Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned yesterday evening, I was replying to one aspect or one leg of the amendment moved by the Opposition, i.e. that the Budget shows no adequate planning for the future.

This leg of the amendment moved by the Opposition is just as shaky as the other three legs. The legs of this amendment remind me of the legs of a dead horse which has come up for another flogging. All four of these legs are equally shaky. The hon. the Opposition is now trying to bring that skeleton to life. Just as little as they are succeeding in that, just as weak are their arguments in respect of this amendment of theirs. I pointed out yesterday that this accusation by the hon. the Opposition was misplaced and unreasonable. I also said that it was absolutely false. Any person who makes an objective study of the Railways and its activities will agree with this.

In passing, I should just like to return to an accusation which the hon. member for Durban Point made yesterday in connection with the trucks which are not being delivered on time. He held the hon. the Minister and the Management of the Railways responsible for that. In pursuance of what I said yesterday in connection with this matter, I just want to refer to a report which appeared in yesterday’s Argus on page 17 under the heading “Labour and steel lack put Dorman Long off target”. The first paragraph of that report reads as follows—

Mr. Speaker, I quote this because, as far as I know, Dorman Long is one of the biggest suppliers of trucks, and particularly of the CR type of ore trucks. Now the Management of the Railways and the hon. the Minister are being accused of lack of planning when these contractors cannot carry out their contracts in time as a result of the circumstances clearly indicated in this report.

Purposeful and scientific planning is in fact the watch-word and the basis of the development of the South African Railways. As a matter of fact, this is also the basis of the success of the South African Railways, despite all the negative criticism we are getting from the Opposition. Everyone, including the Opposition, is aware of the fact that the activities of the Railways are intensely dependent upon and linked to the economic fluctuations of the country. We know that the Railways is a sensitive barometer of what is happening on the entire economic front. The activities of the Railways are, moreover, of such a diverse nature that changes continually have to be effected as circumstances demand. Although it is consequently extremely difficult to plan a specific programme for the coming 20 or 30 years in advance, positive planning is always being done in respect of the various facets of the South African Railways. It is an established policy of the hon. the Minister and of the Management to place only the most modern and most efficient equipment available in service on the South African Railways, and hence in the service of the entire nation. This results in a continuous and intensive study having to be made, and a policy of expansion and planning being followed. The hon. the Opposition ought to know just as well as this side of the House that missions are continually being sent abroad to investigate and to study new developments in connection with railway activities. These new developments are then applied in the activities of the South African Railways. We know that such missions have been carried out with great success and that the findings and recommendations of these missions have been incorporated in the South African Railways.

I do not want to bother the House with a long list of proofs of systematic and efficient, positive planning. There are so many facets of this industry in which planning of this nature is realized. On every page of the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech these aspects are reflected. I should like to refer briefly to the advance planning in the sphere of the South African Airways. This is being done in an efficient way in order to meet the ever-increasing demand for air transport. I am referring to the expansion of the inland fleet of aircraft. We learned yesterday of another aircraft which has been added. I should like to refer to the introduction at the end of the year of three Boeing 747 jets which have been purchased in order to provide efficient transport to overseas countries.

For an organization which is continually on the move, it is highly essential that the flow of traffic should be planned thoroughly. An efficient flow of traffic can only be brought about by the people as such. In order to offset the labour shortage, and we are not the only ones to experience a labour shortage, but it is a universal phenomenon, the South African Railways has in various spheres made use of the fruits of technological progress. Thus a centralized traffic control system was introduced during the past few years. This is a system which is being applied with great success, and which ensures greater safety and more thorough supervision of the coordination of train operations.

Two-way radios have been introduced in order to streamline the service and to promote smooth functioning and safety. This two-way radio system eliminates a great deal of walking on the part of shunters. The hon. member for Durban Point also mentioned this yesterday, but he. accused the Minister of having introduced it too late. The work is expedited by means of this electronic apparatus, and in this way the work can be done by far fewer staff. We know that there is in fact a shortage of shunters. This system will soon be extended to such an extent that approximately 1 000 of these sets will be in use at shunting yards in the Republic. I want to refer briefly to the use of labour-saving electronic computers. These have already been taken into service, but were initially used for accounting work only. At present, however, they are being used in many other spheres.

I want to emphasize that modern technical aids are used with ingenuity and skill by the South African Railways. This is being done not only to maintain production at the existing level, but also to increase productivity in good time as increasing demands are made on it. The hon. the Minister stated this very well and very clearly in his Budget speech, and I quote—

I can elaborate further and refer to the planning in regard to containerization and the establishment of depots for container traffic in Cape Town, Durban and at Kazerne in Johannesburg. I can also elaborate further on the electrification of railway lines, the extension of existing harbours, and the new harbour which is to be built at Richard’s Bay. However, I want to conclude by saying that this side of the House as well as the people outside would like to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his Management on their very purposeful planning, through which the South African Railways is being turned into one of the most successful undertakings of its kind in the whole of the world.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Koedoespoort who has just sat down quite rightly said that the South African Railways is the barometer of the economic position in South Africa. This is perfectly true, but I would like to remind that hon. member that the glass of this particular barometer is falling rapidly. He also said that the Railways goes in for a great deal of planning, sends deputations overseas and studies the latest methods of railway systems in other countries. This is perfectly true and I have no criticism of the individual planners of the Railways. I believe that they are handicapped not so much by their planning but by the fact that their planning has to fall in with Government philosophy. This is what destroys even the best plans of the best planners in the South African Railways. The hon. member for Koedoespoort also mentioned the labour shortage and said that this is a world-wide phenomenon.

Of course.

This is not so. It is certainly not a world-wide phenomenon. In South Africa we have all the labour we need. We have, in fact, more labour than we need. What our problem is, is that we do not know how to use and how to make the best use of the labour on our doorstep. When the hon. member talks about a shortage of labour he ignores the fact that not 1 000 miles from here near the borders of the Bantustans they are in the process of forming, there are literally thousands upon thousands of unemployed non-Whites. If we are short of labour in South Africa I would suggest that the hon. member should simply cast his eyes in that direction and that he will find all the labour he needs and more. He also mentioned that the Railways is modernizing itself and this is perfectly true. He said that in respect of shunting, the Railways has modernized to such an extent that walkie-talkies are used to alleviate the shortage of shunters. I would like the hon. member to visit my constituency and to see what the use of walkie-talkies by shunters has done to the nerves of the people living near the railway marshalling yards there.

You do not want them?

I certainly do not want them. If we used the thousands upon thousands of non-Whites to shunt as we should be doing and elevate the shunters we have to higher echelons in the Railways all these problems would be avoided. I will deal with this particular aspect later in my speech.

I am glad that the hon. member for Randburg is in the House, because there are one or two things he said yesterday with which I would like to deal.

He is a migrant labourer.

Yes, I believe he is here only temporarily. Yesterday the hon. member criticized the private sector for not co-operating in the offloading and movement of trucks. I agree with the hon. member on this point, but it is most probably the only time I will agree with him in the course of my speech. I believe that the private sector can certainly do a great deal more than they are doing. But I certainly do not agree that they are entirely to blame for the shortage and hold-up of trucks.

Who said that?

I never said the hon. member said that. He must not be so hasty. There are other hold-ups such as hold-ups in the customs offices, the clearance of papers, and so on. All these factors play their part in the delays and the shortage of trucks that we have in South Africa. The hon. member for Randburg made one point in particular with which I want to deal. In the course of his speech he made the suggestion, if I could put it that way, that it is unpatriotic on our part to criticize the running of the Railways in South Africa at the present time in the economic climate such as we have, and to draw attention to various points as we have done. I would like to suggest that we on this side need no lessons in patriotism from that hon. member or any other member on that side of the House. We see it as our patriotic duty to criticize in every and any event when the Government is misgoverning the country. Here in the Railways we can see them misgoverning the country to a greater extent than almost in any other field. For that reason, if we fail to criticize the Government in this respect, we would then be unpatriotic. This is why I say that we will certainly criticize the South African Railways, and especially this particular Budget, because we believe that it is in fact unpatriotic to the ordinary citizen of South Africa and is doing them a disservice.

Last year I said in this House that if the Government’s labour policy was to work it would be seen to work in the South African Railways. I make no apology for repeating that statement this year, because it is more true this year than it was last year. If the Government’s policy in regard to labour is going to work, it will work in the South African Railways, for the simple reason that the South African Railways have monopolistic rights to protect it. It has the powers to make its own laws. It has a hold on the economy and can hold it to ransom. The Deputy Minister of Transport said in a previous debate that the South African Railways was the lifeblood of the economy. Of course, that is perfectly true. There is no greater testing ground of Government policy, particularly in regard to labour, than the South African Railways itself. It is the biggest employer of labour, and it also has the great advantage that it can set its own tariffs and prices. So, if it is going to work, it will work in the South African Railways. But if it cannot work on the South African Railways, it cannot work for anybody anywhere. I would like to examine the position and see just how we stand.

If the hon. member for Pietersburg would pay attention for just one moment, I would like to point out to him that he said in the debate last year, that one is struck by the Railway’s contribution to the economic position in South Africa by maintaining its stable rates structure. This is roughly what he said. I did not write down his exact words. After the experience we have now, I would suggest that the hon. member for Pietersburg will admit that we are struck indeed. We are thunderstruck, because now look at the rates structure! Will the hon. member for Pietersburg get up and make the same claim which he made last year?

I will answer you.

Yes, please do. I would be very interested to hear. If anybody wants evidence as to whether the South African Railways policy is working, which is the same question as whether the Government’s labour policy is working, all one has to do this very moment, is to go down to the beach front and see the 20 odd ships queueing up to come into the Cape Town harbour. Go to Durban and see the more than 20 that are lying outside Durban harbour. They cannot say that this something simply thrust upon them in recent years. Some thing like 20 years ago they were told that this would happen. I see the hon. the Minister is nodding his head.

No, I am not nodding my head.

What, is he falling asleep?

If anybody wants to see whether the Government’s policy is working, the evidence is there. It requires no economist to see that ships are queued up outside our ports simply for the reason that our harbour service has broken down. We have a broken down Government. Trains are being derailed in excess of one a day. 2 000 have been derailed in the last five years. We have an accident on the Railways once every four days. 52 trains are cancelled every day of the year through lack of staff. Almost 40 000 trains in three years have been cancelled. Goods are not being carried and the tracks are not being adequately repaired nor is equipment being serviced speedily. With the increase of tariffs, will now come higher costs of living.

Now I should like to come to the hon. member for Koedoespoort where he talked about the use of walkie-talkies by shunters. The Minister and I exchanged correspondence with the Management. Admittedly walkie-talkies have been issued to shunters; this has been done because there are not enough shunters. The Minister wrote to me, if I remember correctly, that shunters now loose-shunt because they have these walkie-talkies but that there is always a shunter on the leading vehicle to bring it to a stop before it collides with the others. In my constituency for hour after hour trucks are being loose-shunted. This makes a terrific noise; in fact, so shattering is it that people in the vicinity are selling out and moving even though that may mean a loss to themselves. The value of the properties in the area concerned is being depressed by this factor. When I complained to the Minister and sent him a list containing 500-600 names of people who were dissatisfied, the Minister had the position investigated, as he usually does in case of that nature when reported to him. However, the reply I ultimately got was to the effect that the noise of which the people complained was not such as to cause undue concern—there was a noise, that was admitted, but it was not as bad as I and the people who signed the list made out. Well, Mr. Speaker, personally I think the noise there is unbearable. But apart from that there is still another factor. That is that the trucks are being damaged by this form of shunting. These damaged trucks have to be repaired but the workshops are already working to capacity owing to being understaffed. The result is that trucks are beginning to accumulate, waiting to be repaired. The fact that there are so many trucks to be repaired can be ascribed directly to the use of the walkie-talkies of which the hon. member for Koedoespoort is so proud. The answer is more shunters, and if the hon. the Minister does not know how to get them, we can help him with that problem as we could with many other problems.

Buildings are not being maintained properly. I am tabulating those respects where I think the Railways are breaking down. Just now I mentioned buildings. The Minister mentioned a certain figure for new houses for Railwaymen. About that we are pleased. I think the figure he mentioned was R6 million. In the report mention is made of 44 000 houses being owned by Railwaymen. How much is spent on the maintenance of these houses? I could not find anything of that nature in the report. In my constituency there are houses which have been built many years ago and which cannot be repaired because there is nobody to do it. The condition of those houses is already a disgrace. I have asked the office of the System Manager in Durban whether something couldn’t be done about it but the System Manager does not have the staff at his disposal for that. So, what is the use of having provided 44 000 houses for Railwaymen if, after the lapse of a couple of years, they are going to look like pondokkies on account of the fact that they cannot be maintained properly?

Then there is dissatisfaction amongst the staff, but this has already been dealt with by other hon. members.

We pay more now for a poorer service, while the cost of living has increased. The Minister’s new tariffs are going to increase the cost of building thereby compounding the difficulties of providing houses, as the cost of material is going to be higher. The fault I say lies with the Cabinet. The Cabinet is the board of the Railways. As far as the Railwaymen themselves are concerned we are satisfied that they are doing their job—only they are handicapped because they have a poor board of directors, and the board of directors sit on the other side of the House. It took them years to agree that there is in fact a staff shortage. We told them from the beginning but they wouldn’t agree with us. Now, however, they admit that there is a staff shortage. Last year I was criticized by the hon. the Minister himself because I said that low salaries were being paid to Railwaymen as the only means to entice them to work overtime. The Minister accused me of being irresponsible. But I want to repeat that here today—-the Railways follow a policy of deliberately paying a low salary because that is the only means whereby they could make those people go out to work overtime if they want to buy the necessities of life. Now there is talk of a staff shortage but they have no idea of how they are going to solve it. By the turn of the century the White population of South Africa will only be 10 per cent of the total. If we cannot find the workers now, where are we going to find them at the turn of the century? At the turn of the century the Railways will be larger. So, where are we going to find the people at the turn of the century when the economically active Whites will be less? Already one White skilled worker in six works for the Railways. How many more of the White skilled labour can the Minister hope to employ? Already one White man out of ten is working for the Railways. How then is he going to solve the shortage of staff? It is no use hon. members opposite talking about the shortage while not facing the facts as they are, i.e. that there simply are not enough White workers, White skilled workers, in South Africa to go round and, what is more, there will never be. The answer is that the hon. the Minister, must for the security of South Africa, of the White man of which hon. members opposite talk so much, get down to training non-White workers to come in at the lower echelons of the Railways. If he does not do that he will be doing the White people of South Africa a disservice. It is time that we started educating the people of South Africa to accept this change; it is time rwe educated them to accept that it is in their own interests that such a change be made. We cannot move forward unless that is done. Otherwise we will be told again next year and the year after that that there is a shortage of labour. We were warned already 20 years ago what the position was going to be with our ports. In those days the problem was a shortage of coal and we were told that transport by means of the S.A. Railways was getting into a stage of chaos. We overcame that. We may well overcome the one in which we are now but the following year we will move into another crisis. We seem to go from crisis to crisis. The urban Chamber of Commerce wrote to the Minister and made various suggestions to him as to how to overcome the problems that he is experiencing in the Durban harbour service. Sir, I do not want to dwell too long on this but I would like to quote just one passage from their report—

The letter stressed that—

The reply that they received from the Minister’s secretary was to this effect; the Minister gave an unencouraging answer through his administrative secretary, stating that “he was well aware of the transport difficulties and that the committee’s suggestions were not new and would, unfortunately, to the Minister’s mind, not solve the problem.” Mr. Speaker, to the Minister’s mind they would not solve the problem, but the people concerned had investigated this matter; they had investigated it thoroughly and the Minister’s reply was merely that to his mind it would not solve the problem.

