I move as an unopposed motion—

This is a mutual arrangement in order to allow hon. members to attend the garden party to-morrow.

Agreed to.

When the House adjourned last evening I had asked the Minister if he had anything to tell us in connection with the tariffs that may be charged once the new pipeline came into operation towards the end of this new financial year. The Minister was replying to the debate when we were interrupted by the adjournment. I hope he will now be in a position to tell us what the position will be. Will there be any financial relief as a result of the introduction of the pipeline to those who are going to use the petrol that is to be conveyed through this pipeline?

Last year I put a question on the Order Paper to ask the hon. the Minister of Railways whether he could give us some forecast about the new tariff that would be introduced when the pipeline was opened. People in Johannesburg, and naturally throughout the whole Transvaal—I naturally speak of Johannesburg because my own constituency is situated there—and the people in the Free State are asking now that there is to be a pipeline, a new modern method of transporting petrol, what they are going to get out of it? They want to know how it is going to benefit them and not only how it is going to benefit the Railways? How is it going to pay the individual citizen, industry, commerce and so on? Because the whole cost of living depends on the cost of the transport of petrol.

The question I asked the Minister was this: What is the cost per gallon to the Railways for transporting petrol from Durban to Johannesburg? The hon. the Minister replied: 1.563 cents. (May I say in passing that whenever I ask a question of the Minister of Railways I get a frank and straightforward reply. I am very grateful to him for that.) The second part of my question was: What is the estimated cost per gallon for such transport by pipeline? The estimated cost, under the new system, will not be 1.56 but .92 cent. Less than a cent. I asked: What is the railway tariff per gallon for transporting petrol from Durban to Johannesburg, and what are you charging us to-day? The reply was: 7 cents. It is going to cost the hon. the Minister less than one cent to transport a gallon of petrol from Durban to Johannesburg and he is going to charge the people of Johannesburg 7 cents a gallon. It is not fair to the interior. I hope hon. members from the interior, especially from Pretoria and the Western Transvaal will come in and support me. In other words, Sir, he is making a profit of 660 per cent which I think is not quite fair. I want to make a suggestion to the hon. the Minister that when the pipeline is open he should announce that his costs will not be 7 cents per gallon but 4 cents per gallon, so that we can get petrol 3 cents per gallon more cheaply in Johannesburg. I think that is a reasonable request. Whether or not he is prepared to agree to 3 cents I think he is in duty bound to give us a reduction. I am waiting on my hon. friend, the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) who comes from the Western Transvaal where they have the mining industry to support me. There is the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. van den Berg); he comes from the Western Transvaal; he is a financial man who understands the difficulty. I hope he will come in and assist me in this. I am putting this question to the hon. the Minister for a sympathetic hearing and a promise.

I have stated my attitude in regard to this matter on a previous occasion and I am afraid there has been no change in it.

Heads put and agreed to.

Remaining Heads put and agreed to.

Estimates of Expenditure on Capital and Betterment Works

On Heads Nos. 1 to 9, R145,667,000,

I wish to raise a number of general issues in regard to the Brown Book as a whole before dealing with specific items which are listed as a matter of priority, I take it, in the White Paper the hon. the Minister has tabled.

The first point I want to make refers to the question as to whether or not the estimated figures given in the Brown Book bear any relation to the truth whatsoever. I wonder whether we should not take another look at the Brown Book as a whole in regard to what the eventual capital costs will be in connection with the items listed in that book. You see, Sir, when you compare this Brown Book with Brown Books of former years you find that numbers of items are repeated where the original estimate was given at, say, R1,000,000 and where the eventual expenditure was, say R1,500,000. You only have to look at the globular sums in the Brown Book to realize that on an estimated total costs of the works listed in the Brown Book of R1,074,000,000, the estimated expenditure during subsequent years is given as R382,000,000. I am quoting round figures as the Minister will appreciate. The question I want to ask the hon. the Minister is this: What expectation has he got for the completion of the works presently listed in the Brown Book? Can this estimated figure of costs still to be met be accepted by the House as a realistic figure? Or does the Minister anticipate that the estimated expenditure will be considerably increased on the basis of possible rises in future in the cost of basic materials and construction works that still have to be completed? I raise this question because in regard to the figures given in the Brown Books of former years there is no relation to the truth whatsoever between the actual cost and the estimated figure. I want to ask the Minister whether he can give us on these benches, and the House generally, a better indication of the basis on which estimated costs are calculated to-day. In presenting these figures to the House is any allowance made, especially in the case of construction works and the purchase of rolling stock, for a possible increase in future in the cost of the particular item?

I want to raise one particular issue with the Minister and I do so at his invitation. As the Minister will recall I raised the question of expenditure from the Renewals Fund and the use of the Renewals Fund as an intermediary measure of financing capital works. Time does not permit me to do so, but there are items that are listed, especially in regard to the purchase of rolling stock, which give the House the impression that they are purchases directly from funds accruing to the Renewals Fund. But in later estimates which the Minister presents to the House we get another picture. We find that parliamentary approval is sought for temporary expenditure on the principle of placing it under the Renewals Fund but that the cost of the material purchased has subsequently to be paid from Loan Account. The vote is then transferred and the Minister comes back and seeks formal approval of payment for the goods under Loan Account. My submission is this, As the Minister well knows on the matter of resolutions, in the Select Committee, that by adopting such a practice members on this side and the House in general are left under a wrong impression as to how the Minister seeks to finance his capital works programme. I realize the difficulties in regard to delivery dates and meeting commitments. I appreciate all those difficulties. But the point I want to put to the Minister is this. The Select Committee cannot consider matters of policy unless there is a special instruction from the hon. the Minister requesting clarification. I wonder what is the purpose of the Select Committee passing resolutions year after year which the Minister and the Administration ignore? It makes a farce of parliamentary control in respect of the finances of the Railway Administration. I want to submit to the Minister that he could perhaps request the Select Committee to consider the whole presentation of the Brown Book in its present form; should some other form not be considered in presenting these Brown Book estimates to Parliament? I am sure the hon. the Minister will agree with me when I say I am sure it is not his intention or of the Administration in preparing the Brown Book on capital expenditure to leave hon. members of this House under the wrong impression as to how it is expected to finance the works. I hope the Minister will deal with this matter in the spirit in which I raise it. I am interested in the question of parliamentary control and the functions of the Railway Select Committee. It is there to look after the funds of the taxpayer. We get the wrong impression and statements that the Administration is not prepared to accept resolutions of the Select Committee nor the Minister especially on the question of financial control. We pass those resolutions at the behest of the Auditor General who is a servant of this House. When that happens I submit to the Minister that it makes a whole farce of parliamentary control. I ask the Minister to respond to the point I am making in the spirit in which I make it.

There is one particular item in regard to the pipeline. It shows that a certain amount of the expenditure, namely R30,000 is to be met under the head of Renewals Fund and Working Capital. I presume that the R30,000 will come from a working vote. On page (ii) it shows a total estimated expenditure of R22,000,000 odd: R9,000,000 odd is to be voted now but R30,000 is to be voted under the Renewals Fund and Working Vote. I shall be pleased if the Minister could tell us why that R30,000 appears under the head “Renewals Fund” at this stage. I was not aware that there would be any depreciation charges accruing to the Renewals Fund as such.

Then a final point. The Minister has a number of items listed in his White Paper of new works. It takes a long time of course to complete those works. We know that in the case of capital expenditure such as the purchase of new Boeing aircraft the House is fully informed;, we know the policy; we know it is an immediate purchase and we know more or less when the service will come into operation. But we have no way of assessing in what priority the works listed in the Brown Book will be carried out. I shall be glad to have a clear understanding from the Minister whether, when we discuss the Brown Book in future, we must assume that the items listed in the White Paper are listed as new works which will receive priority over and above the other large major works listed in the Brown Book? We are left in the dark. We know certain of these developments are required for more free movement of the railway traffic but we have no means of assessing the priority needs of the Railways. I think the Minister will agree that he does not want us on these benches to be a mere rubber stamp to the expenditure running into R1,000,000,000 in regard to the capital works programme of the Railways. I hope the Minister will respond to the points I have made in the same spirit in which I have made them.

In his Budget speech the hon. the Minister referred to the new Durban station. There is reference in the Brown Book, not to the new Durban station, but to two items which have a close bearing on the new station. The first is item 131 on page 14: “Durban: New staging yards for main line and suburban coaches.” The anticipated expenditure is over R200,000 during this financial year. The other item is on page 68, item 781: “Durban: New steam locomotive depot at Bayhead to replace Greyville depot.” The question I want to put to the Minister is this: A committee consisting of members of the Administration and the Durban City Council has been set up to deal with the siting of the new Durban station. That committees seems to have been landed with this position that they are going to deal with a matter which has already been met in that we are going to have new staging yards for main line and suburban coaches. I assume this is in connection with the new Durban station. And then there is the replacement of the steam running shed at Greyville with a new one to be built at the Bayhead. I want to know whether this is in anticipation of the new railway station to be built?

The second point that is tied up with it is what is going to be the fate of the Durban workshops? Once the station is removed then the Durban workshops come into the picture. We want to know whether they will be absorbed into Koedoespoort or Bloemfontein; will they go to Pietermaritzburg? I think we should be given a picture now of what is happening in the light of the expenditure mentioned in the Brown Book for the ensuing year. The reason why I am putting this question to the Minister is that there are thousands and thousands of railwaymen who are going to be effected by these changes. It is important that they should know at this stage what the Minister has in mind so that they can make the necessary arrangements in good time.

Then there is item 929—the electrification and the regrading of the line from Glencoe to Hlobane. I want to ask the Minister the same question in relation to this plan. Have the staff been notified that there is likely to be a considerable change in Glencoe once electrification is brought about? The Minister knows that there was a considerable amount of disorganization at Volksrust as the result of electrification of the line through to the Reef. In this case we shall have the same problem but to a greater extent.

There are two items, Nos. 1029 and 1031, on page 85 which are apparently identical. The first one says “seven first class reserved motor coaches, type N-CM”. The estimated total cost is R709,400. Item 1031 says “seven first class reserved motor coaches, type N-CM”. The estimated cost the same. And in each case the amount under Loan Funds is R200. Is this a duplication or what has happened that we should have two new items with exactly the same description at precisely the same cost?

I asked the hon. the Minister about item 690 earlier on but I got no reply from him. It is in connection with training centres. It says “Centres for training of staff at Cape Western, Cape Midland, Cape Eastern, Orange Free State, Natal, Western Transvaal and Eastern Transvaal Systems.” The total estimated cost is R400,000 of which R203,000 will be spent during this financial year. What are these training centres for and what section of the staff are to be trained there?

The final item is No. 353. This is the Hex River tunnel. This item says “Deviate line and construct tunnel through Hex River Pass”. It gives the total cost. Is this going to be a single or a double-line tunnel? There is no indication here and I think we should have some information about that.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) asked whether the estimated costs of the work still to be done could be considered as accurate. I am afraid not. It is extremely difficult to estimate accurately when it takes three to four years to complete a work and sometimes longer. There is the question of the rise in the cost of material and rising costs of labour. Apart from that these estimates are very frequently drawn up months or a year before the work is actually started. The estimates are drawn up on the basis of the cost of material at the time. Another difficulty is that with the extreme shortage of engineering staff these estimates are not always drawn up as accurately as they should be under normal circumstances. I can give no assurance that the estimates of the work still to be done are accurate. I am afraid that in the majority of instances the eventual cost will be much more than the estimated cost.

When you say “much more” do you mean something like 25 percent.

It all depends on the individual item. For instance it may be a contract for rolling stock. It might be that additional facilities have to be provided in that particular type of rolling stock which in turn increases the contract price. It is really impossible to give a figure on a percentage basis of the possible increase.

The hon. member also referred to the Renewals Fund. He mentioned the fact that in some cases funds which were originally allocated to the Renewals Fund were reallocated to Capital Funds. That does not happen very frequently. I gave the hon. member a detailed reply in this regard when the Additional Estimates were under discussion. I cannot add anything to what I said then.

When the hon. the Minister gave his last reply he replied on the point I had made in regard to the last resolution adopted by the Select Committee. My suggestion now is that the Select Committee be charged to review this matter in the light of the circumstances.

When an item comes before the Select Committee …

They cannot discuss policy.

No, I know. I am speaking about the Renewals Fund. The Select Committee has already passed resolutions in that regard, as the hon. member knows. There is nothing to stop them from passing resolutions in regard to this particular item. But what the hon. member also suggested was that the Select Committee should be specially requested to give consideration to the presentation of the Brown Book in its present form. I do not think that is the function of the Select Committee. The Select Committee has nothing to do with policy, as the hon. member rightly says. And the Select Committee has nothing to do with the actual management of the Railways. I do not think the Select Committee is competent to express an opinion in regard to the compilation of the Brown Book or the form in which it should be presented. I do not think that is the function of the Select Committee.

The hon. member wanted to know why R30,000, under the heading “Pipeline” had been allocated to the Renewals Fund. If the hon. member looks at that column he will see “Renewals Fund and Working Vote”. This is actually Working and not Renewals. The hon. member also wanted to know whether the items in the White Paper are to receive priority over the items in the Brown Book. I must point out that the White Paper is published merely for the information of members. It was at the request of hon. members that I decided to give them a White Paper. It is to assist them and to give them the necessary information. In regard to priority that is a matter, of course, to be decided upon by the Minister and the Administration and the Management. I am referring to the items in the Brown Book. When an urgent item comes up during the course of the year funds out of the Unforeseen Works Vote are used for that purpose.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton) wanted some information in regard to items 131 and 781. Item 131 is in conjunction with the new Durban station lay-out. I have already informed hon. members that there is co-operation. A committee has been established on which the Durban City Council is represented.

Was the site not decided upon last year?

Not finally. In any case, there is no prospect of that station being built in the immediate future. It all depends on available funds. This is just preliminary work and it will not interfere with the site of the station, even if it remains on the present site. It is in conjunction with the new station lay-out that these new marshalling yards are being built.

In regard to item 781 this is in regard to the completion of the electrification of the sections from Duff Road, Madini, Reunion, Kelso. The depot at Greyville will only affect wash-out and shed repairs and the proposed depot at Bayhead will operate in conjunction with the new Durban station lay-out.

