I move as an unopposed motion—

Agreed to.

for the Minister of Lands): I move—

Agreed to.

When business was suspended last night I was pointing out that it was mainly as a result of proper planning ahead that the Railways were so efficient. It is mainly due to the timeous and correct ordering of rolling stock and, as I have said, proper planning ahead, as well as the training of every railway official for a particular task so that full use can be made of the manpower potential.

I want to refer to the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw). He expressed his indignation because the Minister had started eight tremendous developmental projects in Natal, projects which he announced just prior to the election.

No, that is not so; that is absolutely untrue.

I accept that but the hon. member said in so many words that he would have appreciated it more had the Minister waited till after the election.

That is also untrue.

I just want to tell the hon. member that that is the result of thorough investigation and proper planning on the part of the Government. We cannot, in order to meet the United Party, delay the planning policy of the Railways.

My complaint is that it is too late.

I would have liked the hon. member to have been a little more appreciative, on behalf of his province, towards the hon. the Minister for those tremendous projects which are being undertaken in Natal.

Read my Hansard.

Following upon what I said yesterday I just want to bring one small matter to the notice of the Minister and that is the question of extending the railway line from Vierfontein/Bultfontein to Bloemfontein. I have raised this matter on a previous occasion in this House. We know one of the most serious complaints has been that this railway line could not carry the through-traffic. During the past year a section of this railway line has been strengthened and the position has improved considerably. We realize that the north-western Free State has a tremendous production potential. Particularly in view of the fact that an extremely big grain elevator has now been constructed at Bultfontein such an extension to Bloemfontein will create a short cut to the grain elevator which is in the process of being completed at East London for export maize. I also wish to state that the potential of that area, particularly where high demands will in future be made on the production potential of that area, justifies such an extension; such an extension can serve a very useful purpose. It would be of great benefit to those far-flung areas like Dealesville and Soutpan. But the main justification I have for pleading for this is that this extension will bring very great relief to the main line from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein. It would prevent any traffic congestion which may come about.

Then I also want to refer to the Schumann Report. A great deal has already been said about it. At the outset I should like to say that I think this is an outstanding piece of work and in principle I agree with the report. Yet there are a few matters which worry me. Following upon what the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) has said I want to point out that an increase in agricultural tariffs will certainly affect the farming community adversely. I want to plead with the Minister to meet us in this regard. We think in particular of cattle that have to be conveyed over long distances. According to this recommendation the increase in the tariffs will be from 35 per cent to 55 per cent and 66 per cent in the case of small stock.

I want in particular to draw attention to Section 103 of the Constitution which reads as follows—

I want to appeal to the Minister not to think about subsidies. It is so humiliating for any farmer to think he is receiving a subsidy that if there are other methods we would very much rather see that they be used. I know the hon. the Minister will tell us that the agricultural unions have accepted this report but we who have our fingers on the pulse of the electorate know that agriculture can hardly afford this. That is why I want to plead with the hon. the Minister, that as far as this portion of the report is concerned, to give a small measure of relief to that group.

Then I want to refer to page 144 of the report where they deal with the losses on Railway suburban transport services for Whites. You often find suburbs developing round big cities. At Bloemfontein, for instance, a large number of smallholding owners have congregated round the city. The suburban train service is of particular importance to these people. In this regard I want to ask the Minister to continue with the old policy of not expecting every service to pay for itself. Most of these people belong to the less privileged section. A very large percentage are railway workers and if this service were withdrawn it would affect them very adversely

Another matter I feel I should refer to is the question of the elimination of railway crossings. There is a railway crossing at the showgrounds at Bloemfontein and a very ghastly accident happened there recently. One of our most prominent citizens, a former mayor of Bloemfontein and Attorney, Mr. Chris de Wet, was recently killed there in an accident. He was a person who was always very careful but in spite of that he collided there with a train and was killed. This is a practical way in which to avoid the slaughtering which is taking place on our roads. I want to express my sincere appreciation of the fact that that specific crossing has now been replaced by a fly-over bridge—also at Shannon. Three fly-over bridges are also being constructed at Glen. Olive Hill and Bloemspruit. I can assure the hon. the Minister that when these fly-over bridges are completed one day the public of Bloemfontein will give a sigh of relief.

Another matter to which I want to refer and which is bearing fruit as a result of planning is in regard to the thorough training facilities which have been introduced there for railway officials. I want to refer in particular to the training college at Bloemfontein. Five hundred students are accommodated there, that institution meets a need which has come into existence because of the fact that Bloemfontein is one of the largest railway centres in the country. By training railway officials in this way the efficiency of the White workers is increased and simultaneously with that the efficiency of the Railways as a whole.

I also wish to refer to the housing provided by the Railways. That is certainly one of the most important undertakings of the Railways. Where R5,000,000 is again being earmarked for housing I think this is one of the respects in which the Railways has set an example which can certainly be emulated by other undertakings. We know that from 1948 to 1963 11,238 departmental houses have been built at a cost of R63,000,000 and that R53,290,635 has been made available under house-ownership schemes and over R6,000,000 under house-ownership schemes of 10 per cent. This total of R137,203,852 compares very favourably with the achievements of the United Party during the last ten years of their regime. When we look at their figures we notice that they spent a miserable amount of R5,000,000 on house-ownership schemes and R12,000,000 on departmental houses. When we look at these house-ownership schemes we realize what a valuable service is being rendered. When the railwayman comes home from work in the afternoon he can meet his family there; he can relax in his garden; he can play with his children on the lawn. When we think of those privileges he enjoys we realize of what value this undertaking is and what a sound investment it is for the railwayman.

On behalf of the thousands of families who share in this privilege I want to say thank you very much to the National Party Government and particularly to our Minister. I believe that by having done that a large section of our population can boast about an occupied cradle and that that has helped to build our nation.

There is another matter. Coupled with these training facilities and housing schemes our railway officials live in the knowledge that the profits and surpluses of the Railways are being used for their benefit. We know the Opposition time and again try to plead for salary increases and to get the people to think along those lines. They remind me of the Labour Party Government in England who, when they were in Opposition, promised the people the moon. And to-day when they carry the responsibility they cannot unfortunately fulfill those wild promises of theirs. If ever the Opposition were to find themselves in that position what would happen to them? The railwayman realizes that in the past salaries have been adjusted and pensions increased. It has been pointed out that the cost of living has risen by 65 per cent and that the salaries of the railwaymen have been adjusted up to 123 per cent. That will also happen in future. When the cost of living rises the railwayman knows that the necessary adjustments will be made. The railwayman also knows that all the protective funds, such as the Betterment Fund, the Insurance Fund, the Renewals Fund and the Rate Equalization Fund have been strengthened over the past years. The United Party have pleaded from that side that these funds should be strengthened. I think of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) who alleged in 1962 that the Betterment Fund was insolvent. These funds have been strengthened during the past years. The Rates Equalization Fund has been increased to R39,000,000 to-day; the Renewals Fund by R13,000,000; the Betterment Fund by R24,000,000; the deficit account by R693,000. Interest-bearing capital has been reduced by R6,000,000. Two million rand have been paid into the Superannuation Fund. If the United Party has any objection to any amount paid into these funds, if they have any objection to these surpluses, which they say come out of the pocket of the railwayman, being paid into these funds they must tell us. We have strengthened these funds. In 1948 under United Party regime the total amount in these funds was R152,000,000. Last year that amount rose to R510,000,000. The railwayman consequently appreciates these improvements.

I want to conclude by saying that every railwayman in the Republic realizes that the profits and surpluses of the Railways are being ploughed back for their own benefit. They also know that the necessary adjustments are made to their salaries to bring them into line with the cost of living. Adequate and effective housing is being provided; they enjoy pension benefits and even those pensioners who have already retired from the service have received benefits. Apart from all this they have a very sympathetic Minister and a very sympathetic Government.

I should like to preface my remarks by asking the Minister to convey to the General Manager our appreciation of the manner in which the General Manager’s report has now been drawn up. The improvement in it is that the various aspects of railway administration have been divided up in chapters giving a much easier reference to the various matters. We from this side of the House want to express our appreciation for these changes. It is far more easy now to refer to the various matters than has been possible before. Having said that, I would like to say that I find an air of complete unreality prevailing in this debate. You see, Mr. Speaker, no single Government member who has taken part in this debate so far, with the possible exception of the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel), has attempted in any way whatsoever to discuss the Budget of the Minister in an objective fashion, a Budget in connection with which I must say I have considerable sympathy with the Minister because it indicates quite clearly what a harassed Minister he is, that he is unable to offer any solution to the problems that he faces in regard to the conveyance of traffic and the manpower shortage. He says his difficulties are due to economic trends, to shortage of manpower and the difficulties in general he is experiencing with staff. The hon. Minister just does not know where he is heading as far as the Railways are concerned. You see, to my mind the Budget nullifies every progressive step the Minister in previous Budgets announced in this House. Therefore I think it is necessary in analyzing the Budget, not to look at it in isolation; one must look at it relative to other Budget speeches and contributions that the hon. Minister has made. It must be realized that this is the Minister who was prepared to take a tough line with the railwaymen, the Minister who told railwaymen at the time when he took over, in 1954, that they were not pulling their weight, the Minister who staked his reputation on his ability to put the Railways, which were in a crisis in those years, in order, a Minister who was strong enough to stand up in this House when we had such important reports submitted as the Van Zyl Commission’s Report, the Viljoen Commission’s Report, to stand up and say to the country and to the House that he was not prepared to accept the majority of the recommendations contained in those reports. Contrast it with this Budget, where one of the most important reports ever presented as far as railway operations are concerned has been placed before the Minister and by the Minister before this House! It must be realized that when the Minister took over there was no financial crisis. There was a transportation crisis. In fact the year that the hon. Minister took over the Railways ended with a considerable surplus. But the Minister undertook to get the Railways out of that crisis and “place transport on a sound footing, or get out of public life in South Africa”. I am quoting the Minister’s words. Five years after the Minister took over, after the expenditure of vast capital amounts on truckage, on tractive power, on open lines, we were told by the Minister in his Budget speech of 1957 that in fact there was a surplus capacity, that he was able to transport with ease all the traffic offering at that time, and that he was putting right the shortages as far as the staff problem was concerned. In the 1960 Budget speech the Minister stated in fact that there was an excess of carrying capacity in the Railways and that “this excess would continue for some time”. Two years later, in 1962, again in the Budget speech, the Minister stated that most of the major works of his original capital works programme had been completed and that South Africa could expect to draw early dividends from the vast capital expenditure on the Railways which the Minister at that time had undertaken. At the same time as he made that statement, in 1962, the Minister said that he had now conceived a re-organization of the Planning Council which he initiated when he took over the portfolio. He said he wanted to remodel it so that “it could consider questions in broader perspective and pay more attention to long-range projects such as future traffic trends”. One year later, in 1963, in a Budget speech dealing with the Planning Council, the Minister made this further statement “It is desirable to stress that it is one of the functions of that body to determine future transport requirements”. In 1964, in his last Budget speech before the present one, the Minister stated that it was “the concensus of opinion (of his planning body) that the economic growth of South Africa would now develop at a slower rate”, and hence there would be excess capacity in the Railways. That was last year.

And now he has planned this “boom”.

I am reminded, Sir, of what was said the other day by the Minister of Finance that the Government in fact had planned this boom. The Minister’s own Planning Council, he stated in this House last year, “conceived an economic growth which would be at a slower rate and that there would be excess capacity of the Railways”. Judge it in the light of this Budget in 1965! In other words, Sir, the statements made by the Minister in these years from 1957 to 1964-5, are not borne out by the facts. I am using this period of years because the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. Van Rensburg) used this period of years, and I am coming back to the hon. member just now. The fact of the matter is, and the Minister will not deny it, that the Railways to-day are not able to move all the goods offering, that there are serious delays as far as traffic movement is concerned, and that the resources of truckage, tractive power and manpower are strained to the limit. If there is any proof needed, Mr. Speaker, you only have to look at the relaxations granted by the Minister as far as the haulage of coal and other commodities are concerned. If the Railways could transport the goods, the Minister would never have granted those relaxations.

The hon. Minister offers no solution for his difficulties in this Budget. He merely stresses in his Budget his difficulties.

One may fairly ask, and I ask the hon. Minister, what is the basic reason for the crisis the hon. Minister is at present facing? The Minister for ten years has followed a policy of pouring millions of capital expenditure into the Railways. For what purpose? Primarily to carry goods falling into the lowrated category, for the mines, agricultural products, without any proper assessment of the role that the Railways have to play in the development of an industrial economy. Mr. Speaker, revenue of low-rated traffic, which forms something like 75 per cent of the total tonnage, 75 per cent of the 99,000,000 of tonnage of traffic that the Minister so proudly recalls in his Budget speech, now exceeds 50 per cent of the revenue of the Railways. As far as high-rated traffic is concerned, the Minister has no haulage difficulty, but the high-rated traffic forms some 50 per cent of the railway revenue, but only 16 per cent of the total traffic offered. The hon. Minister will admit that there are no problems at all to haul high-rated traffic. The problem he faces is to haul the volume of low-rated traffic, the problems of staff, the problems of capital expenditure, are all problems caused as far as the Railways are concerned by, as is so graphically pointed out in the Schumann Report, by this low-rated traffic which is uneconomic. This is the significance of the Schumann Report. This is what the Schumann Commission report more than anything else brings to light. It focuses the spotlight on this fundamental difficulty of the Railways. It brings to the forefront more than anything else this difficulty that the Minister faces to-day. I am therefore not surprised that the Minister cannot stand up here, after having had 12 months in which to consider the Schumann Report and state this and that or the other in my line of policy in regard to this matter. We find that members, such as the hon. member for Bethlehem, plead with the Minister not to apply the recommendations of the Schumann Report in so far as agricultural products are concerned. We had a hint from the previous speaker that the Minister must be very careful in applying the recommendations of the Schumann Report as far as passenger traffic is concerned. What the Schumann Report definitely also does show is the failure of the Minister’s Planning Council to find a solution to this very problem. Because for the Minister to accept the findings and the recommendations of the Schumann Report will throw overboard the long-cherished principles of preferential ratings and the fixing of tariffs on the principle of what the traffic can bear. What we are entitled to ask in this House and what the country is entitled to ask from the Minister as far as the report goes is this: Does the Minister now accept the basis of the recommendations of the Schumann Report of fixing tariffs on the basis of direct costs and value costs as far as new rates are concerned, of does the Minister still stand by the old tried principle of fixing rates on the principle of what the traffic can bear. Is the Minister prepared to overthrow the recommendations of the report that preferential tariffs should no longer be considered as a method of fixing railway rates. These are the questions to which we want an answer. If the Minister cannot accept the report and if he wishes to reject the report and he wants to continue his policy of vast capital expenditure to transport bulk traffic at uneconomic rates, which means that the Minister is loading every other commodity in the high-rated classifications of South African goods in order to make the Railways pay, then he must reject the report. But if the hon. Minister wishes to accept the report, he will have to load transport costs of exports, mineral and agricultural products, with also disastrous consequences to the economy of cur country. That is why I said at the beginning of my speech that we should extend our sympathy to the hon. the Minister who does not know what to do about this.

