I move as an unopposed motion—

seconded.

Agreed to.

I have already said that I shall not detain the House for any length of time on this debate. As a matter of fact there is not a great deal left for me to say. As I explained the other evening it is not my intention to cover the debate as a whole, but I want to confine myself to general financial matters which have been raised and to the amendment moved by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) and the arguments which he has put forth in support of his amendment. I have in the main already dealt with the general financial matters. There is just one point left which I wish to deal with. I think it was the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Liebenberg) who raised this subject—I am referring to the position of our money system. He said that he and probably others felt uneasy about the position of our finance system in South Africa. I do not know what reason the hon. member has for feeling uneasy. His argument apparently amounts to this, that he is nervous of the future of sterling and that he thinks our pound is essentially linked up with and will remain linked with the English pound. On an earlier occasion this year I replied to a question on this subject and the answer I gave was to refer to the fact that I had explained the Government’s policy when I replied to the criticism on the 1940-’41 Budget debate, and I then pointed to what I had said as recorded in columns 3,587 and 3,588 of Volume 38 of Hansard. Since making that statement there has been no change in the Government’s policy on this question. I referred on that occasion to the policy laid down by the former Minister of Finance (Mr. Havenga). On the 18th March last year I said this—

That was my predecessor’s policy and that is the policy that I have followed. And I added this—

As I have already said, nothing has happened in the meantime, making it necessary for me to add anthing to what I said on that occasion. South Africa’s monetary system is in a very strong position. There are very few countries in the world which can congratulate themselves on being in such a strong position in regard to their monetary system as we. I therefore do not see any reason whatsoever for the feeling of uneasiness which the hon. member expresses. I now come to the amendment of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). I want to say at once that the hon. member was a good deal happier in his speech on this debate than he was in previous speeches on financial matters but the reason for his being happier was principally that on this occasion he said as little as possible about financial subjects, and that he resorted to superficial platitudes which so greatly attract him. He moved an amendment which, inter alia, says that this House refuses to pass this Bill until the Government undertakes immediately to stop all expenditure under the heading of “Defence” which is not strictly in accordance with the Defence Act, and within the scone of that Act. His object in moving that, of course, was again to invite a general debate on the Government’s defence policy. I am not going to allow myself to be dragged into a debate on that matter. That question has been discussed here repeatedly, and it has been decided on and there is no need for me to say any more about it. But what I do object to is the impression which is being created by the hon. member’s amendment. He apparently wants to give the impression that we are now engaged on incurring expenses on defence which are not in accordance with the Defence Act. I should like to know from the hon. member what kind of expenses we are incurring to-day which are not in accordance with the Act and in respect of what expenses the Auditor General has passed any comments to say that such expenses are not in accordance with the Defence Act. To that question we get no reply. If our expenditure in connection with defence operations in the North is not in accordance with the Defence Act, it would naturally have been the Auditor-General’s duty to comment upon it, but he has not done so. There is nothing whatsoever in the Defence Act to prevent us from acting as we are doing to-day. There is nothing in the Defence Act to prevent us from conducting operations outside South Africa by means of voluntary troops, and if the hon. member for George wants to create that impression then he does an injustice to the Government and to the country in that regard. The second point he mentioned is that before this Bill be read a second time greater provision be made for essential social services, and for the combating of unemployment. There will be an opportunity later on to discuss the Government’s policy on the question of social services, and the House will then see what provision we are making on the estimates of expenditure for the year 1941-’42 for essential social services. But the hon. member for George on this occasion specifically contended, and he has done so now for the second time, that the Government is cutting the old age pensions and the invalidity grants in order to save money for war purposes. I emphatically deny that. In order to support his contention, the hon. member said there were certain instances where a reduction had occurred. Of course, there have been reductions. Reductions are always being made in grants of that kind, and in the same way increases are always being granted. In the course of every year certain grants, old age pensions and invalidity pensions are reduced, for instance, if the pensioner is transferred or moved from a large town to a dorp or to a farm. Such reductions also take place when, for instance, it is found that the recipient has other sources of income, or when the children become better able to support themselves. On the other hand, increases are granted when the opposite happens, but of that my hon. friend said nothing. I want to state here most emphatically that no reductions have been made on grounds on which similar reductions have not also been made in previous years. In other words, the Government’s policy in regard to reductions is exactly the same as the policy followed by my predecessor in peace time. If my hon. friend wishes to do so, he can send the information which he has placed before the House, in connection with the cases mentioned by him, to me, and I shall have the reasons for each of those reductions sent to him by the Department, and he will see that those reasons definitely are in accordance with the policy followed by my predecessor in peace time, and that his suggestion that we made those reductions in order to “pinch” for war purposes, is not only unreasonable but also ridiculous. The Minister of Labour has already shown that so far as invalidity grants are concerned, our expenditure this year has not been reduced, but that, in fact, it has gone up by £20,000. So far as the butter and cheese schemes are concerned, our expenditure has also gone up in comparison with last year by an amount of £7,000. As regards old age pensions, our expenditure this year will be £70,000 more than last year. Consequently, if we tried to save money in that way for war purposes, our effort cannot have been very successful. The next point the hon. member mentioned is that this Bill should not be read a second time before an adequate cost of living allowance is paid to all persons in the service of the State. I want to say here that the hon. member for George apparently is better informed of the position than his seconder, the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Schoeman). He, at any rate, knew that we are paying an allowance in respect of increased cost of living; he merely said that that allowance was not adequate. The hon. member for Fordsburg went further and said that we did not pay a cost of living allowance, as, according to him, the cost of living so far had only gone up by 3½ per cent. The hon. member for Fordsburg, as usual, talks about things which he does not properly understand. The cost of living has gone up by 4½ per cent., and since the 1st January we have been paying a cost of living allowance. The issue between the hon. member for George and myself is whether that allowance is adequate, and it boils down to the question of the basis of that allowance. This basis is twofold. First of all, we take the official figure of the Census Department, and, secondly, we take the average cost of living for 1938 as our starting point. Now I just want to say this to my hon. friend, that those two points have been settled on the basis of the joint recommendations of two committees. There was, first, of all, a committee in connection with the Public Service. Two members of that committee are highly-placed members of the Public Service Association, and are as a result of their position conversant with public service conditions. The other committee was a committee composed of Railway servants. Two of its members were appointed after consultation with the staff associations. Those two committees accepted those principles which my hon. friend apparently contests here, and they were satisfied that that basis would be an adequate basis, and on that basis we fixed our policy on this matter. We as a Government are carrying out that policy on the basis which was arrived at after those consultations. The other point in the amendment of the hon. member for George is that the permanent sources of national welfare, namely, the farming industry and the secondary industries, are to be developed and strengthened in accordance with a carefully devised scheme. My hon. friend apparently has forgotten, so far as industries are concerned, that this House, at the request of the Government last year, passed a law for the establishment of an Industrial Corporation with the very object in view which the hon. member has been pleading for. In other words, we are actually working in that direction. So far as the farming industry is concerned, I find mysel f in a somewhat difficult position, and I shall tell hon. members why. In the course of this debate, hon. members opposite repeatedly referred to a statement made by me in a previous debate on the question of the Land Bank. But in the light of a ruling which you, Mr. Speaker, gave a few days ago, while the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) was speaking, I am not permitted to refer to that, and I shall confine myself therefore to reading out to the House what the Land Bank has to say about this matter.

And what about the Farmers’ Relief Board?

I shall come to the Farmers’ Relief Board as well, but I first of all want to read what the Land Bank has to say about this matter—

Then later on they give further details, and the report goes on—

1. (a) advances not being granted to persons who are not full-time farmers, or who are not prepared to become full-time farmers;
2. (b) Advances being limited to £2,000 except in special circumstances, such as where an applicant, if not assisted, would be in danger of losing his farm.

That is £500,000 less than the Land Bank Board had originally thought necessary.

In other words, the Bank went still further in removing restrictions as compared with what they originally were when it estimated the needs of the bank at an amount of £1,350,000, and in spite of that it will still be able to meet its requirements with an amount of £200,000. Then as regards the Farmers’ Relief Board. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) quoted figures which apparently were intended to create the impression that less is being paid by the farmers to this board than they used to pay. He quoted the figures here. We must take into account the fact that the figures given for the year 1940-’41 were only for nine months.

I said so.

Yes, but the hon. member must not add one-fourth to get the figure for the year. He must add a third. I even think a schoolboy would have known better how much to add. If we make that necessary addition we find that the amount paid in interest for this year is within £10,000 of the amount for last year.

What about the £1,000,000 in arrear?

But the amount of repayments has gone up from £835,000 to £970,000. There again we have an increase in the repayments which farmers are able to make. The final point mentioned by the hon. member for George is that the burden of taxation must be equal, and must be fairly divided, among the various classes of the population. There is a great deal more to be said on that subject, generally speaking, and a great deal more will be said when the Budget comes before this House. The hon. member for George apparently only had the opportunity of speaking on the question of the gold mining taxation. There, too, I am in trouble. The hon. member for George referred to a previous debate; I am not allowed to refer to it, and that being so I only want to say this. The hon. member for George uses a somewhat strange argument. He said that only one additional tax was imposed on the gold mines and not two. His reason for saying so is that the first tax was not a war tax. In other words, if a tax is not a war tax, then it is not a tax. I find it difficult to accept a doctrine like that. The position was eventually further analysed by the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie), and as he yesterday proclaimed the typical purified doctrine on gold mining taxation as it is being proclaimed throughout the platteland, I want to emphasise two points which he did not mention. He says that all we had done in respect of Mr. Havenga’s policy was to abandon the gold purchasing scheme. The gold mines would therefore receive the full amount of 168s. per ounce for their gold, and only the ordinary taxation formula would be applied. What the hon. member forgets is that in addition there is also a special contribution; that special contribution is estimated at £3,500,000. It will produce more than £4,000,000. Furthermore, he also forgot that after the budget we introduced the gold realisation account which involves a further tax on the mines of nearly £2,500,000.

The mines do not pay a penny of that.

Yes, they do pay it.

No.

My hon. friend is again getting too close to financial matters. If the gold mines don’t pay it, I want to know who pays it. Then I suppose that the farmers are paying it, as my hon. friend at the back of me says. When my hon. friend opposite again talks about these things he should not forget those two amounts which I have mentioned. He further told the House that we refund to the mines their additional working costs. That has been said repeatedly outside, and the impression is created that we present the mines with about £3,000,000. The position is simply this, that we have worked out our taxation scheme in such a way that irrespective of the increased working costs, in other words on the old basis, the mines would have no more than they had before the price of gold went up, and in making that calculation we had to take due account of the fact that the working costs of the mines would go up. Consequently, under that scheme the mines would not get a penny more than they did get before the price of gold went up. We took all that from them by way of taxation, with the exception of the increased amount which they had to pay in working costs. I should like to know what we would have heard in this House from the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker) and others, if a similar policy had been applied to the wool farmers. That is the amendment and those are the arguments adduced in support of the amendment. I do not know which of the two is the weaker—the amendment or the arguments. I have not the slightest doubt that this amendment will be rejected by this House and also by the country.

Question put: That all the words after “that,” proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided.

Ayes—70:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H. Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B. Baines, A. C. V.

Ballinger, V. M. L. Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B. Burnside, D. C.

Christopher, R. M. Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R. Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A. De Kock, A. S. Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J. Egeland, L.

Faure, P. A. B. Fourie, J. P. Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D. Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S. Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H. Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T. Humphreys, W. B. Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A. Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B. Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B. Marwick, J. S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F. Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W. Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B. Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C. Solomon, B.

Stallard, C. F. Steenkamp, W. P. Steyn, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C. Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J. Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M. Van den Berg, M. J. Van der Merwe, H. Van Zyl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—40:

Badenhorst, A. L. Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H. Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J. Bremer, K.

Brits, G. P. Conradie, J. H. Du Plessis, P. J. Erasmus, F. C.

Fagan, H. A.

Fullard, G. J. Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Lindhorst, B. H. Loubser, S. M. Louw, E. H. Malan, D. F.

Naudé, S. W. Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Quinlan, S. C. Schoeman. N. J.

Strauss, E. R. Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. p.

Swart, C. R.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

V. d. Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and P. O. Sauer.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Original motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

I move—

I object.

House to go into Committee on the Bill on 20th February.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t think I need delay the House unduly long in replying to the very many questions which were raised in connection with the Railway Part Appropriation. If I do not refer to any specific points raised by any particular member, they will know they are getting a reply in writing giving full details on the points they raised. I would like, in the first place, to deal with the speech of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Haywood). I am glad indeed that he urged me in the matter of railway finance in these times to be conservative. I hope he will stick to that policy, and try and impress that policy upon some of his colleagues who, in following him, generally recommend another policy. I agree as to the importance of building up reserves at this time, and I am reassured in this matter because I feel now that in carrying out that policy I shall have the support of the hon. member. The hon. member alleged that the operating ratio had risen, and he seemed to be somewhat concerned about that fact, but he was not strictly correct. It is quite true that the operating ratio did rise for the years 1937 to 1939-’40, but since that period it has actually fallen. It rose during that period not because of any undue extravagance or anything of that sort, but merely because we had at that time suffered a loss in revenue of over £1,000,000 owing to the reduction in the petrol rate. We had also lost a considerable sum in regard to the responsibility allowance, and we also lost a good deal of profit owing to the rent rebate scheme. These things brought the operating ratio up from 64 per cent. for 1936-’37 to 74.1 per cent. for 1939-’40. In the nine months 1940-’41 that has fallen again to 69.73 per cent., due, of course, to our rather better revenue, so that the operating ratio is in quite a healthy condition as far as the railways are concerned. Regarding the question of the manufacture of munitions which the hon. member and other members raised, I would like to make it clear that there is no cost attaching to the railway users in respect of such manufactures, because all charges in that connection are made on the Defence Vote. We treat the Defence Vote in this matter as we would treat any other Government department. As hon. members know, the railways do nothing for nothing. I may say that the railways are very glad on the cheapest possible basis to assist Parliament in carrying out its war policy. On the question of making up the difference between civil pay and military pay, the South African Railways, along with all other Government departments, are of course doing this, and in that they are only following the example of any big employer of labour in this country. That, of course, is a charge against the railway users, and is one that I am satisfied the railway users will gladly bear. The question of labourers’ overtime is being enquired into. I do not know what the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) would say if the Minister, while he was being addressed, paid the same attention to him as he is now paying to me. However, as these questions are general, I don’t know that it matters very much whether he takes any notice or not. I was certainly under the impression that handymen got the same overtime as those for whom they labour. I understand that that is not quite the position, as the labourers have some system of pooling their overtime, but I am having that enquired into, so that if there is any just grievance we can do what we can to remedy it. In regard to new works, I would like to make it clear that these are not being curtailed, but are merely being slowed down. The hon. member seemed to think we should not slow down new works, and on the other hand he went out of his way to warn us that after the war there was going to be a slump and the railways must be prepared for it. Well, now, what is the best way of preparing for a slump? Obviously by slowing down capital works to-day so that these works will be available to meet the post-war slump; so that we are really doing or rather pursusing the policy which the hon. member himself recommended. With regard to the manufacture of locomotives, the hon. member is, I think, misrepresenting the figures. He told us that, despite the programme, we had only manufactured 29 locomotives, but the hon. member is taking the figure which is left after setting the number of locomotives manufactured off against the number withdrawn. In other words, he is taking the balance. In fact, we have manufactured a great many more; the real position as far as locomotives are concerned is that we manufactured 94 and we withdraw 65, the net balance being 29. With regard to coaching stock, 317 were manufactured and 164 withdrawn; trucks, 2,329 were put in service, and 794 withdrawn, so that you see we are well up to our construction programme in respect of these particular vehicles. With regard to track maintenance, the hon. member suggests that we have not had the same amount of increase this year as in past years. The increases in past years were not due to any more maintenance work being done, but to the fact that the responsibility allowance was then included in wages, and that put up the cost. Actually, at the present time we are maintaining the track just as extensively as we did before. In any case, what is important is the view of the chief engineer, and he is satisfied that the track is properly maintained. As long as we get a report from him that he is satisfied, it does not matter whether we spend much or little. Now with regard to housing schemes, I would like to do all I can to push things forward, and we are doing this up to the limit of our capital resources. I hope to do as much in the coming year as we have done in the past. The hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Dolley) also dealt with this question. I am not able at the moment to build houses on a sub-economic basis. As you know, the Railways endeavoured at one time to be included as a public corporation, so that they could undertake sub-economic housingschemes, but this has not been arranged so far. What I am considering at the moment, and if it is practical I will deal with it in my Budget, is the question of building small houses very cheaply and selling them at the lowest possible rate to our less well-paid workers. I don’t know whether that scheme will actuallyl plan out in practice, but if it does it will go a long way to meet the difficulty which has been raised by the hon. members, and will certainly do something to help our less well-paid workers. The hon. member congratulated me on not being up against the Ossewa-Brandwag. I would like to say until to-day the word Ossewa-Brandwag has never passed my lips in public. I know very little about the Ossewa-Brandwag, I know a large number of its members, I have large lists of its membership; but I know nothing at all about what they do. I am satisfied that there are no subversive activities on the part of any Railway worker, and that I stick to. If there is any reason that I can advance why a Railwayman should not belong to it, it would appear to be on the ground that it does seem to be indicating an alternative method of transport. I come to the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). He levelled some charges, I think a little recklessly, against the Administration. He alleged that we were making extortionate charges against the British Government. Well, of course, the hon. member thinks that all Railway charges are extortionate, and inasmuch as he believes that I dare say that he really believes what he says. But the British Government is treated like any Government department, and we don’t in the case of the British Government perhaps being in a difficulty, take advantage by putting an extra 10 per cent. or 20 per cent. on our charges; we charge them just what they would be charged in the ordinary way, and therefore the accusation that we are putting on extortionate charges is a little unfair. So far as I know, the British Government has not complained. The hon. member talks a bout £94 per aeroplane, but the South African Airways pay us the same, or whatever the charge may be. Then the hon. member alleged that we were refusing permission to men to go to the front. Actually, up to date 6,349 Europeans, or nearly 10 per cent. of the white complement of the Railways, have gone to the front, and 110 non-Europeans.

