I think that it is fitting that all members who take part in this debate should begin by paying a tribute not only to the Minister for the handsome surplus which he has announced, but also to the members of the staff and all the employees who have contributed towards that surplus. I feel, too, that it will be no more than fitting for this House to support the plea of the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Dolley) that there should be a direct recognition of that work by the Minister, more particularly in the case of the lower paid officials, by the voting of some of his surplus to raising their wages to some extent. I know the Minister in common with other departments is giving a cost of living allowance to the staff, but in view of the handsome surplus of the Railways, true due to a large extent to war conditions. I think that in view of that surplus the Railway workers are to an extent entitled to more consideration. Therefore I feel that the Minister should consider this matter from that angle. But there is also another way of considering Railway workers and that is by extending the welfare work which the Railways are already doing among the lower paid sections of the employees. There is much talk in this House and elsewhere about social security, but social security is twopronged and there is considerable authority for the statement that social security does not only depend on increased wages but also on an increased measure of welfare work among all sections of lower paid employees, and to my mind the Railway Department, as the biggest State department, should give a lead, and increase its welfare work, particularly in view of the fortunate position in which the Railways find themselves with this large surplus. I know the Minister will say that they are already doing welfare work to a considerable extent, but in view of the size of the surplus and in view of the size of the staff I say again I do not think the Railways are doing nearly enough. There should be a widespread network of welfare officers attending to these poorer paid Railway workers, who have not enough knowledge of such matters as nutrition, etc., to budget properly or to feed their families rightly. Special classes should be established to enlighten them and to help them to deal with this particular subject and other similar subjects. I therefore want to bring to the Minister’s notice that this is another way of using the surplus in the interest of the employees, and for the welfare of artisans and other sections of the staff who helped to produce this surplus. There is yet another point in the plea of the hon. member for Uitenhage which I want to support. He has asked the Minister to give consideration to the possibility of granting some kind of cost of living allowance to Railway pensioners who are no longer in the Railway service. I am well aware that this is part of a very much bigger question and that it does not only apply to the Railways, but to all State pensioners who were pensioned before the war. I am also well aware of the fact that it may be argued that these pensioners have no legal claim against the Railways, but legal claims and human needs are two different matters. I want to ask the Minister whether he will not consult his colleauge, the Minister of Finance, to go into the whole matter and if possible to grant a cost of living allowance to all State pensioners, whether Railway pensioners or other State pensioners. But there is another matter of policy which causes me some concern. I want to remind the Minister and the House of what has happened in connection with the Rates Equalisation Fund. As the House is aware, the Rates Equalisation Fund was established under the Act of Union. There is statutory authority for the setting up of a Rates Equalisation Fund, but that fund never amounted to much until the depression. Thereafter, the ex-Minister of Railways and Harbours, the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) stated that it would be his policy to build up the Rates Equalisation Fund to such an extent that in case of another depression, half of it could be used for the stabilisation of the rates and the other half for the stabilisation of wages. During the last five or six years the Rates Equalisation Fund has increased from year to year. A year or two ago it amounted to £1,000,000, and now, I understand, it has reached the handsome figure of more than £7,000,000; and I feel that it is time that the Minister should announce his policy to the House. Is it his policy to utilise this fund in case of depression in the way indicated by the ex-Minister of Railways and Harbours, that is to say, half of it for the stabilisation of rates and the other to stabilise wages? It seems to me that in view of the figure now reached by the fund, the Minister must announce his policy, and if there is any doubt as to the position, a small amendment might be made to give him the required statutory authority. As it is, the matter has been raised by the Auditor-General in his last report, where he has raised the point that there is no statutory authority for the belief, current in railway circles, that in case of a depression the Rates Equalisation Fund will be employed in terms of the statement made by the ex-Minister of Railways and Harbours. And once you lead the staff to rely on a Minister’s statement and the Auditor-General queries the lack of legislative authority for such belief, it seems to me that the Minister owes it to the House to tell us whether it is to be the policy and whether he is going to see legislative sanction for that policy. Tor my part I think there is something to be said for the view that this should be a flexible reserve fund. If that is to be the Minister’s policy, let him say so. I have no doubt that the House would be prepared to accept that view if it is better for Railway purposes, but if he is going to continue the policy of his predecessor, then some definite steps should be taken. If that is to be the policy of the Railway Administration, then the Minister should seek statutory sanction for the policy which has been adumbrated on numerous occasions, but has never been backed up by legislative enactment.

Unfortunately I am one of those people who cannot congratulate the Minister of Railways on his so-called achievements. It should not be difficult for him to make a success of the Railways, because he has a monopoly, and no one can compete with him. In addition to that, we have created a Transportation Board which further assists the Railways in exercising its monopoly by practically eliminating all competition. The Railways cannot cope with the farmers’ produce, and when the farmers require goods the Railways are unable to convey it to them. When we criticise them we are told that there is a war in progress. Yes, the war is blamed for everything which goes wrong; but when they talk about prosperity, the prosperity is not attributed to the war. The Minister has a monopoly on transport in the country, and then there are certain people employed under him whom he expects, to put it mildly, to work like slaves. I want to break a lance today for a section of those people. I want to refer to those people who are known as station foremen. They are the people who are just under the stationmaster, and who sometimes have to relieve the stationmaster. They are foremen and they are employed on the smaller stations. I want to ask the Minister whether he thinks it is fair that those people should be on duty for twelve hours a day? I should like it to be understood that I am referring particularlay to the station foremen employed on the main line, say, from Touws River as far as De Aar. On those small Karoo stations—there are approximately sixty of them—there are station foremen who have to look after the station, and they have to be on duty for twelve hours, and sometimes even longer. They are expected to be on duty for twelve hours. One person is on night duty from 6.0 to 6.0, and then another foreman is on duty during the day. In the case of a foreman employed at a station on a small branch line, one may perhaps expect him to be on duty for twelve hours, because there are comparatively few trains, and he might be able to sleep for six hours out of twelve. But these people to whom I am referring cannot go off duty to sleep, and they scarcely find time to eat. When the foreman is on night duty, twenty-four trains sometimes pass his station during his shift, and sleep is out of the question. He cannot even leave to go and have his meal. It is impossible in those circumstances. I think the Minister should make some other arrangement in connection with the station foremen. He simply cannot treat them all alike. Those people on the main line have not even got the privileges which the natives and the coloured people in the Railway service have. The latter have fixed hours for their meals, and there are fixed times during which they are free. Just imagine the position of a station foreman who is stationed beyond Touws River, thirty or forty miles away from the town. He must get his provisions. The majority of these people are Afrikaners; they are respectable people who come from good families. They are married to respectable women. The wife is not only deprived of all amenities but she cannot even cook for her husband because she does not know when he will be free to have his meal. She cannot tell him to come and have his meals at a fixed time during the night or during the day. He must eat when an opportunity presents itself and he cannot take his time about it. He never knows when the next train will arrive. He may be away for ten minutes and then he has to return again. He must either gulp down his food hot, or have it later when it is cold. A station foreman is supposed to work ten hours. He works twelve hours, however, and he is not even paid overtime in respect of the additional time he works. Guards are on duty for nine hours, drivers and firemen for eight hours, and whenever they work for a longer period they are paid overtime. But these station foremen work overtime and they do not get a penny for it. Their health suffers because they do not get a chance to enjoy their meals properly. When the foreman has to fetch his provisions in town, he is not even given time off to do so. He has to travel to town during the day, buy his provisions, and go on duty during the night, so that in the space of 36 hours he cannot get any sleep at all. If anything were to go wrong, whose fault would it be? We know whose fault it is, but the blame is laid on the station foreman. I know that the Minister’s reply will be that there is a war on. There is a further consideration. The station foreman has to go to town to buy his provisions when he gets an opportunity to do so. The shops have all been rationed. He cannot go at the beginning of the month when there are sufficient stocks, and the result is that sometimes he has to return without having got matches, candles and such items. These people are not treated like human beings at all; they are treated like animals. They have to be on duty for twelve hours out of twenty-four, and they are deprived of all amenities. I understand that a small increase has been granted to these people in respect of costs of living. People who received 11/- per day, have received an increment of 6d., and those who received 12/8 have received an increment of 3d. Why should this differentiation be made? The conditions under which these people work are worse than those of the coloured people and natives who are employed as labourers on the Railways, because they have not got the privileges which the coloured and natives have. It may be said that these people can get leave of absence. Their annual leave of absence is very short and now they are not even getting that, because they are told that there is a war in progress and that there are no people to replace them. We also know that these station foremen are deputed to act as station master but they are not given the station master’s salary. The station masters may go away or be transferred to other places. They enjoy these privileges but the station foremen simply have to remain where they are. I know of a case where one of these people rang up the local station and asked whether he could not get leave in order to visit his father, because his father was lying on his death bed. It was not far and he was keen to go. The reply was: “No, you cannot go now because you will want to go again when the funeral takes place, and it will be better to wait until then.” This is the type of treatment which is meted out to these people. They are poor people; many of them have wives and children, and they cannot tell the Administration to keep its job. I am absolutely convinced that the Minister of Railways cannot be aware of these things, nor can he imagine in what circumstances these people have to work. If these people have to be stationed at these places where they have to live under such conditions, then give them fourteen days’ or a month’s leave so that they can recuperate and recover their health. When it comes to the Head Office staff and to the station masters, not one of them forego their leave. They will also take good care to see to it that their meal hours are not interfered with. The station foreman, however, has to do without it, and we must remember that his leave is non-accumulative. Under the emergency regulations these people can only get the current year’s leave; if they do not avail themselves of it, they forfeit it. Then I also want to point out that there are some of these stations which are not visited by a doctor for a whole year. The Railway Administration appoints doctors to visit these people, but for a whole year there was no doctor at some of these stations. That is the position in which these people find themselves. They are a patient crowd of people and they have suffered this state of affairs as long as they could, but circumstances have forced them to come to us. When they approach us they are afraid and implore us not to mention their names. They do not want it to be known that they complained. They tell us that they have tried everything but that their arguments were in vain. They have no influence which they can bring to bear on the Administration, and they are afraid because once it is discovered that they complained they will be victimised. In my opinion victimisation of a man who fights for his rights is one of the last things one should expect from a Scotchman. He ought to know what it means to suffer. He ought to understand reason in connection with these people. Since this matter has now been raised by us I hope that the Minister will see his way clear to investigate the conditions under which these people live. A short while ago we fixed shop hours in an Act which was passed here, and we stipulated that shop assistants must work eight hours per day and that they should be given half-a-day’s leave per week. But what does the Government do in the case of its own employees? They have to work twelve hours per day, sometimes right through the night, and no provision is made for half-day’s leave per week. They must be on duty on Sundays, Mondays and every other day of the week and remain on duty for twelve hours. I want to concede that there are places where the station foremen can do it. But even in those cases the hours of duty should be fixed. If we stipulate that shop assistants must not work more than eight hours a day, I think the Government should see to it that these people have the same privilege. But today the position is that the Government need not comply with regulations which are applied to private employers. And then the Government boasts that it has a surplus of millions. We could all show surpluses if we could let our employees work twelve hours out of every twenty-four whilst not giving them those privileges which we accord to a horse or any other animal, if it is worth anything. Cattle of quality are accorded more privileges than these people. I hope the Minister will realise what the position is. He may reply that foremen who are on duty for twelve hours have the right to absent themselves for two hours. But he knows as well as I do they cannot take off those two hours. They must be at their posts when the trains arrive. He may say that they need not always be there, but in any case these men have to wait for the train, because they do not know just when the train may arrive. During the war there are a greater number of trains, and if these men were to go away and something were to happen they would be held responsible. If there is an accident and people are killed, they are brought before a court of law on a charge of neglect of duty. No mention is then made of the fact that they may have been without sleep for 36 hours. No, the good reputation of the Railways must be upheld, and these people must shoulder the responsibility. I think it is our duty to bring these matters to the notice of the Minister, and expect that he will do something in connection with these people. The majority of them are newly married people. If he wants those people to work longer hours than we expect of our animals, then he should compensate them adequately in respect of the overtime they are required to work. Why can a guard be paid overtime if he works longer than nine hours per day, and not the station foremen? I concede the fact that there are places where the station foremen are not always busy. In that case there should be differentiation. The Railway Administration wants to do everything within its strict rules and regulations. If there are places where station foremen are employed at large stations, where they can regularly get time off, and have their proper periods of rest, then do not apply the same rule to people who are employed in the Karroo. Their positions must be taken into consideration. The Minister may say that he cannot make other rules. It is only natural that rules should be varied according to circumstances. He, as a business man, knows that when people are required to work longer than the normal hours and when they cannot get the same privileges as other employees, they must be met in some other way. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to afford those people who live in dry parts, thirty or forty miles from town, an opportunity to buy their provisions. Create the opportunity for them, and if they have to work overtime, then give them extra remuneration. Then I also want to ask the Minister not to differentiate between the man who is in receipt of 11s. and the man who receives 12s., in connection with the cost of living allowance. The individual who gets 12s. frequently requires the increment more urgently than the man who gets 11s. Give all these people recognition in respect of the work they do. It is said that these people are loyal and that they do everything in their power for the public. They do nothing, and I want to congratulate them on it, but not the Administration, not the people who draw salaries of thousands. It is the men on the bottom rung who do the work and who enable the Railways to do the additional work demanded of them. Nevertheless, those people are not taken into account; they get no privileges and they are expected to work such long hours. I make an appeal to the Minister to pay these people properly in respect of overtime and to give them proper facilities, so that they will be able to live decently. If those people become ill, because they cannot have regular meals, they are booted out of the service, and are left with their wives and children, with possibly a small pension. It is not enquired who is the cause of their illness. For that reason I want the Minister to investigate all the circumstances, and not to allow these people to work such long hours as they are required to work now. The Minister cannot tell me that there are no people available. They can get hold of people, if only they will engage these people. If they see to it that the station foremen work eight hours at those places where a large number of trains pass, things will be improved; and if during the war we expect two men to do the work of three, we must pay them accordingly. Perhaps the profits shown by the Minister will be somewhat smaller as a result of this. But it will not kill the Railways. The Railways show large profits. They are in a position to pay these people at such a rate that they will be enabled to live decently. I make an appeal to the Minister to take a portion of his surplus of millions—one of the members on the other side referred to £7,500,000—and to use that money to compensate those people who are making big sacrifices at this time. The Minister admits that they are making sacrifices, and he should remunerate them more adequately. I think that I have now said enough in regard to this matter, and I hope that the Minister will give his attention to it. I should also like to say that I think some plan should be evolved in connection with facilities for the public to obtain information from the Railways. One has to go to the station two or three times, and then one still does not get the right information. I went to enquire when I could get a train. They told me that I could get a train at a specified hour; another official said that there was no train, and in both cases they were wrong. I had to telephone my house, and I got the right information from that end. That should not be necessary. It would seem that they have so many time tables that the clerks themselves do not know which time table to look at. I think that a person who is employed in an information bureau should have all the time tables in front of him, so that he can give the correct information to the public. At one place someone enquired three times, because one has to make certain that the information given is correct. Information was sought over the telephone. The first clerk said there was a train; the second one said that there was no train, and when a third telephone call was made, the girl at the other end replied that the stationmaster was now at office, and that according to him there was a train. That sort of thing should not take place. The public is dependent on the information it receives. I notice that compensation has had to be paid to people who receive incorrect information from the Railways. There should be some plan whereby these officials can be properly instructed as to which time tables they should consult. This complaint is general. Other people have spoken to me, and they have had the same experience as I had. If those officials do not know, they should tell us that they do not know, and advise us to look at the time table ourselves. But when they give us information we should be able to accept that information as being correct. I feel that there is something wrong with the Railway Administration. They have privileges which no one else has. They tell us that we must regard the Railways as our own railways. The State has a monopoly, but in dealing with the public they overlook the fact that it is the public’s railways. It would seem that the Railways belong to the Minister and that they are run for his profit. If the Railways belong to the public, then the public should be given its rights on the railways. But today the position is that we cannot get trucks. The other day we required cement because there were serious washaways. Furrows were damaged, and cement was required to repair them. They were simply unable to have the cement sent by train, and they had to send a lorry from Robertson to come and fetch the cement. These people could not wait for months. They had to repair the furrows because they had to irrigate or otherwise the crop would have been ruined. There should be special provision for cases of that nature. Then I want to make an appeal to the Minister in connection with something else. We have special tariffs, for the conveyance of manure, and the farmers avail themselves of these tariffs. There we are up against the same difficulty. At some future date the Minister may take away that concession, and then the farmers will be without manure. The Minister should make an effort to devise some plan whereby these people can obtain trucks. He could use old trucks with wooden supports, because it is surely not so difficult to transport manure. I make an appeal to him to make some sort of provision in this case.

I would direct the attention of the Minister to a matter which I believe is damaging the good name of Railwaymen, and is casting a doubt on their integrity. I refer to the question of pilfering which is taking place largely at Durban and possibly may be taking place in other parts of the Union as well. But since the pilfering at Durban affects people living on the South Coast I am more familiar with the position there than elsewhere. The fact is that on an average 105 to 109 claims are sent to the Railway Administration every month from the various people living between Isipingo and Port Shepstone, a distance of sixty miles. The cases are on the whole petty and the value in £ s. d. is not high, but the appalling thing is that there are so many of these claims. May I relate just one or two of them. A carton of cigarettes is addressed to a consignee. When it arrives the carton is found to be open and a few packets of cigarettes have been extracted. It is not so much the cigarettes or the financial loss, but the consignee has to pay about 3s. 6d. for the carton, which has been cut open, but in addition to that cigarettes are rationed and he cannot replace them. Then you get children’s clothing. Packages of children’s clothing are sent by rail and they are opened and things are taken out. Consignments of beer are loaded in Durban and in the marshalling yard at Durban it has been discovered that cases have been opened and several bottles extracted, and the empty bottles placed on the buffers of the truck. Now, not only does this sort of thing cast a reflection on the Railway Service generally, but it is exasperating the people who use the Railways and I would earnestly ask the Minister to take drastic steps to stop this pilfering which is taking place. I might venture an opinion and say that the pilferage is due largely to a lot of lowly paid Railwaymen having temptation placed in front of them.

You should pay them more.

They have not the wherewithal to purchase these things, and the consequence is that you have this pilfering of consignments. If I were to suggest a remedy it would be that these lowly paid men should not be brought to an expensive place such as Durban, where living is expensive, but the work of loading and marshalling should be given to reliable overseers in charge of gangs of natives.

We know what you want.

I think supervision and differentiation in the personnel engaged would be the solution.

Victimisation.

Now I am going to make my annual appeal to the Minister on behalf of these pre-Union and pre-1912 Railway servants who are debarred from promotion on account of their being unilingual. The Prime Minister in one of his speeches said that he was out for a square deal for all. We are largely concerned with social security at present. Now the effect of the embargo on these men has been this. There are cases of men who for ten to twenty-five years have received no advancement and no increments. The result is that when they arrive at superannuation age they are superannuated on a small pension, below the barrier of living subsistence. These men are efficient men. That is the point I want to make. I am not speaking for inefficient men, but where you have efficient men who are carrying on their duties, who are serving the Department to the best of their ability, and with exemplary results—to stick these men at a barrier from anything from ten to twenty-five years with no hope except a pittance at the end of their long service, that is wrong. I do appeal to the Minister on behalf of these servants, and I am sure my hon. friend opposite would not offer any objection to any action the Minister may take, and I hope we shall have an assurance from him that he will consider the matter, and that he will promise us that the lack of language qualification will not stand in the way of promotion. Now, I was amazed at the disclosure made by the hon. member for Uitenhage, who spoke yesterday, that internees on the fixed establishment were only suspended from duty while the internee not on the established staff was discharged. I should say that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The mere fact that a man holds a position of trust should not militate against his being discharged if it is found necessary to intern him because his loyalty to the country is in doubt, or because there are reasons for interning him. The whole point is that the man is interned because he is a danger to the State. Moreover, it has come to my notice that the dependants of internees on the fixed establishment are maintained by the Railway Administration. They get an allowance.