We have for years pleaded in this House for a proper co-ordination of transport and the place our Railways have to play in the future development of industries in our country. I know there are hon. members who will say that we have just thought of this now in the light of the recommendations in the report, but I want to quote what we said as far aback as 1960 about this matter in this House (Hansard, Vol. 103)—

That has consistently, for years, been the standpoint of this side of the House and it took the Schumann Commission’s recommendations to convince the Minister that the standpoint we have adopted for a number of years was the correct one, and hence his announcement of the appointment of a commission to investigate this very aspect, as much as ten months ago. What we cannot understand, Sir, is the dilatory attitude adopted by the hon. Minister in a matter of this nature. Because if one has to approve the expenditure of millions of capital for further railway development, when he himself is fully aware of the need (because otherwise he would not have appointed such a committee) that another approach must be taken to the transportation needs of South Africa, then the importance of this matter is highlighted.

I do not think that “co-ordination” is the right word. I think in some sense it is the wrong word to use. I think what is wanted is “rationalization” in South Africa between transport operated privately for the benefit of owners, for the owners’ own purposes, as opposed to transport operated to provide a public service. That is the whole essence of the Schumann Report, because it brings this aspect of the need for a revision of the approach to railway operations to the forefront, and the Minister has done nothing about that for the past ten years. It took the cold, stark facts of the Schumann Report, of which the hon. Minister, I must say, still had some doubt a little while ago, to convince him that the time has arrived for a new approach. Now I do not want the Minister to say in his reply to this debate that we have just given cold criticism here without an attempt to help him. The hon. Minister has always had to rely on the help of the Opposition to get himself out of trouble. I want to suggest to the hon. Minister that hand-in-hand with the commission that he is appointing on the recommendations of the Schumann Report (if he does not want to say on the recommendations of the Opposition) he should appoint another commission, a commission to investigate the whole aspect of the policies governing the development, control and administration of the South African Railways. I make that suggestion to the Minister because in our view it is no good having a report of a commission studying coordination of transport in South Africa when if the commission reports finally, the Minister will find himself in the position that he does not know whether or not he can apply the recommendations because he does not know what the exact position is as far as development in respect of the South African Railways is concerned, and what are the consequences in accepting such a commission’s recommendations in the light of the capital development which the Railways are incurring. The Minister will not be able to make decisions on the mere recommendations of a commission of that nature without sufficient data before him. That fact is also brought to light in the Schumann Commission’s Report. So we suggest to the hon. the Minister that hand-in-hand with a commission investigating the principle of co-ordination, there should sit another commission investigating the policy, the development and the general administration of the Railways, particularly with regard to capital expenditure.

There is one other aspect about this report in respect of which I cannot understand the hon. Minister remaining silent. The Minister well knows that at the time of the discussions on the Newton Commission’s Report, certain proposals were made for a rates tribunal. This is briefly dealt with in the Schumann Commission’s Report. I would like to ask the Minister why he is so hesitant about the recommendation made by the Schumann Commission in respect of a Tariff Advisory Board. Is the Minister going to accept that, or is he going to reject that proposition? These are important issues, matters of Government policy, and one would at least have expected a statement from the Minister, such questions as the decentralization of industries and the development of border areas, the proposals in respect of financing from Central Government Revenue the losses on the South West Africa system—all most important issues which cannot be brushed on one side. But we have had nothing from the hon. Minister, nor from the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East). He has not even attempted to help the Minister out of his difficulties. He has not come forward with one constructive suggestion. We are awaiting with anxiety what is going to be the Minister’s approach and attitude when he replies to this debate in regard to these specific matters.

I would like to return for a few minutes to the issues of staff and the manpower shortage. I think it is one of the remarkable aspects of this Budget that the Minister has attempted to offer no solution to resolve his manpower problem and the difficulties in regard to the staff. We get a mere statement of fact in the Budget speech, a statement of the Minister’s difficulties. He tells us that he has got 7,500 vacancies in the graded White staff. It is interesting to note that that represents nearly 10 per cent of the entire staff establishment as far as graded staff is concerned. The Minister gives us other percentages which take a little bit of analysis. He says that the staff establishment increased by 2.6 per cent during the last three years and that this 2.6 increase in staff in three years hauled another 15 per cent increase in traffic. I would like to be a little more realistic about figures of that nature. The plain fact of the matter is that there has been a decline in staff from 1964 to 1965 if you compare the figures of the General Manager’s report of that year with the figures presented by the Minister in his White Paper. I have those figures here. In 1964, according to the General Manager’s report there were 114,766 White employees, but the White Paper which the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) has in front of him, states that there are only 113,066 European employees. If one accepts these figures as being true, there was a decline and not an increase. Of the 2.6 per cent the Minister speaks of three years, but we have had the amazing statement from the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) yesterday, that from 1957 to 1964, the European staff increased by 11.1 per cent in the Railways. I was flabbergasted. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) must realize that when he speaks to the Opposition he is not speaking to his own members, and that the Opposition goes and has a look and investigates the situation and does not take his statements at their face value. What are the facts? I took the trouble to check up on these figures and I am going to tell the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) that the White staff position in the Railways has remained more or less constant since 1957. In terms of the General Manager’s report the figure in 1957 was 112,508 White employees in the Railway service and in 1965 it is a little more than 113,000, an increase of less than 1,000. How does the hon. gentleman make it 11.1 per cent? It is less than 1 per cent. That is typical of the type of speech we get from the other side. We have been regaled with nothing but globular sums and not one of those members have taken the trouble to analyze what these figures represent. They quote globular sums to show the vast political achievement on the part of the hon. Minister. And when the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) is challenged what he is suggesting to overcome the Minister’s problem of the manpower shortage, etc., he has got no answer. He merely says “We follow a White policy in the Railways”. But he well knows that more than 15,000 posts in the last ten years have been filled by non-Whites in the Railway service that were formerly filled by Whites. The Minister has never denied that figure. If he wants to deny it, I refer him to one of the Railway Board commissioners who in this very House gave the figures, and the hon. Minister himself has admitted in this House that he is prepared to employ non-Whites in semi-operative positions. To-day there are certainly more than 600 non-Whites in semi-operative jobs in the railway service, in work that was formerly done by Whites. This is the kind of political bluff that one has to face from hon. members on the Government side. They are not able to take an objective approach to the problems facing the hon. the Minister.

When the Minister took over in 1954, there were 103,000 Whites employed in the Railways and five years later the figure had increased to 113,000, but since 1957 to the present time the European complement of the Railway Administration has remained the same. But this is the point: When you come to speak of sweated labour, the exploitation of railwaymen by overtime—and it does not only apply to the running staff, but to all grades, to clerks, to supervisors, to stationmasters—the position is that it is not 2.6 per cent and 15 per cent more hauled, but the fact of the matter is that the staff complement has not increased since 1957. In 1957 112,000 railwaymen were hauling 77,000,000 tons of traffic, and in 1964, the same number of railwaymen, in fact a few less, were hauling 99,000,000 tons of traffic, an increase of some 22,000,000 tons of traffic, which means more truck-loading, more administrative work, more overtime in every possible direction in order to cope with the additional traffic, and it is not only in the lower grades that the problem exists. Hon. members must not overlook the first opening paragraph of the hon. Minister’s Budget speech where he speaks of the growing decline in the ranks of professional men and other staff in key positions. The facts clearly show, and the hon. Minister admitted this in one of his Budget speeches some three or four years ago, that the ratio of inexperienced personnel is increasing, and that can only have one result: Disastrous consequences to the efficiency in the exploitation of the Railways. The hon. Minister made that observation himself in 1957. He pointed out the difficulties that he was experiencing through the lack of experienced personnel.

One can go on at length dealing with staff problems, but I want to remind the hon. Minister in conclusion, as my time is running out, that he issued a challenge across the floor of this House a few days ago. He issued a challenge on a particular issue, and to me in particular, that he would convene the executive committees of all the staff associations here in Cape Town to argue a particular point on that occasion, the point of community of interests in the recognition of trade unions.

I did not say that.

I have the hon. Minister’s Hansard reported speech here. Did the Minister issue a challenge or did he not?

Not on that point.

The hon. Minister clearly issued a challenge, and before my time elapses I want to say that we are prepared to accept that challenge. I will accept that challenge from the Minister to convene a meeting of executive committees of the staff associations in Cape Town, and let us confine the challenge not to one issue, let us confine the challenge to the whole gamut of the Minister’s Administration, his approach to staff problems and his policies in respect of resolving his present difficulties in the Railways. [Time limit.]

I want to commence by agreeing with what the Cape Argus wrote after the Minister had delivered his Budget speech, viz. “It is obvious that over the past year the Railway Administration has done a grand job.” During the past year the Railways rendered excellent services to South Africa under very difficult conditions. We have before us a sober and stable Budget, and that is what South Africa needs to-day. South Africa and the Minister cannot afford at this stage to be chased from port to starboard by anybody who thinks that he can handle the administration better. I want to tell him that much of the criticism emanating from the other side of the House just amounts to the old story again of its being easy to criticize when one does not have to do the job.

To begin with, I should like to pause to deal with one of the highlights in the activities of the service during the past year, something which the Opposition could not help praising, and I am glad they did so, and that is the high level of efficiency which was maintained in the service during the past year and in fact during past years. When we discuss that, we should not lose sight of three things. The first is that the Railways during the past few years has had to adapt itself to an unprecedented economic revolution. Last year was the best year economically in the history of South Africa. The imports alone increased by no less than 25 per cent. Secondly, we must take into consideration that many of the large projects tackled on the Railways and which were calculated to create additional carrying capacity had not yet made so much progress during the past year that they were in full production; and thirdly, we should take into consideration that the Railways were faced with the same problem which is being experienced generally in South Africa and also in many other countries in the world, viz. a labour problem. But in spite of all these factors and in spite of the obstinate predictions we had here last year from various bodies that the national transport service was on the eve of a tremendous crisis, the Railways was able to succeed to a large extent in keeping abreast of the position. The traffic was carried to a very large extent and there was the absolute minimum of disruption and delay which could have been expected under these circumstances. The picture held up by the Opposition to the effect that there is a tremendous transportation crisis in the country and that there is chaos in our transportation system is an exaggerated and inflated picture. The efficiency with which the service was handled during the past year speaks volumes for the Railways in the circumstances. The high degree of efficiency which is being maintained has become a characteristic of the service to-day. I now ask those hon. members what has happened to that old hollow-backed horse they have been beating here all these years, viz. ministerial and managerial inefficiency? It has fallen as flat as a pancake; it is as dead as the dodo.

I just want to point to a few highlights in the service. Take the road transportation service which has been operating at a tremendous loss all these years. That service has succeeded, in the first nine months of this year, in earning a profit of no less than R62,486. This figure is all the more significant if we take into consideration that the increased tariffs introduced in 1962 did not apply to the road transportation service.

Take the Airways. In spite of the fact that the route of the Springbok service through Africa was lengthened by 900 miles, that service is still going from strength to strength. It is significant to see how the air freight transported has increased. In four years, from 1960 to 1964, the air freight handled was increased from 4,300,000 ton miles to 16,700,000 ton miles. I say that is proof of the high degree of efficiency and productivity which is characteristic of that service. In the second place, I want to say, in regard to this chapter of success and efficiency, that the decisive role played by the Railways personnel should be mentioned. The Minister has said on occasion that the railwaymen work under great pressure. They work very long shifts and have to do more than is normally expected of them. I take off my hat to this remarkable role which the railwayman has played under very difficult circumstances, particularly since 1954. Increasingly higher demands are still being made of these people. They and their families have to make sacrifices in order to ensure that the backbone of South Africa’s economic prosperity does not collapse.

In 1954 there was a transportation crisis. Thereupon we had a tremendous development programme which had to be implemented as soon as possible and at the highest tempo. After that we again had a recession in the economic position, and in recent years we have again had an economic boom. Under all these changing conditions, varying from one extreme to another, these men regularly had to adapt themselves, and they never left our transport service in the lurch. South Africa could always depend on them.

Now there is a labour shortage in South Africa and in many other parts of the world, not only on the Railways. It is quite clear to me that these attacks launched by the Opposition against this labour shortage have two objects. The first is that the Opposition wants to make the maximum amount of political propaganda out of this matter. The hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) went out of his way and even became very irresponsible in his attempt to make political capital out of the labour shortage. Secondly, it is quite clear to me that the Opposition subtly wants to drive in a wedge in the traditional colour bar which is maintained in the service. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) started off very cautiously, but as the debate progressed it became quite clear what the Opposition’s game was. This wooing of the railway staff by the Opposition has just one object. It is: Come and embrace me so that I can more easily stab you in the back. I want to warn the White railwaymen to-day: Beware when the United Party loves you so much, because their motives are not pure.

Let us investigate the position a little closer. It is very easy to try to make political capital out of this shortage of labour being experienced right throughout the country. It is not so easy, however, to find railway personnel, particularly in certain grades. It takes years to train people to do certain types of work, and it is particularly in those grades where there is a great shortage to-day, as in the case of stokers, shunters and ticket examiners. One cannot just take such people out of the veld and put them to work, or take them from school benches. Nor are these positions which can be filled by bringing in immigrants from abroad. It has been clearly proved that that cannot be done. Now the hon. member for Maitland asks what the Minister does in order to compete with commerce and industry. It is well known that many trained railwaymen are drawn away by private enterprise which offers them higher salaries, but that does not apply to railwaymen only; that is also the case in regard to other State Departments. The Department of Posts has the same problem. It is very easy for a private undertaking which employs a few engineers to attract a few men from the Railways by offering them a higher salary if it is short of engineers. But the Railways have hundreds of engineers and they cannot do the same as a private undertaking. And then it is very easy for that private undertaking which has enticed these men away from the Railways to turn round and to tell the Railways: We are not satisfied with the services you render.