Have they gone to the front?

No, I will qualify that: they have gone for military service. I have no control over them once they join up. It is quite true that a lot of enthusiastic lads, young men, want to go, but they cannot be spared. After all, the Railways have to continue running, not only to keep the economic life of the country going, but to assist the war effort, and in this matter railways are as important as bullets and bombs. We have to keep key men back, no matter how enthusiastic they are. Very often these young men are not so much thinking that it is their duty to go, as it is the spirit of adventure which appeals to them, and it may be that their real duty lies in carrying on with their job, looked at from the point of view of the war effort as a whole. So that there might be no unfairness or cause for anyone to allege that some particular head of department objects to somebody going, I appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Hoppe, the new general manager, and every application by a Railway man to go on active service had to come before that committee, and that committee used every means in its power to see whether the man could be spared. I suggest to the hon. member that the Minister could do no more than that.

Why did the committee consistently turn down local recommendations?

I think the House will agree with me that there is only one man really who can visualise the whole position, and that is the general manager and his immediate staff, the local people do not know all the considerations that may be weighing with the Railway Administration, which has not a local problem to deal with. Then the hon. member alleged that our war work was in the hands of what he termed minor officials. I do not know what he meant by that, but I am sure that he will agree with me when I tell him that our war work is in the hands of Mr. Day, the ex-assistant general manager, Mr. Wardley, our present assistant general manager in Johannesburg, Mr. Lee, and Mr. Wilson, he will agree that these are not minor officials but leading officials of the Railways, and they are in charge of war work. With regard to the distribution of work in Durban, I will have an enquiry made as to whether Durban is getting its fair share. We are anxious that the work should be distributed fairly, but there again it largely depends on what a particular shop is doing. If the shop is mainly concerned with maintenance work, it may not be possible to switch it on to munitions, on the other hand, if the shop is concerned with new construction, that work is being held up, and it may be that it is not so essential to the efficient working of the Railways, and we may spare it for munition work. I will have that investigated, and I have already given instructions to that end. He alleged that I was guilty of a breach of an undertaking regarding the pre-examination proposals. I would like to read to the hon. member a letter which I addressed to all the people connected with the proposal, and the associations and the delegates who attended that conference at which I promised that if there were any difficulties they could have a consultation with me—

You say that has been sent to the unions concerned?

To the artisan staff associations.

Was it sent to the Charge Men’s Association?

I imagine so, I should be sorry if anybody was omitted. There they had the opportunity, I promised them that if there was any objection to the final proposals I would meet them. I said I would write and tell them what the proposals were, and if there were objections to let me know. Some did not reply, others said they were satisfied, so that I cannot be held to be guilty of a breach of an undertaking.

Who has replied to say they are satisfied? The unions deny receiving that.

I will let the hon. member see the correspondence. There was an allegation made also that we did not appoint the right officials to enquire into it. That is extremely unfair, because I suggested an official and they said they did not want that official, but would like someone else whom they named. I said “All right, you shall have Mr. Witte,” and I appointed the man they asked me to appoint. He enquired into it, it was his final recommendation that I submitted to them for consideration, and they say they had no objection to it. Then the next thing was the statement that we made no serious effort to carry soldiers over the Christmas and New Year holidays. We carried over 50,000 soldiers during the three weeks at Christmas and New Year, and that involved 210 special trains, ten special trains a day, and that a a time when the Railways were completely flooded out with holiday traffic and school traffic, and all the traffic we associate with Christmas time. And then we are told we are not trying to do our bit. And we carried the soldiers at quarter fare, that is, at the expense of Railway users, and they were also given meals the same as anybody else and the same attention as any ordinary passenger. That is a thing we have been very particular about, so that I think here again the hon. member is not being quite fair to the administration. Instead of criticising the Railways for what they did, I think hon. members ought to take off their hats to those officials who worked day and night under extremely difficult circumstances to meet the demands of the soldiers. Then one hon. member is very anxious that we should publish the nonEuropean Conditions report. Now these departmental reports are not written for publication, they are confidential to give full and complete information to the Minister, and very often it would be undesirable to trammel the writers of such reports by the knowledge that they are going to be published or put on the Table of the House and made the playing thing of party politics. Very often it is not desirable that these reports should be for public consumption, and I have no intention of publishing this report or laying it on the Table of the House. I do want to make this clear. So far as the report is concerned I have adopted every recommendation that it contains with one or two very small modifications, and I have adopted it in such a way that I am paying more, as a whole, to the nonEuropean workers than is recommended by the report, and I think that is satisfactory. In regard to the recommendations as to housing and other matters, I have adopted them all in principle, and they are all being put into effect as soon as it is possible to do so. I agree that the conditions of our nonEuropean workers in the Railways is deplorable, and I am anxious to try and help them, and that was why I appointed this committee. It has not in any sense been over-generous, but it has certainly done a good deal to lay a good foundation for improving the conditions of non-European workers. I would like to tell hon. members, however, that I am not yet weary of welldoing so far as my coloured workers are concerned. I only ask you to be a little bit patient, and whenever opportunity occurs which fairly and legitimately justifies any improvement. I will not hesitate to take advantage of that opportunity. An hon. member asked what was better class work, and I suggest that the general manager is the best man to decide that issue. I am not an expert, but I would like to tell the hon. member that I myself had visited one or two places where it is alleged coloured men were doing better class work, and it was impossible to say what standards were being set on the railways. If anybody satisfies me that the general manager is being a little severe, a little unfair, I shall certainly make representations to him. With regard to hours of duty, the hours of duty of the native are exactly the same as in the case of white men. It may be that some white men are working too long, but natives are not working any longer than the Europeans are. Regarding the cost of living allowance, as the hon. member knows, natives come under the regulations as far as the railways are concerned, which were recently made in regard to the cost of living allowance. Natives are not excluded from that, but come in on the basis of their wages, and indeed rather more generously because they have a very small wage. Now I come to the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman). The hon. member always gives the House a lot of details of individual cases, which of course it is quite impossible to deal with over the floor of this House, but I will go into those cases if the hon. member will supply me with the names. I am very anxious that there shall be no victimisation in the case of the railways, but I would like to say this. I warned the hon. member, although he may know it, that railwaymen who go to members of Parliament with their troubles instead of going through the usual channel, are usually those servants who have got a very weak case. If they have got a good case, there is no fear that the Railway Board and the general manager will not deal fairly and squarely with them. I am satisfied, after my experience, that they get a very fair hearing and a fair deal. There are men who have been before the Railway Board, and have been turned down on some ground or other. They go to their member of Parliament, and do not mention why they were turned down, but mention their own side of the story. The member of Parliament may be indignant, and he comes to the House and says it is a scandal. The case is usually a half-baked one. Members of Parliament are not to blame, they come forward in good faith, they hear the story, and they think it is a bad case, but when the facts are shown to them they say: “We are sorry we raised this issue at all, and we realise there is another side to it.” Most of the cases that come before the House are cases that will not bear investigation by the Railway Board. I think It will be obvious to the hon. member we the new railway commissioner, Mr. Louis Esselen, has given up all party associations. It will be obvious to the hon. member that we will not allow a railway commissioner to be an active political partisan, any more than we would allow a stationmaster to be a partisan. This position is a whole-time job, and I have no fear that Mr. Louis Esselen will not know how to behave correctly. I think it is right for me to say at this time that I consider the country fortunate in securing for state service one who at once is so wise in counsel, so well liked, so conscientious and fair-minded as Mr. Louis Esselen. The hon. member for Fordsburg seems to prefer Mrs. Jenkins’ figures in regard to the cost of living to the figures of the Department of Census and Statistics. Well, I have a great respect for Mrs. Jenkins, I think she does a lot good in a way, but I am not going to prefer her figures, and I don’t suppose the hon. member really thinks that I will. By adopting Mrs. Jenkins’ figures of 14 per cent. against the official figures of 4½ per cent., he wants to create the impression that the Government is being a little bit hard. The hon. member also desires a Ministry of Transport, and the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen) wants that also. I am all in favour of a Ministry of Transport, and I am quite satisfied that ultimately it will have to come, that our transport arrangements by road, rail and airways will ultimately require one co-ordinated control if there is not to be serious overlapping and a great deal of confusion, but it is not possible to deal with such a question at this moment. If hon. members do not know it, I would like to say I am working personally every one of my waking hours in doing the regular routine work of Government without taking on any extra job. But as soon as the time is ripe, as soon as it is possible to make a move, if I am still in office, I give the House the assurance that I shall do all I can to bring about a co-ordinated Ministry of Transport.

We shall require your assistance when you are in Opposition at that time.

Yes, but I do not propose to delay this for another 25 years. I want to bring it about sooner than that.

Why so soon, what is your hurry?

The hon. member for Cape Town Castle (Mr. Alexander) raised a point about the 15 day qualification for privilege tickets for casual workers; he thinks 15 days is too much. Well, I had the greatest difficulty in persuading the general manager to agree to 15 days. It is obvious that we cannot give a casual worker a privilege ticket unless he works at least 15 days. We cannot give a privilege ticket to a man who works a few days for us and then for someone else. Then, in regard to the question of commissions paid to tourist agencies. These commissions are always paid in respect of overseas and external tickets. But they are never paid except in the case of Messrs. Cooks for internal traffic. Messrs. Cooks get this privilege because they had it in the old days of the C.G.R., and it has never been considered fair to do away with it. All internal commissions are to be done away with, including those in connection with airways. I shall tell hon. members what we are up against. A man comes along to book a ticket on the airway a fortnight before he starts his journey. We say, “All right, we shall book your place; where is your money?” The man says, “No, I won’t pay now; I shall pay you later.” Well, we do not do that. Then he goes to an agency, and they say, “Certainly, we shall give you credit,” and then they come and book with us. And they also want to pay later. So the Railways have the particular pleasure of paying commission to those people. So, by giving a commission for local traffic, you encourage a system of giving credit to people who want to book their seats. That is not sound, and we are doing away with all commissions now.

Why don’t you abolish the commission to Cooks as well?

That would not help much. It is not a question of giving anyone else commissions—we are simply retaining a system which has been in force for many years. Messrs. Cooks do a business which is six, seven or eight times bigger than anyone else’s, and Messrs. Cooks are in a position, owing to their overseas connections, of making the Railways very anxious to be nice to them, and as a business concern they are anxious to be nice to us, too. The time may come, of course, when we may have to take away their commission as well, but I do not anticipate that. Now I come to the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. J. J. M. van Zyl). He raised the question of a rail car for the Ladismith line. I have twelve rail cars belonging to the South African Railways at present in Czechoslovakia. I cannot get them from there. But possibly the hon. member for Ceres, who told us that he was a prominent member of the Ossewa-Branwag, might, with the influence of the commandant-general of that organisation, be able to do something with the Government of Czechoslovakia to release these cars for the use of the South African Railways.

That is a cheap joke.

If he can get me these rail cars, I shall give sympathetic consideration to the question of running one of them on the Ladismith line.

Why order them from Czechoslovakia in the first place?

That was not my doing. I only took office after war was declared. Now I come to the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw). He is very much concerned about the question of the “12 up.” I did not think the progress of the “12 up” was a matter which should worry Parliament very much. Now the “12 up” goes round via Stellenbosch instead of coming straight to Cape Town, and that worries the hon. member for Beaufort West. Far be it from me to send the hon. member for Beaufort West or anyone else to Stellenbosch if I can help it. I do not want to do it if they do not want to go. But the Stellenbosch Municipality asked us to send a train round there, and this was a train which we could easily send round there. That train leaves Johannesburg at 10 o’clock at night; it cannot leave later, because passengers do not like leaving later. It is a good hour for leaving any centre— 10.30 keeps them hanging about too long. Now, if you cut out Stellenbosch it would arrive here at 8.45, and it would have to wait outside the local station for half an hour owing to local traffic. We cannot bring it in before about 9.20. When we get a new station it may be possible, but to-day it is impossible. So nothing can be gained by running it direct, and for that reason it will continue to go via Stellenbosch. There were one or two other small points raised by the hon. member, but as he is not here I shall not reply to them now. He talked about the shortage of train staffs. I agree that the Railways are running with very short train staffs indeed. The House will appreciate the difficulties which we have in getting train staffs. There are so many more men who want to fight for the country rather than wait on the hon. member for Beaufort West and other members. For that reason I hope hon. members will be reasonable in their demands and make allowances for our difficulties. The hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Dolley) wants more money for housing schemes, and more expenditure in handling these schemes. The lack of expedition is due to the lack of money. If we expedite these things, we shall have demand made on us which we cannot meet, but I shall do all I can to keep going with this housing question. I am keen on it, and within the limits of my resources I shall not slow down. The hon. member also thought that the piecework schedule should be revised. I used to think myself that piecework schedules were on the high side, but having gone into them carefully, having been round the workshops, and having seen the men at work, I think the hon. member for Uitenhage will agree with me that our Railway workers, even on piecework, earn all they make. It is a big question to go into — the whole of these schedules—

For war work.

War work can be separated from the other. The same schedules apply. It may be that in one or two cases some people may be getting more than they should. Now, the hon. member hopes that I shall not sleep with one eye open. In my political embodiment I am unsleeping in my vigilance. The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) spoke about the Pretoria connections. I am in sympathy with him, and that matter is being enquired into. About a month ago I arranged for an enquiry to be made. I cannot give the hon. member the earnings on troops alone, separated from other earnings, but at any rate those would not show the true picture. Although we are doing a good deal of troop work, there is a lot of our normal work which we are not doing at all. Building work is almost at a standstill, and that work is not handled by us, and you would have to set that off against the troop work, so the hon. member must realise what the position is there. Now, in regard to coal rates, there is no hope of those being reduced at present. I am handling more coal than I know what to do with, and when one handles more than one knows what to do with, that is not the time to make reductions. In regard to the question of milk cans raised by the hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. Van Coller), I would again remind the hon. member, as I have done before, that Mr. Bates and the late Mr. Hugo found that the dairies were responsible for more damage than the Railways. The hon. member knows that the motto of the Railways is that there is always room for improvement, and we are applying that religiously to the milk trade. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) wants the lucerne rebate back. In regard to these rebates, we act on the advice of the Department of Agriculture. The Railways do not adjust agricultural rates without seeking the expert advice of the Agricultural Department. I personally did not think that the lucerne rate should have been reduced, and the Department of Agriculture opposed it when it was first done. And they opposed it when I asked for advice again. The hon. member must convince the Agricultural Department. If they say a certain thing should get a reduced rate, the Railways are usually prepared to act on their advice. The hon. member for Gordonia also raised the question of the factory at Ashton. I shall be glad to have any representations from the factory at Ashton, which I had the pleasure of visiting last year, if they want any rates to be considered. If they will state their case we shall deal with them sympathetically. The hon. member for Pretoria City wants a revision of house rents. At present the Railways lose £250,000 on their housing. Our actual return on housing is 5.91 per cent. If we have to meet interest charges, redemption, insurance, etc., we need 9.91 per cent., or practically 10 per cent. So if we should have a revision of rents, it will not be a question of lowering the old house rent as compared with the new, but keeping the old house at the same rent, and putting up the rent of the new ones. I do not think the hon. member would advocate that. The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) came back to the old subject of rates and fares. It is true that our rates to-day are higher than they were in 1914, but so are wages; the service is better, everything is on a higher level, and it is not quite fair to compare these two figures without comparing the general rise in the standard of living.

