When the House adjourned last night, I was pointing out briefly how the National Party Government was looking after the interests of railway pensioners, and I was referring more specifically to the temporary allowance, and I want to content myself with those observations.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to take this opportunity to come back to the hon. member for Yeoville, and I want to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Parow. I went through the speech made by the hon. member for Yeoville I have his Hansard report here; it has not been corrected as yet, but I want to quote from it. The hon. member for Yeoville once again stated the United Party’s policy as follows—

Sir, is this not strange? If you were to go through the speeches made by the hon. member for Yeoville, you would find that this is the first time he has inserted these two words here, i.e. that when non-Whites are brought in to meet the shortage, the Whites will be placed in supervisory positions. This was the firs time the hon. member used the word “supervisory” in this House as far as this matter is concerned. If this is to be the case, I want to know how many supervisory staff members we shall have on the South African Railways and how many workers we shall have on the S.A. Railways. Then there is another question I want to ask, and I hope and trust that we shall receive a clear reply in the course of this debate, which has now been in progress for a very long time. It is a question I asked in this House last year. So far I have received no reply to it, and I hope and trust that the hon. member for Yeoville—I know that he is a man who will give an honest reply to this: at least, I hope he will—will reply to this question now. I notice that the hon. member for Maitland is listening very attentively now. This is my question: When this shortage on the South African Railways is to be met, if my hon. friends on that side should come into power, through the employment of non-Whites, as the hon. member for Yeoville said, and as the hon. member for Salt River said, i.e. “by making use of all the available labour”, would these non-Whites then be divided into the same grades as the Whites? We should like to have a reply to that question. My second question is this: If the staff association concerned were to refuse to permit these non-Whites to be employed in those posts, what would the United Party do then? So far we have not had any clarity on that question.

You have had a clear reply to that.

No, we have not. My third question is this: Once those posts are being filled by non-Whites, would they be allowed to be members of some staff association or other, or would they have separate staff associations? I think we must have a clear reply to that. We spoke about a staff shortage on the S.A. Railways, and in this regard there is another question I want to ask the hon. member for Yeoville. There is a tremendous shortage of workers, especially in the key grades, i.e. grades such as those of shunters, checkers, firemen, guards, station foremen, lorry drivers, certain artisan grades and, in certain respects, apprentices as well. What I want to know from the United Party now. is whether they, if they should come into power, are going to try to wipe out the shortage by appointing non-Whites to those key grades. Are non-Whites going to be allowed to be enrolled and trained as apprentices—in other words, is the policy of the United Party still as it was set out by the former member for Karoo, Mr. Eden, when he asked the Minister to award bursaries to Coloured persons so that they might be trained as engineers and employed in supervisory capacities? Is this still the policy of that side of the House? If they are going to allow the shortage of apprentices to be met through the employment of non-Whites, are they going to allow those non-Whites to be trained for five years until they are full artisans?

Are these not questions you should put to your Minister?

I want a reply from the hon. member for Yeoville. But permit me, Sir, to say what the policy of hon. members opposite is, and permit me to call the hon. member for Yeoville as witness. I know him to be a fair-minded person, and therefore I do not think he will deny what I am going to say. During the past general election I asked certain questions at a meeting in Kimberley. That meeting was addressed by the hon. member for Yeoville in order to promote the candidature of their candidates who opposed the hon. members for Kimberley (South) and Kimberely (North) …

And your tape recorder did not work at the time.

I did not have a tape recorder. The U.P. candidate whom I was questioning, was a certain Mr. Smit, who, of course, lost the election contest. I assume that a candidate of the U.P. is a responsible person. In fact, in stepping on a platform as a representative of a party, one has to be prepared to set out all the consequences of the policy pursued by one’s party. At the time I pointed out to Mr. Smit that the hon. member for Yeoville, who was sitting next to him and telling him precisely what to say, had made the statement that if the U.P. came into power, it would only be the shortage in the lower-paid grades that would be met through the employment of non-Whites. In reply to that Mr. Smit said: “No. we are going to throw open the doors: non-Whites will also be employed with a view to filling vacancies in senior posts.”

That is not true. He was quoting your Minister from Hansard.

He explicitly said this. Incidentally, this was the evening when the hon. member for Yeoville had to admit that the hon. member for Hillbrow had made several errors in the book he had written. Hon. members opposite are very fond of associating editorials of an Afrikaans newspaper with the National Party. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for East London (City) need not be so hasty; I shall deal with him and with the hon. member for East London (North) in a moment. As they are doing this, I shall probably be allowed to associate the views of an editor of an English-language newspaper—a United Party newspaper, in other words—with the United Party. What is involved here, is a newspaper which in my opinion has up to now, both in season and out, only supported the United Party in the Eastern Province. I am referring to the Daily Dispatch. [Laughter.] Do hon. members want to deny it then? [Interjections.] I want us to take cognisance of the fact that the hon. member for East London (North) and the hon. member for East London (City) are denying that the Daily Dispatch supports the United Party.

They support the Nats and the Progressives.

In any case, the editor of that newspaper had the courage of his convictions to set out the policy of the United Party very clearly, its policy when it comes to the employment of non-Whites. On 21st July he left for Port Elizabeth in order to address a meeting of Roman Catholic priests there. This is what he had to say there—

Therefore, this is the policy of the United Party when it comes to the employment of non-Whites. It is only that they do not have the courage of their convictions to state it very clearly.

In the few minutes I have left, I want to refer to this pamphlet which the hon. member for Parow described as the “hotch-potch pamphlet” (bokvreet-pamflet). I am referring here to their election pamphlet, “You want it? We have it!” On page 26 of this pamphlet we read that if they should come into power “the Railways (will be) run by a well-paid staff”. But by whom is the S.A. Railways being run to-day, if not by the senior officials—the General Manager and others? What about the workers? They do not mention the railway worker anywhere. Will their interests be looked after as well? The well-paid officials who will run the Railways, will, according to this pamphlet. be paid according to the nature of their responsibility after the jobs have been evalued by experts. And who will these experts be? Will they be from the Administration itself or from outside? Or is the United Party going to make use of management consultants in the employ of private firms? It is to questions such as these that we have to get replies.

In regard to the system of discipline on the S.A. Railways, this pamphlet states that this system will be re-examined “to remove sources of injustice and irritation”. Yesterday the hon. member for Durban (Point) raised here quite a number of objections to the system of discipline. He said that it was of no avail to appeal. But what are we to infer from that? I mean that we may infer that a serious reflection is being cast on the officials responsible for the application of the disciplinary code—nothing but a reflection on them.

Did you not listen …?

The hon. member did say that; he should not distort his words now. In this pamphlet reference is made to “sources of irritation”. For it is not true that any person, wherever he may be, feels dissatisfied if he committed an offence and is punished; surely, nobody is satisfied with the punishment inflicted on him? I have to deal with many cases under the application of this disciplinary code, and I only have the highest praise for those officials of the Administration who are applying that code. At times they work under very difficult circumstances, and they have my sympathy. We must give them the fullest credit for the manner in which they are applying the disciplinary code. In this pamphlet it is also stated that “no railway employee will be punished for alleged offences once found not guilty of them by an independent court of justice”. But, surely, there is a difference between a departmental hearing and a court of justice? After all, you know, Sir, what evidence is to be led in a court of justice in order to establish the guilt of the accused beyond any doubt, and we do know what the evidence is that is to be led in a departmental hearing. Let us take the case of an engine driver who drives past a danger signal and is charged with culpable homicide. His actions may have resulted in passengers dying in the collision. Now he appears in the criminal court and is acquitted and discharged because the State could not succeed in proving the case against him. Now I want to know whether that person, who was acquitted in a criminal court, should be free to be placed in charge of a train once again? Or should he be charged under the conditions of service of the S.A. Railways and steps be taken against him? I want to be very honest. A few days ago I had a case in point. I told that person that as he was a United Party supporter, I would mention it in this House. This person was one of my voters and was involved in three derailments. I do not know how many people died in these accidents. I did not ask him about his political convictions. This is something I never do. I did everything in my power to help him. However, I found out that I could not help that person, for if I were to do so, I would be doing an injustice to the Administration and to the Republic of South Africa. He is a danger and must never be placed on a train again. When I refused to help him and his representations proved to be unsuccessful, he turned into a United Party supporter. On the day of the election he was in fact the person who conveyed by car the greatest number of United Party supporters to vote against me. It is letters of this type which the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) and others are receiving from railway officials.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I cannot reply to the hon. friend’s question now. I want to conclude by congratulating the hon. the Minister on this Budget. I want to congratulate the officials who were concerned in this matter. The officials in the service of the S.A. Railways are not dissatisfied about the R60 million they received. They are grateful to the hon. the Minister for it, because this is not only a staff which is loyal, but also a staff which is doing everything in its power to keep the wheels of the S.A. Railways rolling.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Uitenhage spoke with feeling about the railway worker. It is quite right that he should do so. After all I think there are a large number of railwaymen in his constituency.

That is why his majority decreased.

My majority increased.

I said that there are a large number of railwaymen in the hon. member’s constituency. In fact, I think that at one stage these men became so heated because of their situation that they even had to bring in the Minister of Transport to help our hon. friend out.

It was one of the largest meetings in the Cape.

Then, too, I think that even between the two of them things did not go too well. The hon. member put quite a number of questions in the House. He put questions at Kimberley and came to inform the House of the result. Of course we only have his word as witness, and that we will have to accept. From there the hon. member then came here and put questions. But the interesting thing about and underlying tone of every question which the hon. member put was that a surreptitious attempt was being made to exploit colour prejudice in South Africa. The hon. member began by discussing the labour shortage. This is a national problem and a serious one.

You are exploiting racial feeling.

The hon. member for Uitenhage should listen now. He was very long-winded. What single word did he use which could serve as a contribution to a solution of this problem? No, the hon. member seized upon a national problem in an attempt to buy himself a few votes. That is all he did. Let us consider the questions. All these questions have already, in their entirety or partially, been replied to by speakers on this side of the House. But that hon. member must not put the questions to me. Many of these questions he must put to the hon. the Minister. He mentioned the question of the trade unions’ refusal. The hon. member for Yeoville stated unequivocally that the United Party would persist untiringly in their attempt to persuade the trade unions to see the light. That is point number one. Then there is point number two, which is of interest to the hon. member. The United Party believes that its entire approach to the Railways Administration is such that we will have no difficulty whatsoever in convincing the reasonable railwayman—and most of them are reasonable—to view matters as we view them. The hon. member will get nowhere by trying to inculcate in the railwayman the fear that we would attempt to replace the Whites with non-Whites …

That is correct.

… and in so doing would not look after the interests of the Whites. The hon. member for Yeoville used the words “utilize Whites in a supervisory position”. What is wrong with that? This was supposedly the first time that this new idea had been introduced. The hon. member wanted to imply that we were not to be trusted with the interests of the Whites. That was the basis of his argument throughout. The hon. member tried to sow discord and suspicion. When that hon. member was finished, the hon. member for Parow stood up, and what did he have to say? Just the opposite. Before I come to the hon. member for Parow, I just want to say something to the hon. member for Uitenhage. Before he quotes from newspapers to try to illustrate the standpoint of the United Party, he must go further than Mr. Donald Wood. If he can quote the Dispatch as a newspaper which states the views of my party, then I say that Die Afrikaner states their views. Just by the way, he may find it interesting to know that I personally heard Mr. Donald Wood making propaganda in a speech in support of the idea of separate development. Now the hon. member is quoting this friend of ours as if he were a supporter of the United Party.

The interesting point of this debate is the following: I would never have believed that a party could continue to fight so inimically and spitefully to retain the vote of the railwayman. All these years the Government has believed that it had a kind of priority to the vote of the railwayman. How many times has it not been said in this House that it was no use our courting railwaymen, because they voted for the Nationalist Party. This has been said to us all these years. Now the Nationalist Party has discovered to its political cost that the railwaymen are not prepared to listen only to the Nationalist Party. They are reasonable beings who can form an objective opinion based on the facts and not always in the exclusive interests of railwaymen, but also in the interests of South Africa in the first place. That is why they are voting against the National Party. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana is sitting here, and he will agree with this. It is for him an honour to do so, with support of hundreds of railwaymen. It is for the hon. member for Florida and the hon. member for Turffontein a personal honour to be sitting here with the support of hundreds of railway-men, owing to the fact that the railwaymen these days are prepared to look objectively at the facts and are no longer prepared to follow slavishly in the footsteps of the National Party. Let me put it like this: If the Government wants to continue to claim that the railwaymen vote National Party, then I want to inform those hon. members that they are insulting thinking South Africans. Those people can think for themselves. If they think for themselves, they will in increasing numbers vote for this side of the House.

I want to leave these kind of arguments at that. I think we are dealing with an important matter, i.e. the Budget of the Railways of South Africa. [Interjections.] I am pleased the hon. member for Parow reminded me of the remarks be made in this debate, for I had almost forgotten. He is the man who said that we were allegedly going from one platform to another and telling the voters “Ben is cramming the Railways full of Kaffirs”.

So you did.

That hon. member does not hear the United Party speakers. He hears the echoes of Nationalist propaganda through the years. He is only just happening on the tracks which his party has been leaving in the political arena all these years. When his gaze falls upon a track, he fails to recognize it and says that it is a U.P. track. It is his own track. He discovers precisely the same track which the hon. member for Uitenhage discovered when he tried here this afternoon with his clever questions to imply that we would allow the interests of the Whites to lag behind. The standpoint of the United Party has always been an objective one, i.e. that of putting the interests of South Africa first.

Sir, the Estimates of the South African Railways now amount to the enormous total of almost R1,000 million. As such it has reached a stage where one can now say—perhaps this has already been said before—that we have a budget which is almost half of our national Budget. In terms of section 105 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa a very specific function and a specific task was entrusted to the Railways of our country. If one reads this section one comes under the impression of the basic idea that the Railways as an organization is not an end in itself, but that it is a means to an end. It is an instrument with which to perform a tremendous task in South Africa. That task is not only to allow the economy of South Africa to develop, but also to promote it. Where does the United Party stand in relation to this? This is important, for I want to come to it in a moment. I should like to contrast the hon. the Minister’s philosophy and my own. The United Party believes that the Constitution has entrusted this very important task to the Railways. The United Party is also aware of the fact that, in its attempt to allow the Railways to perform this tremendous task, the Constitution even went so far as to give the Railways monopolistic rights in the field of transport in South Africa. Particularly since we now find ourselves standing on the verge of a new decade, and since a great deal is being said about economic development, the United Party believes that the Railways must become a powerful and dynamic factor in promoting the economic development of South Africa. We also believe that if the Railways does not do this, they will be neglecting the task entrusted to them by the Constitution.

That is general knowledge.

Sir, an hon. member on the opposite side is saying that this is general knowledge. That is all very well, but it really cannot be the hon. member for Colesberg who said it, because he did not have a word to say yesterday about the question of the cancellation of trains. Only a year ago he said in this House: “Give me just one example of a train which was cancelled as a result of a staff shortage.” [Interjections.] Then he went on to say: “I know you cannot do so.” I wonder what he has to say to-day.

To return, I want to say that the Railways has a dynamic and powerful role to fulfil in the economy of South Africa. For that reason the Constitution granted specific rights to the Railways. With this idea as my basic approach to the matter, I tried to find out to what extent the hon. the Minister and I are in agreement on this basis. I went through his Budget speech with a fine-tooth comb in order to find out. since we now find ourselves on the verge of a new decade, the seventies, to what extent the hon. the Minister sees himself as the general manager, in a political sense, of this powerful organization. Does he agree with me that we must have dynamic force and vitality in the Railways? Must we have a Railways Administration which will lead and not follow? I am sorry to have to say that, no matter how I read the Budget Speech—I did my best—I found an Administration and an hon. Minister that were proud. What is he proud of, Sir? He is proud of the fact that the Railways has only just succeeded in keeping pace with the economic development of the country. It is as if the Minister heaved a sigh of relief when he was able to say that the growth rate was at least not increasing as rapidly as before. Instead of keeping pace, instead of taking the lead as a dynamic factor in our economic development, I find that the Railways point of view is one of following after.

It drags along behind.

Yes, it drags along behind, as it were. I want to inform the hon. the Minister, in my humble opinion, that if we really want to provide the economic development which we would like to have, so as to do justice to all sections of the population of South Africa, if we really want to make use of the tremendous economic potential of this country, the Railways is not fulfilling that powerful role allocated to it by the Constitution.