Let us pause to deal for a moment with this question of the employment of non-Whites. The hon. member for Yeoville began with this plea. He says it has now become high time to relax the colour bar because it is obvious that we are employing too few non-Whites in the service. The hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) carried on unabashedly and hoisted the integration flag and said that we were ruining the Railways by employing too few non-Whites. The hon. member for Maitland, who is not here now, used just the opposite argument and said that the Nationalists hang the label of job reservation around their necks, but on the quiet they continually employ non-Whites in the service. Note, Sir, this tremendous political opportunism!

Certain skilled work in the Railways has been reserved for Whites all these years and the National Party stands by it, and if it is necessary to allow non-Whites temporarily to do the work which Whites have been doing all these years then that is simply a temporary measure, and when the day arrives that Whites are available to do that work they will get that work back. It is a temporary measure and the National Party stands by it, but where does the United Party stand? They say we must make up the shortage with non-Whites in those grades. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Turffontein this. He is not scared. We have a great shortage in certain grades of the service. We have a shortage of stokers. I now ask the hon. members for Turffontein and Maitland whether they want non-Whites to be employed as stokers?

That is a very silly question.

What do those hon. members say? Do they want there to be non-White stokers?

Does the hon. member not know that there are non-White stokers at the moment?

I shall make it even easier for the hon. member. There is a shortage of ticket examiners. Do they want to appoint non-Whites? [Interjections.]

May I put a question?

No, I am putting the questions now. There is also a shortage of shunters. Does the hon. member for Maitland want non-Whites to be appointed as shunters?

But Indians have already been appointed in Natal.

May I reply to the hon. member? The reply is this in regard to these posts, that they can be appointed in any such post if there is agreement between the trade unions of the railwaymen and the Administration.

The hon. member says the Minister is not doing his duty because he does not appoint non-Whites to fill the vacant posts. Now I ask him whether he will appoint non-Whites as stokers or ticket examiners or shunters, but he has not the courage of his convictions to say either Yes or No. It is very easy for an hon. member to talk if he carries no responsibility, and to make such statements and then not to stand by them. I accuse the United Party of playing a game which will deleteriously affect the White railwayman. They are trying under the stress of circumstance to force the Government to abandon a principle which the White railwayman has regarded all these years as being his greatest protection.

But those people want it.

Now I come to this other sob story of bad timing and shortsightedness as far as planning is concerned. The Hex River Tunnel was mentioned as an example of bad planning. The hon. member for Point (Mr. Raw) said that now that it is too late the Government is implementing the United Party’s programme of 1948. Now, what is the story in regard to this tunnel? After the National Party came into power, it appointed a Commission to advise it as to the necessity of carrying out certain capital works. We must remember that in those years there was a great scarcity of capital. What did this Commission report? It reported that the Railways could continue functioning for many years without the Hex River Tunnel and that for financial reasons this scheme would have to wait until more urgent works had been completed. Those were the recommendations of that Commission. But let us assume that that tunnel is necessary to-day. The United Party did not want to build it now, but 17 years ago. In other words, for 17 years that tunnel would have stood there as a white elephant.

Nonsense!

That is typical of the maladministration of the United Party Sir, if I were a United Party supporter I would not have mentioned this matter in decent company.

I now come to the pipeline story of the hon. member for Point (Mr. Raw). A commission, the Van Eck Commission, was appointed to advise the Government in regard to the matter, and its report said that this pipeline would be required by 1970. But the Minister and his planners decided to takle the pipeline before that time, and five years before the Commission said the pipeline would be required the Minister had built it, and through their enterprise it will be put into use one of these days. We have anticipated the report of this Commission, but those hon. members say that is bad timing and lack of foresight.

The hon. member for Turffontein mentioned another matter. He said that in 1954 we had a transport crisis and then there was overcapacity in 1959 and 1960. I want to deal with that. After the big capital development programme in 1954, when it was on the point of being completed, we had an economic recession round about 1960. Then there was over-capacity, and then the Minister and his officials were faced with the question: Should we now, in the light of the economic conditions and the over-capacity and the carrying capacity we have already created, drastically curtail the captal programme for the future, or should we continue? And then the various advisers came along and gave their advise to the Minister. In the first place there were the road transportation people. They warned against over-investment in the Railway system. They had their advocates in this House in the person of the then member for Wynberg and others. But the economic and financial institutions also came along with their advice, and the Financial Mail of 4 March 1960 wrote as follows—

And it was not only these financial institutions, but the hon. members opposite got up one by one to oppose any further outlay of capital. They said that we should now cease wasting further capital on the Railways. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) said that there was no longer a decent return and the Government had allowed the country to land in such an economic and political mess that we should rather stop spending money. And Mr. Butcher, who belonged to the United Party at the time, said the same thing.

What did Plewman say?

I can quote it—

Mr. Butcher said that on behalf of the United Party he objected to the capital programme being pruned by only R13,000,000. And the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) got up here and I should like to quote a few extracts from his speech. He said—

Those are the stories the Opposition then told. Sir, that was three years ago. It was at a stage when preparations had to be made for this boom we are now experiencing. Then those hon. members told the Minister that he should not develop the Railways further. If the Minister had followed their advice at the time and had invested more money in road transportation, where would the transport system have been to-day? But fortunately for South Africa the Minister is a big game hunter and not a rat-catcher. He had courage at the time such as the United Party never have. He had confidence in South Africa when conditions were not so favourable, while the United Party despaired. He continued resolutely and spent a further R250,000,000 over period of two years, and to-day South Africa is reaping the fruits of this far-sightedness on the part of the Minister and his Department. If he had listened to the United Party at that time, where would South Africa have been to-day? Had it not been for the fact that at that time, when the United Party and all the financial people advised him not to invest more moneys in the Railways, he took no notice of them, South Africa would to-day really have been faced with a transport crisis. To-day we are reaping the fruits of our wise advance planning and of the far-sightedness of the Minister and his Department, and South Africa is grateful to him for it.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé), who has just resumed his seat had one or two comments to make about the Opposition. He criticized us for our attitude in respect of the Hex River Tunnel Scheme. He said that 17 years ago that tunnel was not necessary, but it is necessary now. My reply to him is this, that what has happened during this 17-year period? Why was it necessary for the Minister to electrify that line? To solve the same problem that he is now facing in respect of the tunnel, namely to try to overcome the bottleneck there. Electrification helped considerably, but the tunnel will be the final solution. So the hon. member for Parow should not say that our planning was wrong, because that is misleading. The timing was correct and we would have enjoyed many benefits if that scheme had been proceeded with.

Then we had a lot from the hon. member for Parow in connection with the staff position, the shortage of staff. I find it very interesting to hear what the hon. member has to say, but I think it is necessary for us to go back a little to get this whole position in perspective. When the Minister of Transport was the Minister of Labour, we asked him—I asked him myself—what he was going to do when the time came when there would not be enough Whites to do all the jobs. I do not know whether the Minister remembers what his reply was, so I will remind him. He said that then we would go in for immigration. Nobody regrets more than we do that his two major attempts to meet his staff shortage by way of immigration have been such dismal failures. That is no fault of the Administration, as far as we can judge. The problem was that those who did come here—I am thinking of the Hungarians and latterly the others—were just not able to fit in with the requirements of the Administration, so the answer the Minister gave me years ago, that immigration would provide the solution, would not appear to be the correct answer to-day. So the Minister is faced with this choice to-day, as we see it, that either he has to employ non-Whites in these key positions or he has to cancel trains; and he has already had to cancel trains. Now I ask the hon. member for Parow whether it is his choice that the Minister should rather cancel trains than employ non-Whites? Those are the issues. Why were trains cancelled in the Free State? The System Manager there said he did not have the staff to run them. The hon. member has to face up to the basic issue. He cannot say that there is no crisis and then try to explain why trains are being cancelled and why the Minister cannot move all the traffic that is offered, and why the Minister has agreed to a relaxation in regard to road transportation. We all know that the real reason is that the Minister has not the staff and he either has to allow road transport to take the traffic or he has to cancel trains. That is the issue facing us, and that is the issue of this Budget. This Minister, in dealing with the matter, referred to the embarrassing proportions of the manpower shortage. One would have imagined that there would have been a response from members on his own side as to what to do to meet it. We have accepted the challenge which I believe the Minister put to us. We have put forward our suggestion to him.

I want to go a step further and indicate what we find in this document that has been referred to so often, the report of the Committee on Railway Rating Policy. I am not going to read extensively from it, but I would draw the attention of hon. members to page 12, paragraphs 74 and 75, where the Commission said the following. There the Commission says this—

Sir, what do we find? The Planning Council consists of the Assistant General Manager (Technical) the Financial Manager, the Assistant General Manager (Operating and Road Transport), the Chief Civil Engineer, the Head, Planning and Productivity, whilst any other member of the management or head of a department may be co-opted as required. The question I want to put to the hon. the Minister is this: Why was it not considered necessary to have a permanent representative of the staff side on this Planning Council? We have learned that there are troubles to-day because the Minister has not been able to plan to meet the manpower requirements in the light of recommendations which are being carried out as far as the acquisition of rolling stock is concerned. What is missing is the manpower, and the significant thing as far as the Planning Council is concerned, is that there was no permanent member on the council representing the staff side. In other words, the Assistant General Manager (Staff) is not a member of the Council but he can be coopted. I should like to ask the Minister whether the Assistant General Manager (Staff) or a representative of his was co-opted at any time to the Planning Council in order to meet this problem? Has the Minister received any recommendations from the Planning Council with regard to this question of staff? Has the Minister received any recommendations from the Management regarding the staff problem? Has the Minister taken this matter to the Cabinet. You see, it is no use the Minister saying that the staff position is reaching embarrassing proportions if at the same time the Minister does not indicate to us how far he has gone in trying to resolve this problem. I put these questions to him because we would like to know exactly what is being done by the Administration in an attempt to meet the staff shortages. I believe that the hon. the Minister should be frank with us because this is a very important issue. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) dealt with the question and the hon. the Minister made a very interesting interjection. The hon. member for Yeoville told the Minister that the Opposition considered that the staff associations must be consulted and their agreement obtained before any change was introduced in the labour pattern, and the Minister said by way of interjection, “What if they do not consent?” Sir, I think there are three possible reasons why the Minister made that interjection. I think the first is that the Minister has already been in consultation with the staff associations and has not been successful, or secondly, that he is contemplating taking this step, or thirdly that he wanted to see what the reaction of the United Party was to this pertinent issue. The key to the whole position of course is negotiation, and I would! draw the attention of the Minister to what has happened in the building industry. I have a report here which appeared in the Daily News of 26 February, which reads as follows—

That is one reference; then I notice that in the February issue of the Metalworker under the heading “Proposals—New Agreements: Iron, Steel Engineering and Metallurgical Industry” there appears the following—

The point I want to make here is that the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Minister. If it is possible for these outside organizations to bring about the necessary changes in the labour pattern, by way of negotiation, to enable them to meet their labour requirements, then surely the Minister is not going to admit that he cannot negotiate with his staff associations. Is the Minister going to admit failure in this regard? That is why I put these questions to him so that we will know what the position is and whether or not there are likely to be further cancellations of trains and hold-ups in other directions because the Minister has had an embargo placed upon him either by the Cabinet or by some other body to prevent him from taking the steps which have been taken by outside industry. I want to refer just in passing to the tentative arrangement which has been arrived at as far as the mines are concerned as another pointer in this direction. You see, Sir, the manpower problem on the Railways is not a problem in isolation: it is a problem that is facing everybody but the Minister does not appear, from the evidence we have been given in his Budget speech, to be making a great deal of progress in finding a solution to his problem. There is possibly one ray of hope—I do not know whether I can presume to say that—because in the Brown Book under item 690 I find that provision is made for centres for training staff in the Cape Western System, Cape Eastern System, Midlands, Orange Free State, Natal, Western and Eastern Transvaal. Provision is made for a total expenditure of R400,000. I think the Minister should give us some indication as to what this item refers to: it is a new item and it refers to training centres for staff. We should like to know which categories of staff are to be trained here and why there was no reference to this at all in his Budget speech. It may be that the Minister is going to do something about the training of staff after he has had consultations with the staff associations, but we would like to know what the position is. Then there is another item, “Radio installation on 18 shunting locomotives”. This is also a new item. It is a step in the right direction to get greater efficiency, but those are the only two items which I could find which may have some reference to any scheme that the Minister may have in relation to this manpower shortage. I would say to the hon. the Minister therefore that when he replies to the debate he must not be tempted to take a political line but that he should meet this problem fairly and squarely. He said to us in his Budget speech that the manpower shortage was reaching embarrassing proportions. We know, as I said earlier on, that trains are being cancelled and that there are bottlenecks because of the shortage of staff in certain categories of work. We have told him how we would meet the position. We feel that the Minister should now reciprocate and tell us when he replies to the debate how he intends to meet this important issue.

Our amendment refers to the claims of the staff, amongst other things, but before I deal with that I want to say this to the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé), who is not here at the moment, and to the hon. member for De Aar-Colesberg (Mr. M. J. de la R. Venter) who is here. Both hon. members indicated how well the staff had been treated by the Administration; they said that the staff had had enormous increases in their wages and salaries and that conditions had been improved. The hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) referred to me in this regard and asked how I would like to go back to the old conditions that obtained in 1948. Sir, I cannot think of one exception to the rule where these increases have not been brought about as a result of considerable agitation on the part of the staff associations concerned. There has been no Father Christmas attitude about the granting of these increases.

Are you sure about it.

I would like the hon. member for De Aar-Colesberg to tell me where the staff have been given considerable concessions without tremendous agitation on their part.

And only in election years too.

I will not go so far as to say that. The staff associations have almost had to go slow in order to induce the Minster to make a move, and then when the move is made and improvements are brought about hon. members opposite turn round and say, “Isn’t this a wonderful Government? Isn’t this a wonderful Minister?” We are then expected to say, “Thank you”. The men in the railway service have to say. “Thank you”, to their staff associations for their determination in the face of considerable opposition from the management when they have pressed staff claims. What did the hon. the Minister say in this regard in his Budget speech. He said—

Well, that is perfectly true. I have a cutting here from the Daily News as recently as 4 March where the writer indicates that where these men followed the correct channels they received no relief. These men are employed in a very important section; they are technicians in the Department of Signaling and in communications. They found that after following the correct channels they were simply told that they could not be given any assistance. Then we had the recent claims by the Artisan Staff Association. Those claims have also been turned down. We say in our amendment that the Minister should take notice of these things and we want to know what he is doing about it. There is one section of which I feel the Minister should take particular notice. I am referring now to correspondence I had with the Department when the holiday bonus was announced. I refer to intermittent casuals. The information which I have been given is that intermittent casuals are neither temporary workers nor casual workers, but the word “intermittent” is misleading. Many of them have been intermittent workers for 15 years, and they were completely excluded from any consideration as far as the holiday bonus is concerned. These men are employed mainly in our harbours, doing very important work in view of the present bottleneck, but because they are classified as intermittent workers they received no benefit at that time. I hope that the Minister will look into their complaints as well.