I am informed the hon. member is correct that the site has actually been determined. The locality of the site for the new station and facilities have been determined and lies between Old Fort Road, Walter Gilbert Road and to the east of the existing railway line. The actual boundaries of the site are, however, still to be determined.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana wanted to know what was going to happen to the Durban workshops. That has not yet been finally determined. But in any case if the workshops are removed the staff will receive notification in good time. The hon. member wanted to know what was going to happen to the staff at Glencoe when the Hlobane/Glencoe line was electrified. That is a matter that will be considered in good time. I cannot give any indication at this stage as to how the trains are going to be worked—from the Vryheid or from the Glencoe side.

In regard to items 129 and 131 I can only inform the member that these are separate contracts for non-European services. One of these contracts if for the non-European service at Chatsworth. When different contracts are issued they are often issued at different times and they consequently appear as different items in the Brown Book. In regard to item 690—Training centres—I already informed the Committee yesterday that it has been decided to have some measure of decentralization of Esselen Park. Esselen Park cannot cope with all the students. Consequently we are building these training centres in different places to enable trainees, such as firemen, to be trained at these instead of going to Esselen Park.

In regard to the Hex River Tunnel it has been decided that it should be a single line. It will work in conjunction with the existing line which will not be pulled up but will remain in operation.

In previous years there was an item in the Brown Book for the establishment of a railway repair workshop at Welgedacht in the Springs district, costing approximately R3,000,000. I do not notice that item …

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to items appearing in the Brown Book.

I wonder if I could ask the hon. the Minister if any extensions are being made to the railway marshalling yards in that area, and if this development is taking place in conjunction with the railway repair workshop at Welgedacht. Could the Minister give us any information following on the report of the “Commission of Inquiry into the Rationalization of Workshops”. Furthermore could the hon. the Minister also tell us if there are going to be any further housing development schemes at Welgedacht.

Order! The hon. member cannot raise that now.

In regard to the Hex River Tunnel can the Minister give us any indication what the average saving in time is going to be once it is in use as against the present line through Touws River? As a matter of interest I think it would be useful to the Committee to know.

The Minister has had, I think, very strong representations made to him in connection with considerable improvements or new buildings at Escombe in the Queensborough area. I would ask the Minister whether, under Unforeseen Works, this item will be given some priority as I know that consideration has been promised over the last 20 years. As yet nothing has been done. The area surrounding the station is now becoming modernized and developed and this old wood-and-iron station is really an eye-sore. I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to give us some information in this regard.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question under Item 975—Purchase of a ship. Yesterday we dealt briefly with this subject but at that stage it was not competent to ask the question I want to ask now. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether this ship has been purchased as a result of tenders invited from overseas firms, apart from the particular firm from which it was ordered.

Order! If the hon. member wants the hon. the Minister to reply I want to remind him that time is running out.

Thank you. Were tenders called for and can the Minister give us some description of the vessel itself?

Time does not permit me to give a description of the vessel itself but we did call for tenders and the most acceptable tender was that from the Japanese firm. It will be one of the most modern ships in every possible way and of the best construction too.

I cannot give the hon. member for Umhlatuzana any assurance that new station buildings will be built at Escombe under the Unforeseen Works Vote. New station buildings are only built when the necessary financial provision is made in the Brown Book. From memory I cannot tell the hon. member what time will be saved by the construction of the tunnel but I can let him have that information. I would have to guess if I were to tell him now.

In connection with the question asked by the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) I can only tell him that there is no intention of building a workshop at Welgedacht in the foreseeable future.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 92 (1) (b).

Heads Nos. 1 to 9, as printed, put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

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

Estimates adopted.

The MINISTER OF TRANSPORT brought up a Bill to give effect to the Estimates adopted by the House.

I move as an unopposed motion—

I should like to tell the hon. the Minister immediately how glad we on this side of the House are that he has now appointed a commission to investigate the whole of transport in South Africa, and to see how it can be co-ordinated and used to better advantage. We are also glad about the quality of the men he has appointed, and we wish to express the hope that this report when submitted will be of inestimable value to the whole of South Africa and to the national transportation system. Can the Minister in the meantime give us any indication as to how long he thinks it will take before this report will appear? Is he going to ask them to complete their work within a certain period, or is he leaving it entirely to them?

Yes.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Transport has during these discussions replied to most of the points raised. We have already expressed our appreciation for it, but we also gave him to understand that we were not always satisfied with the replies we received. The matter which still causes us the greatest concern is that of the staff and the policy of the Minister, together with the rest of the Cabinet, vis-à-vis the railway personnel. There were discussions in which hon. members opposite tried to prove that we had argued wrongly if we thought that it was the policy of the Government strictly to limit wage increases. On another occasion I pointed out what the hon. the Prime Minister himself had said about this matter. To that we have had no satisfactory reply from any hon. member, including the Minister. The inference which one could and had necessarily to draw from it, if words have any meaning, was that the Government intended to take strong action in order to combat wage increases so as to stop inflation. I quoted the hon. the Prime Minister because he is a particularly authoritative person. But even in the speech of the State President at the opening of Parliament we saw the same standpoint being adopted, perhaps even more strongly; and we know that the President’s speech is drafted by the Cabinet in order to inform Parliament and the public in regard to the plans and the intentions of the Government. I see that the following words were used—

I should like to draw attention to the words “if necessary” and secondly “excessive and unjustifiable” demands.

Price and wage increases.

I am now concentrating on the staff, as I have said. In his New Year message the hon. the Prime Minister used the same arguments he used in this House. We also find that in the Senate on 24 February the Minister of Finance used similar arguments. After the Opposition had drawn attention to this and asked for further information, other members of the Cabinet stated here and outside that this did not mean that the Government now wanted to place a prohibition on all wage increases. One Minister went so far as to say that the Government did not have the jurisdiction to do so in the private sector. But in all these statements it is emphasized that if the increases are extraordinary, excessive, or unreasonable, they will be strictly combated. Now I want to say at once that it is not clear to me why it is necessary to issue this strongly worded statement of policy to the effect that excessive and unjustifiable demands will not be met. Has it ever been the policy of the Government to grant excessive and unjustifiable demands. But we take it that for some obscure reason which we fail to understand it has become necessary for the Government to state clearly that henceforth it will pay no heed to excessive demands. Then the question arises in our minds: Are the demands made by the servants of the State, and in this case particularly the railway staff, really excessive and unjustifiable? If it is the principle and the policy of the Government to say that they will resist excessive and unjustifiable demands, then the question arises: Have the personnel of the S.A. Railways and other people such as pensioners any claim to improved conditions to-day? And we say with conviction and in all humility that they have a case. They have a case to-day, and they can prove that their demands are not necessarily excessive or unjustifiable. That is the test which the Government itself wanted to set, with great emphasis, and which the Minister repeatedly set here and outside, when he stated that the statement of policy related only to “unreasonable demands”. Now I ask again whether the demands made by the railway staff are unreasonable and unjustifiable. If we get the assurance that their demands are not completely indefensible, why have we then had all the arguments from hon. members opposite to prove that the railway workers do not need increased wages or better conditions of work? One speaker after another on the opposite side of the House got up to say that. Are we then compelled to accept that what is really meant is that the pincers will be tightened to prevent these people from getting what they really deserve?

What struck me was that when we emphasized that it was wrong that people’s permanent standard of living should be based on something such as overtime payment, and when we pointed out that it was wrong to allege that people were not entitled to an increase in their basic wages because they could earn a lot of money by working overtime and by working particularly hard, the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) gave us figures which in various cases included overtime, and he used those figures to try to prove that the railway personnel did not necessarily have a claim to higher wages, because they were already doing so well.

I never said that.

I will accept that the hon. member did not say that in so many words, but what then was the object of his argument? Why did the hon. member get up just after I had raised the matter, and reply to my argument that the railwaymen were not doing so surprisingly well? His whole object was to prove that these demands were unjustifiable and excessive. And there we have the old argument again. The hon. the Prime Minister gave us clearly to understand that it was unpatriotic to ask for more than one actually needed, that it was unpatriotic even to ask for a little more to maintain one’s present standard of living. The Prime Minister stated that very clearly. Therefore the hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) was also entitled to say that this idea emanated from the other side of the House, that people who to-day, in present circumstances, make demands to improve their welfare and to maintain their standard of living, are gluttons. Nor could be avoid drawing that inference. I hope the hon. the Minister will react to this. What is his standpoint in regard to the matter: what is his reply to this specific question? Overtime payment is something which from its very nature forms a temporary part of a man’s income. Is it regarded by the Administration of the S.A. Railways as a permanent part of a man’s income? Is it regarded as part of a man’s income which can be used in an argument to prove that his income is sufficient and that he has no right to claim a better basic wage? This side of the House wants to say with the greatest emphasis that that is our standpoint. It was our policy in other respects, as I have indicated, that temporary income, income which a man earns by doing more work than is stipulated in his contract, cannot be used as an argument to say that that man is not entitled to better conditions and a better basic salary.

The other matter in regard to which we have no clarity yet is that we asked the Minister to exchange thoughts with us on another matter of principle. Pensioners, after having been retired on pension for a few years, find that the value of money diminishes year after year as the result of the policy of this Government, and I may say of Governments throughout the world, of allowing money to depreciate. If they are able to buy less for their money, and if their standard of living declines, and the Railway Administration quite rightly grants these people a special allowance to compensate them for the depreciation in the value of money, is that charity? Is it charity which is being shown to them, or is it merely something which is done to remedy an unbalanced position? Surely it is State policy which leads to this creeping inflation. It is wrong that a man who has been retired for five or ten or 20 years and who bought his pension with good money should receive a pension worth much less because it is State policy to depreciate the value of money by approximately 2 per cent every year. In this regard we should like to hear what the Minister’s standpoint on principle is. Because it is the Minister who enters into the pension contract with these people, and it is the State which allows the value of what is paid out to these people in terms of that contract to diminish. We should like to have a statement in that regard.

The hon. the Minister devoted much time, and I am glad because it is necessary to have clarity in regard to the matter, to the question of the conventional colour bar in the Railway Service. We stated our policy very clearly.

What is your policy?

It is the policy of this party to be democratic, and it is the policy of the party opposite, so we are told, to be democratic. In other words, where the interests of the people are at stake, they, like us, say that the voice of the people must prevail. The voice of the people will determine what is in their interests. But when we apply this to the workers of South Africa and say the workers must be consulted, then hon. members opposite try to ridicule it. But it is the same principle that the people, the workers whose interests are concerned, can best judge as to their own interests in regard to this question of the relaxation of the colour bar in the Railway Service. Now I should like the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) or one of the other hon. members when he gets up, to tell us clearly what their standpoint is. The hon. the Minister to a large extent agrees with us, but let the hon. members opposite declare whether it is not their policy that the organized workers should also have a say in this matter. The next speaker can tell us clearly whether they do not grant the workers the right to protect their own rights in regard to matters such as the relaxation of the colour bar. It has become clear to me that the Minister, to a large extent, agrees with us. Here and there he still hesitates and is not clear. He alleged that all the White workers of the S.A. Railways do not belong to a trade union. But they can. If they do not belong to one it is because they do not wish to. To a large extent he agrees with us; therefore, I want to suggest that the Minister, who said that it was not quite clear to him where we stood, should learn what the principle of the Opposition is. If he, through the working and the application of the principles of industrial democracy, in consultation with and with the consent of the trade unions, can relax the colour bar, then he will receive the unanimous support of this side of the House. But if he does so against the will and the wish of organized labour, the workers of the S.A. Railways, he will get only the bitterest opposition from us, and then he will realize what the principle of the United Party is. The principle of the United Party is that it can only be done on the basis of the operation of an industrial democracy. Nothing can be clearer than this, and there should be no misunderstanding about it.

Do you as the official Opposition not give a lead?

I should now like to say a few words about the problem of planning. The hon. the Minister has done his best to justify the planning which has taken place in regard to the Railways. But surely the test is this: What should be the object of a national transport organization? The object of a national transport organization, according to the authorities I was able to consult, is the following: To comply at all times with the transport needs of the public, and, even more than that, always so to anticipate the needs of the public that the transport service can meet any sudden demands made upon it and to some extent can lead the development of the country. The hon. the Minister says: No, as the head of the national transport service he cannot run the Railways on a basis of periods of exceptional activity. There we definitely do not agree with him, because we consider that the principle in an organization such as the S.A. Railways and Harbours should be not only to keep pace with the development of the country but to some extent anticipate such development so that if special services are suddenly required they are able to supply them. We should like to know what the Minister’s reaction is to that. Evidently he views the transport organization in a different light. He sees our national transport system not as something which is doing the drawing but as something being dragged along. We want to see the transport system of South Africa drawing and anticipating the development of our country. He sees the transport system as something which always lags behind, which is always trying to catch up, but never really gets ahead. There is naturally also the difference of approach between the other side of the House and ourselves in so far as the development of South Africa is concerned.

We also put two questions to the hon. the Minister in regard to the relaxation of the restrictions on private transport. Those two questions were very simple. It is a pity that the Minister seems to have forgotten about them during this debate. But we referred to the relaxation of the restrictions in regard to the transport of coal, sugar-cane and certain other commodities which the Minister mentioned. I then asked: When the Minister granted those relaxations, was he quite convinced that the private sector of the transportation industry would be able satisfactorily to cone with that increased traffic, or did the Minister do so because he could formulate no other plan, so that if things went wrong again he could say that in October already he had told these people that they could transport their own goods but they did not do so. These people were restricted in all the preceding years, since Union—and I do not particularly blame the Minister for this—and were actually not able to expand their transport services and the number of their vehicles because it was against the national policy to allow them to do so. What steps did the Minister take, before throwing this tremendous onus on the private sector, to convince himself that they would in fact be able to do what he could not do, to provide, for example, for the coal needs of the Witwatersrand?

The other question I asked was even simpler: When he did that, was the Minister convinced that the roads over which these private vehicles, these extremely heavy vehicles, would have to pass, would be able to bear the traffic without damage to the road surface, as we have already experienced in the past? We received no reply to that. When, for example, the road between Witbank and Springs had to be rebuilt, did the Minister then give an indication to the Transvaal Provincial Council that they should give that road a stronger foundation because they could expect him to hand over the transportation of coal to the private sector on a permanent basis? Did he do that? If he did not, that is the final proof of faulty planning on the part of the Railways and of panic measures injudiciously applied in an emergency when their own lack of planning and imagination catches up with them.