I say again, I was disappointed by the Budget speech. Now the hon. the Minister may come along and say that he has problems. He may say: “I should also like to view this matter as you do, but, my friend, I have problems.” Then I say to the hon. the Minister that we are not unaware of his problems. He has his problems on two levels. The machines which he is operating have problems on two levels, namely the mechanical, the rolling stock, the railway lines, the docks, etc. on the one hand, and the human factor, i.e. the staff, on the other. He has problems on two levels.

Let us first consider the problems on the mechanical level and what he has done to remedy the matter. It does not require intimate knowledge of the Railways, one must simply read the opinions of commerce, simply keep one’s eyes and ears open, one must simply read one’s newspapers to see that there are numerous people, numerous industries and numerous bodies that are voicing complaints day after day as a result of the shortage of transport. After all, we know that the farmers and the industrialists are complaining; we know of delays in the dockyards.

But this side of the House is not unreasonable. We know that the hon. the Minister has a problem. He is caught between insufficient carrying capacity on the one hand and surplus carrying capacity on the other. His problem is to strike a balance so that, for argument’s sake, there will be enough trucks and so that trucks which have been purchased for millions of rand do not stand empty. He is caught between these two forces. Now the United Party comes along and says to the Minister that we know he has problems, but let us put our heads together on this matter. Does the direction in which the hon. the Minister should think not perhaps lie in the gist of the Marais Report? As I read the report, is the gist thereof not that the hon. the Minister should attempt to find greater co-ordination between his own system of transport and that of the private sector? Must this not be done in an attempt to cancel out those cycles which exist in the field of transport and the droughts which are prevailing? Is there no method which can be found in this lively South Africa by means of which these aspects can be excluded, without producing a surplus carrying capacity at millions of rands in capital? I believe the answer can be found.

What I find so tragic, and what I am far more concerned about is that an hon. member like the hon. member for Uitenhage can rise to his feet in this House and make a contribution which contributes absolutely nothing to the solution of the problem on the Railways, while he has thousands of railway workers in his constituency and while he is well aware of the shortage of labour on the Railways. Instead of making a contribution, he dished out a lot of Nationalist Party propaganda here.

Then we come to the question of a staff shortage. I do not think that the hon. the Minister of Transport, and I am doing this with all due respect to him, can hide behind his present position. He cannot dissociate himself from the labour shortage which exists in South Africa to-day. It has perhaps been the lot of the hon. the Minister to have had to sit here since 1948 in the position of a Minister. If one can speak of a labour pattern in South Africa, then he helped to create it.

He was the first Minister of Labour.

Yes, and subsequently he took over as Minister of Transport, and by so doing became the largest single employer of labour in South Africa. What did the hon. the Minister do? He sat round the table where the process of destruction of the United Party’s immigration scheme was formulated. He sat round that table.

He took the lead.

In that process he quite probably robbed South Africa of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of white labourers. The hon. the Minister is now complaining that there is a labour shortage, but he cannot evade his responsibilities. If he has the courage to do so, and I believe he is a man of courage, he ought to rise to his feet and say, “I know that for 20 years we have been wrong and that in the first years of enthusiasm after our victory we neglected the interests of South Africa, and that this is one of my problems today.” Perhaps the hon. the Minister will say this to us. Now, however, we are saddled with an oppressive labour shortage on the Railways. Now the hon. the Minister is trying, and we praise him for that, with the aid of mechanization and automazation, an improvement of methods, etc., to eliminate that shortage, but that cannot after all remain the whole answer.

At the outset, when there was a shortage, it was found that overtime saved the day. Where labour problems were being experienced, the railwaymen could be asked to work overtime. What has happened now? Where overtime was at first one’s reserve strength, it has now become a necessity. That is what our problem on the Railways is to-day. We have reached a near-crisis period. I want to dwell specially on the question of overtime for a minute or two. Before I come to that, however, I want to say that hon. members on the opposite side who believe that the railwayman is being unfair when he complains, are making a mistake. The railwayman has many reasons to complain. I should like to begin with the old pensioners. Much has been said about R60 million, but I do not think they are getting much of that, if any. Railway pensioners are having a hard time of it to-day, particularly the very old. They are men who were perhaps living in a railway house and who, when they retired, had to leave that railway house. The hon. Minister of Community Development is not here at the moment, but I should like to ask him what becomes of those people? I have numerous cases like that in my constituency. These people have problems which the Railways do not see. I want to plead with the hon. the Minister this afternoon that he asks himself to-day whether we are doing enough for the railwayman in giving him a pension and saying to him: “Now you must leave the railway house.” The other day my hon. Leader said very effectively, and very truthfully, that we must build a “compassionate society”. We must be a society with greater compassion for our fellowmen. I believe in all honesty to-day, and not to catch votes as hon. members on the opposite side would like to say, that there are thousands of railwaymen who are having an extremely hard time of it. A high percentage of railwaymen are earning less than R200 per month. No decent-living family can get along with less than R200 per month in these times. But they must. Hon. members on the opposite side are asking that we are going whether we are going to abolish overtime. I know that they want us to say “Yes”, for if we say yes, they will tell this to the people outside. With that question the Nationalist Party are, however, meting out double punishment to and condemning themselves. For what are they saying? The Nationalist Party is saying to us in so many words that overtime has become a necessity for the railwayman in order to subsist. They know they dare not abolish it for then the railwayman could not make a living. Secondly they are telling the railwayman that we cannot get along without overtime. That is the situation in which the Railways finds itself to-day. When hon. members on the opposite side ask me whether I want to abolish overtime, they must examine their own conscience and ask themselves whether they did not through their own doing force the railwayman into this situation from which he cannot extricate himself to-day. Overtime is not merely a question of working a few hours overtime. Overtime is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it punishes the man and on the other the machine. The hon. member for Port Natal is not far wrong when he says that we suffer damages to trucks, etc. A person who is tired cannot fulfil his duties. But even worse than that, what is the effect on the men. I am talking about the men who have to work hours of overtime. This very day I heard from a railway doctor who examined numerous railwaymen. Do hon. members know what his experience has been? Those people are not ill, they are merely tired. They dare not stop working overtime, for then they could not exist. Then the hon. members for Uitenhage and Parow still tried to make political gain out of the sufferings of the railwayman. No, Sir, it is time we took this matter under consideration.

Now I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question. The other day he said in reply to a question that people were not fined without valid reasons. I do not know whether the hon. the Deputy Minister recalls this. I want him to listen now. He said (Question 17, 24.7.70) —

Whom are you quoting there?

I am quoting the Deputy Minister. Now I want to know from him: What does he mean by “valid reason” for which a man is punished if he does not want to work overtime? If I want to take my wife to the movies to-night and say that I do not want to work overtime, is that a valid reason? I am asking the hon. the Deputy Minister.

The regulations stipulate when a railway staff member can say that he does not want to do any further work.

I am tired of statistics and regulations. I am asking the Deputy Boss of the Railways a simple question. He stated that one would not be fined without valid reasons. But now I am asking, if I have a social obligation towards my family to-night whom I have not seen for days and nights, and I say that I do not want to work tonight, will the Deputy Minister say that I will not be punished?

[Inaudible.]

The hon. the Deputy Minister is again trying to make a joke of this. He is in a corner. I have him pinned down there, and he is afraid to reply. For he knows that the railwaymen will react.

I just want to put one last point. I want to know something from the hon. the Minister. We know that he is changing the labour pattern of the Railways now. He said it here in the House and he is apparently prepared to do so, even against the will of the trade unions. For many years, that pattern was a pattern of one White for every non-White. It has changed slightly now, but not much. Now I should like to ask the hon. the Minister, with a view to the restrictive shortage of labour and the possibility that the Railways cannot fulfil its duty towards the economy of South Africa, whether he is prepared to proceed with the change, the demolition of the labour pattern in the Railways. Are you going ahead with it even if the trade unions were to say no? And if you say to me that you are going ahead with it, then it means that the Minister is going against the ideological policy trend of the National Party. For that reason I want to congratulate him; I do not want to criticise him, but now I maintain that the hon. the Minister does not only serve as Minister of Transport. He is a member of the Cabinet where the labour pattern of South Africa is being worked out. And I am now asking the hon. the Minister this: If he is prepared to change the labour pattern of the Railways, the greatest single employer in South Africa, will the hon. the Minister also have the courage to urge his colleagues to change the labour pattern as far as South Africa as a whole is concerned?

That is a fine question and the Minister will reply to it.

Yes, it is important. South Africa is seeking labour in all quarters, and now I should just like to know this from the hon. the Minister. I think he does have the necessary courage. He is the only man I know of who said to the Government:

I am grateful that it is not necessary for me to congratulate the hon. member for Maitland on a maiden speech because he has been in this House before. I am all the more grateful because I would in any case not have been able to reconcile it with my conscience if I had had to do so. The hon. member waxed very eloquent here, with many gestures and a great deal of dramatization. He gave himself out to be the diagnostician here of the ailments of the Railways, but I am still waiting for him to suggest a single solution. He did not even make a correct diagnosis, to say nothing of prescribing a remedy. He merely, with gestures, touched upon a lot of hypothetical matters without himself giving an answer. I leave him at that; time does not allow me to reply at length to his speech.

I should like to refer to the hon. member for Port Natal and I shall be grateful if I could have his attention for a moment before he leaves the Chamber. He spoke here yesterday afternoon, and I came across this interesting article in the Sunday Tribune of 2nd August. They said—

That just shows how wrong they can be.

This is very interesting. The hon. member says they are wrong but, Sir, I must read this out to you. They gave the reasons why he was supposedly muzzled in the debate and they say, referring to the fact that he was not able to participate in the debate—

If I may have my say about this matter, I think they may as well ask the hon. member for North Rand to speak in the Railway debate in future as well, for I am certain that the standard which this hon. member set, cannot be surpassed in the unfavourable sense.

Why do you not reply to the charges?

I do not want to continue with this any further. I should be glad to reply to the charges, but I want to try to rise slightly above the level which is normally maintained by the hon. member for Durban (Point). I cannot simply remain on that low level and that is why I should like to go onto something else.

I should like to look to the future a little, and I want to consider the future image of the Railways, the Harbours and the S.A. Air-ways. I think we have had enough here of pettiness and trivialities. As the hon. member for Maitland quite rightly said, we are entering a new decade. It is perhaps symbolic that we are entering this new decade with a new General Manager. Since we are taking leave of the former general manager, I should like to associate myself with those who conveyed their congratulations to the new incumbent of the post and wish him all the best. We got to know each other quite some time ago. It was interesting to see subsequently that he came to occupy the post which was held by his late father. Even at that stage, without being prophetic, we perceived the potential which lay in the person of the new future general manager. Sir, it is symbolic that we should be getting a new Manager for the new decade, for we find ourselves on the eve of very great progress, not only on the South African Railways, but in all spheres of transport activities in South Africa. The hon. the Minister has already referred in his Budget speech to the electrification of 508 miles of railway lines which is going to be carried out at a cost of R31 million.

This is only the beginning of great developments. The announcement of the Saldanha project—the harbour and railway line—was one of the greatest events in the country. That railway line, which is going to open up a completely new area and which has so many great possibilities, is also going to lead us to a completely new concept of railway management. Sir, unfortunately we are now committed to a narrower rail gauge in South Africa, as compared to European countries. This of course limits the maximum speed at which our trains can move, and it also restricts the goods space which can be utilized. There is a possibility here of course—and in this connection negotiations between the Minister of Transport and Iscor will take place—that the railway line will be the same gauge as lines in Europe, i.e. 4’ 8”. But even if it were to be restricted to our South African rail gauge, then I foresee a possibility here of laying the railway line in such a way that we are going to have trains which will be able to maintain a speed of 150 to 180 kilometers per hour. There is also the possibility that increased loads will be transported along that railway line, and the possibilities for development in that entire area as a result of the railway line are totally unlimited.

Mr. Speaker, since we have already this year had a considerable new electrification programme, it is interesting to note how the S.A. Railways has also made great progress in that sphere. Our country is engaged in one of the greatest power-generating projects of its kind in the world at the moment. The steam turbine generators which we have, which also feed our railway networks, are at the moment among the largest in the southern hemisphere and will on completion be among the largest of their kind in the world. In this sphere we are also exploring a new principle which can be utilized for the Railways, i.e. nuclear energy. If nuclear power stations were to be established in the Western Cape which could also produce fresh water as a by-product, they would be able to supply an unrestricted quantity of electricity in order to increase tractive power in South Africa. But apart from that, we are on the eve of the utilization of nuclear energy as tractive power for the Railways itself. Railway research will soon have to make provision for the profitable utilization of nuclear energy with the power which they are going to use. What it is going to amount to is that a locomotive with as much nuclear material as could be contained in a matchbox will be able to remain on the tracks for three months with this fuel.

Sir, our harbours and our shipping in South Africa are in the same way undergoing a complete change at the beginning of this decade. Geographically we are situated in such a way that shipping will always play a major role in transport along the South African coast. The decision to establish Saldanha as a harbour was one of the most important decisions this Government has ever taken. It is only a pity that this matter did not receive considerably more publicity and that our people did not take far more cognizance of the developments here. I just want to dwell on this for a few moments. If we take into consideration the massive potential which Saldanha presents as a harbour, if we compare it to Durban where the average depth is six fathoms and is therefore restricted to ships of 40.0 tons when fully laden, if we note that Cape Town harbour is restricted to approximately seven fathoms of water (42 feet) and cannot therefore handle ships heavier than 70.0 tons, then you can realize, Sir, what tremendous potential Saldanha with its deep waters has. Just off Jutten Island there is 180 feet of water, and even within Saldanha itself, at Marcus Island, there is still from 12 to 14 fathoms of deep water which can be used for large ships. We are therefore making something available here which cannot in any way be equalled anywhere else along the South African coast.

Shipping as such is undergoing a complete change at the moment. If we look at the latest trends in the shipping industry, we find that, according to Esso, there are at present 2,271 tankers with less than 50,000 tons deadweight. Between 50.000 and 100,000 tons there are already 585: between 100,000 tons and 150.0 tons there are already 71; between 150.0 and 200,000 tons there are already nine, and over 200,000 tons there are already seven. Another new trend in shipping is to make use of containerized goods and containerized ships. One of the new fields which are now being explored is to make use of the hen and chicken principle, that is to load a large container ship with smaller vehicles. The large ship never enters a harbour, but anchors in deep water outside the harbour and from there sends self-powered containers out to the harbour. In this way the mother ship, which may perhaps weigh a half million to a million tons, will be able to sail from one harbour to another. There is no need therefore to bring that enormous ship into the harbour, and our harbour construction projects must take this into account. We will have to concentrate on creating the necessary facilities for the container traffic.

I want to express a few ideas on the S.A. Airways. In the first place I want to congratulate them on the growth of approximately 20 per cent which they have been able to maintain. We are entering the new decade with 1 million passengers on our domestic services—truly a remarkable milestone for the S.A. Airways. In addition to that there are the Boeing 747s which are to be delivered next year. When these aircraft become operational they will also change the air traffic pattern here in South Africa completely in the new decade. These giants will, as they are being constructed for South African standards, be able to transport 342 passengers on a daily overseas flight. There will be no fewer than 15 wash rooms in each of these giants, as well as a first class lounge to which one can ascend by means of stairway. The size of these giants simply cannot be comprehended unless one has had the privilege of seeing one from nearby. I have had the privilege of being inside one of them, although I have not yet flown in one. In any case, the introduction of these giants will bring about a complete change for us. It is being envisaged that it will in later years also be possible to utilize these giants on our domestic flights. Before the end of the decade we will also see the S.S.T., the Supersonic Transport, aircraft. They will be able to travel at a speed of two to three times the speed of sound between South Africa and Europe, America and Australia. A journey from here to Europe will then last from five to six hours.

Another very important development has been the increase in the volume of passenger traffic in South Africa. It is estimated that by 1975 the number of passengers will exceed the 2 million mark, and by the end of the decade perhaps the 4 million mark. By that time it is expected that there will be approximately i million passengers for overseas journeys. With this considerable increase in the volume of passenger traffic certain problems in regard to reservations have cropped up, problems which have necessitated the introduction by the S.A. Airways of a fully integrated realtime computerized telecommunications and reservations system. It will cost 3½ million and will entail that reservations are going to be placed on a completely different basis. It is interesting to see what this new system is capable of.

Why did they not install it when I recommended it six years ago?