What must they live on?

They are actually living in Railway-owned houses free of rent and not paying rates and taxes.

Where do you get that from?

If you are guilty of an offence in private employment and you are working against the interests of your firm, then you don’t expect your employer to keep you and your family as well. I really must ask the Minister to express the policy of the Department in regard to these internees, and more especially those internees on the fixed establishment, and I hope I have said sufficient to emphasise the importance of the point.

I don’t propose going into the general policy of the Railways at this stage, I only want to put a question to the Minister, and I am very anxious to get a straight and definite answer from him. We hear complaints made about shortage of staff on the Railways and we hear it said that as a result many of the Services are unsatisfactory. The reason for the shortage of staff is that such a lot of war work is being done. Now we are anxious to know this. Is it the policy of the Minister’s Department that people who are fit for war service are not to be employed but that only those who are unfit for active service are to be employed?—I want a clear and unambiguous answer to this question. We hear such a lot about large sums of money and large surpluses on the Railway, and I am beginning to doubt whether those surpluses are really as big as the Minister pretends. If one has two trouser pockets and one takes the money out of the one pocket and puts it into the other pocket one does not get richer, but the one pocket becomes empty and the other becomes full. I want to know from the Minister how much the Defence Department has so far paid the Railways in respect of travelling and other expenses for the carriage of troops, prisoners of war and so on. If the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Defence pay into the pockets of the Minister of Railways, it means six of one and half a dozen of the other. It is money belonging to the same firm; it is simply transferred into another pocket. As we are going to have such a large surplus we want to ask the Railway Department whether they are really so concerned about the position, that they have to put advertisements in every little local paper telling people not to travel on the Railways if it is not absolutely necessary. When one comes to a station one sees large advertisements, “Support the Railways,” and when one goes round the corner we find other advertisements not to use the Railways unless it is absolutely essential. Advertisements of that kind are published in local papers and the reason probably is one, the real purpose of which we shall probably find out later when we have an election. Those papers are of such a kind that some of them have not even got an editor. In spite of that they are given large advertisements of which people take no notice at all. It is a waste of money and members on this side of the House have pointed out that there are people employed by the Railways who need that money. That money could be saved and used in the interest of the Service. Now, there is another matter which I want to bring to the Minister’s notice, a matter which he should know about. The question is one causing discomfort to the staff on the Cape Town station—not to the people who come to the station early in the morning, but to the people who have to work there. In the evening, after a certain time, railway coaches are shunted into the station, not because there is no other place for those coaches to stand, but for the convenience of certain people. Those coaches are shunted in and people go and sleep in them. There has already been unpleasantness between the people sleeping in those coaches and the Railway police, and that unpleasantness has resulted in prosecutions in our courts. I should like the Minister to have a look at those coaches in the mornings before they are cleaned. The Railway platform where the coaches stand, and the coaches themselves are in a disgraceful condition. I purposely went early in the morning to have a look before the coaches had been cleaned, and if the Minister were to see the condition in which they are, and what one finds in them, he would put his foot down at once and put a stop to it. If his attention is drawn to the things that go on in these coaches he will immediately put a stop to it. I understand that complaints have been made but for loyal reasons nothing has been done, and the people concerned have been given permission to sleep there. Now, there is something in connection with the Railway police to which I want to draw the Minister’s attention. The Railway police are supposed to work eight hours per day, but when troops arrive, or when a personage like the Governor General arrives, the Railway police are kept on duty for about twelve hours without a break. After that they can get two hours leave, but it depends on the goodwill of the sergeant whether he is prepared to give it to them, they are only paid for eight hours. Now I want to mention another case. If these people have been on night duty and they have to attend court the next morning they can also get two hours off if they have been in court all morning for the purpose of giving evidence, but again, everything depends on the sergeant’s goodwill. The moment those policemen go to work, they are on duty from the moment they put on their uniforms. The policeman may have to go to the docks. He has to pay on the bus to go there but if any trouble starts on the bus—if there is a row, or anything like that—the policeman is on duty and has to take action. If anything is wrong on the bus the policeman is on duty and has to act; in other words, he is on duty because he is in uniform. I want to ask the Minister to meet these people and do something for them. I also want to draw attention to the fact that there is a shortage of ticket inspectors, and learner shunters are today being used as ticket examiners, but they are not given a uniform—they are only given a cap and a number. They are paid the rates of learner shunters and they cannot get any increments while the war is on, and they have to provide their own clothes. I want to ask the Minister to do something for those people too. If they do their work well why cannot they be promoted and be given increases of salary. I also want to ask the Minister to see that they are supplied with uniforms. A year ago I also asked that the people in the cloak rooms and the luggage departments who have to handle parcels and heavy goods, in the same way as the attendants on the platforms, should be supplied with uniforms. The Minister promised to have an investigation made and to see whether it would not be possible to supply those people with uniforms. So far the Minister has not given an answer, and we should like to know how far he has got with his promise. I am very pleased that we have a decent place in our area where the Railway workers can stay, like the Prof. de Vos Hostel. There is a matter in that connection, however, that I want to say a few words about. Surely, in places of that kind there should be no political wire pulling. We have a law which provides that if one’s name is not on the voters’ roll one may be fined. Now, we are getting people belonging to political parties going round to get voters registered. They don’t only go to railway places, they also go to private homes and business places. As a rule one finds that those people are admitted and all they do is to see to it that an individual gets a form, signs that form, and that his name is put on the voters’ roll. At the Prof. de Vos Home, however, a man went round and at the last by-election he tried to get men staying there on the voters’ roll. He was stopped by the house-father and he was told that politics were not allowed there. He was stopped from coming into the Home. A letter was thereupon written to the Railway Administration, and the reply was as follows:

If it is handed over to the house-father, that’s the end of it. The letter goes on as follows:

What guarantee is there that the housefather will hand the forms over, seeing that he has already stopped those people at the door? I want to ask the Minister whether it is his policy, too, when it comes to the registration of voters, not to allow people on Railway premises to get their names registered? If the recruiting agents are allowed to walk about anywhere they want to then I wonder why people cannot be allowed on these premises for the purpose of putting people on the voters’ rolls. I should like the Minister to give us a definite answer on this point. There is another point in respect of which the Minister gave us a reply which is not at all clear. I hope that he did not do so deliberately. We continually have complaints from people who want to take their leave but who are told that on account of the war and the shortage of people it is impossible to give them leave. On the 29th January, 1943, I put the following question to the Minister:

1. (1) Whether ticket examiners and other railway employees are entitled to annual leave; if so, for what period;
2. (2) whether leave is granted during the war;
3. (3) whether a large number of employees have for years not been able to obtain leave; if so, why was leave refused;
4. (4) whether he will take steps to ensure that leave is regularly granted to all employees who are entitled to it; and
5. (5) whether any period of the accumulated leave of employees who have not been granted leave for a number of years lapses; if so, what period and why.

And the reply was—

I don’t understand what that means, but the Minister may perhaps be able to explain what he has in mind there. Let me assure the Minister that there definitely are people who apply and who, as a result of the war, are unable to get leave, and the worst of it is that if they don’t get leave, their leave lapses. After a certain period the accumulated leave lapses. How can the Minister say that people are encouraged to take leave if they are unable to get it? I don’t want to say that the reply was dishonest but it definitely creates the impression that all those people get leave. If the Minister will only go to the Cape Town station, or if he will send someone to investigate he will find out that there are railway men who have not had leave for years and who cannot get it. If the Minister wants everyone to get leave, then he must see to it that they are able to get it. I also put a question to the Minister in regard to a deputation which waited on the Minister without Portfolio at Mossel Bay some time ago. The Minister of Railways was overseas, and the present Minister of Native Affairs, who was Minister without Portfolio at the time, met the deputation on the subject of railway connection between Le Roux and Beaufort West. I don’t want to blame the Minister, but the reply which was given led to a serious misunderstanding. The impression created by the Minister without Portfolio was that it would not be possible during the war to get such a railway connection. I thereupon put this question to the Minister—

1. (1) Whether he is prepared to reconsider his decision, as conveyed to a deputation by the Minister without Portfolio, on his behalf, that the construction of the railway line from Le Roux to Beaufort West could not be undertaken during the war; and, if not,
2. (2) whether, in view of the large number of prisoners of war in the Union, he will consider the advisability of completing the track along which the line can be subsequently laid; if not, why not.

The Minister of Railways replied as follows—

1. (1) I am not aware of any such decision having been conveyed on my behalf.
2. (2) Falls away.

Possibly the Minister may have been under a wrong impression, but I want to ask very definitely now what the Minister’s attitude is. Should the reply have been that we were going to get that railway or that we were not going to get it? If the Minister’s reply is that we cannot get the line because there is no material, then I want to ask him, seeing that there are so many prisoners of war in the Union, to have the track laid down, so that the rails can be put down afterwards, when they become available again. In conclusion, I wish to associate myself with what hon. members have said here in regard to stewards on the trains. Last Saturday we came to Cape Town by train from Mossel Bay. The chief steward came round to ask whether we intended taking dinner. I was given a ticket for the fourth sitting. There were four sittings in the dining saloon. At half-past ten that evening the fourth sitting was not yet over. Let me say clearly that I do not blame the staff; I do not blame the stewards or the chief stewards. I admire the way in which they do their work and the patience they show. But I am quite certain that some changes will have to be made. In view of the way the trains are packed larger dining saloons will have to be put on, or, as the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) has urged, the system of serving the meals will have to be changed. A tremendous amount of time is being wasted. First of all, one sits down and waits until everybody is in the saloon for the first sitting. When the stewards go round to announce the first sitting, there may perhaps be some ladies who want to titivate themselves. One may sit down for twenty minutes before everyone is seated. Then one starts dinner, and those who eat most slowly win. We all have to wait for the last. If people carry on a conversation, especially if there are four at one table, you have to sit and wait. Then there is a delay of certainly from five to ten minutes between the various sittings. In that way it is quite impossible to have four sittings. For the sake of the travelling public, and for the sake of the people working on the trains, I want to urge the Minister to alter the present system, because when everybody has finished eating the staff have to eat, make up their returns, and hand over the money they have taken during the day. It is an impossible position. By the time one gets one’s fish one has forgotten that one has had soup. I want to ask the Minister to go into the whole question. Surely we cannot be accused of dragging in politics if we ask to be given the opportunity of getting our food on the train in a proper manner. I am also asking this for the sake of the people who are employed there. I have asked the stewards and also the chefs what they think of it, and they tell me that their duties are much more onerous than they used to be. There are a number of other matters of a general kind which we can discuss when the Railway Estimates are under discussion, but I want to ask the Minister to give his attention to the few points I have raised. There is one more point I wish to mention, namely, that of the fast train from Mossel Bay to Port Elizabeth. In the past the third class for coloured people was always at the front of the train, immediately behind the engine. Now, for some inexplicable reason, those third class compartments have been split up, half of them being in front and the other half at the back. This has caused considerable confusion among the coloured people. They stand at the front of the train, and then the ticket examiner has to tell them that there is also accommodation for them at the back. Then a number of them rush to the back, and this sort of thing causes a considerable amount of confusion and running about, and is most inconvenient to those coloured people. I want to ask the Minister why this has been done, and whether it cannot be changed.

I am not going to congratulate the hon. Minister on the surplus he has presented to this House. I submit that a surplus is always better than a deficit, but at the same time I always feel suspicious about large profits, whether made in public enterprise or in private enterprise. In fact, so far as public enterprises are concerned, my suspicions are somewhat greater because there is an obligation on public enterprises not to be betrayed into the realms of exploitation. The hon. Minister has been discreetly silent about what he is going to do with this surplus. It may be that on a later occasion he will explain to the House what he proposes to do with it; he may give the House details of schemes that will reconcile people to the fact that they may have been called upon to pay more for railway services than they should have done.

I have presented no surplus to the House.

That may be so, but we are all certain that the surplus will be presented in due course. We have plenty of evidence in the Press of the existence of this surplus. The Press, from week to week, has been commending to us the amazing prosperity of the Railways, and we shall be very much surprised if the Minister does not present a large surplus. Now, sir, the Press from which we have so far derived all our information, has suggested to us something of what the hon. Minister is going to do with part of his surplus, and I must admit that so far as that information has gone, it has not reconciled me very much to the present financial position of the railways. We have had information from the Press, and we have had information from official sources — information presented before the Native Representative Council in Pretoria and Durban — that the Minister has decided to grant to all non-European labourers an all-round increase of 6d. a day on their pay. Now I am not going to say that we would refuse that 6d. a day, but what I am going to say is that we are still waiting for a declaration of general policy from the Minister of Railways and from the Government as to the basis on which it considers its employees should be paid. That 6d. a day which we have waited for for a very long time, and I may say with quite commendable patience, is still not going to bring the rates of pay of the non-Europeans on the Railways into line with the best rates of pay in private employment. And that is not saying much, because the best rates of pay as laid down for employees in private employment by the Wage Board, except perhaps here in Cape Town where we have had a little encouragement this last year—except perhaps in Cape Town, are not within measurable distance yet of a living wage for the people on the bottom of the ladder. And yet we find that the Railway Administration still lags behind these rates, in spite of the time that has been spent in public discussion on the sort of society we are going to build up in South Africa after the war. I must admit that, so far, I have not been able to work up any enthusiasm about all the talk of social security codes in South Africa. I have felt all along that a country that can talk about social security codes when two-thirds of its population is well down below the level of being able to supply its necessary requirements for its work, is simply not facing realities at all, that all this talk about social security is just so much emotional indulgence and nothing more. When I see the first step taken by this country towards the establishment of a living wage for the bulk of the people then I shall begin to believe in the sincerity of the talk about social security codes.

The hon. member must not go too far into that question.

I realise that, sir, and I shall do my best to keep within your ruling, but here is an occasion where I am forced to place before the House the whole basis of social security as I see it. The position of the non-European railway worker is a reflection of the whole mentality of the population of South Africa. It is still thinking in terms of 2,000,000 Europeans. No matter how many grand speeches are made to us by the Government side about the new world we are to have, which we are assured, with a minority finger pointed at the Opposition, is to include NonEuropeans as well as Europeans, I for one will not be impressed until such time as we have some real move made to establish a decent living standard attainably by their work for Non-Europeans. Now the hon. Minister has given us an extra 6d. a day on Non-European wages in the railways. But that just about brings us to the level where we were when the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) began to reduce NonEuropean wages in the 1932 depression, and that was with a large field of starving labourers. Again I repeat, sir, this 6d. a day still leaves us below the level that has been imposed on private employers, and I would remind the House that only three or four months ago we were treated to the very interesting but not very encouraging spectacle of the richest municipality in this country, that is Johannesburg, protesting against having to pay its Non-European Workers a wage of 25s. a week, and the only argument upon which they could found their protest was that the Government itself paid its Non-European labourers less. It was only that fact which enabled this municipality with incredible effrontery to oppose this minimum wage of 25s. per week. And that when their own Native Affairs Department had told them that no Native family could support itself under £6 10s. a month, and the Committee, which has just been investigating the urban conditions of Natives—I commend the report of this Committee seriously to the hon. Minister’s consideration—has put down £7 14s. as the lowest level on which the ordinary family can feed and maintain itself in these times without considering the increased cost of living. But in Johannesburg, our Non-European workers in the railways are going to have the magnificent increase of 6d. a day, which will increase their starting rate of pay from 2s. 6d. to 3s. a day and after long service, they will reach the maximum rate of 4s. a day. Now, I feel we are entitled to ask for a lead from the Minister of Railways, a lead as to what the Government’s policy really is as to a living wage for NonEuropeans in this country; and I feel we are entitled to ask this of him for this reason that the Railway Department is, after all, the largest employer of native labour outside the gold mines, and we must judge Government policy by what our Railway Department does. I feel we have a right to ask the Minister on behalf of the Government, as well as of the Railways to state whether it is the intention of the Government ever to establish a minimum living standard in this country on the basis of its own reports, and if so, when it proposes to do it. I know that the hon. Minister is a business man; that is one reason why he is running our railways and running them with less criticism from the public than has been the lot of that Department for many years; but it is because the Minister is a business man, and a man with a sense of responsibility and with personality that I look to him to take a stand and to get the Government to come to a decision in this matter. I am not just flattering the hon. Minister. I feel that he is one of the few members of the Cabinet who has the personality to influence policy and that therefore we are entitled to ask him when this thing is going to be done, and how it is going to be done, and I want to suggest to him that, as a business man, if he is going to tell us that he must go slow, that we do not know how long this prosperity will last, I am going to say to him that about ten years ago I might have been inclined to support that sort of argument. Ten years ago we began placing unskilled white labour on the South African Railways; we began with what I always considered a mistaken policy, that of trying to peg a place in the unskilled labour field for Europeans in South Africa. I always felt that what we should have done was to build up our consuming capacity and so make work for Europeans in semi-skilled and skilled tasks. But actually we have steadily built up a force of labourers on the Railways who are being paid three or four times the amount the non-European labourer gets. Now what I am going to say is that I do not believe that if the economic value of the work done by the non-Europeans is represented by the wages they are paid, the European is worth the difference. I do not believe his work is worth three or four times the work done by the native, and I invite anybody to prove it to me.

I will prove it to you.