Then there is another matter. I mentioned during the course of my previous speech that many of the railway servants are concerned about the fact that those who are in the lower grades of the service are limited to that section in which they find themselves when it comes to promotion, whereas the people on the higher levels can jump from one section to the other and from one department to another, and that they get more rapid promotion. I said that I did not want to mention names over the floor of the House, but I advised the Minister to devote attention to this matter so that this impression would not be created.

I want proof.

I said that I was stating the principle and I hoped that the Minister would look into the matter, but I said that I did not wish to mention names.

Mention them.

No, I said that I did not wish to mention names, but the hon. the Minister and hon. members challenged me. I then considered how I could handle the matter, and I thought it would be best not to mention names but to mention the specific cases, perhaps in the manner which would enable the Minister to recognize these cases without my mentioning names, and without persons not directly concerned being able to recognize these cases.

What Broederbond is that now?

I did not mention the Broederbond, and I do not know what the hon. member means, but of course he has much more information about the Broederbond than any member on this side of the House, and if he feels guilty and his conscience troubles him then that is his affair.

There was, for example, a member of the staff who was a staff clerk in the office of the General Manager and in other offices for 20 years. He was promoted in various ways in several departments. He was the secretary of a board, administrative secretary; he was assistant system manager and then assistant chief inspector (operating) and then chief superintendent (operating)—all within a few years, after having been a staff clerk for 20 years. The other case is that of a young man who was the sports editor of a newspaper in Johannesburg. Before that he was a clerk in the Department of Agriculture. Suddenly he was appointed as assistant publicity officer of the Railways and later he became the publicity officer, and then assistant manager of the Advertising and Publicity Section, and then manager of the Publicity and Transport Section—all within a few years. He joined the Railways only in 1948 and he was transferred from one department to another in order to be promoted, whereas men who had years and years of service in the relevant departments had their promotion to higher posts withheld, while people from outside were being brought in to fill these higher posts.

From outside?

From other sections of the organization, whereas the people in the lower grades do not have that privilege.

Do you begrudge them that?

I begrudge nobody anything, but I think it is wrong that people who have devoted a life-time of service to a certain section of the railway organization should not be given the opportunity to be promoted to the highest ranks, because people who have no intimate knowledge of those sections and who are brought in from elsewhere are appointed above them. I think this is particularly wrong when people are brought in from outside the service, as happened in the case of this man who was appointed in 1948. I have many examples. I have been challenged to mention these cases. There is the case of a man who was also a staff clerk, and it is interesting, as I have already said, how many people there are to be found in the staff section in these privileged positions. This man was a staff clerk in a certain office for many years and in 1963 he was suddenly appointed as assistant catering manager. What qualifications did this man have as a staff clerk for becoming assistant catering manager? And then last year he was suddenly made system manager—jobs which have no connection with one another. How do these people feel who have served for years in those sections? Here is another case of a man who was dealing with work rosters, also in the staff section. In 1959 he became superintendent (personnel) and in 1962 assistant system manager and in 1964 assistant catering manager. What about the people who serve in the catering department for years and years and who then see people from elsewhere getting these high posts? Here I have another case of a clerk in the publicity and travel section, later in the General Manager’s office. In 1955 he was assistant manager of the publicity and advertising department, in 1956 chief Superintendent (parliamentary), and in 1960 chief accountant. I have another case of a man who joined the Railways in 1934 as a clerk in the accounts section. Later he became a clerk in the health section in the General Manager’s office. He then got his B.A. in languages and became the head of the translation bureau of the Railways, and then he became a staff superintendent, and then he was promoted to the post of director of the staff training organization, and now he is an assistant system manager in Johannesburg.

What is wrong with that?

I quite believe that the Minister does not agree with me.

I will show you how faulty your information is.

No, my information is not faulty. My knowledge is not based on my personal feelings; it is based on the deep feeling of injustice on the part of hundreds of officials in the railway service. I am not speaking for myself. I did not want to mention these cases specifically. I just asked the Minister to ensure that it does not happen, and to take note of the fact that dissatisfaction exists among his staff. I repeat that. I am not talking for myself. I am speaking here in a representative capacity, on behalf of the people who have come to see me and asked whether it was right that people with years of service in a certain section of the Railways should be ignored when it comes to promotion to the higher posts and people from other sections and from outside are brought in. In order to state our standpoint more clearly I should like to move the following amendment—

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) and his party always pretend to be the guardians of the workers but I just want to point out to him that he did something very distasteful towards the end of his speech by dragging in the officials in the subtle way he did. I would not have held it against him had he offered to submit that information confidentially to the Minister but he did not do that. He says he has hundreds and hundreds of pages of it. I can only tell the hon. member and his party that that is certainly not the way to protect the workers. The hon. member’s speech and his amendment have the same characteristics as the debate on the Railway Estimates and they also contain the same accusations. The Minister and the Government have not planned; the Government is to blame for the staff shortage because of its immigration policy and the application of the colour bar. The third characteristic has been high-lighted more by the hon. member to-day and that is the distateful way in which they curry favour with the railwaymen.

We on this side ignore the first accusation regarding the lack of planning with the contempt it deserves. The figures quoted by the Minister and members on this side of the House refute that accusation completely. The explanatory memorandum the Minister has submitted to us beforehand also refutes that accusation. The report of the Schumann Commission refutes that accusation. But, Mr. Speaker, I shall tell you why they make such a fuss about the alleged lack of planning. The hon. member for Yeoville, the main propagandist of the United Party, has started with it. We heard the same arguments in the Part Appropriation debate. On that occasion the accusation was also made that there had been no planning. The Government had not planned for this prosperity. I predict that we shall again hear that in the main Budget debate. The Government will again be accused of not having planned and I shall tell you why the Opposition is doing this, Sir.

In the first place the United Party opposed the capital expenditure on the Railways and they cannot deny it because it is recorded in Hansard. They opposed all financial measures proposed by this Government to make this country prosperous. That is on record; it is history to-day. Their sinister prognostications and all their sinister predictions regarding the economy of South Africa are on record. Now they have to do two things at the same time. In the first place they have to cover up their past because that past exposes them completely. They are totally exposed in South Africa to-day. In the second place they have to avoid at all costs the National Government getting the credit for the prosperity South Africa is enjoying to-day. But as happens in many cases the United Party’s past is beginning to catch up with them. All countries in the world envy us our prosperity to-day. Had the Government not planned this prosperity—I maintain it has been planned—then all countries in the world must desire a Government which does not plan because all countries envy us our prosperity. This is true as far as all the Africa countries, the Asiatic countries as well as the Western countries are concerned: They envy us our prosperity.

In this connection I just want to draw attention to the equivocal attitude of the United Party. The hon. member for Yeoville has again adopted that attitude in this House today. Every year in the past the Opposition have pleaded for greater concessions to private enterprise in the Railway Budget debate. The former member for Wynberg became quite lyrical on this subject. The Minister has now announced in his Budget speech that because of this prosperity he is going to make greater concessions to private enterprise because there is more traffic to be conveyed. And what was the reaction? One would have expected appreciation or one would have expected the usual thing from the United Party; whenever this Government does anything good they always say: “We told you so”. We expected that reaction from them but what was the reaction of the hon. member for Yeoville? He said the Minister expected too much from private enterprise. Now that the concession for which they have been asking all these years is granted they say the Government is expecting too much from private enterprise.

I want to come to the second point, the staff shortage, for which the Government is allegedly to blame. The hon. the Minister himself and others have already admitted that the policy of the Government is to a great extent responsible for the staff shortage. Since 1948 when the National Party came into power there has been full employment in South Africa with the exception of a few years. There has never been unemployment. The Government has planned this prosperity and I shall tell you why I say it, Sir. That is one of the charges made by the hon. member for Yeoville against the Government’s immigration policy. I say the Government has planned the prosperity. That was why it already set everything in motion three years ago to attract more immigrants to South Africa. If the Opposition wants further proof of the fact that this prosperity has been planned they will find it in the immigration policy of the Government. When the Government needed immigrants it started to look for them timeously. There was a time when South Africa could not attract immigrants but that was not the fault of this Government or that of its immigration policy. We blame the Opposition for the fact that we could not get immigrants be cause the idea that South Africa was a police state was born in those ranks. Those words “police state” were born in this Parliament in the ranks of the Opposition. They are the people who have frightened immigrants away.

The third accusation is that the colour bar is to blame for the staff shortage. We say the colour bar on the Railways is as traditional as it is on the mines and the hon. member for Yeoville knows it. That was why he asked the Minister in a very circumspect and subtle way whether he did not think the time had arrived to relax the colour bar on the Railways; but, he went on, the Minister must of course consult the trade unions; he must take them along with him. The hon. member for Yeoville asked the Minister for an assurance that he would protect the White workers. If that is not sacrilige then I do not know what is. I never thought I would live to see the day when a United Party Opposition would ask a National Minister to protect White workers!

The workers can protect themselves if only they are given the opportunity to do so.

When I hear the hon. member say that I wonder to what depths one can sink. I wonder what we will still hear from the United Party in this House, Sir? The hon. member asks a National Minister to protect the White workers while it is his and his party’s policy to apply “the rate for the job”. The hon. member tried to suggest a plan to the Minister. He said: Relax the colour bar but take the trade unions along with you and if you do not do so we, the Opposition, will blame you for it. The hon. member for Yeoville knows he is on very safe ground because he knows very well that the railwaymen will never allow it. There is one way in which the Minister can do it and yet take the trade unions along with him. I should like to have the attention of the hon. member. There is one way in which the Minister can relax the colour bar on the Railways and take the trade unions along with him and that is by introducing job reservation on the Railways. In that case he can, as happens in other industries, give special exemption to Coloureds and Indians and appoint them to posts in respect of which there is a temporary shortage of Whites. In that case the White trade unions will agree and the Minister will be taking them along with him because they will then have that safeguard. I want to give an example of that. Here in Cape Town the Whites have a safeguard, job reservation, in the field of traffic control. Non-Whites are employed and the Whites are prepared to train those Coloureds and they do so willingly; they are training them for the day they will be needed in their own areas to serve their own people. We are establishing Coloured and Indian towns and those people can be used to great benefit there. But the hon. member and his party say to the Minister: Away with job reservation! I say the only way in which the Minister can take the White trade unions along with him in relaxing the colour bar on the Railways is to introduce job reservation.

And must the Minister of Labour do that for him?

Oh yes, the Minister of Labour gives the exemptions. He does it in all fields. That is the law of the country.

The third point I want to touch upon is the ardent way in which they are courting the railwayman on the Railways. That started last year already, but here again there is evidence of the Opposition’s equivocal attitude. It is the Opposition—the hon. member for Yeoville said so a moment ago—who through the years have preached that labour matters should be left in the hands of the trade unions, in the hands of employers and employees. But what did he try to do the other day and again today? The people who through the years have read us a sermon as to how to treat trade unions are to-day doing the work of the trade union leaders and of the staff associations on the Railways. Sir, do you know what the United Party is doing? They are showing that they have no confidence in the leaders of the staff associations. Sir, you have listened to these debates. We on this side of the House have given the United Party no provocation in this respect because nobody on this side has referred to the wage demands made by the trade unions. Not a single member on this side has referred to future wage demands and I shall tell you why not. We on this side of the House have confidence in the Minister and that is why we refrain from referring to wage demands but on the other hand we have confidence in the trade union leaders and the staff associations.

I see the hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) is present. I said at the beginning that they are paying court to the railwaymen in a shameless manner, it is actually rude. In his over-enthusiasm the hon. member for Maitland did not hesitate to throw the truth overboard in this House.

Order! I think the hon. member is going a bit far. What does it mean to throw the truth overboard?

To violate the truth.

The hon. member cannot say that.

Then I withdraw it, Sir, but am I not allowed to say he has murdered the truth because that is what he has done? In his anxiety to try to score a debating point the hon. member for Maitland ascribed words to the Prime Minister, as the Minister told him yesterday, which the Prime Minister did not use. He also coined a new parliamentary word and that he ascribed to the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg). The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) never spoke about “gluttons”. The hon. member for Maitland simply alleged that the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) had referred to the railwaymen as “gluttons”. All I can say is that the hon. member for Maitland has disclosed himself to be a glutton for propaganda. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) quoted statistics to prove that during our regime the number of Whites on the Railways has increased while that of the non-Whites has decreased. The hon. member for Maitland could also have obtained that information but he grasped at that argument in order to say: You are the oppressors and the suppressors of the Whites; you have pushed the Whites down. He could have obtained the facts from this. I just want to say this to him. Last year the number of graded posts for Whites increased by 478 and in the case of the rail workers, the lowest grade of White labour, there was a decrease of 987. No. they are not being pushed down.

I never said so.

The hon. member denies it. He must read his speech. That is my friendly advice to him. Because the rail workers decreased by 987 last year the number of non-White workers increased by 1,600. They are taking that low-graded work over from the White rail workers. That proves conclusively the contrary of what the hon. member has alleged.

I want to say this. We are not worried about the railwayman. We have confidence in the Minister and his management but we also have confidence in the railwayman because we know he knows who are his friend. It is not necessary for us on this side of the House to compete with the United Party in this bidding for the support of the railwayman. It has assumed such proportions that it has become ridiculous. The hon. member for Yeoville suggests that the Minister ought to include overtime pay for pension purposes. I do not think one can get more ridiculous than that. As happened in the case of the little Budget the United Party is again shedding crocodile tears over our prosperity, over a R14,000,000 surplus. It is really a sorry sight to witness. We want to tell them that it is not necessary for us on this side of the House to intimidate anybody. We accept the prosperity and the surplus of the Railways with gratitude and in humility in the hope and faith that as it has solved other problems, the Government will also be able to solve this problem, if it is a problem—which we deny—sensibly and efficiently.

While the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. van Staden) was making his speech, I was trying to decide whether it is the intention now, in view of the past performance in these debates by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg), that the hon. member for Malmesbury should assume the functions of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) in regard to being the leader of the transport group of the Nationalist Party? [Interjections.] The speech that the hon. member has just made would seem to indicate that there is a tendency in this direction, because we had a statement of policy from the hon. member from Malmesbury and I would like to know whether this is the official policy of his transport group. Is there an internal struggle between himself and the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East), or is he attempting to get the Minister of Transport to follow a new policy? The hon. member spoke about job reservation, and as I understood him he said that he would like to see the safe principle applied, and that it should be in the discretion of the Minister of Labour to apply job reservation in the Railway Administration. The hon. member for Yeoville interjected and the hon. member for Malmesbury confirmed it and said yes, the Minister of Labour should grant exemption. Now I want to ask the hon. member, if this job reservation he suggests is going to apply …

You completely misunderstood what I said.