That may well be so but then I believe that we are entitled to ask the Minister, “what will solve the problem?” Because if the problem is not solved and solved very speedily, the effect will be—and it is already happening—that South African ports will be earning for themselves a reputation overseas which will necessitate our having to pay higher shipping rates for the goods imported into South Africa. These higher rates will mean a higher cost of living, and this is our accusation against the Government: The Government seems hidebound by a philosophy which is outdated and unworkable and which they refuse to change. We have the peculiar position that in Durban tug crews are Bantu but in Cape Town they are White. It seems that even in South Africa itself we must have different laws for different parts of the country.

The Minister comes along with an excuse year after year. One year it is drought; the next year it is a shortage; this year we have had the two combined. What will it be next year? It will no doubt be some other reason such as the shortage of capital. The shortage of manpower, of course, is a problem that will be with us for a long time to come. The chaos in our ports is only an echo of the chaos that we find right throughout South Africa, and the great worry to us all is what the Government is doing about it. Sir, if you go to the ports today you will see that they work certain shifts. They will perhaps work a shift on Sunday and a shift on Saturday. They overlook the fact that the ships at sea work 24 hours a day for seven days a week. It is about time that we became a little more modern; it is about time that we in this House faced the reality that if we cannot find the necessary skilled labour amongst the White population in South Africa, we must look for it elsewhere. It is here at our doorstep and our own security demands that we uplift the mass of unskilled labour which is crying out to be used to its fullest extent. The great thing is that when we do use it to its fullest extent every single one of us in South Africa, every single White person outside the walls of this House will benefit to a degree that he does not realize today.

We have just heard in the speech made by the hon. member for Port Natal what the instant solution, offered by the liberalist wing of the United Party, to the labour shortage is. According to him the solution is a very simple one. We should rush to the homelands; there we shall find thousands of unemployed non-Whites and we should draw them into the South African Railways. He did not say how; he did not say in what manner; he did not say with whose permission this was to be effected or whether it was to be effected without anybody’s permission. Sir, in a moment I shall say more about labour and then I shall come back to the contradictory statements made by the United Party in regard to this matter.

The hon. member for Yeoville was so kind as to point out that the financial editor of the Cape Times had not criticized the Minister’s Budget. However, he omitted to tell us what exceptionally favourable comment the editor of the Cape Times made on the Budget. On the 11th of this month he said, amongst other things, the following in his paper—

All of us will have to concede that coming from an editor and from a newspaper adopting a critical attitude towards the Government, this is very good comment indeed. The same editor went on to say that the Railway Budget was only “ever so mildly inflationary”. In other words, he contradicted the Opposition directly as far as that was concerned.

What does Die Burger say?

The hon. member for Yeoville wants last year’s and next year’s losses to be defrayed from the Rates Equalization Fund; i.e. that the fund of approximately R92 million, which is what it is worth at the moment, should bear losses to the value of approximately R79 million, leaving a credit balance of approximately R13 million. Apart from other problems, I want to make a concession to an interjection that was made here, i.e. that the plan suggested here by the hon. member for Yeoville is in itself inflationary, and they are the people who are complaining about inflation. In terms of section 104 of Act No. 32 of 1961 this fund is to be used for the purpose of maintaining uniform rates as far as possible, notwithstanding fluctuations in the traffic. Now, the question is therefore whether the Minister has complied with the spirit of the statutory provision. The answer is a definite yes, for he is debiting approximately R20 million against the fund this year, being the loss of the past year and the anticipated loss of the coming year. This loss which he is debiting against the fund, represents approximately 22 per cent of the entire fund. Therefore, to my mind this step is indicative of much more sensible planning and precaution than the proposal made by the hon. member for Yeoville, who virtually wants to exhaust the fund this year alone by taking 85 per cent of it to cover losses.

Now I come to the question of labour and the contradictory statements made by the Opposition in that regard. Of course, the whole position of labour has lately come very markedly to the fore. For instance, this is what the Financial Mail of 12th March, 1971, had to say: “The position clearly calls for a review of the whole labour position.” Amongst other things the hon. member for Yeoville also had the following to say about labour, and I am going to quote from his unrevised Hansard—

And I am going to repeat what was said by the hon. member for Port Natal, namely that it was merely a question of our having to rush to the homelands and drawing non-Whites in their thousands into the Railway structure as a whole. The Opposition Press and speakers create the impression that it is very easy to throw open jobs and to solve all the problems of the Railways and of the Government overnight; allegedly it is only this Government which is hampering the position through unnecessary restrictions on labour. Of course, in the emotional appeals they make here they conveniently forget what their own Leader, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, had to say about the matter last year. In the course of the censure debate in July, 1970, he said the following with reference to a question put by the Minister of Transport (Hansard, volume 29, column 432)—

Now, do hon. members see what contradictory statements are being made by the Opposition? On the one hand the Leader of the Opposition says very explicitly that, if the White trade unions say no, he will not bring the non-Whites in. The left wing of his party says, “Go and fetch them; they are there in their thousands and are only waiting to be absorbed.” In contrast with the contradictory statements made by the Opposition, which vary from extreme left to extreme right, we have the positive policy of the National Party. The White worker is being protected, whilst non-Whites are in an orderly manner being absorbed in ever-increasing numbers. Ever since 1961 we have had a standing committee consisting of representatives of all the trade unions and the Management. Their work is, amongst other things, specifically to recommend from time to time whether certain jobs being done by graded staff should in the future be done by semi-skilled or unskilled labourers. If it is to be done by unskilled labourers, they have to recommend whether these people are to be White or non-White unskilled labourers. This committee’s recommendations are usually accepted. By these means many non-Whites have already been absorbed in an orderly manner. It is also on record that the Minister said that he would employ non-Whites even if the trade unions disagreed, if it were in the interests of the country and if no industrial and labour unrest or unnecessary friction would be caused.

Furthermore, the Minister and the Management deserve praise for the proud record they have in regard to staff matters. Sixty-eight per cent of the staff, permanent and temporary, share in the department’s housing policy. In respect of the past financial year and the new financial year alone, an amount of R8.2 million is being set aside for the purpose of improving the working conditions of the staff and making them more pleasant. That and other reasons, such as automation, the scientific classification of work, etc., have enabled the Minister to accomplish a feat to which few people in the private sector can lay claim, namely that over the past 10 years the tonnage of traffic, excluding pipeline traffic, showed an increase of approximately 45 per cent, whilst the staff establishment remained constant within 3 per cent.

In the speech he made yesterday, the hon. member for Von Brandis made a weak attempt to test his wit on a colleague of mine who spoke just before he did. He could safely have directed his cutting remarks at the hon. member for Yeoville, his deputy leader, for he contradicted the whole crux of the argument advanced by the hon. member for Von Brandis. The argument of the hon. member for Von Brandis was that everything possible had to be done in order to expand and accelerate the export of ores. As against that the hon. member for Yeoville pleaded as follows, and I am quoting from his speech—

In other words, once again it is the old U.P. story of separating the services. Now, it is after all an accepted fact that in separating the services or handing over high-rated traffic to the private sector, the Railways will have to balance its accounts by means of increased rates on the other goods it conveys. Furthermore, it is a proven fact that the Railways will have to increase its rates for two classes of goods in particular, namely agricultural products and export ore. If that should happen, I should like to hear how much the hon. member for Von Brandis would have to say then. If that were to happen the entire mining industry would, in his view, go to rack and ruin. In this regard he should, therefore, see his hon. deputy leader and ask him to put forward more constructive proposals in this House.

The United Party would also be well advised now to cease its nagging about the separation of services, for in these appeals which it is making to the House and to the hon. the Minister it is old-fashioned, as it is in everything. Dr. M. D. Marais rightly pointed out in his minority report that we were entering the epoch of the big corporation and the big undertaking. In keeping with this he then recommended that the Railways, the Airways, the Harbours and the Road Transport Services should not be separated.

But if this is not sufficient proof to the Opposition that they are dealing here with an old-fashioned slogan, I want to quote to them the example of Mother England herself. In 1968 the so-called “Transport Act” was passed there. A National Freight Corporation was established, and its prescribed objective is, inter alia, as follows—

In other words, the terms of reference given to that corporation to carry out are precisely what the hon. the Minister and his Management have been doing all along.

As a farmer I cannot refrain from expressing my most sincere appreciation for the massive assistance which the Railways rendered to the drought-stricken areas last year. The exemptions from increases in rates in the present Budget are also indicative of the fact that the Government and the Railways have a sympathetic ear and heart for the farmer. Of course, in the final analysis the general consumer derives benefit from all the concessions made to the farming sector in regard to rates.

It was also with appreciation that I took cognizance of the fact that the export capacity of the grain elevator at the Durban harbour would be increased to 1.4 million tons per year, i.e. 40 per cent more than the record tonnage handled by the grain elevator in question during the optimum season of 1968-’69. I am sure that once this work has been completed, it will afford welcome relief to the maize areas. Whereas this year’s export surplus of maize will be in the vicinity of 30 million bags plus, the attention is once again focused on adequate facilities which can be maintained within reasonable economic limits, and which will streamline the export of maize. World conditions and especially crop prospects in America often give rise to there being only a limited time in which maize can be exported at a good price. For that reason it will be appreciated if plans could be devised and carried out which could accelerate maize exports. In this regard I should also like to know whether it is still the intention to erect a grain elevator at Richard’s Bay. If so, I should like to hear when it will be built, and if that plan has been given up, I should like to know for what reasons the hon. the Minister is not prepared to have a grain elevator erected there.

I should like to conclude my speech on a note of mild criticism. I want to tell the hon. the Minister, and especially those persons who are involved in the Airways, that to my mind the criticism passed on the new uniforms of air hostesses is justified. In my opinion we expected something much better, especially in view of the fact that we have been in a position recently to look at the uniforms of other international services. To my mind the new uniforms are definitely not chic and they appear old-fashioned already. Something which strikes me as being rather untidy in particular, is the aprons which are worn by these air hostesses and which have ugly, sharp points. I do not wish to play off the departments one against the other, but I think that the Railways can learn from the Department of Defence, which has succeeded in having imaginative uniforms designed for its staff and men. As the Airways are pre-eminently concerned with ladies’ fashions, they would be well advised to adopt the attitude that the uniforms worn by the ladies should be reviewed at short intervals, for instance, at least every three years. As the Army has now set the example as regards uniforms for its male staff and men, I think consideration may profitably be given to smartening up the uniforms of the male staff of the Airways as well.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to start where the hon. member stopped, and that is by saying something in regard to dress. I do want to tell him, though, that I would not like to enter into an argument with him as regards the aprons, for in actual fact I know too little about ladies’ clothing to argue about it with the hon. member. However, to me it appears that these uniforms will be rather out of fashion if, as he asked the hon. the Minister, the frocks worn by the ladies on the aircraft are to be changed every three years. If I sum up the fashion scene correctly, it appears to me as though this would have to be done every six months if we wanted these uniforms to remain fashionable.

The hon. member touched upon a number of serious matters. In the first instance, he said that as far as the Budget was concerned, the Cape Times was the newspaper which provided him with guidance on how the Budget was to be regarded. He was good enough to read out to us a quotation taken from the Cape Times. I always feel that when hon. members opposite invoke the aid of the Cape Times, their case may not be such a good one. The words which the hon. member quoted from the Cape Times, implied that the correspondent’s initial reaction was a favourable one. Now, I wonder what the reaction of the correspondent was after he had studied the matter properly. The hon. member did not mention that. The second point which the correspondent made, was that he would after all have liked to see a surplus rather than a deficit. Surely, this is the crux of the matter. Apparently the hon. member for Kroonstad is very happy with the comment made by that particular correspondent.

Then the hon. member proceeded to discuss labour. He tried to show that we on this side of the House were making contradictory statements. The point the hon. member wanted to bring home, was that we were saying that the floodgates might as well be opened and that the non-Whites might as well come in their thousands and tens of thousands. Then he proceeded to read out the policy statement of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. And, after all that policy statement is very clear, namely that we shall not approve of any displacement if the trade union or staff association concerned does not agree. I want to ask the hon. member for Kroonstad whether he agrees with this. Does the hon. member expect the hon. the Minister to act against the wishes of his staff associations and trade unions? If the hon. member replies in the affirmative, I want to tell him that he has completely misread the hon. the Minister’s case as recorded in Hansard. The hon. the Minister said that he would act against the wishes of these associations and trade unions if it were in the interests of South Africa and provided that, and this is a very important point, it would not give rise to conflict. This is just as good as saying that he will never act against them, for if steps are taken against the wishes of the trade unions, there will undoubtedly be conflict. I cannot understand why the hon. member has so obviously misinterpreted the matter. The hon. member also referred to the committee of the hon. the Minister. I want to agree with the hon. member that this committee is performing an important task, and I want to come back to it later on. However, I now want to ask the hon. member whether he is hiding behind the committee when it comes to certain posts in the Railways. Would the hon. member, for instance, replace a White shunter by a non-White?

Don’t you trust the committee?

The hon. member does not have a reply to this. He is waiting for the committee. If the hon. member stopped there, I would not blame him. However, during this debate one speaker after the other has asked what should be done with particular positions. The hon. member for Kroonstad referred to aprons, but he is hiding behind the dress of the committee when he has to reply to this question. We must be very explicit on this matter. I shall come back to the hon. member in a moment.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort objected to our making a fuss about the 10 per cent increases in rates. It astonishes me that the hon. member did not read to us from the Cape Times or the Star. However, I want to read out to the hon. member what Die Burger says.