You will find it very difficult. It is only a few years ago since the General Manager of Railways represented to a commission which was brought from overseas to investigate the working of our railway system that the difference between what natives were paid and what it was costing the Railway Administration to employ whites should not be charged to the Railways at all, but to Social Welfare. Now I am not contending for one moment that we should not pay these rates to Europeans, and I am prepared to concede this to the Opposition, that if you pay a man decently you can get a lot more work out of him than you can if you pay him a wage on which he cannot exist. What I am saying is this, that it was obviously possible for the railway system to carry that increased cost of labour without going under, and if it was possible for them to do that under the political pressure which members on both sides of the House can bring to bear, then it is possible for them to review the position and do something for the people who are at the bottom of the ladder, not under political pressure, but to do it because of the moral obligation which rests on the Railway Administration and on the country generally to remove the disgraceful conditions under which the non-Europeans work on the railways. Again I make my appeal to the hon. Minister to put this matter to the Cabinet, so that we may have a Cabinet decision as to whether the Government is going to pay a living wage to the people in its employment or not. Having said that, which, incidentally, I have felt a great urge to say for a long time and have delayed saying because I believed the Minister was prepared to do more for us than he has done, I now proceed to deal with a few other points. In the first place, I want to deal with the cost of living allowance which is paid by the Government to its own servants. There has developed in the service a colour bar which we have so far successfully kept out of private business. The Government forces private employers to pay cost of living allowances absolutely equally to all sections of the labour market; there is no colour bar or racial discrimination in the cost of living allowance laid down by the Government for private employers, but the Government now comes along with a cost of living allowance of its own which not only has a colour bar but a very rigid and far-reaching colour bar. Now, sir, we want to know why. It seems to me that starvation is exactly the same whether you are black or white. The discrimination in this cost of living allowance scheme is all on the lower levels. If a man earns more than £100 the cost of living allowance of the receiver is exactly the same whether he is black or white. But if he earns less than £100 he gets less if he is black than if he is white. Of all the stupid discriminations, I do not think you can find anything to equal this. In this country, with its cost of living, is anybody going to tell us that people earning less than £100 a year are not immediately concerned with one thing only, the feeding of their families, that they are not the people whose absolute necessities are going to be curtailed by a rising cost of living? Will the hon. Minister who, after all, is the person primarily concerned in this case—he is the greatest Government employer of labour — will he explain to us why this particular discrimination takes place? Will he explain to us also why non-Europeans who earn less than £60 a year get a much smaller proportion of the European cost of living than people earning over £60 and up to £100? Of course, the whole of our cost of living allowance is the most fantastic thing; we give least to the people who have least. Of course, that is the traditional thing in all industrial societies today, but in a country where the bulk of the people do not earn enough to buy bread—the bulk of the people here actually have not yet got within measurable distance of that—when, as I have said before in this House—the bulk of the people cannot buy enough food to keep body and soul together in decency, what is the excuse for giving the person at the bottom less than the person at the top? I would like to know whether the Minister will use his influence in the Cabinet, first of all, to have the cost of living allowances revised, so that the people who are not earning enough to buy sufficient food for their families shall be subsidised to enable them to do so; and then to get the colour discrimination removed. Another matter that concerns me very much at the moment is this. The hon. Minister of Labour has issued an emergency regulation which is now famous, as Regulation 145. This regulation makes it absolutely and finally illegal for any native to strike in any circumstances. These people, who are excluded from the operation of our industrial conciliation machinery, people who have no constitutional channel for expressing their grievances under our Industrial Conciliation Act, have now been denied by law the right to strike on any and all services. The right to strike is curtailed in other instances, but they are only instances in which first of all constitutional machinery already exists for the consideration of grievances, and then where the Minister has declared that the trades involved are essential to our war effort. Our native population is now definitely deprived of any right of striking, and at the same time is given no constitutional means of redress. Is this regulation going to apply to the railways? If it is, how does the Minister think it is going to work? I have had enough experience of the hon. Minister since he became Minister of Railways, in matters of this kind, to know that normally he is not a person who would support a purely repressive policy. Is he then prepared to provide in his own Department constitutional machinery whereby the employees in his Department will be able to have constitutional channels for the expression of their grievances, of getting their grievances to him—because they have plenty of grievances. The only alternative to some constitutional machinery of that kind is for them to take the risk of striking at the price of years in gaol, or simply to sink into apathetic resignation, from which they will not rise for generations, if ever. I know, as I see from the Press again, that the hon. Minister has appointed an ex-Chief Magistrate of the Transkei to make some report on this. I find that a very interesting appointment, but I wondered why the Minister had gone to our rural area to get someone to make a report on this particular case. I have no doubt he will tell me it is because a large number of our railway people come from the rural areas, and are inexperienced. If that is so, it does not seem to be justification for taking the advice of someone who is not experienced either. I did want to say a word about housing, but I understand the Minister is having the condition of housing for non-European employees in the Railway Department investigated. I should like to ask the Minister whether he will tell us what the scope of that investigation is, and how far it is likely to provide the non-Europeans with the improved housing which they so badly need. There is this last point which I want to put before him, and I do so in this House on purpose rather than submit the matter to him privately. The hon. Minister knows that there is a very widespread sense of grievance amongst the native people at the treatment which they receive in public offices in South Africa, but mainly on the railways. There are consistent and repeated complaints about the way in which native travellers, African travellers, are treated by railway officials. The hon. Minister knows that—and I know that, where particular cases of ill-treatment are brought to his attention, they are dealt with at once, and I think dealt with fairly firmly, but the point is this, that there are great numbers of cases that never come to the Minister’s notice at all, in which the railway officials exercise a petty tyranny over the native travellers, which is a disgrace to any country, let alone a country that talks incessantly about trusteeship. The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) wanted to know why third class coaches carrying non-Europeans were split up into two sections; why some of them travelled immediately behind the engine, and some of them in the rear of the train. It might encourage the hon. member to think that if there is a railway accident he, in the middle, will be safe. But since we have reduced the number of accidents the hon. member feels now that he is safe, but he objects to the fact that it is necessary for him to rub shoulders with the natives on the railway platforms. The hon. member forgets that one reason why he travels comfortably and fairly cheaply first class, is because there is an enormous third class passenger traffic in this country. The hon. member’s attitude is the sort of attitude that our natives are consistently bumping up against among railway officials. Our nonEuropeans travel a great deal, mostly because they have to, not because they want to. They have to move around the country to their work and in search of work. Now I wish that hon. members in this House had been present, as they ought to have been forced to be present, at the discussion of this situation by the Native Representative Council at Pretoria in 1941. They would have learned a great deal which I think they ought to know as legislators. They would have learnt how deeply these people are feeling the treatment which they receive. They would have heard the native people saying: “You told us that you want segregation; now for heaven’s sake let us have segregation; leave us alone; give us our own people to serve us; let us be separate.” Here I have various extracts from that discussion, which produce this most interesting point. The people say they simpathise with the European clerks in the Railway Department, because these European clerks have the feeling that they are really demeaning themselves by serving non-Europeans. They have been taught that it is an inferior service, that it is derogatory to their dignity to serve non-Europeans. Now the Natives say: “Why not save the European clerk from this; why not remove this indignity, and appoint our own people to serve us”; and the proposal to make is a perfectly just and legitimate one. If the Europeans find it beneath their dignity to serve Africans, why not put the Africans there to serve Africans? And they will be very pleased to have the jobs. They have asked for postal clerks and the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs is allowing this; but they are asking now for clerks in the Railway offices. They say: “Why cannot we have clerks in the railway offices?” They know the answer that will be given to them. They will be told that they cannot handle money. They say: “Let us learn, put us under the control of European clerks; we are quite willing to learn.” It does not seem to me that anybody can put a more reasonable proposition than that, and I feel that the hon. Minister should consider this proposition. It will not only remove a great sense of injustice amongst the Africans but it will also enable the African to serve his own people, which we said he would be allowed to do; it will also perhaps make some of our European employees in Government circles realise that if they are not prepared to serve the public, the whole public, with grace and dignity, then they themselves are going to suffer. I commend all these grievances—and grievances they certainly are—to the consideration of the Minister.

I have certainly not got up to congratulate the Minister of Railways. As a man who comes in touch quite a lot with the workers on the Railways I have no cause at all to congratulate the Minister. On the contrary I have got up to protest against the exploitation of the labourers on the Railways today. If ever there has been an enterprise which has exploited the workers it is the Railways. I have a letter before me which I want to quote so as to explain what I mean. A young fellow who has now been appointed on the Railways as a steward says this in this letter—

Can a thing like that be tolerated? In a civilised country like South Africa? Can we allow young men to act as stewards for six days in a week from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m.? I do not believe our laws will allow that sort of thing to happen in private concerns.

When business was suspended for the lunch hour I was discussing the exploitation that is going on on the Railways. I quoted a letter which shows that young Afrikaners on the Railways are expected to work 19 hours per day for six days in the week. I said that I felt it was unjust, and that our laws would not allow any private employer to exploit his employees in such a manner. We know the kind of work these people have to do on the railways. It is hard work and one cannot see how people can keep their health and their self respect if they are expected to work six days at the rate of 19 hours per day. What I also wanted to protest against is the treatment meted out to the ordinary white labourer on the Railways. There are thousands of such labourers working at the precarious wage of 7s., 8s. and 9s. per day. These people under present conditions are getting a cost of living allowance of 20 per cent., which amounts to about 1s. 10d. per day. An allowance of 20 per cent. may mean a lot to people drawing a wage which is more than ample to cover their daily needs, although it is very little. But if a man has barely enough to live on then 20 per cent. means very little indeed. Take the case of a man with a wife and four children, a normal-sized family; we find that the meat account alone has increased by so much that it practically takes up the whole of the cost of living allowance. It is putting it very low if we say that such a family uses at least 3 lbs. of meat per day. On account of the deplorable marketing conditions in this country they have to pay 6d. per lb. more for their meat than before the war. That means that in that respect their living costs have gone up by 1s. 6d. per day, and I think we can say that the meat account of such a family constitutes hardly 10 per cent. of the domestic requirements from day to day. If we take the matter on that basis we can see that these people no longer get the full value of the 7s. they earn, but that they have to come out on very much less, and I hope the Minister will take the case of these Railway labourers into review. Why should not these people who have to struggle to keep body and soul together not be paid a higher cost of living allowance? Surely the Minister could put the cost of living allowance on a sliding scale. I live near a small town where there are quite a number of these Railway workers. I know the conditions of those people and I know how difficult they find it to make ends meet under present circumstances. I want to put up a plea on behalf of those people, and I want to ask the Minister to give consideration to the question of making better provision for them. Seeing that the Minister is going to have a surplus of a few million pounds it is no more than fair that he should think of those people who in these difficult times are giving their best efforts to the Railway Administration, but who are really not able to keep body and soul together on the wages they are earning. In normal times we cannot expect a white man with his family to come out on 7s. per day, but in times like the present, when people are fully conscious of the fact that it is our duty to see to it that everybody shall get a better living, it is a greater disgrace than ever that people should be paid such a precarious wage. I know the Minister is sympathetically disposed, but he does not get into touch with the ordinary Railway worker, and I am convinced that as the lot of the Railway worker has now been brought prominently to the Minister’s notice he will see to it that an improvement is introduced in regard to their wages. The Minister cannot expect a family to live on 7s. per day even though a small cost of living allowance has been provided. Now, there is another matter I want to bring to the Minister’s notice and I also hope he will give that his serious attention. Cattle farmers and stock farmers are compelled to get permits to send their cattle to the big markets. Those permits have to be applied for weeks in advance, and farmers today are faced with this difficulty. In view of the fact that the permits have to be applied for weeks in advance the Railways are not able to tell the farmers when there will be facilities for them to send their cattle and their stocks away. The Railways only give these people twenty-four hours’ notice of the fact that a truck will be available. The farmer may live thirty or forty miles away from the station, and not all of them are on the telephone, and if such a farmer who is thirty miles away only gets twenty-four hours’ notice to load his cattle and his stock it will be realised that he has the greatest difficulty in getting his sheep and his cattle on the trucks in good time. This is a matter of the greatest importance so far as my area is concerned, and I believe it is the same throughout the country. It causes a tremendous amount of inconvenience and I want to make a serious appeal to the Minister. I know that there is a shortage of rolling stock but surely it is a matter of arrangement and as it is of the greatest importance to farmers to know in good time when they will be able to get trucks, it is essential to make the necessary arrangements well ahead so far as the future is concerned. In that spirit I want to make an appeal to the Minister.

I think the House listened with considerable interest to the speech of the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger). I think she spoke with considerable force, and I think it was quite evident that she knew her subject extremely well. There may be some portions of her speech with which we do not agree, but the House realised that she was speaking for a body of men that deserves better treatment as far as wages are concerned. I trust that the hon. Minister will give very grave consideration to the views expressed by the hon. Member for Cape Eastern. It is not the first time that this matter has been raised in this House, and the Minister has appointed a commission to deal with it. But I feel that he was rather late, and he should not have waited until the matter was forced to the attention of the country. I had the opportunity lately of travelling throughout the Union in connection with the enquiries into the kaffir beer position, and in that way I came into very close contact with the conditions of the Natives which prevailed throughout the Union. While engaged on that enquiry, we took the opportunity of seeing the conditions under which the Natives live in the different parts of the country, and on the railways the conditions as regards the Natives are worse in many ways, than those employed in the towns. This is a matter to which our attention has been drawn quite frequently. As far as wages are concerned, we know that the Minister of Labour has appointed a Wage Board. We also know that in many instances the wages have been increased considerably. But at the same time the Railways have done nothing or very little to bring their wages up to the amount laid down by the Wage Board. That applies particularly to East London, as far as I know. The Prime Minister and the Government had asked the country as a whole to realise the conditions under which the Native population is living. And it seems to me that the first body which should respond to an appeal of that nature is the Government itself and that the Railway Department is portion of the Government, and I think that the Railways have been extremely short sighted in not meeting what I consider are the legitimate demands of many native labourers in this country—I would say to the Minister, and I think even the farmers on the other side will agree with me, that where your native servants have a legitimate complaint, where they have a grievance, it is much better to meet them, halfway, or more than halfway, rather than wait until they come to your front door and demand something. And I suggest in view of the strikes that have taken place, and in view of the demands by natives in industries and on the mines, that instead of having appointed this Commission, he has appointed, if he set to work to improve the conditions among the natives he would probably avoid a great deal of the trouble which undoubtedly is brewing in this country. Knowing the temper of the native as a whole, and knowing that they feel they have a legitimate grievance, if there is once trouble on the Railways, it will be very difficult to put a stop to it. I hope the Minister will go carefully through the speech made by the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) and get his department thoroughly to investigate everything she said—most of which was true—and bring about a speedy amelioration of the conditions of the natives in this country, otherwise I am convinced that we are heading for trouble. There is one other matter which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister, and that is the question of transportation. As the House is aware there is a serious shortage of mealies, and the natives are facing starvation all over the country. The Minister has promised that where mealies are available he will make provision for immediate transport. I have letters before me telling me of orders which were placed a month ago and there is a complaint that transport is not available. These natives in the Native Territories are today without mealies. I have letters in which traders say that they have no mealies, they have applied for mealies months ago. I want the Minister to take that into careful consideration because a starving people are a difficult people to deal with and the natives, as a whole—I am speaking particularly for the Transkei—are contented people and they are quite happy in many ways—we haven’t the repercussions in many ways which we have in the towns. We have a stable population in the Reserves and I hope that the Minister will see to it that everything is done to meet those people in these very difficult times which they are beset with today.

It has become customary of late for the Minister, when he speaks to the Railway staff or to highly placed officials, to pay tribute to them for the fact that they are able to run the Railways as successfully as they are doing, although they are short staffed. I only want to tell the Minister that it is no use his imagining that compliments and tributes are all that are necessary to safeguard the health and well being of the Railway workers. It is a well known fact that these people have to work a tremendous amount of overtime. Some of those men are no longer young, they are well advanced in life, and sometimes they have to work overtime until all hours of the night. It is too hard on them, they cannot stand it. Their health suffers under such conditions. The question has arisen why the Railways are so short staffed, and why it is impossible to appoint the necessary number of men. Is it due to the fact that the Government is carrying out its war policy and that people who are fit for service are turned down for employment on the Railways? If that is the case then the Government are following a policy which is most detrimental, because if there is one institution in the world where one requires men who are physically fit it is in the Railway Service. One cannot use cripples and people who are otherwise physically unfit there. They cannot do the work they are called upon to do. That fact has been referred to over and over again, and I don’t want to go into it any further, but what I want to draw the Minister’s attention to is a matter in regard to station foremen, and they are the people who have to work too much overtime. In my constituency there are several stations where the difficulty which I want to refer to prevails today, and the trouble is this, that the Railway Administration on certain stations attends to the postal facilities and also to the telephone service for the people living in the surrounding areas. The Railway authorities are paid for the services they render by the postal authorities. The Railways receive a grant for the work which they do in this way, but generally speaking there is no one to attend to the telephone, and the result is that the telephone subscribers in the neighbourhood are seriously inconvenienced. Sometimes one finds that twenty or thirty or more subscribers are connected with the exchange at the Railway station, and if the station is a main line station—as is the case in my constituency—where many trains pass, and where trains are continually at the station, it means that there is a terrible delay in attending to the people connected with the station exchange, and it is quite clear that these people become dissatisfied. Their calls are not replied to simply because the poor Railway officials have not got the time to attend to the telephone. Often it is impossible for them to answer the telephone when they have to attend to other urgent work. Trains are passing all the time, official calls have to be attended to, and the telephone subscribers can get no reply. Seeing that the Minister of Railways gets a grant from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, somebody ought to be appointed to attend to the telephone. Why must we have our letters sorted at the Railway Station and our post bags attended to when the station foremen and their staffs have not got the time to do the work required of them? Nor has all this work to be done during the day. Very often telephone calls have to be put through at night, because quite a number of the people connected with the Railway Exchange have calls during the night. Railway officials cannot do this work; war or no war, the public of South Africa have the first call on the services of the Railways because surely the Railways are the property of the people of South Africa.

I very briefly wish to touch on a few points. Naturally, I do not want to detract from the flood of expressions of thanks which has been showered on the Minister.

What about the complaints?

One knows, of course, which side they come from. The thanks have not only been directed to the Minister but also to the General Manager and his staff. I feel, however, that there is something lacking in these expressions of thanks as no thanks have been given to the users of the Railways, the large numbers of people who make use of the Railway services. It is out of their pockets that these large surpluses come, because the users of the Railways have had to use the Railways, and they have had to pay the same rates and tariffs that have been in existence for years, and they have had to pay the same fares that have been charged for many years. There has been no reduction in the rates or fares and I feel that a word of thanks is also due to them, particularly in view of the patience they have shown towards the special conditions that have prevailed since the outbreak of war, and the way in which they have used the Railways. I wish to express a special word of appreciation to the Minister, however, for the increases in wages granted to Railway workers. We hear a great deal today about social security. There has been a great deal of talk about social security, and there has been a good deal of votecatching going on, seeing that we are getting near an election, and I therefore want to state with a feeling of gratitude that the Minister has paid a definite instalment so far as social security is concerned by raising the wages of the less privileged workers on the Railways. My constituceny and that of the hon. member for Germiston, North (Mr. Quinlan), will benefit considerably from this. There are many Railway workers in those two constituencies and we appreciate what is being done. There is another point, however, which I wish to bring to the Minister’s notice, and that is in connection with Road Transportation Boards. So far as the Witwatersrand and especially Johannesburg are concerned, the Road Transportation Board has to deal with matters of the greatest importance. It has to deal with the issue of most important certificates, most valuable certificates; certificates to allow the running of buses on the Rand and in various parts are most valuable. I understand that some of those certificates are worth several thousand pounds, but the members of the local board who have to decide over such important matters are people who are paid the very poor remuneration of £1 11s. 6d. per day. With all due deference, I want to suggest that the Minister should follow the same procedure in regard to those local boards as is being followed in regard to the Central Board, namely, that the people doing that work should draw a salary instead of being-paid this very poor allowance. I want to bring that to the Minister’s notice, and I hope he will introduce such a change.