No, all the members here understood it, and the hon. member can look at his Hansard. Let me test it. If the hon. the Minister had to follow a policy of appointing Coloured stationmasters on a basis of job reservation, reserved to stations in Coloured areas, would the hon. member advocate that policy? Would he suggest to the Minister that he should follow a policy of appointing Indian stationmasters at stations serving the Indian townships on the basis of job reservation? Will the hon. member support that?

Yes, or no?

As soon as it comes to the test then they run away and then we have all this talk that the railwayman knows who is his best friend.

Sir, I want to come back to other important matters. It has been my experience over the years in participating in Railway debates that one has to decide from time to time as the debate progresses what approach to adopt towards the hon. the Minister in order that one may penetrate his thinking and convey one’s own point of view. Sometimes one has to be kind, at other times one has to extend sympathy. At other times one has to be a little crude to be kind; at other times you have to take a hard line. Sir, I have extended sympathy to the hon. the Minister in the course of these debates, but I want to be a little bit harder to-day. You see, the Minister had a lot of hard things to say here. We raised important issues in the course of this debate and in dealing with those important issues the Minister looked out for piffling debating points. Let me take one very good example, and I hope the Minister will not tell me this afternoon that I am quoting this statement out of its context. I took the trouble to look at Hansard. The Minister said in regard to our charge that there was insufficient planning in the Railway Administration, that we were the last people to talk about planning because we gave the best example of “gebrek aan gehele beplanning” on the part of any government. I hope I quoted his exact words. In support of that contention the Minister said that he would give one very good example (“ ’n baie goeie voorbeeld”). What was the example the hon. the Minister took? He quoted the Hex River tunnel as an example. Sir, I took the trouble after the Minister had made that statement about the Hex River tunnel to look up the whole history, and for the benefit of hon. members on the back benches over there who talk so glibly on propagandist lines and who quote the Hex River tunnel as an example, I want to say that the Minister will recall that there was a report by a committee on investigation into capital works, a committee appointed by his predecessor when the Nationalist Party took over the reins of office. The task of that committee was to investigate the Brown Book of the day. In the terms of reference the committee was asked to classify the work of that day according to a grading system, classifying the works from A to E. The committee had to state which works they regarded as priority works under this classification; which works could be held in abeyance pending the completion of the priority works and which works could be delayed for a little while. Sir, in this report there are some very pertinent observations made in respect of the Hex River tunnel. But before I come to that I think the Minister will agree that I am not exaggerating when I say that the committee which investigated the Brown Book of the United Party Government—because the Minister says that the Brown Book is always a picture of the planning envisaged by the Administration—reported that 83 per cent of the works contained in that Brown Book were absolutely essential for the development of the Railways. Sir, it is more interesting to note that it is indicated on page 77 of the report that the total expenditure envisaged in the Brown Book of those days was something like R550,000,000 (£229,000,000). Of that R550,000,000, work involving an expenditure of just slightly over R2,000,000 was classified as work that could remain in abeyance and work that should be deleted from the Brown Book, but everything else was considered necessary for the development of the Railways in those days.

But let us now come to the best example that the Minister gave of a complete lack of planning on the part of the United Party Government and of United Party thinking. Sir, what I cannot understand is that when we enter a debate of this nature to put forward constructive proposals, the Minister resorts to what I can only describe as despicable political practices in order to score a debating point, because I cannot believe that the Minister is ignorant of what is contained in this report …

Bring evidence.

I will bring the evidence. Sir, there were five commissioners who sat in judgment on the essentiality or otherwise of the Hex River tunnel. There was Mr. Fourie, a Railway Commissioner; there was a Mr. Wilson, who was a Technical Manager; there was a Mr. du Plessis; there was a Mr. Shaw, who was Financial Manager and there was a Mr. Williamson who replaced Dr. Holloway as the representative of the Treasury. Sir, what did these gentlemen decide about the Hex River tunnel? This is a very interesting point. There was no unanimous decision that the work on the Hex River tunnel should be stopped. The majority of the commissioners were in favour of continuing with the building of the Hex River tunnel. The building of that tunnel, as the commission then pointed out, would only have cost R1,500,000 at that time. What did the commissioners say? Let me quote the opinion expressed by Mr. Wilson. The Minister often says in this House that he is guided by his Planning Council who has all the technical managers of the Railway Administration sitting on it. What did Mr. Wilson, the then Technical Manager, say? He said—

Of these commissioners there was only one who was against the building of the Hex River tunnel. The plain fact of the matter is that the decision not to build the Hex River tunnel was a political decision taken by the Minister’s predecessor taken for the purposes of making political propaganda. The majority of commissioners were in favour of this work. Only one commissioner suggested that the tunnel should be classified not as non-essential but as work which is necessary in the interests of efficiency and convenience, but the postponement of which would not seriously jeopardize the Administration’s operations for the time being.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “despicable” which he used a moment ago.

I withdraw it and I will apologize, if necessary. It was said in the heat of the moment. Sir, the evidence is clear but now the Minister comes along and says that there was no planning and clear thinking on the part of the United Party Government. He went on to say that the scheme was considered impracticable and rejected in favour of the regrading of the line from Touws River to Beaufort West. But that was not the reason at all.

I never mentioned Touws River. You are misquoting me again.

I will look it up in Hansard. Let us be specific then.

You are always wrong.

The Minister said—

He then went on to say that this was considered not necessary in favour of the priority work—I am translating as I go along—the regrading of the Cape Midlands line. What is the Cape Midlands line? Is it between Touws River and Beaufort West? Or is it between De Dooms and Beaufort West, or is it the line to Port Elizabeth?

You are misquoting me again.

The point I want to make is that the reason why the other commissioner who disagreed with the majority decision decided that the tunnel should not be built was that the line over the Hex River Pass should rather be regraded and electrified. That was the reason, not that priority should be given to the regrading of the Cape Midlands line. That was not the reason at all. I do not want to quote it but it is stated here clearly. That was the situation.

I never said that the commission said that.

No, the Minister said that it was rejected in favour of a priority work, namely the Cape Midlands line. [Interjection.] The objection given in the report by those who objected to the building of the Hex River tunnel was that priority should rather be given to the regrading of the line over the Hex River and to the electrification of that line. There was no suggestion in this report that the Hex River tunnel operations should be stopped in favour of regrading and building a line in some other part.

I never mentioned this scheme.

Why then did the Minister make reference in his speech to the Cape Midlands line? It was merely brought in by the hon. the Minister to show that it should receive priority over the Hex River tunnel.

I will deal with that in my reply.

But that is correct, is it not? Otherwise what are we debating here if that is not so? Sir, I raise this matter to indicate the tactics adopted by the Minister when we come with an important issue such as the Schumann Report and everything that flows from that report, the most important document that has been tabled in this House over the last quarter of a century in respect of the development and the financial structure of the Railways. Then the hon. the Minister made the other point that it took five years before the proposals contained in the report of the Newton Commission were applied. Sir, I ask the hon. the Minister whether that is quite true. It is true in the sense that before the new tariff tables were drawn up and applied five years elapsed, but it did not take the Minister’s predecessor five years to state what his policy was in respect of that report, which is quite a different matter. The country was given a clear indication by its predecessor of what he was going to do in respect of the recommendation contained in the report of the commission. The Minister in his reply tries to make a little bit of cheap capital by drawing a distinction between the point made by the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman), in the plea which he made to the Minister in the interests of the farming community, and the point that I put to him. We do not want a long list from the Minister of tables and tariffs he is going to alter; what we want to know from the hon. the Minister is what his attitude is as the Minister responsible for administering the S.A. Railways towards the recommendations of the Schumann Committee. Sir, the principles are quite clear. I have taken the trouble to compare the recommendations contained in the report of the Schumann Committee with those contained in the report of the Newton Commission, and the distinction is quite clear. The report of the Schumann Committee is quite clear on two issues. It says that tariffs in future should be based on direct costs, taking into consideration certain factors which I do not propose to enumerate here, but the report of the Newton Commission contained a proviso which made it quite clear that they were not prepared in determining new tariffs to overthrow the principle which had applied over a long period of years, virtually since the establishment of the S.A. Railways, namely that no rate must exceed what the traffic can reasonably bear, even though the principle of direct costs was taken into consideration. But the attitude of the Schumann Commission was completely different. It said that one should take into consideration the direct costs and fix the tariffs accordingly and if the product which is conveyed at the new tariff cannot bear it economically, then the industry concerned must be financed by the Central Government if a lower rate is applied. That is what we want to know from the hon. the Minister; where does he stand with regard to these principles? The Minister cannot come here and say that we can come back next session and debate the matter then. He cannot ask us to come here next session to debate a report which is already two years old. We want to know now and the country wants to know now where he stands. We would like to know from him where he stands in respect of the broad principles contained in the report. We do not want to know the details; we do not want to know how one tariff is going to be altered and replaced by another tariff.

There are other issues, apart from the mere fixing of rates, apart from the possible alteration of the rates. There is another issue, an issue which has been mooted for many years now and which was recommended by the Newton Commission, and that is the difference of opinion as to whether a separate independent wage tribunal should be established or whether there should be a rates advisory board, as is suggested in the Schumann Report. Surely the Minister has some ideas in that regard. His predecessor certainly did. His predecessor did not have to come here and say, “Come back in a year’s time and I will tell you what I have worked out in the meantime”. Sir, what about the other important issues raised in the report of the Odendaal Commission, dealing with the question of South West Africa. That commission made certain very important proposals in regard to the finances of the railway system in South West Africa, and there are very important proposals contained in this regard in the report of the Schumann Committee as well. Sir, we know what the Government’s policy has been in regard to South West Africa. Surely as a member of the Cabinet the Minister can tell us what the Government’s views are with regard to the proposals contained in the report. One could go on dealing at length with the various aspects of the Schumann Report. There is the question of the minority report. I recall that often in the past when we have discussed the report of the van Zyl Committee dealing with the railway workshops and the manufacturing industry, the Minister was very quick, because he thought he could make a little political capital out of it, to challenge this side of the House to say whether we accepted the majority or the minority report. But here the Minister who says that we lack moral courage and that we never give direct answers, fails to give us an answer when we ask him where he stands in regard to the minority report. Let me put this direct question to the hon. the Minister: Does he accept the minority report with the proviso contained in paragraph 536? Will the Minister reply to that question when he replies to this debate? You see, Sir, one is fighting in a vacuum here, and the only conclusion one can draw is that one is dealing with a Minister who has no policy and with a Government which has no policy.

He is waiting for commerce to tell him what to do.

Is he waiting for outsiders to tell him what to do? Sir, it goes much further than the mere fixing of rates; it affects even the railwaymen. This report affects the entire financial structure of the Railways and the economy of South Africa. Because if the Minister stands up in this House and says that he accepts the majority report, then there is no shadow of doubt that it would be like an atom bomb dropped on the South African economy. The Minister has not even got the courage to give us the benefit of his thinking about this report. I would appreciate it if the hon. the Minister said: “I view these recommendations in this light, but at this stage I am not prepared to take a final decision in respect of the matter.” But we have not even had a chirp out of the Minister in this regard. Every time we raise this matter he goes off at a tangent and looks for some small debating point instead of answering the questions put to him by this side on major issues.

I want to come back to the staff issue for a moment. Here we are in the same vacuum. We find that the responsibility is loaded on to us by the hon. the Minister. Every time the issue is raised the Minister says, “What did you do?” But we cannot get any direct statement from the Minister as to what he is going to do. You see, Sir, if the expectations of the Minister and of his Planning Council are correct, the traffic demands made upon the railway system are going to increase and continue to increase, and already, as the Minister himself says, there is a strain of embarrassing proportions placed upon his staff. We must expect that the staff position is going to get worse month by month; that it is not going to improve, and that the burden on the existing staff is going to increase daily. Sir, I took the trouble to look up the record of the United Party when we were faced with an issue of this nature. In 1946 and 1947 the railway system found itself in the same situation as the Railways do to-day. The Railways at that time were also being strained to the very limit as they are being strained to-day, but we did not sit down and say that we did not know what to do; that we would offload our responsibilities on to the shoulders of the Opposition or that we would see if we could persuade the trade unions to find an answer. The problem of those days was precisely the problem of to-day, and that was where to find labour to supplement the staff employed in low graded positions and in unskilled occupations. It is interesting to note that there has been little change since those days in the ratio between rail workers and unskilled workers on the one hand and workers in graded posts on the other. There are something like 10,000 rail workers employed in the railway service to-day, people whom the Minister says he cannot place in other posts because they are not equipped to be used in other jobs. The Minister has also indicated in the course of this debate that there is quite a large number of railwaymen who do not belong to any particular staff association. He does not deal with them directly; they have to accept what is accepted by the organized section of the railway employees. Sir, when we were faced with a situation of that kind the United Party Government did not sit down, as the Minister does, and cry out to the Opposition for help. That is all we have been getting in this debate from hon. members opposite. [Interjection.] Look at the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert). He could not offer any solution. He did not have the courage to follow the line that was taken by the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Van Staden) and to say, “I am prepared to advocate to the Minister that Coloured men should be trained as stationmasters to serve stations serving the Coloured travelling public”. Will the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) advocate that?

I did not say that.

In the days of the United Party Government a commission was appointed, and this is what the Commission’s terms of reference were; I am glad to see that the former Minister of Lands is here because he has a very intimate knowledge of this matter; the Commission’s terms of reference were—

Sir, what is the problem of the Minister as far as the labour shortage is concerned? His problem is not so much, as the Minister admits, in the high graded posts or in the skilled posts; there is a shortage there but it is not of such enormous proportions. The Minister told us what steps were being taken to meet the shortages which do exist in the skilled ranks, and we on this side fully agree with those steps. But the problem is in the lower grades, in the unskilled positions and in the semi-skilled grades. The Minister himself says that he is now prepared to train non-Europeans for employment as shunters in the Railway service. But what did we do when this commission was appointed? We took the trade unions and railway organizations with us and they presented their case; they put forward a solution, and I am quite convinced that the Railway trade union leaders have a deep sense of responsibility.

Since when have you been convinced of that?