This was already being planned at the time, and the hon. member probably got to hear about it. It is very easy to play the role of prophet if someone else is doing the research. This is the kind of prophetic art in which the hon. member for Durban (Point) excells. The new system will be known as the “Saafari: South African Always fully Automated Reservation Installation”, and will be taken into operation with effect from 1st October for complete communications. It will be capable of furnishing replies to any kinds of inquiries, and will still be able to make information available shortly prior to flights so that, where possible, more seats can be made available for passengers. In this way waiting lists and repeat reservations will be eliminated.

We are entering an era in South Africa’s history in which the scope of air transport is going to increase constantly. In this regard there is an appeal I want to make to the Minister. New opportunities are going to be created in South Africa, for example with the Sishen-Saldanha project, for freight transport by air. My appeal is that we should allow this form of transport in South Africa to do justice to itself. Commendable work is already being done in this sphere by the S.A. Airways. Steps are being taken to deal with the steadily increasing tonnage of airfreight traffic. But there is also ample opportunity to have airfreight traffic undertaken by private initiative on a regional basis, outside the ambit of the normal routes of the S.A. Airways. I have always been of the opinion that regional or feeder services, supplementary to the S.A. Airways, are an important factor in air traffic in South Africa, and this applies to both passengers as well as goods. I would be pleased if it could be arranged with the S.A. Airways that part of this traffic be left to private initiative. I do not now want to go into the strategic aspects and what it signifies in terms of national security, although that is very important. But purely from economic considerations and as supplementary service we have a great potential here which we could utilize if we could find the necessary basis for it. Since we have recently made such phenomenal progress and the South African Airways has surpassed itself, we should also like to avail ourselves of this opportunity of wishing them, together with the other transport services, everything of the best for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member who has just sat down will excuse me when I do not follow him. The hon. member made a factual speech drawing certain matters to the attention of the hon. the Minister. It does not really require any comment from me at all.

I should like to raise a matter with the hon. the Minister that I have raised on many occasions before, namely the whole question of Railway services for non-Whites working in Soweto. Before I do that I should like to touch on this very important question of labour, which has been mentioned by practically every speaker in this debate so far. We all know the facts. We know that the Railways are chronically short of labour. I use the word “chronically” advisedly. I remember reading a comment by the hon. the Minister not so long ago in one of the newspapers when he said that there was nothing wrong with the Railways except for a manpower shortage, the drought and the flu. I think those were the three factors he mentioned. He said that everything was really quite all right.

The shortage of a few trucks.

This is like that very old story of the gentleman who met his best friend, Mr. Cohen, and told him that he had just discovered that he was suffering from cancer. This gentleman in reply said: Cancer smancer, who cares, as long as you have your health and strength. That, Sir, is the hon. the Minister. His Railways are chronically short of manpower. He had two other complaints this year, one of which I might say is a recurring complaint, namely the drought. We are always having difficulties with farmers having to move their livestock from one area to another, difficulties about fodder, and so on. These are problems that are with us practically every year. I wonder what the hon. the Minister has done to solve the very real difficulties that arose last year with the movement of stock to Johannesburg under the most appalling conditions? As far as I know, nothing has been done to resolve the difficulties which arose among the Railways, the Meat Control Board and the abattoirs in Johannesburg. This is another thing which is chronic and recurring. The drought is something which the hon. the Minister is going to have to tackle. He is not responsible for it, but he is responsible for seeing that something is done about a situation which arises over and over again in this country.

The manpower shortage is not simply recurring. That is absolutely chronic. We have had a long talk in this House about better utilization of manpower resources. Everybody talks glibly about the utilization of non-White manpower. It seems to me that now the general election is over and all the panic that was engendered by the verkramptes and the Hertzog party is something of the past, the hon. the Minister should be in a position to take a much more rational line on the question of manpower shortage. A few years ago he said in this House, with what I considered to have been a fair amount of courage, that despite the opposition of the unions he had employed 8,0 or 9,000 non-Whites in jobs that formerly had been done by Whites. I commend the hon. the Minister for that attitude. It is a sensible attitude to adopt. If the trade unions are not going to be reasonable about this question, then what is one to do about it? One cannot constantly give in to them. One has to take the bull by the horns and see that the country as a whole is not going to continue to suffer as far as manpower shortage on the Railways is concerned. We know what is happening. We know that South Africa has lost valuable markets in minerals, manganese, iron ore. chrome and mealies. All these valuable earners of foreign exchange have been lost because the Railways simply cannot shift the goods. It cannot get the stuff to the ports and when they get it to the ports, there is no manpower for loading it onto the ships. This is something which this country simply cannot afford to see continuing. We know that internal prices have gone up because the Railways have been unable to cope with the demand, for instance, for coal and cement. This brought about a further rise in the cost of living as a result of the inability of the Railways to cope.

The Railways cannot cope because they do not have the manpower. It has not got the manpower because our great untapped resource is not being properly utilized. It is not being properly utilized for two reasons. Firstly, there is the intransigence of the trade unions on the one hand, which the hon. the Minister a few years ago was bold enough to say that he was going to tackle. This then drifted into silence because of the tremendous propaganda which the Hertzogites made about it during the election. Secondly, there is the whole question of the training and utilization of non-White manpower. Things are being done behind the scenes. All sorts of changes are going on. Every now and then a figure pops out and we realize that many more non-Whites are being employed in jobs which used to be done by white people because there are not enough Whites to do these jobs. There is an attempt to cover up on this. It is temporary, says the hon. the Minister or the particular union that happens to be making the announcement. Why do we not face facts? It is not temporary labour at all. It is permanent labour. Non-Whites are going to be used in semi-skilled and skilled jobs in an ever increasing number. I say that we should continue with this. This is a trend which is to the advantage of South Africa. All of us, irrespective of which side of the House we sit on, should commend the hon. the Minister when he in fact attempts to do something about this critical manpower shortage. I know his problem. He has pressure from within his own party because there are many members sitting in his caucus who represent Railway seats. They know that they in turn are going to be subjected to pressure from their voters who are nervous of seeing jobs being handed over to non-Whites.

You do not know what is going on.

I do know what is going on in this regard. The point is that the hon. the Minister at the top and hon. members of Parliament who occupy responsible positions, instead of constantly reassuring the white railwayman that they will protect him regardless, should have the intelligence to be telling the white railwaymen of South Africa that indeed the expansionist programme which the Railways and the country as a whole are going to adopt as a result of using manpower properly, will result in a greater demand for their own services and not in fact a smaller demand. Unless somebody faces this issue and starts a massive re-education programme amongst the white workers themselves, the situation is going to continue either with a chronic shortage of manpower or, as I say, with a series of little subterfuges where non-Whites are winkled into jobs done by Whites and everybody hopes that nobody will notice this. It is absurd. Let us start a proper re-education programme and then the hon. the Minister will solve his railway problems.

I know that he has difficulties not only because of his own side but because of the attitude adopted by the Opposition. I say that it is an attitude of duplicity in this regard and it ought to be exposed. It is all very well for hon. members on this side of the House, from the shadow Minister of Transport downwards, to stand up in this House one after the other and make powerful speeches about the need to use non-white manpower, but they are not prepared to tackle any of the problems that have to be tackled in order to do that. They are not prepared to allow Africans to join registered trade unions. They are not prepared to break the customary colour bar. They are not even prepared to tackle the trade unions when they are unreasonable about this matter. Only the other day, in his reply to the no-confidence debate, the hon. Leader of the Opposition stood up in this House and used these words: “I have never been prepared to throw white jobs open to non-Whites without the agreement of the trade unions.”

Hear, hear!

Will that hon. member who has his eyes beadily fixed on the Provincial Council elections then tell me how he is going to tackle a labour union which says that it will not have any more non-Whites come into jobs that are being done by Whites?

I certainly will tell you.

You can negotiate in your most smooth manner, you can negotiate in the best possible diplomatic manner, but if the union says: “No, we do not want any more non-white men doing this job,” and if you have a man who stands up and says: “I will not work on the same job as a Bantu,” what are you then going to do about solving the manpower crisis? How are you then going to solve the manpower crisis? It is all very well to talk in this big fashion about huge labour supplies. It is all very well to say: “Here are our manpower resources underutilized and under-trained,” but when tackled, the hon. members on this side say over and over again that they are in favour of the customary colour bar, that they are not prepared to tackle the white trade unions, and they even say that they will not use the big stick such as the hon. the Minister of Transport uses on the trade unions.

No, we will take them along with us.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) confidently says that they will take them along with them. How will he do that if a trade union adamantly says no? Will he tell me how he will solve the problem facing the Johannesburg City Council?

It is being solved.

The union has said, “no more Coloured drivers” and without Coloured drivers the Johannesburg City Council is cancelling one bus trip after the other and the citizens of Johannesburg are waiting in the bus queues. What do you do with an unreasonable union? Of course I am also all in favour of negotiation, but there comes a point when you can negotiate no further, when negotiations break down.

What do you do then?

Then, if you have to, you say to the unions: “You are being utterly unreasonable. South Africa can no longer afford these shortages of labour. I am going to employ non-Whites and you can do what you like about it.”

What do you do about the strike that follows?

Then you have to cope with the strike, as the British Government has coped with the dockworkers’ strike. That is what happens when industrial negotiations break down. You have a strike. What do you do when you are confronted by a completely …

So you want a strike?

Now listen to that, Sir. The hon. the Minister—I mean the hon. shadow Minister; I must not elevate him too soon —must not put words into my mouth that I have not used. I do not want a strike. I do not like terrorists. I am not pro-communist. I must say all these things and spell them out, Sir, otherwise they go from platform to platform twisting everything I say for their own ends. Let me tell the hon. member that I do not want a strike. I say that when you reach a point where you have a completely intransigent union which is not prepared to negotiate any further, which knows that the labour shortages are critical, then you have to take the bull by the horns and have the courage of your convictions. It is no good just saying what the hon. member has said in an article which I hope I have here, namely that you have to have the courage to face the situation in South Africa as far as manpower is concerned.

Sure.

Sure? Well, then courage also involves dealing with difficult trade unions. There are times when the smoothest words …

[Inaudible.]

Order!

… and the butteriest words in the world do not help, because you are dealing with unreasonable people. It is as simple as that.

I have never heard such nonsense in my life.

It is not nonsense, Sir, as anybody will know who has had to negotiate and try to get Whites to give up jobs to non-Whites. Certain of the unions are taking a most enlightened line. They are pleading for non-white membership of their unions, pleading for African membership and pleading for collective bargaining rights for their union. All the T.U.C.S.A. people, for instance, are taking an enlightened line, but one certainly cannot say that about all the other unions. The hon. members know that as well as I do. It is no good hon. members talking glibly about this and saying that they will not be prepared to allow white jobs to go to non-Whites unless the Whites agree. If you do so, you are going to be faced with exactly the same manpower shortage that the hon. the Minister of Transport and every other Department of the Government is faced with. [Interjections.]

Order!

The only difference between the two sides is that the Government does something to solve the manpower crisis and pretends it is not doing so because of the political implications, while the Opposition says that it will do something about the manpower crisis, but has no intention of doing anything of the kind. That is the difference between the two sides. It is high time that this duplicity was exposed. This big talk about solving the manpower crisis does not mean a thing unless one is prepared to tackle intransigent white unions on the one hand and provide adequate training and education for non-white workers on the other hand, and at the same time break the customary colour bar, if it is necessary, and go in for a massive programme of re-education of the white workers at the same time. That is the only way one can solve the manpower crisis in South Africa. I am very glad that I have had the opportunity of saying that. I hope that the hon. the Minister of Transport is going to have the courage to face this issue, as it has to be faced if South Africa’s urgent manpower crisis is to be attended to during the next few years.

Now I want to come to the second main subject I wanted to raise. The first, I think, is more important in many ways, but this is a very important subject as well. I am raising it now for the umpteenth time in this House. I have paged hopefully through the pages of the Brown Book, hoping that I would find a massive allocation of capital expenditure on the railway services between Soweto and Johannesburg. I have looked very hard and I have found very little indeed. The hon. the Minister knows better than I do that matters are reaching crisis proportions as far as those railway services are concerned. He knows that the coaches are hopelessly overloaded. I have had a reply in this connection from him today. I thank him for his courtesy in giving me this reply in time to raise the matter here. I asked the Minister to give me the daily average number of passengers between Soweto and Johannesburg at peak periods. The answer is 175,011 in each direction. He tells me that there are 523 coaches in use on this route during these peak periods and that their seating capacity is 39,854. Less than quarter of the people are accommodated in an ordinary way. The rest have to cram themselves into those coaches like sardines. Dangerous situations arise. The crime rate on those trains is a well-known fact among all the inhabitants of Soweto. Everybody knows perfectly well the danger of having his pockets picked or of being stabbed in those crowded trains.

The question of getting to work on time is now one of daily tension for these people. They have to get up at 4.30 or five o’clock in the morning in order to get themselves to work and they get home late at night. Towards the end of last year the hon. the Minister raised the fares by something like 14 per cent. He gets a very fat slice of his revenue from these third-class passengers.

They are subsidized.

Yes, I know they are subsidized and the hon. member knows why they have to be subsidized. They are forced to live miles out of town. In other countries it is the rich people who commute, but in South Africa it is the poorest people who have to commute. They should be able to live as their earnings dictate.

Where?

Certainly in areas which are less than 12 to 14 miles out of town. This brings about a high cost of transport. [Interjections.] I am sure the hon. member for— what is his new constituency—Langlaagte, is going to make a brilliant speech shortly and I wish he would let me get on with my own.

Oh, has he joined the Railway debate at last?

Well, he is the member for the Langlaagte constituency and therefore he ought to. The point is that these people have to live far out of town. The added expense comes of course off their rather mean pay packets. Now the hon. the Minister has put up the cost. The railway fares are subsidized to a certain extent, but they are not subsidized so much any more. If we do not let people live within easy reach of their place of work, if we do not let them earn the maximum wages they could earn and if their productivity is restricted you have to subsidize their transport. The hon. the Minister of Transport is the first to admit that. He admitted it many years ago in this House in a debate. Anyway, the point is that this situation is now reaching a crisis. I want to warn the hon. the Minister that if we have any more of these railway disasters and if we have any more of these tragic episodes where bridges collapse, injuring hundreds of people, flash points of racial tension, which this country should not ignore, might be created. It is a dangerous situation that is being reached. It is a situation of daily tension and daily friction. This has been happening over and over again; it is not something that is happening now and again, it happens every day that these commuters experience the extreme irritation, unpleasant conditions and situations which lead to constant friction and tension.

I think it is high time that the facilities between Soweto and Johannesburg should be bettered. I am bitterly disappointed that so little has been allocated in this Brown Book by this hon. Minister for increasing the facilities on this line and for building badly needed foot bridges. He knows only too well about those two accidents which took place at Croesus and Dube. I am also disappointed that so little money has been allotted to the general dissemination of information at platforms instead of having people stampeding from one line to the other when they hear at the last moment that the train has been switched from one platform to the other. All these are matters which need his urgent consideration.

I believe the hon. the Minister is a sensible Minister and I therefore hope that he is not entertaining any of these scatter-brained schemes of his colleague, the hon. Minister of Bantu Administration and Development who is not here to-day. He has two ideas in his head. The one is that the Soweto townships are really there on a temporary basis, because sooner or later they will be emptied of their people who are going to go back to their homelands. He has that idea fixed in his head. Then there is another idea which is perhaps for the more immediate future. That is that he is going to start air shuttle service for workers to the “nearby homelands”, namely Brits, Ladysmith and Newcastle. This is the new idea I have heard bruited abroad. They are not going to continue to develop the metropolitan area, but where there are existing industries and where new industries arise, the employees must stay in the homelands from where they will be shuttled backwards and forwards.

However, I do not believe for one moment that the hon. the Minister thinks that that is going to happen. If I am right he must admit that there is going to be an increase in the number of passengers who are going to use the Soweto service over the next ten years. The Johannesburg Municipal Council’s planning investigation estimated a 105 per cent increase between the years 1963 and 1983, which is an enormous increase. I want to know what forward planning the hon. the Minister is contemplating to deal with this situation which has, as I have said, already reached crisis proportions. I see no sign of forward planning in this Budget at all.