I wish to associate myself with all the representations that have been made here to the Minister on behalf of the Railway workers. There is no doubt that there is something wrong in the Railway Administration. Possibly there is something wrong with me, but I am sure that there is something more wrong with the Minister. I particularly want to say a few words about the unjust treatment meted out to the Afrikaans speaking people in regard to promotions, and the way in which English speaking people are appointed over the heads of Afrikaans speaking people. Let me mention the case of the Assistant General Manager. Mr. Chittenden has been appointed over the heads of Afrikaans speaking people as Assistant General Manager. Justice should be done in the Railway Service, and the Minister, if he fails to do justice will see his troubles growing larger and larger, and the split among the people will become worse and worse. I want to bring a few points to the Minister’s notice. Recently, a Railway doctor was appointed at Laingsburg. I don’t know who made the mistake, I don’t think it was the General Manager, but the appointment was made as the result of representations which I had made. Hardly had the man been appointed when he was notified that he would have to relinquish the post—he had also been appointed as district surgeon. The injustice, however, was that when he was notified that he would have to relinquish the post he was told that he could give up the post at once, in which case he would be paid in advance for four months, or otherwise he could serve four months, and then relinquish the position. He decided to relinquish the post at once, but to this day he has not yet received his extra pay for the four months. I hope the Minister will go into this question. Now I want to say something very briefly about the injustice which is still being done to ticket examiners and conductors who have to work nine hours per day, while other railway officials work eight hours per day. Sometimes these people even have to work twelve hours, and it is an injustice which should be rectified. A great deal has been said about the injustices perpetrated against European Railway workers, but very little has been said about coloured labourers on the Railways. I have about 80 miles of Railway line in my constituency and a great many coloured workers are engaged there; these people start at 4s. 6d. per day, and they do well if they go up to 5s. per day. In times like the present, when everything is expensive, these people cannot possibly come out on a wage like that. They earn less than the labourers on my farm earn because farm labourers get 3s. with a free house and free water, and they get their food cheaply, whereas the Railway workers have to buy their food at the shops, which almost skin them alive. They have to buy on credit and every penny they earn goes to the shopkeeper. I myself have seen that they went without their midday meal, and the foreman told me that those people did not have the money to buy a bit of food. All they can do is to eat a little at night and at midday they drink a little coffee, and perhaps eat a little piece of bread. That’s all they can afford. If you want to have good labour you must see that these people are properly paid and that they are able to buy food. The Minister has big surpluses. He talks about building railways. He should first of all remedy the things that are wrong in the Railway Administration. Let the Minister go and have a look at some of the conveniences at the stations and he will see that paper is not even supplied for the sake of cleanliness. The Minister should see to these things, but I am sure he does not know about them. Yet the Minister wants to spend £100,000 for the construction of a railway line near Springs, although other parts of the country need railway development very much more. I am thinking of agricultural areas which can be developed if railway lines are constructed, but the Minister will not do that; he wants to build a line in a thickly populated area. I again want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the line between Ladismith and Calitzdorp—the missing link—has not yet been constructed. The Minister is afraid of the Japanese. Hon. members opposite have even appealed to us to co-operate with them to keep the Japanese out of this country. Well, if the Japanese come here, the Minister will find that we shall do our duty. If the Japanese try to get in at Durban or Mossel Bay we shall help to stop them. But what is going to happen if they blow up the bridge over the Gouritz River? That part of the country will be cut off, and that is why that bit of railway line should be built, so that that part of the country will be opened up. The Minister should take precautionary measures. These are the few points which I want to bring to his notice, and I say that the shortcomings in the Administration must be removed.

I should like at this stage to say a few words in regard to policy matters affecting the Railway Administration, and to say that an organisation employing over 131,000 of our population is worthy of every consideration not only in regard to details, but to the policy which governs the Administration in its work. In the first place, we have heard a lot about surpluses, and the Minister has been congratulated here and there on account of the large surpluses which resulted from the working of the Railways during the last few years. I would say that that appreciation should be qualified. It is true that we had a record surplus last year, but there may be greater efficiency in the running of an Administration such as the South African Railways with a small surplus, or even at a loss, than in arriving at a surplus of £6,000,000. After all, the working of the Railways and its revenue are subject to trade and commerce, and to the movements of business, and there is no doubt that the surplus is due to wartime effort and wartime economy. I would rather say that the record thing about the Administration is its efficiency during a time of great crisis when a number of efficient staff, including technical staff, are on active service. The way the traffic has been handled and the general conduct and operation of the Railways and Harbours Administration are worthy of the highest commendation not only of this House, but of the country. I think if we compare a few of the figures for the year ended March, 1939, with those for the year ended March, 1942, we shall have some appreciation of the increased business done by the Administration. The approximate gross tonnage of goods, including coal, hauled by the Administration for the year ended 31st March, 1939, was 29,477,000 tons. The figure for the last recorded year. 1942, amounted to 34,000,000 tons, an increase of 4,500,000 tons, or 15 per cent. But it is not only the tonnage which we have to consider, but the distances the tons are carried, and the comparative figures for the year ended March, 1939, are 6,643,183,715 ton miles; for the last year, 1942, that figure was increased to 8,409,916,261 miles, an increase in ton miles of 26 per cent. That gives an indication of the increased haulage, as compared with the pre-war year, 1939. As regards passenger traffic, notwithstanding the difficulties under which that traffic has been handled, we find that the revenue has increased in the same period by 43.57 per cent., and the number of journeys by 29.53 per cent. So that when I say that the record should rather be applied to the efficiency and the good work of the staff of the Administration rather than to the surplus which resulted from these efforts. I think I am justified, and I want to pay that tribute to the management and staff. Then the use of this surplus has been criticised by many hon. members. They have said that instead of placing these large amounts to reserve fund they should have been used in other ways, and those ways were indicated. Now, we have had to suffer in the past on the Railways and Harbours owing to the unwise policy of dispersing our surpluses at the end of the year in the shape of reductions in rates and reductions in railway fares, with the result that when a fluctuation of traffic occurs, particularly in high grade traffic, and the revenue falls, it has been necessary for the Administration to increase the rates on goods, thereby increasing the cost of living and to reduce wages at a time when it should have been able to have introduced into the economic system a globular sum of money with a view to stabilising the position of affairs. We have had that condition of affairs in the past, and I want to support the Minister of Railways in his endeavour to ensure that these reserve funds, and particularly the Rates Equalisation Fund, are strengthened to the utmost. By so doing you not only secure a position of rates equalisation and stabilisation, but you also protect the interests of the staff who today are so loyally supporting the war effort, and who are carrying the Railways through this time of stress. In past years I have severely criticised the Minister of Railways along with other members on this side of the House in regard to the rates of wages for the unskilled labourers, European and non-European, on the Railways. And we on this side of the House have made representations from time to time to the Minister. I want to pay this tribute to the Minister this afternoon, that he has certainly done a great deal in the direction which we have indicated; and I have had an opportunity of looking at some of the improvements which have been made in the conditions of service and the wages earned by the unskilled labourers on the South African Railways and Harbours. I have figures here which indicate that the improvements given during wartime, during the period from 1939 to the present date, amount in value to £1,320,000 per annum. That is the cost of these improvements. And improvements have not only been made in wages but in other amenities which hon. members will agree have been very valuable to that section of the staff whose interests have been neglected for so long a time. Some of the major improvements might be mentioned. The question of the wages of unskilled labour has received the consideration of the Minister and in accordance with his promise last Session that he would look into the matter, we find that he has given the non-European labourers on the Railways an advance of 6d. per day. Now it may be said and truly, that in some areas of South Africa the wage of the unskilled non-European labourer on the Railways is below the wage determination applied to industries in those particular areas. In many places the wages vary. For instance, the wage paid to non-European labourers at Cape Town is much higher than the wage paid to a similar labourer in the Johannesburg area. And so it happens throughout the Union. And we are told that the wages are influenced by local conditions. Sir, I agree with the case which has been put forward here, that the Government should take up the position of a model employer and the wages paid to its servants should be an example to all sections of industry in South Africa. Not only did the railways give improvements to non-European labourers, but it also enhanced wages and conditions applicable to European unskilled labour. You will find that advances have been made in the maximum rate to be paid to European unskilled labourers ranging from 1s. to 1s. 3d. per diem, and the period taken to reach the maximum has in some cases been reduced from four to two years. Therefore, sir, I think it is incorrect to attack the Minister of Railways in such a general manner in respect of the treatment of unskilled labourers, and I am convinced from conversations that I have had with the Minister, that we have never had a more sympathetic Minister in so far as unskilled labour is concerned. I simply urge upon the Minister the scriptural injunction “Be not weary in well-doing,” and in that effort to do better, he can rely upon this side of the House, at any rate, for a large measure of support. There is another point that I would like to speak upon, and that is the policy of the trades union, or the staff associations of railway and harbour workers on this question of the treatment of unskilled labour. I say that the attitude taken up by the trades unions on the railways during the past twelve months, is worthy of praise. According to my information a meeting was held and I am given to understand that these associations of the railway and harbour workers came to the conclusion that the first section of workers in the administration to be assisted by means of increases in pay and improved conditions, should be the non-Europeans and the European unskilled labourers. Sir, I think it is a very significant thing that the trades unions on the railways and throughout South Africa, support the policy of the early uplift of the underdog in the labour sphere. In that connection I would ask the Minister if he is prepared to make a statement in regard to the effect of the new arrangement of the staff associations on the South African Railways.

Not yet.

I think the House would agree with me that the Administration is moving in the right direction in beginning with the lower grades in the matter of wage improvements. We urge that that policy should be continued until we have a standard of wage for our unskilled workers of which we shall be proud. Mr. Speaker, I have listened on one or two occasions to appeals that have been made to the Minister to consider the construction of branch lines. As soon as a proposition is put before this House for the construction of a railway, hon. members pop up at all corners to ask that railways should be constructed in their constituencies. The history of the construction of branch lines in South Africa is a very unhappy one. We find that the present branch line system is open to great criticism, and the House should beware of supporting any proposals that are not justified on economic grounds. Furthermore, the House should realise that in the last few years we have introduced a new factor in transport in South Africa. The policy of road motor services has been more than justified in its effect upon development in agricultural areas, and the means of communication between one part of the country and another. And, sir, the fact that the Government is pursuing a policy of constructing good roads all over the Union is another reason why the Administration should hesitate before it even considers any further railway construction other than that required for the more economical working of the Railways. Our road motor services have a very fine record, and even during the war period a very considerable development has taken place. In 1939 the goods conveyed over the road motor service amounted to 600,000 tons, and that tonnage was increased in the year ended March, 1942, to 1,303,000 tons, an increase of 116 per cent. When we consider the large losses on branch lines which have been constructed here and there and compare them with the loss on the road motor service, we find that in the year ended March, 1942, the total loss on the road motor service amounted to a mere £22,000, which is practically tantamount to a profit. We therefore see that this policy of developing the road motor service system is one that should be pursued rather than one of endeavouring to build branch lines which are not justified. I may add that in connection with that loss of £22,000, that in the year 1940 a credit that was previously allowed to road motor services of £57,000, does not now apply. So that the position is extremely favourable in regard to road motor services, and I want to pay my tribute in respect of the working of that service. Another point which I wish to bring to the notice of the Minister is the question of passenger traffic. We have seen that even with the curtailed railway service, earnings have increased considerably. Time after time, in this House, representations have been made to the Minister in regard to excursion fares. Due to pressure on the system, he took the step of abolishing all excursions. That was no doubt justified, but it clears the deck for future arrangements, which I hope will be made by the Administration, to secure an entirely modern programme of excursions, such a programme as would enable the workers of South Africa to travel at least once a year over their own Railways at holiday fares. I hope the Minister, as soon as the time is opportune, will give instructions for a review of the j whole position so that we shall not have a state of affairs, when times become normal, under which the worker cannot take advantage of the excursion fare at a time when he gets his leave from his employer. Then, sir, may I suggest to the Administration that the general goods tariffs should be reviewed as soon as possible? The whole character of our country demands that the tariff position should be looked at from the standpoint of the future development of South Africa in regard to industrial enterprise. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) has raised the question of tariffs for export of our products so compiled as to enable those products to secure a market in other parts of Africa. I am aware that that principle has already been adopted by the Railway Administration, but the suggestion that it should be further investigated is one, I hope, that the Minister will take into favourable consideration. In conclusion, I feel that the country will expect, and should have from the Administration, through the Minister, some statement in regard to the post-war construction which will be possible in order to produce the maximum amount of employment for our returned soldiers, and for those who are in need of work after the war. In connection with such a concern as the Railways and Harbours involving a considerable amount of money, a statement should be made on the subject. I submit these words of criticism, I hope with a degree of construction, and I wish to add my word of praise to the Administration and the Minister for the splendid work they have done.

I agree with the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen) on many points, but when he contends that the Railway Administration has a fine reputation, then I don’t agree with him. We know that the Minister of Railways has a very difficult task; unlike the other departments, he does not have to deal with groups, but he has to deal with the whole population of the Union because all classes and all sections use the Railways. In addition to that, he has the war, and if we remember that he has a general manager holding the rank of commanding officer we must realise all the more that the position in the Railways today is most deplorable, more deplorable than it can be in any other country in the world. I want to deal with a few points in regard to the shortcomings of the Railway. We know that some of our departments, and especially some of our Ministers, act like ducks today. The flood of criticism does not affect them—the criticism goes over them like water off a duck’s back, and that applies particularly to the Minister of Lands. I shall be very pleased if the Minister of Lands will allow me to carry on, and not interrupt. I am going to deal with him later. In regard to the shortage of trucks—I am speaking for my constituents in the North-West—I want to say that there is a tremendous shortage of trucks, particularly if we bear in mind the question of the carriage of wool and sheep from the North-West. Take Bitterfontein. There is an accumulation of goods. I have in mind the quantities of sheep and wool that are sent there, and when we come higher up, I am reminded of the carriage of lucerne and oats, and I want to tell the Minister that the platteland in the North-West is being seriously inconvinced owing to the shortage of trucks. Where are those trucks? If we put that question we are told that there are no trucks. We used to have ample trucks in this country; although soldiers are sent overseas, surely we are not sending any trucks overseas; if there is a shortage of trucks, surely the Minister can make arrangements to have more trucks built in this country. The Minister has the necessary artisans, and if he has more trucks built he will give work to a section of the population which is unemployed to-day. Thousands of bales of lucerne are being pressed. They lie there for a month, and they dry out, and when the trucks eventually arrive the depreciation and the devaluation of this lucerne is such that almost one-third of it is lost. Then there is another point in connection with facilities at our stations. The Minister made a promise last year that he would have a new station built at Vrededal. If one considers the large number of people using that station and the amount of traffic at that station, and the poor condition in which the place is, it makes one realise that it is a blot on the dignity of the Railway to have a place like the one at Bitterfontein, and also the one at Vrededal. The Minister says that there is a shortage of building material. We agree. It is a fact that there is a shortage, but there is no shortage of cement, and the most up-to-date building is done with cement nowadays. The roofs and the walls can all be done in beton, and all that is left then are the doors and the windows. What is there to prevent the Department from making a start with this station building which is so urgently needed? It is not going to cost such a tremendous lot of money, and I do hope the Minister will without delay consider the question of putting up these stations at Vrededal and Bitterfontein. There is a third point in regard to the young men in my constituency who are anxious to get work on the railways. There are dozens of young men who have completed their studies who are unemployed today. They are looking for work, and particularly on the Railways. I have been unable to get work for them, because they have not got a certificate stating that they are medically unfit. One hon. member found out what was the Minister’s attitude in regard to young men who want to get employment on the railways; he asked whether the Railways were closed to these young men. The reply was given by the person approached—I can answer on behalf of the Minister: “Yes the railways are closed to healthy young men”—because I have had the experience over and over again that they cannot be employed on the railways. I have thought out some wonderful schemes to get young men taken on in the railways, but to my regret all my schemes proved to be a hopeless failure. Let me give an example. A strong young man comes to me and says “I owe some money in respect of my studies; my parents are poor and I am anxious to get into the railways in order to support my parents.” I told him that we might be able to devise a scheme. I handed him a thick pair of dark spectacles, and I said to him “go to the doctor and tell him your sight is bad.” I also told him to mention the names of certain eye specialists. Unfortunately he forgot the names I told him and he mentioned the wrong names. Anyhow, the doctor gave him a certificate stating that he was medically unfit. I was very pleased about it and thereupon took him to the railways. The first question put to him was “have you got a medical certificate?” I replied “yes, the man’s sight is not very good.” Their reply was “we cannot employ a man on the railways whose sight is not good—he may be killed in an accident one of these days.” Another man also came to me, also wanting work on the railways. I told him to pretend that he had a stiff leg and to go to the doctor and see if he could get a certificate. I told him “tell the doctor there is something wrong with the nerves.” He went to the doctor and got a certificate and eventually I went to the railways with him. On this occasion the reply was “No, we cannot employ cripples in the railways.” And that is how I find myself saddled with these young men from Namaqualand; I am unable to get any work for them. Those young fellows have conscientious scruples against joining up, and they would rather starve than join up. There they are—young men with the junior certificate and even with their matric, and they are anxious to serve their country. I am faced with a hopeless difficulty. I cannot get employment for my young men. There is one further point I wish to touch upon, it is in regard to a connection between Klaver and Calvinia. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that five years ago the then Minister actually granted that connecting line between Klaver and Calvinia. I well remember that the hon. member for Calvinia (Dr. Steenkamp) during that election produced a large document from his pocket and said “here is the railway connection between Klaver and Calvinia—I got it.” And great were the cheers when people heard that this connecting line had been granted. I believe that the position was as follows: The hon. member for Calvinia did not tell an untruth. I do not say that, but the Minister or the Government are the cause of Calvinia having been completely overlooked so that the hon. member for Calvinia will be in a hopeless position when the next elections come, and he is not to blame for it. He is a really good, excellent man. But a Government which makes promises like that and then breaks them is the cause of the country gradually turning its back on them. If the Minister wants to save the situation, he must do so before the next elections by giving us that railway line. We need that connection very badly. The mainline is overloaded with traffic; the traffic over the mainlines is terrific and as soon as this connection is built—it is less than a hundred miles and it will not cost a lot—the tremendous traffic to the north will be relieved to a certain extent. A connection like this will be of the greatest value to my constituency. We have to send our products to Johannesburg via the Cape. We are able to supply Johannesburg and Pretoria with fresh fruit and many other commodities, but today we have to send everything via Capetown and the distance is too large for the purpose of sending grapes to Johannesburg and finding a market there. I say that the present situation constitutes an obstacle in the way of our finding a market, and my constituency will be able to develop tremendously if that line is built, and I do hope that, in view of the fact that the Minister has promised us this line, he will see to it that it is built in the near future. I also want to say a few words about a connection between Bitterfontein and Kalkfontein. This connecting line, 200 miles in length, will mean that South West Africa will be brought about 400 miles nearer to the Cape. If this connection is but we shall be about 465 miles nearer to South-West Africa, and the line will mean a considerable relief for the traffic from Johannesburg in the north, to the South. We feel that these two connecting lines are among the most important before the House at the moment and that they should have the serious attention of the Railway Board. If the line between Bitterfontein and Kalkfontein is built it will mean a great deal to that large area which has no railway facilities today, but above all I consider that this line will be a great asset to the Minister of Defence. The Minister of Defence very badly needs such a line. We do not know what may happen on the West Coast. Many things are actually happening there today. From a defence point of view alone, I fail to see why this line between Kalkfontein and Bitterfontein has not been constructed long ago. As I have said, we realise that the Minister has a very difficult task. But that does not release him of the obligation that the railways in times like the present must be made as effective as possible.

Compliments have been showered on the Minister of Railways and his Administration, and far be it from me in any way to depreciate the value of the wonderful work which has been done by the Railways and Harbours in coping with the abnormal conditions which have prevailed during the past few years. I think they deserve every credit for what they have done; but compliments and eulogies have also been paid to the Minister for the record surpluses which he has managed to accumulate during the working of the past year. Now, I do not feel quite so satisfied with regard to that surplus as some of my colleagues on this side of the House appear to feel. I have grown up in a hard school and I always look upon any industry or any firm which makes huge profits with eyes of suspicion. I feel that all is not well in the State of Denmark with any concern which can accumulate such a huge profit as that which has been accumulated by the Railways and Harbours Administration. More than that, I feel this. The Railways and Harbours belong to the people and should be made to serve the people, and one of their functions in serving the people, in my opinion at least, and I know in the opinion of many others, not only in this House but outside this House, is to see that their employees should receive a proper wage. It is a feeling of many people that a State concern which can make profits should above all other things pay a living wage to every one of its employees. Now I am going to tell the Minister that the Railways and Harbours are not doing that today. But I want to qualify that. I recognise that in the present Minister of Railways we have, as the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen) said, a man who has a lot of sympathy with the lower paid men on the Railways, and, incidentally, I overheard the hon. member for Cape Eastern interject, “What does that amount to?”

No, I did not say that.