The other complaint which is coming forward all the time is in respect of the application of the disciplinary code. Sir, we all agree that discipline has to be maintained. The case to which I want to refer now—and I am going to let the Minister have the papers—relates to two men who were charged jointly with exactly the same offence. The one was found not guilty and the other one had to take his case to the Railway Board where his appeal was dismissed and he was thereupon dismissed from the service. He has, however, been re-employed as a checker. How is it possible, where two men are charged with exactly the same offence, that one can be found guilty and the other not guilty? It is incidents of this kind which are causing dissatisfaction, and I say to the hon. the Minister that he should keep a constant eye not only on those cases which come before the Railway Board but on all cases where the disciplinary code is applied to see that there is uniformity in the punishment that is meted out for infringements of the disciplinary code.

Sir, I have dealt with the claims of the staff and the manpower position, and I want to say a few words now about pensions. I know that I refer to this matter every year but I have no option in view of the enormous numbers of letters which I get from pensioners in respect of difficulties that they are facing. According to the General Manager’s report, as from the April payment of last year, a supplementary allowance to ensure that railway pensioners receive a minimum income of R84 (married) and R42 (single) was introduced. I think in the debate on the Additional Estimates I conveyed the thanks of the pensioners for this concession, but the difficulty which some of the pensioners are facing is this: that at the same time when this adjustment was made the decision was also taken by the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions that they would stop paying out war veterans’ pensions. The combined voucher now will include the amount normally paid by the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions to railway pensioners. The result of this is that the one pay voucher covers the normal pension, the war veterans’ pension, the supplementary allowance and the special supplementary allowance. It is no use saying that the pensioners should not be worried about these things. They are old men in many cases and they are worried, and their worry stems from the fact that the allowances are all temporary, and they feel that the war veterans’ pension was a permanent pension. Because the war veterans’ pension has now been lumped with these allowances they fear that if bad times come along they will lose their temporary allowance, but not the war veterans’ pension. Sir, that is the issue that was put to me, but it goes further: Because of this improvement certain pensioners now find themselves in the income-tax group. The P.A.Y.E. stoppages have drawn their attention to this fact very forcibly. I can perhaps best explain the position this way: A portion of the increase granted to railway pensioners from railway revenue—I want to emphasize that—is now being paid into the over-full coffers of the Minister of Finance via P.A.Y.E. I am not suggesting that the allowance be reduced but I do suggest that the Minister should consult his colleague, the Minister of Finance, so that this real hardship can be removed by an amendment to the Income Tax Act. The actual amount deducted for P.A.Y.E. purposes may be small, but the pensioners find that because they qualify for income-tax deductions they now also qualify for the payment of provincial tax. Sir, I think a strong case can be made out for raising the present means test limit of R1,800 and R900 for married and single pensioners respectively. I hope that the Minister will also discuss this matter with his colleague. It is an important issue to the pensioner and I do hope that the Minister will sympathetically take up this matter, with his colleague, the Minister of Finance.

I believe that the Minister has also received a request for an increase in the number of P.T.O.s issued to pensioners. I cannot see that this can be a bad thing, and if he does agree to it it will be very welcome to pensioners. [Time limit.]

I do not want to comment on the remarks made by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton) but I just want to refer to the statement made by him in the course of his speech that the railway staff have never received any financial concession unless they have practically gone on their knees to the Minister and the Railway Administration. I just want to refer him to the holiday bonus, to which he also made reference, which was granted in November 1964 and which as far as I know, was asked for by the Federal Council and was then granted without the Federal Council having to go on their knees for it on behalf of the staff. I think the hon. member himself knows that R9,200,000 has been given to the White staff by way of holiday bonuses and that a further R1,900,000 has been granted in the form of higher wages for the Bantu and the Indians and in the form of holiday bonuses for Coloureds.

Hon. members opposite have made the observation time and again that they sympathize with the hon. the Minister because there is a shortage of manpower, but they ascribe this shortage to the policy of the Government. Similarly the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) expressed his sympathy with the Minister in some connection or other. I should also like to express my sympathy with the hon. the Minister, because having listened to the speeches made by hon. members opposite I do not really know what there is for him to reply to, because those speeches contained very little indeed that is constructive, very few arguments in which there was any substance.

A few hon. members on the other side, including the hon. member for Yeoville, referred to one aspect in regard to which I should like to say a few words. This aspect was also referred to a few moments ago by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana as well as by the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) yesterday evening. They contend that there is a rigid, inflexible application of the disciplinary measures in the S.A. Railway service, irrespective of the circumstances under which the contravention took place; in other words, it is alleged that if a railway official commits some traffic offence or other after he has been on duty continuously for many hours, he is dealt with in the same way as a person who commits that offence after having just come on duty. I made an interjection in this connection yesterday while the hon. member for Yeoville was speaking. I pointed out that that allegation was not correct. Sir, I want to come back again to my interjection. I maintain that where a person has been on duty continuously for long hours, that fact is taken into consideration. In other words, every case where an offence is committed is treated on its merits. Mr. Speaker, I have personal knowledge of this. Last year I approached the System Manager of the Eastern Transvaal division with a particular case and I was satisfied that the senior officials do everything in their power to take into consideration the circumstances under which contraventions take place. I also happen to know what the procedure is. When an official commits a contravention the disciplinary officer determines the punishment; thereafter the servant has the opportunity to appeal against the punishment imposed upon him by the disciplinary officer. I know of various cases where the System Manager has reduced the sentence imposed by a disciplinary officer. I can say therefore that every case is treated on its merits. I think hon. members are also aware of the fact that there is no other service in our country where the opportunity is offered, as it is offered in the railway service, to an official who feels that an injustice has been done to him, to appeal against the sentence imposed upon him. This is a well-known fact and I do not want to go into it at great length. It is well known that when a disciplinary officer imposes a punishment and the servant is not satisfied with it, he can lodge an appeal with the System Manager, and if he is still not satisfied he can appeal to the General Manager. If he still gets no satisfaction there, he can appeal to the Railways and Harbours Board. What is important is that in addition to that he can also get a representative from his staff association to assist him when his case is heard before the various bodies and persons. I contend that amongst these officials, amongst these bodies, there are persons who adopt an objective approach. Hon. members on that side must remember that there are two sides to every story. The hon. member for Durban (Point) must remember that just as a sausage has two ends, so too every picture has two sides. That is a fact that I should like to emphasize here.

Then there is another matter which has been raised here by practically every member on the other side, including the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, amongst others. In this connection I should also like to have the attention of the hon. member for Yeoville. I refer to the allegations which have been made here in connection with the manpower shortage in the railway service. The hon. member for Yeoville devoted a great portion of his speech to this matter yesterday. Amongst other things, he said, “The Railways and Harbours are suffering from a manpower shortage which resulted from many causes but principally and immediately from the Government’s lack of imagination in curtailing the United Party’s immigration policy.” Mr. Speaker, of all the far-fetched arguments advanced here by the hon. member I think that was one of his weakest arguments. He now suggests that the manpower shortage is due partly to the fact that the Government did not carry on with the United Party’s immigration policy. Sir, the immigration policy of the United Party was motivated by two considerations only; the one was the desire to white-ant the Afrikaner and the other was this: “Bring in immigrants in their thousands, in their hundreds of thousands, in their millions, the good and the bad.” That is the only immigration policy which the United Party had as far as I know. There was no scheme which the United Party really followed. It would simply have been impossible therefore for the Government to have carried on with that policy of the United Party; it would only have redounded to the detriment of this country.

It has already been pointed out by hon. members on this side that this shortage of manpower is not a phenomenon which is peculiar to the South African Railways. It is a phenomenon that one finds in all departments of the country’s administration. It is a phenomenon that one also finds in the private sector and, as a matter of fact, it is a phenomenon throughout the whole world. In every country which experiences an economic boom there is a shortage of manpower. This manpower shortage is one of the growing pains in our economy. Where a country experiences an economic boom it must also realize that sooner or later it will be faced with a manpower shortage. We know that in this connection strenuous efforts have been made to recruit certain groups of officials for the railway service from overseas and we know that that attempt, particularly as far as the importation of shunters is concerned, has not been successful.

I should also like to refer to the criticism which has been expressed here by hon. members on that side of the House in connection with the question of transport. It is their privilege, of course, to criticize the Government, but they took great delight in putting forward completely exaggerated arguments with regard to the staff shortage and in referring to the alleged inability of the Railways to convey the goods offered for conveyance. As a matter of fact the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) came along here yesterday with the sinister prophecy of a transport crisis; he said—

That remark implies, of course, that we may once again have a shortage of coal during the winter months. Sir, the hon. member and other hon. members opposite are simply the mouthpiece of the Press which supports them; they are also the mouthpiece of certain chambers of commerce and industry which have come forward on more than one occasion in the past with extravagant criticism of the South African Railways. The fact of the matter is that certain chambers of commerce and certain chambers of industry, together with the defeatist Press, do not confine their criticism of the S.A. Railways to ordinary criticism; they also come forward sometimes with sombre prophecies with regard to a possible collapse of our transport services, with a resultant decline in the tempo of economic growth and expansion. The so-called inability of the Railways to convey the goods offered for conveyance will, it is alleged, hamper the expansion of our economy. Sir, if these bodies and hon. members opposite are not trying deliberately and openly to create an atmosphere of panic in this connection, then they are doing so subtly, and the fact that they are doing so is not only to the detriment of those bodies themselves but it is also to the detriment of the country’s economy as such.

Certain bodies apparently tried to make political capital out of this recently and tried to make the public believe that it would be the fault of the Railways if we experienced a shortage of coal this winter. In order to achieve more effect they also dragged in the housewife by making dire prophecies in connection with the supply of coal for domestic purposes. On 17 January 1965 the Sunday Times, for example, wrote—

Did this mouthpiece of the Opposition hope to persuade housewives by means of such a rash prophecy to vote for the Opposition at the forthcoming provincial election? Sir, we know the housewives of South Africa: they are not going to be caught by a thing like this.

For years we have been hearing jeremiads that the Railways are monopolizing all transport and that private transport is being smothered to death. Sir, that is not true because it is a well-known fact that a greater tonnage of goods is transported by road than by rail. It is also well known that permanent concessions were made recently in respect of private road hauliers. There is no reason why a manufacturer or a dealer in coal, with additional assistance from the road transport services, cannot get hold of adequate supplies of coal for his own use or for sale during the forthcoming winter. In addition to that it is well known that the Railways as such pushed up the transport of coal by something like 100,000 tons a month in 1964 in comparison with 1963. I think I am correct in saying that. This favourite game which so delights certain commercial circles and certain parts of the English-language Press, and in which the Opposition cheerfully indulges, this game of predicting a collapse of railway transport is not only rash, it is not only uncalled for, but it also reveals a lack of patriotism.

There is only one other aspect to which I want to refer in conclusion. Reference has been made here to lack of planning, lack of vision and lack of initiative on the part of the Railways. As far as harbour development is concerned, I contend that the opposite is the truth. It may seem strange that somebody from the hinterland should venture to discuss this aspect of harbour development. But, broadly speaking, I just want to say that the S.A. Railways are aware of the fact that the development of the Republic and, particularly the boom conditions that the Republic is experiencing at the present time, constantly make new demands upon the Railways. The planning of the Railways is such, as various speakers on this side have shown, that it reveals vision. We know how the harbours struggled in the past to unload the growing tonnage of goods which come in, and to ship the goods which are exported, but in these Estimates we notice that large projects are being undertaken, projects such as those referred to also by the hon. member for Durban (Point). The hon. member for Point really implied that as far as Natal was concerned, this was only being done for political reasons. Vast projects are being undertaken in this connection to overcome that difficulty. We know that the greatest delay takes place at Durban because Durban is a very popular harbour. According to shipments during the first six months of last year, Durban handled about 56 per cent of the total tonnage of goods discharged and shipped at the various harbours. That is why I am very interested to learn that in this respect too the Minister has once again revealed vision by causing an investigation to be instituted into the possibility of constructing an additional harbour along the Natal coast at Richard’s Bay. This is something on which we can really congratulate the Railway Administration. The mere fact that investigations are being instituted testifies to vision, initiative and advance planning. However, I do not want to dwell on this matter at greater length. I hope that this will become a reality.

I should like to say to the Minister on behalf of the voters of the constituency which has the largest number of voters in the Republic, that the railway workers of Pretoria (East), where we also have large railway workshops, in spite of the fact that they do sometimes have minor complaints, are solidly behind him and behind the Government.

Due to the limited time I do not want to deal at length with what the hon. member who has just sat down has had to say except to tell him this that this side of the House has always urged the Minister to consider the entrance of private hauliers into the transport industry in order to alleviate the difficulties of the past. The point that has been raised in this debate is that the Minister boasts of planning on a realistic basis. It comes rather as a poor concession at this stage, without having made the necessary preparation, that they, the private hauliers, should be called in to assist. We well remember the times of coal shortage when the private haulier was called upon to assist. We also know what he did to some of the important roads of the Transvaal, roads which could not take the extraordinary heavy traffic which resulted. Had there been sound planning all that would have been attended to beforehand. It is not a question of denying funds; it is a question of preparing for something which is important in the economic life of the country particularly in an industry of this nature which requires the modern type of vehicle, which to-day, goes up to 35,000 and 40,000 tons. That calls for very sound road construction which can meet the strain of that type of traffic.