There we are. I thought it would come.

The hon. member should not think that this is the Afrikaans edition of the Cape Times. This is Die Burger, his spiritual associate. The heading of the report reads, “Railway Budget hits hard”. The editorial in the same newspaper states the crux of the matter. In the editorial of 11th March the following was said: “A selective 10 per cent increase in rates, which means only one thing: another painful turn of the screw of the cost of living”. This was not said by the Cape Times, but by the newspaper of hon. members opposite. What do hon. members opposite have to say now? Not a word is heard from them. I want to continue with what was said by the hon. member for Koedoespoort. He wanted to know how we could talk of a lack of planning. He said that if there were no trucks, there might be a shortage of steel: if the delivery of certain goods did not take place, it was on account of a scarcity of labour.

Is it a lack of planning?

What I want to tell the hon. member is that he should not think that the Railways acts in isolation in South Africa. The Railways is one of the most important factors in the over-all economic machine of South Africa. The hon. the Minister will never say in this House that he does not accept responsibility or co-responsibility along with the Cabinet of South Africa. The hon. the Minister is a member of the Cabinet. Hon. members should not try to tell us that, if there is a labour shortage, the hon. the Minister of Transport has nothing to do with the matter. Must I remind the hon. House that he was the very first Minister of Labour of this Government and that when the hon. the Minister was younger, he held extremely wide and interesting views on labour? I do not wish to occupy the time of the House with that, but, surely, we are aware of it. The hon. the Minister will never tell us that he does not accept responsibility for the labour position. He is co-responsible for it. Whereas he is at present the manager—if I may use the term—in respect of the largest single employer in South Africa, I am asking him that he should realize and accept his particular responsibility in this respect. I have no doubt that he will do it. The hon. member should not say that there is no lack of planning and that the faults should be sought elsewhere. The faults lie with the Nationalist Party and its administration of South Africa. The hon. the Minister is not trying to escape from his share in this matter.

Let me come closer to the Budget.

Read Die Burger again tomorrow.

Yes, I read Die Burger very attentively. We have here a very interesting case, and I want to put it very clearly to the hon. the Minister. I do not want him to misunderstand me. The hon. the Minister came to this House and told us, “Revenue is. however, now being exceeded by expenditure to such an extent, mainly because of higher salaries and wages, higher prices of material”, etc., that he was now being forced to increase the rates. The rates, as we know, amount to the substantial little sum of no less than approximately R59 million.

Now I should like to come back to another aspect. In May, 1970, on the eve of the Langlaagte by-election, the same hon. Minister announced a salary increase of R60 million.

Why, that is an expensive member!

We added at the time that it was a welcome increase. Nobody was against it. We think the staff of the Railways deserve it. I want to repeat today that no hon. member on this side will say anything that constitutes an attempt at detracting from the tremendous and constructive role played by the railwayman in South Africa today. When the amount of R60 million was granted, we said we were very satisfied that it had been done, but unfortunately the matter did not rest there. The hon. the Minister motivated his case when he announced the increase. I do not know whether this is correct, but according to a newspaper report I have here, he said that it happened by chance that he announced it on the eve of the election. Here I see a newspaper report which says: “Ben’s back-track costs voter R60 million”.

That is the English edition.

Yes, now it is the English again. I should rather say, “Oom Ben’s back-track”. But the hon. the Minister told us that it happened by chance. He added, and that was repeated in this House, that he was going to give these people R60 million more and was not going to raise the rates of the Railways. That was not necessary, he said. Let us listen now to what the hon. the Minister said in order to motivate his point of view. He said that by way of positive planning and the provision of capital assets the Railways had done much to enhance its carrying capacity and to promote staff economy. These measures, so he said at the time, only started bearing fruit at that stage, and that was why it was unnecessary for him to increase rates, in spite of the fact that he had spent R60 million on salary and wage increases. This is what he told this hon. House in July last year. Owing to the provision of capital assets and owing to proper planning it was, so he said, not necessary for him to increase rates, in spite of the fact that he had increased salaries. According to him the carrying capacity of the Railways and the productivity of the staff had increased to such an extent that it was not necessary for him to increase rates. These statements were made by him here in this House eight months ago. However, now he is telling us that revenue is being exceeded by expenditure to such an extent that he has to increase the rates. The question that springs to my mind is: when did the hon. the Minister find out about these increased costs? Eight months ago he said here that planning was such, that organization and capital investments were such, that there was no need to increase rates. However, now he says that costs are so high that he is obliged to increase rates. If the hon. the Minister has any vision, if he has any knowledge of the trends of our economy —which he certainly has—I want to ask him when he found out that things were going wrong. Let us look at the figures. From April last year to November last year—more or less seven months—the Minister showed a loss of R37 million on the Railways as against an amount of R15 million for the corresponding period in the previous year. Therefore, within seven months the figures had already shown that the hon. the Minister had been wrong. What happened? Did they not know what was going on? Or does the hon. the Minister want to tell us that he really had the election in mind? I do not accept that—I do not accept that the hon. the Minister was trying to keep this House in the dark. And if I do not accept it, there is only one other conclusion I can draw, i.e. that the hon. the Minister did not know what was going on. And as far as I am concerned, this makes the matter so much more serious. for the hon. the Minister ought in fact to have known with all the information, statistics and guidance at his disposal. This resulted in certain statements being made by the hon. the Minister in this House eight months ago, statements which he is completely destroying now, after eight months, by stating now that matters are such that he is obliged to increase rates. In this respect there is, to my mind, a total contradiction, and the Minister owes this House an explanation as far as this matter is concerned; in other words, how he could have been so short-sighted, how he could have made calculations in such a vacuum. [Interjections.] That is the only conclusion, for he either did not know or misled us. Now, if he did know and did not tell us, things do not look too good at all, and the hon. the Minister will have to explain to us what the position is.

Now I come to the question of labour, and to my mind this is just as interesting. When the hon. member for Durban Point spoke on labour, he put specific questions to the hon. the Minister. He asked the hon. the Minister this question; What about this position and what about that position? Then the hon. the Minister asked him with great interest: What would you do with this grade or that grade? That standing committee which the hon. the Minister has at his disposal, is a committee which has been functioning for ten years; it is a standing committee on which representatives of the trade unions, the staff associations and the Management of the Railways are serving; the committee has specific terms of reference to determine where graded work may be done by semi-skilled and unskilled labour and then to determine what semiskilled and unskilled jobs can be done by non-Whites, and then to report back to the Manager. I want to tell the hon. the Minister this afternoon that I regard this committee as a key instrument in the Railways. I regard it as a perfect instrument of consultation. I think that in appointing this committee the hon. the Minister set a very good example to many industries in South Africa, for through such a committee, such an instrument of consultation, it is possible to provide specific guidance not only to the Railways, but also to other industries. I think the hon. the Minister ought to take this House into his confidence. This committee has already been functioning for 10 years. Important functions were entrusted to this committee. You and I, Mr. Speaker, know that at this stage there are 16 000 non-Whites who are doing work previously done by Whites. We also know that at present there are non-Whites in the Railways who are doing the work of graded workers. There positions must all have been achieved as a result of recommendations made by this committee.

Before putting questions to us, the hon. the Minister should at least bear in mind that before one can change relations in the Railways and can rationalize, it is, in the first place, of the greatest importance that one should know the Railways, and, in the second place, that one should have practical experience in the Railways. The hon. the Minister should not put questions to us; he should rather take the House into his confidence by telling us what specific graded positions the committee has already considered during the 10 years of its existence, and what the conclusion was they arrived at. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister where and in respect of what graded positions objections were lodged against the employment of non-Whites. Was the hon. the Minister able to remove those objections? He referred here to checkers. Well, let us take a checker as an example. Has the position of a checker ever been considered? Has the position of a ganger and a shunter ever been considered? Sir, one can differ on some of these posts; it is probably a question for discussion, but I think the hon. the Minister ought to tell us what work was done by this committee. Let the Minister then hold up to South Africa the results of the work of this committee, good as we hope they will be, and ask the industries to follow this example. That is what we want to hear from the hon. the Minister. He should not put questions to us across the floor of the House; that will bring us nowhere. Hon. members opposite should not try to hide behind the committee of the hon. the Minister; that does not work out; that is not how we shall solve the labour problem of the Railways, and hon. members know it. They can try to make petty political capital out of it and to catch a few votes here and there, but in the long run the Railways will be the organization which will suffer. In the long run the industrial world in South Africa will have to follow the lead of the largest employer in South Africa, i.e. the Railways. I for one am looking forward to the clarification, the explanation, which the hon. the Minister will give us with reference to the operation of what I regard as an extremely important instrument in the labour field of the Railways.

Now, there is another point I want to touch upon. It has a bearing on what I call the Western Cape, and I want to say at once that I want to ask a favour for the Western Cape, and I am making no excuses for doing so. I want to ask a favour, and I hope the hon. the Minister is in a position to help the Western Cape, for unless things improve, I can foresee that the Western Cape will become the stepchild of South Africa, and that is something none of us will want to happen. I have said before that the Railways cannot act in isolation. The Railways is not only a means of conveyance; it is also an instrument of economic policy-making, or, at least, the Railways is being used in that manner. There are numerous aspects of this. We know that the Railways is being used for the conveyance of labour in Johannesburg and in other places, where the Railways is subsidized by the Central Government to convey the Bantu cheaply. We also know that the Railways is being used and subsidized as regards the border industries and the rates applicable there. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that when it comes to the question of severe droughts, such as we experienced, it seems to me to be wrong in principle that the Railways, the transport system, should be expected to bear the costs involved in such an abnormal matter as droughts. I wonder what the loss is which the Railways suffered as a result of droughts, which ravished South Africa not only during the past year, but also in the past. Sir, this is a tall order, and sometimes I wonder to what extent it is possible for the Railways to compensate itself out of the Central Exchequer if it only thinks along these lines.

May the Railways make no contribution whatsoever to droughts?

The hon. member wants to know whether the Railways should not make a contribution. The Railways cannot be expected to operate as purely and simply a business undertaking and, at the same time, to meet socio-economic obligations.

But you are wrong again.

The Central Government ought to help the Railways in that respect when they do that. Now I come to the position of the Western Cape. The Western Cape, owing to its geographic situation, lies farthest away from all the consumer markets on the Rand. There is not one other metropolitan area which is situated as far away from its consumer market as is the Western Cape. Secondly, 60 per cent of the industrial production of the Western Cape is consumed and, if I may put it this way, exported outside the area of the Western Cape. The third fact I want to point out is that the Western Cape has within its radius, within its area, a population group —if the hon. member for Moorrreesburg had been here, he would have been able to express it better—the Coloureds, who are the population group with the greatest natural increase in population of all population groups in South Africa. It is calculated that only in the area which is called Greater Cape Town, an additional 325 000 Coloured souls will be found withing the next 10 years. The moral of my story is that unless the industrial development continues at a dynamic rate in the Western Cape, the time will come that we shall not be able to find employment for these creatures. This is a socio-economic problem.

Are they creatures?

Yes, in the good sense of the word, and you will find that word in the Good Book. What is the position as far as the Western Cape is concerned? Two or three days before the Budget the hon. the Minister’s department said to the Western Cape: Your port-to-port rates, which was a very favourable rate, are being taken away.

But, surely, the hon. member for Yeoville asked for that.

Give me a chance. You should see this in perspective. That port-to-port rate is being taken away.

At your request.

On certain articles the port-to-port rates were, so to speak, 100 per cent less than the normal rates would have been. Another 10 per cent is now being added to those rates. Take the case of East London, which is also one of the rival areas. There 15 per cent is being deducted in respect of border industries. All of these increases have an effect on Cape Town. At East London and Port Elizabeth there are what are called special port rates, which are also substantial. Those people are being placed in a position more advantageous than that of the people in the Western Cape.

All I want to ask the hon. the Minister now, is this: Is it not possible in any way to make an exception in regard to the Western Cape area? The Western Cape cannot maintain its rate of economic development unless it is helped in some way or other as far as rates are concerned. As you know, Sir, coal, which is required for our electric power, is brought here from the north. That coal is being subsidized. However, Escom has now increased the cost of supplying power by 10 per cent. Now the Railways, in turn, are loading the rates for coal by another 10 per cent. This causes an additional vicious circle. Costs are increasing all the time. I foresee the time when we are going to struggle to find employment for the Coloured population of the Western Cape. They are not migratory labour. They are stable, established people. I think I have a good case when I say that either the Minister or his Cabinet should try to assist in this regard by way of some subsidy or other. I believe that the hon. the Minister can grant assistance. [Interjections.] No, this has nothing to do with policy. The Central Government is doing the same type of thing on other levels. There is no reason why the Western Cape cannot be assisted. I think I have a good case in this regard. I am telling the Minister in all earnest and without any hesitation whatever that he should definitely give attention to the case of the Western Cape in order that, with a view to the future, the rate of industrial development in the Cape may be maintained at the highest level.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by conveying my sincere congratulations, on behalf of my constituency, to the General Manager on his appointment. I want to give him the assurance that Uitenhage has a soft spot for him. I want to thank him for the way in which he has dealt with the representations which I have from time to time made to him on behalf of my voters. Before I begin my speech I should also like to convey my gratitude and appreciation to the hon. the Minister on behalf of the 20 265 Railways pensioners in the Republic of South Africa for the concessions which have been made in this Budget. A large number of them are resident in my constituency, and on their behalf I want to convey my gratitude and appreciation to the Minister. I also want to congratulate the hon. the Minister and the Management on the way in which the Budget has been drawn up. In particular I want to refer to page 33 of the manuscript copy of the Budget speech of the hon. the Minister. Sir, you will recall that every year the hon. member for Yeoville and other speakers on the United Party side have attacked this side of the House because the Minister’s estimate was so very far out. It has often been said that the Minister’s bookkeeping should be improved. I am quoting from page 33 of the Minister’s speech:

If that is not an achievement, I do not know what an achievement is.