No chance at all of lowering these rates?

I don’t think so at the moment, but be patient and keep at it.

I shall.

The hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Venter) wants an allowance for the lower-paid workers. Of course they are already getting these cost of living allowances—they are getting them on the most generous basis. The lower the pay of the worker the higher the allowance they are paid. I do not propose to make any change in that scheme until we see how the present basis answers. It was a basis arranged for by the staffs themselves. We had no say in it. The staff committees suggested these bases and we accepted them as they suggested. Now on the question of women drivers; there is no intention of displacing any male drivers by employing women. If women are employed by the Railways at all during the war it would be due to the fact that it is impossible to get people to do certain work. We have to keep the Railways going, but there is no intention of employing women to displace men. Now in regard to the two tugs, which are being handed over, or have been handed over to the Navy. These tugs were not completed when war broke out. Immediately war broke out we were asked whether we would be prepared to let the Navy have them. They could either be taken on the basis that they would be sent to us afterwards and we would be paid a reasonable amount for their use or otherwise we would be paid for new tugs. If we had had to have them brought out here we would have had to have a naval esport for them. It would not be fair to expect the British Navy to escort two tugs for us when we could get on without them. In the circumstances the Navy said “We shall either take these tugs and pay you for what we have taken out of them, or otherwise give you new ones.” The Administration thought it was better to hand them over to the Navy. The Railways were able to make a generous gesture to a country which is one of their best customers. Now, in regard to the question of the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne), I shall go into the matter of these buses, the services of which he objects to having stopped. In reply to the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen), I shall enquire into the revenue earned on the Cape Town—Bitterfontein line, and I shall also look into the question of the housing accommodation, etc. But the hon. member will realise that on a line such as Cape Town—Bitterfontein, important though that line may be to his constituency, it is not possible for us to run, for instance, blue trains. We cannot run the best of our rolling stock except where conditions warrant our doing so. Some of the stock may not be as modern as it is on other lines, but the only way to get better service is so to develop Namaqualand that it will pay the Railways to run good stock there. The remedy is in the hands of the hon. member himself. The hon. member can see to it that conditions there are improved, and the Railways would be forthcoming. If the need is there the Railways will be there, but if there is no need you cannot expect Railways to send the best of their rolling stock into these parts. The hon. member for Bethal (Mr. J. C. van den Berg) raised two points of alleged irregularities which I shall enquire into, and I shall also enquire into his difficulties in connection with his South West African tickets. The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) alleged that men have been paid off because they were fit for military duty. That is quite untrue. I say that it is untrue in this sense, that the Administration would not allow such a policy. If such a thing were done we would stop it. We have accepted the position that it is a voluntary matter for a man to join up. If anyone does not care to attest, he can remain on the railways, and there is always plenty of work for him to do on the railways. In regard to soldiers’ behaviour which the hon. member raised and about which there are various questions from time to time, I would ask this House to remember that we are carrying thousands of soldiers, almost thousands per day, and if here and there there is a little outburst, a little exuberance, if their spirits get the better of them, I do not think we need make a political crisis of it. It is quite true that owing to the ill-considered generosity of some passengers soldiers are often will treated on railway lines. The new no-treating law is helping that situation, but on the whole the soldiers have behaved remarkably well. I say that if you had school boys or any other class of people travelling in the same numbers, full of good spirits, you would have had more trouble than we have had with our soldiers, and the damage done to Railway property has been relatively trifling. We usually have to supply more cushions when we send trains between big schools than when we have to send trains for soldiers. In regard to the hon. member for Durban North (the Rev. Miles-Cadman) I agree that it may be necessary to bring some of our men back, and it is important that every man in this country, or out of the country, should be employed in a way that his services can be most efficiently used. I agree with the hon. member there. In regard to the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser) I am looking into the question of the rates which he asked for, and he will be advised directly by me.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to resolve itself into Committee on the Bill now.

House in Committee :

Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill without amendment.

I move—

I object.

Third reading on 20th February.

The amendment which I have moved means that if the distance which the farmer’s products has to cover when they are conveyed by rail is less than 15 miles the farmer must be exempted from the provisions of this Act. The Minister has not accepted that amendment. The Minister did not tell us that he regarded that amendment as unreasonable; his great objection was that if he were to accept the amendment it would mean opening the door to evasions of the law and it might then be difficult to carry out the law. I thereupon asked him whether, if he was not prepared to accept the amendment, he would be willing to give instructions to the Road Transportation Board to grant exemptions in such cases. His answer was that he did not want to interfere with the actions of the Road Transportation Board. I do not want to argue with the Minister as to whether he should or should not interfere with the Road Transportation Board, but what I want to draw his attention to is this: the Minister has admitted that he is unable to accept this amendment as it will make the application of the law difficult, and in doing so he has admitted that this amendment is not unreasonable and not unfair. That is all I can deduce from the attitude adopted by the Minister, and if that is so then I want to make an earnest appeal to him, and ask him if he is not prepared to accept this amendment, to himself amend the Bill so as to avoid unnecessary inconvenience being caused to the farmer. If the benefits which the Railways secure from this transportation do not justify the inconvenience to the farmer, then I think it is only fair and reasonable that I should make an appeal to the Minister and ask him to introduce an amendment himself. If he is unable to accept my amendment, so to amend the Bill as to avoid unnecessary inconvenience being caused to the producers. I think the Minister will admit, as I have said before, that over a small distance of 15 miles the Railways, taking all costs into account, cannot make such large profits, and if the Railways do not make any large profits in a case of that kind, and if they are imposing an unnecessary burden on the producers, then it is no more than fair that they should meet the request of the producers in this instance. In those circumstances I ask the Minister so to amend the Bill as to prevent such unnecessary inconvenience being caused to the farmers and to the lorry drivers. I can assure the Minister that if the clause is passed as it now stands it will cause a lot of inconvenience and trouble to the wheat farmers, the wine farmers, the fruit farmers and others—inconvenience which is not justified, and that being so I trust that he will amend the Bill in such a way that relief will be granted to the farmers and their objections will be removed.

I would like to say that it is impossible for me to frame an amendment which would meet the hon. member’s point, because the point is this, that we cannot have anyone on the road without a certificate. It does not matter whether he is entitled to be within 10 or 15 miles, the moment he is on the road without a certificate the position becomes impossible. If I could put in an amendment so that the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser) and his friends could be exempted, I would be only too pleased to do it, but if an amendment is drafted to meet his case, it would also affect thousands of others. Therefore it is impossible to meet the hon. member. When the proceedings were interrupted last week there were just one or two points I wanted to make clear, and I might do so now. I want to make it clear to the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) that nothing prevents him under this Bill from carrying his own goods, or anyone else’s goods, so long as he does not do it as a business, or so long as he does not charge for it. It is only when he becomes a public carrier that he is debarred from carrying goods. So it is not necessary to meet his point. He can carry anything belonging to himself, or to anyone else, if they are not carried for reward. If the hon. member can show me any catch in the Bill I shall be glad to correct it. In regard to private railways, which he wants to exclude, we have quite a number of private railway undertakings in this country.

Why protect them?

They are not being specially protected, this Act protects everybody including these lines; why should you not protect these if you protect any other kind of carrier. They are part and parcel of the Railways, and in my opinion should not be excluded. The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) wanted “any farmer” added, but that is quite out of the question because it will defeat the whole purpose of the Bill. I would like to say, particularly with a view to what the hon. member for Malmesbury said, that this Bill is not making anything impossible for the farmer, it has not made anything impossible since 1930. As a matter of fact, it makes it easier for the farmer than the original Act. It is absurd to say that we are now making it impossible for the farmer any more than it has been impossible for him for the last eleven years.

I should like the Minister to understand that the reference was to a man who conveys his own goods, and who therefore does not require a certificate. If it is as the Minister says then I should like to know why in this case he cannot exempt the farmer’s personal goods. If the Minister looks at his memorandum he will see that motor transport means—

1. (1) for reward ….

The principle there is that if he carries his own goods from one place to another he does not do so for reward, but then it goes on to say—

1. (2) In the course of, or for the promotion of a business….

I do not know whether the Minister looks upon agriculture as a business. Consequently, if he carries goods in the course of his farming business or for the promotion of his farming business he comes under motor transport. Assuming I want to take a bag of meal on my motor, I have to take it from the town to my farm for farming purposes. If I do so I am not covered under this Bill. Assuming I do business with this bag of meal, will I then fall under this law? I do not think the position is sufficiently clear. If the farmer has the right to carry his goods as the Minister says he has, then what objection is there to saying that farming requisites and also other requisites of the farmer will be exempted ?The Minister will not lose anything by it. We shall be safe in putting it in here. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to listen to us because he will not lose anything by it. The Minister will perhaps say that it is not included and that therefore there is no need specially to exempt it. I say, however, that it is not clear that it is being exempted. That is the position. If he is allowed to convey his own goods why should he be specially exempted because there is a special exemption in regard to farming products? If it is a fact that he is exempted in any case so far as his own goods are concerned, then that exemption is not necessary either. I want to ask the Minister specifically to exclude everything he needs for the promotion of his own business of his own undertaking. I fail to see what the Minister will lose by putting that in. On the other hand, I am also satisfied if the Minister under business entirely excludes agriculture. I think, however, it will be safer for the Minister to follow the other alternative. I do not want the farmer to be brought before the courts afterwards because the Minister will notice that the onus of proof is placed on the farmer to prove that he is not carrying on a motor transportation business. If a farmer is summoned, the assumption is that he is doing motor transportation work, and the onus of proof rests on him to show that that is not the case. Why should we put people in that position? I want to remind the Minister of what he said in 1930. In those days he stood up for the farmers. He admitted in this House that the farmer was not in the same position as other people, that he was not in the same position as town’s people because the farmer lived far away from shops and far away from places where he had to get his goods. In those days when in 1930 the original Act was being considered the Minister was much concerned with the position of the farmers, and the Minister will agree that this Bill is 100 per cent. worse than that of 1930. This is what he said then—

He even went so far as to say this in regard to the law of 1930—

Who said that?

The Minister over there; he was in opposition in those days.

And you supported the Bill then.

I was not here. If the Minister loses nothing I fail to see why he should object to the amendment. Then we come to another point. The Minister now also wants to protect private individuals or bodies which have constructed railway lines. I want to refresh the Minister’s memory. He knows that the 1930 Act was brought in in order to protect the railways against competition, against unfair competition as it was called. That was the great object in those days. The argument was that millions of pounds of public money had been invested in railways and that the taxpayers must be protected. For that reason the railways had to be guaranteed against unfair competition so that the taxpayers money would be protected. It has been stated that the lorries only carry high rated goods, not low rated goods. That was the object of the Bill. Now the Minister comes along and he also wants to protect private individuals and companies against competition from lorries. Is that fair? In 1930 the Minister was deeply concerned with the poor lorry driver; he said that the rich man with his motor car did not come under the law but that only the poor lorry driver was affected. I therefore feel that I am entitled to plead the cause of the lorry drivers. Why should private companies be protected against competition from lorry drivers. Those private companies do not pay taxes, they do not pay those heavy taxes which the lorry drivers pay. Why should they have preferential treatment? For the privilege of using the roads the owner of a motor lorry able to carry from 4,000 to 5,000 lbs. has to pay £13 2s. 6d. and for a lorry able to carry 9,000 lbs. he has to pay £86 15s.

At the second reading stage, I called the attention of the Minister to the question of this illegal taxi competition. As the Minister will remember, various reports of the Central Transportation Board, and the last one in March, 1938, reported that illegal taxi competition still continued, and it was extremely difficult to obtain protection under the Act in its present form. I take it that it is the intention of the Minister in this Bill to deal with that question, particularly in regard to the point which I raised. Let me put it briefly, the position is this, that between East London and the Transkei you have anything from 25 to 30 native taxis, and they are really broken down motor cars that have been bought on the hire-purchase system at second and third hand. Ordinarily, they can carry only five passengers, but the native, when he gets outside the urban boundary, loads into these cars ten, twelve and fifteen people, and he is competing against the Railway bus service. There has been a serious complaint that these taxis are a menace to the public who have no safeguard from the insurance point of view. I take it it is the intention of the Minister in this Bill to tackle this. Unfortunately I notice that the Minister’s definition of motor bus uses the term “motor vehicle designed and used for the conveyance of more than seven persons.”

I am deleting that clause.

Will the Minister accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren).

I am deleting the whole clause.

I will be satisfied if I can get an assurance that under this Bill all these native taxis will be brought under the control of the board. The law as it stands does not effect that.

That is the main purpose of this Bill. The case you mention comes up under other clauses. I think the hon. member will find as he goes on that we are dealing as effectively as we can with this.

I am glad to hear that. Under the exemption clause the conveyance of farm products by their producers by means of motor vehicles owned by them is mentioned. The term “product” is a very wide one, but I would like to get some assurance that includes animals, livestock sent to market, the butcher or public auctions. This is what is happening on a very large scale in the Eastern Province, farmers do not always produce all the slaughter animals that they sell. They will go to the Karoo and buy numbers of young sheep, keep them on their farm for a few years, then fatten them up and then send them to the butcher or the market. They are not produced by that farmer. Will the farmer be exempted from the Act?

But they belong to the farmer.

Yes! Will this definition here cover that position? I understand the farmer who sends stock which he did not produce to the market will not fall under the Act, but will be exempted.

Of course not.

Then I am satisfied.

I have explained the object of my amendment, and I would like to know whether the Minister will accept it. The object of my amendment is simply a matter of convenience to the farmers. I can assure the Minister there is a lot of dissatisfaction and inconvenience which will be removed if he accepts the amendment. I can understand the Minister would not like to leave any loopholes in this new Bill, especially as the department has experienced a number of loopholes in the past. I have discussed this matter with the department, and I think if the Minister will permit me to insert the word “adjoining” after the word “other” my amendment will read “or that of any other adjoining farmer.” That simply means that neighbouring farmers will be entitled to carry each others goods as occasion arises. A lot of inconvenience and expense will be obviated if he allows this amendment.

I think, in order to clear the air and prevent discussion on something which is not proposed, I might move the amendment which I propose to make in clause 1, and that is to omit paragraph 3 altogether from the Bill. I am eliminating the definition of motor bus altogether, and I think the hon. member for Swellendam will not object to that. With regard to the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys), his idea of adding adjoining farms is very interesting, but, after all, from the Cape to the Northern Transvaal farms adjoin, and I can see adjoining farms covering a hundred miles. In actual fact, although it seems a simple idea, it is almost completely unworkable. The moment anybody can be on the road carrying anybody else’s goods without a certificate, the whole purpose of the Act will go. I can give the hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. Van Coller) the assurance that livestock is included. We want to include all products, whether the man buys the seed or grows the corn, or whether the cow is bought by him or is his own product. I move—

1. (x) by the substitution for the definition of the expression “motor vehicle” of the following definition:
   “motor vehicle” means any vehicle (other than a motor-cycle with or without sidecar) designed or intended for propulsion or haulage by other than human or animal power on any road without the aid of rails: Provided that any vehicle propelled or hauled on any road by electrical power communicated to such vehicle or to a vehicle hauling such first-mentioned vehicle, through a conductor, shall not be deemed to be a motor vehicle if it is operated on a route which was, on the thirty-first day of December, 1931, an electric tramway route, or if it is operated on a route on which vehicles similar to electric tramway vehicles were in regular use on that date or if it is operated on any other route with the board’s written consent, which the board may grant on such conditions as it may think fit to impose.”

I would like to explain the purpose of the modification I have made in regard to this latest amendment. For the benefit of the House, I am prepared to move a new amendment giving the whole position, because it is much easier for members to follow. The purpose of this new amendment is this. Applications have recently been made to the Road Transportation Board to run trolley buses between towns. Under the Act as it stands, why I don’t know, but I think it was probably an oversight at the time, motor trolley buses are not under the control of the Act, but permission to run them is. The Transportation Board takes the view, and correctly, that if there is an existing service there which is under their control, it is only right that if other services are allowed they must be under control. We don’t want to stand in the way of development, and consequently I am moving an amendment in this case bringing motor trolley buses under the control that other buses are under, so that all shall be dealt with on the same basis and in the same way. I may say that my friend the Minister of Railways objects very strongly to my modifying this amendment, but I have persuaded him to be a little optimistic and to agree to its going in. It would suit the Railways much better if it was not in, and I think the fact that he has agreed will be a good reason for this House agreeing, because he is more interested in this control than anybody else.