I hope the least he will do, if he is not going in for any forward planning as he certainly should be doing, is that he will put a stop to another of the crackpot schemes of his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration, namely the “White by night” scheme, which seems to have taken possession of him. Quite recently in Johannesburg we had a major uproar among the citizens when a suggestion was made that domestic servants in a certain area were going to be forced to live in a barracks at Diepkloof, some seven or eight miles out of town on the northern-most fringes of Soweto. This hon. Minister was calmly planning to add at that stage several hundred, and later, many thousands of domestic servants to the daily stampede, which is the only way I can describe it, in and out of Soweto to Johannesburg. This scheme has been temporarily shelved, although I have a feeling that surreptitiously and quietly Africans who do not have the protection of their white employers and who are one degree removed from their white employers, like Africans at sporting grounds, hotels, and so on, are quietly being moved out. I will go and find out when I get home, believe me. But the domestic servant matter has been temporarily shelved. I hope the hon. the Minister will persuade his colleague to shelve this matter permanently, because to add those people to the daily number of people who have to come in and out on an already vastly overloaded system, is crazy. This is a class of person who is used to living under fairly decent conditions and it is quite crazy to increase the number of passengers by these people who are already living on the premises of their employers. I hope very much that the hon. the Minister will be able to persuade his colleague quietly to forget about this. I wonder if the hon. the Minister will tell me why it is, if my information is correct, that the new highway between Soweto and Johannesburg may not be used by buses. I understand that bus services are prohibited from using that roadway. It is a very good highway coming in somewhere near Malvern which cuts down the travelling time to Soweto by about 20 minutes. As I say the trains are already overloaded and the Putco Bus Service is already operating on the already overloaded road. I wonder why the hon. the Minister will not give permission to whomever should apply for a bus service to be operated in order to relieve the existing congestion?

Finally I would like to mention a matter concerning the Airways. I think all of us who have travelled recently and have come in through the new building at Jan Smuts Airport will agree that there has been a great improvement. There is no doubt about this, and I want to commend whomever thought of the bright idea of at least cutting down on the ridiculous formalities that visitors and returning residents had to go through filling in that ghastly customs form about firearms, edible materials, fruits and vegetables and God knows what else one had to declare. A very sensible system has now been adopted which is well in keeping with the Jumbo jet era which somebody was talking about, where passengers simply arrive and go either through a “goods to declare” section or a “no goods to declare” section. One assumes that people are honest enough to declare the goods they have to declare. If they do not, they of course run the risk of a sample check by a customs official. This is done at London Airport as well and is an excellent idea in order to cope with the many people returning on the overseas flights. I think we can still improve the landing card that we use in this country. I do not know if it is the department of the hon. the Minister’s concern; it may be a matter concerning the Department of the Interior.

That is a Department of Immigration matter.

I am glad that we have improved the facilities for overseas visitors and returning residents. I think that there are two other matters that can be further improved. The one is the handling of luggage and I think we might consider something like a moving conveyor belt …

That is coming in about a week’s time.

Congratulations, I am delighted to hear that. While the hon. the Minister is at it, I hope he will do something about the phone booths and have something rather like the London Airport phone booth system instead of those awful dark little confines that one has to go into at Jan Smuts which is a large international airport. The open phone booths are noise-proof and are much better than the ones we have at the moment.

While I have the hon. the Minister in a reasonably good frame of mind, I wonder if he could do something about the perfectly hideous new uniforms which have been designed for the ground staff. The girls are now wearing what I can only describe as naartjies on the top of their heads. They are the most unattractive and unappealing bits of feminine headgear that I have ever seen anywhere. I believe the idea is to make the girls conspicuous, so that people can pick out the S.A. Airways ground staff on arrival. But I am sure it is not beyond the imagination to devise something a little more attractive than what these poor young ladies have to wear. I might say, talking as a woman, one has to be feeling very well and looking very well to wear anything like the colour of that orange perched on the top of your head. I would say that, for the rest, the young ladies look smart and certainly attend to their customers very politely, but I hope the hon. the Minister will consider some sartorial changes in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Houghton will forgive me if I do not dwell on what she said. In the first instance, she quarrelled with the United Party about their double standards as regards labour matters. In regard to her standpoint of full integration as regards labour matters, she knows very well what the (National Party standpoint is. I need not furnish her with a further reply.

The United Party Press intimated to us that after the election this party would return to this House in a devastating mood, and that it would merely a question of dealing a deathblow to the National Party during this Session. But how pitiably they have failed! Yesterday, on the first day of the Second-Reading debate, we found with their third speaker already that, instead of discussing major principles affecting the Railways, they were dealing with individual disciplinary cases which could effectively have been disposed of by correspondence. Other than that the Opposition is merely criticizing without motivating their criticism in any respect whatever so as to prove what they are saying or to suggest a counterpolicy.

In the first instance, I want to deal with the whole question of the report of the Marais Commission on the co-ordination of transport in South Africa. Amongst other things the hon. member for Yeoville said the following about the Government—

Now I want to know from this hon. member whether these words constitute a total endorsement and approval of the majority report. I want to concede that the hon. member for Yeoville said later on that he did not agree with everything that was said in the majority report. But he mentioned absolutely nothing to prove that they disagreed with the majority report in any respect. What they did say— and this they said in their election brochure already—was that they supported the report of the Marais Commission as regards the separation of the Railways, Harbours and Airways. In other words, the Opposition approves of the separation going through and of the Railways being burdened with at least an additional R30 million plus what they have to find every year in order to balance their books. They approve of low-rated goods such as agricultural produce being loaded every year with millions of rands of additional railage because of this, separation. Now they are also saying, in regard to the report of the Marais Commission that the Minister acted unreasonably by calling this report superficial in certain respects. But this is a case of the truth hurting a little. I just want to mention one case in regard to the sphere about which I know most, i.e. the agricultural sphere.

A certain gentleman served on this commission on behalf of the S.A. Agricultural Union. Now, I do not want to suggest that if one represents a certain organization on the Marais Commission or any other commission, one should necessarily decide what that union or organization wants one to decide, but this particular gentleman pointedly showed in a minority report that he was going all out to promote farming interests when he pleaded in the minority report for freedom of transport to be granted to the agricultural co-operative societies, which is, incidentally, a quite impracticable thing. In other words, he proved that he was going out of his way to serve nothing but agricultural interests on that commission, but the same gentleman also agreed with the majority that the respective departments be separated and that the farming industry be burdened with many millions of rands of additional railage in that process. If this is not paying superficial attention to agricultural matters, then I do not know what superficial is.

Furthermore, as the Opposition has given no indication of the points on which they differ with the Marais Commission, I want to ask them pointedly what their attitude is in respect of denationalization, which is explicitly advocated in this report of the commission. Are they in favour of our mighty workshops going into free hands, and, in times of need or of war, of our having to take back those workshops or having to pay a most exhorbitant price for the work that has to be done in them?

In respect of planning the hon. member for Yeoville said, “Droughts are endemic in South Africa,” and planning has to take place on the basis that we can expect droughts regularly and every year. Sir, this, too, is a case of making a statement and thinking that one has disposed of this whole problem merely by having made a statement. The position with planning in respect of the farming industry in particular, is an extremely difficult one. In this industry one does not only find oneself in the difficult position, as regards capital equipment, that one has to maintain a sound balance as far as a surplus of equipment is concerned, but one also finds in the agricultural industry totally conflicting extremes between which a balance has to be struck. Let me mention as an example the question of maize transport, which is specialized transport because it is mass transport. In an optimum year one may have 60 million bags of maize for export, and the very next year one may have no maize for export. How is one to plan ahead? After all, it is impossible to create transport facilities for 60 million bags of maize to be exported every year. Furthermore, from an economic point of view it is, as far as the transport of livestock and fodder are concerned, quite impracticable to plan ahead on the basis of a year of extremes such as this year. In a province such as the Free State alone, the demand for wagons for livestock and fodder was 33 per cent higher this year than it was last year. In this regard I can speak from my own experience. Fortunately I live in a fortunate area which is in a position to make available to drought stricken areas a great deal of roughage. As far as our area is concerned, farmers in distress have at all times been able to obtain, within a reasonable time, a sufficient number of wagons for transporting that roughage. I am sure that there is not a single part in the country, although the need is great and although there are serious delays, where livestock had to die as a result of the fact that wagons could not be made available.

Then, as far as planning is concerned, the Select Committee was in Johannesburg a few years ago. They visited, inter alia, the Department of Planning, and everybody, including members of the United Party, was impressed by the valuable work which was being done there, not only the planning which was being undertaken there, but also the follow-up work which was being done subsequent to the Department having completed the planning.

In conclusion I want to say something about the question of labour, on which the hon. member for Houghton gave the United Party quite a verbal lashing a moment ago. In his speech the hon. member for Yeoville said—

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of this side I want to say that we deplore the insinuation that this side of the House is merely adapted to creating opportunities for employment for 31 million Whites in this country. Under this Government more non-Whites have been taken into employment, both as regard status and remuneration, of which they could not dream under the U.P. régime. But the difference between the National Party and the United Party is that this Government does not believe in giving the non-Whites employment at places and in posts where they may eventually exercise unreasonable political pressure on the Government and make unreasonable demands. The Opposition, on the other hand, believes in granting rights to non-white workers on an ad hoc basis, a “let things develop” basis, without having regard to the trouble this may cause in the industrial sphere. I want to ask the Opposition to tell us frankly whether they agree with what was said by a newspaper with views similar to theirs, i.e. the Financial Mail, on 31st July, 1970? It said—

Nobody wants to minimize the present staff shortage. The Minister was honest enough to admit the gravity of the shortage. But we must not forget that the S.A. Railways has performed an exceptional feat. Over the past 20 years traffic increased by 105 per cent. Over against that the staff was reinforced by only 18.6 per cent, but in spite of that it was possible for them to handle that increased tonnage of traffic. The Minister and the Management who, over the past 20 years, were able to reach such heights, will also be able to surmount the present staff shortage and to make the same success of the S.A. Railways as they did in the past.

Before dealing with the remarks of the hon. member who has just sat down, I should like to take this opportunity to add my mede of praise and appreciation to those already addressed to the outgoing General Manager. I do so particularly because some years back when I was a member of the Johannesburg City Council, he rendered a tremendous service to the city in helping to solve the problems of transport for that large non-white complex sprawling on the southern border of the city. Those of us who took part in the discussions with the Railway Administration in those days much appreciated the services the General Manager rendered as the chairman of a special committee set up to deal with this particular matter. The City of Johannesburg will always be grateful to him for that. Having done this, I should also like to wish the incoming General Manager every success, following as he does such a line of distinguished men who occupied this high position in the service of our country in the past.

The hon. member who spoke before me tried to read into the view of the United Party, as expressed by the hon. member for Yeoville, the fact that the United Party would open the door, virtually, to non-Whites in order to resolve the manpower problem. He must, however, remember that it was made perfectly clear that any change in this direction towards a solution of this problem would take place only after consultation and negotiation with trade unions with a view to obtaining their co-operation, particularly in the light of the situation which exists in the country to-day. There are trade unions which have an important interest in this matter, representing as they do workers in our big industries and as such they have always approached problems of this sort realistically and have proved themselves to be people with whom one can talk and have discussions. Therefore I should like to disabuse the hon. member’s mind of what he may have read in newspapers or of what has been said by other persons and which he found handy for his criticism of the U.P. The U.P. has a policy and will stand by it. It will constantly keep in view the realities of the situation.

What about the Johannesburg City Council with their bus driver problem? Why do you not persuade them to accept your policy?

The hon. the Minister knows very well that there are bus drivers who have come in through outside areas that have been incorporated. Furthermore, there is the question of negotiations with the particular union. It is in the light of this that discussions took place and the tribunal sat in order to reach a solution to this difficult problem.

But the Transport Workers’ Union are not prepared to accept non-white drivers. Why do you not persuade them?

But they have non-white drivers now.

Not on white buses. [Interjections.]

I won’t take this particular point any further at the moment because there are two other aspects with which I should like briefly to deal. Firstly, I should like to point out to the hon. the Minister and also to the hon. the Deputy Minister that we are well aware of the achievements of the South African Railways. The organization of transport in this country is something which goes back over generations and has been built up by Governments over many years. It is good to know that Minister after Minister has shown the same sense of pride in this achievement. But we did not expect from the Minister to come to this House as chairman of a big business undertaking and give us only a factual statement from the balance sheet. What we expected from him instead was a statement of policy, some prophesy for the future, some concrete approach to what he knows is a very serious problem in the country, a problem which is creating a crisis not in the Management of the Railways but in manpower, a factor which is vital for the efficient maintenance of the various forms of transport in the country. No criticism has been levelled, as has been insinuated by some hon. members on the other side, at the Administration of the Railways. The criticism which has been levelled has been levelled against the policy, Government policy, which has not endeavoured to keep pace with the development of South Africa and face the problems which we foresee will increase as time goes on. That has been the essence of the criticism of this side of the House. One would have expected that a Minister, who represents what has been termed by the other side of the House “a dynamic Government”, to come forward with some dynamic prediction of what, as he sees it, the future holds, what the problems will be with which we shall have to deal and to inform us whether or not he could resolve these problems. We expect him to come to this House and tell us quite frankly what the problems are with which his organization would be faced and to lay stress on the importance on finding a solution. Because if no solution is found to the manpower problem, the Minister knows that despite the greatest Administration, the wheels of the Railways will slowly grind to a halt. These wheels have to be kept moving by manpower, and manpower is therefore a vital factor in this entire industry. It is an enormous industry—as a matter of fact, the largest single industry in this country and one of the great industries on this continent. Therefore it behoves the hon. the Minister to come to us not with a narrow approach, not with a parochial outlook, not with the object of scoring political points in a debate, but to come to us with a realistic approach to this vital and important problem.

Now, Sir, I also want to deal with this question of salaries. It is an important aspect of policy in the hon. the Minister’s approach to this matter. Although an amount of R60 million has been placed at the disposal of the Service, there is no question, as has been said earlier, of the tremendous amount of dissatisfaction that has followed in the wake of this large contribution towards the salary pool of the workers of the Railways. We have had personal interviews. We know that men have to sacrifice not only a great deal of their family life but we know that in many homes, which I have visited myself, women are obliged to work to keep the home going in order to enjoy the normal amenities which are being enjoyed to-day in our reasonably affluent society by the average worker in the country. I am referring to the normal requirements such as. for example frigidaires, which one should find to-day in almost every home in the country and which can only be provided if women themselves work.

But there is another matter to which I should like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister, namely the fact that pensions are based only on basic wages. All the amount of overtime in the world, while it helps the unfortunate individual to earn sufficient to live on, although he may work himself almost to the point of exhaustion, nevertheless does not help him in the long run. It would be better if the basic wage of the lowest paid worker in the Service were to be put on a much more realistic and fair basis so that he can live. Overtime should really be a bonus to him rather than a necessity. When men are virtually compelled to work long hours of overtime because of the sheer necessity to live, as one family told me, we have reached a very sorry impasse in the affairs of the Railway Service. I have been told by many that this is a problem that faces them. Apart from the other problems and anomalies, this remains, above all, the vital factor, namely that men do not enjoy the work they are doing because they are working under the greatest difficulties.

The other problem which I feel is important in this whole approach is that there should be an entirely different basis of providing additional remuneration to the Service. I believe that remuneration should not be based on a globular sum. It should not come from the top downwards but should start from the bottom upwards. There should be a foundation on which the entire salary structure of the services can be built. If this foundation is satisfactorily built and a fair and reasonable living wage is given to the lowest paid worker, then we can build a structure which will enable the men at the top to receive realistic salaries. It would enable the whole of the services to receive realistic salaries. I think the hon. the Minister owes us an explanation as to his insistence in putting the question to one or two speakers yesterday, namely whether we begrudge the employees the moneys paid to them in overtime I think the hon. the Minister asked a member that.

I did not ask that.

If he did not, then somebody else on his side did. If it was not the hon. the Minister, I am sorry that I said so. It was however my impression that the question was thrown at a member namely: Do you begrudge the railway employees the additional overtime emoluments? But that is not the answer. The answer is that if you are compelled to work overtime that compulsion, as has been so well pointed out, operates to the detriment of the health, family life and basic structure of the employees’ private life.

I should like the hon. the Minister also to answer us on the question as to what the eventual value would be to that worker in so far as his pension is concerned when he retires and finds himself receiving a pension calculated on very much less than the money to which he had become accustomed because of overtime earned. It very much reminds me of the early days when we had the cost of living allowance and when this allowance virtually was more than the actual basic salary. All a man could look forward to on his retirement was a pension calculated on a salary to which he was unaccustomed and which was less than half of the amount that he had been earning in respect of his basic wage, overtime and cost of living allowance.