They have the interests not only of their own workers at heart but they know full well what will happen on the Railways if there is a breakdown in the transportation services of South Africa. But what puzzles me more than anything else is this: why cannot the Minister go to the trade unions and say, “I am faced with this problem; will you discuss it with me and can you help me out of my difficulty; can you put forward a solution?” Why cannot the Minister put this issue before the trade unions? The Minister has not told us that he has done so. What is significant is that this strong Minister, who is never afraid to face the trade unions, has kept silent about our acceptance of his challenge. We have not had a word from him. The Minister was the first one to throw out the challenge; that challenge was to meet the executive committee of the staff associations here in Cape Town, and the Minister said that he would stand or fall by the decision of that executive committee. But, Sir, the Minister does not react to that. We are quite prepared to put our case before the trade unions and the railwaymen of South Africa in the interests of South Africa; we will not shield beyond the fear that the Minister has that he may be faced with the threat of some extravagant action. The Minister well knows that it is not only the artisans’ staff association that is pressing for better service conditions. All the staff associations are asking for a revision of their conditions. What have we had from hon. members on the other side in the course of this debate in this regard? We had a quotation from the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) from the Salstaff Bulletin dealing with the Minister’s meeting with the Federal Consultative Staff Committee, an account of which appeared in the December issue of Salstaff. Sir, why did the hon. member not quote these words, because I think they are very pertinent? When making the representations for a holiday bonus the Federal Consultative Staff Committee clearly indicated to the Minister—

Read the rest of the paragraph.

I know what the hon. member is getting at, but the point is they made it clear what their reason was for accepting the holiday bonus. It was not a blank acceptance. They gave specific, responsible reasons for accepting the holiday bonus.

You are afraid to read on.

The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) is trying to run away from this.

May I ask the hon. member who exerted that so-called pressure upon the staff associations?

Is the hon. member’squestion who exerted pressure upon the staff associations? For what?

Read it again.

[Time limit.]

I should just like to deal with the last speaker on the Opposition side by making this one remark. In this respect I am in full agreement with Tom Anderson, the American, when he said—

Are you going to fall into it now?

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) had a great deal to say about planning. He tried to influence this House by means of all that he had to say but he showed us that he had little knowledge of the subject. I want to refer him to the report of the Schumann Commission. This was a commission composed of persons from all walks of our national economy and society. The finding of the commission was not only that the planning of the Railways was excellent but that it fitted in well with the economic tendencies in and development of this country. The hon. member had one great problem and this he clearly revealed at the start of his speech when he referred to the reputed conflict between the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Van Staden) and the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. Van Rensburg) in the railway group. This is a complex which he has developed as a result of the fact that he was almost kicked out of his party last year because of friction between the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) and himself. He has not been able to rid himself of his complexes and inhibitions and so everything he says must of necessity affect the prestige and the status of the discussions in this House and also the status of his party detrimentally. We accept the fact that in his regard, like the cockroach, he will make a mess of what he falls into.

Order! The hon. member must not refer to other hon. members in that way. The hon. member should not have made that remark and I do not want him to refer to the matter again.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The attitude adopted by hon. members of the Opposition during this debate causes me in the second instance to think of the story about the bickering wife. One evening the wife and her husband tied their pet lamb to the grindstone just in front of the back door. That night the dog wanted to play with the lamb and in the process the lamb pulled out the supports on which the grindstone rested and dragged them a little way off. The next morning when the old gentleman looked through the kitchen window and noticed that the pet lamb was no longer there, he reported back in haste to his wife that the pet lamb had gone. Her first reaction was: “Yes, I told you that the pet lamb would swallow the grindstone.” The arguments which we have heard from hon. members opposite are just as ambiguous and just as silly, but, Mr. Speaker, those arguments not as innocent. I should like to take the hon. member for Yeoville a little to task in this connection. This matter is not a frivolous one at all. On the contrary, the attitude adopted by hon. members opposite is a very cunning one. In order to show how cunning that side of the House is, I want in the first place to refer to the question of the manpower shortage. The manpower shortage is the smokescreen which they want to try to lay in order to hide their lack of arguments and real approach to this matter. As far as I am concerned, it is just as unpleasant and just as misplaced as the old argument which we in this House are so sick and tired of hearing: “Yes, but you must remember there was a war on.” That is the old slogan which is supposed to cover everything and which has to hide all forms of weakness and lack of argument. But my sympathies are with the Hansard writers because I think that one of these days they will be repeating these things in their sleep. Reference was made to the shortage of staff and this matter was linked up with the increase of 6.2 per cent in the staff over the past three years whereas the turnover on transport increased by 15 per cent. Mention was made, inter alia, of “the terrific strain on the staff; their short-temperedness” and their resultant unfriendly attitude. This is where the guile in these statements comes in. An attempt is being made to arouse sympathy, to make common cause with these people, and, in the second instance, to give them to understand: “You are being treated inhumanly; you are being exploited and treated unjustly; you have a strong case; you must rebel.” All this is done by implication. That is the suggestion which is behind this statement.

Weak!

It is not weak; it is the truth. Langenhoven said: “Kleinserigheid is die teken van seerkleinigheid.” Let me continue. In the second instance we have the suggestion: Relax the colour bar. What is the guile and the thought behind this suggestion? Employ non-Whites on a large scale; open the sluices and allow them to occupy graded posts so that we can have race friction in this country! The Opposition want serious race friction in this country so that they can tell the workers: “Apartheid has not succeeded.” That is the cunning and the spiteful idea behind this front.

We are used to the fact that hon. members opposite do not see matters in their correct perspective; that they go through life wearing blinkers. But they will not catch us out in this way. I say that they are making an effort to substantiate their accusation that apartheid or separate development has not succeeded. In the third instance, they are trying to stir up public feeling to such an extent as to disturb the peace, the valued and incomparable peace which we have in the Republic to-day, so that they will be able to make use of this fact as another platform from which to harangue the outside world.

We are used to these things and we are aware of these things but I want at the same time to say that we deprecate this political piety and impertinence on the part of this crumbling party. I want to give hon. members opposite the assurance that they are living at a time when the citizens of this country are informed; they will not so easily allow themselves to be taken in tow. The public have a particular contempt for any form of cowardice, including cowardice on the political front. If hon. members opposite hope to obtain public support by resorting to these methods and tactics, they are in for a very great disappointment. The officials whose sympathy they are seeking, the officials in whose minds they wish to plant the suggestion that those officials should rebel, have something which hon. members opposite do not have—reverence for their country and people. I want to give hon. members opposite the assurance that these people who work so hard, who, according to hon. members opposite, are working themselves to death, are supporters of the Nationalist Party; they do their work with a great deal of pleasure and very devotedly. They will remain supporters of the Nationalist Party under all circumstances. They will remain Nationalists. The disappointment of hon. members opposite is going to be very great.

They do not receive any money.

Yes, moneymaking is the thing; sectional interests, group thought, that is the motto of the party opposite. The attitude they adopt is strictly a material one and it is their most important weapon. But materialism fills a very small place in the aims of the modern Nationalist and Republican. We need material things but they are not the alpha and omega of life; they are not the be-all and end-all of everything. This is proved by the Report of the General Manager and the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Railways.

This policy and this attitude which these people are trying to propagate so subtly, is dangerous for South Africa.

Who are “these people”?

This is a dangerous policy and it is necessary that the voters should realize this fact clearly before 24 March. These people are not sympathetic towards the workers; they want to create unrest and dissatisfaction. These people …

The hon. member must not refer to hon. members as “these people”.

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. Hon. members are not striving for White supremacy in this country but for the destruction of the White man. This attitude of theirs of promoting the increased employment of non-Whites in the Railways and in our industries and in our general economy of the country is an old story; cheap labour and the exploitation of the non-Whites under the pretence of White mastery—two yardsticks, two norms. We know that old story. This party and this Government has passed the stage when it will allow itself to be taken in by these actions.

It is also only an opening which has to be made under the pretence that there is a manpower shortage and that circumstances and the present crisis demand that the sluices be opened so that cheap labour can be used and so that the non-White can again be exploited freely on a large scale in this country for the sake of the group idea of materialism and money which is inextricably bound up with hon. members of the party on the other side of the House. This Minister and this Government will continue to maintain conventional job reservation on the Railways as long as they can. Our attitude is that our eventual aim in this country is that the White man shall be served by the White man and the Black man by the Black man, and not that the one shall ride on the back of the other. I say that this is our ultimate aim and we shall make use of every possible means to achieve that end.

You had so many wonderful opportunities to say “Amen”.

Another aim of the hon. members opposite is to keep the inflationary flame high with the vague prospect of causing a setback on the economic front which might also cause confusion and unemployment. They will then be in a position to be able to say: “We told you that the pet lamb would swallow the grindstone”. We are on our guard in this connection as well but our regard for and our sense of responsibility in respect of the Whites and the normal and natural development of our country is too strong to make us fall into this trap which has been set for us.

Mention has also been made of the over-capitalization of the Railways. The relevant information is contained in the Brown Book and the amount is R600,000,000. A comparison was drawn between the Railways and the Oppenheimer Organization with its R300,000,000 which makes the latter look like a small company. Note the group thought and group interests which are compared with national interests and broader interests. Note the unfair comparison and the analogy which is drawn here. The Railways must become a business undertaking, a profit-making concern which works for profit for the sake of profit. The limited thinking of these hon. members and their approach to the position of the country is very discouraging to us. We hope and trust that the public and the voters will make a careful note of the frivolous and irresponsible manner in which these people approach and consider a problem such as that with which we are faced. They want to capitalize on it; they want to derive political benefit from it; they want by this means to try to gain a few paltry votes which may perhaps be cast for them out of dissatisfaction.

Hon. members must get away from this line of thought. It has become obsolete during the regime of the Nationalist Party and this Government. It no longer fits in and now sounds a discordant note. The public know it. Let me give hon. members opposite a piece of good advice. Apparently their theory is so obsolete that they still believe that politics can only exist and progress when there is chaos. Because of this fact we have the covert attacks on order and planned development so that chaos will arise and so that United Party policy and politics may triumph once again. The past 17 years have proved that the United Party cannot succeed in an orderly state and under planned conditions.

The hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) advanced a very clever theory: He said: “If you employ more non-Whites in the lower-paid posts on the Railways, the status of the Whites will be improved and they will receive a higher income.” How wonderful it sounds but how shallow the thought! We have also heard the same thing said in regard to the mines. I in my turn want to ask him this: Is this the only way in which the income of the Whites can be raised? Is this the only way? Did the hon. the Minister not tell us that a concession of R12,000,000 was made to officials last year without the lower posts having to be filled with non-Whites? Is this really the best they can do in order to show the Republic of South Africa that they are adopting a reasonable attitude? How small and how limited and how pathetic!

I want to express my appreciation—I hope that I am speaking on behalf of everyone in this House—for the extremely capable way in which the hon. the Minister and his Department have been able to retain the services of the staff of the South African Railways under these specific circumstances in competition with the private sector, industry, the Public Service and so forth. I can only ascribe their success to the fact that they are very sympathetically disposed towards their staff, have taken the trouble to assist them in solving their problems and have tried to promote them as swiftly as possible and have taken an active interest in their training. It has been this family spirit and bond of loyalty which has been able to blunt the lure of and striving for materialism on the part of those people. I want to give the hon. the Minister and his Administration and Department credit for having succeeded in the interests of this national transport undertaking, of our national economy and of commerce and industry, in retaining the services of these workers who have such a high production potential. We can only hope and trust that they will continue to do so and enjoy even greater success in this regard in the future.

The South African Railways as our largest national transport undertaking is in good hands. We are aware of the fact that the whole world is jealous of the Republic of South Africa because it has a Ben Schoeman as Minister of Transport. The world is jealous of South Africa because Ben Schoeman has such a sound group of Railway Commissioners to assist him, that he has a General Manager and staff who have been able to achieve so much so well and so honourably under such difficult circumstances in the interests of the Republic of South Africa and its future prosperity. Mr. Speaker, this is the final picture which remains after all these smokescreens have been dispersed by and all this mist has disappeared in the sun of truth, fairness and righteousness.

I do not intend speaking very long in this debate. There are merely one or two matters I want to raise with the hon. the Minister. Before doing so, I just want to say that as an example of “enlightened citizenry”, the hon. member for North West Rand (Mr. J. C. B. Schoeman) and I seem to live in two entirely different worlds. He is talking the language of 1924. He is talking the sort of language which we heard in South Africa when the “civilized labour policy” was introduced in this country, when there was widespread unemployment, when there was a pressing poor-White problem. The arguments which the hon. member advanced then might possibly, perhaps—certainly theoretically—have had certain value. In point of fact, in practice, even then, arguments such as the employment of Whites in reserved jobs on the Railways, the so-called civilized labour policy, was found not to be a solution of the poor-White problem at all. It was the absorption of poor Whites in the entire industrial complex in South Africa, not the reservation of jobs on the Railways, that solved the poor-White problem. What we are confronted with to-day, Sir, is a situation which is quite different. We are confronted with a situation of an expanding economy with more jobs to fill than we have people to fill them. For the hon. member to come and advance arguments in this House to-day which did not even hold water 40 years ago is to me quite astonishing. Yet he purports to be a member of the enlightened citizenry of South Africa! The problem we have to face is the problem of training and absorbing labour into the economy of South Africa as fast as we possibly can. There is only one field from which we can do that and that is the field of non-White labour, because this labour is under-employed or it is employed in uneconomic activities. The hon. the Minister of Railways can solve his problem within a short period if he would get away from all these old theories and would take his courage in his hands, forget about the argument which he himself advanced in 1956, and go ahead at as fast a rate as possible and train non-Whites to do the jobs for which he cannot find White labour. That is the answer to the hon. Minister’s problem. He is being hoisted by his own petard to-day. He has drummed into the ears of the followers of the Government that further encroachment in the field of labour by non-Whites on the Railways, in State Departments, in industry, etc., must inevitably result in unemployment for the White people. Now we know from experience that this is not so. We know that we have an expanding economy and we also know, which the hon. member for North East Rand does not yet seem to appear to have grasped, that we do not have two economies; we do not have a Black economy on the one side and a White economy on the other where one can simply employ non-Whites to serve their own people, as he put it, in the non-White section, and Whites to serve Whites in the White section. The economy is closely interwoven; it is inextricably interwoven. It is impossible to separate the functions of White labour and non-White labour in South Africa. The thing that should be done from this top level of the country, from the Government benches and from the Opposition, is to encourage, for all we are worth, this absorption which, willy-nilly, is taking place. Whether the hon. member likes it or not the unreasonable fears that he entertains and which may even be entertained by other people, are in fact being overcome by the practical implementation of a policy which is diametrically opposite from the official policy, and that is the absorption of non-Whites into jobs formerly done by Whites.