There are two points I should like to make in the short time at my disposal to the hon. the Minister. We are somewhat mystified at the extraordinary obstinacy on the part of the hon. the Minister with regard to the call for an improvement in the conditions of the employees of this great undertaking. When one examines the figures one finds a very extraordinary situation which often reminds one of the days when the cost of living allowance had to be increased from year to year in order to meet the rise in the cost of living. It is interesting to note that as far as overtime and Sunday-time allowance are concerned, in some cases, out of a total of R17,000,000 provided in respect of a particular section of Railway Administration R2,250,000 additional has been added for the coming year. There is another case where R11,000,000 has been provided for overtime and Sunday-time and there is an increase of R2,750,000 for the coming year. In respect of another section out of an allowance of R1,750,000 for overtime and Sunday-time R987,000 represents the increase for the coming year. Out of a figure of R311,000 the sum of R140,000 represents the increase. So one can go through the figures and you will find that there has been a considerable increase in Sunday-time and overtime moneys. When you look at another item called “Allowances” you find some very extraordinary figures. As against an allowance, in one case, of R162,000 the increase for the coming year represents R156,000—almost the complete amount. In another case, out of allowances allowed to the tune of R36,000 R35,000 odd represents the increase for the coming year. In another case where R1,199,000 is allowed R842,000—nearly the whole amount—represent the increase for the coming year. In some cases you will find that the amount provided for this year is the full amount of increase; in other words, that nothing was allowed in that particular section for last year. When you go through the figures, Sir, you find fantastic increases in respect of allowances for the coming year. Would the proper and sound method not be to increase wages, to give the people the benefit of that. They are given these allowances as an incentive to make this super-human effort to attain this remarkable efficiency to which the hon. the Minister has referred in his speech. As has been pointed out, what he is actually doing, Sir, is to destroy the very manpower he is using by abusing that manpower. It will not create greater efficiency but will more likely lead to a breakdown in the service and inefficiency than anything else. Would it not be preferable to pay this as wages instead of as overtime and so on? Would that not act as an attraction to the service and so increase the personnel? Would proper wages not warrant their entering the service and not frighten them away by the hours that are being provided? Shunters, stokers, engine drivers, firemen and so on are suffering tremendous hardships. They are actually doing overtime and working on Sundays in order to increase their earnings. Their pay-packet is too low to meet the cost of living. But they are destroying their home life and they are eventually going to destroy their own efficiency and the efficiency of the Railways and Harbours. As I said earlier on it is something like the cost-of-living allowances of earlier days. After having been pressed from year to year, the hon. the Minister eventually incorporated the cost-of-living allowances in the basic wages. By doing that the wage earner was able to get a pension on the full amount he received for the service he had rendered. That is the point that has been stressed. Now the worker is destroying himself in order to earn sufficient to live and the resultant effect will be that his pension will be calculated on a sum of money very much below that which he had earned, only on his basic wage.

My first appeal to the hon. the Minister is to give attention to that aspect of the situation and rather draw people into the service as other organizations are trying to do instead of frightening them away by what is taking place in the service. Give the man the full benefit of what he has earned; give him the benefit of an increased pension; give him better working hours. That will be less strain on him personally and on his family to whom he has as great a responsibility as he has to the State and to this mighty organization.

This undertaking of which the hon. the Minister holds the portfolio is one of the great undertakings of our country. It is a remarkable undertaking in the industrial life of South Africa. It is an undertaking manned by the State. It has a capital investment in the nature of R1,747,000,000. It has an annual expenditure of nearly R600,000,000 with an income of over R600,000,000. There must be very few undertakings in the country which has this amazing capital investment as well as output and income. Now, Sir, is the hon. the Minister approaching the whole staff structure soundly in an undertaking of this nature? Is it fair to maintain this extraordinary tight brake that is being maintained on the whole of the salary structure of this particular undertaking? I want to start with one simple principle which has been enunciated by men like Dr. Frikkie Meyer of Iscor, who was the president of the National Development Foundation, and a man like Dr. Malherbe who takes a keen interest in this kind of thing. I want to say this that if you are to develop a sound staff structure, there is one important aspect of that structure that must be adequately provided for and that is sound top managerial and highly skilled staff. If you want to get that type of staff at the top, if you want to develop your staff to a better standard, you have to pay them adequately. The whole of the pay structure, in my opinion, is far too narrow and far too compressed and far too conservative in its outlook. The reason why I describe the magnitude of the structure is this: I find that even the General Manager of this remarkable undertaking earns less than the City Engineer of a city like Johannesburg. Can you compare the Railways with the City Engineers Department of Johannesburg? I would like to tell the hon. the Minister something; this is a confession: I virtually held his position insofar as the City Engineers Department of the City of Johannesburg was concerned and I did not have half the criticism or the trouble he has. With all modesty it was not nearly such a large undertaking as the S.A. Railways and Harbours. The point I want to make is this that in any comparable undertaking in any country in the world where you have a department which is separate from the Public Service Commission and the general run of the State, the General Manager is not paid R10,000 per annum. If a general manager has a proper salary and if those who work below him are paid proper salaries then everyone that comes up from lower down gets put into his proper perspective from a salary point of view.

Let me go to another extreme and describe some of the peculiar anomlies in respect of the pay structure. Take for instance the category known as clerks. You have a chief clerk-a principal clerk, a senior clerk, a Grade I and Grade II clerk. I have totalled the number of clerks and 56 per cent represent Grade II. The clerk who enters Grade II commences on a salary of R900 p.a.; R900 per annum is to-day being paid to a large number of normal Bantu clerks. Not that that is a comparison but it indicates the level of salaries. There is a considerable difference in the standard of living of the Bantu, even in the towns, and the average White person in our towns, particularly if they are family people. I believe it takes something like 14 years to get from Grade II to Grade I if you are fortunate. The salary is between R900 to R2,175. It increases by R75 per annum. I have a large number of people in my constituency who have families of two or three children who cannot get beyond Grade II. Some cannot get beyond Grade I and even Grade I does not go beyond R2,550 p.a. and Grade I only represent 26 per cent. A senior clerk goes to a maximum of R2,850 which in itself is not a large sum of money for a man with a family of three or four children and who has given 20, 30 or maybe 35 years of service before he gets there. He only represents 13 per cent of the service. The chief clerks represent 1 per cent. With more than 50 per cent in the lower brackets the maximum salary for a chief clerk is R3,150. It can take a man 40 years of service to get there. The position is this that there is too great a disparity between the different salaries and the salary grading. The differentiation is too wide. They have to serve too long before they improve their status; there is not sufficient opportunity in the form of additional notches in the higher grades. There should be opportunities to reach higher grades; notches should be provided to encourage these men to maintain their interest in the service. That will reduce the number of resignations and the manpower shortage. What you require, Sir, is an expansion in the income range.

It is an accepted fact that in our country there is no limit to the material resources required for our rapidly expanding economy but there is one limiting factor and that is personnel. You find that limiting factor not among the completely unskilled but mainly in the managerial capacities and the technically skilled sections. The position is this: Unless a more realistic approach is made to the whole of the salary structure which can attract personnel into the fold, this structure which can give the magnitude of the undertaking its true perspective insofar as human resources are concerned, how can the hon. the Minister have the effrontery in many senses to say that he is planning realistically, he is overcoming the manpower shortage by efficiency and improved methods. That is not the way to overcome it. You can have all the improvements in the world but you have to have personnel. This is not a little undertaking. This is an enormously large undertaking. This is an undertaking which employs 250,000 people. It has about 120,000 Whites employed and about 110,000 non-Whites. This is an enormous undertaking but we find that 80 per cent struggle (a) with regard to the amount of the salary; (b) with regard to the opportunities for advancement and (c) with regard to the general comfort and leisureliness of the job well executed and enjoyable to the individual who has done it thereby enabling him to remain in the service. I fully agree with hon. members opposite because as South Africans we do agree on this one fundamental fact, and that is that we are a people who take pride in what we are doing in the service of our country. We should ensure that that pride is amply rewarded.

Let me conclude with one final point. Many young people in this country have the opportunity, through education, to pursue a profession, to engage in business on their own, to qualify in respect of undertakings where they do not need to enter a large and complex service. But for many thousands of young men and women in this country the Railways provide a wonderful opening and opportunity; it should provide an important career. There are not many countries in which the State runs an enormous undertaking like this, an undertaking which can provide opportunities for young men and women. But how can you ask them to take advantage of what may be an opportunity when they know it is a deadend job. It does not lead to anything; that it destroys ambition …

That is not true.

Of course it does; you cannot expect people these days to work for a pittance …

On a point of order can the hon. member say “That is not true; you know it is not true”?

In any case, Sir. when a fool makes an utterance like that it does not even bother me.

Order! The hon. member cannot call another hon. member a fool.

If that is un-parliamentary, Sir, I withdraw it.

Did the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) say the hon. member for Florida knows it is not true?

I do not know what I said, Sir …

The hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw it, Sir.

The point I want to drive home is this: There must be a change in the structure; it is no good the hon. the Minister adopting the same attitude he did in the case of the airmen. The air technicians gave him the answer: You cannot stultify something which the State has provided and which is the most highly capitalized State undertaking in the country. It is probably one of the most highly capitalized industrial undertakings in this country. I do not think I know of anything else, except perhaps the Anglo American complex of companies, which falls in the same orbit. But where it applies specifically in respect of one industry, like it does in the case of the Railways, I do not know whether there is such a precedent. I think anybody from abroad who has a look at this particular budget and sees the salary scales and the pressure from above cannot help but realize that from below the pressure must be even greater and the frustration very much worse. There is no credit due to anybody in this undertaking except the men who labour in the undertaking from General Manager right down to the office boy. That is the way the hon. the Minister must look at it and not come to us and boast that he can overcome a shortage of personnel by introducing fresh methods and increasing efficiency. No, Sir, we must be realistic in everything we are doing. I do not want to see the future of the Railways and Harbours measured in tonnage; I do not want to see it measured in the number of bogeys; I do not want to see it measured in the number of trucks or in the number of coaches. I want to see it in terms of human values. With human values we will have a great Railway undertaking. It has been established by the Minister’s predecessors, predecessors of great standing in South Africa, men of whom South Africa can be proud. Therefore the hon. the Minister has inherited a heritage which he should now embellish in many ways. He has to do that by forward thinking, forward planning both in money and human resources; above all, with human feeling.

I move—

Agreed to; debate adjourned.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, when the debate was adjourned on Friday, the Deputy-Chairman ruled that the submission that I had made with regard to an amendment of the hon. Minister widening his powers in the clause, could not be sustained and that the amendment was acceptable. Unfortunately I did not quite understand that, because he said it when I was bringing up an amendment of my own. Had I appreciated what he said, I would then have asked to have that ruling challenged, because I am not satisfied with the ruling of the Chair.

I was not in the Chair at the time, and I want to ask the hon. member to repeat his point of order.

In Section 12sex, on page 12, there appear the words “the Board shall be exempted (a) from the provisions of … commission relating to”. The provisions from which the board will be exempted are limited to the matters set out in the sub-paragraphs (i) to (v), in other words, the exemption was not a blanket exemption from the provisions of the various laws and ordinances, but only in so far as they relate to these five points. The amendment of the hon. Minister was to take out the words “town-planning scheme” in lines 67 and 68, and to add a new subsection to 12sex which reads as follows—

My view is that the words “from the provisions of any town-planning scheme” is a blanket exemption in respect of any town-planning scheme, and it is not limited, as was previously the case, in relation to the matters described in (i) to (v). Now if you, Mr. Chairman, will have a look at the Hansard report you will see that when I had completed what I had to say, the Deputy-Chairman said “I rule that the amendment is in order”. That was said in the course of my walking up to hand in another amendment which I had moved, and I did not fully appreciate the purport of the ruling until I consulted one of the Whips on this side, when I realized that what he was actually saying was that he did not uphold my viewpoint in the matter. I understand that if there is an extension of the powers, widening the scope in Committee Stage, in comparison with what was accepted at the second reading, that cannot be done. I therefore would like to appeal against that decision.

There is no appeal at this stage from the Deputy-Chairman’s ruling.

Is there no means to challenge the ruling?

No, I am afraid not. The hon. member cannot discuss it now.

On a point of information, is it possible for the hon. member to appeal to the Speaker on this point?

No, not at this stage. The ruling of the Deputy-Chairman is final.

With due respect, Mr. Chairman, cannot the Chairman revise his ruling if he is satisfied that he was wrong? Surely he can revise his ruling? The point has been put to you, Sir, that this amendment proposed by the hon. Minister widens the scope of the Bill in Committee Stage. If that is so, then I submit that the matter should be considered, and surely the Chairman has the inherent right to revise his own ruling.

The Chairman gave his ruling after considering the matter and I cannot allow hon. members to discuss it any further.

When this debate was adjourned, I had moved an amendment to delete 12sex, in the hope, as I said, that 12sex would never raise its ugly head again! I want to remind the Committee, and particularly the hon. Minister, that he assured us that the Bill was required in order to comply with what he said was the newest and the best definition of community development, viz. “the processes by which the efforts of the community itself are co-ordinated with the efforts of the State to improve the socio-economic conditions of the community”. I draw the attention of the hon. Minister and of the Committee to the phrases “the efforts of the community itself” and their co-ordination “with the efforts of the State”. He also went on to say, Sir, that this Bill was “a measure to build happy communities”. Now I ask you, Mr. Chairman, whether in view of the effect of 12sex one can rely on the verity of the hon. the Minister’s definition of community development, having regard to the efforts of the community itself, because the community, as we know a modern community, has no means of self-expression other than its local authority and the rights of its local authority. One is therefore entitled to question whether the Minister means what he says when he says that this Bill is designed to build happy communities, when you have regard to the fact that 12sex alone, if it were taken in vacuo, in complete isolation, completely destroys the standing of local authorities and municipal government as we have always known it in South Africa. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that when he told us in his second-reading speech, and subsequently, that he in fact was not taking new powers, that he was merely using powers which were already in certain statutes and which were now being defined, as it were, in order to meet with his new definition of “community development”, he was at variance with the hand-out of the Government’s Department of Information on the subject; because in the S.A. Digest of 19 February, describing the Community Development Amendment Bill, the Government itself, one might say, said—

“To have more extensive powers”—it is not merely, as the Minister has argued, a re-statement of powers already vested in the one department or the other. It is, according to a Government statement (the only one that I have seen) an extension of powers, and I think one must ask the hon. Minister why he tries to play this down, when in fact it is quite clear from the reading of 12sex alone that the powers conferred on the hon. Minister and the board will destroy the universally accepted and proven principles governing the planning of the provision of housing through consultation with the local and provincial authorities. Surely the hon. Minister must realize that this power that he seeks here in 12sex, the power to grant exemption from by-laws and town planning, and the unfettered right to sub-divide land conferred on the board and the Minister, will undoubtedly breed new problems, administrative as well as political problems, as also socio-economic problems, and will create the slums of the future, and at the same time—and this is very important—destroy the protection which the existing vested interests, the existing home-owners, have enjoyed under the existing by-laws and town-planning schemes. I hope that when the hon. Minister speaks to us again, as I think he may be tempted to do this afternoon, he will do us the honour of rebutting this argument and not side-stepping it. Because on Friday of last week, the hon. Minister, when we took exception to certain powers which he was seeking, kept on talking about methods of construction: “had we not heard of this, that and the other new method of construction; did we not read the Louw memorandum?” In this case “we” (being myself) did read it, as I recalled when he spent 20 minutes talking about Professor Tobie Louw and his recommendations. But the hon. Minister side-stepped completely the hard fact that 12sex alone does not merely deal with the building of houses, in regard to the nature or type of materials, but that more than that it deals with provisions to exempt the board and the Minister from all kinds of requirements other than those dealing with materials, or types of construction. This clause exempts them in other respects too; it gives them the right to site a dwelling wherever they like, exempts them from the provisions of a local authority to commence building operations, and if that were not sufficient, the hon. Minister has himself amended the clause by making it completely explicit, and he says that he may exempt the board from the provisions of any town-planning scheme and from the provisions of any ordinance in terms whereof approval must be obtained from a local authority for the sub-division of land. In other words, without labouring this particular point, I think it is perfectly clear that whatever the Minister’s good intentions may be, he is in this one clause alone destroying the very base and basis of local government. Now he may be heard to say again that the need is so great that this is necessary, that these powers are necessary. That is a point we can argue, but let him not deny that he completely eliminates the powers and the functions of the provincial administrations, of the Administrators, of the local authorities, of the town-planning schemes of a townships board in this clause 12sex.