I think those are the questions that remain very important. Irrespective of what the hon. the Minister thinks with regard to any other criticism, the questions of manpower and satisfactory salaries remain a vital factor in our entire approach to this Budget.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Jeppes is a member who has been in this House before, and he has already made a speech this session; it is therefore not necessary for me to wish him luck. The hon. member for Jeppes simply continued embroidering on the same arguments which other speakers on the Opposition side had previously used. The manpower shortage, the basis for wages and overtime work that is undermining the individual’s health and his home life, are matters which have already been introduced here repeatedly.

I should just like to come back to remarks made by the hon. member for Maitland. In his speech a moment ago that hon. member said that the Government believed, and apparently still does, that it has a priority right to the vote of the railway. Not that the National Party and the Government are claiming such a right. The National Party’s record and its disposition towards the worker are such that the worker, the railway worker included, can trust the Government with the administration of the country. It is the National Party that served the railway workers’ interests in the past and that is now, as a Government, also doing so. This is proved anyway by the profits that are being ploughed back in the interests of the worker. If there is a profit on the Railways then the worker gets it, as is now the case with the salary increases that we have already heard about quite frequently.

The older workers on the Railways, who can still remember something of the United Party administration, and that was very long ago, know of the chronic shortages amounting to millions of pounds. They are familiar with the bankrupt pension funds and other funds. They are familiar with the fact that ex-Minister Waterson was warned by head office at the time that the Railways would come to a standstill if the necessary funds for rolling stock were not found. If the funds could not be found all railway workers would also be dismissed. The older workers know of the conditions that prevailed under the United Party administration. Now, through the mouths of their speakers, the United Party has repeatedly boasted of having pocketed certain constituencies where there are many railway workers. The United Party got a proper thrashing in Koedoespoort, which is one of the largest Railway constituencies in the country. They definitely got a proper thrashing. The United Party is such an opportunistic party that since 1958 they have not ventured to put up a candidate in that constituency. It is chiefly a Railway constituency. In the recent election they did, at least, venture to do so because the Hertzogites had put up a candidate there. Then they did, in fact venture to do so, but they have previously always been scared their candidate would forfeit his deposit.

[Inaudible.]

I have here the statistics in respect of that constituency. Let the hon. member for North Rand boast and grumble. Here are the statistics and he cannot refute them. According to these statistics the National Party obtained 9,118 votes and the United Party 1,932, a majority for the National Party of 7,176. I repeat: it is a constituency in which many railway workers and their dependants live.

In this debate the United Party repeatedly referred to disciplinary measures and their application in the Railways. There was also repeated criticism in this regard. I do not know whether the hon. members of the Opposition, and particularly the hon. member for Durban (Point), who is an old member and has already served on the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours for many years, really know so little about the disciplinary procedures of the Railways that they do not realize that those procedures are designed in collaboration with the staff associations. At times complaints do arise against disciplinary measures, but we also know that disciplinary procedures will never be accepted by everyone. The present disciplinary system may have shortcomings, but there are continual investigations and adjustments in order to bridge those shortcomings. In this connection I want to quote from the annual report of the General Manager of the S.A.R. & H. for 1968-’69. On page 91 he states:

This frankly proves that the Management is always giving regular attention to disciplinary infringements. This is done at the point of origin and not so much at the point of discipline. A scientific educational approach therefore emanates from the Management in connection with this matter. It is important for a large organization such as the Railways to maintain strict discipline. It is therefore necessary, in the case of serious infringements, for the point of departure to be twofold. There must be punishment because of the infringement as such, but the punishment must also be such that it will act as a deterrent for both the person guilty of the infringement and for other persons who could be guilty of the same type of infringement. I just want to mention one or two cases where the interests of the public are also affected. There is for example, theft. There is the case of an engine driver driving a train under the influence of liquor. Such infringements cannot, in any case, be lightly overlooked.

I want to point out that there is no other group of employees in any industry in the Republic which has the same opportunities of appeal against reputed unreasonable punishment as the railway employee does. In any company a transgressor would be called in and warned. This would perhaps still happen a second time, but after that he would be dismissed. The railwayman, however, has two avenues of appeal. In the first place he can lodge an appeal with the System Manager, and thereafter with the General Manager, against the punishment imposed by a disciplinary official. The second avenue open to him is an appeal to the Disciplinary Appeal Board, of which an ex-magistrate is chairman. If he is still not satisfied he may lodge a final appeal with the Railways and Harbours Board. He is assisted by a special person, appointed by the staff associations, who is made available to him free of charge. These persons are conversant with the Railway regulations, and for that reason the person lodging an appeal need not incur the costs of getting a person from outside. I say again: no other employer-employee relationship has such channels. The staff associations promote the interests of the employees. Annually they make representations in connection with conditions of service and disciplinary matters to the Management and to the Minister. In complaining so much about disciplinary methods we are actually also reproaching the staff associations which, after all, are the representatives of the railway people. The hon. member for Durban (Point) said the other day that it was no longer any use for railway employees to lodge appeals, because they do not succeed in their appeals anyway. He mentioned statistics here, which I cannot remember, but I should like to reveal other statistics. These statistics relate to the state of affairs in 1969. In the relevant year there were only 79 appeals: 4 were upheld, the punishment in 13 cases was mitigated, and 62 appeals were rejected. In other words, 21 per cent of the appeals succeeded altogether or in part. The hon. member for Durban (Point) told us that the appeals never succeed. At the present moment there is also an experimental measure in operation where persons are, for example, called in and warned and then given another chance. For that reason the number of accused is so much smaller. In the case of my constituency I can inform the hon. member that I receive a great deal fewer complaints in connection with this matter than was the case a few years ago.

In this debate there was repeated reference to the report of the Marais Commission, and several speakers on the Opposition side insinuated that in his Budget speech the Minister had made an attack on the members of the Commission and tried to discredit them, or that he had actually discredited them. However, there is nothing further from the truth than that. On page 59 of the English copy of the Minister’s speech this is clearly stated, and I quote the following:

This means, in other words, that there was evidence given before the Commission by persons representing bodies that wanted to try to promote their own interests at the same time. The representatives of the bodies were, in other words, not objective enough in their evidence. As we already know, the Marais Commission recommended a separation between the various services, whilst it was not required of the Commission to institute such an investigation. With reference to this aspect of the report, the following appeared, under the title “The Message of the Marais Commission”, in the July, 1969, issue of Commercial Opinion / Handelsmening, the magazine of the Association of Chambers of Commerce of South Africa—

This portion of the article confirms very nicely the impression the hon. the Minister gained in respect of the fact that the appointment of the Commission was seized upon by certain interested bodies to promote their own interests.

In studying both the Marais Commission report and the White Paper, as published by the hon. the Minister last year, the following becomes clear. Of all the recommendations, the hon. Minister accepted about 67, four he accepted in part and 23 he rejected. The most important among the latter is the recommendation about the separation of the services of the Railways. A tremendous fuss is being made about this question by certain outside bodies, but particularly by the United Party here. It is, and surely remains, the hon. the Minister’s prerogative and, I want to emphasize, his responsibility to accept recommendations he regards as necessary in practice, to accept certain recommendations in part and to postpone or reject others. He did so for several reasons, as is clearly evident from the White Paper.

But the United Party has politically accepted the separation of Railway services. This fact is confirmed in that United Party yellow booklet “You want it?—We have it!”, which saw the light just before the general election. The following appears on page 26 of the booklet:

Nothing is said here about the pipeline. Some of the hon. members opposite mentioned something about the pipeline, but they did not say whether this should also be separated in the course of time. According to them it must apparently still remain an integral part of the Railways as such.

Prior to the appointment of the Marais Commission in 1965, and before it published its report, the United Party never placed much emphasis on the separation of the service, and if they did, it was quite casually and in general terms. Now I want to make a very important assertion. After the appearance of the Marais Commission’s report, the United Party very strongly began to propagate the separation of the services, and they tried to make political capital out of it. That is also why we find it as an aspect of policy in this booklet with its 108 promises.

I am very strongly convinced that the separation of the services as suggested by the United Party would increase the manpower problem. I consider this to be a very important point. Let us subject to close scrutiny the effects of the possible separation of services on the manpower problem. It goes without saying that the separation would create, inter alia, three controlling bodies that would function independently of each other. Apart from additional expenditure, additional administrative work would have to be done and there would of necessity, be a duplication of services. It is surely logical that if there is a duplication of services there will also be a wastage of valuable manpower. In the White Paper, in which the hon. the Minister comments on certain aspects of the report of the commission, the following appears on page 5, paragraph 6.3:

There are many more branches than are mentioned here. Here direct emphasis is laid on the extra costs involved if separation were brought about, but this also embodies an indication of the extra manpower which would be needed. Surely the present organization, as it exists under the Minister of Transport, serves its purpose very well, particularly in respect of the staff. This embodies judicious and necessary co-ordination between the various branches of the departments, which then enables the Minister and the Management to employ the available staff in the most advantageous manner. This is then also a very necessary and an extremely important consideration, particularly at the present time, with the manpower shortage we are experiencing. The policy of the separation of the services, advocated by the United Party—and I would like the United Party to take note of this now—embodies, in its essence and being, a reckless wastage, a boundless squandering of valuable manpower, as well as the additional stimulation of a manpower shortage, not only in the Railways, but also in the rest of the country— a problem about which the United Party is ostensibly so concerned. The United Party is a party of paradoxes. This is revealed in its overall policy. But the party also reveals itself here as a party of contradictions. On the one hand it asks for the separation of the services. I have now stated that this separation of the services would entail a greater demand for manpower. On the other hand they complain about the manpower shortage.

The hon. member for Yeoville made certain remarks in connection with the profits accruing from the pipeline. He stated that only a portion of the country actually supplied the profits that were made, i.e. the Transvaal. On a previous occasion he also proposed that fuel prices should consequently be decreased. I say that this is in any case cheap propaganda that the hon. member is making in that connection. What I consider to be important is that the United Party should tell us how it is going to balance the Railways Budget if it continues to advocate this plan.

In conclusion I just want to furnish hon. members with the following facts. During the financial year ending 31st March, 1969, there was a shortage of about R30 million in the Railways alone, while the joint profits on the other three services were about R38 million. But, now, as a result of cross-subsidizing, the shortage on the Railways as such could be carried. For the financial year ending 31st March, 1970, the shortage on the Railways as such was R25½ million, notwithstanding the increase of imports and the larger amounts gleaned from transport. If the United Party were now to isolate the Railways, where does it want to defray these shortages from? Is it going to increase the Railway rates for goods and passengers? Is it going to abolish certain services which are perhaps not so profitable? Is it, for example, going to curtail new works? Is it going to peg down or decrease the salaries of Railway employees, or is the United Party going to defray the rates from the Equalization Fund? The United Party must tell us here, and the country outside, what it is going to do in order to defray the shortages that have developed annually on the Railways in recent years.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort is perfectly entitled to his opinion that there should be no separation between the Railways, the Harbours and the Airways, but he is not entitled to claim that hon. members on this side of the House have not over the years expressed the opinion that it was worthy of consideration for there to be separation between the functions of the Railways, the Harbours and the Airways. He refers to the United Party as being something of a paradox, but the hon. member himself is something of a paradox. He says that his railway voters in Koedoespoort had confidence in the policies of the Nationalist Party. There are many of us in this House who wonder how long it will be that the hon. member for Koedoespoort himself, their representative, will continue to show confidence in the policies of the Nationalist Party.

What nonsense are you talking now?

It is my task to-day to deal with the question of harbours, and I should like to approach this question from the point of view of the Suez Canal having been closed for the past three years. There are a number of future uncertainties. For example, one does not know how long it will be before the canal is re-opened. There is great uncertainty as to its future use when it is reopened, and even if it is widened and deepened, the dues which will have to be imposed by the Egyptian Government may well prove to be prohibitive. There are some people who hold the opinion that the Suez Canal has become a ditch filled with sand, whilst others think of it as a tank-trap filled with water. But what is absolutely clear is that the Suez Canal will never again regain its former position of vital maritime importance. No matter what is spent on the Suez Canal, no matter how it is improved, confidence will never again be restored in the Canal as long as there is conflict in the Middle East. The possibility of there not being conflict in the Middle East at some future date is, to say the least of it, remote. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, but even before the Suez Canal was blocked there was doubt as to whether it would continue to be one of the main waterways of the world. For example, in 1966, in the last year of its operation, 75 per cent of the ships using Suez were tankers. All other ships using Suez carried only a total cargo of 65 million tons. By January in 1967 there was already a different trend, and three out of every four tankers could go through Suez, which is 101 miles long and 38 feet wide. By 1968 only half of the tankers being built would have been able to go through Suez, had it been open. In 1967 the largest ship able to use Suez was 75,000 tons. By 1968 only 13 per cent of the 400 tankers under construction at that time would have been able to use Suez.

It is my contention that the route around the Cape of Good Hope has permanently replaced the Suez Canal as the most important maritime thoroughfare to the East. The reason for that is the shipping developments which have taken place such as the construction of giant tankers and ore carriers and containerization. Secondly, I think because the riparian nations in the Mediterranean are not of sufficient importance perhaps to persuade the West of the necessity of financing the re-opening of the Suez Canal, it is not likely to be speedily reopened. Apart from that, one of the main users, I think the sixth largest user of the canal before it was closed, was Russia, and I can hardly foresee the time when the West is going to finance the re-opening of the Suez Canal to enable Russia to supply aid, as she was doing at the time of its closure, to India and to the East. Lastly, in 1966-’67 before it was closed, seven Communist ships per month were using Suez on their way to Vietnam.

Therefore it seems to me that there is hardly any major nation in the world apart from Russia which really want, Suez to be reopened, or else, if they do feel that there is a need for Suez, with the uncertainty that exists, they have made alternative arrangements. For example, the P. & O. Line, the world’s largest shipping organization, an organization with 300 ships, with a gross tonnage of 3 million tons, had its chairman, Sir Donald Anderson, saying: “We are not going back. P. & O. ships may use the canal again to take cargoes to the East and to the Far East, but the passenger services we are operating around Southern Africa are here to stay”. The figures appearing in the various reports from the department indicate the enormous use to which the harbours of South Africa are being put at the moment. What is indicative of the use to which they are being put is the income and expenditure account of the Railways and Harbours. There was a surplus of earnings over expenditure for the book year 1967-’68 of R18.5 million, and for the year 1968-’69 it was R13.7 million. In the Marais Report it is stated that during the period from 1964 to 1968 there was a growth rate of 12 per cent in the cargo handled in South African ports. I think it is appropriate that we on this side of the House, as well as hon. members opposite, should pay tribute to the staff of the harbours for the wonderful work they have done in this crisis period since the closing of the Suez Canal. They have had to work exceptionally long hours. They work for the most part in Cape Town, in morbid and dingy offices in the old dock. The white berthing gangs have to be transported from one part of the docks to the other by truck. One sympathizes with their lot particularly, and one thinks also of the pilots, the crane-drivers and the tug crews.