I do not think any political capital should be made out of this at all. I think we should encourage the hon. the Minister for all we are worth to carry on with this procedure. I do not think we should put any fears into the head of White trade unionists that this means that their jobs are being jeopardized. I think we should do all we can to encourage the White unions to accept this. There should be no talk about this only being done if the unions and the employers come to agreement. Because the law is an educative factor; Parliament is an educative factor. What we should be doing from top level, in the position of responsibility which all of us hold as public representatives, is to encourage this procedure and not to make political capital out of it. As far as I am concerned, it is not a question of saying apartheid is breaking down because I am not one of those who believe that apartheid is in fact breaking down simply because non-Whites are being absorbed into industry. I do not believe that at all. To me the most oppressive part of apartheid is still being imposed. All the harsh realities of apartheid still exist. But what is happening is that Africans and non-Whites generally are being integrated into our growing industrial economy to the advantage of everybody. And the Railways should be carrying on at full speed doing just this because the realities of the situation … [Interjections.] Oh. but when one goes down to the Durban harbour, as I did a couple of days ago, one sees ship after ship unable to enter the harbour because the harbour simply cannot cope with the traffic. One knows the Railways cannot off-load the stuff fast enough; cannot get it up country to the inland markets fast enough. They cannot do so for one reason only: They do not have the labour to off-load; they do not have the people at the harbours; they do not have the people at the rail heads to off-load these goods and get them where they are desperately needed. So we are getting absurd bottlenecks which are creating a rise in the cost of living. Because do not think the ships lie outside the harbour as if they are on a pleasure cruise. These additional costs are passed on to the consumers. The way to overcome all that is for the hon. the Minister to take on labour in jobs where he cannot get sufficient White labour. I am not for these artificial protective devices. I do not believe it is good for the White labour either to feel that it is protected, however, inefficient it is. And this is the answer, and we should stop being frightened, politically, economically or in any way. We should absorb these people, train them, use them, not make political capital out of it and say “Ah therefore apartheid is cracking”. It is not cracking. The hardships are still there. Territorial segregation has obviously gone overboard. Everybody knows that. It has gone overboard a long time ago. We know that we are not able to reverse the stream of labour from the rural areas to the urban areas, and what is more, we should not want to do that because if we do that our whole economy will be shrinking, and that is the last thing I hope anyone in this House would desire. Therefore let us go ahead and encourage the hon. the Minister to take on non-White shunters, to use the unemployed Coloureds and the unemployed Indians and the under-employed Africans and let us train them and let us encourage the unions to go in for fragmentation, for reclassification of jobs. These are the things that have always stopped the gradual introduction of non-White labour into the semi-skilled jobs. It is this rigid classification of jobs that we have on the Railways and elsewhere, in the Public Service, in industry, which has prevented this. I think there should be top-level encouragement, and the hon. member who just sat down has not done this country a service, politically or economically, by pleading for a rigid attitude towards the colour bar. When I plead for the break-down of the colour bar, I do not do so for political motives. I do not do it to create, as the hon. member puts it, unrest in the ranks of labour in this country. I do it for one reason only. I have had some training as an economist, and I know perfectly well that labour is not in fact competitive, that it is complementary, that the more people that we have earning more money, the greater the internal market in this country, the greater the demand for goods and services of all kinds, White services as well as non-White services. It is quite impossible to have a separate economy for Whites and separate economy for non-Whites. We must get away from these medieval ideas, and at least let us get away from ideas which were no good 40 years ago in a time of unemployment and certainly cannot be any good now, 40 years later when we have a time of full employment. So that is the one thing. I plead with the hon. Minister not to be diverted by fears of political capital being made out of the fact that he is now employing non-Whites in jobs where previously they were never employed. This is the natural evolution of a modern industrial country, and this is what we should be encouraging, politically and in every way.

The other thing that I want to discuss with the hon. Minister—he has heard from me before. Unfortunately because sufficient improvements have not been effected sufficiently quickly, I have to raise this matter again with the hon. Minister, and that is the whole question of the provision of adequate transport between the African townships and Johannesburg in particular. We have a vast complex to the south of Johannesburg where the industrial labour supply is living. At rush hours the position is as bad as it ever was. I think the hon. Minister would be well advised to have a look himself, and he will see that it is no exaggeration to say that thousands upon thousands of Africans clamber onto the trains in these rush hours between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. in the mornings and between 4.30 and 6 and even 7 o’clock at night. There can be no excuse now. I think it is five years since I raised the matter first with the hon. the Minister. He gave me the assurance that the lines were being doubled, that more coaches had been ordered, that more passenger trains were going to be put on the line. I am sure he has done all that, but the trouble is that it is not enough, because industry is still growing, and you cannot just decentralize. Border industries are not going to attract labour away from the areas where industries have been located for good economic reasons—because the markets are there, because coal, power, is there, raw materials are there, and the labour supply is there. And transport should be there, at least for the goods. Therefore the Minister must show more imagination and more planning still, and he should do something more about catching up with the terrible back-log in passenger traffic. It is highly uneconomic for his Railways to begin with, because they lose half the fares I am sure they could collect otherwise, but cannot collect in the terrific rush. It is highly uneconomic for industry, because workers arrive at work absolutely exhausted, unable to do their jobs properly, and they get back home in the same condition. It takes them anything from two to three hours to get backwards and forwards on each journey from where they live to their place of work. So, whatever the Minister has done, is just not good enough. He will have to do a good deal more before the situation becomes at least workable, and where one does not have thousands of Africans clinging to windows, clinging to the outside of the trains in an effort to get themselves to and from work. One of the things which engenders more racial friction is of course the fact that people are subjected to these conditions, and they are subjected to tsotsiism on the trains which is quite uncontrollable because the Railway police are unable to get in among these vast hordes moving around on the railway stations and on the trains. I ask the hon. Minister to give this matter his most serious consideration, and not simply to assure me, as he had done year after year, that the situation has improved, that he has put on more trains and that the line has been doubled.

The population is increasing.

Of course it is increasing. This is what I told him five years ago. I warned the hon. Minister about the position. Now the position must be still worse, because the country is expanding, and let us hope it continues to expand, because there lies the key to our prosperity, and it would be just too bad if the industrial areas started shrinking. So this is not something the hon. Minister should be upset about. I know he has great problems because of the expansion of the country, but I cannot understand why every White person in this country does not grasp this obviously elementary fact, and that is to make use of all the available labour supply in this country. Then the hon. Minister will not find it so difficult to lay extra railway lines and to provide the necessary services. These are the things which are obvious to me, and I think we must stop being frightened of a poor-White problem, of unemployment, of going back to the conditions of 1924. We have long passed that in South Africa. We are still an expanding country and we have got an enormous amount of leeway still to make up before we become the really industrially developed country that we can become on this continent. I again ask the hon. Minister to put his mind to this problem of the position of adequate services between the townships and the industrial area. I am sure that the pattern of Johannesburg is repeated throughout South Africa. I cannot speak with authority on this, but I cannot imagine that it is any better in the industrial areas of Natal or in the industrial areas of the Cape. This is something which I think is of vital importance because the provision of adequate services, railway services, is something, which, I think, is essential if the country industrially is to go ahead. And as for bottlenecks at the harbours and bottlenecks at the stations and bottlenecks at all the loading areas of our goods trains, all this could be cured, if not in the immediate future, then certainly in the foreseeable future if the hon. Minister would forget about the political advantage which people might gain out of it and go ahead and encourage the unions to reclassify jobs. Let himself take the bull by the horns and do so, because there is no reason why he should accede to unreasonable demands of labour. I do not think that labour is sacrosanct, and I do not think everything has got to be done with the full permission of the labour unions. Other changes have taken place where the labour unions may not have fully approved, but any reasonable labour union will realize that the time has come for a reclassification of jobs in South Africa, and if they are not prepared to be reasonable about it, then I think in this regard the hon. Minister must be strong and he must say that for the good of the country as a whole, it is necessary that certain changes should be made. Therefore I ask the hon. Minister to go ahead courageously and solve these problems.

The hon. member who has just sat down and other members on the Opposition side have this in common that they think alike as far as this matter is concerned with this exception that she has the courage of her convictions to say what she thinks.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant), who is unfortunately not present at the moment, quoted from the Salstaff Bulletin towards the end of his speech. He read this—

That was as far as he read. But that quotation was read completely out of its context, Mr. Speaker, and I hope you will allow me, in his absence, to read what this Bulletin says further. This is how it starts—

Then you get the portion the hon. member read out and then it goes on—

I should like to know from the hon. member why he did not read the complete statement by the Federal Consultative Council. I maintain the hon. member for Turffontein deliberately did not read it just to gain a little political capital. What is more I even think hon. members opposite deprecate quoting of this nature, where he quoted a passage completely out of its context, as much as we on this side of the House deprecate it.

I have often in the past got up in this House, Mr. Speaker, and asked the hon. the Minister something for my constituency. It is my pleasant duty to-day, however, not to ask for anything but of sincerely thanking the Minister for the provision he has made in his Estimates for the railway workers in my constituency. I believe I speak on behalf of my entire constituency when I say to the Minister that we are extremely grateful to him and his management for what has been done to the constituency.

The Minister’s Estimates over the past number of years unwittingly reminds one of the steady flow of the Vaal River over the years, a river which flows consistently year in and year out and provides the entire Rand and surrounding areas with their mines and industries with water and which gives to millions a means of livelihood. Like the Vaal River the Minister’s Budget is consistent in its growth, as all previous ones have been. It is a Budget which makes provision for the transport needs of the country and which complies with the heavy demands made on the Railways by our economy. Verily a well-planned Budget! The Opposition would much rather we had a reckless Minister who submitted a reckless Budget, a Minister who dealt lavishly with the money of the Railways. Hence the disappointment which is clearly evident from every speech we have had in this debate from that side of the House. These Estimates are pre-eminently well planned. The way in which orders have been placed for the requirements of the Railways is striking proof of proper planning. Take the trucks, passenger coaches, locomotives and even aeroplanes which have been ordered years ahead to meet the increased traffic requirements. You cannot—as hon. members opposite apparently think—walk into a shop and buy your requirements as you need them. It is planned in advance. When I think of planning I want to suggest a few improvements. Goods traffic can be speeded up by improving the bloc train load system. The trains are intended to convey locomotive coal, power station coal, maize, etc. Where possible these trains by-pass marshalling yards and this assists in limiting to a minimum labour on the part of shunters and other work connected with the running of trains. By increasing this type of traffic greater productivity is obtained from the staff. Closely related with this is the yard master scheme which increases efficiency because it creates greater co-operation between the yard planning officers and the system operating officers in that information regarding traffic in the way is made available in advance. Consequently delays can be eliminated beforehand and the speedy passage of traffic is ensured. Shunting activities can therefore be arranged in such a way that there is no wastage of manpower. As a further example of planning I want to mention the reconstruction of marshalling yards at Durban which is meeting the needs which have arisen because of the export of iron-ore and anthracite, the modern conveyancer belt loaders for coal and the modernization of the berthing points at Maydon Wharf. The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) apparently has no good word for what the Railway Administration is doing at the Durban harbour but you will permit me, Sir, to read what the Financial Mail has to say about this. We all know that the Financial Mail is very critical, particularly of our Railways, and simply hits out whenever it can. Listen to what the Financial Mail has to say—

Mr. Speaker, the managerial technique of the Railways is continually being improved. Courses in organization and method are offered to selected members of the staff at Esselen Park. By using electric computers the accounting work is facilitated and speeded up. Supervisory officials are offered courses in human relationships so that the right relationship can be cultivated thus increasing productivity. I think I have said enough about planning and I want to return to some hon. members opposite. They had much to say about the staff position. I want to say that although there is a staff shortage, as the Minister also indicated in his Budget speech, we must nevertheless take note of the fact that the staff has increased with no fewer than 5,000 during the past year. Hon. members opposite now suggest that the management is not doing anything to overcome the staff shortage. Mr. Speaker, they made all sorts of accusations against the Minister and blame him and the management for the shortage of staff. But it struck me that not a single member opposite who blamed the Minister last year for not having accepted the majority report of the van Zyl Commission, asked him to reverse his decision not to accept the majority report of that commission, because the moment he does so his problem of a staff shortage will be solved. If the Minister accepts the majority report of last year he will within a couple of years have 7,000 redundant employees on the Railways and the shortages will disappear.

Hon. members, particularly the hon. member for Yeoville, the hon. member for Maitland and the hon. member for Durban (Point) particularly emphasized the point that more non-Whites should be employed. I want to put a question to those hon. members. In his Budget speech the Minister referred to a shortage of 7,500 employees in the graded posts. I should like to learn from hon. members opposite whether they are prepared to have those 7,500 posts filled by non-Whites? Won’t the hon. member for Maitland reply to that? The hon. member for Umhlatuzana may also reply to it. Are they prepared to have those 7,500 graded vacancies filled by non-Whites? Are they?

If the salaries are increased the people would return.

That hon. member should rather not talk about higher salaries. I shall deal with him later. But if I have to make a deduction from what the hon. member for Yeoville has said, it is very clear to me that he is quite prepared also to have these vacancies filled by non-Whites because he talked about any position. Supposing the Minister allowed those posts to be filled by non-Whites. What must the remuneration of those non-Whites be? Will they make any difference between the remuneration paid to Whites and non-Whites? I am asking the hon. member for Maitland. Does he agree? They are in favour of the policy of the “rate for the job” are they not?

When they compete with one another.

I am glad the hon. member for Yeoville is back. In other words, when they do the same job.

Not necessarily. Think what has been done in Johannesburg in respect of the buses.

In other words, you are not in favour of people doing the same work getting the same pay? Is that how I must understand the hon. member? The hon. member is not in favour of people doing the same work getting the same pay?

When they compete with one another they must get it.

