are unable to carry the traffic. It is all very well to say that we have always pleaded for road transportation. We have pleaded for co-ordination and proper planning, proper co-ordination between the Railways and private enterprise, but now the Minister is throwing bulk traffic on to the shoulders of private enterprise, and now he says: “Look what I am doing.” What he is in fact doing is that he is making the national manpower problem even worse, because he is requiring private enterprise to use more people, more personnel to do the work than a quarter or a tenth of the personnel could do if the Railways were able to carry that traffic. But the Minister looks on that as part of his solution to the problem. It may be a solution to his traffic problem, but it is not a solution to the manpower of South Africa.

Then we have the project Vryheid-Empangeni, the fourth new item in Natal. But I noticed that the Minister carefully avoided any reference to the new harbour in Zululand. Now surely, if he is talking in terms of a new line, a new electric railway line from Vryheid to Empangeni with the object, as he stated, of conveying coal, then that ties up with the announcement which he made some weeks ago about investigations in connection with the new harbour in Zululand. This harbour is becoming something like a will-o’-the-wisp. Now you see it, now you do not. Last year the Minister heatedly denied any thought of investigation into a new harbour in Natal. A month or two ago the Minister announced the investigations he is carrying out. Why do we get this? Is it just coincidence that there is a provincial election coming up in a few weeks’ time and that the Nationalist Party is, for the first time in history, fighting the Zululand provincial constituency, and it wants a flag for its candidate to wave there? Why did not the Minister round out the Vryheid-Empangeni line project by dealing with the harbour? Does that mean that it has been dropped and that it is not part of his planning? Or is it part of his planning?

I thought you said it was an election stunt?

No, the Minister cannot announce it and then shut up about it. Either it is part of his planning or it is not.

It is part of it.

Good, so we have another project in Natal, which makes it eight. Then we have the Duffs Road-Mandeni electrification. For how many years has the member for Zululand and others in this House not warned the Minister that that Zululand line could not handle the traffic? The Minister must know how long trucks are standing there, loaded with timber, at this moment, and they cannot be moved. The weeds were growing over the wheels at one siding where we stopped in December. The weeds were growing over the wheels of the trucks loaded with timber, but the Railways were unable to move them. This is not something new. The Minister’s wheels do not turn because he does not plan far enough ahead to make them turn, but we warned him. The hon. member for South Coast warned him about the south coast line, the line where, I believe, the hon. member for Berea worked out that the train takes five minutes less now than it did 25 years ago. How often has that problem not been dealt with and pleas made to the Minister? Now it has suddenly become a major project.

And the last of them is the Durban station, this hardy annual. Now we suddenly have a committee appointed to co-ordinate, after a year ago, by agreement between the Minister and the Durban City Council, a site had apparently been agreed upon, and certainly lots of people had bought lots of ground in the area of the site. Lots of ground changed hands in anticipation of this development of the new railway station. But now we suddenly get a committee to co-ordinate and to plan it. How long will that committee sit? If the Minister’s action in regard to appointing the committee recommended by the Schumann Commission is to be any indication, then he will tell us next year who this committee are, and seven years afterwards he will tell us they have reported, and by then the station will be falling down anyway. Why, after all these years, does this matter of extreme urgency suddenly get put back into a committee melting-pot? Decisions were taken. The Minister himself announced that agreement had been reached in regard to the site, but why has it now been changed? It results in instability for all the people concerned. Land is being bought and sold. Prices become unrealistic. Who is now going to start deciding where the station is going to be and create a new gold rush for land in that area? So we have eight new items of major importance all in the province of Natal. An hon. member over here said that we should be thankful for it. Naturally we are thankful that there is progress, but we blame the Minister for having made Natal the Cinderella of past planning. If Natal had had her fair share of past planning, it would not have been necessary for eight out of 16 major projects mentioned by the Minister in his speech to be in that one province, the smallest geographical area. But the truth is that the Minister has failed in his planning. He has known what the average progress of the Railways was. The figures were here for all to read, an average of 5 per cent per year. The gross national income has increased by just on 5 per cent per year over the last 50 years. His tonnages increased by about 5 per cent a year over the last 20 years. Income from the Railways from 1944 to 1964 has gone up nearly five times. But I am not dealing with income, because we have had enough of the use of figures to try to create a pattern which was not there, from hon. members opposite. You can use figures to prove anything. So I am using tonnages, cold basic tonnages which have not changed with the cost of living or with devaluation. The Minister know what to anticipate, but he did not anticipate it. I say that he failed both in regard to Natal’s planning, its railway planning, and in regard to the overall planning, to foresee what he should have foreseen, and all we get from hon. members opposite is a glorious picture of the paradise of the Railways. I should imagine that if you go into any railway centre after what these hon. members have said, then every railwayman must be driving a Cadillac, because they are earning three times what they used to get. But not one of them joined us in our plea that this money which the railway workers now have to earn through doing overtime should be their rightful due. I believe the Minister is scared of filling the vacancies in the Railways because if he fills those vacancies the overtime will come down and the people who are to-day living on overtime are going to be in an impossible position. That is why the Minister shrugs his shoulders and says he cannot compete with industry. It is not that he cannot compete, but that he does not want to compete. He does not want to compete because the minute the workers have to stop doing overtime then he faces the real issue that we have raised, and that is that when people retire they are paid a pension which is based on only a portion of their earnings. They are giving, as the hon. member for Yeoville pointed out, 25 per cent more of their lives to the Service than they are going to get back in pensions. The Minister should in all fairness to those people ensure that their basic income is enough to live on. They should not have to work as they are having to work at the moment at the Durban harbour, 16 hours a day, week in and week out. Even clerks have to be engaged over the week-ends to help. They are doing everything that they can to get the work done, at the cost of their health and the home life of the people concerned. But, Sir, what hon. member on that side supported our plea? Not a single member on that side is interested. According to them the railway worker is doing well, he is earning high wages, he is driving round in a Cadillac and he has no grouse. We say that whether hon. members opposite like it or not, they will have to face up to the fact that they are doing a real injustice to people who are managing to live at a reasonable standard only by virtue of the hours which they are putting into their work.