What is interesting is the attitude of the Minister himself. The Minister has believed for some years, and in fact is on record as having said it, that the Suez Canal is only temporarily closed; it cannot be permanently closed. At the time, I think, he made a forecast of its being closed for approximately three to six months. Paragraph 625 of the Marais Report states that our harbour facilities must be improved, inter alia, because of the uncertainty as to when Suez Canal will be re-opened. It points to considerable berthing delays; it points to the fact that 60 per cent of the total operating costs of shipping are incurred while the vessel is in port, and it points to the increased international and coastal trade in our harbours. In paragraph 626 they go so far as to record certain opinions given in evidence to the commission namely that South African ports have reached saturation point and port congestion has become commonplace. But the hon. the Deputy Minister does not share that view because in Hansard of 1968 Column 2778 he says: “… there is no serious congestion at our harbours. As the freight comes in, it is taken away”. That contrasts strangely with the opinion of the Minister in the same Hansard, where he says that congestion does indeed exist but it is entirely due to the reluctance of the commercial community to clear its goods from the docks. The report goes on to list the improvements that have been effected in our docks over the last 13 years. It says that in the last 13 years the same amount was spent on improving our major harbour facilities, as was spent during the first 40 years of Union. Sir, that may well be so, but the question is whether these facilities are adequate. To quote, for example, from Volkshandel of 1969. an article by Mr. A. Williams, “South Africa is completely unprepared for the new age of mammoth ships beginning to concentrate on the Cape ports”. The Business Executive of the year before says “the Government is both parsimonious and myopic.” Mr. J. E. Aspin of Safmarine last year said that there was not even sufficient warehouse and packing space in the docks to enable them to use the most elementary unitized methods of loading. So I can go on and give more quotations of people who criticize the inadequacy of our harbour facilities. What is the Minister’s attitude? The Minister’s attitude three years ago was that it was quite impracticable to widen the Cape Town and Durban docks for the small number of giant tankers being developed in the world; that companies which intended to sell oil to South Africa would either have to restrict themselves to 65,000 tonners or would have to pay the capital costs of increasing our dry-docking and repair facilities themselves because South Africa, he said, only had a limited supply of capital. Sir, in over 13 years only R58.5 million has been spent by this Government on major improvement works in our harbours. Each year, however, there is a huge harbour surplus and it does not get ploughed back into the development of our harbours. One of the most crying needs in South Africa to-day is further development of our dry-docking and repair facilities. The dry-docks and repair facilities in the various ports of South Africa earn approximately R12 million per annum in foreign earnings. In Cape Town the dry-dock is completely inadequate. Rietvlei has been turned down as a possible location for a dry-dock. The South African Railways are apparently unable to give statistics of a big demand for further dry-docking facilities. But Sir, ship-owners do not go to the South African Railways for information as to where they can dock and what facilities are available; they go to the ship repairers and not to the Railways. My suggestion, as regards Cape Town, is that the Minister should at least allow a consortium of ship-owners and repairers to pay the capital costs themselves, as he said three years ago he would, and build and operate a huge dry-dock in the place that is the most suitable for it. In my submission that place is the existing dry-dock, which should be widened and could still be used even during the widening period. Alternatively—this suggestion has been made in other forums—the yachting basin should be used, the present repair wharf then could serve as a landing wharf for entry into the dry-dock and the pumping station from the existing dry-dock should also be utilized. Sir, if you are to do away with the yachting basin, obviously facilities for the yachting community will have to be found elsewhere in Cape Town.

What I cannot understand is that, in the Auditor-General’s report, reference is made to considerable losses on both dry-docks and on floating docks and slipways in the South African harbours. This apparently is an annual loss and I would be obliged to the hon. the Minister for an explanation as to how these losses arise. Is it perhaps because depreciation charges are included even for a dry-dock as old as the oldest one in South Africa—over 100 years old?

The Sturrock Dock is not over a 100 years old.

I said “the oldest in South Africa which is over 100 years old”. Sir interest charges seem to be incurred by some of the very old dry-docks in South Africa. I wonder how they can possibly be losing money having regard to further information given in the General Manager’s report that the dry-docks, slipways and repair facilities are almost in constant use in South Africa: For example, last year the two Durban docks, the Prince Edward Docks, 673 days and the Princess Elizabeth Dock 309 days: the East London Dock 259 days; in Cape Town, the Sturrock Dock 228 days, the Robinson Dock 341 days and the floating dock 203 days. Sir, there is considerable use of the facilities available and one wonders how it is that a loss can be shown in the workings of these harbour facilities. One wonders also, since ship-owners in Durban have pleaded to be allowed to erect a bigger and a better dry-dock, why they should be prohibited by the Minister from going ahead with it.

No.

Well, they have not been encouraged. As recently as the 15th May, for example, four big ship repairers in Durban appealed to the Minister to be allowed to provide their own dry-dock. In addition, Mr. Speed, the chief superintendent engineer of B.P., has said—

The Minister’s answer is apparently Richard’s Bay. Sir, Richard’s Bay is a development that we all welcome, but that will not be available until 1976-’77 and then it will be too late.

And too far away.

Too far away and too late. Already others are stepping into the field. We have the enormous docking facilities provided by Portugal at Lisnave. After only three years there are two shipyards; no vessel alongside a quay or in a dry-dock is more than 273 ft. from a machineship; only five hours elapses between the completion of work on one ship and the commencement of work on another.

South Africa is constantly urged in the Press to do more to provide the necessary facilities. No less a person than Sir Nicholas Cayzer last year appealed for large dry-dock facilities capable of handling super tankers, especially in Cape Town harbour. At the moment there are over 60 tankers of over 200,000 tons; there are a further 203 tankers of over 200,000 tons on order, and six over 320,000 tons are already in operation. In Australia you have King’s Bay to be built by 1972, capable of accommodating 150,000 tonners. Australia already has 12 dry-docks and floating docks. In Holland. ships up to 500,000 tons can be accommodated. Dares-Salaam and Mombasa have received World Bank Loans equivalent to R24.5 million, almost half of what South Africa has spent on its harbours in the last 13 years.

Then, Sir, I should like to deal with the question of the port control office here in Cape Town. The Railways have not built a new port control office. It is now on top of the grain elevator: it has an excellent view. But there are agents for something like 300 shipping companies in Cape Town, and these agents have no access to that office except by way of two telephones. In order to go to the office, they have to go through the grain elevator, and to go through the grain elevator they have to get an indemnity from the Paul Sauer Building in Adderley Street because access through the grain elevator is a fire hazard. Then there is the question of road transport in the docks. Cape Town harbour has no road over rail bridge. Durban has such a bridge; Port Elizabeth has such a bridge. As a result Cane Town is slow in the clearing of goods and there are constant traffic hold-ups.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very interesting debate, interesting in the sense that we had criticism from hon. members on the opposite side of this House, but not a single positive idea. I should like to deal with a few of the contributions made by that side. In the first place, I should like to refer to the hon. member for Yeoville, who speculated here between Japanese and Chinese and Afrikaners and English-speaking people. The hon. member spoke about iron ore, but I think if he were to return to the South African standards, he would once again become Marais Steyn. The speaker who followed him said that South Africa was too big for this Government. Sir, I think that this Government is able to control a much bigger country than that which we have at present. But speakers of the United Party continued in this vein and complained about clerks who were being paid overtime at four times their salary rate. Sir, this is not correct. Do they realize that these people, who work a full day, were prepared after a day’s work to help the Railways to keep going, particularly during the time when we had a major flu epidemic amongst the railway staff? We get no positive ideas from the Opposition; we merely get disparagement and criticism. With his gesticulations here this afternoon, the hon. member for Maitland tried to impress people. But the Railway officials are better trained and more developed than that hon. member thinks and consequently they will not be misled by words and gesticulations. The hon. member was absent from this House for a number of years; he has possibly lost contact with the railwayman. The hon. member for Durban (Point) asked when last one of us had talked to a railwayman.

Because it seems as though you do not know what they are thinking and saying.

Well, yesterday afternoon, just before the member spoke, I talked to one and he was not very fond of the Opposition.

There are always a few of them.

The U.P. is living in the past. I think he quoted from an article of 1910. If they want to live in the past, let them also find out what the state of affairs was on the S.A. Railways prior to 1948. How did things look at that time?

I suggest you should look to see how things were prior to the rinderpest.

Does that hon. member still know how South Africa looked prior to 1948 when the N.P. came into power? Would he know what the state of affairs on the S.A. Railways was? Does he still remember that there was not even money to pay the officials?

The hon. member is laughing about that now, but at that time the then U.P. Minister said that he would go to Britain to get the money there. The National Party Minister looked for and found the money here. The hon. member for Port Natal, too, delivered a fervent speech here yesterday. While he was speaking I wondered whether he was pleading for South Africa or for Britain. Indeed, one cannot but wonder whether one is, in fact, sitting in a South African Parliament when one has to listen to a speech like that.

We are aware of the problems facing the Railways—they are legion. We have a manpower shortage, and the Minister said so. At one time many people were absent from their jobs because of the flu epidemic. And yet this year the S.A. Railways could do more than in many other years. The U.P., however, expressed only criticism and not one word of thanks. I for one want to express my gratitude to all railway people. I notice that the hon. member who is well known for the gossip stories he writes is laughing at the moment. I want to tell him that the National Party does not lend itself to gossip stories.

I have a request I want to address to the Minister in connection with the Sick Fund. Although I know that the Minister does not have control over the Sick Fund, I nevertheless want to make an appeal to him to use his influence to prevail upon the Board to employ medical doctors for railway people on a fulltime basis. I should like the Minister to make representations to the Sick Fund Board to this effect, and I myself should like to make this appeal in this House. At present the railwayman may visit a doctor only at specific times. I am asking for the appointment of doctors in full-time service of the Sick Fund. I know this will create additional posts which will have to be filled, and I also know that a doctor can earn more from a private practice and that this will result in great expenditure, but I nevertheless submit this request to the Minister for his consideration. At first this may possibly be done only in the larger centres and subsequently, if it is possible in practice to do so, it may possibly be extended to the smaller centres.

Then I also have a request on behalf of the railway pensioners, people who have worked hard and have done their duty. My request is that it should be made possible for them to obtain free medical services, including dispensary services. We know that this will give rise to problems and that the U.P. will have criticisms to level against this, but I nevertheless submit this request for consideration. Let us help our railway officials just as they have helped to bring South Africa to the point where it is to-day.

I think the hon. member who has just spoken will understand if I say that I have never been more disappointed in a speech of one of the younger members in this House than in his. Listening to him, one can understand why the Nationalist Party is not attracting the “jeug” of South Africa—because the hon. member is still fixing his gaze on the years prior to 1948 instead of looking at the problems of to-day and the challenges of to-morrow. It is these problems and challenges that we are faced with and which we have been discussing now for some hours. I do hope that if this hon. member desires to contribute to this debate on any occasion in future, he will look at the problems which we have to face and which are crying out for solution rather than hark back to the past to something which is neither attractive nor desired by the people.

One question which has been frequently mentioned in this debate is the question of staff. I want to say with all respect to the Minister that I believe that some of the present discontent amongst the staff, if not all of it, is being visited upon him because of the attitude he adopted in this House in previous debates. In my first session in this House, which was not long ago, I raised with the hon. the Minister the question of dissatisfaction amongst certain employees in the harbour of Cape Town about their wages. Well, the Minister then told me that I should not waste his time by referring to things of that sort in the debate. He will also remember that we on this side of the House have for years expressed the view that the application of the means test to railway pensions was unfair and should be abolished. The hon. the Minister’s attitude was that it would be idle and wrong principled to do away with the means test, and that it would cost millions of rand. He had, however, to take that very step a year later. There are other complaints of this nature which are of the making of the hon. the Minister and the Deputy Minister and of nobody else. I want to refer to one in particular. We shall perhaps have occasion to deal more fully with this matter at a later stage. I should like the hon. the Minister to find out from his Department how many recommendations of the Select Committee on Pensions of this House have been referred to the Administration for disposal, and what percentage of those recommendations of the Select Committee have in fact been accepted by his Department. I think he will be shocked to find what number have not been accepted for fulfilment when referred to the Administration. These matters have been building up in the minds of the railway workers.

Added to that is the burden which they are carrying to-day in overtime, and the responsibility they are shouldering to keep the railways running. As has been so clearly stated in this House during this debate, this overtime is worked by the railwaymen in order to maintain a decent standard of living. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister knows to what extent the overtime which is being worked by these men, sometimes by compulsion, and under threats of a prosecution if they do not work overtime, contravenes the provisions in our industrial legislation which relate to hours of “spread over” in other less strenuous industries in South Africa. These things have continued, of necessity, because of the one matter which, at the end of this debate, has shown itself to be the matter needing the most urgent attention by the Minister. I am speaking of the necessity of solving the manpower shortage in the Railways. The danger signs for the year ahead are clear. What has been most obvious in this debate is that not one member on the other side of this House has attempted to indicate in what way that manpower shortage can be solved. They have asked us to solve their problems, but let us hear what they as a Government have in mind to solve the manpower shortage. The hon. the Deputy Minister stood up in dramatic fashion and said: “Do you know what the Government is doing? Do you know what I as the Deputy Minister of Transport am doing? I am introducing modern business methods in the Railways to save manpower.” Sir, is that something of which he should be proud? Should he be proud of solving a problem when he is adopting what should be adopted by any small shopkeeper in South Africa, namely the application of modern business methods and modern systems of accounting? That is all that has been brought forward as a suggestion. I must say to the hon. the Minister, who has listened so intently and so quietly to this debate that has taken place, that the ball is now in his court. The ball is squarely in front of him. It is a straight ball and it will have to be played with a straight bat if he wants to keep his wicket. I hope, as this House and the country hope, that we shall receive from the Minister a clear statement of what he intends doing and what the Government intends doing in this regard. The hon. the Minister is in this House to-day in a triple capacity. He is the hon. the Minister of Transport; he is the hon. the Leader of this House; and when he replies to this debate he will be replying as the hon. Acting Prime Minister of our country. When he replies, his reply will therefore have added importance. He will speak as the Acting Prime Minister of South Africa. He will speak as the largest single employer of labour in South Africa. He will speak as the largest employer of multi-racial labour in South Africa. He will speak as the one responsible for a Budget which equals half the national Budget. I mentioned those capacities in which the hon. the Minister will be replying because I want to remind him of some statements that he has made in the past to avoid facing up to the manpower problem in South Africa as a whole. Those were statements that will not satisfy the country in this debate on this particular Budget in view of the high office that he holds in this Parliament and in this country.

Changes have occurred on the Railways. I concede that the S.A. Railways Administration has had a difficult task in its attempt to keep pace with the economic development of our country. It will be a tragedy for South Africa if that economic development is to be slowed down to any degree by the inability of the Railways to provide the necessary infra-structure for the continued economic growth of South Africa. As recently as 1969 the hon. the Minister said in this House: “We convey everything which is offered.” The picture changes rapidly. It has changed rapidly when one takes into account the cancellations of trains and the difficulty that is now being experienced in trying to live up to that ideal of being able to convey everything which is offered. The hon. the Minister has offered two reasons for the present difficulties. The one was the drought and the other the influenza epidemic. But what the hon. the Minister has not told us is the fact that the true test of efficiency in any service is the ability of that service to stand up to, function and operate efficiently in an emergency. That is one of the tests of the efficiency of the S.A. Railways. When that test is applied at the present moment under this Administration there is cause for concern amongst South Africans.

The hon. member for Bethlehem suggested that we on this side of the House are not appreciative of the work which has been done by the artisans and the clerical staff in the S.A. Railways. That however is quite wrong. Speaker after speaker on this side have in this House and outside expressed our highest admiration for the amount of work that has been done by the staff. They have done it in difficult and exacting circumstances. While we express gratitude to members of the staff a good deal of sympathy and understanding should also be shown to the wives and families of railwaymen who see so little of them while they are busy performing extra hours of overtime in the service of South Africa. The success that has been achieved in the Railways in keeping the wheels rolling has been due to the loyalty of these railwaymen.

What has been done to meet the problem and the challenge which is before the hon. the Minister and the Administration in regard to the acquisition and use of an adequate labour force? I want to say directly to the hon. the Minister that we hope that he will regard this as the major point for reply and that he will take the House and the country into his and the Government’s confidence and that he will say what he is going to do, what his plans and those of the Government are to meet this problem which is South Africa’s number one problem at the present time. There are two patent, factual and indisputable situations which exist in South Africa at the present moment. The one is that in every industry, Government Department and State undertaking, report after report emphasizes the shortage of manpower. The second indisputable fact is that South Africa’s economy rests on the interdependence of the white and non-white populations of South Africa. The future economic advancement of South Africa is de pendent upon the permitted use on the part of the Government of the white and non-white manpower that is available.

The hon. member for Houghton entered into this debate this afternoon and left us in a state of not quite knowing what line she wished to take. She will forgive me if I say that there seemed to be considerable inconsistencies in what she said, because at one moment she was asking for the free entry of the Bantu people into the trade unions of South Africa, in other words to have full power of negotiation, and the next moment she was saying that the Minister should override the trade unions in their decisions as to who should be employed in a particular industry. She wants it both ways. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that as far as we are concerned, we on this side of the House are confident that the white artisan in South Africa is prepared to be reasonable and understanding and to accept a reasonable approach in regard to the use of non-white labour.

Only the artisan?

I mean the white worker generally. I am sorry if I used the word “artisan”, because I did not mean to restrict what I am saying to the artisan only. The white trade unionist is prepared with the position in which South Africa is at the moment, to accept a reasonable approach in regard to the use of non-white labour, which is essential to meet the manpower shortage in South Africa. The Minister must tell us what he is going to do.