I wonder what hon. members on that side of the House, who have supported the hon. Minister, perhaps as a matter of duty or conscience (that is not for me to say), would say if a statement by a high authority on the subject of local government were attributed to this hon. Minister. This statement reads as follows—

and I emphasize that all of us here are public servants, not the masters of the people but the servants of the people—

But it does not follow that the solutions will be achieved if the Central Government, at either the national or provincial levels, takes over the role, the rights or responsibilities of the local levels. On the contrary, the concern of the Central Government must be not to destroy local government, but to strengthen it and to help it to succeed. I wonder who will disagree with that—

That is, the State, the provinces and local authorities. Will anybody dare deny the validity of this statement? As I have said before, what would they say if it were attributed to the hon. Minister himself? I wish I could attribute it to him.

Of course you can.

This is a very interesting point. The statement, subject to the change of words like “federal” to “central”, was in fact made by the President of the United States of America, Mr. Lyndon B. Johnson, and it is significant that it is published in a black border in the current issue of the Municipal Magazine. And the hon. member for Brakpan, who has himself been a member of a local authority, says “of course you can attribute it to the hon. Minister”.

He is a good administrator.

Then I can attribute this sentiment to him. where it says, inter alia, “the concern of the central government must be not to destroy local government but to strengthen it and help it to succeed”. Then it is no wonder that the hon. member for Brakpan does not know what is in the clause that I am discussing, because, Sir, you have never seen two poles so far apart as this clause in its effect on the provincial administrations, on the Administrator, on local authorities and all those bodies bound up with it and. Sir, the statement to which the hon. member for Brakpan subscribes. [Time limit.]

I should like once again to state the position as clearly as I can, because I fail to understand why the hon. member argued as he did here. In the first place the United Municipal Executive, which is the highest representative body of local authorities in South Africa, expressed their satisfaction with this measure. In the second place the United Municipal Executive simply asked me not to vest in the board the power which it was proposed to give the board but rather to vest that power in the Minister after consultation with the Administrators. And let me tell the hon. member that the United Municipal Executive did not even ask for this; the suggestion came from me; I said that I would only exercise this power, which they wanted to vest in the Minister, after consultation with the Administrator. This suggestion came from me; I have read out ad nauseum the letter from the United Municipal Executive in which they confirm this.

What is the date of it?

What has that to do with the price of tomatoes? The letter is dated 17 February 1965, that is to say, a few weeks after I had met them in Cape Town and after they had discussed this legislation. In other words, the whole point made by the hon. member that we want to destroy local authorities is thrown out of court by the action of the United Municipal Executive itself. The mouthpiece of the United Municipal Executive on that occasion was a representative of one of the biggest cities in South Africa, and he said that they wanted that power to be vested in the Minister. Sir, I have quoted that letter here repeatedly in the course of this debate. What more must I do? But in the second place we are not taking these powers in respect of all circumstances affecting local authorities. We are only taking these powers in those cases where State funds are used to perform the work. These powers only apply where a local authority is dependent on State funds, on funds made available to them by the State, whether through the National Housing Commission or through the Development Board.

I come now to the question of town planning, and here I want to give the hon. member two examples. The Johannesburg City Council will not be able to do what it contemplates doing in Newclare and in the Western Native Townships without the assistance of this Department; there will have to be re-planning. If that re-planning does not take place the whole thing will be a mess. We cannot allow the re-development to take place on the basis of the existing town-planning scheme. Let me give a second example. For years we had a slum area here in Goodwood, in Goodwood Acres. That slum area has been cleared up. But we cannot undertake the effective development that we want to undertake there on the basis of the old, existing planning for Goodwood Acres. That is why there had to be replanning in respect of Goodwood Acres, and it is for that reason that the Development Board is going to take over in Goodwood Acres and not the National Housing Commission because the National Housing Commission is limited to certain standards and certain restrictions whereas the Development Board is not limited to those standards and restrictions. We are now asking for that power; the hon. member, however, not only objects to the granting of this power but he wants the whole of this clause to be deleted and he refers derisively to the quotation which I read out here from the Louw Report.

Not derisively.

Yes, of course. Let me quote to the hon. member a further extract from the Louw Report, an extract which I did not quote a few days ago. Is the hon. member not aware of the fact that over the past 18 months, under the leadership of this Government, every effort has been made to have new building methods introduced and to use new building materials in South Africa? Does the hon. member not know that we are on the threshhold of new developments in respect of quite a number of new building methods and new building materials in this country? Let me quote what the Louw Report says—

I could mention numbers of cases to the hon. member where local authorities are hamstrung by their own building regulations, to such an extent that not one of these new building methods can be used in those local authority areas. We know that the conventional method is a slow method whereas the new building methods and the new materials which are being used make it possible for buildings to be erected much more quickly. I want to give the Committee one example, without mentioning any names. This is a case that we dealt with very recently. There is a certain urban area in which 240 houses have to be erected; if we erect those houses according to the conventional method it will take us three years to build them, but if we use the non-conventional method, the industrialized method, and if we make use of other building materials, building materials the use of which are forbidden in terms of the local building regulations, we will probably be able to make those 240 houses available for occupation within a period of 15 months. Since the State is making the money available and since the initiative in this matter comes from the State, in consultation with the local authority—because we are not going to by-pass the local authorities—I am asking here that we be given the necessary powers so that the local authorities and we ourselves will not be hamstrung by antiquated regulations. Sir, the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) stated here the other day, with an air of wisdom, that our building regulations and our town-planning schemes had been drawn up by experts and that they had withstood the test of time. That is absolute nonsense.

He was talking about town-planning schemes.

So am I. I say that that is absolute nonsense. I have given examples here to show what the position is in Goodwood Acres and what the position is in Newclare and in the Western Native Townships. We cannot bring about modern development on the basis of this antiquated planning. This committee on which Professor Louw served consisted of experts. Other members of the committee were Dr. Webb, a representative of the Building Research Institute and the Assisting Housing Engineer of the Department of Community Development. Must we not allow ourselves to be guided by these experts, who have given us 14 or 15 different building methods and who say that because of the existing building regulations, regulations which cannot be applied, these new methods simply cannot be put into effect?

We will allow you to build for the Defence Force; we will raise no objection.

We want to build for them, but hon. members opposite do not want us to use these methods. We are not asking here for power to abolish Johannesburg’s building regulations and its town-planning scheme in areas where we ourselves do not spend the money. We are only asking for this power in those cases where they come and ask us for assistance and where we consider it necessary to clear up bad conditions. The amendment which I have moved here myself provides that the Administrator will be consulted; surely it goes without saying that as soon as I have consulted him he in turn will consult the local authority concerned, and what will happen in practice in most cases is that these schemes will be launched with the agreement of the local authorities.

My amendment asks that the local authorities be consulted.

That is done in any event, because the local authorities are trying to get away from these antiquated regulations which are hamstringing them at the present time. Sir, do you know how far this thing has developed? We have now reached the stage where private individuals who establish townships come along and ask us to take powers to enable us to come to their assistance as well, but at this stage I am not prepared to do so for the reason which I have given, and that is that standard building regulations must be introduced. The Minister of Economic Affairs and I and our Departments, through the Bureau of Standards, are having standard regulations drawn up at the present time. But those regulations will still have to be accepted by the provinces and then only the local authorities will be able to adapt their regulations accordingly. But in those cases where the State has certain obligations to fulfil, must we wait until that day eventually comes?

May I ask a question?Would it not be reasonable to consult the local authorities so that they will know what is going on and how they can help the Minister and his Department and how they can change their regulations where it is necessary to do so? Otherwise they do not know what is going on.

We do so in more than 90 per cent of the cases but there are a few local authorities who refuse to co-operate. The hon. member now wants to make me subject to the whims of those local authorities who refuse to co-operate, with the result that more than 90 per cent of the local authorities who do want to co-operate will also have to suffer. No, the United Municipal Executive agrees that provision should be made for this power. The United Municipal Executive saw this legislation; they are satisfied with it, and some of the largest municipalities in South Africa are satisfied with it.

But Parliament has the final say.

Yes, but I am dealing now with the accusation that I am ignoring the local authorities and that I want to curtail their powers. The hon. member must not run away from that argument now. In other words, I am acting here in accordance with the wishes of the local authorities, the wishes of all sensible local authorities. I am acting here in accordance with the advice of an expert committee which made certain recommendations to me. In the third place I am acting in accordance with a need that exists in this country, and that is that we should be able to take effective steps in those cases where State funds are made available. The hon. member for Hospital now comes along and he wants to deprive us of all these powers.

No.

The hon. member moved the deletion of this clause.

Let us negotiate in this matter.

We cannot negotiate. Sir, quite a few amendments have been moved here by hon. members opposite, but I want to tell them that I am not going to accept one of these amendments. I forgot the other day to deal with the amendment moved by the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett). I do not propose to accept his amendment either because the powers for which we are asking here are necessary and I think the hon. member’s amendment, if accepted, would only bring about further delay.

You rejected it before you had heard any arguments at all.

That may be the hon. member’s impression, but let me tell him that he is the last person in South Africa to whom I would go for advice with regard to housing and community development. The hon. member for Durban (North) has never done anything except to approach everything from a negative point of view, and I am not prepared to listen to such people. He can shout and scream as much as he likes but I am not going to take any notice of him. He is the last man I would consult.

I want to deal with just one further point. One can only establish proper communities if one establishes them in accordance with the most modern methods and if one creates a set of circumstances which makes it possible for them to grow into communities. That is why there has been a change in recent years throughout the world in the whole approach towards housing. The idea of just providing housing in the ordinary sense of the word has disappeared. It is accepted throughout the world to-day that where housing is provided it must be part and parcel of community development; provision must be made not only for the necessary facilities and not only for the economic groups, but also for the sub-economic groups. These things can no longer be planned and developed on the basis of what was done 15 or 20 years ago. For these reasons, Sir, I am not going to try again to explain the position to hon. members. If I am found wanting I apologize for my inability to state the position more clearly. I cannot accept the amendments moved by hon. members.

I do not want to place the duty on you, Sir, but I think someone should correct the impression of the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett), which is that the hon. Minister wants 12sex, and I do not want it! I merely want to do away with 12sex. I think that what the Minister has said has reflected his adamant attitude in regard to the clause, but certain of the statements he made are, I think, challengeable, as he will agree after I have challenged them. He has now read to us for the third time the letter setting out the point of view of the United Municipal Executive, which the Minister claims is proof positive of the desire of the local authorities to be deprived of all the powers which 12sex deprives them of. He was good enough to say that the date of that letter was 17 February. Now, Sir, what inference do you draw from the fact that the statement I have now made three times arises out of a statement in the Cape Times in regard to an opinion expressed by Mr. van den Berg, who is known to me as the president of the United Municipal Executive …

He is not the president.

I read from this report, but it may well be that there has been a change since the last meeting of the U.M.E. last month.

I dealt with the new Executive which met in Cape Town a few weeks ago.

After 9 February? That is the whole point. This statement was made by the then president on or before 9 February.

He could not speak on their behalf.

The Minister and I must at least agree about one thing. He is talking about one statement made by one president, while I am talking about another statement made by another president. What happened between the deposition of the first president and the accession to power of the second president, only the Minister knows. But the fact that a Minister of the State may well have exerted, to put it at its lowest, a certain influence on the new incumbent of this office after 9 February, when this statement was made to the Cape Times, does not alter the simple fact that at that time the official view as expressed by the president of the U.M.E. was that he was concerned about the curbs on the powers of local authorities in their own fields, and this was happening through the exemption—and we are talking here about the exemption clause—exempting the National Housing Commission and the Group Areas Development Board from certain regulations in regard to the use of ground and town-planning schemes. All I can now deduce from this situation is, firstly, that not only has the Minister in his various portfolios those vast powers about which we have attacked him from time to time, but he apparently now has the power of ensuring that a man who thinks as he, the Minister, thinks, is appointed to the position of president of the U.M.E., and secondly, that that appointee, the elected representative of the U.M.E., apparently chosen with the consent of the Minister, will then make the kind of statement that suits the Minister. What other conclusion can I come to? How is this change, this miracle, this somersault, brought about between 9 February and 17 February?

Will you take my word for it that I did not meet them at any other time than the day they came to tell me that they supported this Bill?

I accept it, but then I merely say that the Minister has telepathic powers—and I congratulate him on them! I wish I could evoke the kind of letter that I want to evoke from certain sources when it suits my particular problem.

That is an insinuation.

If you had the courage you would say what you meant.