I want to return to the hon. member for Maitland. The hon. member mentioned the R60 million salary increase which was granted last year. I do not have last year’s Hansard with me, but the hon. member will not deny that last year, during the Railway debate, the hon. member for Yeoville and others said that we now had a Minister which had given away so much money and had made so many people dissatisfied. Those were their words. That is why I do not know why the hon. member is so concerned now about that R60 million. I have been listening to this debate since it began, and I find it significant that the United Party has not yet this year asked for a further salary increase. Almost every year they plead for salary increases. I shall tell hon. members why this is so. They are in trouble. They know that the staff are now being renumerated according to the work they are doing and that the staff is satisfied. That is why they say in the United Party policy on page 26 that if they come into power the Railways will be run by a well-paid staff. I take it that, according to them, the staff which is running the Railways is now being paid well. That is why we hear nothing from their side in that connection.

I am sorry the hon. member for Port Natal is not here. He referred to the shortage of shunters. I shall come to that in a moment. He said that we should make up that shortage by employing Bantu. In passing I just want to say to the hon. member for Port Natal that he should begin with the hon. member for South Coast. Last year the hon. member for South Coast said that the Minister’s proposal that Bantu linesmen be placed on the line to do that work was not good enough. It is recorded in Hansard. I want to ask the hon. member for Port Natal to begin with that hon. member, to make the necessary propaganda for his party’s policy there first.

We heard from the hon. member for Yeoville, the hon. member for Durban Point, the hon. member for Salt River and others that there was no planning. When we talk about planning, I think we should pay attention to the minor matters as well, and not only to the important matters. We must now establish what the United Party’s planning was like in their time. I want to make the allegation here this afternoon that the planning in their time was so poor that they had no respect for the Whites who travelled on the mail trains of the South African Railways. I want to furnish an example of what their planning was like. I want to quote to my hon. friend, who has such a lot to say at the back there, but who knows nothing about Railway matters, from the Hansard of 8/2/1946, column 1348, what his own Minister, Minister F. C. Sturrock, said in this House in reply to a question by Mr. Haywood, the then member for Bloemfontein District. This question was put to Mr. Sturrock:

What was the reply of the then United Party Minister, Minister F. C. Sturrock? It was—

What is the hon. member proving now?

I am making use of the same type of argument as that which the hon. member for Durban Point uses here every year. He always takes an isolated case. Now I am also taking an isolated case. The hon. member must just go back to the “war effort”, then he will find out what it was like to travel on the Railways.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I do not have the time.

Throughout this debate the United Party significantly ignored the achievements of the hon. the Minister, the General Manager and his staff. They did not mention them. If we now go according to the latest report of the General Manager, then I think that those achievements must be placed on record. Nobody is denying that there is a shortage of staff. In spite of the overtime and the Sunday time which is being worked, the Railways have still succeeded in accomplishing these achievements. In passing I just want to ask what those achievements are. The total tonnage of all goods transported shows an increase of .37 per cent. The amount of revenue-earning traffic increased by 1.68 per cent. The number of trucks loaded showed an increase of 1.4 per cent. The longest and heaviest train ever, almost three quarters of a mile long, ran between Kimberley and Port Elizabeth by way of an experiment in the transporting of ore. The number of passengers transported showed an increase of 5.7 per cent. The road transport showed an increase in all classes of traffic and resulted in the surplus of R735 994 in comparison with a deficit of slightly more than R5 000 the previous year. Altogether 1 594 special trains, that is 372 more than in the previous year, ran during peak hours. The number of passenger journeys increased by 28 million. The number of passengers killed totals 3 while 14 were injured as a result of accidents. The revenue from catering and bedding services indicates an increase of plus-minus R619 000. The number of meals supplied shows an increase of 113 497.

To conclude, I just want to say that the bonus work system which applies to production work in the mechanical department, brought the artisans an additional amount of more than R4 million. In proportion to the wages paid, this was an average of plus-minus 50 per cent per workshop.

Then we must establish how many train« were cancelled, with reference to a question put by the hon. member for Port Natal to the hon. the Minister. If the shortage of staff is supposedly such a terrible thing, and if overtime and Sunday time which is being worked is becoming such a terrible thing, then surely we must accept that it will have an effect on the number of trains which ran. Now, statistics show that no passenger trains were cancelled during the past five years as a result of that staff shortage. Goods trains have in fact been cancelled, as the hon. the Minister did in fact admit in reply to that hon. member’s question.

Hon. members on the opposite side waxed very eloquent here on the dissatisfaction in the ranks of the Railway staff. The hon. member for Durban Point knows that I represent a very great many Railway officials in this House, because he regularly comes to hold meetings in my constituency. Let me say now that I do not find such dissatisfaction. Is it not strange that although there are 630 different grades in the Railways administration, the number of resignations in 1969 amounted to 21 945 and that 16 272 persons applied to be taken back into the service? The number of re-appointments confirmed, amounted to 8 956. Something I experience daily in my constituency and in the other constituencies I visit is that as rapidly as those Railway officials resign, just as rapidly a very large number of them return.

The United Party made a point in regard to Sunday time and overtime. But what is the position now? In the year 1968-’69 the White staff consisted of slightly more than 115 000 and the non-White staff of slightly more than 109 000. In that financial year more than R70 million was paid out in Sunday time and overtime. In the 1969-’70 financial year the White staff consisted of slightly more than 111 000 and the non-White staff also consisted of slightly more than 111 000. Then, R75 million was paid out in overtime and Sunday time. But what was the position under the United Party Government? If the figures are compared one sees that the amount which is being paid out in Sunday time and overtime now is not an excessive one. In the 1946-’47 financial year the United Party Government paid out more than R11 million in Sunday time and overtime. In 1947-’48 that amount was more than R12 million. Unfortunately for the United Party, we came into power, otherwise the amount paid out under their régime would have kept on increasing. ¡[Interjection.] When they were in power, overtime was also paid.

I now want to refer to an allegation made by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg City here yesterday. It is a pity that he is not in the House at the moment. He spoke about Sunday time and overtime and then stated that this could result in people having heart attacks, etc. I do not know whether that statement is justified. However, if it is in fact the case, I just want to tell him that we in the Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage complex must have very poor doctor«, because those of them whom I asked about this, said that they could not agree with that statement.

Now I want to return briefly to the labour position. In this connection I immediately have a difficulty with the hon. member for Yeoville. I should like to quote what the hon. member for Yeoville said in this House in August last year. I am quoting from column 907 of Hansard, which reads as follows—

Hear, hear!

In the same speech the hon. member—and I am quoting from column 910—said—

We are still waiting to hear from the hon. member for what type of work we should employ those people. Where are those better remunerated positions?

Now I want to refer hon. members to another extract from the hon. member’s speech. On 5th August, 1970, he said, and I am quoting from column 1098—

In one breath they say that we should bring them in, and in the other breath they say that those who are there, should be moved up.

What does Mitchell say?

Unfortunately I do not have the time to go into the argument of the hon. member for South Coast. What is the position now, since mention has been made of the fact that we should make greater use of non-White labour? In 1966 there were more than 115 000 Whites in the employ of the Railways, and in 1970 there were 110 000. This means a decrease, and we are not denying it. What is the position in regard to the Coloureds? In 1966 there were more than 12 000 Coloureds in the employ of the Railways, and at the moment there are 14 000. In 1966 there were plus-minus 94 000 Bantu in the employ of the Railways, and now there are 96 000 Bantu. Now, what is the United Party complaining about? We are employing the non-Whites in accordance with the policy as set out by the hon. member for Kroonstad. This is the policy of the National Party and this is how it was set out by the hon. the Minister last year. The hon. member for Maitland should have furnished this House with the figures. What is the position in respect of Coloureds, Indians and Bantu who are temporarily employed on the Railways in posts reserved for graded staff? There are only a small number of Coloureds, i.e. 141, and in addition there are 79 Indians and 1 296 Bantu. Why do United Party speakers not also inform the House that in the last eight years of United Party régime the employment of non-Whites represented no less than 67 per cent? During the past eight years, from 1963 to the present, as far as non-White employment is concerned, 23 per cent of the workers were non-Whites. During the election in 1961 we had to hear that the National Party were “kafferboeties”. This the hon. members proclaimed from one platform after another. At that time it was not a good thing. That argument of the hon. members does not hold water. We have already heard from many of the hon. members on the opposite side that we should bring in more artisans. What was the position under the United Party Government? Do hon. members know that under the United Party Government in 1943. 65 immigrant artisans were brought into the country? In 1944 36 were brought into the country, and in 1945 there were 44 immigrants in the employ of the Railways administration. The total during the latest financial year is 270 immigrants, who have been brought into the country to do this type of work. This is far more than were in the employ of the Railways when they were in power.

I want to conclude by asking the hon. member for Port Natal a specific question. There is a serious shortage in key grades on the South African Railways. Those key grades are. those of the checker, the manager of cartage services, the stoker, the drivers’ assistant, the conductor, the shunter and the station foreman. I now want to show hon. members what the present shortages in these key grades are. The shortage of station foremen is 22.6 per cent, conductors 23.9 per cent, shunters, 22.6 per cent, checkers, 18.8 per cent, managers of cartage services, 21.3 per cent and stokers and drivers’ assistants, 23.1 per cent. Let them rise and tell us in respect of which of these grades they are prepared to negotiate with the trade unions and in which of these grades they want to eliminate the shortage, as the hon. member for Port Natal put it, through the employment of non-Whites. Let them then tell us whether they will also allow those non-Whites to undergo the Otis test, or rather the ordinary aptitude test which every White male has to undergo before he can occupy those positions.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just sat down made a great play of the differences between the conditions of some 20 odd years ago and today. He also boasted of some of the achievements of the Railways. I am not necessarily here to decry the achievements of the Railways which is a great national undertaking. I would, however, like to draw the attention of the hon. member to the fact that the shortage of labour and rolling stock, for example, in June last year was responsible on one particular day for the cancellation of 135 passenger trains. The day was June 27th, 1970. During that same month 70 goods trains per day were cancelled and over a period of 18 months more than 30 000 trains were cancelled.

When one looks at the various services of the South African Railways and Harbours there is no question that there has been a lack of forward planning. Whilst the day-to-day work is carried out to the best ability of the hon. the Minister there is no question about the fact that there has been a lack of planning. This lack of planning has resulted in great financial loss to South Africa particularly with regard to its exports of foreign exchange which in turn has badly affected our balance of payments. Very few countries are in the favourable position in which we are where we have such a tremendous amount of minerals, base minerals and other wealth in this country for which the world is crying out. These minerals cannot be exported to the rest of the world simply because we have not planned satisfactorily and in good time for the carriage of these goods from the interior to the coast from where they can be taken to the people who are waiting to receive them. In his report the General Manager says that there is a serious situation in regard to the export of ore and that it is something to which he must give his attention. But we know that in 1962, for example, the I.D.C. reported on this fact and said that perhaps one of the most important fields of intensive research is in the further development of the beneficiation of our base minerals. They mentioned that we have hardly scratched the surface of the base mineral wealth of this country. This was said as long back as 1962. We also know that in 1963, and this fact has been mentioned already, the matter was dealt with by the Natural Resources Development Council. As far back as 1953 the commission of inquiry in regard to coal drew attention to the fact that the Railways were to blame for coal shortages and for the fact that they were unable to traffic coal satisfactorily to towns in the Republic and also to our ports for export. We also know that at one time the price of coal in Britain was 74 shillings and that we could have exported coal at 10 shillings per ton. These are only examples of the wastage of millions of rand that could have been saved for the future benefit of the country if these matters had been tackled timeously. I do not say that the Railways are being mismanaged by the hon. the Minister. What I do say is that the policy of the Government has lacked that aspect of forward planning which was essential in dealing with a tremendous industry of this nature. In this sense the Government is absolutely culpable and has to answer to the country for not having done its duty satisfactorily in this particular regard.

I would also like to draw attention to another aspect, namely the shortages in regard to trucks necessary for the transport of iron ore, anthracite and manganese of which South Africa has such an abundance. I would also like to point out that the hon. the Minister in his Budget Speech last year pointed out that he was pleased that he was able to come to some arrangement with the various companies who realized his difficulty in regard to transport. Once again in this particular Budget he has made the same reference and he has again expressed his pleasure, if I may so, at the fact that these people understood his difficulties in providing the necessary trucks for this traffic. There is also another difficulty. If, for example, there was a re-orientation in regard to tariffs and sufficient trucks were made available, a large quantity of ore could be processed and with tariff amendments, we would then be able to export sufficient quantities to bring in tens of millions of rand in foreign exchange for this country. As the world’s largest manganese producer, as a country which has 80 per cent of the world’s chrome, we are unable to answer the demand that is being made. The Railways, for instance, asked the Anthracite Producers’ Association to halve exports from 1.15 million tons to half a million tons. The Minister in his Budget speech made certain references to this problem. He said, for instance, that at this stage various plans are afoot for the expansion of the base metal and mineral exports, but some are dependent on the provision of additional rail facilities. The schemes involved will not come to fruition in the financial year under review. The rapid growth of the South African economy has placed a severe strain on all infrastructure services, and heavy investment in rail transport facilities is required, not only to meet existing needs, but to make provision for sustained economic growth. He say« that now, at a time when our economic growth is beginning to recede somewhat. After the developments over the last decade, he only now sees the importance and the vital necessity of making some provision and doing some planning. The lack of planning is of such a nature that when we are faced with this enormous contract which Japan has concluded with our coal producers. it will take until the year 1976 for the supply to reach its maximum capacity, when Richard’s Bay will be finally completed. That is the statement which has been made officially namely that we should see the matter come to fruition by 1976.

The Minister made another point. He said that railway lines and facilities are reaching maximum physical capacity to the extent where the carrying and handling of lines and yards, as well as goods, depots and harbours, can now only adequately be increased by the implementation of major improvement schemes at substantial cost, which in some cases are of such magnitude that they will take a few years to complete. All this, in our view, is an example of the bad planning for which the Government is fully responsible. Now, there should obviously be some solution for the position. Surely, there must be some means of overcoming the problem. There must be some reason as to why there is this lack of planning, i would not say that the Minister is that foolish that he did not quite comprehend what was facing this country. As I have said with regard to some of the reports I have referred to, there are quite a considerable number of such reports. Year by year, various commissions, National Transport advisory boards, big institutions and commercial and industrial undertakings have drawn the attention of the country to this lack of facilities, which is becoming more and more desperate. In fact, in many instances, development has virtually curtailed itself, because as the entrepreneurs are unable to find the means of transport, obviously there is no point in their continuing to produce and supply.