Anyhow, it was an interjection to the effect that it could be a good deal better than it is. But I do say this, that it is very helpful and very valuable to members of this House who feel, as I do on these matters, to have a Minister who at least is trying to do something for the people. Because I have sat under two other Ministers of Railways in this House and I remember very distinctly in the Session of 1939 on the last day, I made an appeal on behalf of the non-European workers. The hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) was Minister of Railways then, and I appealed to him if possible to give those people even 3d. per day more—to give these low paid workers only 3d. per day more, and I pointed out how valuable a thing it would be to them. I met him in the tearoom the next morning and he came to me—I was in the company of the hon. member for Roodepoort at the time—and he said to me, “Johnson, you are quite right, you made out a good case, but I am not going to do a … thing until my finances are right.” We don’t get that from the present Minister of Railways.

Well, things are right. So he has to do it.

If he is not making such rapid improvements in the rates of pay to these people as many of us would wish to see, at least we have to give him credit for what he has done, and he has done a great deal. For instance, I find that increases have been given to twenty-nine thousand European workers, in the lower grades, to such men as rail workers, checkers, caretakers, and that class of worker. I believe to the rail workers alone the total amount paid out in increases was £325,000. Then, again, he has made increases to 55,000 non-European workers, the lowest paid employees that we have on the Railways, and I find that the total amount per annum involved in those increases is £420,700. So the House will see that the present Minister of Railways is at least doing something towards bringing about a better condition of affairs among the people, the class of people for whom I am speaking this afternoon. But I want to say this, much talk has taken place in this House, much talk has taken place from public platforms in this country, and much has appeared in the Press of the country, about the better world that we are going to have when this war is over. Well, if we are going to have a better world which we are promised, the Railways and Harbours have a tremendous gap to jump over to bring this Department into line with that better world, and I want to suggest that we should have more on account than we are getting. I feel that that gap is going to be a very big thing for this undertaking to bridge in any short space of time and while many of us are looking forward to a happy conclusion to the war in the comparatively near future, I do feel that if the Minister could introduce more sympathetic treatment to the lower paid workers in his budget this year, it would be much appreciated not only by the workers themselves but by many of us in this House, who are in sympathy with the uplift of that class of people. Now, there is another point I want to deal with and it is something which is absolutely peculiar to the Railways. I refer to the anomalies in the rates of pay. The hon. member for Roodepoort instanced the difference in the rates of pay as between Cape Town and Johannesburg, and I know full well that both the Minister and the Administration endeavours to justify those anomalies by justifying the rates of pay with prevailing conditions in the places concerned. But that is entirely foreign to my ideas of what constitutes a square deal. I was always brought up to believe that a job, whether it is done in Cape Town, whether it is done in Durban, or in Johannesburg or even in that little thought of place, Port Elizabeth, every man should receive the same rate of pay for it. I can understand that possibly the anomaly will be justified as between urban areas and country areas, and even then not to too great an extent, but I cannot see any justification whatever for the anomaly existing between the various large towns in the Union. I consider that that anomaly should be abolished, that the rates of pay for similar work should be equalised as between the different towns and the same policy should apply in regard to the country. There is no excuse, except in the mind of the Railway Administration, for anomalies of this description, and it makes it very difficult when one has raised a matter of this kind in the House, to find that even between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth the same rates do not apply—goodness alone knows why, because I do know that it costs a man just as much to live in Port Elizabeth as in Cape Town, and it costs just as much in Cape Town as in Port Elizabeth. Then we find that married men receive more pay than single men. That does not apply in industry, or even in commerce. There the job receives a certain rate of pay, and it does not matter very much whether the man who is going to do the job is white, brown, black or even green. If he can do the job he gets the pay laid down for the job, and justly so. It is unfair to pay different rates of pay according to the nationality of the individual. It is not right. If a man can do a job of work and can do it as well as his neighbour he is entitled to the same rate of pay as his neighbour. That is common justice and common sense, and the sooner the Minister pays some attention to these anomalies which exist in the Railway Service today, the sooner will satisfaction be given among the many thousands of employees. Now, you know, it seems to me very funny. A married man may have his wife working and very often that is the case, and actually he is better off than the single man who has not arrived at a stage of having a wife, Again, while the one man may be married the other man may be hoping to get married, and may be trying to have up the necessary money to do so, and if the single man is working alongside the married man doing the same job of work why should there be a difference in the rate of pay? It does not seem right to me, and it certainly causes a good deal of bitterness among the employees, and with my experience of employees I always endeavour to try and have a contented staff rather than have a little fraction of saving on the pay, and I would commend that thought to the Minister. I think we should strain every effort to bring about contentment and satisfaction among the employees in a service such as the Railways. Now I had intended giving some figures with regard to the rates of pay, but I am not going to weary the House with them. I have indicated that there are anomalies as between one town and other throughout the Railway system. I doubt very much if there are any two towns throughout the Union where exactly the same rates apply to the same class of individual. But I have another grievance against the Minister and his large surpluses. Some three years ago I took up the case with the Administration of men working on the Railways at Port Elizabeth—non-European, Coloured and Native—who were working 60 hours per week, and after a good deal of negotiation a large number of these had their hours altered to the normal working hours on the Railways. But unfortunately there is a gang of men, something between 50 and 60, who are engaged in handling the coal which is received at the goods sheds, who are still on the 60 hours per week stunt. I took up the matter with the System Manager of Railways at Port Elizabeth. He made representations to the Head Office in Johannesburg and from repeated enquiries I find that there has been a great deal of correspondence on this particular subject. That has covered a period of something like five months and these men are still working 60 hours per week. Now I contend that this is all wrong. If it is necessary from the point of view of the Administration that this particular crowd of men must work 60 hours per week, then they should be paid for the extra time they work over and above their fellow workers. It does not seem fair to me that you should ask one set of men to work 48 hours per week and another set, probably brothers or uncles or nephews, or the same sort of men, who are working the lesser hours, and ask them to work 60 hours without additional remuneration. Anything more unfair than this I don’t know of. I contend this, and I commend it to the Minister’s attention, and to the attention of the General Manager of Railways, that if it is necessary to work these men 60 hours, then they are entitled to some extra pay for the hours they have to work. I think am not asking too much when I ask that attention should be given to that particular point. And then I also want to touch on another point. I am doing so although it has been dealt with by other members on this side of the House, but I have been asked by men in my constituency to raise the matter of the cost of living to pensioners in the Railway, and incidentally in other departments of State. I contend that it is totally unfair to expect these men, many of them low paid pensioners, from the railways,—I know of some receiving less than £5 per month with no other source of income—it is totally unfair to expect these men to come out on that pension during these times of increased costs when the Minister has such huge surpluses. I am not satisfied about these huge surpluses, when we have a state of affairs like that. I consider that these Railway pensioners who have finished their jobs, who are too old to have their services utilised by the Departments which exist today, who cannot be taken back into the service—we know of others who have been taken back—who are getting a cost of living allowance on top of their wages, and they are on a good wicket but unfortunately there are a number of other pensioners and particularly those who have had to take pensions because of ill health, who would very much appreciate the few shillings extra which the cost of living allowance would give them. In conclusion I want to say this. I hope the Minister will not think that I am being unkind to him. I am not, but I do feel that it is absolutely essential in the interest of the Railways and Harbours, and in the interest of the country, that attention should be paid to the matters I have raised.

For many years the Railways have not been criticised as they have been on this occasion, and that only on the Part Appropriation. I wonder what the Minister will look like when we have finished the Main Estimates. It must be clear to the Minister and also to the Administration that there is something wrong with the Administration this year, otherwise there would not have been all this criticism. We may have the excuse put up that we are at war and that there is a shortage of staff, but there is no reason why there should be a shortage of staff, especially after what the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) told us about the way he has struggled to get people into the Railway service, and the devices he resorted to, in spite of which his efforts failed. I say that there are young able men, well educated men, who could well be employed. They are competent and they are willing to do that kind of work, so why are they not appointed? We hear about volunteers for this war. If a man looks for work and he cannot find any and the question is put to him: “Are you fit for military service?” then I ask whether that man, if he eventually joins up, is a volunteer, or whether he has been forced to join up simply because he has been unable to find work. Before saying anything else I want to make it perfectly clear that when we criticise the Railways we are not saying anything against the staff or against the officials of the Railway Department. On the contrary we have the greatest respect for those men who have to work under those difficult conditions, men from whom we have always had the most courteous treatment when we have approached them about Railway matters, but what we are criticising is the policy which is being followed by the Railway Administration and by the Minister, and we particularly want to associate ourselves with those hon. members on this side of the House who have put up a plea on behalf of our railway servants who are being badly overworked. A plea has been put up here, and I want to emphasise that plea, by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) and by other hon. members, in which they stated that it was wrong to let people work twelve hours per day in the service of the Railways without even paying them any overtime at all. Those people’s health cannot stand it, and the position is one which we should not tolerate on our Railways. I myself know of cases where a man starts work at 8 o’clock at night and he only comes off duty the next morning at the same time. If those people were relieved or if things were arranged in such a manner that they could be on duty part of the night and part of the day we could still understand it, but how can a man keep on like that month in and month out, and year in and year out, being on night duty all the time. It is an unnatural condition of affairs and the man cannot stand it in the long run. There is, however, another section of the Railway staff whose cause we also have to plead and I am referring to the bus drivers. We find that the bus services have developed considerably and I understand that the service is a very paying one. But not only have the bus drivers in their own area sometimes to work twelve hours per day, but they are also sent away. It requires a lot of exertion to drive a bus, and if a man has done it for twelve hours at a stretch, he has done more than a day’s work. Not so very long ago some of those bus drivers were sent away from their own area to go and transport mealies for the natives in Kaffraria who were starving there. They were required to work sixteen hours per day. The result was that not long afterwards three out of the four or five were ill. It’s more than anyone can stand. Those people cannot go and tell the Railway Administration that they are not prepared to work such long hours, because if they were to do so they would simply be put off. A few years ago somebody on this side of the House who usually criticises the Railway Administration after the Minister has delivered his Budget speech, said that one could not really criticise the Minister seeing that he was so fair to his employees. I am sorry that the Minister has now spoilt that reputation and that tradition in regard to his treatment of the Railway staff, and I am sorry that it should be necessary for us to come and plead here for certain people who are being overworked. People who have to work as much as sixteen hours a day. It is more than flesh and blood can stand, and if those people got overtime payment one could still say that it was their own business; if they saw a chance of working overtime in order to earn a little more there might still be something to be said for it, but if people have to work 16 hours per day without getting an extra penny, it is asking too much. There is another class of people too whose cause we have to plead. Our attention has often been drawn to the fact that shunters have to keep on working until they reach the pensionable age. Well, we know that shunting is not an easy job; it is work for young men. When they reach the age of 55 or 60, or even between 50 and 60, it becomes most dangerous work because one has to move very quickly. I know of instances where accidents have occurred, which can only be attributed to the fact that men who were too old had been used to do the work. They are no longer as fit to do that work as the younger men. Now, there is one other point which I wish to bring to the Minister’s notice. I feel that some railway servants are being treated unfairly. We are not opposed to people being transferred. When there is a shortage of staff one realises that certain transfers are necessary. We have no fault to find with that, but if people are sent to areas where there are no houses for them and their families, so that as a result their homes are broken up, then we feel it is not fair. I want to bring a number of cases which occurred during the past year to the Minister’s notice: cases of people who have been transferred. I have one case in mind of a man who was transferred, but his family had to stay behind for months; they had to rent a house while the husband had to work somewhere else. Homes are being broken up in that way, and whatever the reason the Administration may have had to transfer the man I do feel that the housing position should be considered, so that men will wherever possible be transferred to places where they can get a house. We must guard against the breaking up of people’s homes. Those people don’t get big salaries, and now the position is that the man has to pay for boarding in the place where he is transferred while the wife and children stay in a house where they have to pay rent. Practically speaking, the man with his small salary has to keep two homes going. Is that fair? Generally we know that the Railway Administration looks after the housing of its servants and I hope that this matter will also receive attention. I don’t know whether you will allow me to discuss the question of motor transportation Boards. But I believe the Minister appoints those Boards. I want to make an earnest appeal to the Minister to have a thorough enquiry made into the work of the Transportation Boards in various areas.

That question is being enquired into.

I hope we shall have an opportunity of bringing certain matters to the notice of the Committee of Enquiry, but I shall not go into that question any further now.

Mr. Speaker, I want to add my quota to the appeal that has been made on behalf of the lower-paid workers, these people who today are suffering very much from the increased cost of living. They find it increasingly difficult to meet this cost, and the result is you get malnutrition and discontent. I think it would be well for the Minister, as has been pointed out before, to devote some of this surplus to alleviating the position of these lower-paid workers. In that term I include all classes, whites, coloureds and natives. Another point I wish to bring before the Minister is the very unsatisfactory state of affairs—it has improved somewhat lately—regarding the booking of seats on the long-distance trains. I know of an instance where an intending passenger went to book his seat 50 days before the train was due to leave. He was told to come 30 days before the train left. Then he was told to come 14 days before. He was there on the stroke, and he was No. 1 in the queue, and he was told he could not book as the train was full. Enquiries were made, and it was said that on this particular train there were only two coaches for civilians, the rest being for the military. This was followed up, and when the train left there were actually 10 compartments for the military, of whom there were 19 people, and the train actually left with the military two in each compartment, and four compartments actually vacant. There was someone on the train who followed the enquiry up, and there were only two people in each of four compartments on the train the whole way to Cape Town. On further enquiry it was said by the booking people: “We have nothing to do with it; you must go to the General Manager’s Department.” I may say that the General Manager was away, and no blame attaches to him at all. But the fact remains that some people were able to book, while others who had stood at the booking office all night were unable to book a seat—in one case a man stood there from 12 o’clock at night till 8.30 in the morning, and then was told that the train was full and he could not book a seat. I understand an enquiry was held, and I shall be very pleased to hear from the Minister what the result of that enquiry was.

I want at the outset to tell the Minister—perhaps he does not know it—that the crockery, and especially the cups, which are at present being used on the trains, have really become of a very poor quality. A second small matter which I want to mention in passing, is that owing to the staff shortage, the train booking facilities have become entirely inadequate. Here in Cape Town it sometimes takes more than an hour before a person gets a chance to get near the counter to book one’s seat. I know of a young lady who had to stand for 1¼ hours in a queue before she could book her seat and when she left there were as many people waiting behind her as there had been in front of her when she started 1¼ hours previously. One can draw the only conclusion that the staff which has to attend to the public is too small. I now come to a matter of greater importance, namely that the public, especially in the vicinity of Cape Town, do not know exactly what the procedure is which has been laid down by the Administration in regard to the travelling together of Europeans and non-Europeans in our trains. We know that there are coaches which have been reserved for nonEuropeans and that there are not sufficient of them, so that when one takes a second class ticket, and sometimes even when one travels first class, one has to travel in the company of non-Europeans, and apparently nothing can be done against it. I take it the Minister is not too well informed about the position. About a year ago a case of this nature came up in court. A non-European did not want to leave a certain coach. It happened between Cape Town and Somerset Strand. The case was decided in favour of the non-European because, as the newspapers reported at the time, there was no indication on the coach in which he travelled that it was reserved for Europeans only. He won his case. The public now no longer knows where they stand and we should like the Minister to tell us what the policy really is. What is the position of the public in this regard? The question is, however, much more serious. I have here before me a letter written by a lady teacher from my constituency, who teaches somewhere in Bechuanaland; this letter was written to her parents who live in my constituency. I am prepared to divulge the name to the Minister if he wants to know it. On the 28th January she wrote as follows—she left Huguenot station by train on the 21st January—

It is possible that this was purely accidental, but we should like the Administration to inform us whether the Minister approves of such things happening? If not, what preventative measures will be adopted against the recurrence of such happenings? We co not want to offend anybody with these remarks, but on the other hand I am of the opinion that there is a certain limit, and I think the Minister also realises it, and I expect that he will do everything in his power to prevent the recurrence of similar cases in the future.

The hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. Van Coller) has raised the question of grass fires started by railway engines with deficient spark arresters year after year. I make no apology for raising this question again in the House. The hon. Minister appointed a committee to investigate all the circumstances relative to grass fires, the damage done and the possibility of the inefficiency of spark arresters, and also the factors of the human element in the whole question. That committee took evidence over the whole area affected in 1941, it was a departmental committee, and up to date that report has not been laid on the Table. During the whole of 1942, we were inundated with letters requesting to know what had happened to the report and what the Minister’s intentions were for the future. We could only reply that the Minister had not given us any indication of what it was likely to do. I would like to ask the Minister this afternoon, in view of the serious state of affairs that has existed in the past and the possibility of more fires owing to the heavy rains we have had this season and the abundance of grass in those areas, to let us know whether he intends to tackle this question. It would relieve our minds to a great extent if he would give us some idea of what he intends to do, and whether it is possible to let us have that report, or if he is introducing legislation this Session.

On behalf of my constituency I wish to thank the Minister and his department for the concession made to my constituency in regard to the road motor services in certain parts of the district. We should, however, like to know whether the Minister has already gone into the petition addressed to him by the farmers’ association of Van Zylsrust, which brought to his notice that the existing road motor traffic between Koopmansfontein and Van Zylsrust is inadequate to transport the goods along that route. He was informed on the 27th January that goods weighing in total 130 tons were lying at Koopmansfontein because the bus could not cope with it. We should like to know whether the Minister has seen his way clear to meet the people in those parts who are already deprived of so many privileges. Did the Minister find it possible to grant them more facilities in order to enable them to despatch their products, and did he put a further bus on that route? In regard to the road motor services, the entire North-West and also many other parts of the country, are anxious to know whether the Minister has made any provision for the future as far as the keeping intact of the road motor services is concerned. Every now and then we are being frightened by the Minister of Commerce and Industries further rationing of petrol. Rubber is not obtainable at all—the Bushmen of the Far East still have possession of all the rubber supplies. What is the position of the road motor services? Did the Minister make provision for the future in regard to the road motor services? The Minister of Railways should be in a position to keep sufficent stocks of petrol, but the people in those parts who are dependent on the road motor services, are worried. The Minister of Commerce and Industries curtails their facilities further and further. Motor tyres are no longer availbale at all. Will the Minister of Railways show some mercy and expand the road motor services for those people? Will the existing services at any rate be maintained? Otherwise those people are facing a very dark future. If it cannot be done, they will be unable to obtain many of the most essential necessities of life. Nevertheless I want again to thank the Minister on behalf of my constituency for the measure of relief we received. Unfortunately I cannot go beyond that with my expressions of thanks. Certain members on the other side overwhelmed the Minister with their expressions of praise. If we look at the general condition of the railways today, not only in regard to the travelling public but also in connection with the transport of goods by train, I doubt whether the Railway Administration can be congratulated. In our Constitution it is laid down that the railways shall be run on business principles, due consideration being given to the agricultural and industrial development of the country …. On business principles. If any business concern would treat its employees the way the Railway with very few exceptions treats its officials and if the Railway Administration were not in the favourable position today of having practically a monopoly of traffic, it would not be able to keep any official in its employ. I do not want to repeat here what other hon. members said about the railway servants and the conditions under which they have to work. Inhuman demands are forced upon them. The passenger traffic has increased enormously. The income from passenger traffic alone is about £3,000,000 more than in the past, and the number of officials who have to serve the public is entirely inadequate. The Administration is demanding too much from them. They have to work day and night and still cannot give the service to the public to which the public is entitled. The same applies to the goods traffic. How many members are sitting here who railed their motor cars to Cape Town and received their motors here in a damaged condition? And that at a time when one cannot obtain spare parts and cannot buy new motor cars. That did not happen owing to bad service but owing to overtaxing the staff. They cannot do the work properly and have to see to get through in some way or other. Or perhaps the trucks are defective. The motor car has to be fixed in position inside the truck and the necessary means for fixing it in position in the truck are not available. The result is that they use wire, the ropes break and the motor car arrives here in a damaged condition. I do not know whether the Minister and the Minister of Commerce and Industries are collaborating to get still more motor cars off the road, but we want to express the hope that the Minister will investigate this matter and since motor cars are practically unobtainable and cost a lot of money, I hope that he will see to the necessary provision inside the trucks being made for the transport of motor cars. I want to give the Minister a tip in regard to the transport of motor cars. There are many worn out sleepers lying all along the railway tracks. Is it not possible to put two of such sleepers in each truck in which motor cars are transported, namely one to be put in front and one at the back of the motor car wheels. Then the motor car will not be damaged. Just now I read out what our Constitution says about the business principles on which the railways should be administered. If we review the financial year under consideration, we find that the Auditor-General declares that the business methods which were followed are greatly lacking in business acumen. In his report he states—