It seems to me that the Minister has been exaggerating a little in regard to this amendment. I am open to correction, but I think he has given the House a false impression. As far as I can see, the only effect of the amendment he is now moving is to add the closing words: “the board may grant on such conditions as it thinks fit to impose.” The Minister includes trolley buses where previously they were excluded, and what he is now endeavouring to do is to give the Transportation Board power to impose conditions under which trolley buses may be run. This may or may not have arisen from the recent application in Cape Town for permission to run trolley buses, and I want to move right at the beginning of the amendment—

It seems to me we are rapidly getting to the stage where the only thing left to municipalities will be the deficit at the end of the year, and that the Central Transportation Board is prepared to take over the sole control of all municipal transport undertakings without assuming responsibility for the deficit at the end of the year. If this kind of legislation proceeds, we shall have to come to the House eventually and say to the Minister: “If you are going to run the whole show, then run it and the deficit as well.” This kind of legislation is going to make it impossible for municipalities to run transport and make ends meet. This continuous interference by people who, in some instances are not highly qualified in transport in local undertakings of great magnitude, is making it impossible for us to run transport at all. The ratepayers in various towns and municipalities, which control transport, have to pay for this luxury of a Central Transportation Board, which is poking its finger into every hole and corner in order, I suppose, to justify itself. But what is going to happen? Previously it was only necessary to make an application to the Central Transportation Board for consent if you wished to run a trolley bus along a particular route. And if the board gave such consent, that particular run of trolley bus was automatically exempted from the provisions of the Act. But it has appeared to the Transportation Board, as they put it, and I think wrongly, that the position is different now. They say, as they said in the recent case where Cape Town was concerned, that there is a mistake in the Act. They say: “We have only the power to say yes or no. We have no power to say yes with reservations.” But, as far as I can gather, it was never intended by this House that the Central Transportation Board should have any power to make reservations, and I do not think it was intended that the board should have the power to say no. To institute a trolley bus route means that you must be prepared to put up a considerable amount of expenditure. Most of the trolley buses are run by municipal undertakings, Cape Town being the conspicuous exception, but the fact that these trolley buses necessitate an expenditure of such a large amount of capital makes a trolley bus in itself a matter for serious consideration, and I am satisfied that an application for a trolley bus route will never come before the Central Transportation Board unless it is a matter of serious necessity, and therefore there is no need for a trolley bus having to do some of the things, or that a trolley bus company may do some of the things which the board seems afraid that the applicants might do. I do not think that the Minister need have any fear. I cannot see a trolley bus service coming into competition with the Railways. I can see these services being used as substitutes for tramways. I do not think they will come into being until and unless there is a large demand by the public. You cannot run a trolley bus with a few passengers. To make a trolley bus pay or look like paying, before you institute it you have to be sure that you have a large travelling public to use it. Now the Transportation Board want to say “Yes, we shall consent to this trolley bus route and to these services, provided you carry these things out under certain conditions which we are prepared to impose on you.” And what are the conditions? Our municipalities who run trolley buses will have to apply every year to the Central Transportation Board. And the board may possibly refuse to renew a certificate for a service which may have cost thousands of pounds to put into operation. Are we to have our municipal services in Durban subjected to the danger of the Transportation Board refusing to renew their certificates? Are they to be told how many buses they are allowed to run, what the fares are to be, and so on?

They tell you now what fares you can charge.

Yes, and we can have the ludicrous position that on a new route you may be forced by rhe Central Transportation Board to charge 6d. per mile in the interest of somebody who may have a couple of ramshackle buses on the route. You may have to charge 6d. per mile on one route, whereas you only charge 1d. on another route. It is an unjust and nonsensical interference with these undertakings. I can see it running right through this Bill—there is an attempt here to get control of the whole of the passenger transport in this country by the Central Transportation Board. For what purpose? To glorify the Central Transportation Board, to make it a thing of great moment in South Africa, which at present it is not, and I can see all the signs of provision being made in the interest of private enterprise. Not so much in the interest of the Railway; that is a story I am not altogether prepared to swallow. Let me quote the Cape Town case. The Cape Town Tramway people have applied to be allowed to run trolley buses to Bellville, and I understand that consent has been refused on the ground that somebody else is already running a private bus service, and the contention is that the Cape Town people may run a trolley bus service in open competition with someone else. Well, it is not the job of the Transportation Board to protect private enterprise. I always understood that private enterprise could invariably stand on its own feet. The fact of the matter is that there is great demand and a dire necessity in Cape Town for trolley buses from the centre of town to Bellville. There is a large population needing it, and a large number of passengers. There is in effect a necessity for trolley bus service from the centre of Cape Town to Bellville, but the Transportation Board have turned it down because, forsooth, it is not within their power to lay down the conditions as to how many buses they shall run, and so on. And they have refused a very necessary extension of the transportation service in Cape Town, and they have done so in the interest of private individuals. [Time limit.]

There is a definite opposition from the big municipalities to the idea of the amendment now put forward by the Minister. I have here a telegram from the town clerk of Durban in which he says—

It would appear that, as the collect says, the Corporation of Durban are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before them, that is in the management of their transportation services, by the Central Transportation Board. Personally I do not like control boards of any kind. A few weeks ago I went to hear a concert by a party of soldiers—a sort of behind the line show— and one artist gave a simulation of a curate who was making the announcements, and one of these announcements was as follows. He said: “We are all here to serve others—but what the others are here for I do not know.” So far as control boards are concerned I feel much the same. I do not know what they are here for, except to be inconsiderate nuisances and handicappers who impose restraints on local endeavour—they discriminate in a very disquieting and unfair way. I assert that this amendment would increase the difficulty by increasing the power of the Central Transportation Board. I want to illustrate what has happened in my own neighbourhood. Members who will look at the plan of this House will easily be able to follow me. The Town Hall of Durban is in the position of Mr. Speaker’s chair, and situated immediately opposite me is Briar-dene where the poorest of my poor people live. There already exists a tramway service from the Town Hall to within two miles of where this group of really poor people are congregated. Then there is a gap which is said to be there to avoid competition with the Railway which runs along that wall. What is to happen, according to the Transportation Board, is that the poor people who want to get home to their place over there must get a bus and go right round three sides of a square at a cost of 9d. a time, whereas if they could bridge that little gulf they could get a tram for 4d. It is ridiculous that a bus should have to go three quarters of a square, twice the mileage necessary, to get to the outskirts of Briardene, then turn round, and travel three sides of the square again to get back to the City Hall. The Central Road Transportation Board say: “We cannot allow you to close that gap. We cannot allow competition with the railways.” Yet Indian buses go up and down that road irrespective of any form of control. I am not speaking against the Indians. I think, however, that the principle of equality involves this, that if Indian buses are allowed to compete with the Railways on the Zululand-Durban Main Road, then it is iniquitous to say that the Durban Corporation shall not have a similar power. That is the way in which at present the powers of the Central Road Transportation Board are being exercised so far as my area is concerned. We seek to limit that power of theirs because it is bad for everyone. Those people who are compelled to pay 9d. cannot afford it. The saving of a “tickey” may not matter to us, but it does to them. Another point is this: such a silly local arrangement, which everyone in Durban wants changed, which nobody approves except the Board, adversely affects the public, the municipal authorities, and also the Railway Administration itself. The result is that people cannot afford to have cars—people like myself—do actually get them. This is bad for the buyers, and it is still worse for the Railways because all this business results in people using private transport and cutting out the Railways altogether. The Railways cannot gain and the public must lose. The Railways lose a great deal of revenue because people are practically compelled to use their own form of transport. I would ask the Minister seriously to consider this matter, especially in view of the fact that a strong demand has come from Durban. If we are not allowed to run our own bank, surely we should be allowed to run our own trams and buses. A deputation is to meet the Minister on Monday, and the matter is not so urgent that we need tie the hands of Durban and other progressive townships without giving ourselves reasonable time for reflection.

I should like to add my protest to this amendment which the Minister is bringing forward to-day. I am afraid the Minister is adopting totalitarian methods in regard to this measure. I am inclined to think that he must have been on a visit to Europe recently, and he must have been to Rome and Berlin. We do not want these totalitarian methods in this country.

Your whole Government is like that.

The hon. member for Durban North (the Rev. Miles-Cadman) has read a telegram from the Town Clerk of Durban. I have received a similar telegram. The Durban City Council are sending a deputation to see the Minister on Monday. I understand that they have an appointment for Monday at 10 o’clock, and I would urge the Minister to delay this matter until he has had an opportunity of hearing what the deputation has to say. I strongly protest against this unnecessary suggestion of putting the control of trolley buses in a Municipality under the Central Transportation Board.

I should like the Minister to answer our objections to the provisions of this clause. No. 3 has now been withdrawn and so far as that is concerned I am satisfied, but I have not yet heard why the Minister objects to my amendments. As the farmer is now to be allowed to carry his farming requisites on a carrier motor and as I want to insert the word “other goods,” the Minister has not yet told me why he is not prepared to accept my amendment. He says that it is already in the law and that the farmer has that right. I do not think it is in the Bill and I want to know why the position cannot be made clear. If the farmer is brought into court the onus of proof rests on him. In regard to the other amendment the Minister, of course, views the position from the attitude of the dealers, and that is why he does not want to accept my amendment to delete those words. I appreciate his objections in that respect but I fail to understand his objections when we try to protect the farmer in the event of the position not being clear. The hon. member opposite raised objections to the word “products.” If a farmer buys a ewe and fattens it I do not know that we can say that he has produced that ewe. I think that these are matters which should be made clear. At the moment I do not know where I stand because I do not know what the Minister’s objections are. Let him make his objections clear so that we may be able to put up our arguments. At the moment we do not know where we are.

I want to ask the Minister to give his attention to paragraph 5 (a) and (b) more particularly in relation to the amendment which has already been introduced. A farmer may be thirty miles away from the railway line. He may be doing some work, he may be shearing, when certain articles or goods arrive in town for him. His neighbour goes to town but his neighbour is not allowed to take his goods back with him from the town, so the farmer has to leave his shearing or his sowing, and he has to go to town himself with his lorry to get some of the things he wants.

His neighbour can do it so long as he does not do it for payment.

If that is the position, if the neighbour is allowed to carry the goods so long as he does not do it for payment then it is different, but as the clause stands here it is not clear that his neighbour can do it. If he carries those goods he is brought into court and he is prosecuted. We want to be quite clear on this point and we want to have it laid down very definitely that the neighbour is allowed to do it so long as he does it without getting paid for it.

If you read this Bill in conjunction with the Act—hon. members will see that only where goods are carried for reward, in other words if a person becomes a public carrier he comes under the Act, but if one wants to carry one’s neighbour’s goods without payment one is entitled to do so.

If you carry it in the course of your business or industry or trade …

If it belongs to you in the course of your industry you are entitled to do it. There is no question. In regard to the hon. member’s other amendment the difficulty there is that a farmer may be more than a farmer, he may be a general dealer and you cannot allow a general dealer to carry a general dealer’s goods and give him the same privileges as a farmer. The use of the words “and other requisites” opens the door very wide. As long as he is a farmer and wants to carry farming requisites he is allowed to do so. But if you allow him to carry other things the door is at once opened to abuse. In regard to the efforts of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) it must be quite clear that under the existing Act the Central Road Transportation Board can refuse a licence and can refuse to let a trolley bus service run. It does not want to do that, and I do not think it has ever done that.

What about Cape Town?

The point is that where there is an existing service run by someone else it would not be fair to put that other service, that existing service, under control, and let another service run on without any control. The Bellville service is run by a private company. You would put one service under control and the other one would not be under control. I was interested to find the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) and the hon. member for Umbilo at one for once, but that is only because the hon. member for Umbilo is suddenly forgetting his Socialism and standing up as a protector of private interests. All I ask is that everyone on the road shall be under similar control—or under no control at all—even municipal buses. And municipalities have absolutely nothing to fear. All this talk about the Transportation Board seeking to grab everything is hot air. The Central Transportation Board has been the biggest friend of the municipalities since the Act has been in force. Over and over again it has protected the municipalities against being exploited. We are now protecting the municipalities against private individuals who want to come in and snaffle things. The Board wants to do everything to protect the transport and to look after the interests of everyone on the road.

In consequence of the remarks made by the hon. member for Durban, Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) it seems to me that the hon. member wants the city council, which is in the position of a competitor, to have the controlling power, in fact to have the final word in regard to transportation within a municipal area. That would not be reasonable, or fair. He wants the city council to have the riight to lay down the routes and he wants the city council to be the controlling body in an urban area instead of the Central Transportation Board having those powers. I should prefer to see the Road Transportation Board retain its powers so that private undertakings which have already opened a route, and which have done pioneer work there, can be protected. We find now that the city council enters the field in cases of that kind as a competitor, and the city council cuts down the fares from 3d. to 2d. while on other routes they charge 1d. per mile, or 100 per cent. more than on the routes where there is competition. I therefore feel that it is essential that the Minister should give the Road Transportation Board full power to lay down the routes and also to lay down the fares to the charged on those routes.

I listened to the Minister when he told us that the Transportation Board protects local authorities, but I do submit that local authorities should be allowed to protect themselves and look after local affairs. It seems an unsound principle to allow a body such as the local Transportation Board to impose conditions on a body of councillors elected by the people and responsible to the people in regard to the expenditure of public money. No such responsibility rests on the local Transportation Board, and I think it is an unsound principle to allow a body such as that to impose conditions on a body of councillors elected by the people.

I have had a good deal of experience of the local Road Transportation Board of Johannesburg and also of the Johannesburg City Council. My experience shows me that the City Council of Johannesburg has a fair amount of say in regard to the local Transportation Board. They have a representative on that Board who can arrange anything for them, exactly as they want it. The City Council wants to appropriate unto itself all transportation rights. If a bus is already coverning a particular route, they put a tram there, and those trams are run at an annual loss of £150,000 with the object of killing the private people, and the Johannesburg ratepayers are expected to make up that loss out of their own profits, merely with the object of not giving those private individuals the opportunity of making a living. I have more than once seen the trams in Johannesburg so packed that there has not even been standing room, but as soon as a private bus carries one person too many the owner is brought into court, and if he is convicted it counts against him when he again comes before the Road Transportation Board for a renewal of his licence. I personally have been to see the Administrator of the Transvaal to assist those people to get bus stops. The position used to be that a bus had to go right through Johannesburg to Newlands without being allowed to stop once to put off people, as the City Council would not allow them to do so. The late Mr. Bekker saw to it that proper bus stops were provided for. The City Council also put difficulties in their way in regard to the starting places for the buses. Let us take this instance for example. The Municipality built an unnecessary tram siding which is never used simply with the object of putting obstacles in the way of the private buses to prevent them from having starting places, and in that way to get them removed. Then they wanted the route taken by the buses changed. The City Council, for instance, gave us Jeppe Street. It is a narrow street, and sheep and cattle going to the market have to go through that street. In addition to that there are a number of millers in that street and their wagons stand along the side walks to load up flour, and they have a special loading place for their flour. The result would have been that there would have been a lot of accidents and loss of lives. There are other obstacles placed in the way of the private bus owners. We went to see the Administrator, and he appointed a Commission to make an investigation. The first report of the Commission under Maj. Thompson was to the effect that the route was to follow that course. We again approached the Administrator, and he had a further enquiry made, when it was found that that route would be quite impossible for any bus service. He thereupon forced the City Council to give the bus owners then-old route back. That shows how matters go if they are left in the hands of the City Council, and if the City Council has control of the position—everything possible is done to put obstacles in the way of the private bus owners. What is the use of having a Road Transportation Board then? But we warn the Minister, the public are not going to stand this sort of thing any longer; they are not going to put up with the City Council wasting the taxpayers’ money as they are doing in Johannesburg to-day, and that is why we are asking the Minister not to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside).

I find the present Minister of Railways saying on May 5th, 1930, when he was speaking about the Transportation Bill, “With regard to clause 8, I notice the rich man’s motor car is not being touched, it is only the poor people of this country who will be pushed into the Railway willy-nilly.” That is precisely the attitude of mind which is being adopted by the Minister to-day. As the hon. member for Durban (North) (Rev. Miles-Cadman) has said, Durban is a striking instance where the Railways are not in a position to provide transport. Durban is very definitely expanding to the south, and as the Minister knows, it is because of the delay in building the new railway station for Durban that it is not possible to put one extra train a day on the suburban railway. It will probably be eight or ten years before it is possible to provide the electric trains which are demanded. In the meantime, certificates will be refused, and have been refused by the Road Passenger Transport Board on the ground that this is traffic over the Railways, although the Railways will not be in a position for the next ten years to provide adequate transport. The Minister adopts this highly irrational attitude, that municipal transport undertakings must be controlled, for the simple reason that private motor transport undertakings are controlled. I cannot see why. The Minister might as well argue that Railways should be controlled.