I want to make a suggestion to the hon. the Minister. He should change to some extent his staff setup. If one has a look at his staff setup, one will find that he has subdivided his management amongst a certain number of officials known as assistant general managers. I would like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that an assistant general manager for ore and mineral traffic should be appointed, someone who can concentrate, not only on ensuring that he is in touch with all the enterprises that wish to carry out this export, but someone who is able to do the very negotiations with private enterprise of which he talked: for instance, in spending the R100 million required for the extension of the railway line to Richard’s Bay, and in the building of new harbours or any of the big undertakings with which this country will be faced in the years to come. It is quite clear that save for the normal development of railways the Government was not able to meet the expansion which became evident over the last decade. But here there is an opportunity in the right direction. It is not an unusual thing to do. Undertakings of a very much lesser nature than the Railways have a large number of managers handling various departments of the organization, departments which require expert attention. This is the avenue the hon. the Minister should explore if he wants to avoid being accused of lack of planning and of having failed to meet the situation which has arisen.

Another aspect I should like to deal with is the complaints of Railwaymen. There is no question about it that the statement of the hon. member for Yeoville was correct when he said that although the R60 million was most acceptable, on the whole it created more unhappiness than the Minister could ever have contemplated or any one of us could have visualized. It failed to meet the requirements of those in the lower salary echelons of the Railway service. These people have grievances and there are a considerable number of anomalies which require to be ironed out. One of the difficulties they have is the sort of army discipline which is imposed. When a worker has something to complain of he has first of all to go to the official in charge of his small section; from there it goes to an official higher up. So it moves along and very often gets lost. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister the appointment of ombudsman—a grievance officer, a person dealing with complaints within an administration. By this a lot of good can be done amongst the lower paid echelons of Railway servants. That could meet many of the complaints which at the moment filter through to Members of Parliament, complaints which many workers are reluctant to vent outside the most secretive precincts. Somehow or other they feel they may be penalized. The Administration should know at the proper level exactly what is going on amongst these workers and how their difficulties can best be looked after and attended to.

Another aspect I should like to mention is the question of private hauliers. In the U.S.A. they came to the conclusion that the private haulier could render a service over short distances, distances which an organization such as the Railways at the present stage, with labour and other shortages, ought to discount. A study in America on this point concluded that the private haulier has a clear cost advantage over distances of approximately 100 miles while the Railways have an increasing cost advantage when it comes to traffic over distances of 200 miles and longer. Therefore, as far as road transport is concerned, the country should be allowed to provide economic services through its private enterprise. In this way private enterprise can take over a portion of the service provided by the Railways, a portion which the Railways can well do without, and the Railways could then concentrate on other more lucrative services which would be more advantageous to the overall finances of the Railways.

Furthermore I would like to say this. It has been suggested that railway rates should be a little more closely allied to costs. This is what the Schumann Commission recommended and it was also recommended by the Marais Commission. The hon. the Minister in his second reading speech gave the House the reasons for increasing tariffs. He said that this was necessary every four or five years because of increasing costs, but he said that he did not think that this was the right time to review the rates. Sir, in a big undertaking no time can be said to be the right time; a big undertaking is always busy; it is always fully occupied and fully committed. But, Sir, this is not a scientific basis on which to deal with the income of the Railways. In one fell swoop the Minister has now suddenly added an arbitrary figure of nearly R60 million to the Railway revenue which has to be contributed by the public, in one way or another. I submit to the Minister that the time has come for him to give much more serious consideration to the whole question of tariffs and that the time to review the rates is now. if the Minister wants to adopt a scientific basis in fixing his rates.

Then I want to ask the hon. the Minister what steps have been taken in the Airways with regard to containerized air freight. At the moment according to the figures given to me air freight represents 1 per cent of the world movement of cargo, but in about ten years’ time or possibly even less when the pay-load of aircraft will be 300 tons and more, air freight will become one of the big business undertakings in the world with regard to the movement of goods. The question of containerization may then become a very important matter. One knows that his ministry is dealing very carefully with the question of rail and sea containerization and I think it is very important also to look at the question of air freight containerization in the future.

There is just another thought that I want to mention with regard to the question of the movement of ore. I read in a report of a talk given by the General Manager in which he talked about single purpose lines. I believe that in Australia this has become quite a big feature of the movement of heavy traffic, and I know that in the United States it is a very big feature. I have actually seen it in operation. There you have trains which are sometimes nearly three quarters of a mile long moving on single purpose lines. In this way they are able to move heavy loads of ore much more easily than they would be able to do if they conveyed it on passenger and other light-traffic lines.

There is one other thing that I would like to mention. In the next few months we are going to enter the phase of the Boeing 747 which is going to bring about almost a revolution in our air traffic. It is going to be an enormous undertaking which I think is going to be of great value to us abroad. I would like to know from the Minister whether it is correct that the 747 will be used internally for a certain time or whether it will become one of the internal services of the country? I know that efforts are being made to use it on the overseas service where the bulk of the traffic will lie, but there has been talk that one machine may be used for internal traffic, and it would be of interest to us to know whether that is going to be the position.

Then I want to say a word or two in regard to the question of fares. There has been a fare increase which has affected passenger traffic to quite a considerable extent. I want to put it to the hon. the Minister that I think it was somewhat unfair to interfere with traffic which continues to increase year by year. If, as the Minister tried to convey to us in his Budget speech, he was trying in this way to syphon off spending power from the public as an anti-inflationary measure, then I want to suggest to him that this is not a method of syphoning off funds from the public. Transport is as vital to the public as bread is to them and the increase in our population must necessarily bring about an increase in traffic. By imposing this 10 per cent increase on passenger traffic in the country, I believe he has struck a blow virtually below the belt at the public of South Africa, who depend in many cases, particularly in the big cities and to a great extent also in the platteland, on the Railways for their method of movement. For people who have to go to work, the Railways is actually the most vital link that they have of commutation between their homes and their places of work. Here the hon. the Minister has not done something to cure inflation, but he has imposed a burden on the taxpayer and has increased the cost of living in a manner which I think is outrageous, because this is the one service which is as necessary to these people as bread is to the human being. In this respect I think the Minister has gone much too far and I think he should reconsider the whole matter and really ask himself whether it is essential to burden the public with this heavy increase in fares.

With these views I support the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville and I want to reiterate that with all the achievements of the Railways, much of which we will not deny because it has happened under successive Governments, we believe that there has been no foresight in the planning of the Government and that Government policy has cost the country many millions of rands year by year in foreign exchange. I feel that the Minister owes an explanation to this House and to the country as to why he now finds himself in this position where he cannot meet this tremendous opportunity for increasing our exports at a time when we are complaining that due to a falling off in our exports our trade gap is widening more and more to the disadvantage of the country.

The hon. member for Jeppes, who has just resumed his seat, was particularly concerned about the lack of planning on this side of the House, and about the problems in connection with the export of chrome, manganese and other minerals. I shall return to that at a later stage when I shall try to indicate that this Government did, in fact, carry out planning.

I should like to dwell for a moment on two interesting admissions that the hon. member for Yeoville made yesterday afternoon. Firstly he admitted here that it was necessary for three soldiers from Vietnam to convince him that the Blue Train was one of the best in the world, if not the best. I think that if we could give the hon. member a tip, it would be that he should also pay a visit to Vietnam for a change, and we hope that he comes back, because then he would perhaps be able to give an objective evaluation of the S.A. Railways. Incidentally, the hon. member for Yeoville mentioned, in addition, that when Gen. Smuts was asked in 1948 how long it would take to get this Government out of office, he said it would take a very long time. Sir, I am gaining increasingly more respect for the late Gen. Smuts’ vision, because today, after 23 years, one can, without fear, regard that prediction of his as a new one, and once again say that it will take a long time to get this Government out of office.

The Opposition’s main theme in this debate thus far has been the lack of planning. The hon. members for Yeoville and Jeppes referred to it, and yesterday the hon. member for Durban Point referred to the salary increases of R60 million that were followed by burdens for the Railway officials. He also said last year that the announcement about salary increases of R60 million was made just before the election in Langlaagte, although he did, however, concede that it was after the general election. When one listens to a party speaking like this about the lack of planning on this side of the House, one wonders whether the party on that side has a clean record as far as planning is concerned. One has no other way of determining this than by looking at the situation before the 1948 election. I consulted two annual reports of the South African Railways, one for the year 1947 and the other for 1948. In the report of 1947 it is stated—

I read further, and this I find very interesting—

I repeat this one sentence—the power and truckage resources were such that it was invariably possible to keep pace with the traffic. That was in 1947, the year before the election, but what do we read in the report of 1948? This report reads as follows—

Then comes this interesting admission—

In the year just prior to the election it was said that the number of trucks, etc., were adequate to meet all the needs, and after the election we hear the true facts. Can we not compare this with what the hon. member for Durban Point said about the election? Before the election we heard a pious tale, and after that the actual facts. Are we not entitled to say that what happened in 1947 and 1948 is a typical example of political dishonesty towards the South African electorate? Now the hon. member reproaches the National Government for the increase of R60 million that was granted to the Railway officials.

I should like to come back to the question of a lack of planning. I want to make the statement that this Government has done sufficient planning for the present and for the future, and I shall try to prove this. One of the most important legs on which planning rests, is the fact that the relevant organization must have a team of well-trained personnel at its disposal. This side of the House placed those personnel on an excellent foundation. When the Annual Reports of the South African Railways are consulted, we find the following interesting and informative figures about training: Last year, 2 458 staff members received training at Esselen Park and Kaalfontein, and what is particularly gratifying is the fact that the pass mark in respect of staff members there was 89.99 per cent. We want to congratulate the instructors, and also the staff members who underwent this tuition, on this achievement. Since 1948 the South African Railways have been giving tuition to 49 658 staff members at Esselen Park and Kaalfontein. That only includes the Whites. As far as the non-Whites are concerned, last year alone 1 000 of them were subject to aptitude tests with a view to the appointment of boss-boys. In this way some of them were eliminated, and this brought about a tremendous saving for the South African Railways. This Government also went further with its training by training the men in such a way that they could even do present and future planning for the South African Railways. In the time of the United Party Government we find that, particularly as far as engineers and those grades are concerned, persons had to be released from the private sector to the Railways. What do we find today? 144 assistant engineers have completed four-year sandwich courses, considerably relieving the shortage that there was in this field as well. In the past year 60 Railway bursaries were granted to persons taking the National Technical Certificate examination. There are a total of 989 bursary students who are in the service of the South African Railways and who are hereby able to complete their studies. We are grateful that 194 B.Com. bursary students are already making use of the facilities that the South African Railways establishes for the staff, the B.Com. bursary scheme being particularly important as far as the financial side of the Railways and the balancing of its books are concerned, as well as for combating inflationistic tendencies. The opportunity has also been created for working officials to be part-time students. They give their services to the Railways and study further at the same time. An amount of R40 914 was spent on that. These amounts, spent by the Railways for the training of undergraduates and. post-graduates, one cannot do otherwise than regard as a part of a conscious planning scheme.

As far as training is concerned, I believe that there is a new field that the hon. the Minister could perhaps consider entering upon; he should give consideration to making both bursaries available for medical students. In the annual report we find that 23 bursaries have already been granted to the pharmaceutical profession. The pharmaceutical profession is a very important one, but I feel that in the past few years it has become increasingly clear, particularly with a view to the shortage of medical practitioners in South Africa, that the Railways must consider establishing a bursary scheme to give young boys the opportunity to study medicine. After that they can enter the service of the South African Railways, and thus they would only be responsible for the Railways and its officials. One realizes that there will be many problems in this field, but I want to make a friendly request to the hon. the Minister to give it strong consideration. We do not begrudge the Railway officials the best service available in the medical field. We should like to ask the hon. the Minister to consider this suggestion.

The hon. member for Jeppes, who is not in the House at the moment, also referred to the lack of planning, as all the other speakers before him did. I do not understand how on earth the Opposition can go as far as to say that there is a lack of planning on the South African Railways. When there is a lack of planning one at least finds stagnation or deterioration. What do we find on the South African Railways? I quote from the Budget speech of the hon. the Minister:

A department guilty of a lack of planning cannot boast of such an achievement. The energy absorption and the pressure brakes were to a very large extent developed and installed by our own South African engineers. This is surely not an achievement indicative of a department that displays a lack of planning.

It was also very interesting thus far in this debate to have heard almost nothing in connection with our Airways. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg City referred, inter alia, to the Airways and complained about air hostesses that had to search certain people at an airport in Rome. But because the South African Airways specifically has such a good administration, we have no reference to the services furnished by the Airways. I want to quote from the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech in order to indicate where the Department of Transport has evidenced achievement in this field. This reads as follows—

We expect these aircraft in October. I quote further—

The South African Airways will be one of the first airlines in the world to make use of that. And still the Government and this Department are accused of a lack of planning. This surely makes no sense.

In addition the hon. member for Jeppes also referred to the lack of planning in connection with the transportation of chrome and manganese and other minerals to the harbours. The hon. members have surely taken note of the R60 million project which the South African Railways tackled in order to bring the rail link up to such a standard that in 1975 export to Lourenço Marques can go ahead full steam. In this document of the South African Railways that I have here, it is also mentioned that provision has not only been made for the expected transport to Lourenço Marques in 1975, but also for any additional transport on this railway line. Surely this does not testify to a lack of planning. Under pretence that they see planning in a clearer light than this Government, the Opposition enters this field in order to criticize the Government.

Mr. Speaker, in another field of transport the South African Railways also leads the world. When representatives from Great Britain came here to negotiate with the hon. the Minister about the containerization traffic from British harbours, the hon. the Minister told them that they were free to ship that containerization freight, because the South African Railways was ready for it. He told them that for the present they could already be sending loads, and that his Department was introducing additional expansion. Surely this does not testify to a lack of planning.

We think of the transportation of motor vehicles, a field in which the South African Railways is now going to make use of double decker trucks for the transportation of motor vehicles. These trucks will also be the first of their kind in the world. Does this testify to a lack of planning?

No, the South African Railways is worthy of the gratitude and appreciation of every person in South Africa. We want to thank the General Manager of the South African Railways, who is relatively speaking still a very young man, very much for the inspiration he is to the younger Railway officials. Because he is a relatively young man, this side of the House looks forward to many fruitful and pleasant years of co-operation with him. I also want to convey a word of thanks to the Railways, on behalf of the farming community, for the help given to the farmers in the drought-stricken areas while South Africa was experiencing this exceptional drought. What the Railways did for the farmer has not passed unnoticed. We appreciate the action taken by the Railways.