But they are competing with one another. Then I take it that according to the motto of the United Party of the “rate for the job” when Whites and non-Whites do the same job they must receive the same pay? If they are shunters, for example, with the same number of years’ service they must receive the same pay according to the United Party? The hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis) had the following to say according to the Sunday Times of 1 November 1964—

Then the report goes on—

There I do not agree 100 per cent with hon. members opposite because they are also in favour of using non-Whites as shunters. But now you have this proviso “provided they get the same pay”. I notice the hon. member shaking his head. They want the staff associations to agree with it and if the staff associations agree they must receive the same pay? No reply. That is in any case not what the hon. member for Umlazi wants. Listen to what he wants—

In other words, what has happened to this idea of the United Party of equal pay for equal work? I again ask the question: Are they prepared to allow those non-Whites of Natal to work for half the amount of R100 as the hon. member for Umlazi wants? There is no reply. But it does not surprise me because I think they all feel like their colleague but not one of them has the courage to say it. He had the courage to say it because he did not know it would be reported in a newspaper. That is the cheap labour policy of the United Party. That has always been their policy for the Railways. Years ago their motto was cheap labour. They even went so far that members of that party encouraged the idea of the Railways being taken over by private enterprise. What is the position to-day? To-day they suddenly Dose as the friend of the worker, but you will permit me to read something, Sir—

That sounds very much like the words of the hon. member for Yeoville. These were the words uttered by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) during the days when the United Party was still in power. When you compare the passage I have just read with the Hansard of the hon. member for Yeoville, Sir, you will not find any material difference. Since when has the United Party become so fond of the railwayman? The heart of the hon. member for Yeoville bleeds because of the overtime the poor railwaymen have to work but surely overtime is nothing peculiar. The hon. member for Orange Grove complained about overtime under the United Party regime as far back as 1948. It is not only on the Railways that overtime is being worked. Overtime is worked on the mines and in this building; overtime is worked in practically every private undertaking and the railwayman is properly paid for his overtime. While the hon. member for Yeoville complains about the overtime the railwaymen work, and some of them have reason to complain, the hon. member for Durban (Point) alleges that the Minister does not want to curtail or abolish overtime because the people would then earn too little and that the people who work overtime themselves do not want it because then their income would be too little. That was what the hon. member for Point had to say but we get this tearful story from the hon. member for Yeoville. I want to give hon. members some advice, namely, that in future before they take part in a railway debate, they should first have a discussion and decide what to say so that they do not contradict one another.

We also had the complaint that the railwayman was paid too little. In conclusion I want to make a comparison. The average pay of a railwayman in 1948, before the National Party came into power, was R910. To-day the average income of a White railwayman is R2,029, more than double. But hon. members come here and for the sake of a little political propaganda they try to incite the railwayman and to contaminate his mind shortly before the election. For the past couple of years that has been the pattern they have followed just before an election and if the United Party have not yet learnt that their scare-stories and their courting of the railwaymen have no effect whatsoever on the railwayman, I do not think they will ever learn it. I want to ask them to continue with it because if they only know how the White railwayman was laughing at them because of this ridiculous courting and ridiculous statements, they would stop immediately. But let them continue till 24 March and beyond up to the General Election. Then they will realize what the railwayman thinks of them and of these ridiculous things.

I hope you will allow me to say a few words to the hon. members for Uitenhage (Mr. Badenhorst) and Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) in connection with the problem we have been discussing since the Minister introduced his Budget. I do not want to be accused of misquoting the Minister, so I will quote from his Budget speech when he said—

That is the Minister’s statement. We have taken that statement and interpreted it to mean that the Minister is embarrassed because he cannot get sufficient staff in these grades to run his Railways. Now, if that is a wrong interpretation of what the Minister told us he will have an opportunity to say so when he replies. The Minister has told us that that is what is worrying him, but here we have two hon. members, the members for Uitenhage and Houghton, talking as if trade unions have no function in this country at all, and that there should not be any thought of consultations between the trade unions and the employer, who in this case happens to be the Minister, over conditions that vitally affect them.

You should set a lead.

But the lead has been set by the establishment of trade unions in the Railways. In terms of the identity of interests, every staff has its staff association. That is the lead that was given by the United Party when it was in power. The hon. member for Houghton wishes to destroy that. She speaks about abolishing demarcation; if anybody is capable of doing a job, let him do it whether he has served an apprenticeship or not, and no matter what his colour is. That is what she said this afternoon. [Interjections.] She spoke about the rigidity of the present system and said that there should be fluidity, and that there should be an interchange of work and colour—in other words, abolish everything, the colour bar, the apprenticeship system and demarcation, and then the Minister’s problems will all be over. I venture to say that is when the Minister’s problems will really start.

As far as the hon. member for Uitenhage is concerned, we could expect that representing a railway centre as it does he would know something about the set-up, but apparently from what he has said he does not know the machinery that governs all the negotiations as far as wages, demarcation of work and the employment of Whites and non-Whites are concerned, and that those were laid down by the United Party years before this Government came into power and that machinery has not been changed in any way by the Minister. He is using that machinery to bring about the gradual change that has been forced upon him because of the inability to get White labour. We created the machinery and it has been used successfully for that purpose for all these years. The Minister has not suggested new machinery. What we suggest to him is that he should use the machinery he has if he wants to overcome his problems, and I cannot see any difficulty. I cannot see why hon. members opposite and the hon. member for Houghton cannot understand this simple expression “industrial democracy”. Why must we, in the words of the hon. member for Houghton, plead with the Minister not to take any notice of politics in the question of the removal of the colour bar? Nobody in this debate has spoken of political gain in connection with this problem. We have only emphasized the point that the Minister has this choice in front of him, that he either has to find labour or he has to cancel trains. That is the basic problem he is faced with, and we have suggested what the Minister should do about it. The question of the colour of the person, or the wage rate, is something which falls under industrial democracy which the Minister has at his disposal within the service.

What do you do when the trade union is unreasonable and refuses to consent?

The hon. member for Houghton uses exactly the same argument as the Minister. Apparently she was not here when the Minister spoke. The Minister used the same argument: What will you do if the trade unions will not consent? Well, what happens in any discussion where you have problems of this sort? The employees and the employers have to get together and find a solution. That is their function, and if they go into it with the idea that there will be a deadlock the whole system will collapse. [Interjections.] The Minister will tell the hon. member for Houghton that he has not had that experience with the Railway trade unions; that up to now the relationship between the trade unions and himself have been very cordial indeed. So I cannot help the hon. member for Houghton any further in the bogies she sees in regard to the utilization of the machinery we have. We are not keen on creating chaos by the abolition of the colour bar, influx control, the apprenticeship system and demarcation between one trade and another. We are not willing to see the chaos that will follow if those things are abolished. We would rather see these matters settled peacefully.

Now I come back to the Minister. When he replied to the original debate, he spoke about his experience as a stoker. He said he did not think there was anyone else in the House who had had the experience of stoking a hot locomotive for 14 hours at a time. Well. I may tell him that I have had that experience also. When I was an engine-cleaner the functions of engine-cleaners, apart from cleaning engines, was that they should be used as a reserve when a fireman for some reason could not take out the locomotive with a driver. Then the engine-cleaner was brought in as a reserve, and I think the Minister had the same experience in the days when he was a cleaner. Possibly the first time he stoked a locomotive was when he was a cleaner, before he became a fireman. That was the experience I had also and I want to make this point, that the Minister has not got those reserves to-day. Engine-cleaners have been replaced by non-Whites because he cannot get White youths to become engine-cleaners. So we have the position now that if a fireman happens to go sick at the last moment, the Minister does not have that reserve to call upon, with the result that the train is cancelled. That is his problem. He has also told us that if he were to put a non-White on the footplate he would interfere with the progression which would make it impossible for him to have White drivers trained in future. In other words, if he starts he cannot see the end. But the point is that he has started when he removed the White engine-cleaners. That was the beginning of the process, and we said to him that if this problem had to be solved we suggested the machinery to be utilized to solve it. Now, I put questions to the Minister, but for some unknown reason he did not reply. The questions I put to him were, I thought, constructive and would enable us to see the problem through the eyes of the Minister. The first question I put to him was this, whether the Assistant General Manager, Staff, had been co-opted to the Planning Council at any time to discuss the staff shortage? Because in my innocence I could not see how he could have a Planning Council which was not concerned with whether there was staff to carry out its plans.

There is the closest liaison.

The next question I put to the Minister was whether the Planning Council made any recommendations in regard to staff shortages to the Minister or to the Management.

That is the job of the staff department.

Yes, but arising out of the close liaison between the staff side and the Planning Council … [Interjection.]

The technical side investigates and makes recommendations and then the Planning Council decides, taking into consideration the availability of manpower.

That is the very point I made. I want to know what recommendations were made to the Minister in respect of the staff shortage.

That is the job of the General Manager.

I believe that recommendations have been made to the Minister, because I cannot believe that the Management are happy with the present position. They do not wish to see the work nullified because there is not the necessary staff to make use of the facilities which are provided. That is why I put these questions to the Minister, to see what the Management suggested.

I gave all that information in my reply to the hon. member for Yeoville. All these are matters for the Management.

If the Minister has a look at his reply, he will see that he did not deal with this problem specifically. He went around it, but that did not help the Opposition to appreciate what the Management thinks in regard to the problem facing the Minister.

They think what I think.

Yes, and the Minister says he is embarrassed by the position, so the Management must be embarrassed too. Then the question is what we are going to do about it. I cannot see any dividend in a perpetual state of blushing. That will not solve the problem. That is why I say to the Minister that there are certainly a lot of headaches attached to it. Let me put it this way. When a staff association is compelled, in the interest of its members, to impress it upon the Minister to do certain things and they decide to go slow, the effect is to retard the movement of traffic. But the attitude of the Minister in respect of these shortages is exactly the same. When trains are cancelled for lack of staff, it has the same effect as a go-slow strike. But when a go-slow strike takes place, the Minister has taken the necessary powers to deal with those responsible. What have we got to deal with the Minister when he brings about exactly the same effect? The Minister knows a lot about elephant-hunting, but he would not be so keen to face an elephant if he did not have a rifle. But when he becomes the elephant, what do we find then? He removes the rifle from the hands of the hunter. Here we have the position that the Minister is responsible for the cancellation of trains due to staff shortages, and taken over the period of a year it may cost the Railways as much as a go-slow strike. Now what do we do to the Minister?

Shoot him.

It is no use putting a trunk call through to him. [Laughter.] All we are told is that the problem is there and the Planning Council has discussed it with the Minister, and that is all. When we ask specific questions we do not get a direct answer.

I gave specific replies.

I listened very carefully because I was waiting for the Minister to come to the question I put to him, but he hever got there.

Try suggesting something better.

Any impartial person reading through this whole debate will come away with this conclusion that the Minister has evaded the questions we put to him specifically, not for party-political purposes, but in the interest of the Railways as such. There is no doubt about it, because I have been present during the whole of this debate. I have listened attentively to the Minister and I have to admit now that I do not know where he is going to get the staff from in terms of his own planning. I asked him right in the beginning. There were two rays of light. The one is in connection with training centres, and he did not reply to me on that point either. I asked him again and later he said he was decentralizing the existing training facilities. I accept that to decentralize the training facilities is a step in the right direction, but if he cannot recruit people to be trained, how will the training centres assist him? This is the problem and we ask the Minister to tell us something about it, but he says nothing. We cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the Minister is hoping for two things, one that there will be a reduction in the traffic offering next year as the result of the actions taken by the Minister of Finance, or else that a scientist will come along and introduce something which will turn all the Blacks white. It sounds fantastic, but the conclusion I have come to as a result of this debate is that the Minister is not prepared to face up to the responsibilities of his position, and because of that we are going to have a very difficult year on the Railways. The Minister has said that to give a 10 per cent increase to the entire staff would cost R26,000,000. I want to tell him that as far as bonus work is concerned, the average earnings of the bonus workers is about 47 per cent, which means that every two artisans employed on bonus work are doing three men’s work, and that bonus work payments are increasing. I have no objection to that, but when we deal with overtime we find that the overtime bill is R32,000,000 a year, and that is an enormous sum of money. We are not against overtime. In a transportation system it has to be worked, but when the Minister talks of the cost of a 10 per cent increase he must realize that if he has the staff there will be a considerable reduction in the amount of overtime paid. For the life of me I cannot see why the Minister should not wake up to this issue as far as the staff is concerned. If he finds that he cannot get staff because his wage structure is too low, then he has to do something about that. But he says he cannot compete with outside industry.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 92 (1) (c).

I am sorry to have to say so but I have very seldom listened to so much futile nonsense as I have heard here during the last hour or two, particularly from the hon. member who has just sat down. I did think that he would be more sensible; I did not expect him to make the stupid allegations and statements which he made here during the last 20 minutes. He again came here with the parrot-cry, “What is the Minister going to do in connection with his staff shortage?” Apparently he did not listen to what I say yesterday. I explained yesterday what we were doing in this connection. There is a general shortage of manpower in this country. Does he expect me to open up a factory to manufacture people? I have never heard such nonsense in my life. But hon. members on that side have nothing else to talk about and then they come here with this sort of nonsense. After all, the hon. member over there ought to know better. Just imagine, Mr. Speaker, it is the Minister’s fault that there is a manpower shortage on the Railways! There is a general shortage of manpower. Must I forbid those people to resign and to accept better posts outside the Railway Service? Can I go and take people by the scruff of their necks and force them to come and work in the Railway Service? Or does the hon. member expect me to institute manpower control in this country as they did during the war years? Then I would get enough workers. I am surprised that the hon. member uttered as much futile nonsense as he did here this afternoon during the last 20 minutes.

He was very effective.

Effective? Yes, as far as nonsense is concerned he was very effective; greater nonsense one cannot utter.

The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) again dealt here with the staff conditions and he expressed his very great concern about the poor staff who are working so hard and whose wage demands are not being met. He did not even take the trouble to ascertain whether the staff in fact put forward wage demands. A wage demand was put forward by one group of the staff, by 17,000 workers who are represented by a staff association, but no other group put forward a demand for increased wages, and yet he comes here with the nonsensical statement that the wage demands of all the staff associations must be met. That is the impression that he created here.

If that is your impression then I cannot help it.

The hon. member definitely created that impression and now he denies it, that is his usual practice.

To catch votes.