They are.

You will take care they are not, the boot is on the other foot, and the board is controlled by the Railways. The various municipalities who run their own transport system have invested millions of pounds of the ratepayers’ money in these undertakings, and most of them are showing losses for the simple reason that these undertakings pay their employees a living wage, and do not work them the unearthly hours worked by these small local and private undertakings. The Central Transportation Board has no right whatever to interfere with municipal transport of any kind. The officials appointed by any municipality and the councillors themselves are more likely to be in a position to run them efficiently, and to have the expert knowledge necessary, than a lawyer who is appointed chairman of the Central Board, and whose knowledge of transport is confined to conveyancing. This is not a criticism of the gentleman, but it is a statement of fact. He is appointed there for his knowledge of the Act, the legal difficulties and methods by which municipalities can be hindered and hampered, rather than for his knowledge of transportation. The people whom we appoint to run our municipal services are engineers and transport men appointed because of their knowledge of transport. It is to be presumed that they know more about it than the board, because they have run transport all their lives. We are getting a little bit tired of interference with municipal affairs and of having our undertakings run by lawyers. It seems to be accepted that as long as you have a board and pack it full of lawyers, then it must be right. We are satisfied that if this particular amendment of the Minister’s is passed, that the Transportation Board, in order to justify themselves, will set out upon a policy prescribing conditions under which trolley buses will run. I can imagine what these conditions will be. One will cetainly be that we shall have to make our application every year. That is the kind of thing which is likely to occur. If I could see that this proposal is likely to improve matters, I would be inclined to agree with the Minister, but the Minister is proceeding without in any way consulting the transport undertakings in South Africa. The Minister has adopted the totalitarian method. At this very last moment in the Committee stage he introduces a new amendment which is going to take still futher powers away from municipalities in regard to their transport undertakings. He has apparently taken this amendment from the board, shoved it on the Order Paper, and tells us that he, as Minister of Railways, does not believe in it. He has proposed it because the board wants it, and he is endeavouring to persuade this House to accept it. If he can show me that it has any other purpose than irritating from time to time the people who have to run municipal transport undertakings, if he can show me that we are going to get better transport because of it, and that some people who have had injustice done them will now receive justice, I might be prepared to accept it. [Time limit.]

I really fail to understand the Minister now; either the Minister does not know his own Bill or otherwise there is a misunderstanding. He said that my amendment would frustrate the application of the Bill entirely. My amendment is receiving the support of the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie). The Minister then stated that farmers living next to each other would have the right to carry each other’s goods from the farm to the nearest railway station or the nearest town and back again. They would therefore be allowed to help each other so long as they did not do so for reward. That is how I understand it. Well, that is exactly what my proposal aims at. Does the Minister contend that that can be done.

If it is not done for reward.

That is exactly my point, that is where there is a danger of a lot of trouble being created for the farmers, and that is the reason why I am asking the Minister to agree to my amendment. There may be an arrangement between two farmers under which the one will convey the other one’s goods to the station on the understanding that next time the other man will carry the other fellow’s goods. That may perhaps be regarded as doing the work for a reward. If the Minister, however, is prepared to give us a clear assurance that that will be allowed then I am satisfied. At the moment there is a doubt about it. The Minister said that “adjoining” might be interpreted as meaning from here to the Limpopo. I fail to understand that. “Adjoining” only means the farm next door. I do not know whether the chairman of the Central Board who is always joking has informed the Minister, but if that is his legal opinion then I must say that I am sorry for the Minister. I hope he will accept my amendment or otherwise give us a clear statement. Failing that he will, as the hon. member opposite has said, have very many difficulties to contend with. People in the past have had a great many difficulties with this law, and they want to have clarity on this point, especially the farmers living a long distance from the railway line, the farmers who are not in competition with the railways but who have to carry their goods. The object of the original law was to prevent unfair competition and we feel we are at least entitled to ask the Minister to give us a clear statement of what this Bill is aiming at in connection with the conveyance of requirements for a farm.

I am sorry the Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). I remember the Minister told us very defintely at the second reading stage that this Bill would not interfere with any rights of municipal authorities, and I am sorry to see that the Minister has gone back on that. It does interfere with existing rights, so far as the running of transport is concerned. This Bill is raising very contentious matters indeed, whether the Minister is aware of it or not. This is not the only thing in the Bill which affects the rights of municipalities, and I would suggest that he allows this amendment to stand over until he has interviewed the representatives of the city of Durban on Monday. If he is not prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Umbio, I suggest he should allow the matter to stand over until he has had an opportunity of discussing this new point which has arisen. The ratepayers of Durban are losing a considerable amount of money yearly on their system, and I would not like it to be said in future that had it not been the interference of the Railways and the Transportation Board, Durban, would have been able to make its tramways pay. It is quite possible that next year the City Council may tell us that it is due to interference by the board that they have not been able to make a success of their tramway system. I don’t know of any particular case in South Africa where the Transportation Board found it necessary to get into their clutches the trackless trams. The Cape Town people have realised that they have not the power that they thought they had, once the control of trackless trams is assumed. I feel there has been no occasion in the past to interfere with municipalities in this connection, not until this question arose in Cape Town. I think, as the senior member of Parliament for Durban, that Durban will rightly consider the Minister has broken his word in connection with this particular Act. I make an appeal to the Minister to drop his amendment for the time being. If he finds it necessary to go on with it, he will be able to do so at the report stage. I am afraid it will be a very long time before he will be able to convince this House of the necessity for it.

The hon. the Minister raised objections to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren), and the objection raised by him is that if those two words “and other” are inserted in the clause difficulties will arise in regard to the farmer who has a small farm store and who wants to carry or transport his goods. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to those far-flung parts of the country with which he is not familiar, such as for instance the North-Western parts of the Cape. In those areas one gets instances where people are 50 and 100 miles away from the nearest town or dorp and the farmer or the bywoner or the servant buys all he requires from the little farm store. The Minister should bear in mind that those small stores already have to pay very high rates for goods which they have to get and which are carried by motor or otherwise to their farms. Now the Minister comes along and makes the position still more difficult. He is afraid of the man who has a small farm store, and he wants that man also to have a licence and to incur extra expense, which he did not have to incur in the past. Who will have to pay those additional expenses? The people in the neighbourhood of those small stores who get their requirements from those stores will have to pay for them. Take petrol for example. People there often have to pay from 3d. to 6d. per gallen more on account of their having to pay high transport costs. Why should those people who keep those small farm stores for the benefit of the inhabitants of the far distant districts be further taxed? They meet the absolute needs of the people living there. I want to make an appeal to the Minister not to take up the attitude he is doing now in connection with those small farm stores. They should be allowed to carry their requirements without having to pay a licence. Whatever assurance the Minister may give us, my reading of this Bill is that those people will be affected if they convey or carry any of their goods. I want to appeal to the Minister to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys).

I want to express my sympathy with the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). There is an undemocratic principle involved in the Minister’s amendment, because the board is granted autocratic powers. Let us take a hypothetical case, assume the residents of Boksburg want trolley buses run, and fares of 2d. per trip were considered reasonable, the board, according to the amendment moved by the Minister here, could impose higher fares or any conditions which it thought fit to impose and the interests of the residents would then not be taken into consideration.

Would you like the Board to be done away with?

I am against the principle involved. The residents in particular municipalities have no say on the Board. As the amendment stands at the moment the Board can impose any conditions it thinks fit. These powers as far as I am concerned are too autocratic. I object to the principle.

What principle?

The principle of Hitlerism. I am fighting against such a principle which is contained in this amendment of the Minister.

Supposing someone else comes along and competes with the Municipality?

The Minister knows perfectly well that the residents in particular of any municipality would have no redress if they decided to have six trolley buses per hour and the Board were to come along and say “We do not think you need six buses.” The Board may also say: “This is competition with the Railways.” It means that the residents wishes are unrepresented. I have full sympathy with the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). There is a wisdom in it which has far-reaching effects.

Do you prefer to leave the power of refusing in the hands of the Board alone? They have that power now.

Exactly, but the clause further increases that power and says: “On such conditions as the Board may think fit.” That is what the Minister is now proposing. Say the residents of a municipality say “We want so many buses per hour.” The Board may simply turn round and say “We consider that half that amount is adequate,” or they may say “We regard this as serious competition with the Railways.” A principle is involved which in itself is an injustice to the residents of a particular area. They have at present very poor representation on the Transportation Board—in fact the representation they have is non existent. I have just quoted a hypothetical case where the residents may require so many buses per hour. The powers which the Board is being given enable them to impose unfair conditions. In fact the Board is being given unlimited powers. I am sorry the Minister is not giving the hon. member for Umbilo due consideration in this matter. We are bringing matters to the notice of the Minister which we are forced to bring to his notice, because there is a far-reaching principle involved here without the consent or consultation of municipal authorities, and if the Minister’s amendment is carried the interest of the municipalities will not be represented.

If the Bill is passed as it stands now and as it reads in line 40 of clause 1, then I as a farmer have to do one of two things. I either have to buy myself a light carrier motor or a large lorry, or I have to give up farming. The Minister is a good chap, but he does not know anything about farming, and although he has made all sorts of promises if I help him to get his rail cars from Czechoslovakia he should not let this clause be passed in its present form. I want to comply with this request and help him, but he must also help me and he must not make it impossible for me to remain in the farming business. I have a motor car and I have no lorry, but my neighbour has a small delivery lorry and he often brings me flour from the mill. He often goes and fetches labour for me which I cannot convey in my car, and I in turn do little things for him, acts of friendship. Now he has to take out a licence and I shall have to pay. Why does not the Minister accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) so that farmers living next to each other will be able to help each other. We help each other on the farms, and if the Minister refuses to accept an amendment like this illegal acts may be committed later on. I fail to see how the Minister will suffer any harm if he accepts an amendment of this kind. One cannot do transport work with the small delivery lorries. I further want to tell the Minister that I shall succeed in getting the Ossewa-Brandwag to help me to get his rail cars from Czechoslovakia if he will only give me the money for a ship to bring the stuff here. But he must help me here.

I want to elaborate the point raised by the hon. member for Greyville (Mr. Derbyshire) which had escaped my attention. The Minister has admitted that he has given a very definite and specific promise to the Association of Transport undertakings in South Africa, that he will not include in this Bill anything which will in any way take away any power from the municipalities. Let me say that the associated transport undertakings contend that the Minister went very much further. But the Minister admits that he gave a specific undertaking that this Bill would not interfere with any powers held by the municipalities in so far as transport is concerned. Well, these powers definitely being taken away, as additional powers are being given to the Transportation Board which will enable them to interfere with the efforts of the municipalities, so the Minister is going back on his promise. I am amazed at the Minister’s attitude, because I find that when the Minister was speaking on the Transportation Bill he went so far as to suggest to the then Minister that the possibilities were inherent in the Transport Act of something which I can only conclude he intended to mean as corruption, because in a speech he made he said this:

That is what the Minister said on the 5th May, 1930, where he practically accused the then Government of introducing a measure which could be used for the purposes of open corruption by the Minister in charge. I am not satisfied that the present Transportation Board is favourably disposed to municipally run transport. In fact what I have seen of the Board inclines me to the belief that the Central Transportation Board are more inclined to favour private enterprise in the running of transport—in other words, apart from their interest in the Railways, which is the primary reason why the Board was set up, they are inclined to be more sympathetic to the privately-owned transport undertakings, big or small, than they are to the municipally-owned transport undertakings. But if it was true, as the Minister said in 1930, that the Bill gave power to a Minister to encourage his friends to apply for certificates under the Transporation Board, and it gave him power to use the Board for the purpose of preventing his enemies, I suppose political enemies, from obtaining certificates, surely the acceptance of this amendment by the Minister under which conditions can be imposed on trolley buses can be used by the Transportation Board, whether willingly or deliberately, or merely because of their frame of mind, for the purpose of deliberately stultifying the efforts of municipally-owned transport as against the efforts of private enterprise. There may be occasions when application for permission to run a new trolley bus route may be a border-line application. Justifiably the Board might look over an application and say: “There is a certain amount of transport there, we are inclined to be doubtful as to whether the necessity arises for additional transport, but in order to be fair we shall grant your application for a new trolley bus route but on the following conditions,” and the conditions laid down, particularly if the Board is anything like what the Minister thought in 1930—may be such, they be of so onerous a nature, as to make it impossible for the new trolley bus route to be run at a profit. They could be so onerous as to leave no choice to the applicant concerned but to refuse to put that bus route into operation. I am quite satisfied that the implications of this amendment have not been considered by the Minister, because he gave us the wrong interpretation of the amendment, and the further I consider the implications of this amendment the more dangerous do I consider it. This kind of power is rarely given, even in this House, which has become accustomed in the last few years to give extended powers to boards. But where these rights are given, it is the custom to prescribe these rights within certain limits, and it does appear to me that we are entitled to ask the Minister when he is prepared to give these wide powers, that he shall at least prescribe these sweeping powers within certain limits. I do not think that the example quoted by the hon. member for Boksburg (Mr. Klopper) is at all far-fetched. I am satisfied that occasions will arise when possibly in the interest of private firms the board will seek to lay down fares and routes.

They are doing it now.

And as far as Durban is concerned, I am just wondering whether the Transportation Board might not in the event of the municipal transport undertaking decide to extend its activities, with reference to non-European transport—I am not at all sure that the board, in view of a previous decision, will not endeavour to lay down a rate of fares and the number of buses for any Durban Municipal application which would make the running of a trolley bus route quite impossible. I am still waiting for the Minister’s answer, and I propose to talk as long as I am waiting for the reply of the Minister to tell us where the transport system of this country is going to benefit. I want to know who is going to benefit except existing private enterprise. I can see clearly that if there is a small ramshackle service running between one place and another, and the board has the power to impose conditions, these powers may be imposed in such a way as to benefit the small bus service which is running. But the generality of the public are not concerned with preserving small bus services. They are like the small industry in a general way—while one can have sympathy with the small man and a small industry, they are not always in the interest of the public generally.

I also want to urge the Minister to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren), and to insert the words “and others” here. This paragraph is going to cause the farmers right throughout the country a lot of trouble. This clause refers to the conveyance of farm products which are produced by the person who conveys them. Such farm products are taken to town, and they will be farm products produced by the farmer. Practically all those goods will be produced by the farmer himself. We shall have to stretch our imagination a bit if we want to prove that they are not produced by him, but in spite of that we may get technical difficulties under the law. But what about the goods which the man needs and which have to be brought from the shop in town to the farm? The farmer gets his requirements from town; he gets articles like wire, poles, flour, sugar, cement and all the rest of it, which he does not produce himself, and there is no provision here allowing him to convey those goods to his farm. This may be a small technical point on which he may be caught, and I want to say again that our farmers may easily be driven to do things which are wrong, and for that reason I ask the Minister to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Swellendam. What about the man who takes the farmer’s products to town?—that is not made clear, and I am anxious to know whether he will also be allowed to carry the farmer’s requirements from the town to the farm.

I do not think I shall go on answering the same questions over and over again. I made it perfectly clear to the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) that all his fears in regard to the carrying of these goods are not justified by the facts.

Just read the section.

I have done so, and I am satisfied that I am correct. You are not deprived of the right to carry your own goods at any time you wish. The regulation only applies to that person who for reward carries goods—

Then why object to the amendment?

I was saying it only applies to the man who for reward or in furtherance of his own business carries goods. This amendment which I am proposing really gives the farmer a greater right than he has. My farmer friends seem to want even more. If that is their attitude then I can withdraw this clause altogether, if that would suit them better, but then they will be worse off. In regard to the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside), I have no desire not to answer his justifiable doubts on this Bill. I am not impressed by the argument that the Road Transportation Board is a Hitler in disguise. The board has been there for the last eleven years, and on the whole it has protected rather than otherwise municipal enterprise. This Bill is going further in protecting municipal rights. Municipalities will have the right to extend their municipal system instead of private people coming in and establishing private businesses. But I am advised that it will hold up development of trolley bus services, particularly between different centres of population, if these services are going to be given permission to butt into existing rights without any regard for these rights, whether they be private rights or railways, or anything else, without any control at all. I am advised that the nett result will be the holding up of the development of these services, and that the public will get the services more quickly if they are all placed under proper control and regulation. The Transportation Board have dictatorial powers to-day. They can say: “No, you will not have this service.”