I am not insinuating anything. I will say what I want to say, Sir, subject to your ruling, at any time, without fear or favour. What I want to say is that the Minister was unfair to himself and to Professor Tobie Louw—and to me—when he said that I referred to the Louw Report and to Professor Louw in derogatory terms. I did nothing of the sort, as Hansard will show. What I said was that when we were talking about these vast powers which this clause would confer on the Minister, he refused to deal with anything except the one line which deals with the nature and type of construction, and he relied on the Louw Report to support his contention that because of the change in building methods, because of the new types of construction, these powers were necessary. So I say again that I read that report, and I say nothing derogatory about it, but I ask the Minister where the justification is in the Louw Report for these powers, but he has not told me. I am referring not just to the type of construction and the materials, etc., but whether other structures may be erected on a single lot of erf, the payment of an endowment in respect of the sub-division of an erf in respect of which there is a normal entitlement, the siting of a dwelling or structure on any portion of an erf, and the permission of the local authority in regard to such matters as the construction of streets, etc., will the Minister tell this Committee that the Louw Report had anything to say about the new methods of construction of streets, the provision of water, electricity or gas? These are the fundamental functions of the local authority. Will the hon. member for Brakpan deny that?

Your arguments are too stupid to answer.

I leave it to the hon. member for Brakpan to reveal my stupidity in all its nakedness, but for heaven’s sake will somebody tell us whether it is true or not that such functions as the provision of water and electricity and the removal of rubbish and the disposal of sewage are or are not the daily, routine functions of the local authorities?

I want to suggest with great respect to the Minister that in this Committee Stage he makes the situation extremely difficult for any discussion of the merits of the clause to take place, when he says he will not listen to any arguments at all, and that he is determined to retain the clause exactly as it is. Surely, when we discuss an important matter … [Interjections.] If the Minister will not even consider the merit of any single variation of any of these powers, then clearly he has closed the door to any discussion. I am misguided enough to believe and to hope that the purpose of the Committee Stage of a Bill is to improve that Bill, if possible, and not to produce a flat denial of the right to criticize or discuss or amend or improve it. The Minister gets angry from time to time, and says he will not discuss it. If the statement I read, and to which the hon. member for Brakpan not only subscribed, but agreed that it could be attributed to the hon. the Minister himself—if that statement about the importance of local government is correct, how can the Minister say that he merely wants the power to vary the type or nature of the materials used in construction, when, furthermore, he wants all these other powers? [Time limit.]

I think I should point out to the hon. the Minister that he was completely wrong in his attack on the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg). The hon. member at no time tried to take away in his amendment any of the powers as printed in the Bill. He never moved an amendment to change one word of the Bill. The Minister should now learn to use the word “cannot” instead of “will not”. With due respect to the Minister, it does not do him or the country or the Government any good if a Minister in charge of a Bill says, “I will not accept any amendment”. If he says he cannot accept an amendment because it destroys the principle of the Bill, we can understand it, but to say that he will not accept anything is inexcusable from any Minister and does us no good.

But I want to come back to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg). The Minister knows perfectly well that all the hon. member for Peninsula said was …

Where is he? Why does he not speak for himself?

Why do you need him here when I am here? Where is the Prime Minister? All the hon. member for Peninsula said was that he would like the Minister to accept an amendment to the effect that the Administrator may, after consultation with the Minister, do certain things. The hon. member at no time, I repeat, dealt with the principle. The Minister, with due respect to him, side-tracked the arguments used by the hon. member for Peninsula by introducing the report of the Louw Committee. There is nobody here who wants to attack that report. The Minister knows very well that that report deals with the erection of homes and the materials to be used, and the hon. member for Peninsula never attacked that. All he said was that in order that there should be a semblance of authority by a local body which is represented by the Administrator—in other words, that the Provincial Councils and local authorities should not be overlooked—all that the Minister should agree to should be that the Administrator shall exempt the Board after consultation with the Minister; and I cannot see what that amendment has to do with the Louw Report or how the Louw Report could in any way be referred to in regard to this amendment. I think the Minister should apologize to the hon. member for Peninsula for trying to suggest that the hon. member was trying to destroy the principle of the Bill and the powers which are required when in fact he did nothing of the kind.

Now I am very happy that the hon. the Minister has referred to my amendment. I think that any Minister, no matter how bad an amendment is, should at least pay an hon. member the courtesy of referring to his amendment. The Minister has just said that he would not accept any amendment, but I would like the hon. the Minister to understand very clearly that my amendment was not in any way intended to delay the operation of this Act, and I challenge the Minister to tell me in which way my amendment does that. Nothing was further from my mind. [Interjections.] All I want the Minister to do is, firstly, to give the people an opportunity to give the notice to the occupier or the landlord, and, secondly, to omit certain words. But I think we are wasting our time. We are trying to do the best for the people we represent. We have tried to do something for the Coloured people who the Minister knows will be most affected by this Bill. They are the people who will probably be most benefited, too. But they cannot be benefited if they are one day late with their rent and can then be ejected. Many of us have been late for a day or two for reasons beyond our control. [Interjections.] I have already said that we know that the Minister gives them an opportunity, but that is not what we are here to do; we are here to pass a law and the law must be explicit and it must give an opportunity to the people who administer the law to have some discretion. Well, I would like to say cheerio to the Minister as far as the Bill is concerned. May he enjoy himself with his Bill. I have nothing further to say. I am not prepared to talk to granite. I am not prepared to talk to a man whose heart I must touch with a pneumatic drill, and I will have nothing further to do with the Bill.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat, as well as the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller), are just trying to ridicule the Minister.

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to say that I made my speech with the object of ridiculing the Minister? I deny it.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the clause.

I shall comeback to the clause. I want to put it this way. Here the Minister comes along with this clause and he wants to take away certain powers from the municipalities so that the work can be done more quickly. Every hon. member over there who knows anything about local government knows how long it takes to pass these things through local authorities. Now the Minister wants to expedite these matters. The Minister wants to assist these people to get out of their misery. That is his main object. He wants to help the Coloureds out of their misery. The Minister mentioned two cases to show why he wants this legislation on the Statute Book, and now I ask those hon. members this. They come here year after year and accuse the Minister …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the clause.

The hon. member say the Minister deprives the local authorities of powers. I should like to know what powers he is taking away? And now I want to ask those hon. members this. Has a single local authority ever complained to them about this clause? I want to say that not a single local authority has complained to them, not even Johannesburg, because Johannesburg fully supports this clause.

But I want to go further. Has any local authority complained to any of them that powers have been taken away or that the Minister has acted like a dictator? No. Therefore I agree with the Minister if he says right in the beginning that he will accept no amendments from that side of the House, because that just obstructs the policy he wants to implement. I am grateful to him for refusing to accept those amendments, because these powers will assist the Government in clearing up these areas and in providing proper housing.

I wish to come to a new point. The hon. member who has just sat down is thoroughly satisfied with this clause. I wish to come back to the hon. the Minister’s speech. He said that he had consulted the United Municipal Executive in respect of this matter and that they had agreed to this clause. Naturally I accept that, but clearly that is not a compliance with the requirements of our Constitution. Sir, I am aware that a point of order was taken—I took it myself—as to the effect of Section 114 of our Constitution, which says that Parliament shall not abolish any provincial council or abridge the powers conferred on provincial councils in terms of Section 84, except by petition to Parliament by the provincial council concerned. The ruling was to the effect that if Parliament, notwithstanding this provision in the Constitution, saw fit to legislate in a manner which abridged the powers of a provincial council, that legislation was valid and binding.

Order! The hon. member should have raised that point before.

I am not raising a point of order; I am debating the clause in view of the provisions of Section 114. I put it to the Minister that what he has told the House about the consent of the U.M.E. makes no difference whatsoever. The provisions of the Constitution which I have quoted does not require that the matter should be raised with the U.M.E. This Bill clearly abridges in certain respects the powers of the provincial councils and I submit to the Minister that the body he should have consulted was the provincial council.

Order! The hon. member cannot raise that point now. He must deal with the clause.

I will come to the clause immediately. In para, (b) the clause provides that the board shall be exempt from the provisions of any ordinance in terms whereof approval must be obtained from a local authority for the subdivision of land. Now if that legislation is placed upon the Statute Book it is a clear infringement of the powers of provincial councils. The Minister has in no way complied with that. The U.M.E. is a voluntary body which has no statutory powers; it has no power to talk for any provincial council. I am submitting that what the Minister should have done if he wished to take these powers was to have asked the various provincial councils to consider this matter.

Which I did.

No, I challenge the Minister. He did not. [Interjections.] The Minister was not listening. I said that he himself told us that he had consulted the U.M.E. My point is that the body which the Minister is required to consult is not the U.M.E. but the provincial councils.

Order! The hon. member cannot discuss that. The Constitution is not in issue now.

That is not my point. I am criticizing the statement by the Minister, which he made again and again in this debate, that this legislation is entirely proper and in order in view of the fact that he consulted the U.M.E. I say that that in no way justifies him in taking these powers. I cannot carry the point further, Sir, but I say that the Minister, in legislating here, is treating the provincial councils with contempt. I cannot carry it any further than that. It seems that the Minister is not prepared to listen to these arguments. For my part, I look forward to the day when there is a Government in power which will give effect to the letter and the spirit of our Constitution.

Sir, I hope you will permit me, for the sake of the truth and for the sake of the record, to react to what the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) said a moment ago in the holier-than-thou attitude which he always adopts in this House.

Order! I will allow the hon. the Minister to refer to it briefly but I am not going to allow any further discussion on this point.

Sir, I must mention this for the sake of the record. This Bill was circulated to every provincial authority before it was introduced here in Parliament, and not a single provincial authority objected to it, including Natal, who informed us that they had no comments to offer. The hon. member must stop adopting this holier-than-thou attitude time and again in this Parliament. There are numbers of members who are becoming rather tired of the attitude adopted by the hon. member; he always tries to create the impression that the conduct of other people is immoral and that they are not to be trusted. Let me tell the hon. member that if he wants to be treated with respect, he should treat others with respect. [Interjections.] It has everything to do with it, because we acted absolutely correctly. I consulted the provinces. This Bill was also made available to other authorities and the United Municipal Executive, of their own volition, asked to meet me after they had gathered here in Cape Town; I did not ask them to meet me; they asked to meet me.

May I put a question to the hon. the Minister?

No, I am not going to reply to further questions. The hon. member for Germiston (District) can take my word for it that the provinces were properly consulted. As a matter of fact, the amendment that I am moving here goes further than the amendment which the provinces said met with their approval. I hope the hon. member will once and for all get away from this sort of superior attitude that he adopts here.

I just want to say to the hon. the Minister that abuse is no argument. Sir, the hon. the Minister has proved my case completely. I said nothing more than what he has said himself. The hon. the Minister says that he has consulted the provinces. He naturally consulted the Administrator-in-Executive-Committee. Sir, the body which requires to be consulted in terms of the Constitution, not by law …

Order! The hon. member is coming back to the same point and I have said that I am not going to allow further discussion on that point.

Well, I will not pursue that argument. The Minister is speaking of one thing and I am speaking of the terms of the provision which I quoted to him which requires the intervention of the provincial council and not the Administrator-in-Executive-Committee.

Mr. Chairman, …

Order! I am sorry I cannot allow the hon. member to speak again.

No, Sir, I have only spoken twice.

On a point of order, is the hon. member not entitled to speak three times to an amendment after the clause has been put?

Mr. Chairman, do you rule that I have already spoken three times this afternoon?

Order! The hon. member has spoken three times. As a matter of fact, the hon. member has had four opportunities.

Mr. Chairman, …

Order! I am not going to allow hon. members to discuss this legal point further.

First amendment proposed by Mr. Barnett put and negatived.

Question put: That all the words after “giving” in line 22, up to and including “purpose” in line 25, stand part of the Clause,

Upon which the Committee divided:

AYES—66: Bekker, G. F. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; Diederichs, N.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J.; Frank, S.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jurgens, J‘. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Loots, J. J‘.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. deK.; Maree, W. A.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.; van den Berg, M. J.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J.von S.; Waring, F. W.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and H. J. van Wyk.

NOES—36: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Taurog, L. B.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Waterson, S. E.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and N. G. Eaton.

Question affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. Hughes dropped.

Second amendment proposed by Mr. Barnett put and negatived (Mr. Barnett dissenting).

Amendments proposed by Mr. Gorshel put and negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

First and Second amendments proposed by the Minister of Community Development put and agreed to.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Miller put and and the Committee divided:

AYES—37: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Higgerty, J. W.; Holland, M. W.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Taurog, L. B.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and N. G. Eaton.

NOES—66: Bekker, G. F. H.; Bezuidenhout, E. P. C.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; Diederichs, N.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J.; Frank, S.; Greyling, J. C.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Loots, J. J.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Maree, W. A.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, E. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.; van den Berg, M. J.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Waring, F. W.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and H. J. van Wyk.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Remaining amendment proposed by the Minister of Community Development put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and the Committee divided:

AYES—64: Bekker, G. F. H.; Bezuidenhout, E. P. C.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J.; Frank, S.; Greyling, J. C.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Loots, J. J.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G de K.; Maree, W. A.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Waring, F. W.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and H. J. van Wyk.

NOES—35: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. E.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Taurog, L. B.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and N. G. Eaton.

Clause, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

On Clause 10,

This clause is divided into two parts which must be distinguished. The proposed new Section 14ter allows the board to exempt property of the board situated in any township from the provision of the town planning scheme or from the condition of title applying to that property or applying generally to that township. The proposed new Section 14quat deals with an entirely different subject. Section 14quat deals with the layout by the Minister of whole townships. Sir, if the Minister wants to get down to laying out new townships one can understand his anxiety to take these powers under 14quat because these are going to be new areas. They are going to be virgin land and he is going to start a new township, but for what conceivable reason would the hon. the Minister want to take the powers provided for in Section 14ter? Because what he is doing here is to take the power to take any single plot of land in any township, anywhere in South Africa—and this means a township which has nothing whatever to do with group areas, nothing whatever to do with slums, nothing whatever to do with urban renewal, nothing to do with anything we have known up to date that would justify State interference with land. He takes the power to go into any township and buy a plot of land, and when he has bought that plot of land, he here takes the power to exempt that plot of land from the conditions of title applicable to it and to affect every other property in that township. Why does the hon. the Minister want this power? It is no good his saying that there is one isolated instance somewhere which he wants to deal with under a slum clearance scheme; he has the power to do that. He is here affecting every single property owner in South Africa; no one is safe from this Clause. I have asked the hon. the Minister to indicate what he is getting at and he has not answered. Under his urban renewals scheme he can take a house in any suburb in South Africa—and there are such suburbs in South Africa and there are hon. members here who live in such suburbs which are laid out in townships where provision is made that only one dwelling house may be built on a half-acre plot. We find this right throughout South Africa; we find a number of these townships. The hon. the Minister knows and all hon. members here know what trouble they have had with these townships; they know what trouble the owners of these townships have had to have their rights entrenched. The Minister cames along and says that if his board buys one plot of land in a township then he can change the conditions of title. Sir, the hon. the Minister must explain this. He must not explain what he is going to do under 14quat; I understand what he wants to do under 14quat, but I do not understand what he wants to do under 14ter. The hon. the Minister must remember that he is not just dealing with one single property when he changes the conditions of title or ignores them; he is dealing with the rights of the owners of all the adjacent properties as well; he is dealing with the rights of property owners in that neighbourhood. Because if the Minister comes along and buys one plot or five plots of land in an established township and exempts them from the conditions of title applying to that whole township, then the value of land immediately adjacent to that one plot is going to drop if he uses the powers that he takes in this Bill and applies them to that plot. In other words, the Minister decides that there is a township which is adjacent to a scheme he has; he decides that it is convenient for him to take over that township, a township which is on half-acre plots with one dwelling on each plot. Those are the conditions of title. The Minister wants to spread the scheme adjacent to it into this area and build more houses on those plots. He can go in and take it over in terms of this Bill. The hon. the Minister is taking these powers. He may say he is not going to do that. He has not said so yet. But the hon. Minister must assure this Committee why he wants this power. Why? If he is not intending to go into established townships then surely the hon. the Minister must exclude that power. The hon. Minister does not want the power to go into established townships so let him take this power out of this Bill. I hope the hon. the Minister will indicate to us whether he would be prepared to accept such an amendment, an amendment to exclude this power, which he will use in terms of his urban renewals clause, to deal with already established townships which have nothing to do with slum clearance and nothing to do with group areas development. If he would exclude that power then our outlook towards this Clause would be entirely different.