It is very clear to me why the United Party fares so badly at elections. The long speech of the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) about railway workers simply goes to prove that the United Party lost all contact with the people of South Africa, particularly the railway worker. The fact that the United Party has spoken against overtime and has objected to overtime is another proof that it is not aware of the fact that the railwayman welcomes the opportunity to work overtime and to earn extra money in this way. Virtually every speaker on that side objected to overtime. The hon. member boasted to us that the M.P.C. in his constituency in which there are also a number of railway workers, was elected unopposed. I represent one of the largest railway centres in the country and in my constituency no fewer than five M.P.C.s were elected unopposed. Hon. members opposite object in a pious manner to the policy of the Government of making certain announcements to the benefit of Natal—for example, the announcement that Durban harbour will be widened. If the hon. member had stood up here and expressed his gratitude to the hon. the Minister, one would have appreciated it, but instead, he took the hon. the Minister to task for not having tackled the widening of Durban harbour three years ago. Sir, if the United Party comes into power, I give the Durbanites and the Natalians the assurance that they will realize that it was not necessary to widen their harbour because there will not be sufficient traffic to have justified such an action. It has been the progressive policy of the Nationalist Party that has given rise to the prosperity which we are experiencing in this country to-day.

Mr. Speaker, the Railway Administration is the largest single undertaking in our country; it is an undertaking which provides employment for a very large section of our population. The Railways are also the most important factor in the growth and development of the economy of the Republic and inefficiency on the Railways, which results in traffic congestion, could have very serious effects upon our economy. It is a particular achievement for the Railways, which has been placed on a very sound footing by the Nationalist Government, that it is able to keep pace with our swift development and growing traffic requirements and also to meet the unexpected and extraordinary demands which are made of it. The increasing revenue as the result of increased traffic which is offered to-day reflects the general growth and prosperity of the Republic. Railway traffic is a very reliable indication of the swift economic development of a country. Up to the present the Railways have been able to handle all traffic offered without bottlenecks having arisen and without any serious traffic congestion. If we analyze the true position to-day we find that the railways are in a particularly fortunate position. In spite of the fact that greater demands have been made of the Railways, they have always been able to meet the transport needs of the country. As I have already said, railway traffic is a good barometer of our development. Mr. Speaker, the amount of progress and development which we have experienced over the past years has only been made possible by advance planning and the ordering of important requirements at the proper time. It would be of no avail to us to have a surplus of manpower if we did not have the necessary rolling stock to handle all that traffic offered. That is why advance planning on the part of the Railways has been of vital importance. We want to congratulate the hon. the Minister on ensuring that the Railways have been able to meet the transport needs of the country notwithstanding the fact that unexpected demands have been made of them.

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