There is another aspect affecting agriculture that I should also like to have recorded. During the past five years the weight of cattle transported to controlled slaughtering areas increased from almost 7½ million pounds to almost 9½ million pounds. In the past representations were made to the South African Railways that engine drivers be requested, when there is livestock on the trains, to do the shunting in such a way that there is the least possible injury or bruising of that livestock. The Railways also acted on this. In 1970 we had the lowest percentage of bruised carcases at our controlled slaughtering areas, a percentage of .075 of the total. I want to have this recorded, and I also want to convey our thanks and appreciation to the South African Railways.

Mr. Speaker, we want to say thank you very much to the hon. the Minister of Transport, the General Manager of the Railways and the officials for what they are doing, and ask them to continue along the road they have chosen, and that they should continue planning the way they are now doing, regardless of what the United Party says, because we know that we have the most effective Railway system in the entire world.

Mr. Speaker, I want to confine my observations on this Budget of the hon. the Minister of Transport to the agricultural industry. Before coming to that, I should like to tell the House that I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. member for Yeoville, who said that this Budget came as a shock to the public of South Africa. I think it is not only a shock but also a disappointment to so many of South Africa’s entrepreneurs who are engaged in the struggle against inflation. This Budget must have been not only a shock, but also a severe disappointment to them. It is very clear to us in South Africa now that more and more lip service will be paid as regards the struggle against inflation and that very few people outside will believe that the Government wants to break the back of inflation in South Africa. It is also very clear, and the hon. the Minister mentioned this in his Budget speech, that, despite the increased productivity of the Railways and despite the fact that the number of Railways officials has remained more or less constant or has increased very little, more goods could have been transported by the Railways in the past few years. While we are expecting everyone outside to increase productivity and to do so more cheaply, we have to find that the Railways had to come to this House once again, as it had to do five years ago, to ask that tariffs should be increased. It is therefore quite clear that despite the fact that productivity is being increased and that not many more people are being employed, there is only one way out in the long run, and that is to ask the user of the Railways to pay more for those services.

That this Government is serious in combating inflation and higher costs in South Africa is therefore being totally contradicted by the Budget of the hon. the Minister of Transport. I am afraid this is a fact that South Africa will have to face as a result of the actions of this Government. I want to say that, on the other hand, we are glad that the 10 per cent increase in rates will not be applicable to all products and to all services which have to be made available by the hon. the Minister and to all forms of transport. I think it is a good thing that the hon. the Minister has applied this increase selectively. What is undoubtedly going to happen is that the industrialist in South Africa will not be able to escape these increased rates. Neither will they be able to absorb these increased rates, as there have been so many increases in recent times and as there will be more in the future. This state of affairs will have only one result, i.e. that these people will simply increase the cost of their services and the products they have to supply. I wonder whether the South African economy can afford this at the present juncture. I even wonder whether we can afford it when one considers the competition on the overseas markets. I wonder whether we can afford it in this country itself if there should be any further increases.

I have already told the hon. the Minister we are grateful for the fact that he has exempted certain services and products from these increased rates. He certainly used his common sense when he exempted certain agricultural products from these increased rates. I notice that the increased rates will not be applicable to products such as vegetables and wool. As far as the products in category I are concerned, the hon. the Minister mentioned in his speech that the following products would be exempted from the higher rates: goods presently afforded special export rates such as wool, maize, crude untreated ores and minerals, including coal and fruit. If I understood the hon. the Minister correctly, this exemption applies to export fruit only. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether the inland conveyance of fruit will also be subject to the increased rates. The hon. the Minister nods; I am therefore quite correct. I want to ask the hon. the Minister why fruit intended for domestic consumption, which can consequently affect the cost of living, is being made subject to this increase of 10 per cent in rates. The hon. the Minister has not explained this, and I hope that when he speaks again he will give an explanation of this. I want to say immediately that we on this side of the House are disappointed and ask that the fruit producer who is mainly dependent on the domestic market should be granted this exemption. In this connection I should like to refer to the pineapple industry. In the past few years this industry in the Eastern Cape has suffered considerable losses as a result of flood damage. The production capacity of these farmers is poor today. At present their production is very low. I am afraid that if they are now subjected to these higher rates they will be hit even harder. I also want to refer to the position of farmers in the Langkloof, one of the largest apple and pear producing areas in South Africa.

For export.

No, the hon. the Minister does not know what he is talking about. A large part of the crops of these people has been damaged and is not at all fit for export this year. In other words, their products have to be sold on the domestic markets.

The hon. member for Jeppes pleaded that we should increase the rates for these products as well.

I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that even if these people did not suffer the hail damage which they did, a great deal of their fruit would nevertheless be sold on the domestic markets.

Did you hear what Hymie Miller said? He wanted us to put up tariffs for agricultural commodities.

When did he say that?

He said that according to the Schumann Report higher tariffs should be charged for these commodities.

No. Sir, the point here is that one can understand that there should be an increase. perhaps, when it comes to the export of fruit. But I am referring here to our local market.

*I want to point out to the hon. the Minister of Tourism, who is so clever, that I am pleading here for the people who suffered damage. In these circumstances the hon. the Minister is increasing the rates on the railway transport of these people as well. I want to call the hon. the Minister’s attention to the drought-stricken citrus areas of South Africa. We are so concerned about the citrus industry that, if one looks at the Budget introduced last year, one sees that special assistance was granted to these people. Now the hon. the Minister of Transport comes along and increases railway rates for these people. This means only one thing. In South Africa there is one group of people who pay for the transport of their own products, and they are the farmers. Any other person transporting a product—for example, an industrialist or businessman—usually adds his transport costs. But if a farmer brings his produce from the production area to the market area he has to pay for it. This will simply have two results. The amount of profit which the farming community of South Africa makes in these circumstances, which is already low, will become considerably lower as a result of the policy of the hon. the Minister.

However, this does not apply to the fruit industry alone. I also want to point out to the hon. the Minister that it was kind of him to exclude livestock. It was very kind of the hon. the Minister to exclude fresh meat or fish, butter and so forth, because if these had also been subject to the 10 per cent increase it would have increased the cost of living considerably. But now I want to ask the hon. the Minister what he thinks about the large number of milk producers in South Africa who are dependent on, for example, the transport of lucerne. Lucerne is not excluded from the 10 per cent increase. This again causes production costs to rise for the farmer in South Africa. But when the farmer sells those products, he has to pay for transporting them.

How can you talk like that? The maize price is by rail—not at the mill. No, you are talking nonsense.

The hon. the Minister says I am talking nonsense. Has he ever transported wool? Has he ever transported fruit? When transporting his fruit to the market, he as the farmer will nay. If he transports his stock, he will pay. If that hon. the Minister were a farmer and bought something from the industrialist, for example a tractor for the new planting season starting one of these days, he would have to pay 10 per cent more railage on that tractor as a result of the increased railway rates. In other words, the farmer gets less, but when he produces. he will simply find that his production costs are going up more and more.

What about spares?

Precisely, snares, everything! The farmer does not gain in selling or in buying. This is the situation of the agricultural community today. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to including other agricultural products in this list of seven. I (want to point out to him that with this increase he is going to cause production costs in the agricultural industry to rise considerably. I want to ask him very seriously whether he thinks the farmer can afford this in the present circumstances. The Minister is in the position that he can increase his rates when he needs additional revenue, but this is unfortunately not the case with the farmer. If the farmer’s production costs rise, he cannot under all circumstances count on a higher price for his product. He may perhaps be able to do so if he has a sympathetic Minister of Agriculture, but otherwise the farmer of South Africa simply has to be satisfied with a lower price for his product.

Then I want to bring another matter to the attention of the Minister: It is often said that we should be grateful for what the Railways is doing for us, and we are indeed grateful; we are not ungrateful, and we on this side of the House are most certainly not unfair either. We realize what an extremely difficult task the Railways had last year and the year before, for example, in combating the problems resulting from the drought, but it now seems as if conditions are going to be normal again for some time. I want to tell the Minister that if we are to expect good service from the farmers of South Africa we have to provide good service to them. I recently had occasion to look at the statements of account for the past two years of a vegetable farmer in the Free State, and what did I find? As recently as last Thursday he had to rail vegetables to Bloemfontein, 100 pockets of cucumbers and 100 pockets of green beans. Those products had to be loaded, not into a clean truck, but into a truck from which a lot of cattle or sheep had just been off-loaded. This person’s accounts and books which I checked, showed very clearly that he had sent vegetables to Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg during the past two years. In more than one instance those vegetables took 14 days to reach Cape Town from his nearest station. The hon. the Minister referred in his speech to truck days which were being wasted because people did not load or unload fast enough. In other words, a truck which could have been used, was standing unused. Here is an instance where it took 14 days for a consignment of vegetables to reach Cape Town. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he can imagine in what condition those vegetables reach Cape Town? I was not surprised to find that in some cases, according to the statements of account which this farmer showed me, he had to pay in on the consignments of vegetables he had sent to the market. Sir, this state of affairs simply cannot continue. The farming community simply cannot accept this situation. Just as we expect greater efficiency from them, so they expect greater efficiency from the Railways. Sir, I want to mention another example to the hon. the Minister. Just recently I had another case where the Minister and his department were criticized about the transportation of livestock. What are the facts, according to the S.A. Agricultural Union? They state (translation)—

This is criticism that was levelled at the hon. the Minister’s department by the S.A. Agricultural Union. Sir, what are we going to do about this? I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give his attention to this kind of thing, because we expect greater efficiency from everyone in this country. If there is one thing which makes the farmer of South Africa restless, it is the fact that not enough trucks are available to transport his livestock and his products. He is not content to suffer further stock losses as a result of the shortage of trucks. When the Railways saw last year that they could not meet the transport needs, they waited until the last minute before calling in the Army to lend a hand. We must see to it that rapid and efficient transport facilities will be available to the farmer.

I want to conclude by making a few observations in regard to the position of the Railwaymen themselves. So often it is said that all the Railwaymen are satisfied. The hon. member for Uitenhage nods his head. According to him the Railwaymen in his constituency are quite satisfied; no criticism is expressed anywhere. But I have newspaper cuttings here which indicate the findings of an important Railway trade union official who paid certain visits to the Eastern Transvaal. At Witbank, for example, he found the following—

The same criticism was expressed in regard to Middelburg, Transvaal—

This is the kind of criticism being expressed. The same applies to Breyton—

At Waterval Boven the same kind of criticism was expressed in regard to the loco—

At Waterval Onder the same criticism is expressed.

Where do you get that from?

It comes from the relevant trade union’s own magazine. At Lydenburg there are also complaints about the loco. Surely the hon. member for Uitenhage knows that the Railway artisans are not satisfied with the workshops at Uitenhage? Why then does he create the impression here that everyone in his constituency is contented?

Even the United Party supporters are contented.

Let me refer the hon. member to what is said about Lydenburg. And then there is this—

The same goes for Nelspruit—

The same goes for Kaapmuiden, Komatipoort and Acornhoek, and so all these examples can be given of conditions being criticized by the Railwaymen. I can also mention Pietersburg.

What are you reading from?

I told the hon. member what I am reading from. For the hon. member for Uitenhage and hon. members on that side to get up and to say how contented the Railwaymen are with their working conditions, is therefore beyond my comprehension. But anyone who is in contact with these people knows that they are justified in their criticism of their working conditions, and that not enough attention is being given to this type of thing. The hon. the Minister may have all the latest trucks and everything of the best in the way of locomotives, but if his Railway officials are not contented, the tortoise will sooner or later pop up its head again and the hon. gentleman will find that he will not be in a position to find sufficient workers for the Railways. Our workers on the Railways must be content and, secondly, the people using the Railways must also get satisfaction. These are the two things for which we on this side of the House are pleading.

Each year for 10 years I have listened to Railway debates in this House and never have I heard a poorer attempt at criticism from the Opposition than I have heard in this debate. The hon. member for Yeoville is known in this House as a fluent and good speaker, but this time he fumbled and struggled along, as did the last speaker on their side, the hon. member for Newton Park. He reminds me of someone whose set of false teeth does not fit properly and who is chewing on a piece of springbok biltong. He bites here and he bites there but he hardly bites off anything. He wanted to criticize the hon. the Minister but at the same time he said he was nevertheless grateful. At that stage he fumbled and, in a way which is typical of the pattern he follows, he had to dish up a few bits of gossip at the end. He simply could not resume his seat without his first having dished up a bit of gossip. I do not know whether the hon. member has ever been to Acornhoek and whether he knows what things are like there. However, the level on which he expresses his criticism is that of complaining about cooldrinks which are not served in the loco.

The Opposition reminds me of the American gambler who had a gold dollar which had heads on both sides, and no matter how he flipped that coin his guess was always right. Now, in considering the criticism of the hon. member for Yeoville, we need not go very far back to find the contrast. Last year during the Railway debate he delivered a plea here for development. I just want to quote the following from last year’s Hansard of 3rd August, column 910—

Please note, he speaks of “expand”—

And then, very significantly, he said only a few lines further on—

Sir, a country with 20 million people with a growth rate approximating that of Japan! That is the vision the hon. member for Yeoville had in this debate last year. It is a growth rate, in other words, which is considerably higher than ours and which therefore must make greater demands on the transport system and on all sectors of of our economic life. As regards transport, the subject under consideration at the moment, it would mean large capital expenditure on one’s system of transport so as to enable it to keep abreast of the growth rate of Japan. That was his plea last year. I again have the hon. member’s Hansard of this year in front of me. After he had expressed criticism and you, Sir, had once again brought the hon. member back to within the bounds of this debate, he said—

Last year the hon. member advocated a higher growth rate; he said it should approximate that of Japan and there should be more expenditure. This year he says what the hon. the Minister is doing is inflationary; where will the people come from? When he is advancing an argument in favour of a higher growth rate, all these things which he mentioned with a flurry fall away, but when he describes this as inflationary this year he suddenly sees all the threats supposedly standing in the way of that inflationary growth rate which they have advocated.

But I want to deal with some of the remarks of the hon. member for Durban Point. Perhaps I shall have more of a reaction from him than from the hon. member for Yeoville, who obviously does not feel inclined to react. The hon. member for Durban Point said yesterday—

The first deduction one can make from this is that the R60 million which went to the Railwayman last year has had the effect that R58 million has to be taken back from them now. This is the only deduction I can make from his statement. But even he is not as stupid as all that. Surely it is a perfectly ridiculous statement to make that the R60 million which went to the Railwayman is being recovered now by way of this R58 million. Surely, the Railwayman will shoulder the least of this burden, if anything.

Just turn the page.

I shall turn the page. Surely the R60 million cannot be compared at all to the R58 million in the sense mentioned here by him and in the context in which he had placed it. Surely these are two matters which are completely unrelated, and surely it is not fair to make such a misleading statement here.