In reply the General Manager forwarded me the following copy of a letter addressed to the Chief Stores Superintendent by the Price Controller:

In view of this reply no further action was taken. The manufacturer is therefore making-enormous profits. But it went still further. Another 17,000 blankets for Europeans and 5,000 for non-Europeans were ordered, at the same prices of 20s. 6d. and 20s. each, and this order also did not fall under the new regulations. Is that in accordance with the Constitution? The Constitution lays down that business principles shall be strictly applied and this has been ignored. How is it possible that such a large organisation places these big orders and allows the manufacturer to make an enormous profit? The production cost of the blanket was 9s. 3d. and the Railway Administration paid more than £1 each for them. If the Railway Administration is really run on business lines, it should not have waited until the Auditor-General drew attention to it, but it should have found out itself what the production cost of these blankets was. How much profit has the manufacturer perhaps made already before 1939? What is the position today? Are they still continuing buying blankets in this manner? Whereas hon. members on the other side congratulate the Minister on his surplus, I want to point out that the Railway Administration cannot adopt the point of view that the manufacturer can enrich himself in this manner. No, some of the money should go into the pockets of the railway employees who deserve it, the people who do all the work. They are having a particularly difficult time in areas where considerable expansion has taken place. I am thinking of certain parts of my constituency where large irrigation schemes have been developed and where a large internment camp has been established with hundreds of soldiers and where in recent time auctions are held on a large scale. In that area, I have in mind Vryburg, the traffic has increased by leaps and bounds. The same applies to the area between Springfontein and Koffiefontein. I am now referring to the railway line from Springfontein to Koffiefontein. Has any increase taken place in the staff at Koffiefontein station after all this expansion took place? Under what sort of conditions have these people to work. First they had a bus service leaving there at 7 o’clock in the morning and arriving at Springfontein at 10 o’clock. Now there is a train service and the train leaves at 4 o’clock in the morning and also arrives at about 10 o’clock at Springfontein. The officials now have to get out of bed in the middle of the night to issue tickets to passengers and to help them to get into the train. Do those people receive any extra remuneration for the extra work they have to perform? I have seen with my own eyes, when arriving there at 11 or 11.30 o’clock in the morning that the station master and the few young men who are working there had not yet had a chance of eating anything up to that time. They are busy all day loading sheep and cattle into the trucks. The Administration is to-day boasting of its surplus of millions. Why cannot part of this money be used to make the work for these people more pleasant? They would give better service to the Administration. We furthermore see from this report of the Auditor-General that in spite of the fact that the Railways should be run on business lines, the Administration has again violated that principle. They gave away 25 aeroplanes to the Department of Defence and not only to the Department of Defence, but also to the Imperial Government. I do not know since when we have become so submissive. Here on page 13, paragraph 11 (ii) we find—

That, however, is not the whole story; a few pages further on we see that the Railways kept out only one aeroplane, mainly for the use of the Minister and perhaps to be hired out. But on page 21 of the Report we read—

The question now presents itself: If such a large sum of £10,611 was contributed during the year for the Renewal Fund, does that not include those other aeroplanes already transferred to the Department of Defence and the Imperial Government, and what happened to the other aircraft which the Department kept out. Do they have two now? Is it fair and is there any justification for these things being done whilst the employees of the Department have so to say to work like slaves? I do not want to enlarge upon the things happening in the dining cars. We know that we cannot expect more from these employees than they already do, but we maintain first of all that it is scandalous that the travelling public which still has to pay the same price for the service, are being served in such a manner. Take for instance the position as it is here in Cape Town. When one leaves the Cape one gets bad fish on the train, although it comes from Cape Town. I maintain that it is scandalous to rob the public in that manner, and it is a scandal to expect those young fellows to work under such circumstances. A few minutes ago an hon. member declared that the Railway Administration had already contributed the first instalments towards the new circumstances which will rule after this war is over. Well, if the new social security after the war has to be of this nature, we can only exclaim: Pity the poor people, if all the people have to be treated like those people are being treated on the Railways to-day. I referred just now to the goods traffic with which the railway employees cannot cope to-day. The hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) put the question what had become of the trucks. We, the farmers in the country are asked to produce and we did produce, and what has been the result? When in the past one consigned perishable goods from the Free State to Cape Town, for instance, it usually took four days until the goods were here. What is the position to-day? I can give some information to the Minister about products which were sent off from the Free State on Monday of last week and which have to go to Rondebosch, but they are still lying here at the station although they arrived two or three days ago, with the inevitable result that when they will arrive at Rondebosch they will have gone bad. No, we should not be so boastful about our surpluses, when at the same time we cannot boast of the service which the people receive. There will be much more justification for boasting, if we have an efficient service in the Railways. It would be much better to be able to do that than to come here with this enormous surplus and a service which is far from satisfactory. There is one more point I wish to bring to the notice of the Minister. I want to say something about the sub-economic houses which are being built for the railway workers. There are two types of houses which are being built, one for £800 and one for £850. These houses are exclusively for employees earning less than £17 10s. per month, but we should first of all like to know what the rent is which the Department charges for these houses. What differentiation is being made between the employees; which of these two types can they live in? Then there is the further question why this difference in the types is being made. The house costing £50 more, has one additional room, but it not only has this extra room but also 1,100 feet more space. The house costing £800 has a space of 6,530 feet, whilst the house costing £850 has a space of 7,650 feet, so that for £50 one gets 1,100 feet more space. If we want to look after the health of our people and if we have so much money in the coffers of this Department, is it not possible for the Railway Administration to build larger houses for its employees, like the type that falls under the £850 group? That will give the tenant 1,100 feet more room in the house. We should like to know the Minister’s reply to that question. We want to appeal to the Minister to assist not only the people in the large towns but also the people in the rural areas. We know that there are thousands of refugees in this country, even in the rural districts and we know ourselves that no houses are obtainable there, and our railway employees, who often have to work for a meagre salary, cannot get a house and in many cases they are compelled to live in hotels. We know what they have to pay in hotels. We should like to see the Department of Railways to be more concerned about giving service to the public than about creating surpluses. Secondly we want to ask the Minister to create satisfaction amongst his employees by not only paying them better salaries but also by appointing more officials to cone with the larger amount of traffic we have today.

There are many problems in which there is no real solution, and in regard to transportation I think it is no exception, because conditions will not stay long enough for any remedy to be given a chance. Conditions are continually changing and shifting. It is like trying to solve the weather. Now, I do think that while perhaps there is some considerable difficulty in finding solutions, at least in regard to transportation, we should try and curb abuses and make suggestions for a healthy growth of our transport system, and it is in this respect that I have in mind that the time has arrived when the Government should take a National view in regard to the transport undertakings in this country, in particular the transport undertakings in urban areas and the peri urban areas. Now, I think we must accept as fundamental that transportation is the hallmark of civilisation and it is wedded to the wellbeing of the community. Now, as I indicated previously, I am not concerned with passenger traffic over long areas but that type of traffic in urban areas and in areas in the near vicinity of an urban area. In the consideration of such passenger problems I think we must recognise that the only agency capable of handling the volume of traffic expeditiously from both the time and safety point of view, is the Railways through electrification. At the moment we have the Road Transportation Board in which all the time is taken up by a quasi judicial investigation as to the safety of certain types of vehicles, the question of the roads over which these vehicles are to go, and also administrative matters. But, I think we want to go further than that, and as I indicated previously we want the Minister to take a National view in regard to the development of passenger transport systems in urban areas and areas in the near vicinity. Admittedly much has been achieved in Johannesburg and Cape Town, but in other towns of the Union we still see a definite conflict of interests, on the one hand municipal socialism, and on the other hand Government undertaking. And I feel that particularly in such times as these when we hear so much about the part the municipalities will have to play in regard to large building programmes in the near future. The British Government, in recognising the importance of planning, has recently appointed a Ministry of Town Planning, including rural planning. I think the time has long since past for bickerings between the local authorities on the one hand and the Railways on the other. And I honestly wish that the Minister would come forward in a spirit of co-operation with local authorities, inviting them on the one hand to put forward a programme of future planning, and on the other hand, the Railways would themselves provide blue print for future transport. I think it is a fact that transport in urban areas has reached saturation point and I think it cannot be denied that the organisation of road traffic, that is, isolated vehicles running down main arterial roads, unharnessed to rails, in particular streams, in which they cannot come into conflict with each other, is an indication that in urban areas we have reached saturation point. I would appeal to the Minister, as I have said before, that he should invite local authorities either by way of the appointment of a special committee to investigate this particular problem, or that perhaps the terms of reference of the Committee which is now sitting on post-war Railway policy should be enlarged to include in the scope of its activities an investigation into traffic questions into urban areas with a view to forming a policy which would take into consideration the interest and the well-being of these particular urban areas, and so do away with this conflict of interests as between the municipality on the one hand and the Government on the other. The second point I want to raise is that while I have appreciated that the Minister of Railways and the Minister of Finance in this House in sharing the same seats show that spirit of co-ordination and co-operation, I sometimes wonder whether that same spirit has been absorbed into their departments. I particularly refer to the Harbours. We have been faced with difficult problems during the past few years, and I quite frankly feel that perhaps one of the difficulties has been that there is not that co-ordination between the Railways on the one hand and the Customs Department on the other, and I do want to suggest that while, in the appointment of a Port Director the Minister has achieved much in regard to the welfare of the Harbour, that if he considers it necessary that a Committee should be appointed to consider the question of supplies to the Harbour area, it is more important that a Committee should be appointed, under the charimanship of the Port Director to co-ordinate the various activities in the Harbour. In particular do I refer to the workings of the Customs and Shipping Departments on the one hand and the Railways on the other. So I hope that the Minister in his reply will indicate firstly to what extent he is prepared either to get his existing Committee, which is looking into post-war reconstruction, to investigate the question of the future development of transport in urban areas, and areas in the vicinity of urban areas, and secondly, would he indicate to what extent he is prepared to appoint a special Committee in the Harbour areas, a Committee which will co-ordinate as an advisory committee under the charimanship of the Port Director, the various aspects of the particular departments concerned.

I have a number of points on administration to bring to the notice of the Minister. This morning the wage position of the unskilled workers was fully traversed and I do not want to add much to that. The position has been fully dealt with by the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger). I just, however, wish to make two comments upon the present wage position of non-European labourers. First, to emphasise what the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, North (Mr. Johnson) this afternoon drew attention to, and that is the vast disparities which still exist between the wage rates, the unskilled wage rates paid as between one centre and another. Now I shall give an example. In the case of the Cape Peninsula the rates vary between 4s. 9d. per day up to 5s. 9d. per day. In Kimberley the minimum is 3s. 3d. per day, and the maximum is 4s. 3d. per day. In other words, the maximum at Kimberley is below the minimum at Cape Town. Now, I am not taking the widest case of disparity. If you compare the Cape Peninsula and the Transvaal the disparity is greater still. I am submitting to the Minister that there is no evidence of any justification for that wide disparity. I should like the Minister to tell us when he replies to this debate whether there are any cost of living figures in the possession of the Administration to show that there is all that difference between the cost of living in Kimberley and Cape Town. The Minister, I am sure, will not misunderstand me. I am not saying that the Cape rate is too high. Quite the contrary, as I am going to show later on. But the next step should be the levelling-up of the rates of pay in these low paid areas. And we on these benches do not accept the principle that because certain private industries is other places pay a lower wage, the Railway Administration should follow suit. We have always put it forward in this House that the Government should give a lead in these matters, that the Government should not lag behind private industry, but should give a lead to private industry. The hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow), when he was Minister of Railways, always answered our pleas for an increase in unskilled wages by saying: “We are paying much the same as private industry.” As a matter of fact we were able to show the hon. member for Gezina that the Railway Administration was lagging far behind the wages paid by private industry, but even assuming that that had not been the case we do submit most strongly to the Minister that it is for the Railway Administration to give the lead. There is no justice in discriminating between an unskilled worker who works in Cape Town and one who works for instance in Kimberley or on the Rand just because of variation of wage rates in private industry, and I do put it most strongly to the Minister that the time has come to equalise up these rates in the various centres. The second point I want to make on the wage issue is this. While I recognise the increases which the Minister has made since he has been a Minister, and while they compare most favourably with what the hon. member for Gezina did when he was Minister, because as a matter of fact the hon. member for Gezina made the most savage set of cuts in the wages of unskilled workers that any Minister has ever been responsible for—while I recognise those improvements, I must emphasise that if it is the Government’s policy that unskilled labour should be paid a living wage, that has not yet been attained in the case of their own workers. The Smit Committee, the Inter-departmental Committee on the Social, Health and Economic conditions of urban natives, has, as the hon. member for Cape Eastern emphasised, stated that the minimum upon which a family of any race can live in this country is something approaching £2 per week.

Without paying rent.

And in that connection the Commission says this—

That appearently is the general idea, particularly having regard to the very wide gap between what the European unskilled worker is paid on the Railways, and what the nonEuropean worker is paid. And that is what I had in mind when I said just now that while recognising the improvements which the Minister had made, I felt that it was my duty to emphasise that a living wage was still far from being paid. Now, there are certain other administrative matters to which I want to refer, and one is the discriminations which have been introduced as between the coloured worker and the African worker. These discriminations cause much ill feeling and it would cost very little money to remove them. The first discrimition between the African and the coloured worker to which I want to refer is in relation to paid holidays. The coloured worker gets five paid holidays per year, the African worker only three. It would cost very little to bring the African worker up to the five days’ paid holiday. And it would do away with a great deal of ill feeling. I am constantly getting this complaint and I make this appeal to the Minister, that he should make this concession, that the African and coloured workers should have the same number of paid holidays. And another discrimination between these two classes of workers is this—I think since the present Minister took office the coloured workers have been given a special 6d. per day marriage allowance. Now I do not begrudge them that, but what I do say is that that should have taken the form of an increase of wages to be applied irrespective of race. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth, North, speaking from a lifetime of industrial experience, told the House that in his career he had never come across this principle of paying a man because he was married and not because of the work he did. Those two classes of unskilled labour to whom I have referred do exactly the same work, and they get exactly the same wages, except in the case where the coloured worker, if he is married, gets an extra 6d. per day. That should be applied all round to both coloured and African workers. The native workers’ expenses are just as great as those of the coloured workers. I know that there is an idea that most of the native workers leave their families in the Reserves. That is not so in my experience. My experience has been, and I am constantly in touch with these people, that the vast majority of them live on Railway premises and live there with their wives and families. I want to make an appeal to the Minister, therefore—it is a small point—to wash out that particular case of discrimination. On the question of hours of work, overtime and so on, I want to say that it is now approximately two years ago that this House passed the Factories Act, and that Act, when it was in the stage of a Bill, as originally drafted, applied to the Railway Administration, and if it had been passed in its original form, it would have compelled the Railway Administration to limit the hours of labour per week to 46, and if overtime was worked, it would have been at an additional rate of pay, and also the number of hours overtime would have been limited. Moreover, it would have entitled every worker, irrespective of race, to the two weeks holiday on full pay. These are the conditions which the Government has enforced on the factories owned by private employers. The Bill, however, was amended, and its application to the Railways and Harbours was deleted. The Minister of Labour said at the time that enquiry would be made as to whether it would be applied to the railways. The last General Manager’s Report said that a committee was investigating this matter, and I should like to ask the Minister whether this committee has finished its labours, and if so, what is going to be done about it. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth, North (Mr. Johnson) said a few minutes ago, that he knew of a case where non-European workers were having to work a 60-hour week. I have come across such cases. A 46-hour week is enforced in the case of private industry, and if overtime is worked, the hours of overtime are limited. I feel it is high time to apply this measure to all workers on the Railways and Harbours, European and non-European. I cannot see why, in respect of hours of work, paid leave and rates of overtime, the Railway Administration should not be placed on the same terms as the Act prescribes in the case of the private employer. Another matter, Mr. Speaker, which may seem to the Minister a small one, but which is a constant source of irritation, is in connection with the privileged ticket order, it is called the P.T.O., which is issued to non-European workers. Now the native worker cannot get a P.T.O. unless he produces a poll tax receipt. My views on the poll tax are well-known in this House, and I am not concerned to repeat them here, but what I am concerned with is that it is not the business of the Railway Administration to assist the collection of a particular form of tax, and when a worker has worked sufficiently long to be entitled under the regulations to a privilege ticket order, it seems to be quite unjustified to make him produce his poll tax receipt. Any European in this country would object most strongly to having to produce an income tax receipt, or a provincial personal tax receipt, when it was in connection with his employment on the Railways or elsewhere. I don’t know whether that is done on the Railways, but if it is done, and it is objected to, I strongly support the objection. In regard to the coloured worker, if he applies for a P.T.O. there is no document that he has to produce, so far as I know, and I do ask the Minister if he will not abolish this practice. The question of wages, I admit, is of paramount importance, but there are a number of these smaller changes which the Minister could make without difficulty and without expense, which would greatly contribute to the good feeling of the nonEuropean staff of workers. Also, sir, in connection with this P.T.O. a number of native workers have told me that there was a time when some of them, at all events, I take it those who were higher up or had been longer in the service, were entitled to second class tickets, whereas now they have only third class tickets. I should be obliged to the Minister if he could tell us what workers are entitled to second class tickets, and if there are any from whom they have been withdrawn, why that privilege has been taken away. There is a further matter in connection with concession to school children. The child of a non-European, coloured or native, railway servant, can get a concession for his child to go to boarding school, and that concession, under the present regulations operates up to 16 years of age. Having regard to the ages at which native children are able to go to the secondary school, 16 is usually just about the age when the concession is required. When the child is at a primary school, he usually goes to a school in the place where his parent is. There are only a very few secondary schools for natives in this country, and invariably the child at the secondary stage, has to be sent far away. It is at the age of 16 when this concession would be especially valuable. I know there is a discretion in the regulations to increase the concession beyond the age of 16, but there are always difficulties, and always delay, in applying for this concession, and I want to appeal to the Minister to extend that concession to school children until they leave school, whatever the age is. It entails a good deal of sacrifice on a native father or mother to send a child to a secondary school. The parent is deprived of the child’s earnings, and there is always a fee to pay. I should have thought it would have been the policy of the Railway Administration to encourage a parent to make the necessary sacrifice to give his child a better education than he himself had, by giving this concession over the age of 16 and without making the parent apply specially for the exercise of this discretion. I put it to the Minister that this is a reasonable request, and I hope he will give it favourable consideration. Another matter which has continually been brought to the notice of the Administration, is in relation to the provision of protective clothing. I have had complaints from a number of centres, more particularly from nonEuropeans who work in locomotive boxes. They say when it rains they are always exposed. They also want masks to protect them from fumes when engaged in other duties. I have drawn attention to this before, and have been told that it was receiving attention. Now I hope the Minister will be in a position to make a statement on that. Then finally, I have asked the Minister in the past, but have never been able to get the information, as to under what circumstances better class work allowances are made to native and coloured workers. I will give a particular instance. I refer to the cases of the men who work in the bridge yard at De Aar. The following is the kind of work they do; rough painting, beating out rivets, blacksmith’s striking, riveting steel work, and so on. All these men on that particular work in the yard at this important railway junction have been in the service of the Administration for more than 20 years. Their own foreman, European foreman, has told me that in his opinion the work they are doing is artisan’s work. Moreover, he has informed me that the local bridge engineer has admitted that work to be artisan’s work. And yet these men are paid an ordinary labourer’s wage. There is a provision for the payment of a better class work allowance. For the last two or three years I have been bringing this particular case to the attention of the Administration, and so far have not got any satisfaction. That is why I am asking the Minister to make a statement as to when that better class work allowance is paid. It must be obvious that these men, all of them with 20 years service or more, who know their job thoroughly, as their own foreman said, should get better class allowance for the work. The bridge engineer has said they should, and still they are not getting it. These are the main points which I wanted to draw attention to, they are all matters which can easily be put right, and they are all matters which would greatly better the relations between the Administration and its non-European staff. On a previous occasion the Minister said I raised too many points, and surely I did not expect him to reply to all of them. I am sorry to have to bring all these things to his attention, but these are matters which are of great importance to many thousands of workers, and I hope the Minister will find it possible to deal with them.