I mentioned earlier that we had raised this matter with the Minister before. The Minister will recall that in 1968 a question arose about certain additional housing that the Minister was providing for Bantu workers in the Cape Town Docks. We asked what this expenditure was for and why there should be additional housing. It was then elicited from the Minister that he was employing a considerable number of additional Bantu in the Cape Town Docks, contrary to the Government’s stated policy. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of the remarks he made on that occasion. He said, first of all (Hansard, 12th February, 1968, Col. 364) —

That was a realistic approach. The Minister was then asked this question: “What about the Government’s policy in regard to the removal of the Bantu from the Western Cape?” The Minister’s escapologist answer, if I may put it that way, was: “I think that the hon. member should discuss that under the Vote of my colleague and not under mine.” To-day we are in a position where the hon. the Minister is the Acting Prime Minister of South Africa. When he tells us now what his attitude is in regard to the employment of non-Whites, he must not tell us that this matter must be discussed under the Vote of one of his colleagues because he will be able to tell us what the attitude of the Cabinet and the Government is in regard to the employment of non-Whites where they are available and should be employed and under what conditions they will be employed.

The hon. the Minister must do that in that manner. He must make a clear statement to the House and to the country. We must otherwise assume that he, too, is one of those tied and chained, as my hon. Leader said the other day, to the various ideological policies of the Minister of Bantu Administration or the Minister of Labour. We cannot have one Department of State following a policy which is practical and realistic whilst a citizen of South Africa, because he comes under the control of another Department of State, is frustrated and unable to carry out that same policy and adopt those same principles. I want to say to the hon. the Minister in all seriousness that, in his running of the railway services, he is probably the most realistic of the Ministers in the Cabinet at the present moment. I say with the greatest respect and the greatest emphasis to the hon. the Minister that the country is looking to him at this moment to give the lead of realism in the use of the available manpower in South Africa. He has been doing it through the side-door in the past. He has been doing it by employing people under camouflage. He takes them into the railway service because he is not subject to the legislation which other industrialists and entrepreneurs are subject to. That has to stop. This sort of control of the labour force in South Africa must come to an end. I want to repeat to the hon. the Minister that we will await from him a statement of realism and a realistic approach instead of the empty ideology which we get from some of his colleagues when we attempt to deal with matters of a similar nature.

Mr. Speaker, hon. members opposite have attempted to suggest during the course of the discussion that our interest in this Budget has been confined to the repetition of complaints on the part of employees in the Railways and Harbours Administration. We have a duty to perform and to bring to the attention of this House and the hon. the Minister those matters which are irking and frustrating the State employees in the various Departments of the Government. If there were any indication of the correctness of the attitude we have adopted in saying that these are serious complaints, it has been Droved without any doubt by the way in which the railwaymen have turned against this Government and are no longer able to give the Government the support they gave it in the past.

So, as we deal with this Second Reading, we feel, as the hon. member for Yeoville has moved, that we cannot support the Second Reading of this Bill. The facts and the attitudes that have been disclosed by the hon. the Minister in his Budget speech are not adequate. We on this side of the House have tried to exchange ideas with hon. members opposite on how this problem should be solved. However, we have not had any response from hon. members opposite in dealing with the problems that we posed. Therefore we cannot support the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help it, but when I listen to hon. members on that side of the House, my thoughts go back to the old days, to the time of the United Party Government, when we heard so much about luxury hotels and the fine portraits they were buying for those hotels. The hon. member for Green Point who has just sat down, made the allegation that the railway worker had to work overtime to be able to maintain a high standard of living. That hon. member knows however that that is not the reason why they work overtime. The salaries of many of those railway employees are almost as much as that of a Member of Parliament. They do not work overtime because they want to maintain a high standard of living. They are not compelled to do so.

The hon. member for Green Point said that we had asked them: What are we going to do now to overcome that labour shortage and what are we going to do to supplement it. Who attacked this side of the House on the labour shortage. We put that question to that side of the House, but they offered no solution. We have, in fact, a solution, which was stated quite clearly by this side of the House, namely that we have to modernize the Railways to an increasing extent. We are going to use improved, more modern and more scientific methods. Something I can tell that hon. member, however, is that we are not going to hand over to the Bantu those key positions, i.e. those of firemen and drivers, as they want us to do. That is something which hon. members opposite keep harping on. What they do not do is to come to this House and say honestly that they, as the United Party, want us to employ non-Whites in key positions on the Railways. That is the basis of all their agitation as regards the shortage of labour. This concerns not only the Railways, but all the branches of the Public Service and other industries, and so forth. That Party is forcing the Government into this so that even industry must go black. That is what hon. members on that side of the House want. Those hon. members want all the companies and industries to show large dividends and profits at the end of the year. Those hon. members want us to use cheap labour. That is what lies behind all this.

The hon. member for Maitland got up in this House and said with much gesticulation that they were going to negotiate with the staff associations and make them see the light of day. What light of day? He does not want them to see the light of day; he wants to lead them into the darkness, by making the Railways go black. That is what lies behind all this. Why do those hon. members not come forward now and tell us how they are going to cope with the labour problem in South Africa? Those hon. members are using covert tactics and want us to throw open the factories and the Railways and everything in South Africa to the non-Whites. In that way they want to be able to show large dividends at the end of the year.

The question is on what basis should we approach this Budget. The answer is that we should approach the Budget on the basis envisaged by the South Africa Act, and that is that the Railways do not exist for the purpose of paying dividends and showing profits in terms of what we used to call pounds, shillings and pence in the old days. The Railways exist to render a service according to the spirit of the South Africa Act. Surely that is what we are getting at the moment. The hon. member for Green Point now comes along and says that the Railways should be organized in such a way so as to be able to respond and function at any time during a crisis. Has there ever been a more serious crisis than the one we have just experienced as a result of the terrible drought? Just consider the tremendous demands made on the Railways, while 30,000 railway employees were laid low with influenza. Is that not a crisis? Did the Railways not fulfil its task? Those hon. members do not appreciate what the Railways are doing to-day. By working overtime to-day the railway employee proves his love for his work, while he appreciates the seriousness of his task and at the same time helps the Government to overcome this crisis.

Hon. members opposite also mentioned the disciplinary measures applied by the Railways or the way the Railways are functioning at present. However, what were conditions like on the Railways when we inherited the Railways from them? When we inherited the Railways from them, we inherited an outmoded railway system. The locomotives were old and obsolete; the trucks were in a poor condition and obsolete and the equipment was insufficient; as a matter of fact, what we inherited from them was an old, dirty stable that we had to clean out. Those hon. members are talking about a discontented railway staff, but we inherited a discontented staff from them when the National Party took over in 1948. At the time we had to appoint a grievances commission. The United Party did not promote officials on merit in those days. No, there was widespread discrimination on the Railways. The things the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) mentioned were taking place under their régime, and that is that they did not like the names and surnames of some of the people.

Hear, hear!

What do we find to-day? We find that the railway employee is happy because he is promoted on merit.

Where?

That hon. member would do better to keep quiet. I represent a railway constituency and my majority has increased. The railway employee is promoted on merit; he is no longer being discriminated against. Certain railway employees were subjected to undermining and discrimination in the past. To-day our railway employees are happy and a spirit of goodwill prevails among them. That is why these good results are being obtained. Hon. members opposite are making a big fuss of the R60 million increase which was announced by the hon. the Minister prior to the Langlaagte by-election. What would have happened if he had announced this increase immediately before the provincial election? It is possible that another by-election may be held after the provincial elections so that the hon. the Minister would not have been able to announce the increase then either. What did the hon. member for Durban (Point) say in this House a year or so ago? He said that this hon. Minister was in the habit of announcing salary increases for the Railways on the eve of a general election, i.e. every five years. I therefore want to thank the hon. the Minister and the Government for not having announced the increase of R60 million on the eve of the general election. If they had done that, this hon. member could have said that we were buying votes. It says much for the reputation of this Government that he waited until after the general election before announcing the increase.

The hon. member for Port Natal last night referred to the number of railway accidents. This is not a matter to be scoffed at. A year or so ago the hon. member also referred to the number of road accidents and he wanted to blame this side of the House for them. These accidents are a very serious matter and it is not something in regard to which hon. members should reproach one another. We should rather try to come forward with a solution and with something constructive in order to prevent these accidents. I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister in all deference that an annual bonus should be given to drivers and firemen in cases where they have avoided accidents by remaining alert.

Possibly, and even though it might cost a lot of money, they could also be given an annual bonus which would be paid to them when they retire from the Service. This will cost the Administration a lot of money, but then it may save a lot of money, too. In this way goodwill would be created among these people. There are many reasons why accidents occur. Accidents are often attributable to the human factor, but at the same time it is often attributable to defective parts. By introducing such a bonus system we would encourage these people to be more alert so that fewer accidents will take place. I also want to thank the hon. the Minister …

Here it comes!

Hon. members opposite may laugh, but I know what I am talking about. I want to thank the hon. the Minister for having made R9 million available for housing. Housing is a very real problem in South Africa to-day. Everyone wants to provide a home for his family. When we speak of housing, hon. members opposite should not laugh. We are still busy clearing their slum areas. The Government has been doing this for the past 22 years and it will take another seven years before all the slum areas in South Africa are cleared.

Debate adjourned.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, in the course of the Second Reading debate and the Committee Stage, we on this side gave the House more than adequate reasons to why we do not approve of this Bill. As no amendments have been offered from the Government side, it stands to reason that we cannot support it at this final stage before the House. All the reasons we have given concern the form and the contents of the identity document, and are all of a practical nature. I do not think it is necessary for me to repeat all our objections. Certainly I am not going to do so, except to say very briefly that it saddens one a little to see that the people of South-West Africa too, have now to be brought into a system under which, as a prominent Afrikaans poet has put it, “jou naam verander in ’n nommer”. But we are prepared to concede that, as matters are today, some form of formal identification has perhaps become necessary. My own feeling is that it will soon become the practice in South-West Africa and also in South Africa, as it has already become common practice in the United States, that private enterprise will issue their credit cards, courtesy cards and membership cards in a standardized form, and that these will be carried in a purse or in a light folder. Personally I believe that once this has become the practice in South-West Africa and South Africa, people will then require from the Government also an official identity card, but one in the same convenient size as the standardized card and one which can as easily be carried and presented when necessary.

The identity document which this Bill envisages, contains information which we believe is unnecessary for a document of this nature and could lead to all kinds of embarrassing situations for people. We also believe that the document is too bulky, where most people already have to carry a purse and a diary. When one travels, one also has to carry one’s passport. The “book of life” will indeed be a very heavy burden as an extra one to carry. Then we believe that to keep this book up to date, will severely overtax the Administration, and that for these reasons its introduction is unwise and unnecessary, and therefore we cannot support this Bill.

However, Sir, seeing that the objections have been fully stated, I want to comment very briefly on a more commendable result of this Bill. We have here a Bill which deals with people. It deals with the registration of all the different sorts of people which constitute society in South-West Africa and South Africa.

It is quite a long Bill, comprising 14 elaborate clauses, and in the whole Bill—and I say this with satisfaction—there is not a single reference to race or colour. If one compares this with the Population Registration Act as it exists in the Republic, this is quite a significant development, more so when one realizes that there are actually more racial divisions in South-West Africa than there are in the Republic. I say it is a most significant development that under circumstances such as these the Minister can come with a system of registration in South-West Africa which does not require the rigid demands of classification that we have here. The Minister knows that we on this side are a little allergic to speeches which thank the Minister, and I am sure he will appreciate the reason why, but I should like to say to this Minister and to the Minister who was his predecessor, and who probably supervised most of the work in connection with this Bill, that in so far as we have here in this Bill a shift away from harsh emphasis on race and from division enshrined in law, this is far closer to the approach that we favour on this side of the House in the handling of affairs so delicate as those dealing with groups and colour; and we are watching this development with the closest interest.

In the course of the Committee Stage I asked the Minister whether he was satisfied that this was a workable Bill and that he would be able to register the people of South-West Africa and group them individually without the help of a rigid system of classification, and if I understood the Minister correctly he answered in the affirmative and said that it was a workable Bill. I was highly satisfied with the reply of the Minister and we are prepared to leave it at that, because we know that all Bills dealing with South-West Africa are very carefully scrutinized abroad, and as the hon. the Minister has only recently taken over the portfolio of the Interior, we are prepared to allow him the necessary time to acquaint himself with the workings of a Bill of this nature before he gives us more precise information.

In conclusion I wish to add that because of the significant difference between this Bill and the Act operating in the Republic, we shall be taking a very special interest in the manner in which it is applied in South-West Africa, and I hope that in time the hon. the Minister will supply us with all the information we may need to plead for a relevant change in the Republic.

Last week, during the Second Reading, as well as during the Committee Stage, I listened very attentively to the arguments put forward by the Opposition in connection with this Bill. The first impression I gained, was that they were completely out of touch with the consensus of opinion in South-West Africa. That was the first impression I gained. I also listened to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout during the Second Reading, when he said that South-West Africa used to be a pleasant country to live in, and then I could not help wondering why he left it. If it was so pleasant to live there, why did he leave that country? Furthermore, having listened to their arguments on this Bill and on others, one does not find it strange that they no longer have any representation there. It is because they are completely out of touch with the views of the general public of South-West Africa. I came from Windhoek to-day and the people there are very glad that this Bill is coming into operation. Responsible people told me yesterday and even this morning that they are very glad that this legislation has already advanced to the stage where all that remains is for it to pass the Third Reading. It is because this legislation means a great deal to us in that part of the world. As inhabitants of that country who keep in touch with public opinion there, we know what the needs there are and that we must be brought into line with the rest of the civilized world. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said a few moments ago that we would also have to change our names to numbers, and that he would prefer us to have the old system of the Republic instead.

Where did he say that?

But is that not the system which these people opposed so strenuously? They are always accepting an Act which we applied in practice 15 to 20 years ago. Only then do they accept it. They will accept this Bill too once it has been in practice for some years. Every piece of legislation introduced in South-West Africa for the development of South-West and its inhabitants was opposed by these people. I want to ask the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who ought to know, whether he really wants to see South-West Africa in the stage in which it was in 1950 when he became acquainted with it. Is he really serious in wanting to tell this House that he wants the country back in that stage in which it was? No one will believe him, and he himself knows that this is not so. When the hon. member was still a Member of Parliament for South-West Africa, he was one of the people who boasted that the National Party had put South-West Africa on the map. [Interjections.] That is why I say they are opposing this Bill, which we need very badly in South-West Africa because it is to the benefit of South-West Africa and its inhabitants. We are very grateful for it, but these people do not know what they are talking about.

Which people?

The people sitting on the opposite side. They do not know what they are talking about. We have suffered a great deal of inconvenience, because if you come from South-West Africa you cannot identify yourself. That is why we are glad that we too shall now reach the stage where we, as inhabitants of South-West Africa, will be able to identify ourselves. I have no doubt that responsible inhabitants of South-West Africa are very grateful to the Government for this Bill, and on behalf of the constituency of Mariental and an inhabitant of South-West Africa, I therefore wish to support this Bill wholeheartedly.

In the Committee Stage I raised the question with the hon. the Minister which I would still like him to deal with during the Third Reading of this Bill, namely where the power is contained in this Bill to prescribe the particulars which are to be included in the identity number. I think the hon. the Minister will recall that I made the point that the identity number is to be encoded to contain specified particulars. The power to specify those particulars must be somewhere in this Bill, but I have not found it. I mentioned it to the Minister and I hope he can give me this information. To indicate what I mean I want to draw the Minister’s attention to what I feel is still a defect in this Bill. The clause dealing with the identity document as such, and what should be contained in that document, says “as specified”, but there is no specific power under the regulation clause to so specify. This is a matter in regard to which the Minister may find himself in some difficulty.

We have now come to the Third Reading. As the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has pointed out, we have suggested certain omissions from this Bill, and I now want to ask the Minister to tell us whether he really believes that it is practicable to carry out this Bill in the form in which it is now. I am quite in agreement with the hon. member for Mariental—we have not been at cross-purposes—that there is a need for an identity document or card, but what is now prescribed under this Bill is a document which will contain a large number of details. The population of South-West Africa is approximately ½ million, and of the ½ million people 300,000 are Ovambos. These identity documents can only be drawn up and issued from information which is to be contained in the register in Pretoria and maintained in the Republic. Sir, we are legislating that the particular personal details of the 300,000 Ovambo’s, the Herero’s …

And the Bushmen …

… and the rest of the people in South-West Africa, including the comparatively small number of Whites in that Territory, are to be taken up in this register. I want to ask the Minister whether he is really asking this House to pass a Bill which he intends to apply forthwith. Does he really intend to open up a personal file in Pretoria for every Ovambo in South-West Africa? Because, Sir, there is no homeland registry for them; there is no homeland citizenship for them, such as applies to the homelands within the Republic. If this Bill is going to mean anything, all population groups in South-West Africa will have to be taken up in the register in Pretoria. I think we will all agree in this House, also perhaps the hon. member for Mariental, that that is a quite impossible task. It is an unrealistic task. It is a task which we believe is unnecessary, and for that reason, as indicated by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, we will persist in opposing this Bill at the Third Reading.