In most cases in South Africa as far as local authorities are concerned, the town planning schemes are not complete. With the exception of a few it is a case of their talking about “a town planning scheme in the course of preparation”. Where you have “a town planning scheme in the course of preparation” you find that the development of that “town planning scheme in the course of preparation” takes a couple of years. But once it has been accepted that local authority is also bound by the acceptance of that “plan in the course of preparation”. And that means freezing. That is the problem we come up against to-day. We cannot get past that technicality. Very often not even the local authority can help us to have it lifted. That is one reason.

Another reason is this: If the hon. member would please look at this portion—

Those are actually the key words. It so happens that the development board has acquired property at numerous places. It has acquired property everywhere in city and town areas. It can utilize that property much more beneficially for housing, for instance. I want to give the hon. member an example, once again without mentioning the name of the city council, where we have come up against this position. There was a restrictive condition on that particular site. We wanted to build 18 flats on that particular site. We then came up against a restrictive provision which provided that only one-third of the area could be built upon. In other words, because of that obsolete provision which was imposed when the town planning scheme was in the course of preparation, we were restricted to such an extent that where we could have erected 36 flats, yet leaving sufficient space open for playing fields, gardens and footpaths, we were obliged to build only 18 flats. It is to avoid this sort of thing that we are taking this power. I can assure the hon. member that there are numerous local authorities who agree with us on this and that in any case there has not been any objection to it.

I would like the hon. the Minister to deal with a hypothetical situation. In view of the fact that he has emphasized the phrase “regarding the use or development of any land belonging to the board”, I take it that the board can, as any ordinary purchaser can, acquire a particular stand in a particular township. Take the example of a township in Johannesburg, Dunkeld. That is a township separated by Jan Smuts Avenue from Dunkeld West. As far as I know there is only one building stand available in Dunkeld. Originally that township was laid out on the basis that no site, lot or erf, could be of less than one acre in size. Many of them were two and three and five acres originally. But with the passage of time, because of the difficulties encountered in maintaining big properties, these large properties were sub-divided, endowment was paid to the township company, and a number of five-acre plots were sub-divided into five one-acre building plots. That then became the minimum, and has been the minimum since that time. If the board should acquire this one remaining unoccupied stand which is one “Dunkeld” acre, the according to the Minister’s reading of this Clause, if I understand him correctly, the board, if it found it necessary to link up this particular acre with a plan or a scheme it has in Dunkeld West, could use this one-acre stand in order to build 36 flats on it. I understand that that would be the position. I hope I am not misinterpreting the intention, not of the Minister, but of the clause as it can be applied. What I think the hon. member for Durban (North) wanted to emphasize, and what I do wish to emphasize, is the case where you have a township of that nature which is established, regardless of the fact that, as the Minister says is the case with most local authorities, their town-planning schemes are not completed, and in that township there is only one building lot and the scheme, as it were, is complete—nothing less than one acre sites and homes that go with that kind of development—in townships where land to-day, if it could be acquired, would cost (for one residence, that is), R12,000 or more per acre. What can happen there apparently is that the Minister can develop that solitary vacant site in such a way as to provide 36 flats in an area that was never zoned for flats. I speak of this kind of situation with some experience. Originally that portion of the Township of Johannesburg which is known as Hillbrow was a township set aside for ordinary one-unit residence per stand. Now the hon. Minister knows as well as I do what has happened through the years in Hillbrow, where on a one-acre plot that used to be occupied by the old-single storey house, with four or five bedrooms and a nice garden and all the amenities, you have to-day as many as six blocks of flats rising to a height of 16 storeys (1 am thinking of one block in particular) and this has become generally permissible. Clearly, if this can happen in the case of one stand in the case of the township I have cited, in the case of Dunkeld, it completely demolishes the value of the other homes in that area. The hon. Minister himself will be the first to agree that there is surely an element of unfairness, however practical the scheme may be, an element of unfairness in intruding in that way in a township, and the powers in the clause permit of such an intrusion. Perhaps families have used their life savings to build themselves a home, which can become almost valueless as a result of such intrusion because as the hon. Minister knows, the essence of that kind of township is the one-acre plot. The man next-door has got to do the same. He cannot subdivide either.

Lower Houghton.

Yes, or Lower Houghton, but in Lower Houghton you have the position that values have diminished considerably since the development of a township the other side of Riviera Rd., Killarney, which has become a flatland. It used to be a parkland once upon a time. I ask the hon. Minister with great deference: How does he propose to protect the existing home-owners in the case of Dunkeld there would be 200 of them, and the hon. Minister has said that the Bill is designed to create happy communities. How does he intend to protect the existing happy communities and the existing happy home-owners from this kind or depreciation of their properties?

The hon. member has made a point which is worth considering, because the object is not to allow that sort of thing to happen. Let me give the hon. member an example. The Development Board owned a very big plot in Durban, a plot which came into our possession in a clearing up process. But it was in an area where only single-storey units could be erected in terms of the planning of the Durban City Council. They do not want flats there. That site was very suitable for us to erect 50 flats in the form of a towering building. We submitted our plans to the Durban City Council and they objected very strongly to them. Had we wanted to be mischievous we could have carried on but we immediately said to Durban: No, we do not want to develop this area contrary to your wishes and because of that we offer you this site in return for a compensatory site elsewhere where you are prepared to allow us to erect flats. They did so. We came to an agreement and we were able to carry on with our planning. Durban used that site for purposes which fitted into their plans. It is not our intention, therefore, to act in the contrariwise manner the hon. member is afraid of. I am prepared to say that if effective amendments are moved I shall consider providing in the Other Place that we cannot act contrary to the interests of the community in a residential area. I shall consider that in the Other Place. That is not what we envisage. What we envisage is to avoid obsolete provisions, obsolete restrictive provisions on the use of land, as in the case I have mentioned where we are in the position that we have a large site in an area where flats are allowed but where we are restricted, due to an obsolete provision, to erecting only half the number of flats we want to erect. I shall consider an amendment if it does not hamper us in this respect. It is not our intention at all to act contrariwise in the sense the hon. member is afraid of we shall. Let me give him another assurance. When the board and the Minister take action in connection with this kind of thing we do not act arbitrarily. In this respect the board is a body which laws down the policy and the Minister is a person who lays down the policy. We only act after we have obtained expert advice from town planners, from our architects and our engineers. I cannot imagine that the type of architect, town planner and engineer we have at our disposal to-day will be against all modern planning and development and will do a stupid thing like this and the Minister and the board will certainly not erect a type of building or construction which is in conflict with the guidance given to them by their experts. Even where we hand out the work to a private undertaking or a private architect we shall be guided by that expert advice. That in itself is sufficient guarantee. It is not as though the board will tell an architect or a town planner that it takes no notice of him. That is not how we work. We only decide on the principle, namely, that something must be done and it is then left to our experts, to do the planning. Those people are usually so sensitive that they will not do anything which would make them ridiculous in the eyes of their colleagues or in the eyes of private architects. I think that in itself is sufficient guarantee. I therefore think that hon. members are unnecessarily afraid but if I can consider an amendment I shall do so. But I must consider it in the light of ensuring that we are not subjected to the sort of restrictions I have explained in regard to the question of the hon. member for Durban (North).

I am very pleased that the Minister’s attitude to this is so reasonable. The Minister must appreciate the difficulties in which any private property owner must find himself, and this applies to all the members of this House who all have constituents who prize their security in respect of their own land and their own homes. In terms of 14quat, if the Minister wishes to get on with a big development scheme, he can lay out a township, and if the provincial machinery takes too long the Minister can say that he will get on with it despite the machinery which exists and which he should go through normally. Well, that is understandable, but as far as 14teris concerned, it is related to this question of urban renewals which the Minister said he was not prepared to define at this stage because he did not want his wings clipped, inasmuch as he wanted to develop these areas properly. Nobody wants to restrict the Minister’s development or urban renewal schemes, whatever they may be. The thought is a good one. It is the application of those schemes which worries me. Here the Minister indicates, and he seems to concede that the interpretation we place on this is correct, that in fact he could by using urban renewal schemes go into established townships. The Minister says this is not his intention to go into established townships. I must say I am delighted to hear it. I am even more delighted to hear that the Minister will consider an amendment. For our part, we will certainly do our best to draft such an amendment, and the Minister can move it in the Other Place, or something to that effect. I hope the Minister will at the same time give consideration to the question of the application of the urban renewal scheme, because the same formula of an amendment could, I hope, apply to the urban renewal schemes, too, because they are connected. The Minister could in those circumstances deal with the two at the same time. The only way in which the argument we have put forward here can be valid in respect of this clause, the only way in which the Board could go into, say, Durban North and take one property or five properties, would be to declare it an urban renewal scheme, because Durban (North) is not a place which needs to be developed in terms of the Group Areas Act and it is not a slum area; it is not an area which would fall under slum clearance schemes. It is only through the medium of an urban renewal scheme that Durban (North) would fall within the purview of this machinery at all. But I am very pleased to hear the Minister saying that he will consider such an amendment and I shall do my best to draft one and I hope the Minister will also give consideration to the question of an amendment to restrict the application of the urban renewal scheme.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 12,

I want to refer to lines 34 to 36 where it is provided that the remaining valuator or valuators may determine the value of a property. I want to ask the hon. the Minister if he is not going to create a difficulty when it turns out that there is only one valuator remaining. In other words, let us assume that he started with three, and for some reason or another two fell by the wayside; only one valuator remains and in terms of this clause that one valuator sits in judgment and has no check on his own opinion or his assessment of the value. Does the hon. the Minister think that that is a desirable procedure? I want to ask him whether in this case, in the case of only one valuator remaining, he will consider appointing, as rapidly as he may wish to do, an additional valuator or valuators to restore the original panel, as it were, so that it may have the correct and balanced judgment which a true valuation necessarily must have I do not want to dilate on this, Sir, but it seems to me that this can create quite a great deal of difficulty, and may in fact subject the Minister to unnecessary complaints on the subject, because it may be said that only one man’s opinion determined the value where originally three had been put into the picture.

If there is only one valuator left and there is any objection to the valuation made by him, the Act provides that any affected person who objects to the valuation of the valuator may go to a revision court, for which provision is made in the principal Act.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 13,

I wonder if the hon. the Minister will be so good as to explain what the position is here. I do not quite follow who is eventually going to carry this appreciation contribution; who is going to pay it. By the time the property has finally been disposed of the Housing Board acquires it presumably from the Development Board and then the Housing Board, as I see it, takes that appreciation contribution as part of the costs and then, as I read the clause, it seems to pass it on …

We do not want the National Housing Commission to be the loser. If there is any loss it should be carried by the Development Board.

So the loss is not going to be passed on to the person who buys the house?

No.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 16,

Here again we have the same problem which I raised under Clause 13, or it seems to be related to the same problem. I have great difficulty in foreseeing any circumstances where anybody would waive his right to be paid a depreciation contribution in terms of the laws relating to the contribution that you get when your property is sold for less than the valuation. As I understood the hon. the Minister in his reply to the Second Reading debate, this was intended to apply only to local authorities or public utilities who bought substation lands and to matters of that sort. I wonder if the hon. the Minister would clear this matter up.

Provision is made in this clause that an owner may waive his right to a depreciation contribution when the board itself acquires a property but the further provisoprovides, just as in Clause 20 (Section 13 (a)), that when the National Housing Commission purchases an affected property for the purposes of the Housing Act and a depreciation contribution has been paid, the said contribution must be paid into the housing fund and not to the Development Board. In other words, here we have another side of the picture; if there is any benefit to be derived the Housing Commission must derive that benefit.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 19,

In terms of Clause 19, the Minister may, through “the Secretary, authorize in writing any member of the board or officer of the Department of Community Development to appoint in writing any member of the board or officer of the said Department…” The following words have now been deleted, “or after consultation with the chief inspector referred to in sub-section (1) of Section 39 of the principal Act any inspector referred to in the said sub-section.” The clause then goes on to read—

It then goes on to arm the inspector with certain powers which he may exercise “at all reasonable times in furtherance of the objects for which the board is established.” Sir, on the face of it this is a necessary clause, but I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether, having regard to what has been deleted in terms of the clause as it now stands, the question of “reasonable time” may not become something other than what is was before the deletion of the words in parenthesis. Since the chief inspector is no longer in the picture, a situation may well arise where the inspector himself, who is obviously a lesser official than the chief inspector—lesser for the reason that he has less experience and less status—may make a decision as to what is a “reasonable time” for an inspection, a decision which the chief inspector would not have made because of his superior experience and training, and intelligence, for that matter. I do not want to suggest for a moment that this is going to be widespread, but I should like the hon. the Minister to tell us what the impact of this change is going to be having regard to the lowering of the status of the person who is going to make the inspection.

These inspectors are civil servants. The chief inspector referred to here was a police officer under the old set-up under the Group Areas Act. We do not intend using these Public Service inspectors for police duties. This is only to enable the board to acquire the necessary information for the carrying out of its functions.

Business interrupted to report progress.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.