They have done so.

They do not want to do so unnecessarily. They are prepared to get these services established subject to the same measure of regulation as other services have. The picture drawn by the hon. member for Boksburg (Mr. Klopper) that the municipalities would not be allowed to run to a schedule or time table may be a picture of imagination, and it has never existed in fact. Why should the Central or the Local Road Transportation Board interfere with the running of any service?

Why give them the power?

They have the power now under the Act. They do control the buses to-day in the various areas, and I have yet to learn that their control has ever been against the municipalities. What is the alternative? The alternative is that you have the Railways coming along and competing with the municipalities, or you may have private enterprise coming along. You will have other forms of competition fighting the municipalities in their own areas if you are prepared to do away with the control which the Road Transportation Board has. Either you must do away with all control of road transportation, or if you are going to control it then everyone should in fairness be controlled, and not only certain interests. What you propose is entirely in the interests of the big people, of the Railways, the Corporations, the City Tramway Companies, and so on. If the House is prepared to be as undemocratic as that, I cannot help it, but I would recommend the House to treat everyone on the same basis, whether they be big or small, and not allow an attempt to be made to get outside the control of a body which for the last twelve years have exercised an excellent system of control. The hon. member quoted what I said in 1930. Well, I was eleven years younger then than I am to-day. I was in the stage of political development in which the hon. member is now. I had the same fears in those days as he has now, but the wider knowledge which I have obtained since enables me to see that these fears were scarcely justified, and in eleven years’ time the hon. member will come to the same conclusion.

The Minister tells me that he has no real objection to inserting the words “any other” but that it will mean that if the farmer also has a shop on his farm he will under this amendment be able to carry his requirements for his shop. I shall read out the clause together with my amendment and then I want to ask him whether any layman or any lawyer can possibly read anything like that in my amendment—

How can that be interpreted to include goods for the shop? One does not have to be a lawyer to see what this clause means. It is only the requisites which he needs on his farm. I would not object to his being able to carry everything, and I should like to support the members who want that, but I am trying now at least to get as much as I can. I feel that the objections raised by the Minister are quite unfounded. Under this amendment the farmer cannot convey anything except what he requires for his farming. It states clearly here for his own farming, and other requisites, to the place where he intends using them. It does not include any articles for the shop, nor does it include anything for his neighbour. There is another difficulty I feel in connection with this matter. Take the position of a farmer who has a bywoner who owns a lorry. Under this Bill the bywoner is not even allowed to convey his boss’s things to the town. The bywoner can only convey his own things, and the result is that the bywoner is also excluded. I am not asking for that just now, but what I want is the very least we can be satisfied with, and that is that the farmer shall know that he is allowed to convey his own things to and from town, the things which he requires for his farming. It has been stated that he can get exemption if he is prepared to pay 5/- but the position is this. This provision excludes the farmer from the Act. I say that we should exclude him entirely under this amendment which I have proposed. I admit that the farmer is in a different position from that of the man in the town, and that being so I feel that I am entitled to ask that this amendment shall be agreed to. The Minister admits that he is going to lose nothing by this; that being so I ask why these words cannot be inserted so that there can be some degree of certainty, and also that the farmers will not get into trouble under this Act. I want to ask the Minister, having explained that under this amendment goods for the shops cannot be conveyed, to go into this matter again, and I want to ask him to grant this concession so that those people will not only be protected but will know that they are safe. So far as trolley buses are concerned, I think the right place to discuss them is when we are dealing with the powers of the Central Transportation Board and of the Local Transportation Board. It is my intention to move, and I am now giving the Minister notice of my intention to do so, that all the powers which the Local Board has, and which the Central Board has, should not give them the right to secure a monopoly for vested rights.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

I just want to say this in connection with my amendment, that I again want to appeal to the Minister to accept it. I am anxious to make the Act into a measure which can be carried out, and I am prepared to assist the Minister in that respect. In regard to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) I really do not understand what the hon. member has in view. As I read this Bill it appears to me that the control of traffic matters in a town rests with the Town Council or with the Municipality, and the proposal now is to leave out trolley buses; in other words, as I understand the proposal, if there is a trolley bus service, whether it is outside or inside the town itself, it will not come under the provisions of the law. I fail to understand that. The people who set up trolley bus services incur heavy expenses; they have to be rich companies, or people who have a lot of money at their disposal. Now I cannot understand the attitude of the Minister seeing that the Minister always takes up the attitude that he wants to look after the poor people. If control outside the towns also falls away, what is left then? It does not seem quite right to me, and I should like the Minister to explain the position.

Speaking for myself, I am quite sure that neither I nor the pugnacious member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) have any wish to waste time or hold up the proceedings of the House. On the other hand, we are definitely not able to stand by and see city councils bludgeoned every day and every week. We are here up against a contradiction which does not seem to trouble the Minister to any degree. We find great difficulty in fighting against a dictatorship abroad and we are asked to lie down to a dictatorship at home. That is precisely what this point includes for us. The evidence of dictatorship has been quite clear, and more than sufficiently complete on the part of the Central Transportation Board in the past, and we just don’t want any more than we can avoid in the future, and we are determined to avoid every bit we can. The Minister referred, in the course of his reply this afternoon to his salad days, which I understood from him to be about the year 1930. He made the assertion that he is ten years older now. That is a point we do not mean to contest, but he represented also what would indeed be natural, that he is ten years wiser, and upon that we prefer to keep an open mind. We hope that that ten years enables him on this particular question to play a better part. We are not basing our case on any lack of intellect on the part of the Minister, we know that he has been blessed with more than the usual measure, his speech on the budget this afternoon is sufficient proof, if we required it, which we don’t. But we say in this case he has not used it. This amendment is not the child of his brain at all, it is the unnatural and ill-favoured offspring of the Central Transportation Board, and we have no wish and no will of any kind to father the progeny of that Hitlerish combination, for that is definitely in our experience what it has been. We dislike the actions that have already been committed by the Central Transportation Board, and what is the advice that is given us by the Minister? He said that may be, having behaved not too well in the past, give them more power and trust them with greater responsibility in the future. In the past we have been chastised with whips, and we are now invited to bare our backs to the scorpion. It does not appeal to us, with all deference to the Minister, whom I very highly honour and respect, it is a reversion to that terrible policy of appeasement which was tried in Europe on a greater occasion than this, and resulted in a considerably greater mess than we shall be in if we allow this amendment to proceed. I hope if anybody is to be appeased, for once it will be the people, and not the bosses of the people. There are far too many boards of this kind and of that. They are all Hitlerish in composition, so far as I can see, they seem to spring up from nowhere in particular, and they boss everybody within their reach. We lodge our protest against the amendment in its present form, and we shall have to oppose it to the end.

I would like to say that I still remain unconvinced that my view in regard to this amendment is not the right one. My view was that with this amendment we would help to encourage the development of trolley bus service rather than otherwise, and at the same time do justice to private interests which were already operating on lines where trolley buses were applied for. It is quite clear, however, that there are a number of members of this House on my own side who seem to feel strongly upon the matter, and I myself have one feeling about it, and that is that I have rather rushed it on the House. That particular view of the question was only printed on the Order Paper overnight. In these circumstances, and as a gesture I am prepared to allow the position to revert to what it is in the present Bill, that is to say, I will accept the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). But it must be quite clear that we are merely reverting to the Act as it stands at present. The board will still have the say as to whether trolley buses should operate or not, and the hon. member for Umbilo will accept that position. As I say, as a gesture of goodwill and in the desire not to rush the Bill, I will agree to accept the amendment.

I am opposed to the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) and it strikes me as peculiar that whenever a request is made on behalf of a Municipality or on behalf of Municipalities the Minister is prepared to meet that request, but when we ask for a small concession for the farmers, we get no mercy from the Minister. So far as my amendment is concerned the Minister had to admit that it was not unreasonable, but he refused to grant that small concession. If the Minister accepts this amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo, as he said he would do, it will be a tremendous concession to the municipalities, and if after that the Minister refuses to make any concession to the farmers, even small concessions, then we who represent the farmers here cannot possibly submit quietly to his attitude. I am surprised that hon. members opposite who represent platteland constituencies do not say anything to support us on this side of the House in our pleas for the platteland. I want to object to the Minister meeting only one section. He does not consider these questions on their merits, but with him the question is only which member proposes a certain thing. We have the right to expect better things from a Minister who is responsible for the Railways being run on business lines. The Minister should not consider the person who is making a proposal but he should consider whether the proposal is practicable and reasonable. As the representative of a platteland constituency I want to protest strongly against the attitude adopted by the Minister.

I am sorry that despite all the evidence produced here and despite all the arguments put forward the Minister has seen his way to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). Let me say that as a result of the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo the Minister is now practically engaged in killing all small enterprises. We have had pleas here from the hon. member for Boksburg (Mr. Klopper) who spoke in favour of greater representation of Municipalities on local transportation boards. He was told that one of the three members of a local transportation board was a member of the Town Council while the Railways and Harbours and private enterprise had no representation. The hon. member pleads for greater representation. Well, if the Town Councils are to have more representation on local boards, those boards may just as well be done away with, and one may just as well appoint a Board composed only of members of a particular Town Council. The Railways and private concerns which have incurred considerable expenses in establishing services, and buying buses, may just as well shut up shop then. I mentioned a case this afternoon, and I now want to mention another case. I want to point out to the Minister that as a result of the competition by Municipal Councils private concerns have been killed after having put thousands of pounds into their enterprises. Let me mention the service from Johannesburg to Sophia-town and to Alexandra Township. After a private concern had undertaken all the expense and had developed the route, and after they had made it a payable business, the Municipality stepped in and reduced fares from 3d. to 2d. while on other routes where there were no private concerns or railway services they charged 6d. for the same distance.

Disgraceful!

Yes, it is a disgrace, and I hope the Minister will realise that it is a disgrace, and I hope he will realise the danger which it being cretated if all the power is placed in the hands of Municipalities. I want to go further and I want to say that if a Municipality has to have the controlling power and full say about routes, and the fixing of fares, and the issuing of certificates, we may just as well abolish the Transportation Board, because the Board will be of no use to us and of no use to the country. It must be one of two things; either the Municipalities must get full control themselves, or the general say must be in the hands of the Transportation Board. If the Municipalities are to have the full say, the Transportation Board may just as well be done away with.

I have just received a telegram from the City Council of Pretoria which I should like to read to the Minister. This is wat it says—

I am pleased that the Minister has accepted the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo. I think it will give general satisfaction, and I think it is no more than right that a Municipal Council should be entitled to lay down bus routes within its own area.

An amendment was moved this afternoon from this side of the House and the Minister used one argument in connection with that amendment, namely that he could not see how he could distinguish. He used a strong argument there and we at once felt that it was a strong argument. Although we know that in many respects exceptions have to be made so far as the agricultural industry is concerned we felt none the less that the Minister had a strong argument. Immediately after that, however, the Minister accepted the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo under which he definitely does distinguish, because the local municipalities are defintely given preference. But although we raised serious objections on behalf of the farming industry our amendments were not accepted by the Minister. I really want to ask the Minister most seriously to reconsider this matter.

I am sorry the Minister has not yet replied to an amendment which I moved, and I am sorry he has not made any statement in reply to what I asked for. When the hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. N. J. Schoeman) supported my amendment, the Minister gave us to understand that a farmer would have the right to convey his neighbour’s requirements. That being so, I was unable to follow the Minister’s arguments when he replied in the first instance to my amendment. He then said that my amendment would open the door so that the application of the law would become impossible; in other words, he said that my amendment was dangerous. I then went to the extent of expressing my willingness to restrict my amendment to “adjoining” farmers. Now I again want to ask the Minister to make a clear statement as a guide not only to the Central Transportation Board, but also to the country in general. Now what is the position? It seems to me as the Bill stands now that the farmers will not be allowed to convey goods belonging to their neighbours. We are told that they are allowed to do so, provided they do not do so for profit. I know that the Minister is not a lawyer, but I must say that to my mind it very definitely means I am doing it for a reward if I undertake to convey a neighbour’s goods on condition that he will convey my goods next time. The question of profit definitely comes into it. If, however, the Minister thinks differently, and if his advisers are of a different opinion, I think it will be no more than fair for him to make a clear statement, so that the country will know where it stands. There are also instances where it is found that a magistrate has found people guilty of similar offences. The man who is found guilty cannot appeal, because it will cost him from £20 to £25, and he achieves nothing by it. So he just leaves it, and then the magistrate’s finding is not tested. I therefore hope that the Minister will make a clear statement. The farmers feel very strongly on this point. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) mentioned the instance of a farmer who had two or three bywoners on his farm; one of those bywoners had a lorry, but he was not allowed to carry the farmer’s goods, because the bywoner could also be regarded as a farmer. I therefore hope the Minister will put the position clearly, so that the farmers will know where they stand. I am not going to expatiate on the concessions which the Minister has made to the large municipalities by accepting the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). The Minister must take the responsibility for having done so. Still, I want to point out that while he is making concessions to the municipalities, he should also assist the farmers so far as their small but urgent requirements are concerned. I therefore hope the Minister will make a clear statement, so that in future no doubts will arise and no difficulties occur.

I am sorry I did not answer the question of the hon. member. I am sure he has been long enough in Parliament to know that no Minister could ever frame a law that would not in due course lead to some kind of judicial proceedings. In regard to the conundrum the hon. member has put to me, as to whether carrying a neighbour’s goods for a week in return for carrying yours for a week would come within the law, it seems to me that that is a matter for discussion with the Transportation Board. I am quite unable to answer a question of that kind. If the hon. member desires it, I have no doubt he can bring it to the notice of the board. My own view is that it would be very unlikely that the board would prosecute in a case of that kind.

They have done so.

It will be difficult to prove anything before a court of law. I cannot give the hon. member any better answer than that.

I am pleased to hear that the Minister has listened to the objections raised by various members and has agreed to withdraw his amendment. At the same time, the Minister told the Committee that he does not yet see the error of his ways. All I can say at this stage is that the Johannesburg City Council did not agree with the Minister’s amendment either. I have received a very long telegram from the Town Clerk which says that the Council is opposed to the amendment, as the present position is satisfactory. But at the same time the people of Johannesburg are alarmed at the various clauses of this Bill, especially clauses 4 and 5.

We are discussing clause 1 now.

Very well, the Minister has for the time being solved the problem. When we get to the other clauses, I shall again raise the matter.

I just want to say this to the Minister, that less than a year ago we had a ruling on that point. There were four brothers farming next to each other. Each of them had his own farm, and three of them had lorries. They used to convey each other’s goods to and from town. They were summoned, and they were found guilty by the court and fined, because the magistrate took up this attitude, that they were doing the work for reward as they were rendering service to the others. The fact is that the one conveyed the other’s goods; they were found guilty, in spite of the provision about the work being done for no reward. If I convey my neighbour’s goods I may be fined. Those people were summoned and they were fined. I do not quite understand the Minister’s attitude in regard to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside). Is the Minister withdrawing the clause, or is he going to leave the amendment to a free vote by the House?

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that he is accepting a dangerous principle here by giving a Municipal Council such large powers It is a well known fact that there are many private concerns in urban areas, and in giving these powers to the Town Councils the Minister should take account of the fact that the Town Councils will drive private enterprises off the roads. For instance there are several routes in Johannesburg served by private bus companies, and it is a well known fact that those private concerns carry the passengers more cheaply than the municipalities do. But when a municipality steps in it kills such private enterprise by doing the work more cheaply. And once the private concern is out of the running the fares may be raised again. As the Minister is giving the municipalities the right to drive private concerns off the road, he is giving them the power to make the poorer section of the community pay unheard of fares. Another point I wish to mention is the amendment of the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser). I cannot understand why the Minister will not accept it. It is a well known fact that labour is very scarce and the farmer often has to cover long distances so as to go and procure labour. If the farmer is prevented from doing so it is going to be made very difficult for him to carry on with his particular industry. I hope the Minister will take this matter into consideration again, and I trust he will find it possible to accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Malmesbury.