I think that by now the Minister of Railways will be able to realise that the affairs of his department are not too rosy, for otherwise not so many members, especially on this side of the House, would have taken part in the debate. I do not want to reiterate matters which have already been dealt with by other members, but there are a few things I should like the Minister to give an explanation of, and the first of these points concerns the strike of Natives in Johannesburg. We noticed that the Natives there went on strike and thereafter received a considerable increase in their pay. Apart from that, they received an increase of about 9d. per day for overtime. I am speaking under correction, but it has been said that the European received for overtime 4½d. only. I should like to hear from the Minister what the respective increases are and how the increases for the Natives compare with those the European men received, and in what relation they stand to the living conditions of the Europeans and the non-Europeans. If these are compared, is the increase given to the non-European not much higher than that to the European? Our experience in the past has been that when the European workers go on strike, the reply they receive is bullets and gunpowder. But when the Communistic movement by its agitation causes the non-Europeans to strike, they get an increase of wages. If this is a rightful increase, I shall leave it at that; but I should like to know how the wages and the increases of the Europeans and the nonEuropeans respectively compare. I should very much like the Minister to reply to this question. I now come to my second point. We have so often been told here in Parliament that no victimisation occurs in the various departments. I now want to bring a pertinent case to the notice of the Minister, namely, that of a certain Miss Linde. She was born in Cape Town, never left the Union, and grew up here. She speaks Afrikaans and English and can also speak German. She was in the service of the Deciduous Fruit Board, where she did typing and other office work. She also had to do typing in the Cape Town docks. Some months ago detectives came to ask her whether her parents were of German extraction. She replied in the affirmative. The result was that her permit which enabled her to go to the docks to perform her duties there, was not renewed and the following day she received a letter from the magistrate that she had to interview him at his office. She reported at his office and certain questions were put to her, to which I shall refer later. She at once received an order that she is not allowed to leave Cape Town without a permit, so that she is virtually interned within the Cape Town magistracy. Apart from that, she has to report once a month to the police. As far as I know she is a girl of irreproachable character. She is a very quiet girl, but once a month she has to report to the police. She was also asked whether she possessed a wireless apparatus. She replied that she did not, and then she was asked whether there was a wireless in her home, and she replied that her widowed mother possessed one. That wireless was thereupon confiscated, but now that the licence has to be paid again, that wireless, without any further notice or without any information why it was confiscated, has been returned to that widowed mother so that she may use it again. If these are not pin-pricks which are bound to cause dissatisfaction, I do not know what they are. They even went further than that. The official who was her superior, told her that she would have to try and find other work. She took steps to obtain other work, but finally she received a letter that her services would no longer be required as from the 31st January. Is that the way children who were born in this country, who grew up here and who have never been outside South Africa, children who possess only South African citizenship, should be treated? Should these young people be treated in this manner by the Minister of Railways and Harbours and his department? Furthermore, I feel that here we have a child who is the support of her mother; she has to keep her mother, and that is the way she is being treated. Are we going back to the policy of 40 years ago, the policy of destruction and murder? It has been said here that there are certain callous persons in this world who have to be done away with, but when we notice what is happening in our own country, when we see the barbarity of things happening here, we very much doubt whether it can be worse anywhere else. I bring these matters to the notice of the Minister. This case was reported to me and I should like to hear from the Minister why victimisation of this lady took place. Then a few more words about other matters which I brought to the notice of the Department. I shall not go into those for the Minister wrote to me that he would investigate those matters. I have, however, also to break a lance for some employees of the Railway Department, especially for the lower paid employees. The Minister of Railways comes here and talks about huge surpluses, whilst on the other hand those employees live so to say under the bread line. Seeing that the Minister was able to give presents, why should he not rather see to his officials and workers receiving higher wages. This is not all; I am one of those who makes extensive use of the train, and I can only say that as far as the train staff is concerned—and I have travelled in many countries of the world—there is definitely no other place where the passengers receive better service from the train personnel than in our country. But it is made impossible for these people to do their work properly. Some of them have to work 14 and 16 hours a day and one of them told me the other day that he was on duty for 17 hours without a break. It is not humanly possible to expect a person to attend to his duties for such a long stretch at a time. It is unfair to send people away to the war and to compel other people here to ruin their health. I hope that the Minister will arrange that lower paid officials, such as loading clerks, and persons who have to work from 6 in the morning until midnight, receive better treatment. It means that those people get four or five hours of sleep per night and we cannot but ask the Minister to see to those people receiving assistance. So far I have experienced very little difficulties in connection with the Railway Department. Even though the officials are tired, they are always prepared to meet our demands and to help us. Therefore it is not more than our duty in a rich country such as this—it is not really a rich country but so much money is spent on all sorts of things that we should rather use some of it to pay our employees on the Railways. Let us pay them salaries which will enable them to maintain a standard of living worthy of a decent Europens. I bring these few matters to the notice of the Minister and I do hope that he and his Department will give their immediate attention to them, and that those people will have shorter working hours and receive better cost of living allowances. The Minister may think that we are keeping the House unnecesasrily, but we represent railway employees as well as other sections of the population and it is our duty to take care that those people receive fair treatment and that matters are put right for them. There is one more question I want to go into. We hear every time there is a fairly important post in the Railways Department vacant, when one of the Afrikaans-speaking employees ought to get that post, that such a post is suddenly graded down so that the Afrikaner cannot get it, or the post is graded up, so that the Afrikaans-speaking official again cannot get it. I do not know whether that actually happens. We are, however, told so and we should like to have a clear statement from the Minister in regard to the grading down and grading up of posts which makes it possible that preference can be given to non-Afrikaans-speaking people. It is our duty to bring that matter to the attention of the Minister, and I hope that he will reply a length to this question, as otherwise we shall be compelled to take up more time of the House at a later stage in order to discuss it more fully. These are a few matters I wished to bring to the notice of the Minister, and it was necessary that members on this side of the House should get up to bring all these various points to the notice of the Minister, and I want to express the hope that the Minister will meet us in regard to the requests which we addressed to him.

Before the Minister replies, I should like briefly to raise one or two points admittedly not involving any major matters of policy, although they are matters of considerable interest to the agricultural users of the railway service. My first point concerns an item of traffic rate, about the general revision of which the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen) spoke this afternoon in the interests of general industrial and agricultural development. I want to ask the Minister if he will reduce the rate applying to farm tractors sent by rail for repairs, by including such tractors within the schedule of agricultural implements. In the ordinary way, sir, agricultural implements, when sent by rail for repairs, are allowed the concession of having both the outward and return journeys charged at the cost of the single journey. So far this schedule has not included motor tractors, which is a hardship on farmers particularly under the prevailing war conditions. Owing to the shortage of personnel in the repair shops and the non-availability of spares in the smaller centres, it is increasingly necessary to send such tractors to the more distant and bigger centres. My appeal to the Minister is that he will sympathetically consider this concession in regard to what is perhaps the farmers’ most important agricultural implement. I realise that a concession of this sort should not be open to abuse, but I submit that any abuse could easily be prevented if a provision were insisted on that the farmer concerned should sign a declaration at the station to the effect that the tractor in question was being used solely for farm purposes. I submit this small concession would be of appreciable advantage to very many farmers, not only in the area I represent, but throughout the country. My second is also a comparatively minor point. It is in connection with the road motor service about which my hon. friend, the member for Roodepoort also spoke this afternoon, and I associate myself with his remarks in regard to the very promising and efficient and increasingly successful development of that side of our national transport. The point I want to raise concerns the conditions on which the Administration consigns goods on its road motor service. The liability of the Administration in respect of traffic accepted for conveyance over this service is at the risk of the owner, and at the convenience of the Administration. With that I have no quarrel, but a further clause in the relevant condition goes on to limit the liability of the Administration by stating that traffic consigned to a road motor service halt, will be put off at such halt at the sole risk of the owner. That provision, Mr. Speaker, is slightly different from what obtained until the middle of December, 1939. Up till then this immunity from liability of the Administration only applied to those unattended halts on the route of the motor services, and did not extend to termini or other halts, including for example one which I recently had brought to my notice in Zululand, where facilities can readily be made available for storing goods, or for keeping them in safe custody pending delivery to the owner. This little point was recently raised in a claim made from Melmoth concerning the short delivery of a consignment of petrol drums, and the reason for the Administration’s disclaiming liability was the condition to which I have referred—the condition by which the Administration disclaimed all responsibility once the goods had reached any motor halt. The request which I submit to the Minister is that the rule applying prior to December, 1939 should be reverted to and the Administration reassume liability up to the delivery of the goods if the halt or station to which they are consigned is one sufficiently big for the Administration to secure attendance and supervision. Even if the Minister is not prepared to revert to the earlier condition, then at least provision should be made at a comparatively big centre like Melmoth for attendance at the terminus and supervision there of goods which reach that terminus by means of the roads motor service. Before I sit down there is one further matter. I should like to invoke if possible the Minister’s sympathetic consideration of a plea for some recognition by way of remuneration for overtime in the case of the clerical staff at certain centres where owing to abnormal wartime conditions there is a glut of work, and an absolute necessity to work longer than the prescribed number of hours. Representations have recently been made to me, not directly from any servants of the Administration, but through competent and responsible residents concerning the position at the particular centre of Empangeni. There the clerical staff finds that the difficulties which are general owing to the depletion of the staff and their replacement by inexperienced substitutes, often women, and also by the growth and increase in the amount of work which is partly seasonal during the height of the cane crushing season, but also throughout the year, owing to the increase in the number of invoices consequent on the reduction of export and the increase in internal traffic—and although I realise how strong a case can be stated against the granting of overtime to clerical staff under normal circumstances, I ask the Minister to consider whether in view of the abnormal wartime conditions some recognition, even temporary, might not be made to deserving servants of the Administration who are placed in this position of having to put in considerable overtime in order efficiently to discharge their duties.

The Minister need not be afraid that I shall heap more coals of fire upon his head. I think that he has had to run the gauntlet pretty severely this afternoon—there was the justifiable criticism from this side of the House and even some criticism from his own side—but he particularly received undeserved praise from his own supporters behind him. There are only two matters which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister. The first one is the stipulations in the regulations referring to the people who have private sidings. Why should there be such high annual maintenance fees? I make bold to say that the regulations are not only impossible but also altogether one-sided as far as holders of private sidings are concerned. I should like to know why so many additional burdens are placed on the people having private sidings. I am particularly referring to the farmer who has a railway line running close to his farm but in whose case the ordinary public stations or stops are perhaps not within a reasonable distance from his farm, and who therefore applies for a private siding. I am thinking of one specific case. An application was made for a private siding for the farm. First of all the Railway Administration was offered free of charge the necessary land for the construction of the siding. In the second place the Railways demand the payment of a sum of money which virtually amounts to buying out the siding. In this particular case the siding was built about 24 years ago and £120 was paid for the construction on the man’s own land. All these years he has, moreover, had to pay the amount of £5 15s. per annum, which the Railways call “maintenance cost.” If one takes into consideration the interest at which the Government can borrow money, one will see that it works out at interest on about £200. This is an obligation on the farmer as long as that siding exists. Now, however, the position arises that the Administration for good reasons or for feeble reasons—I shall not go into that—decides that it has become necessary to effect some improvement or repair to the siding line. For instance, the sleepers lying there have to be renewed. One then finds that the holder of that siding receives an account for repairs and that he has to pay a further amount in spite of the high interest he is already paying. In the particular case I have in mind the amount of £45 was demanded. That had to be deposited at once, for the Administration had decided to effect some improvement or renewal. The man had to pay. Why had this renewal to be effected? Not in the interests of the holder of that siding, not because his sleepers were perished, but because the main line had to be repaired. One finds the position that the sleepers, where the side line branches off from the main line, for a considerable distance, run jointly under the main line and the private line. These are long sleepers which support both the main line and the side line. Because the traffic on the main line is very heavy, the sleepers cannot last very long. But under the side line, where traffic is only negligible, they hold much longer. In many cases sleepers under the main line are renewed every four or five years, while the line of the siding is still in perfect condition. Owing therefore to services rendered to the public in general, the holder of the private siding has to pay—he is held responsible for the payment. Here is a second example. Heavier rails are laid on the main line in consequence of the introduction of heavier locomotives. This entails a change in the points or connections at the side line. In the case I am now referring to the holder of the siding-received an account for £165. They had decided to construct other points and they asked to be sent a cheque for £165 as soon as possible. One can understand, and I think the Minister will realise, that where a man paid £120 for the original construction of the siding, it is out of all proportion to demand from him the payment of a further £165 for a renewal or change effected in the interest of the general public but not in the interest of the holder of the siding. The fact is that when one cannot pay, the Railway Administration has a means of enforcing payment. It points the revolver at the man and threatens that the siding will be removed. There is no compromise, no consideration for the holder of the private siding, but always the threat that the siding will be taken away if the cheque does not arrive soon. I do not know when those regulations were introduced. Every two or three years a new contract is submitted to the holder of the siding for a period of a further three years. This is a contract between the holder of the private siding and the Department of Railways, but the contract does not stipulate that all the costs of repairs have to be borne in this way. One simply has to sign on the dotted line, as otherwise they again threaten to remove the siding. One cannot ask for new concessions or object to certain points in the agreement. One has to accept it or lose the siding. I feel that the time has arrived to revise the regulations concerning private sidings and that the Minister should take effective steps to enable the holders of private sidings to remain in possession of their sidings. Is it a fixed policy to proceed in this way against the holders of private sidings and to threaten them with the removal of their sidings? They have to pay in the ordinary way for the transport of their products. There is no arrangment that, because the man has a private siding and annually pays for the maintenance costs thereof, his products will be transported at a cheaper rate. I can understand that. It would be folly on my part to demand that there should be two different tariffs for the holders of private sidings and for other people. That is not the point. I only want to ask that the regulations should at least be revised and that it be made possible for the holders of private sidings to keep their sidings as these are of great value to them. A second point I want to raise concerns something which, I believe, has not yet been discussed today. Housing in general has been discussed, but I should like to break a lance for the ganger on the Railways. Some of these gangers are stationed, if I may say so, in the most God forsaken places of South Africa. There they have to live as best they can. I wish the Minister would be prepared to come along with me for a short holiday on my farm; I would then bring him to the house of the railway ganger on my own farm, and he should then tell me whether he thinks it is possible for any decent person, and especially for a European, to live under such circumstances. It is a small dwelling with a corrugated iron roof; as a matter of fact, the whole building is of corrugated iron and not even all the rooms have been lined with boards, and this in the Oudtshoorn district where the heat can be so intense. In that place the poor people have to live. There are no bath room conveniences, only a tiny kitchen in which one can hardly turn around. Then there is the dining room which has to serve for all purposes, also to receive people, and two small bedrooms. I want to say at once that the person concerned did not ask me to bring this case to the notice of the Minister, but I feel it is my duty to do so, to plead for the lower paid officials in the Railway service. The gangers receive 8s., 9s. and at the utmost 10s. per day. Most of them are Dutch-speaking Afrikaners, and in many cases they have large families, which I can well understand in the circumstances, for apparently the only happiness those people know is the happiness of their family life. They possess nothing else. What are the circumstances in which their children have to grow up? What are the circumstances in which they have to be educated? If there is not a church hostel nearby, there is only one means and that is that they have to travel forwards and backwards by train to get to the nearest farm school. We know what the train service is like. Today the train is early and tomorrow it is late. The children usually are late in arriving at the school. In the particular case of which I am now speaking, the children have to leave before the school is finished so that they may catch their train. What is the company the wife of the ganger has? What company have his children, with whom should they play and associate? There are only the coloured labourers who work under the ganger and who live a short distance away from him. Talk about slum conditions in the towns, the conditions under which these people have to live are not much better than the slum conditions in Cape Town. For that reason I want to make an urgent appeal to the Minister to give his serious attention to this matter relating to the conveniences and privileges of gangers, and in any case to make provision for better housing for those people.

It is very difficult at this stage of the debate to say anything of interest but I do wish to say a few words which I hope the Minister will listen to. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) stated that Afrikaners in the Railway Service were victimised because they were Afrikaners. I think he is sadly mistaken because it is my experience in going to the Railway offices that if one has a knowledge of Afrikaans one is better served, as most of the clerks there are young Afrikaners. Many compliments have been paid to the Minister about the surplus. I am not going to pay him any compliments, but I may or may not be very complimentary to him afterwards, when I discover how he is going to spend his surpluses. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland) raised the question of overtime pay to the clerical staff, and he said that it applied particularly to the clerical staff at Empangeni, where the staff had to work long hours without being paid anything extra. The Minister knows that that position is general throughout the Service. I want to know what the policy is in regard to the payment of overtime to the clerical staff. I don’t mean overtime for ordinary routine work but I mean for additional work which the staff has to do outside of their ordinary routine office work. I understand that such work is not paid for. There is another little matter which I want to being to the Minister’s notice and it is this, that some 12 months ago I investigated the possibilities of getting a fishing site in the Cape Town docks for purposes of starting a fishing industry, and to my amazement I was informed by the Railway authorities that no provision has been made in this wonderful harbour of ours at Cape Town—which will cost in the neighbourhood of £15,000,000—for the expansion of the fishing industry. That to my mind is a very serious matter. If the Minister and we ourselves are interested in the future of this country, especially in regard to social security matters, and the avenues of employment which will be opened up by industries, I think the Administration should realise the necessity, if it has not done so yet, of making provision at our various harbous for a possible and probable increase in our fishing industry. As a matter of interest, while on this question, I have discovered that fish meal for fertiliser purposes is carried at a higher rate than ordinary fertilisers. We know that there is a shortage of ordinary fertilisers. Fish meals can be used for various purposes, such as poultry food, stock feed and so on, and I would ask the Minister to revise this rate and to see that fish meal particularly is carried at a lower rate than it is at present. As a matter of policy I also want to ask the Minister what part he can play in keeping down the price of certain edibles on the Johannesburg market. If one looks at the list of prices which is published regularly one finds that the price of eggs has soared on the Johannesburg market because egg merchants have found that it pays them better to send their eggs to the Durban market, as prices at the moment are higher there. It seems a far cry to ask the Minister to interfere with the price of eggs, but I think if as Minister of Railways he refuses (by emergency regulations) to convey any edibles from one market to another market where the prices are temporarily higher, he will do a lot to keep prices at their proper level, and he will most certainly earn the gratitude of housewives on the Witwatersrand.

Then the result will be that the prices in Durban will go higher still.