Then the hon. member says that overtime is calculated as part of the basic wage of the railway worker. Since when? Sir, this is not the first time that officials have been working overtime. Overtime has been worked by the train staff and by other groups ever since the establishment of the Railways in South Africa; it is nothing unusual, and in the past overtime has never been calculated as part of the basic wage, nor will it be regarded as part of the basic wage in the future. But in order to get a little support and sympathy from the railwaymen, which they will not get, they now pretend to be very concerned about the poor railwayman. I just want to tell hon. members opposite that the railway officials and the staff associations will not thank them for this sort of action. The attitude of the staff associations is that hon. members opposite are undermining the staff associations by propagating this sort of story here in Parliament.

Have they said so in public?

The staff associations prefer to fight their own battles; to make their own representations. They are man enough to do so without the assistance of hon. members opposite. Hon. members opposite are at liberty to approach the staff associations at any time and ask them whether that is so or not.

The Opposition are doing this with an ulterior motive.

The staff associations are bitterly dissatisfied over the fact that their case is being discussed here across the floor of the House. What is remarkable, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that when the affairs of the public servants are discussed here, one never hears this type of complaint; one does not find the Opposition acting as the champions of the ordinary public servants. It is only when Railway matters are discussed that they suddenly emerge as champions of the railway officials.

The hon. member referred to the hon. the Prime Minister’s speech. He wants to know whether the Prime Minister’s statement means that the Government intends to freeze all wages.

No.

That is the impression he created.

No, I asked whether it meant that the railwaymen’s requests for increased wages were going to be rejected on an unfair basis.

To which railwaymen is the non. member referring? I told the hon. member a moment ago that this request from the Artisan Staff Association was only put forward yesterday. He dealt with this matter before yesterday. Which staff association and which groups have put forward demands for increased wages?

They saw you in February with regard to this same matter.

That was with regard to something entirely different. Let me say quite clearly to hon. members opposite that they have completely misrepresented the hon. the Prime Minister’s speech in this connection. The Prime Minister has never suggested that wages are going to be frozen, because it naturally follows that if wages are frozen, then prices must also be frozen; one cannot do the one thing without doing the other. The Prime Minister said no such thing. What he did was to warn against extravagant demands and I repeat that warning. But in addition to that the Prime Minister has stated on other occasions that reasonable wage demands will be met where they are justified, where they do not jeopardize the country’s economy and where they will not promote inflation. I have already said in the course of this debate that my policy is to help the staff as far as the finances of the Railways permit. Was the hon. member not listening?

Sir, hon. members on that side have created the impression throughout the whole of this debate that the staff are bitterly dissatisfied and, by implication, that the staff have no confidence in the Minister; that they are bitterly dissatisfied because their legitimate demands are not being met. That is the impression that they created; they are the champions of the railwaymen; the staff come to them with their complaints; the staff have no confidence in the Minister and no confidence in the Government. Sir, I am going to read out something to them now which may serve as a lesson to them. The Artisan Staff Association is at present holding a congress at Kimberley. The president of the Artisan Staff Association is Mr. Liebenberg; Mr. Liebenberg is also chairman of the Consultative Council of the Staff Associations; in other words, he is regarded as the leader of the railway workers in South Africa in his capacity as chairman of the Consultative Council and as president of the Artisan Staff Association which put forward this claim yesterday—the same staff association whose demand for an increase of 17½ per cent I turned down a month or two ago.

And when we refer to Mr. Liebenberg you always want to know, “who is Mr. Liebenberg?”

I have never said that. But if I were to say it, would the hon. member agree with me?

I say that Liebenberg is a first-class man.

The hon. member says that Mr. Liebenberg is a first-class man. Do hon. members opposite accept that? Do they regard him as the leader of the staff associations?

But he is the leader.

The Artisan Staff Association is at present holding a conference at Kimberley …

And the Minister has received a testimonial!

The hon. member knows what is coming. This only goes to show the genuineness of their action in this House as so-called champions of the railwayman. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton) must remain silent now.

You interrupted me while I was speaking.

But the hon. member is making nonsensical interjections. Mr. Liebenberg opened that conference the day before yesterday. A report of his speech was sent to me by his Association. Here I have a verbatim report of his speech. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Yeoville said here a few days ago that the relations between the Minister and the Management and the staff must improve; in other words, the implication is that those relations are very bad. This is what Mr. Liebenberg said in the course of his speech—

Who said so?

Mr. Liebenberg. Here I have a verbatim report of his speech.

But who ever made such an allegation?

I say that the hon. member for Yeoville said that by implication when he said that the relations between the Minister and the Management and the staff must be improved.

We alleged no such thing.

Mr. Liebenberg goes on to say—

Sir, it is not I who say this; I did not ask for this. These are the words of Mr. Liebenberg, who is the president of the same association, the name of which is constantly on the lips of hon. members opposite nowadays, who is chairman of the Consultative Council of the Staff Associations and who is the leader of the staff associations.

I am prepared to say that he is the best president the Federal Consultative Council has ever had.

I said so the other day when the strike clause was under discussion here. When hon. members on the other side quoted what Mr. Liebenberg had said in the course of an interview given by him, I said in this House what I thought of him. The hon. member can go and read in Hansard what I said.

We all agree with it.

Now they say that they agree with him!

I want to come now to another matter, and here I want to put a few pertinent questions to the hon. member for Yeoville. The hon. member will have an opportunity of replying on Monday in the third-reading debate.

He will not reply.

I will not be here.

I shall be glad then if he will tell one of those vociferous members sitting behind him what to reply on his behalf.

The hon. member again discussed the question of the colour bar. He said that the principle for which they stand is industrial democracy. Is that correct?

Yes.

In other words, there must always be consultation with the trade unions before the colour bar is relaxed, and the trade unions must agree to it. He tells me as Minister, “Heaven help you if you consult with them on the question of the relaxation of the colour bar and they do not agree and you then nevertheless relax the colour bar. We will then fight you to the bitter end.” Their watch-word is “industrial democracy”; it is a matter of principle as far as they are concerned. Sir, I put the following question to him, and he has not yet replied to it: Apart from the Railways, what is the position when you are dealing with unorganized workers, when there is no trade union that represents them; if Whites are replaced there by non-Whites, are hon. members opposite going to agree to it, because in that case there is no trade union that they can consult?

In the railway service?

No, outside of the railway service. The hon. member said that he was precluded from discussing it.

The Chairman ruled that I could not discuss it.

The hon. member will have an opportunity to do so on Monday. I want to put another question to him: The hon. member referred time and again to job reservation; he did not limit himself to the Railways, and other members on that side talked about job reservation under Section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act; that is why I am raising the matter here. We are often told by hon. members on the other side that the important principle for which they stand is industrial democracy.

Don’t you believe in it?

They now tell us, through the Leader of the Opposition, that at the very first opportunity that presents itself they are going to abolish Section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act which provides for job reservation. Let us assume that a trade union has asked for job reservation in a particular industry and that job reservation has been applied there. Are they still going to apply their principle of industrial democracy and ask the permission of the trade union before they abolish job reservation? After all, this is a general principle and they cannot simply be negative; they must also be positive. If there happens to be a case where a trade union has asked for the application of Section 77 and job reservation has been introduced in that particular industry, are we going to take into account the view of that trade union before they do away with job reservation?

That is a simple little trap question; it is very easy to answer.

Why then does the hon. member not answer it?

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, may I ask whether we may discuss the general labour legislation of South Africa?

We shall see when the hon. member makes his speech on the third reading.

On a point of order, are we entitled to discuss it in this debate? I wanted to know whether the Minister was entitled in this debate to discuss our general labour legislation.

I am only discussing it in so far as it relates to the same principle which is applicable in the railway service. One cannot apply a general, broad principle to just one branch of our economy; in the nature of things that principle must be applicable to all branches; and that is why it is necessary for me to discuss it in this way. I have put my question to the hon. member pertinently now and he will have to reply to it.

Was the Chairman’s ruling wrong then?

Then there is one other matter which the hon. member raised here, and I am very sorry that he did so; I do not think it behoved him. One could expect it from one of the backbenchers on that side, but one does not expect it from the United Party’s main speaker on railway matters. This sort of thing was never done by his predecessors. The hon. member dragged the question of certain promotions in the railway service across the floor of the House and he made the allegation that those promotions were made because the persons concerned belonged to a group of favourites. That allegation is untrue and unworthy of the hon. member and he only lowers his status and his prestige by making such allegations. If he had approached me I would have given him the details in each of these cases with the greatest of pleasure.

Have you never heard of the debates which took place here on the elevator system of promotion?

That is something entirely different. The hon. member talks about groups of favourites. I can only say as far as promotions in the railway service are concerned, and particularly with regard to the English-speaking officials, of whom there are probably many more in the Railway Service than in the Public Service, that the charge has never once been levelled at me that those officials are victimized or neglected because of political considerations. Hon. members opposite can go and ask the English-speaking officials, from the highest to the lowest, whether they feel that they have ever been victimized for political reasons. I most strongly deny that there is such a thing as groups of favourites. I deny most strongly that any factor other than efficiency has ever been taken into consideration in deciding upon promotions. I am personally responsible for these promotions. The hon. member talks about persons with years and years of service who are overlooked when promotions are made. That naturally does happen. Since when have promotions been made on the basis of seniority? If promotions had to be made on that basis, it would mean that the most inefficient second-grade clerk would eventually become General Manager of Railways if his period of service was long enough. Is that the sort of promotion that the hon. member wants? It would mean that the present General Manager would never have occupied his present position, because in order to get where he is to-day he had to be promoted over the heads of hundreds of officials who were his seniors at the time. Does the hon. member not know that the Service Act provides that promotions must be made on the basis of efficiency? Seniority is only taken into account when all other factors are equal; then only seniority is the decisive factor.

What about Marshall Clark?

I am not going to discuss the case of Marshall Clark now; I am discussing the allegation made here by the hon. member for Yeoville. Sir, I just want to say this to him with regard to the officials to whom he referred here: I do not know what their political views are. There are probably some of them who do not support my party, but I contend that every one of these promotions was made on the ground of efficiency. These officials who were promoted are extremely capable officials; they are younger men with a bright future ahead of them in the Railway Service, and if I do not give my best men the opportunity to make headway in the Service, I should like to know what is going to happen one day when these senior posts have to be filled and they have to be filled by inefficient officials. I am not going to mention the names of these officials here; I have written down all the names; I know who they are; I am prepared at any time, if the hon. member comes to my office, to give him all the reasons and to make all the documents available to him to show why they received promotion.

You do not have to satisfy me; satisfy your staff.

As far as my own staff is concerned, I want to tell the hon. member that every member of the staff who feels that an injustice has been done to him has the right to appeal. I have caused inquiries to be made to find out how many persons appealed against these promotions. Every official has the right to appeal to the General Manager, and if he is not satisfied with the General Manager’s decision he has the right to lodge an appeal with the Minister and the Railway Board.

But you say that you make the appointments yourself?

Of course, I accept responsibility for all these appointments; the appointments are not made by the board; I make the appointments. The board consists of myself and three commissioners. There were two appeals at the time against the promotion of one official. There was one appeal against the appointment of the Chief Accountant, who has occupied this post for years. As far as the first appeal is concerned, when this person was appointed as Assistant System Manager there were two appeals by two engineers against his appointment. If there was bitter dissatisfaction and if those officials regarded themselves as more capable than this official, why did they not appeal? The fact that they did not appeal only goes to show that these allegations are devoid of all truth. The hon. member should not lend his ears to this sort of grievance. I have discovered after many years as Minister—I have been a Minister now for 17 years—that every man regards himself as being the most capable of all the candidates, and if he does not receive promotion he feels aggrieved.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has again referred to the Hex River tunnel. I just want to tell him that I stand by everything I said here yesterday. There was a complete lack of planning on the part of the United Party Administration. If the hon. member had read the report a little further, if he had just turned over the page, he would have seen what was said in that connection by men who had the necessary knowledge. Mr. Wilson was a technical person, an engineer, who know nothing about the operating side of the Railways. In the nature of things he know nothing about it because he was a technical man. If the hon. member turns over the page he will see what was said with regard to this matter by Mr. Du Pleesis, who subsequently became General Manager, and by Mr. Viljoen, who was the Operating Manager. They expressed the opinion that all efforts should be concentrated upon the Cape Midlands line and that the building of the Hex River tunnel should be left in abeyance. As I say, I stand by everything I said here yesterday.

It was not a unanimous decision. *

That makes no difference. Mr. Fourie was a Railway Commissioner who received his appointment from Mr. Sturrock: Of course the report was not unanimous, but I stand by everything I said here yesterday.

The hon. member talked about challenges which he said he was prepared to accept. He now accepts the challenge which I threw out when I spoke here on a previous occasion. The first challenge concerned one specific subject and that was in connection with the recognition of the splinter organizations. My attitude was that none of the trade unions would sup port them in their attitude that I must give recognition to splinter organizations. I issued a challenge to him in this connection. I then came to a second challenge, and here again I was referring to the relations between the Administration, the Management and the staff. I quote from my speech—

That is what I said. I am now going to repeat that challenge, but I want a quid pro quo. I am prepared to convene a meeting of the executive of the staff associations and hon. members on the other side can go and address them. If the executive committees adopt a motion of no-confidence in me with a bare majority, I will resign as Minister of Transport. If they adopt a motion of confidence in me with a majority of at least two-thirds, then the hon. member over there must resign as member of Parliament.

He will not accept the challenge.

I know he will not accept it. He knows that he has no case. The hon. member needs a two-thirds majority; I only need a bare majority. I will tell the hon. member what I am prepared to do: He need only resign as Member of Parliament if the executive committees of the staff associations pass a motion of confidence in me with a three-quarters majority!

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) referred to the Bantu services. I can only say that this matter is continually receiving the attention of the Management There are quite a large number of coaches on order. I have just been advised that additional trains will also be operated.

Soon?

Four additional trains started operating on 17 February in the Western Areas; on 20 April nine additional trains will operate, on 3 August 12 additional trains and on 7 December 12, a total of 37. The population is increasing continually and it is extremely difficult to cope with this large increase in population.

*I think I have dealt with all the points raised here and I move.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

AYES—69: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Wet, J. M.; Dönges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J.; Frank, S.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Knobel, G. J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, A. I.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Maree, G. de K.; Maree, W. A.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, H.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H; Steyn, J. H. Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Treurnicht, N.; van den Berg, G. P.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; 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.; Vosloo, A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and P. S. van der Merwe:

NOES—38: Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gor„ shel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Steicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.; Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and N. G. Eaton.

Question affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a second time.

The House adjourned at 6.32 p.m.