This side of the House definitely does not want to create the impression that we are opposed to the necessary legislation. Not at all. Even less do we want to take up an obstructive attitude. The Railways have to be protected. We feel very strongly about this, just as strongly as the Minister himself. But it must be done in a practical manner, and for that reason I want to support the amendment of the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser). This Bill is now becoming so comprehensive, so extensive and so complicated, that we no longer know where we are. I feel that we are now creating crimes. The people outside must feel that too. They have to do certain things—they are compelled, especially the farmers, to contravene this Act, and thus to commit crimes. Why should we force the public to break the law? It is impossible for the farmer to carry out this Act in all its details, and to obey the law, conditions being what they are to-day, farmers are dependent on each other. The one man helps the other. That is the custom which has prevailed for centuries, and we cannot get away from it, but if this Bill is passed in its present form I am convinced that that great principle of mutual assistance will be completely destroyed. There is, for instance, a widowed mother who is carrying on farming and she has two or three sons; those sons have to help her; she has no motor vehicle. There are certain things she needs and those goods have to be brought to the farm and if one of her sons who is farming on his own behalf brings those goods to her from the town or the shop he is breaking the law. Possibly she has no labour, and if one of her sons brings labour to her farm on his motor vehicle he breaks the law. Her own children are not allowed to assist her. We want to protect the Railways but we must not lose sight of the fact that the Railways are not there to make usurious profits and to add large amounts to the Exchequer. They are there to serve the public, and the public are not there to serve the Railways. The Minister’s object is to see to it that the public practically become the slaves of the Railways. The Bill will force the public to serve the Railways, and it will not be a case of the Railways serving the public. It is a matter of profiteering. The question of obtaining labour is a very serious one so far as we are concerned. I know of dozens of farmers who need labour. The natives and coloured workers have drifted to the towns. The towns offer them better facilities, but there are reserves in Namaqualand, and occasionally we are compelled when the work becomes too onerous to take out motor vehicles and collect labour. The position now is that only the farmer who has his own motor vehicle is allowed to use that vehicle for the purpose of fetching those people; but he is not allowed to help his mother, his brother or his friends by fetching labourers for them. The position is becoming unbearable for the farmers. The Minister is trying to put our minds at rest by telling us that that provision falls away. But we have had experience. People have already been prosecuted. It is the law and we cannot get away from it. It conflicts tremendously with our interests—especially on the platteland. I quite believe that it does not apply to the towns to the same extent. The business men are not so seriously affected by the proposals of this Bill. So far as they are concerned it is a very different matter, but the farmers are so dependent on each other that this Bill hits them hard; the great principle of helping each other is being totally destroyed under the Bill as it stands now. For that reason I want to make an appeal to the Minister. We are not asking for much, and it will not clash with the cardinal and the great object aimed at by this Bill. It will not wreck the Bill if the Minister accepts that amendment and if he meets our wishes in that way. I again wish to emphasise that the farmer in the very difficult position in which he finds himself deserves consideration and protection.

I just want to say a few words about the amendment of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside). I am really surprised at the hon. the Minister of Railways having expressed his willingness to accept that amendment. I can only come to the conclusion that tremendous pressure has been brought to bear on the Minister, and that that pressure has been of such a character that he has been compelled to give way. The amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo means this, that every municipality which controls an electrical trolley bus service has all the say, and that nobody else will have any say over the conveyance of passengers in the town. They have the power of competing with any private enterprise and, if necessary, also with the Railways. Let me give an example: Assuming the City Council of Cape Town were to decide to institute a trolley bus service to Bellville, and there may perhaps already be a private enterprise running a bus service between Cape Town and Bellville, then, as the Minister’s amendment now reads, the municipality first of all has to obtain the consent of the Motor Transportation Board before being able to institute that service. The Motor Transportation Board then has the power to decide whether such a trolley bus service will be to the benefit of the public, and whether it will do so much harm that it will kill the private enterprise or be in serious competition with the Railways. And after the Transportation Board has taken all these questions into consideration, it can decide whether or not it will grant the application. If, however, the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo is accepted, nobody will have any say if the City Council wants to institute a trolley service over a new route. They are going to compete with private individuals who are already running a bus service there, but who cannot stand up against the City Council. They are killed, and they cannot appeal. They have to keep quiet, and they are deprived of their livelihood. Why should that be done, and why should the municipality be given those powers? I do not know whether they do not trust the Transportation Board and are afraid that they may not be fairly treated. I am convinced that the Road Transportation Board will deal with the question on its merits, and I want to urge the Minister not to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo). So far as we on this side are concerned, we shall certainly vote against that amendment. I want to ask the Minister not to give way to the pressure which is being brought to bear on him. He must see that some members opposite feel exactly as we do about this matter, and that in the interest of the public, in the interest of the Railways, and that of other people who are affected, it is better not to accept this amendment, and not to give the municipalities the powers contemplated by this amendment.

The Minister is in a very difficult position, because he has already made a promise that he would accept the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). This side of the House really feel that that cannot be allowed in any circumstances. The reasons have been clearly stated, and those reasons have conclusively proved that if the amendment is agreed to it means playing into the hands of the rich municipalities, and the poor people will be the sufferers. As it seems to me that that amendment is going to be adopted, seeing the Minister has expressed himself prepared to accept it, I want to move an amendment that the amendment which the Minister has withdrawn and which appears on the agenda, shall be put.

Amendment proposed by the Minister of Railways and Harbours to omit paragraph (iii) put and agreed to, and the amendments proposed by Mr. Warren in lines 17 and 19 dropped.

The first part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Loubser was put, and the Committee divided:

Ayes—35:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Conradie, J. H.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J. V. d.

Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J.

Haywood and P. O.

Sauer.

Noes—52 :

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Baines, A. C. V.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher. R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Faure, P. A. B.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Stallard, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A.

Friend and J. W.

Higgerty.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Question put:

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—50:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Baines, A. C. V.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley. G.

Egeland, L.

Faure, P. A. B.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, O.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Stallard, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Trollip, A. E.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A.

Friend and J. W.

Higgerty.

Noes—34:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Conradie. J. H.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J. V. d.

Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen. D. T. du P.

Viljoen. J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and P. O. Sauer.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment negatived.

Question put:

Do I understand now that if the deletion of those words is approved of all the other amendments to this subclause drop?

Yes.

But the most important amendment is the insertion of the words “and other” after “farming.” The clause reads—

My amendment reads that the words “and other” be inserted after “farming.” But if the words which it is now proposed to delete are deleted, then my amendment cannot be tested.

If the words of which the deletion is proposed are left out then there is nothing in the clause which can be put.

But the deletion of those words has nothing to do with my amendment. I want to point out that my amendment cannot be tested them.

If the words which it is proposed to delete are deleted then the whole clause has no meaning. If, however, the words are retained, then the other amendments can be put.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—34:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Conradie, J. H.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J.

V. d. Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen. J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—48:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Baines. A. C. V.

Bawden, W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen. R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. H.

Davis, A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Klopper, L. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer. V. L.

Solomon, B.

Stallard, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wares, A P. J.

Tellers : G. A. Friend and W. B. Humphreys.

Question accordingly negatived and paragraph (b) omitted and the amendments proposed by Mr. Warren in sub-paragraph (b) dropped.

The new paragraph (b) proposed by the Minister of Railways and Harbours was then put and agreed to.

The amendment proposed by Mr. Allen was put and agreed to and the last part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Loubser was put and negatived.

With leave of the Committee, the amendment proposed by Mr. Geldenhuys was withdrawn.

Paragraph (x) put and negatived.

Question put—

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—29:

Badenhorst, C C. E.

Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

V. d. Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wolfaard. G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—51 :

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Baines, A. C. V.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Faure, P. A. B.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Stallard, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Question accordingly negatived and the amendment proposed by Mr. Burnside agreed to.

The new paragraph (x) proposed by the Minister of Railways and Harbours, as amended, was then put and agreed to.

Question put—

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—49:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Baines, A. C. V.

Bawden, W.

Blackwell, L.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Faure, P. A. B.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Stallard, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—28:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Conradie, J. H.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J.

V. d. Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and P. O. Sauer.

Question accordingly affirmed and the last part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Warren negatived.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 3,

I should like to move the following amendment—

When we come to the appointment of members of the Local Board we find the following provision in the Bill—

I fail to see entirely why the Minister has gone so far as to give those three bodies of people the power of appointing members to the Local Board, while he excludes one of the most important boards we have, namely, the divisional council, so that the divisional council will not have the right to nominate a member to the Local Transportation Board. I just want to remind the Minister of what he said in 1930 in connection with this matter. The Road Transportation Bill was being discussed and the Minister on that occasion was in favour of not only municipalities but other bodies as well having the right to appoint members to the local boards. The Commission at the time recommended as follows—

In connection with this recommendation of the Commission the Minister said at the time—

Now the Minister comes along and he acts in direct conflict with the plea he put before the House ten years ago, and he only gives municipalities the right to nominate a representative on the Local Board. In another part of his plea he strongly supported a proposal of the hon. member for Sea Point (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) that the number of members should be changed to five. He supported that proposal and said that the Board which was being appointed should not contain less than three and not more than five members, and he said the following, inter alia—

He further urged an increase in the number of members from 3 to 5 and he adduced the following reasons—

He urged that the Minister should accept the amendment because it would give him a body representative of the various institutions. I want to make an earnest appeal to the Minister. If we are going to differentiate so that the municipalities will have the right of appointing a member of the Local Transportation Board, while the divisional councils will be excluded, it will mean that we are going to act in direct conflict with the policy for which he himself so strongly pleaded ten years ago. The municipalities have control within the comparatively restricted area of their town or dorp, while the divisional councils represent everybody outside the dorps. As the Minister also spoke about the interests of agriculture having to be represented, and as he so strongly urged that people with a knowledge and experience of agriculture should be appointed, we say that he should give the divisional councils the chance of appointing a member. If for a moment we bear in mind that this Bill to a large extent deals with the activities of the divisional councils, we say that the divisional councils have every right to nominate a member, especially if the municipal council is given that right. The Minister goes further in this clause, and he says that if there is more than one municipality in a particular area then those municipalities jointly are to nominate a member. That is what he is doing, but he deliberately excludes the divisional councils. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of the fact that here in the Cape where the divisional councils have the power to impose taxes and where people pay taxes on their roads great value is attached to the divisional councils, and as the Railways with their motor buses are using the roads of the divisional councils, the Railways destroy those roads. Consequently, the divisional councils are very greatly interested in the Local Road Transportation Board, and instead of the Minister now giving the divisional councils the right to appoint a member to the Local Boards, he excludes the divisional council. Personally I consider this most unjust. And then the Minister goes further still, and he lays it down that this privilege is to be confined to municipalities with a population of 20,000 and more. Why fix this figure of twenty thousand? If there is a municipality with 19,000 inhabitants, it is not taken into account. Why should it be exactly 20,000? I fail to understand why the Minister makes that distinction. It is further proposed in this amendment that thirty days should be extended to 40 days. If such a body fails to nominate its representative on the Local Board within 30 days its right to nominate a member lapses. So far as I know municipal councils meet once every month, and divisional councils also meet once a month. Assuming now that a notification reaches a municipality one day after the council has had a meeting, it would mean that that council would have to hold a special meeting, and it would mean also that the divisional council would have to call a special meeting for the purpose of nominating a representative. [Time limit.]

I wish to move the following amendment—to add the following new sub-section:

1. (6) The person nominated by the Administrator in terms of sub-section (1) or (2) and one of the persons nominated by him in terms of sub-section (3) or the person appointed by the Minister on behalf of the Administrator in terms of sub-section (5), shall be persons especially qualified to represent private transportation undertakings on the Board.

My object with this amendment is that we feel, as has already been said here this afternoon, that there may be partiality on the local boards. We have three interests involved on a local board, the Railways, the private concerns, and the municipal council. The municipal council is the only body with a direct representative on the Board. The other two, the railways and the private concerns, have not got people directly representing them on the local board. We must expect the individual representing the town council to stand for the interests of the town council at all times, rightly or wrongly; we must expect him always to look after the interests of the town council. I discussed this amendment with the Minister, and as a result of that discussion I feel that he will probably not be prepared to accept it, but in spite of that I want to point out to him that it is not fair towards those other interested parties that only the town council should have a representative on the Local Control Board. But as the town council has a representative on that Board I want the Minister to realise that it is no more than fair that the person appointed by the Administrator should be a person who at least must be able to speak with authority on behalf of the private concerns. If that is borne in mind then we feel that the private concerns will have a certain degree of representation, as there will be somebody on the Local Board able to talk with authority on these concerns. If that cannot be done, if they are not to be allowed to nominate their own representative to the Local Boards, then we feel that it is only fair that the Administrator should appoint somebody conversant with their interests; and we also feel that it is no more than fair that none of the bodies, none of the interested bodies, like the town council for instance, should be represented on the Board. In that way it would be fair to appoint three independent people who would definitely act occording to what they feel to be right and fair towards all those interested. I do not want to go any further into this matter as I have already discussed it with the Minister, but I do hope that now that I have again moved this amendment he will give it further consideration. At the moment we have this position, that the private concern may get the worst of any deal. The representatives of the town councils will feel themselves compelled to look after the interests of the town council, and perhaps even after the interests of the railways. The private concerns have no one there, and they may sometimes be faced with the most strenuous opposition from the other two bodies, namely the railways and the town councils. The private individual may have invested all his capital in his enterprise. He is excluded from having any representation and his interests may suffer. That sort of thing will cause dissatisfaction. I want to urge the Minister to reconsider this whole position.

As the hon. member knows, I cannot accept the amendment moved by him because it opens up a very difficult question. There are no individual interests except the big corporations represented on the Board. For the same reason I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viloen). The Administrator, after all, represents the province, and he nominates one. The town councils, too, have very special problems because of the congestion of population and the congestion of traffic, and they also nominate one, and I think that with these two main interests represented the Board is quite representative. The fact remains that these boards have worked in that form for the last eleven years, and I have never heard that these boards are not thoroughly fair and representative in their work, and for these reasons I am sorry that it is not possible for me to accept this amendment. I will accept, however, the amendment that thirty days be altered to forty. It has been thirty days for eleven years, and so far as I know there has been no great difficulty, but we have no objection, if there is any difficulty, to extend the time for another ten days, and I accept the word forty.

I do not know whether the Minister really understands what it will mean if he refuses to give the divisional councils a say. I do not think he appreciates the importance of this proposal. I know that they have no divisional councils in the other provinces, and I therefore understand why the people who drafted the Bill left the divisional councils out of it. All this amendment provides for is that in the Cape Province when members of the Local Boards are nominated, the divisional council will also have a say. The Minister told us that the Administrator represents the whole of the province, and therefore also the divisional councils. Well, he also represents the interests of the town councils. I want to remind the Minister of the fact that the divisional councils play an important part in the Cape. Take the divisional council of the Cape Peninsula. It is an important body; the property under the control of this divisional council amounts in value to some millions of pounds, and it also includes the City of Cape Town. The town and the dorps also have their nominees on the divisional councils. The city is divided into wards, and has representatives on the divisional council.

But the City Council has special problems in connection with transportation.

The divisional council of Cape Town has greater problems to deal with than the City Council. Outside of the urban areas, there are just as many difficulties to contend with, but, apart from that, the position is this: that the people who are on the divisional council represent the interests of the whole district, and also the interests of the town or the dorp falling within that divisional council area. The provincial administration represents the town and the platteland. The municipal council represents the town, and the divisional council represents the platteland and also the town, and I fail to see why the divisional council should be excluded. The Minister knows as well as I do that he should accept this amendment if he wants all those interests to be represented. He can have this amendment defeated by his majority, but I can only tell him this, that he is going to cause a lot of dissatisfaction, and that it will not rest at that. I want to know from him, seeing that the town has the right to nominate a member on the Local Board, why the platteland should be cut out entirely. The divisional council includes town and platteland. If he had left out the municipal councils and had given the divisional councils the right to appoint a member I could have understood it. It makes no difference to the Minister so long as he gets the right man on the Local Board. We find that where there is more than one municipality in an area, the municipalities are given the right jointly to nominate a member to the Local Board, and that being the case I fail to see why the divisional council should not be given the right also to nominate a member. I can tell the Minister that there is dissatisfaction with the Local Boards. The position is this: that we have no reason to complain of the treatment which we received from the staff; I have always been satisfied by the secretary of the Local Transportation Board, but there is dissatisfaction with the Local Transportation Boards. I can assure the Minister that the divisional councils feel slighted that they are not getting a say, while the town councils are being given representation. For that reason I feel that I am entitled to ask the Minister to consider this amendment. It may seem to him that there is nothing in it; he has nothing to do with the divisional councils, and he does not know what the position is, but I can assure him that he is doing an injustice to the divisional councils, as they have their own special problems in connection with road motor transportation. If a route passes through their area they have to maintain the roads, but they have no say; it seems unfair to exclude them. The Minister can have this amendment negatived; he can get the clause passed by his majority, but that will not be the end of it, and he will hear more about it.