But we proceed. The old technique of the hon. member for Durban Point, and also that of the hon. member for Yeoville, is to refer from time to time to certain developments taking place on the Railways and to claim the credit in that regard for themselves. He said here yesterday—

What happened with regard to these walkie-talkies? He referred to 1966 when a mission was sent overseas to conduct an investigation into the entire matter. That he regards as the date on which they should already have been introduced without any proper investigation having been made first. Secondly, specimen sets were purchased to be tested under South African conditions first. Surely our people first had to ascertain how effectively they would operate in South Africa with its own particular circumstances. Surely one cannot go about this in a United Party way and send people overseas to buy equipment only to find that the equipment does not work when one tries to use it in South Africa. After all, this is not the correct way of doing things; this is not the way in which we do things. After he had come to realize that an investigation of this nature was being conducted, he came to the conclusion that this system should be introduced helter-skelter according to their pattern. But a thorough investigation was instituted. The equipment was tested under working conditions first.

An investigation lasting four years?

Yes, of course. After all, what was done was not one of their ill-considered jobs of work. What was done, was a decent job of work. The equipment had to be tested at various places and under different circumstances. Ours is a country with conditions peculiar to itself, for example, with its own climatic conditions and these conditions make demands of their own. Time does not permit me to mention all the various conditions.

Then the hon. member referred to the Safari system. He said he had advocated that. He said it actually was because of his pleas that this system was being introduced at the present time. Sir, do you know what is happening here? Hon. members on the opposite side, the hon. member for Durban Point in particular, obtain certain limited knowledge of a certain subject. For example, they learn about an investigation being conducted by the Railways in connection with some field of development, because massive development is in progress on the Railways from day to day. He gets to hear about something. He gets wind of something. He gets wind of something and without broadening his knowledge or obtaining the facts in any way, he delivers a plea in this House in that regard. Then when the new system is announced here by the Minister after a thorough investigation and development and after it has been tested properly, members jump up on the opposite side and say that it is as a result of their pleas that this or that suggestion has been accepted. This is a technique which they use over and over again. I felt sorry for the hon. the Minister. It is just as well that he is not involved here in a farming situation, because the hon. member for Durban Point is an extremely tough cow to milk. Yesterday the hon. the Minister of Transport tried to get something from him. In this regard I should like to quote once again from yesterday’s Hansard of the hon. member. Here he was referring to the employment of non-Whites—

The hon. the Minister of Transport then asked him—

What jobs are you actually referring to?

Now, Sir, you should listen to the “direct” replies of the hon. member—

I refer, for instance to manual jobs …

Which manual jobs?

I refer to some of the manual jobs which are still being held by Whites.

All this, Sir, is terribly specific. Why is the hon. member so vague? Why does he not say what he means? Then the Minister once again tried to get something from him. The dialogue continued as follows—

Which?

I refer, for instance, to the job of a fork-lift driver.

In other words, after we have heard a great deal about the United Party’s policy in terms of which they want to employ Bantu in White jobs, in other words, replacing Whites by non-Whites, he is prepared to say at this stage that non-Whites will be able to become fork-lift drivers. How many fork-lift drivers are there on the South African Railways? Does the hon. member have any idea? Does he know what he is talking about? Surely this is not one of the bottlenecks on the Railways. I have never heard of fork-lift drivers causing a bottleneck on the Railways. Now he is prepared to make this enormous concession! They want to solve the entire labour problem on the Railways by filling the posts of fork-lift drivers with non-Whites! They have now found the magic formula for solving all the labour problems on the Railways. Henceforth they are going to allow Bantu to become forklift drivers. Then the entire labour problem will be solved. Sir, if any fork is involved in this matter, it is because the hon. member is finding himself on the horns of a dilemma. That is the only fork which is pricking him at the moment.

I, on the other hand, am of the opinion that the hon. the Minister and his Management deserve praise because of the fact that the last increase in tariffs was announced in September, 1966, virtually five years ago. During the past five years the hon. the Minister and his staff succeeded in keeping the tariff structure on the Railways unchanged. I want to say that this is an achievement we have not yet rated fully at its true value. The hon. members of the Opposition serve, virtually without exception, on the boards of directors of various kinds of companies. Could one of their companies—I am challenging them—keep its cost structure and its tariff structure completely even over the past five years? I invite them to mention one instance of the tariff structure of any company, amongst the numerous companies of which they are directors, having kept its tariff structure constant without any increases.

It was for a period of five years.

It was for a period of five years as from September, 1966.

We did not say we were going to do so.

The hon. member for Maitland may reply to me if he wants to do so. If he wishes, he may mention one single example to me, but I do not think he is able to do so. In the midst of increases in all the sectors and in contrast to the undertakings, on the boards of directors of which they serve, the tariff structure of the Railways has remained absolutely even up to this year. This year it has become necessary to make the adjustments which have been made. We have had the complaint here that there is a lack of planning on the Railways. The most obvious proof that this is not so is the fact that a deficit of R13.8 million was budgeted for and that the latest figures show that the actual deficit is R13.4 million. A paltry difference of R400 000 on a massive budget such as that of the Railways is one of the most phenomenal achievements of accuracy which has ever come to my attention. I am surprised at the success achieved by them in this regard. If there had been no planning and control, I wonder in what a state matters would have been. As regards planning, we need only page through the Brown Book to see in what numerous fields amounts are being voted for planning regarding all the facets and aspects of the Railways and transport in South Africa, and we need only consult the memorandum submitted to this House by the hon. the Minister to see that there is a whole series of new works, all of which concern new planning for the Railways from day to day. There are projects of all sorts, all of which are aimed at taking planning a step forward. This being so, how can hon. members say that there is no planning?

I am sorry that I do not have much time left. In the few minutes I still have at my disposal I want to make only one plea to the hon. the Minister. We have taken cognizance of the railway line which will be built in my constituency from Broodsnyersplaas for eventually conveying the coal to Richard’s Bay. I realize that this is preliminary, and later during the Committee Stage, where this matter really belongs, I should like to take this further. On this first occasion which presents itself, I nevertheless want to plead with the hon. the Minister to have regard in the planning of this railway line, if the planning has not as yet reached a final stage—and I do not believe that this is the case—to the fact that there are certain agricultural communities in this vicinity who will derive tremendous benefit from a railway line. I believe that those communities can be served without the railway line having to be deviated to any great extent or without major expenditure having to be incurred in this regard. I want to refer specifically to a town called Hendrina, which is situated in the centre of the power generating explosion which has taken place near it in the Eastern Transvaal. At the moment some of the largest coal mines are coming into existence around these power stations. In addition there is tremendous industrial development in that vicinity. These people will derive tremendous benefit from railway line. On a later occasion I shall refer to this again. I only wanted to have it on record.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 136 and debate adjourned.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The provisions of this Bill amend various Railway Acts. The implications of the various clauses are fully explained in the Explanatory Memorandum which has been tabled and my remarks will, therefore, be brief.

As stated by the hon. the Minister in his Budget speech, the South African Railways will switch over to the metric system of weights and measures with effect from the 1st April, 1971. It is accordingly necessary formally to amend the respective Railways and Harbours Acts. The purpose of clauses 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 is to substitute all references to the existing imperial units in Railways and Harbours Acts concerned by references to metric units.

Extant legislation provides for conversions, as distinct from rounding off, up to six decimal points, but it is considered expedient, for practical purposes, to rationalize the converted units of measurement by rounding them off to easily manageable units containing only one and, in some instances, two decimal points. This will greatly facilitate calculations.

In terms of section 2 of the Railways add Harbours Control and Management (Consolidation) Act, 1957, a special Railway Construction Act is not necessary for the construction of a railway line not exceeding two miles in length which is required for departmental purposes to facilitate the working of traffic. Although 3.218 kilometres is t!; equivalent of two miles, a distance of 5 kilometres is felt to be more desirable This amendment will afford a measure of elasticity should it become necessary to build a line slightly in excess of two miles without having to await parliamentary approval. Parliamentary control will, however, still be exercised over the expenditure involved as provision therefor will, as in the past, still have to be made in the Estimates of Expenditure on Capital and Betterment Works presented to Parliament annually.

The jurisdiction of the S.A. Railways Police to perform police duties at airports is presently mainly restricted to the so-called “technical area” of the South African Airways, and the purpose of clause 2 of the Bill is to extend the definition of “railways” in order to give members of the Railways Police Force legal authority to execute their duties outside those portions of an airport which constitute part of South African Airways’s technical area.

This has become necessary since members of the South African Railways Police Force have been entrusted with the task of searching prospective passengers on international flights, in order to combat the possible hijacking of aircraft, should circumstances necessitate such action. It is also possible that, in time to come, the S.A. Railways Police will be expected to render security services at all airports in the Republic at points outside South African Airways’s technical area. The South African Police have no objection to the proposed amendment.

Mention was made in the Budget speech of the acceptance of the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Committee of Management of the Railways and Harbours Superannuation Funds that contributions to the Superannuation Fund, which are at present made at varying rates, in respect of servants still in the Railway Service, be reduced to a uniform rate of 4 per cent of the pensionable emoluments of all categories of staff. The purpose of clause 10 is to give effect to this recommendation.

Clause 11 provides for the Railway Administration’s contribution to the Level Crossings Elimination Fund being increased from R1 million to R1.5 million per year. The contributions from the Consolidated Revenue Fund and the National Road Fund are to be increased likewise. This was decided upon as it was found that with rising construction costs, it would no longer be possible to maintain the present rate of eliminating level crossings unless more funds were made available for this purpose. It is considered in the national interest that the enormous losses sustained as a result of the loss of life and limb be arrested by eliminating as many level crossings as possible.

In clause 12 provision is made for validation of changes in conditions of service of Railway staff. I may mention for the information of hon. members that the operative date of any such change must be concurrent with, or subsequent to, that on which it is communicated to the staff and Executive Council approval must be obtained within three months from the date of notification to the staff. For various administrative reasons it is not always possible to observe these conditions, and it has been necessary on occasions in the past to obtain validation of the action taken. The changes in question relate principally to cases where time did not permit of the staff being notified of certain changed conditions until after the operative dates of the decisions.

Mr. Speaker, we do not intend to prolong the discussion on this Bill, but there are certain points in regard to which we would like to have more information at this stage. Then, if necessary, we can examine some matters further in the Committee Stage. They should be dealt with properly in the Committee Stage as they deal with a variety of matters which are difficult to deal with when dealing with the principles of the Bill.

Some of the Transport group on this side of the House want more information about the metric system. We are indeed anxious that the price control rules which apply to commerce and industry as far as the switch-over to the metric system is concerned, will be accepted as a matter of self-discipline by the South African Railways. We are curious about the new rate of contribution by employees towards the Superannuation Fund. We are keen to know, whether this will not mean that there is a diminution in the contribution of the Railways. I am very glad to see that this is a step in the direction of United Party thinking. It is on record that we have said the time will come when an organization like the South African Railways will have a non-contributory pension scheme. We generally believe that a pension fund like that of the Railways does not need to be actuarially sound in the sense that it has been in the past, because that is based on the assumption that the Railways are going to stop to operate, that they are going to come to an end. Then there will have to be enough money to pay pensions until the last pensioner dies. I think that no one in the world imagines that in South Africa the Railways will come to an end. I am very glad indeed because this is a step in the right direction and I hope it will be the first of several steps.

We are very glad to see that the hon. the Minister is going to contribute more funds to the elimination of railway crossings. It will be interesting and I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister in his reply will give us information on how much work they expect to be done as result of the spending of R4d million instead of R3 million. Can we have a progress report or perhaps a report of the plans for the new year? We have no objections that alterations to conditions of employment should be retrospective in certain cases, except that we would like to have the assurance it will not be to the disadvantage of the staff, but that it will only be done where there are improvements. Then there will be no objections to any retrospectivity in these measures. We would be grateful for an assurance on that point by the hon. the Deputy Minister during the Second Reading debate and in that way we will avoid discussion in the Committee Stage. Other hon. members have questions which they would like to put to the hon. the Deputy Minister. They will not be long, because as I say we feel these matters can be better discussed in the Committee Stage.

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member for Yeoville has indicated we support this Bill which is before the House in principle. However, there are certain aspects of the Bill in regard to which we require further clarity from the Deputy Minister. I would like to refer to the principle involved in clause 10 of the Bill. This clause reduces the contribution which has to be made by officers and employees of the Railway Administration to a uniform contribution of 4 per cent of their pensionable emoluments. When one looks at the situation as it existed in the past one sees that there had been a number of amendments made to the rates of contribution. In the principle Act of 1960 the contribution rates were higher. In so far as officers were concerned, the rate of contribution ranged from 8.75 per cent to 10.75 per cent for male members of the Fund and for other male employees from 8.25 per cent to 10.75 per cent. Similarly as far as female members of the Fund were concerned, the percentages were higher than is indicated in the Bill before us. These rates were amended in 1961 and are now to be deleted and a uniform rate of 4 per cent is to be substituted instead of the varying percentages as previously embodied in this legislation. In introducing this Bill the hon. the Deputy Minister has not indicated what the effect on the Fund will be in this regard. This is also not mentioned in the White Paper. We believe that the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Committee is a step in the right direction because we feel that as far as employees and officers are concerned there are many who would like to see this Fund based on a non-contributory system. In the past we have discussed the principle involved in such a system and we believe that there are many benefits to be derived from the institution of such a system. However, in terms of the Bill before us it reduces the rate of contribution to this uniform percentage of 4 per cent. The hon. the Deputy Minister has not given any information as to the effect of this on the Fund. I believe this is an important step because it brings this rate of contributions as far as officers and employees of the Railways Administration are concerned into line with the contributions being made by those persons who are in the Public Service. We know that from the 1st April, 1968, people in Government service contributing to the Public Service Pension Fund had their rate of contribution fixed at a uniform rate of 4 per cent of their salaries. This is an aspect which involved an important principle particularly as far as the position of the Fund is concerned and its affect on the Fund. That is why we would like to know from the hon. Deputy Minister what the effect on the Fund with the adoption of this deduction of the contribution by employees and officers of the South African Railways Administration. When we look at the latest report of the Controller and Auditor-general for the financial year 1969-’70 we find details of members’ contributions to this Fund. In the year ended 1970 these contributions amounted to R21.4 million. This is based on the rate of contribution which in the Bill now before us is now amended to a uniform 4 per cent. We would like to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister what the estimated amount of members’ contributions will be if the contributions are now fixed at the uniform rate of 4 per cent. We would like to know, because it will greatly affect the situation as far as this Fund is concerned. On the rand-for-rand contribution system the contribution of the Railways Administration amounted to R21.4 million. The interest received amounted to R24.5 million. Then there was a special contribution of R1.2 million and R0.1 million from other sources. The total revenue to the fund for the financial year amounted to R68.6 million. When we look at these figures we see that the expenditure has increased considerably as a result of the different basis of calculation which was incorporated in the hon. the Minister’s Budget in 1969. For the year ended 1970 this has resulted in expenditure amounting to R40 million whereas in the previous financial year ended 1969 expenditure amounted to R29.8 million. The overall effect of this is that, with increased pensionable emoluments, it will result in greater expenditure from the fund, as greater amounts of pension will be paid from the fund. At the same time the situation will exist where the member’s contribution and the rand-for-rand contribution will decrease. It is therefore important to know what the position will be if this rate of 4 per cent is adopted. We know that in view of the fact that the expenditure is far below the revenue received by the Superannuation Fund, the credit balance of this fund has increased considerably. The latest available figures, as at 30th November, 1970, show that this fund now stands at R582.866 million. So, the fund would appear to be strong as far as the credit balance is concerned.