Sir, with reference to the speech made by the hon. member for Mariental, I just want to say that we on the Government side appreciate his views as a representative of South-West Africa. This measure is being placed on the Statute Book for the very purpose of serving the people of South-West Africa; the Administration asked for it, and therefore I find it gratifying that he as a representative of South-West Africa to-day regarded this measure as being of such great value to his territory. I have no doubt that it will satisfy his exacting requirements.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout foresaw, inter alia, that the private sector will use the official identity numbers or data, as has happened in America and elsewhere. In South Africa it is also expected that banks, building societies and other bodies will use the identity number to an ever increasing extent.

The hon. member objected to the format of the identity document. This is an objection which I cannot share. I have in my hand a copy of the document, illustrating its proposed size. I consider this a very handy format; it is printed on good quality paper. It is possible that the colour may eventually differ somewhat from this, because this colour is not regarded as very serviceable. As far as the format is concerned, however, I really want to express the conviction that it is a very serviceable one.

The hon. member said that he did not want to succumb to the temptation which hon. members on our side succumbed to, i.e. of thanking the Minister. No, the hon. member need not thank me, but I want to take this opportunity to-day to extend my thanks to those to whom it is more than due, i.e. the officials who have been giving their attention to this matter for years. Under various Ministers they continued to investigate this matter in Western Europe and elsewhere. They devoted their energies to this task in order to devise a system for us which we believe will be able to withstand the test of time. In this connection I once again want to mention the name of Mr. Fourie, our present Deputy Secretary, who headed the investigation team and who will be in charge of the application of this population registration system. I want to express my appreciation and that of the Government to him personally for the thorough work which has been done. Sir, this also serves as a reply to the fears expressed here and in the Other Place. In the Other Place, where I had to pilot through the measure, I voiced my objection this afternoon to the fact that there was such a large measure of negative feeling in regard to this matter. I praised the hon. members of the United Party in this House for at least not being as negative as their associates in the Other Place. Hon members of the United Party here are in this respect at least constructive in their view of this matter, and since they displayed a more constructive approach, I want to give them the assurance to-day that this matter will succeed; that it cannot be wished dead as it was wished dead yesterday and to-day in the Other Place by the colleagues of hon. members on the opposite side. One of the reasons why it will succeed is not only that it has a sound scientific basis, but also that it has behind it a devoted team of officials who will see to it that this scheme works. It is not I as Minister who will have to make this population registration system work; I am not in a position to do so, but the officials who believe in this system, who realize that it is essential and desirable for South Africa, regard it as a vocation and as a challenge and they will see to it that this scheme works successfully, and in contrast to the words of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, I therefore want to say: Thanks to the officials we have at our disposal.

Sir, to the hon. member for Green Point, who expressed his concern at not being able to find where the Act prescribes the way in which the identity number is to be compiled, I want to say that clause 3 (2) provides—

I cannot put it clearer than that. This is the generally accepted legal terminology and I have no fault to find; they know their job. The hon. member for Green Point need not be concerned that we are going to open a file for every Ovambo. It is stated very clearly here that the native peoples may be excluded, and it is in fact the intention that they will be excluded from this scheme. Only those who have to possess fire-arm licences and driver’s licences will be included in this, but the rest will be excluded, and in the course of time those homeland authorities will devise for themselves a registration system which will probably follow this pattern, but at this stage they will be excluded.

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by saying that with this measure we are also rendering a great service to South-West Africa to-day.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, during the Second Reading debate on this Bill I gave the reasons why the United Party was supporting this measure. I said firstly that the Bantu Affairs Commission had now become merely a rubber stamp and that we therefore did not object to the Government diminishing its powers or appointing experts to help it to do its duty. Then I said that we were supporting the Bill mainly because, by the abolition of selected members representing the chiefs and the Bantu authorities, the Government was in fact, accepting United Party policy with regard to the management of affairs in the Bantu townships. I am not going to rub it in again at this stage by quoting from the speech of the present Minister of Bantu Administration, which was made at the time of the passing of the original Act. You will remember, Sir, that at the time you asked me whether it was necessary to go into the details of what happened then. At the time I said that I thought it was necessary, in order to motivate my case, and also to remind Government members of what they were in fact doing, namely running away from their own policy. You will remember too, Sir, that in the speech quoted by me the Minister had said that selected members representing the chiefs were fundamental to the Government’s policy in keeping contact with the homelands.

There are, however, two other clauses in this Bill. Clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill amend the provisions relating to the appointment of representatives of the Bantu authorities in the urban areas. I was amazed to read the following report of the debate in the latest issue of Dagbreek:

They were “dronkgeslaan”, Sir. The report goes on to say:

Order!

Sir, my reason for referring to this is to point out what this Bill actually deals with. From this report it is obvious that there is a wrong conception of what this Bill is about.

The hon. member may not read from a newspaper.

But surely, Sir …

The hon. member may proceed.

The point is simply that if there were twelve Nationalist members who were ready to tackle the United Party because they expected us to oppose the Bill, I want to know what has happened to them. Has the Nationalist Party lost all heart for fight? Are they completely despondent now? Those twelve members sat there, unable to take part in the debate.

I should like to point out what this Bill does, Sir. This Bill abolishes the selected members, and the newspaper points that out. It then goes on to make provision for representation of the Bantu authorities in the urban areas through boards and representatives. Sir, the Act which we are amending made provision for that. This is not a new principle. In supporting this Bill, I said that this form of representation in the urban area did not fit into our pattern. It is not a part of our philosophy. When the original Bill was introduced, we opposed that provision. However, I went on to say that if the Government found that this amendment was necessary for the better administration in the reserves, we were prepared to let it go. The Minister will remember that.

Are you rebuking me or Dagbreek now?

Sir, what I am trying to say is that the newspaper says that Nationalist members of Parliament gave them that information. Twelve of them were sitting ready to take part in the debate.

Where does it say that?

It says so in the report. I read that report to hon. members.

Order! The hon. member is now referring to a report in a newspaper and he knows that that is not permitted.

Mr. Speaker, I am pointing out that the newspaper report is important in that it says that Nationalist members of Parliament told them what they were going to do. What I am getting at is that these Nationalist members of Parliament do not know what is in the Bill. Mr. Speaker, that is all I am trying to say. I am trying to make the point that these Nationalist members of Parliament led an unsuspecting young reporter up the garden path. They themselves did not know what was in the Bill.

Order! The hon. member must now leave the newspaper report and come back to the discussion on the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, you will remember that during the Second Reading debate I said that I thought it was necessary for me to read to the Minister of Bantu Administration the speech he had made at the time because I felt that Nationalist members of Parliament did not know what was happening. If they sat here and were taken unawares and were “dronk geslaan”, I think they were “dronk geslaan” after hearing what the Minister had said. They were “dronk geslaan” at the “bolmakiesie” that was taking place as the Government is taking over our policy completely. For that reason I want the fact to be clear to Dagbreek and everybody else as to why we are supporting this Bill.

Mr. Speaker …

I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister is not going to defend the newspaper report now.

Mr. Speaker, you will at least allow me to say that I think that we have just had a fine example of an hon. member who found himself in a most difficult position and got caught in a trap and who has just tried to extricate himself by making cheap political propaganda. I want to tell the hon. member that we on this side of the House regard it as a great compliment the hon. member paid us by saying that 12 speakers on our side were ready to give them hell (op te foeter) if they had done their homework. We would have given them a hard time …

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must withdraw the words “give them hell” (op te foeter).

I shall withdraw those words and change them to “give them a hiding (op te dons). We regard it as a great compliment, however. I want to say immediately that we did not only have 12 speakers ready for that purpose on this side of the House. We had all our speakers on this side of the House ready for it. What the hon. member proved to everybody with the speech he made here, was that he knew too little about this Bill to be able to discuss it. That is why he also dragged a little politics into it. Mr. Speaker, and you know that I am continually on my guard against making politics out of something unnecessarily. That side of the House was forced, by difficulties they experienced, to support our policy, which we have been implementing so conscientiously over the years with so much trouble and sacrifice. Now that side of the House finds itself in a difficult position and the newspapers and all of us see this, and now they are trying to get out of it in this way. Mr. Speaker, you will allow me to say that I cannot be held responsible for what is published by Dagbreek or any other newspaper nor do I think that any of our members on this side of the House can be held responsible for what they publish. The hon. member is therefore rebuking the wrong people. It is therefore quite clear that the United Party was in real trouble, and we have enjoyed it.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, I would be grateful if the hon. the Minister could explain to us what is the purpose of this transfer of power from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Bantu Administration and Development. The hon. the Minister will realize that according to the laws as they exist in this country, inter-racial marriages can take place between Bantu and non-Bantu persons. When I refer to Bantu, I refer to Bantu in accordance with the definition of a Bantu under the race classification law. If the control of this legislation is to be in the hands of the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development only, such appointments as he makes and other steps which he takes will have reference to Bantu only. In fact, the hon. the Minister has not explained what will be the position or the effect in so far as it concerns a marriage, for instance, between a Bantu person and a Coloured person. Under whose authority, under whose jurisdiction and under which Ministry will such a marriage fall?

Secondly, I want to refer to this attempt to build up a state within a state, in so far as it refers to Bantu who are outside the Bantu homelands. One can understand that as far as it concerns the Bantu in the Transkei, the powers may well be vested in the Parliament of the Transkei. That may well be the case, but it is not under discussion at the present moment. Therefore, I would be glad if the Minister could explain to us why this transfer of the powers to the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is necessary.

Mr. Chairman, the fact of the matter is that the Department of Bantu Administration and Development is already doing this work for the Department of the Interior in terms of the power of delegation. The Department of the Interior is legally responsible for this matter, but in practice it has been delegated to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development by our Department. All that is being done now, is to give statutory force to it, and the power is now being transferred to them statutorily so that they may continue doing this work, which they have until now been doing in terms of delegated authority. The other aspect in connection with possible mixed marriages, for example between a Bantu and a Coloured person, is not relevant here, and therefore I am not prepared to reply to it.

Mr. Chairman, how can the hon. the Minister say that this is not “ter sprake”? Surely, the law as it stands at the moment makes provision for the appointment of marriage officers. No distinction is being made between a marriage officer for Bantu, a marriage officer for Coloureds, a marriage officer for Indians, and a marriage officer for Whites. It just refers to “a marriage officer”. He then determines whether he may marry two persons or not. He has the power to marry them, because he is a marriage officer. He has to determine and exercise his judgment as to what the law is. The law is. as the hon. member for Green Point has said, that you may. if your are a Bantu, in terms of the laws of the Republic marry a Coloured person. You may marry any other non-White, or a person of any other race. However, a White person may not marry a non-White person. In so far as Bantu are concerned, the marriage officers are to be appointed by the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, presumably for marriages in which a Bantu is involved. If a Bantu is going to marry someone of another race, not a White person, I would like to know where he will have to go to. If he is a Coloured person must he go to a Bantu Commissioner or to such a person as the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development appoints? I think this matter is “ter sprake” here.

Very much so.

Yes, very much so. Why is this being done? Is it only going to be in respect of marriages between Bantu and Bantu and if not, who is going to be the marriage officer in respect of the other cases? The hon. the Minister said that this was just a matter of delegation, but this is not so. Why cannot the hon. the Minister of the Interior appoint, as he has in the past, marriage officers? Ex officio marriage officers do not only include magistrates, but also Bantu Commissioners. They are now in the position that they can marry people wherever they may be, whether they be in a Bantu Commissioner’s area or in a magisterial district. The question is therefore relevant and the hon. the Minister has not explained why he wants to delegate to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development the power to appoint marriage officers in terms of the Act. The hon. the Minister says it is a matter of policy that Ministers who handle the different race groups receive this power. But it does not appear in this Bill that the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs is going to appoint marriage officers in respect of the Coloured people. It does not provide that the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs is going to have this power. This is what we want to know: Why is it only in respect of the Bantu? What happens if a Bantu wants to marry another non-White person of another non-White race?

Mr. Chairman, as my friend the hon. member for Durban (North) has said, we are concerned to have certainty in regard to this particular matter, not only for the purposes of ourselves here in Parliament, but also for the purposes of those people who may wish to get married. In this matter the hon. the Minister is dealing with a group of people who are among the less privileged and they cannot be expected to understand the niceties of a law that he brings forward in this form. In the case of the folk in South-West Africa who are brought under the administration of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development for the purposes of marriage laws, there are the Native peoples of South-West Africa. The question the hon. member for Durban (North) asked is very pertinent, namely what happens in the case of a mixed marriage? What happens in South-West Africa and what happens here? Where is the certainty when people who are Bantu in South Africa or Natives in South-West Africa, wish to marry across the colour bar as far as their race or nation is concerned or between one tribe and another, whatever phrase the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development wants to use, when the hon. the Minister divests himself of that power and gives it to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development? What is supposed to be the merit of guiding principle behind the hon. the Minister’s claim that this power should be delegated to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development? There must be some good reason for it. Surely it cannot be just a whim on the part of somebody. It might be a whim of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development that he wants to bring everyone with a dark skin in South Africa, whether it be a Native in South-West Africa or a Bantu in South Africa, under his jurisdiction, but that is not a good reason to ask for a change in law in regard to the appointment of marriage officers.

Here we have a situation at the present time which is well understood by the marriage officers and by the people in respeact of whom they carry out their functions as marriage officers. Why disturb that in regard to a group of over 13 million here in the Republic and Heaven only knows how many in South-West Africa? Why disturb that which is now giving us good service and where there have been no complaints of any kind as far as I know? Will the hon. the Minister tell us if there have been complaints in respect of his exercise of power in the past? Will he say that for some reason or other, he has failed to appoint the necessary marriage officers and that difficulties have arisen? We must bear in mind that the marriage referred to here is either a religious or civil marriage of the kind usually entered into by civilized people. This does not refer to the tribal unions or the unions in terms of tribal laws and customs. These are marriages solemnized as they are for Coloured folk and for white people and generally in terms of Christian rites, either as a civil or a religious marriage. Why disturb it? There must be some compelling reason which I hope the hon. the Minister will give us. I hope that he will not simply repeat that it is “nie ter sake nie”. Of course it is. It is the gravamen of the whole reason why he has inserted this clause into the Bill. It is because he is divesting himself of a power which, as I have said, I hope he is going to tell us he has failed to exercise adequately. I hope he is going to tell us whether he has fallen down on this job, whether there have been complaints, whether the matter has not worked out smoothly and that, for whatever the reason may be, he has been foolish enough to believe that the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development can do the job better than he can.

They say confession is good for the soul; let us now have a straightforward confession from the Minister and let him tell us frankly and fairly exactly why the 13 million Bantu in South Africa and all the Native people in South-West Africa have to be pushed around in this matter in regard to marriages which marriage officers may hereafter be called upon to solemnize.

Mr. Chairman, there is no disturbance here such as that to which the hon. member referred. What is being done here, is to incorporate in the Act a practice which has been in existence in terms of delegation for years. That is all that is being done. There is no disturbance such as that to which the hon. member referred. These 13 million people are not being pushed around at all. That is a complete misrepresentation and it surprises me that the hon. member, as an authority on Bantu affairs, regards it in this light. This is a practice which has existed for years. The powers of the Department of the Interior in respect of Bantu were delegated to the Department of Bantu Administration. They have been appointing the marriage officers, and have been doing so for years and will continue to do so. All that is being done now, is that it is being laid down in the Act that it is being transferred to the Department of Bantu Administration. It will no longer be delegated.

Under which clause did you previously delegate it to them?

In terms of the powers we have under the Marriage Act.

Yes, but under what clause? Where did you get the power to delegate?

It has been done in terms of an administrative arrangement. Moreover, in practice it has been done this way for years. The hon. member ought to be glad that we are defining and laying it down in the Act. If the hon. member takes this matter so much to heart, i.e. that we should not disturb the position, that we should not push around the people, then he should, after all, be grateful that we are now laying down in the Act a practice which has been followed for years, so that everybody will have clarity as to what exactly it will mean to him.

Where is your authority to delegate specified?

Business interrupted to report progress.