Amendment proposed by Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen, in line 21, put, and the Committee divided:

Ayes—27:

Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Conradie, J. H.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J.

V. d. Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—51:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Baines, A. C. V.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson. H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Stallard, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

The remaining amendments proposed by Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen in sub-sections (1) and (2) and the amendments in the Afrikaans version were put and negatived.

The amendment proposed by Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen in line 55 was put and agreed to, and the amendment proposed by Mr. Heyns was put and negatived.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 4,

I wish to put a number of amendments—

1. (i) not to create any vested rights or monopoly notwithstanding the powers conferred on the Board by this or any other Act;

I want to ask hon. members to look at what (b) says—

We have a Central Transportation Board and a Local Transportation Board, and in the original Act certain powers were given to those two boards; that Act has been amended from time to time, and other amendments to the Act are now being proposed. Now I want to point out that both those boards possess similar rights in a particular area. The Local Board has the power to make certain rules and regulations in respect of its area, but the Central Transportation Board has similar powers to make regulations for a particular area. There is no provision in the law stating whose ruling shall be valid and whose ruling shall not be valid. Let me put it in this way: the Local Board lays down certain rules in respect of the road to Paarl. Then the Central Transportation Board comes along, and it can also lay down rules. Whose rules will be valid? Both have the right to lay down rules. If those rules are divergent, whose rules will apply in practice? And if I am a transport rider, then the question arises: Whose rules am I to comply with? Now I come to my next amendment in connection with the deletion of (f). We have a peculiar position here, and I should like the Minister to explain it. It is proposed in this Bill to delete paragraph (f), and the Minister proposes a new (f). He moves the deletion of the following words—

and then he moves a new (f)—

They are both the same. He deletes something in the original Act and then moves it again. This thing is quite complicated enough as it is, and I fail to understand why this is being done. If they had scrapped the whole lot, very well, but (c) remains. Only (d), (e) and (f) are deleted. I shall be pleased if the Minister will explain what this all means. And then we come to another question: my next amendment. I object to the words “in its discretion.” The sub-clause reads as follows—

The objection I have is to the words “in its discretion.” Why do I make that objection? For the following reasons: A board is appointed to consider these matters and to decide on them, and hon. members will ask why I object to the words “in its discretion.” I shall tell hon. members. The discretion is given to the Local Board. The board uses its discretion, and one can then appeal to the Central Transportation Board. When one gets to the Central Transportation Board one is told: “Yes, but the board has used its discretion, and we cannot interfere with it.” I cannot succeed in my appeal because the Local Board has used its discretion and it is entitled to do so, and I cannot go to court. If I can prove that I have been deliberately, or unnecessarily, injured, I shall have to go to court to do so, but the discretion is given to the board. We have had experience of this sort of thing, and we have had difficulty in connection with it in the past. [Time limit.]

I move the amendment standing in my name on page 200 of the Order Paper—

This amendment asks for the deletion of the concluding words of the sub-section which widens the powers of the boards to cancel certificates for exemption. I move the amendment with some regret, sir, because I feel every sympathy with the purpose of the draughtsman of the section, and appreciate the heed for tightening up the enforcement of the Act. I appreciate as fully as anyone else the special difficulties in enforcing the Motor Carriers Transportation Act, and the various ways in which evasions have hitherto been allowed to go unchecked. I appreciate that those difficulties have been very much increased by a reprehensible lack of keenness and co-operation on the part of the police, and by the fact that there is insufficient staff attached to the transportion service to enforce the Act, but I feel that the concluding words which empower the board to cancel the certificate if, in the opinion of the board, the holder of a certificate is not faithfully observing the conditions of the certificate, go much too far. A motor carrier’s certificate is a very valuable right, the possession of which is in some cases of high value, and it often represents the livelihood of the holder and has done for a number of years, and yet if this clause is accepted with the present wording, it means that at the whim of a majority of two on a board, or on appeal to the Central Board, the livelihood of the holder of a certificate may be quite arbitrarily and summarily taken away without a reason given and without any trial. It seems to me quite obvious that it was not intended to give such drastic powers to a board, powers to take away a certificate without trial and without giving any reason. I doubt whether in any legislation there is a provision which is so drastic and goes so far, and I appeal to the Minister to allow these words to be deleted. It seems to me that the obvious way of securing the enforcement of the Act is to tighten up the administrative machinery. In Natal there is hardly any enforcement of the Act at all, and my conviction is that that course should first be tried, and it is not necessary to move an amendment of this sort. Even if the Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment, but is prepared to leave this rather dangerous section in, then I do submit that he should at any rate put in some safeguards. There is a rather analagous clause in the Liquor Act, in Section 39, which provides that the Licensing Board may, of its own motion, take notice of any matter which in its opinion, would militate against the renewal of a licence, but in that section there are safeguards, because a subsection goes on to provide that in a case like that the board, before taking away a licence, must inform the applicant of the matter, and at his request adjourn the consideration of the objection until such time as he has an opportunity to reply to the objection raised. I still feel the words should be deleted altogether, but if the Minister is not prepared to do that, I hope he will at least sanction the addition of an amendment making it quite clear that before anybody loses his certificate or his exemption, he must be told what the objection is against him and be given notice a certain number of days, preferably, in writing, and a chance to present his case and defend himself, before his certificate is taken away.

I move the amendment standing in my name—

1. (iv) by insertion of the following new subsection after sub-section (1):
   1. (1) bis. Whenever the Board exercises any of its functions mentioned in paragraph (b), (c), (d) or (e). it shall give any person having a direct interest in the matter under consideration who desires to do so an opportunity to appear in person and give evidence relevant to such matter and to call witnesses in support of such person and witnesses (if any) to give such evidence under oath, which he is hereby empowered to administer.

The purpose I have in this amendment is twofold. First of all it has already been pointed out that there is a provision theoretically for an appeal, but it is not really an appeal in the sense in which one ordinarily understands it, it is not even a retrial, because perfectly fresh facts may be brought before the board. There is nothing by which those concerned can know what line is going to be taken at the so-called appeal. The procedure is novel in the sense that if this board is to be even a quasi-judicial body, the course being followed here is foreign to anything I know. There is no formal evidence given before the local board, and it is the purpose of the latter portion of my amendment that when a matter comes before the local board, there should be proper evidence by anybody who feels directly interested in it, and who wishes to give evidence. No compulsion, no subpoena, but a person who is interested can come before the board and submit his evidence. You will know at any rate then that hearsay evidence and statements in argument which are being used will be eliminated, and that persons who come before the local board must confine themselves to matters within their own knowledge. They give their evidence. If this is to be an appeal in the sense as I understand it then the Board should be limited to the evidence given at the local board because otherwise it is a rehearing of the matter, and whatever has been said at the local board need not be referred to at the board itself. New facts may be put before the board. I do not think that is a satisfactory position. I submit it to the Minister for his consideration, and the suggestion is not new. Referring to the Liquor Act I find that clause 25 contains a similar provision and says that when any licensing board deems it necessary to take evidence—such evidence shall be given on oath to be administered by the chairman, and shall be recorded. This is a board constituted for a particular purpose. When evidence is tendered and the Board deems it necessary to take that evidence that evidence shall be taken on oath, and the chairman is empowered to administer that oath and the evidence shall be recorded. In this way one knows exactly what has taken place and one has the evidence on which the Board has come to a conclusion. For these reasons I urge the Minister to accept my amendment.

I have not so far intervened in the discussions in committee on this Bill, but I am impressed by the case put up by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland). I speak as one who had a share in the drafting of the Liquor Act some 10 or 12 years ago. We then had to do with axactly the same problem where a licensing board knew of good reasons why a liquor licence should not be allowed or renewed; the court might, on its own initiative decide to discontinue a licence even if no objection was taken. And I feel that under this Act a similar problem may arise, but I do not go as far as the hon. member for Zululand in wishing to delete the whole clause. I would ask the Minister whether he would accept an amendment on the lines indicated by the hon. member for Zululand, giving the holder of a licence a reasonable opportunity of knowing what the case against him is, and of meeting that case. You will see that the wording is as following:

That opinion must be based on facts. It is not an opinion which stands by itself in the air. It must be an opinion based on facts, not based on the colour of a man’s hair or on his nationality. It must be based on misdeeds by the actual holder of the certificate. As in the case of the Liquor Law, what we should do is this. The board should tell the man “We have this against you, we have reason to believe that you have not faithfully carried out the conditions of your certificate in that you have done this, that or the other.” The man should be given the opportunity of meeting that case. Therefore I would suggest to the Minister that if he retains this clause which the hon. member for Zululand proposes to delete, he should safeguard himself by providing for an opportunity to let the man against whom the allegations are made know what the accusations are and what case he has to meet.

I wish to move the amendment standing in my name on page 207. The amendment is in the shape of a proviso which seeks to entrench in the present amending Bill the powers which on the one hand the Minister considers that the municipalities still have, and the powers which the municipalities consider they have lost through the action of the Minister himself. Before I deal with that, there are one or two misunderstandings which I think should be cleared up by the Minister. Some time ago when this Bill first came on the stocks I received a telegram from the Town Clerk of Durban which read as follows—

The officials of the municipality appear to be perfectly clear on this point. They have reiterated in subsequent telegrams that at some kind of conference or deputation which visited the Minister representing the Association of Transport Undertakings, the Minister definitely promised that he would introduce provisions entrenching those powers for the municipalities. In other words he would see that in the Bill there was provision which gave the power of prescribing transport routes to the municipalities and also lays it down that the Transportation Board could not prescribe regulations in respect of the routes so prescribed. The Minister contends that all he did promise was that nothing would be inserted in the Bill which would take away these powers. There is some misunderstanding. The story, however, is rather longer than that. These particular municipalities have had that power for some time, but the legal opinion given by the Durban City Council’s standing Counsel is to the effect that by proclamation 86 of 1940 that power was taken away from the municipalities. That proclamation provided that every public route in the Union of South Africa and the Mandated Territory of South-West Africa was claimed a transportation route and it is contended by the Durban City Council’s City Counsel that that proclamation affects every street in the municipality. Every public road has by this proclamation been prescribed as a transportation route, so it appears that there is a sound case for Counsel’s opinion that the municipalities have no longer any power over any street in their own municipality as far as transportation is concerned. The matter is further complicated by the action of the Central Transportation Board itself. Some time last year the Durban City Council took objection to an application made by an Indian bus firm who ran a bus service along a particular route in Durban. Part of the route was through one of the residential areas where the Corporation itself had not yet deemed it necessary to run a bus service. The Board found in favour of the Indian applicant for a bus. Subsequently the City Council took an appeal to the Central Transportation Board and the Central Transportation Board again found for the Indian applicant, and here is what the chairman of the Transportion Board said in his finding, and this proves conclusively that despite what the Minister may say as to the powers still remaining with the municipalities, the chairman of the Board is under no illusions and he is under the impression that no such powers remain. He says this—

Very definitely the Board says that motor buses may follow a route prescribed by the Board even if the route has not been prescribed by the local authority. And so we find here a very clear divergence of opinion between the Minister in charge of the Bill and the chairman of the Transportation Board who, one assumes, has had a great deal of responsibility for the drafting of the Bill, and even if the Minister still contends that he did not give this specific promise to include specific provisions in this Bill, but that he said that nothing in this Bill would take away any of these powers, I feel that he is still morally bound if he finds that through the action of the Central Transportation Board …

Under the old Act.

I am coming to that, because the Minister seems to have the idea that there is some provision which makes the position of municipalities clear. I cannot find it. And if the Minister is of opinion that municipalities should retain this power, surely there can be no objection to accepting my amendment which makes it perfectly clear. Behind this there is a lot of governmental hookery-pookery because at the last session of the Provincial Council of Natal there was an Ordinance passed containing provisions to entrench these powers in the hands of the municipalities. But when the matter came before the Minister of the Interior he held a pistol before the Provincial Council of Natal and threatened to veto the whole of the Ordinance unless he could extract a promise from the Provincial Executive that they would in effect veto these transportation provisions by the simple expedient of refusing to issue any by-laws or regulations. I move—

I wish to move the following amendment—

1. (ii) by the substitution for paragraph (c) of the following paragraph:
   1. (c) to receive and consider applications for motor carrier certificates for motor carrier transportation or for renewals thereof or for exemption therefrom under sub-section (2) or (3) of section 9, and for amendment of any such motor carrier certificate or renewal or exemption previously granted and subject to the provisions of this Act, in its discretion to refuse such applications or to grant them in full or in part, and to issue the appropriate certificates: Provided that the Board may refuse to consider any such application or any objection to any such application unless the applicant or objector has deposited with the Board such sum of money, not exceeding one hundred pounds, as the Board may direct him to deposit (apart from any other money which he may have been obliged to deposit with the Board) and if the Board thereafter grants the application or upholds the objection, it shall return the deposit to the depositor, but if the Board has refused the application or disallowed the objection, it may retain the money so deposited or any part thereof, or return that money or any part thereof to the depositor, and if the Board retails that money or any part thereof, it may, in its discretion, out of the money so retained, partly or fully indemnify any person to whom the unsuccessful application or opposition occasioned any expense.

The object of this amendment is this: We find that when a certificate is issued, or when an application is approved of, there are strong companies or bodies which put obstacles in the way, or cause trouble by inducing people who have nothing at all to lodge protests or to make counter applications which result in the owner of the certificate or the applicant being mulcted in unnecessary expense. It means that a man who has laid out capital to get the certificate—he may perhaps have a very limited amount of capital at his disposal— a man who has used his capital to get the transportation service going so as to be able to get a certificate, finds that in that way a lot of money is taken out of his pocket. If a company which is worth anything at all lodges a protest or makes an application, then it is quite easy to recover unnecessary costs. But that is not what is done; the application or the protest comes from a person who has nothing and this unnecessary protest causes a lot of expense to the man who has originally applied. I hope the Minister will consider this amendment and will accept it as I feel that it provides for something which is very necessary. It is not only the individual who gets the certificate who has to be protected, but also the smaller and weaker individual who has already had to use his capital for the purpose of making a start. We have to protect him in this case.

I might deal with one or two of the points made. In regard to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren), I frankly confess that I do not quite know what it means. No board wants to create any vested rights or monopolies as such, but it is quite beyond me how a board would know whether it was creating a monopoly or not. One of the duties of the board, of course, is to protect existing rights, and that might under certain conditions create a monopoly. I am sorry I cannot accept the amendment. In regard to the amendment of the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland), I am prepared to try and meet his point at the report stage, provided he allows the clause to go through now. I think the point he made, supported by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), can be met, and I shall do my best to try and meet him. In regard to the amendment of the hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Friedlander), I am afraid it is impossible to accept these amendments, because they would have the effect of turning the Road Transportation Board into a court of law, and to turn it into a court of law would be very unfair to the average person who tries to run a motor carrier transportation service. Our friends over there have already complained of the cost of applications, the cost of getting the right to carry transport for reward, and I am afraid that if the amendments of the hon. member for Wynberg were agreed to, it would be impossible for practically anyone to get a transport certificate at all. I am sorry I cannot, therefore, accept those amendments. For eleven years the Road Transportation Board has functioned satisfactorily from the point of view of public transport. With regard to the point made by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), I should like to make it quite clear that what I told the road transportation people whom I saw was not that I would entrench my rights. They alleged that in this Bill which I was now moving I was interfering with their existing rights and powers, and I said I was doing nothing of the kind. I was quite sure about it. They still held that I was interfering with their rights. I said: “Well, if I find I am interfering with these rights, I shall have an amendment moved to put the matter quite clear, but I want to make this quite clear so far as this amending Bill is concerned, that I detract from no power which they now have and I add no power to them which they do not at present possess.” That is to say, the position so far as the municipalities is concerned is left precisely as it was. Their position will be exactly the same as it was before. Now I doubt very much whether these amendments are strictly in order, because I cannot interfere with provincial powers. It is not my duty. Already the hon. member for Umbilo has pointed out that the Minister of the Interior has made some arrangement with the Provincial Councils about this, but I cannot interfere with these matters in this Bill. That is a matter for the Minister of the Interior, but what I want to make perfectly clear is that so far as the rights of Municipal Councils are concerned, I am not interfering with them in any way beyond the point where they are already interfered with by the Act itself. I do not know that I can make that any clearer, but if any member still has any doubt about it I shall be prepared to answer any questions which they may care to put to me on that point.

At 10.55 p.m. the Chairman stated that, in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again.

House to resume in Committee on 20th February.