However, there are other aspects to be considered as far as this principle is concerned. Here one particularly thinks of the resignations from the fund, whereby persons obtain their contributions and amounts that are due to them according to the credit that they have built up in that fund. By reducing the contribution to 4 per cent, it will mean that many of these people will now not gain an immediate advantage by a premature resignation. We believe that a non-contributory system would even go further in discouraging the resignation of employees for immediate financial benefit.

The tax situation is another factor which affects these people. Obviously, the Railway employees who in the past have been able to claim their contribution to the fund, as a deductible contribution to a pension fund, will find, as far as the taxation is concerned, that they will not derive the same benefit that they have derived in the past, where they made a higher percentage contribution of their pensionable emoluments to the Superannuation Fund. Consequently, these persons will not be able to claim the same amount in regard to tax deductions that they could have claimed in the past under the old system.

These are merely some points upon which this side of the House would like further clarity from the Deputy Minister. We believe that the important principle involved in this Bill is in clause 10, which brings about this uniform rate of contribution. As the hon. member for Yeoville has indicated, we on this side of the House believe that it is important that the Government should give further consideration to the plea that has been made in the past from this side of the House and to have it on a non-contributory basis, which would also assist …

Order! Yes, but that is not under discussion. That point has been made time and again, but it is not under discussion now.

Mr. Speaker, we are discussing the reduction in the rate of contribution.

Yes, I know the hon. member is discussing that, but he is going beyond that point.

Very well, Mr. Speaker. The point is that the reduction in this contribution does bring about important changes in the structure of the Superannuation Fund and the conditions of service as far as these employees are concerned.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to refer to clause 10 of this Bill, the same clause which the hon. member for Umbilo discussed, and which amends the Railways and Harbours Superannuation Fund Act to provide for the lower rates of contribution which the hon. the Minister announced in the Railway Budget. This is, of course, only one of the measures effecting pensions which the hon. the Minister did announce in his Budget Speech. I would prefer to have been able to deal with all the measures in conjunction with each other, instead of having to deal with this one in isolation. But as it is contained in this Bill in this way, I will have to confine myself to it. I should like to say that I welcome the reduction in the rate of contribution by Railwaymen to the Pension Fund. This brings their contributions down from what was a comparatively high scale to one which I regard as very reasonable. Also, as the hon. member for Umbilo mentioned, this brings them into line with other members of the Public Service. Like the hon. member for Umbilo, I should like to ask the Minister to let the House know what the financial implications of this measure are going to be. I go further and ask the Minister to let this House know how he intends to deal with those financial implications. It is clear to me that if you reduce the rates of contribution from what they have been up to the present, namely from 7.5 per cent to 10 per cent of the pensionable emoluments for men and from 5¾ per cent to 8¼ per cent for women, to a uniform rate of 4 per cent all round, it is going to cost a great deal of money. When you add that the Administration’s contribution to the fund, in terms of section 14 of the Railways and Harbours Superannuation Fund Act of 1960, has to be a like amount to that contributed by members, it will be seen that the total amount of income from contributions to the fund is going to be reduced by a very substantial amount. I would suggest that on the prima facie information before us, the reduction of income by way of contributions could be as much as 50 per cent, which this year would amount to the sum of approximately R25 million. Without being an actuary, I would suggest that such a sum is more than the fund can bear actuarially unless some other means of providing it with funds from another source can be found. I realize that the Administration has the responsibility of making contributions to the fund, also in terms of section 14 of the 1960 Act, and that it may well have in mind making such contributions to meet the shortfall as a result of the reduction in the contributions by members and the Administration. But that, I think, is getting away from the concept of a pension fund which balances itself actuarially. That, of course, is something we on this side of the House have been advocating. I should like to know from the Minister whether it is in fact in the mind of the Government to get away from the concept of a balanced pension fund and to move towards a state of affairs in which the Administration will take more and more responsibility for the provision of pensions. I should also like to raise with the Minister the question as to whether it should be the Railways and Harbours Superannuation Fund which bears the cost of the reduction in the contributions by members. The effect of this reduction in that in future members will be paying a lower contribution for somewhat increased benefits, is an increase in the take-home pay, an increase that will amount in the case of men to between 3.5 per cent and 6 per cent of their pensionable emoluments, which is quite a substantial increase in their take-home pay. I would suggest that as the effect is in fact an increase in pay to railwaymen, that should be borne by the Administration and that the Administration should make a contribution to the pension fund of that amount of money which in effect is an increase in pay to railwaymen. I hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to give us the information for which we have asked and tell us what the financial implications of this measure are and what steps the Administration proposes to take to implement it.

Sir, I would like to raise only one point which flows from this Bill and on which I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister can give us some information. One of the big staff problems is that of housing. The Railways have two schemes whereby money is advanced for housing purposes. The limit is determined by the pension contributions which are due to the railway servant; in other words, the railwayman can get a loan for the purchase of a house which is secured by his pension contributions. Where that pension contribution is now going to be reduced— it is going to be cut almost to half—it means that there will be less money available to new railway servants when it comes to buy houses. This is one of the big advantages, one of the big attractions, in the Service, and I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether consideration has been given to the effect that this will have on the ability of a person to purchase a house and the possible amendment of the regulations so as to make it less difficult in the future for young people particularly who marry and start a family to establish themselves in their own homes. It would be a pity if in doing something which is right and which we agree with, we unwittingly create and imbalance. It may be necessary to give some consideration to some alternative method whereby it will be possible to build up security without having to withdraw a member’s pension contributions from the fund. I am sure the Minister will be able to give us an indication that this aspect has been looked at and has been considered.

Mr Speaker, first of all I want to thank hon. members for accepting this Bill. With regard to the question put to me by the hon. member for Yeoville in connection with the elimination of level crossings, I want to say to the hon. member that, as he knows, we have funds coming in from the Railway Fund, from the Road Transport Fund and from the Treasury. The amount is now being increased from R3 million to R4d million. We have a committee that works out the priorities of the different level crossings to be eliminated. I shall endeavour in the committee stage to give the hon. member a report on how this work is proceeding.

Even if we take the committee stage immediately?

No. Sir, the hon. members for Yeoville, Umbilo and Constantia asked me certain questions in connection with clause 10 dealing with the Superannuation Fund. As correctly stated by the hon. member for Umbilo, this fund at the present moment stands at R582 866 000. I want to point out that a Joint Committee of Management of the Railways and Harbours Superannuation Fund, which is representative of both the staff and the Railway Management, unanimously recommended that in respect of servants still in the Railway service, the contributions to the new fund should be 4 per cent. That was done after the receipt of an actuarial report. I do not think hon. members need have any fear that this will be detrimental to the fund.

*This matter has been thoroughly gone into by the actuaries. I just want to point out briefly to hon. members what difference this is going to make to the contributions. The previous contribution of a clerk, grade II, with a minimum salary of R1 680 used to be R11.20; it is now going to be R5.60. A clerk, grade I, with a maximum salary of R3 900 used to contribute R26 and he will now contribute R13. A senior clerk with a maximum salary of R4 500 used to contribute R30 and he will now have to contribute R15. A principal clerk with a salary of R5100 used to contribute R34 but will now have to contribute R17; a chief clerk with a salary of R5 700 used to contribute R38 and will now have to contribute R19. In other words, the hon. member for Constantia is quite correct when he says that this will mean that the employee will be able to take a bigger cheque home, but I want to point out to hon. members that, during the Budget debate we have had a little while ago, they were very concerned about the fact that, as they alleged, we are now taking away the salary increases amounting to R60 million we gave the Railway servants last year. Hon. members should realize that a concession is being made here to the Railway staff. If there are any further enquiries in regard to the contributions by, for example, checkers, shunters and drivers, I shall gladly furnish hon. members with such information.

Are the Railways still going to contribute on the R-for-R

basis?

I am coming to that question. As the position is at present, it is obvious that the contributions by the Railways are naturally going to be less as a result of the R-for-R contributions. However, a new deal is being contemplated, and as soon as we have worked out the new basis, it will be submitted to the House, and the necessary amendments to the Pension Act will be submitted to the House in the course of the current session.

†Then I want to refer hon. members to a reply given to the hon. member for Simonstown today in connection with the change in the pensions that will be received by members as from the 1st April, 1971. I do not want to detain the House by reading out the reply again; I merely wish to refer hon. members to it. We do contemplate a departure from the purely actuarial basis of determining the solvency of the pension fund. This will be dealt with when the Pensions Amendment Bill comes before the House. That is my reply to the hon. member for Constantia. The inclusion of clause 10 in the Bill now before the House is to enable the department to give the staff the benefit of the reduced contributions with effect from the April pay month.

*Sir, I think that I have now replied briefly to the various questions.

What about loans for houses?

The hon. member for Durban Point asked a question in regard to the possibility of loans for housing.

No change has been affected as regards the availability of the money for Railway housing loans.

It is being determined by his contributions towards the pension fund.

It is, in actual fact, being determined by his salary scale.

And his contributions.

Yes, and his contributions, but the real determining factor is his salary scale.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr Speaker, I move—

•Time.

As a result of the rapid development and growth in the Eastern Transvaal, particularly in the mining sector and specifically at Phalaborwa and in the Steelpoort area, as well as the establishment of heavy industries at Witbank, Middleburg and in the Machadodorp vicinity, it has become essential to increase the carrying capacity of the Eastern Transvaal main line on account of the constantly increasing traffic.

The train service across the section between Derwent and Witbank is a very intensive one and the operational problems on this section, which are particularly acute, are impeding the flow of traffic. To meet the expected traffic requirements, it will therefore be necessary to increase not only the carrying capacity of the section, but also that of the stations, especially Witbank. However, as a result of the lay-out of the Witbank complex, unfavourable gradients, and undermined land, which, in places, extends almost right up to the railway line boundaries, it is not feasible to provide additional railway facilities in this area. The only solution seems to be to keep traffic not bound for Witbank away from the area concerned as far as is possible.

In order to do this and thus provide relief for a part of the Eastern Transvaal main line, it will be necessary to provide a deviation route between the Eastern Transvaal and the Witwatersrand. As the hon. the Minister indicated in his Budget speech, it is accordingly the intention to take over a part of the private branch-line—approximately 48 kilometres in length—between Broodsnyersplaas and the Arnot power station from the Electricity Supply Commission at an amount not exceeding R4 million. In order to complete the deviation route as a whole, a new railway line will be constructed between Wonderfontein Station on the Eastern Transvaal main line and the Arnot power station, a distance of approximately 17 kilometres.

The purpose of this Bill is to give effect to the purchase of the part of the private branch-line; the intention is to introduce legislation for the construction of a railway line between Wonderfontein Station and the Arnot power station for approval during the present session of Parliament.

It is a pleasure to support this Bill, because it provides proof of progress and economic growth in the Eastern Transvaal and one is glad to learn that the Railways are anxious to carry out their duties in connection with the growth taking place in that part of the country. We shall have pleasure in supporting the Bill.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Clause 1(b) contains the proposal for a new definition, and that is that “Republic” includes the Territory of South-West Africa. Sir. one might regard this as either the first bite of the cherry, or one barrel of a double-barrelled shotgun, because this definition by itself does not convey the full intention of the Bill before us, but also has relation to the later clauses 11 and 12 where specific mention is made of the application of this Bill to South-West Africa. I rise at this stage to move as an amendment—

I do so because we on this side of the House have made our position perfectly clear in regard to the principal Act. In 1963 we opposed the principal Act not because of the fact that it introduced control but because of provisions within that Act which we as a party believe went far too far. We opposed it at that stage and we have opposed certain amendments which have been introduced in the intervening years, and we are opposed to some of the provisions of this particular Bill. We would therefore naturally be opposed to the extension of the Act as it is to South-West Africa and the amendments which have taken place in the intervening period. Our specific objections we will deal with perhaps more adequately and in the proper perspective when we reach clause 11 of this Bill. But I want to make it perfectly clear, as I said in the Second Reading, that in opposing this definition and in opposing the subsequent clauses extending it to South-West Africa, we do so according to the stand we have taken, namely that we have no objection to legislation which is directed to deal with specific and restrictive aspects of control over what one might call objectionable publications which are of an extreme nature. We are in favour of legislation of that nature and we would be in favour of the extension of the existing Act of 1963 to South-West Africa by the inclusion of South-West Africa in the term “Republic” if that Act had certain exclusions in so far as South-West Africa was concerned.

I just want to give one more reason why we will vote against this clause. The hon. member for Green Point indicated that we do not feel the Bill should simply be made applicable to South-West Africa. Neither has any indication as yet been given in regard to the way in which the German cultural interests in South-West Africa will be represented on the Publications Control Board. The hon. the Deputy Minister did in fact indicate that he would consider it. but at this stage we still vote in favour of the application in spite of the fact that nothing definite has been submitted in this regard. I just want to add that we felt it was an occasion where the whole matter, the principal Act, should have been referred to a Select Committee so that we could have revised the Bill. This was rejected as well. It was not, as the hon. the Deputy Minister said, a threat; it was merely an explanation of our standpoint, but since it has been rejected it is another reason why we are going to vote against the application of the principal Act to South-West Africa.

As the two hon. members before me have said, we are opposed to the inclusion of South-West Africa in this Bill and I must say that we have stated our point of view, but if one thing has been noticeable right throughout the passage of this Bill, it is that we have been denied the views of those hon. members representing that Territory.