Well, why should the price on the Rand be increased because Durban is temporarily experiencing a shortage in a particular commodity? The Railways are actually assisting egg merchants to cause a shortage on the Johannesburg market. There is another point in regard to the future policy of the Railways and that is in connection with workers’ holidays. The Government has insisted that workers throughout the State shall have an annual holiday. Our Railway system is a National system, and this system as a National system should give those workers a chance of getting away once a year on their anuual holiday. But what is the position at the moment, and what has it been in the past? As everyone knows, the Railways grant certain excursion facilities during certain seasons of the year, but if the worker is so unfortunate as to be forced to take his holiday at a particular period which does not coincide with the excursion facilities then he does not get that advantage, and I would ask the Minister to consider the question of giving the workers a worker’s ticket in future—an excursion ticket. Any worker is entitled to that privilege once a year, whether his holiday falls in the excursion period or not.

Will you define a worker?

Yes, every worker—miners, shop assistants and so on.

Are you a worker too?

And so is the hon. member. I am not going to detain the House any longer. I know the Minister wants to get this Bill through and I hope he will consider the points I have raised.

The hon. Minister of Railways and Harbours slighted this House by making only a formal speech and thereafter sitting down. We expected to hear a lot more from him. He is a person who makes a great display of how he views the future, particularly in regard to the Railways. Every year he has a surplus, but as far as improvements are concerned, we get nothing but promises. I do not think the Minister deserves the credit for the position in which the Railway Department finds itself. The Minister’s predecessors laid the foundation for it and the good relationship existing in the Railways today are relations created at the time when the late Mr. Charlie Malan was Minister of Railways. The predecessors of the present Minister started the large undertakings with which the present Minister is continuing. What large undertaking did he himself initiate apart from the dry dock about which we should like to hear him tell us more. A good spirit prevailed in the Railways, especially amongst the staff. We still remember the old days when the Nuras and other staff organisations were in conflict with one another and with the Administration. The predecessors of the Minister created a wholesome spirit amongst the staff, but the present Minister is not concerned about perpetuating that spirit. He interfered and the result is that today he has the Spoorbond as his enemy. An election is in sight and at present he is again engaged in negotiating and trying to drive a wedge in the membership of Spoorbond. I only hope they will not listen to the Minister. I furthermore want to tell the Minister this: He will again have a considerable surplus and if he is not prepared to meet the railway workers by granting them a further increase in their wages, he should at least use that surplus to create a reserve, for after this war new works will have to be taken in hand. Several of such new works have already been sanctioned by Parliament and a reserve fund should be built up to provide for the construction of those works. I want to give an example to the hon. Minister. During 1938 the Department decided to widen the track between Kakamas and Upington. £70,000 was set aside on the estimates for this purpose. All that was spent, however, was a mere £500. All they did was to off-load a couple of sleepers at some places and these are still lying there. Now I want to know from the Minister whether this will be one of the first works he is going to tackle after the war. Even during the war unemployment may start; will that be one of the first jobs he will take in hand? I do not know whether the Minister has ever visited that part of the valley of the Orange River. I do not know whether he, during the time he has been Minister of Railways, has already given attention to the enormous expansion and development that has taken place there—the increase in traffic and the development in general. Along the Groot River, beginning from Upington, thousands of tons of lucerne are produced. Thousands of tons of sultanas are produced each year, and those people have to struggle through with a small branch line which is really nothing but a trolley line. Much delay takes place, for the goods have to be loaded at places along the line, to be transferred again to another train at Upington. I hope the Minister will give his attention to this matter. We talk here about post-war reconstruction. Here is one of the big jobs that can be tackled. We want to arrange for people being settled on the land after the war. Well, there is the land, there is the possibility of expansion, but the Minister has as yet done nothing to contribute his share in developing that part of the country. It is essential that the Minister should use that surplus for the creation of a reserve fund, so that he may make use of the surplus to start large national works on the Railways after the war. The hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) spoke about the railway buses in the North West. I also want to thank the Minister for what the Administration has done in regard to the expansion of the bus service in the North West; but owing to the present circumstances and due to the fact that no petrol and tyres are procurable, the people there find that they have to depend entirely on the buses, the result of which is that an accumulation of goods takes place at places such as Upington and Koopmansfontein. I want to ask the Minister, seeing that his Department has already decided on the extension of the bus service from Kameelsrust to Askam, whether he cannot have that service started now and whether he cannot make a larger number of cars available in order to remove the accumulated goods. Then there is another matter which has not yet been discussed; namely the question of the railway doctors. I can assure the Minister that the railway people are dissatisfied with the railway doctors which have lately been appointed. I do not know the reason for it, but the Minister appoints a type of doctor who does not enjoy the confidence of the public. It appears that he has in many cases appointed railway doctors who could not make a success of their private practice anywhere, and who consequently sought refuge with the Railways. In the town I represent, in Upington, that is the case. The railway people there when they need medical attention, hesitate to go to the railway doctor stationed there. There is still another matter I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister, viz. the development of our inland industries. The inland industries are suffering under rates which are so high that they cannot exist. Towns like Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban are the large centres of our industries today, but one also finds quite a number of industries in the rural areas. I am thinking of the printing industry for instance and especially of a town in the Western districts where the owner of a large printing establishment, owing to the high tariff rates he has to pay on his materials, will be compelled to close down his printing works there and to come to Cape Town. He cannot keep his business going as long as he has to pay those high tariffs. We desire that the people in the rural areas should stay there. We do not want the concentration of our population in the large towns, but the policy is such that industries in rural areas are not being encouraged. Industries in rural areas have to compete with industries at the coast, for instance in Cape Town, and they cannot possibly compete when they have to pay a high railage on the materials they require. As far as maize is concerned, we adopted the policy of a uniform freight tariff. We want to go further. We ask that there should also be a uniform tariff in regard to our industries, so that the industries in rural districts will be in a position to compete on equal terms with the industries in the large towns. The industrialists in the rural areas feel that they receive no consideration from the Railway Department. Then there is the question of the housing of our people at out of the way stations. The hon. member for Riversdal (Mr. P. M. K. le Roux) spoke about it. Coming from the North West, I know what the climatic conditions there are, and if the Minister saw the kind of houses those people have to live in, he would certainly say that he would have to do something about it and that he would see to it that a foreman or stationmaster there would get a decent house. The conditions at many stations there in the North West is that the people have to live in houses which are hopelessly too small whilst the temperature in summer often rises to 108 or 110 degrees. It is very difficult to raise a family under such conditions. The Minister is busy providing houses for his employees in the large centres, but he forgets the employees in the rural areas who have to work hard. They do not have all the facilities a townsman enjoys. I want to appeal to the Minister to do something for these people, and to improve the conditions not only of the Europeans but also of the coloured employees. When one goes to Upington, one finds a couple of railway sleepers piled up, with soil on top as a roof; those are the dwellings of the Minister’s coloured and native rail workers. I think that in a country where the Railways have a surplus of more than £5,000,000—it is said that the Railways possibly will have a surplus this year of more than £5,000,000—it is a shame to see the circumstances under which our railway people have to work. Then there is still a personal matter in connection with my constituency, Upington. In regard to the refreshment room in Upington the man who used to be there was told that he could not rent the place any longer, as he was supposed to be of German origin. An Afrikaner then obtained the cafe, but it did not last very long, when a friend of the Minister, a Jew by the name of Carlton, made representations to the Minister to take away the privilege from the Afrikaner, and the latter thereafter got notice to close his place within 24 hours. I ask the Minister not to allow himself to be guided by people who have a personal interest in such matters. If there had been anything the matter with the new tenant of the cafe, the department could have sent somebody to investigate whether the man was unsuitable or not, and the Minister could then have come to a decision. I think the Minister acts too readily on the advice of some or other of his supporters in a town.

Were there any complaints against the man?

No, except the complaint of the one person. In regard of the transport of produce in the Western Province, I want to point out that it is impossible to send fruit, for instance, from a farm in the Worcester or Robertson district; when it arrives here, it is perished. On Thursday vegetables were consigned to me from Robertson and they arrived here in a decayed condition, and on top of that I had to pay the railage. In the past it never happened that goods were delayed on the local station here as long as they do now. There is furthermore the question of the suburban trains here in Cape Town. The arrangements in regard to the suburban trains are hopeless, to say the least of it. We, who have to be at our offices here at nine o’clock and have appointments for nine or ten o’clock proceed to catch our train at Rondebosch or Newlands at 8.45; and it has frequently happened that we have to wait at the station for more than an hour before the train turns up. We are late for our appointments and the whole business of the town is dislocated. When one comes from the country, there is another difficulty. At Bellville the train arrives in time and it often happens that the train has to wait for an hour or more just outside the Castle. Practically at the entrance of the Cape Town Station one has to sit and wait for more than an hour. The Minister will understand that this results in important appointments not being kept. Why should it be necessary to be waiting here at the Castle for an hour before the train can enter the station? Furthermore, I think that the Minister is demanding too much from his staff. He should not forget that the day will come when the Railways will again have to compete as in normal times. He is busy creating among his officials the idea that the public has to be satisfied with what they get. The public is no longer prepared to put up with such conditions. We want to know whether the Minister is going to change these things now. Our legislation is such that he holds the monopoly of traffic in the country, and owing to the present war conditions we all have to rely on the Railways for transport. We do not, however, get a good service and at present the Minister is cultivating among his officials, especially among the junior officials, a feeling that the travelling public is after all dependent on the Railways and the officials therefore do not care what kind of service they render to the public. When the war is over, the Minister will have much trouble in bringing order into this chaos again.

Mr. Speaker, there has always been pilfering on the railways, but in the last few years it has been very much on the increase, and it has, as the Minister well knows, now reached alarming proportions. It is particularly so in a centre like Durban, and there is no reason to suppose that this problem is exclusively Durban’s. Pilfering has now reached a stage when it is being carried on by organised gangs, and there would appear to be in this co-operation between various types of employees. The cutoms clerk, the railway clerk, and the railway policeman are involved in these transactions. I say that because several cases have come before the courts in recent months when these people have been charged with pilfering. I want to make it clear that in so far as these various classes of employees are concerned, I am far from levelling an indictment against them as a class, whether it be the customs clerk or the railway policeman or any other. I am far from doing that, but it is a fact, and it is common cause, because these men have not infrequently been before the courts, that there have been instances where State employees have been involved, and in which by reason of that fact facilities to pilfer on a large scale, are present. Now it is readily understandable that when you have a person in a position of responsibility, who is at the same time insufficiently paid, that temptation is placed in his way, and it is not surprising that leakages of this kind take place. My sympathy goes out to the policeman, for instance, who is required to guard against pilfering, who is very badly underpaid, and who finds temptation put under his very nose. One of the ways of meeting this problem, therefore, is to give these people a wage which will not make their meagreness of pay an inducement to them to engage in this pilfering. I have no doubt the problem is accentuated also to some extent by a shortage of personnel. I think in that direction the Minister might seriously consider whether he cannot follow in the footsteps of the Minister of Justice, who has indicated that he proposes to use 500 men demobilised as unfit for further military service, but who will make good policemen. I offer the suggestion to the Minister that he should increase the ranks of the railway police from the same source, of course, with this proviso, that they will have to be adequately paid. These men are charged with a very grave responsibility, and they can hardly be expected to carry out their work unless they are receiving a wage which makes them, at any rate, reasonably immune from temptation. There is another matter in respect of which increased railway police personnel will help, and that is in regard to the security measures within the harbour area. I cannot discuss this position very well, but I think the Minister will be aware that within the harbour area of Durban at any rate, the measures at present taken are very far from satisfactory. Details can hardly be discussed here. The railway police are called upon to participate in these security measures. An enlarged force of reliable men, men who have shown their loyalty by playing their part in the army, will, I have little doubt, go a long way towards remedying what is a very serious position. The Minister ought not to be satisfied to leave matters as they are, merely by vitue of the fact that the public at large in the very nature of things, is not aware of the state of affairs. Another matter I would like to refer to which I raised last Session, and which the Minister promised to look into, is the ration allowance which was first deducted from the railwaymen’s pay, and in due course credited back to them. It was a very welcome step, but for some reason the Administration choose some arbitrary date from which this concession should operate, and those who joined up before this date very naturally feel that if anybody is entitled to enjoy this concession, it is the men who joined up at the start. I hope the Minister will look into the matter with a view to remedying the anomaly. It has not ceased to be a problem merely because it is more than some months old. Now I want to say a word in regard to the claim of the artisan section of railway workers for an increase in their basic rates of pay. The Minister will be the first to concede that the artisan class have responded exceedingly well to what is, of course, a duty, but nevertheless they have responded magnificently to the greater obligations that have fallen upon them by virtue of war conditions. In regard to that, they do not complain, but I think it would be a mistake to allow the fact that these men will not let the country down, to influence the Minister, to rest content in the knowledge that there is no fear of the war machine being prejudiced. The upper class, if one may respectfully use that designation, in the Railway Administration, are always well looked after. We had a case only a year or two ago of a retiring railway officer in a very high position, who was very well looked after in regard to his pension. It is an old story that those in the top flight are never neglected. In addition, we have the very happy circumstance that recently those on the lowest rung have been given a very welcome increase in their pay. It is the so-called middle class in the Railways, very largely the artisan class, who have been neglected. The artisan compares his lot with his counterpart in other spheres of industry. He is not exclusively in a sense, a railwayman, as other railwaymen are whose work is entirely railway work, and the artisan, unfavourably compares his position with that of his fellow man in other industries who has benefited by increased wages in the last few years. It is true that the artisan has a cost of living allowance, but these measures which are all of an unstable character, and have no permanency, do not give very much satisfaction. The real test is the basic rate of pay. We have been told that the artisan today is able to earn a satisfactory wage, but that is because he has to work overtime. There again because the artisan is content to do overtime without much grumbling. It is not wise for the Administration to rely upon the loyalty of the artisan and to assume that all is well. Having to work overtime has its effect, and one of the obvious effects is that it puts an undue strain upon the health of the artisan and will in time reflect adversely on his service. There is the additional fact, Mr. Speaker, that these men in some places work under very bad conditions. I do not know how the conditions in Durban compare with other centres, but we know that conditions in Durban are very unsatisfactory. I am told that the men work in premises which on a rainy day do not adequately protect them from rain, which does not make matters any easier. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that our worthy Minister, who is very proud of his affluent circumstances, will be able to pass on to the artisan class of the Railways some benefit arising out of those circumstances in the shape of an increase in their basic rate of pay.

I will only take a few moments before the Minister moves the adjournment, but I should fail in my duty if I did not support a plea that has been put forward by many members that something should be done for the lower paid members of the staff of unskilled workers. I make this plea not only on behalf of the nonEuropean, but of the European members of the staff. Although they are better off than the coloured workers, still they have a long way to go before they are in a satisfactory position. This Railway Administration is a very gigantic undertaking. The General Manager’s report shows that this is one of the most gigantic undertakings in the country with employees, according to the last report, numbering 130,693. Incidentally, it is a rebuke to those who say that the State cannot manage big undertakings, when we see what is done in regard to our Railways. I think had the Railways been run by a private company, we should have had very much more criticism than has been directed against the Railways in this debate. One thing I am very pleased about in the Railways is that we have at the head of the Railways a man who has been trained by ourselves. It reminds one of Napoleon’s dictum that every one of his soldiers had a field marshal’s baton in his knapsack. One finds that position today in many of our departments, and it is to the credit both of the Service and of the present General Manager that he has gone right through the service and has achieved the position which he is today occupying with so much credit to himself and to the Service. Now I want to point out to hon. members opposite who have referred to the difficulties of travelling and to the congestion, that they should not lose sight of the fact that our war effort has taken away a very large number of our men. If you look at page 79 of the last report of the General Manager of Railways it will be seen that the number of men away on active service at the end of August, 1942, was not less than 12,320, without counting 1,422 members of the staff who had been permitted to return at the request of the Administration. But I would like to urge this: we talk a lot about social security and about a better life for all sections of the community.

We only talk about it.

Yes, we talk about it, but when one considers that the position of the lower paid men on the staff is still as bad, or still very unsatisfactory, then we do not seem really to face the position in the way we should. Because before social security can be considered, the lot of the lower paid worker should be put on a better basis. We know that that is not the position. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) referred to the very bad housing conditions for coloureds and Natives in his part of the country—I think there are many parallels in other parts of the Union as well. There is a great gap between those at the top of the ladder and the bottom, and until that gap is filled and you give the men on the lower rungs a chance, one can hardly talk about a new social order, or about social security, because the present state of affairs requires to be remedied before we do anything else. I must say that the present Minister has been sympathetic.

Sympathy does not fill people’s stomachs.

Probably in the short time he has occupied the position of Minister of Railways more improvements have been introduced into the position of the workers than in the days of any of his predecessors.

Where do you find that?

You can find that anywhere. Let the hon. member look at the increases to the lower paid men in 1941 and subsequently. These things run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. The present Minister is responsible for that; he is sympathetic and he listens to the grievances of the Railwaymen, and I hope he will carry on in this particular way. On pages 78 and 79 of the General Manager’s report we get information of the war effort of the Railway Administration. One can see in other pages of the report that in spite of the large number of men in the Railways who are engaged in our war effort, the public are still getting very good service—it is a marvel that the public is getting the service it is getting. Of course, the trains are crowded. There is not enough rolling stock. But here again you will see that a large amount of our rolling stock is made in South Africa, and I hope the time will come when all of it will be made here. There is just one other point, and that is the question of the cost of living allowance for pensioners. I want to mention it because various members have raised it. It affects not only the Railway pensioners, but other pensioners as well. I had the honour recently of introducing a deputation of pensioners to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Railways on the question of the cost of living allowance for these people—their request should certainly be granted, because the pensions of some of these people are so small and the cost of living has gone up to such an extent that it is impossible for them to come out. One should not forget that the pension is worth so much less today than it used to be. The deputation was listened to carefully by the two Ministers and they told the pensioners that their representations would receive consideration. I don’t know whether a decision has been arrived at yet.

Will you support our motion?

I did not know that there was something on the Order Paper in the name of the Opposition in regard to a cost of living allowance for pensioners, but I have always been in favour of that. I know of cases of widows drawing pensions of less than £5 per month. They have been compelled to sell their belongings in order to eke out an existence, and I say having regard to the fact that the country depends on raising the level of the lower paid wage earner, I hope the Minister will take this matter of widows’ pensions into consideration and that he will give favourable consideration to the case of the pensioners as well.

Will the hon. Minister accept the adjournment of the debate, if I move it now?

No, you may continue for a few minutes longer.

Apparently the hon. Minister is under the impression that the debate is almost ended. That is a wrong impression. He will receive more hammerblows yet than he has received thus far. The tone of the debate carried on here this year has been noticeably different from the debate we have had on the Railway Estimates in any other year, since the Minister came into office; and if one considers the tone of the debate on both sides of the House, one has to come to the conclusion that as regards the Railway service, as well as the staff, there is a state of growing discontent of such a nature that the Minister must necessarily give his attention to it. I would remind him that in the past there existed a body such as Spoorbond, and in referring here to the growing discontent among the staff, I would point out that it was the Minister himself, and none other, who closed that channel through which the grievances of the staff could reach him and his department. For that reason we find that those grievances have to be aired in this House. We had a very earnest debate here on the Minister’s attitude towards Spoorbond, and we told him at the time that the result of his action would be that we would have more prolonged debates in this House. The Minister now has had the consequences of it. I wish to assure the Minister that he will hear more about Spoorbond at a later stage. I understand the Minister is engaged now, on the eve of the election, in seeing whether he cannot rectify some of these matters. No, there is an increasing measure of discontent among the Railway staff, and I should like to associate myself with the hon. members who have said that a great deal of that discontent is attributable to the fact that numerous workers and officials who are presently employed in the Railway service are being absolutely overtaxed.